Who are the parents of Lydia Cockeram, the wife of Stephen Blackhurst?
It is important to remember that other people’s trees are really only hints and you should not rely upon them as truth. Such is my experience researching my 4th great-grandmother, Lydia Cockeram. I had known that she married Stephen Blackhurst in Derby, Derbyshire, England in 1802 and that she had (at least) nine children.
My basic research practice is to find my ancestor on Family Search. In this case, she is Lydia Cockeram, spouse of Stephen Blackhurst and parents of Adam and Elizabeth Cockeram. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/27SC-YWL. Awesome, I now have potential names for her parents. Next, I review all of the sources for the individual’s facts. In this case, there were 33 sources. I determine what facts can be attributed to each of the sources. In this case, many of the sources were duplicated or even triplicated, but 10 were solid sources. Many of the records dealt with the children of Lydia. If a son or daughter of Stephen and Lydia was baptized/christened, it is likely they lived in that location at that time. In the case of Stephen and Lydia, their first two children were born in Derby, Derbyshire, while the other seven children were born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, thus making it evident they moved from Derby to Sheffield in 1805 or 1806.
Lydia, Daughter of Adam and Elizabeth Cockeram baptized 22 Apr 1777
In my research, I saw where Adam and Elizabeth Cockeram had a daughter Lydia who was christened on 22 April 1777. I aso saw that John and Helen Cockeram had a daughter that was christened on 21 March 1778. Look as I may, I could not find any source that would corroborate who the parents of the Lydia that married Stephen Blackhurst were. Are my Lydia’s parents Adam & Elizabeth or are they John and Helen?
Lydia, daughter of John and Helen Cockeram baptized 22 Apr 1778
Next, I went to Ancestry.Com. What did other people’s trees there say. Three of the trees indicated Lydia’s birthday was 12 March 1777 (her Baptism Date). Eight of the trees indicated Lydia’s birthday was 12 March 1775. I looked very closely at those trees and found none of them had a source indicating that date. Again, eight of the trees indicated that Lydia was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire (By the way, it was a different 8 trees) and none of the trees had a source for the birthplace, although several had her baptism/christening in Derby, Derbyshire in 1777 as I did. Finally, all but two had Adam as Lydia’s father and, again, none of them appeared to have a source other than the sources I had for her baptism. I didn’t find any sources that people cited on Ancestry that I hadn’t already found on Family Search.
The bottom line is that I’m confident that Lydia Cockeram, who married Stephen Blackhurst, was born in Mackworth, Derbyshire, England. She was born before 21 March 1778 and possibly born before 21 April 1777. Her parents are either Adam and Elizabeth (Hewitt) Cockeram or John and Helen Cockeram. From currently known and understood sources, Lydia, the wife of Stephen Blackhurst, parentage and birth date are still in question.
Feeling a brick wall rising, I’ve opened a discussion/collaborate on Family Search on this topic. See: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/collaborate/27SC-YWL. Hopefully, someone will have a source record that identifies Lydia’s parents and will let me know about it either here or there. Also, I’ll continue my research. Maybe I’ll find something that will definitively answer the question of Lydia’s parents.
In researching my (half) Aunt Barbara’s maternal line, I came to her great-grandfather Ferdinand J. Lenz. I found that trying to sort her Ferdinand Lenz from the others was very difficult. There were three Ferdinand Lenz’s in the 1890s in Chicago. I believe one of them even married a Lena in 1869, so separating the Ferdinands is difficult. I decided to try to differentiate Barbara’s great-grandfather through his immigration and naturalization information.
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