Baptised 4 March 1781
Ewhurst, Sussex, England
Probably baptised at Ewhurst, Sussex - the parish church there is St James the Great, and the entry names her parents as Thomas and Mary Noakes. The identification rests on her name, an age of 23 at her 1804 Rye marriage, and the district; no record ties the two events together, so it is cited at quality 2. ONE THING ARGUES AGAINST IT and one thing for it. Against: her Icklesham burial of 17 January 1828 gives her age as 40, which would put her birth about 1787-88, six or seven years after this baptism. For: a sweep of the whole pre-1813 East Sussex collection returns only two Keziah Noakes baptisms in the county, this one and a Kezia baptised 18 February 1790 at Bishopstone near Bexhill to David and Mary - who would have been fourteen at the Rye marriage, in a parish forty miles west. No Keziah Noakes born 1787-88 is indexed anywhere in East Sussex, so there is no rival to prefer and the burial age, which is only ever the informant's estimate, is the outlier. Two further leads are recorded but NOT entered: the Ewhurst register holds a sibling set for that child, Barbara 1775 and George 1778 to the same Thomas and Mary, and a Thomas Noakes of Ewhurst married Mary Harris there on 25 April 1759.