Rayleigh, Holy Trinity, Essex: parish registers · Church of England · Rayleigh, Essex, England
For William Finch & Mercy Walker
County Essex | Place Rayleigh | Church name Holy Trinity | Register type Parish Register | Marriage date 14 Jan 1802 | Groom forename William | Groom surname FINCH | Groom parish Rayleigh | Groom condition widower | Bride forename Mercy | Bride surname WALKER | Bride parish Rayleigh | Bride condition spinster | Witness1 James PEARSON | Witness2 Judith PEARSON | Transcribed by David Shipton | Credit David Shipton | File line number 325
The FreeREG record page's own field labels and values, in its order. The earlier transcription of this citation quoted only one witness; the register names two, James PEARSON and Judith PEARSON. It is the only Finch marriage at Rayleigh between 1780 and 1830 involving a Mercy, and it is the source of the surname WALKER, which the passenger list does not give. A full sweep of the FreeREG transcript of Rayleigh Holy Trinity on 2026-09-08 adds three checked negatives, each with a working control. (a) There is no baptism there for Samuel, son of a William and a Mercy: the register is densely transcribed for those years — seventeen Finch baptisms 1790-1835, including a Samuel Finch baptised 2 February 1806 to a different Samuel and Susannah, who married at Rayleigh on 11 June 1805 — so the absence is real and not a gap. Samuel's christening entry on FamilySearch carries a date of birth as well as a date of christening, which is the signature of a non-parochial (dissenting) register rather than an Anglican one, and a non-parochial index entry for him has been seen; the chapel register, not this one, is where his baptism and his brothers and sisters will be. (b) There is no Finch marriage at Rayleigh before this one: the marriage register is transcribed back well past 1750 (control: sixteen Smith marriages there 1750-1802), so William's first marriage, which made him a widower in January 1802, took place in another parish. (c) There is no Walker baptism at Rayleigh between 1661 and 1800 — the whole transcribed Walker set runs 1629-1807 and its only nineteenth-century entries are two children of a Thomas Walker and Elizabeth, 1800 and 1807 — so Mercy was of Rayleigh by residence when the banns were called, and was baptised elsewhere. No William or Mercy Finch burial appears at Rayleigh 1800-1860 either (nine Finch burials are transcribed for that window, each with an age and an abode).