On 16 September 1827 my great-great-grandfather William Moore, Bachelor of Motcombe, Dorset, England, married Hester Dowland, Spinster, in her parish church of Holy Trinity Shaftesbury. Banns had been published in both of their churches on three Sundays in August. For the wedding day itself, the parish marriage register show signatures for the groom, bride and two witnesses, Mary Moore and John Bennett.
Having married in her parish, the couple then lived in his parish, as was typical. Two-and-a-half years later on 18 April 1830 William and Hester had their son William baptised in Motcombe, with the father's occupation recorded as blacksmith. This seems to be the only time that the couple appear in that Church of England baptism register. A researcher starting from here could easily assume that William Moore had only one child.
They could have died. They could have moved. With such a common name, the hope of finding what happened to them next seemed small. However, in 1834 there is a record showing that Charles Dowland Moore son of William Moore and his wife Ester, daughter of John and Ester Dowland, was baptised in St Edmund's Church Street Methodist Chapel, Salisbury, Wiltshire. The couple had chosen this Wesleyan church for the baptism, and helpfully this church recorded the mother's parents' names too.
Was a relocation more than 20 miles to Salisbury plausible? To my amazement I read online recently, "In 1827 Salisbury was regularly visited by preachers from the Primitive Methodists in Motcombe" (Salisbury Methodist Church History). If the names on the baptism record were not enough, this link between the locations was further evidence that I was looking at the right family.
In fact, it was double celebration in the church that day. Charles Dowland Moore and Ester Nott Dowland Moore were both baptised on 26 March 1834. Charles was the younger child and his birth is recorded on the baptism record as 25 January 1834. Ester's entry gives her date of birth as 27 October 1832, showing that they were siblings rather than twins.
The baptism records for Charles and Ester (elsewhere called Hester) both include Dowland for a middle name, which was their mother's maiden name. In addition, the record for Ester also includes the name Nott. Elsewhere I have seen their maternal grandmother's maiden name as Knott so I could say, "not Nott but Knott".