Prompted by not very much at all, I thought I might take another look for Sarah Howse. Several hours of research yielded very little that was new. William Perrin married Sarah Howse in January 1770 but that is almost all we know of my 4x-great-grandmother.
The Marriage Register of St. Leonard’s, Rousham, provides our earliest verifiable reference to a member of the family whose direct descendency we can confirm. In January 1770, a reading of Banns of marriage is recorded for William PENIN (sic) and Sarah Howse, to be married at Charlton (sic). Two certain errors in this short transcription are a sharp warning of the need to confirm every detail.
Actually, William and Sarah’s wedding was at Chastleton and his surname was indeed Perrin. The Chastleton Marriage Register adds the confirming detail that William was a servant, of Rousham. Banns had been read on December 31st, January 14th and January 21st. Sarah was said to be “of this Parish”. She signed the register with an ‘X’. The witnesses to the wedding of my 4x-Great Grandfather and Great-Grandmother were John Bartlett and Edward Knibbs.
If Sarah Howse was “of this parish” of Chastleton, it seems unlikely that she was born there, no record of a baptism being found in the IGI of anyone with that surname or likely variant. As will be seen, Sarah was perhaps born about 1747 and the IGI offers the following for future research (showing distance from Chastleton):
| Sarah Howse | 2 Oct 1741 | Kidlington, Oxon | Robert and Sarah | 20m |
| Sarah House | 2 Nov 1746 | Bix, Oxon | Henry and Mary | 45m |
| Sarah House | 29 Oct 1749 | Wantage, Berks | Alexander and Jane | 33m |
| Sarah House | 7 Sept 1755 | Ashbury, Berks | Richard and Sarah | 33m |
| Sarah House | 27 July 1755 | Bix, Oxon | Henry and Mary | 45m |
In so far as the baptisms reflect approximate birth year, only the three baptisms in the 1740s seem plausible, those in 1755 suggesting Sarah would have been too young, just 15 or so, to marry William in 1770. The distance, too, from Chastleton, might be of no significance at all. For comparison, Rousham House is about 17 miles from Chastleton – a goodly day’s walk. Of course, the IGI is not complete (and susceptible to error), and not helped by the variants of Sarah’s surname. At Kidlington, the following are found: Howse, Howes, Houses, House, Howze and Hows, as well possibly, as Hose. Finally, in passing, there were certainly three “Howse” families living at Kidlington during the 1740s, but only one Sarah, baptised as noted in 1741.
Sarah died aged 77 in 1824 and was buried at Rousham on 7 December.