You've probably seen the various Christophers around who might have
been the father of Sidwell. The LDS submission has Christopher
and Margaret Harry as her parents. But the children attributed to
them don't all appear to belong to them. There is only one
marriage in the Camborne and surrounding area of a Christopher Bennetts
and a Margaret at the right time - that's the 1762 marriage you
have. The LDS submission has their children as:
Ann 11 Sep
1763
Christopher
30 Jan 1766
Sidwell
1 Nov 1768 - this is an error as the actual baptism is 10 Jan 1768
Ann 16
Mar 1771
Elizabeth
25 Sep 1774.
All
perfectly plausible - the gaps are ok. Looking at the Camborne
OPC trancsriptions online we can start unravelling it though.
Ann 11 Sep 1763 - fine. The
register gives her mother's name as Margaret.
Christopher
30 Jan 1766 - the register doesn't give the mother's name, but young
Christopher is buried aged 5 in 1771 and on that occasion his mother is
named. So he's fine too.
The
other three - no mother's name given. There is no burial recorded
for Ann (b 1763) which indicates that the later Ann (1771) belongs to
another couple.
Then I
found there are other children of Christopher and Margaret, baptised
away from Camborne. As I mentioned before, there is only the one
possible marriage so this must be the same couple. The children
are:
Elizabeth 4 Apr 1768 Phillack
Francis
26 Oct 1770 Phillack
(unnamed
son) 28 Nov 1773 Phillack
Christopher
5 Apr 1777 Crowan.
If these are the children of Christopher Bennetts and Margaret Harry -
and I think they must be - then the last three attributed to them in
Camborne (with the possible exception of Elizabeth) cannot be.
And I discount Elizabeth as she is too close to the unnamed son in 1773
(besides, she fits somewhere else). (Comment LR: Phillack is 5 miles west of
Cambourne and Crowan 3 miles south, so the geography fits)
This means that Sidwell belongs to a different Christopher. The
question is, which one? As you say, Sidwell is a very unusual
name. A Sidwell Bennetts is baptised in 1823 to Christopher
Bennetts and Ann Carthew. This Christopher is one of another very
difficult group of contemporary Christophers, but I think he is the son
of Christopher Bennetts and Rose Michell, who were married in Camborne
on 3 May 1767. He was baptised on 20 July 1777 in Camborne.
Christopher and Rose, his parents, had a number of children, not all of
whom have the mother's name in the baptism register so we have that
problem again. However, the first child where the mother's name
does appear in the register is Richard on 11 Jun 1769. This is a
long time after their marriage, and Sidwell (10 Jan 1768) fits into the
gap perfectly. And this would explain the 1823 Sidwell who would
have been named by Christopher after his sister.
Returning
to "which Christopher" - I have changed my mind from time to time about
this, but the appearance of Francis, son of Christopher and Margaret,
helps me to conclude that that Christopher is the one (there is only
one) who is the son of Francis (baptised 26 Dec 1730). But that
doesn't help you very much as you want the Christopher who is Sidwell's
father. This is very difficult! You mentioned on your
webpage that there are a lot of candidates. By elimination I have
worked out that the most likely one from the Christophers baptised in
Camborne is Christopher son of Richard, baptised 13 Aug 1720.
This makes him rather old to be marrying in 1767! But it isn't
impossible and I've tied off most of the other Christophers. He
is also the only one in Camborne whose father is Richard (and his
eldest son is Richard).
But
this is - obviously! - a bit speculative. I fear that most of
18thC genealogy involves a fair amount of guesswork. One thing
that puzzles me still is that there is a burial of a Sidwell Bennats,
widow, in Camborne on 3 Mar 1759. Could this be Christopher's
mother?? But try as I might, I can find no marriage to a Sidwell
by any male Bennetts in Cornwall. So that's a mystery. Even
the identity of Richard, father of the 1720 Christopher, is elusive -
if Sidwell isn't his mother, then the most likely candidate married in
1723, three years after Christopher was baptised and no other marriage
appears in the records. The more I think about this the more I
dislike it! An older Richard (baptised 1 Jan 1686/87, buried 20
Jan 1734/35) could be our man and may well have married Sidwell - an
unrecorded marriage, or maybe one in a nearby parish whose marriage
records have not survived, eg, Redruth which is very patchy before 1717.
One
final thing, I am like all Camborne Bennetts descended from Edward,
born about 1607. If you look at my Ancestry database you can see
where they connect - well, most of them anyway!