Every so often, a parish register gives us far more information than we were expecting.
Joseph Dickin was my 6th great-granduncle, the brother of my 6th great-grandfather. He was baptised at Prees, Shropshire, on 5 January 1729 and appears to have spent much of his life in and around the parish.
Joseph married three times.
His first wife was Sarah Maddocks, whom he married at Whittington on 8 August 1755. Joseph was recorded as being of Prees and Sarah of Whittington. They had two children, Mary and Rowland, before Sarah died in 1758.
The following year Joseph married Ann Edge at Prees. They had three children, Ann, Elizabeth and Joseph, before Ann died in 1763.
Joseph married for a third time on 11 July 1764, to Hannah Welch. They went on to have eight children together.
Had the Prees burial register recorded only Joseph's name and burial date, there would probably be very little more to say about his death.
But whoever completed the register in 1792 decided to record the supposed cause of death as well.
Joseph was buried on 8 November 1792, aged 63. Alongside his name is the wonderfully blunt explanation:
“Fell from his horse when drunk.”
There is no attempt to soften the story for posterity!
The register also tells us that Joseph was buried on the north side of Prees churchyard.
More than two centuries later, that one short sentence gives us a tiny glimpse into the life, and rather unfortunate death, of an ancestor's brother who might otherwise have been little more than a collection of names and dates on the family tree.
It is exactly why I love parish registers. Sometimes, hidden amongst all those baptisms, marriages and burials, you find a person rather than just a name.
