At the end of the eighteenth century, two Filey boys called John SIMPSON were born four or six years apart. Hannah JENKINSON was 24 when she married her John in 1813 and Sarah CAPPLEMAN was just eighteen on her wedding day in 1819. Opinions differ among contributors to online trees about who married whom. I want to run with the majority who think that the John born first (to John senior and Betty EDMOND) married Hannah. This poor fellow was only 27 when he was laid to rest in 1820.

The other John died at 43, a few months before his youngest child turned three. In 1841 he was with his wife Sarah and seven children in Spring Row. That same night, widow Hannah Simpson was less than 200 metres away in Church Street, with Charles and Martha PEARSON and their year-old infant – John.

On the Shared Tree, it appears that Hannah and Sarah have each got their Mister Right – but the longer living John has, I fear, been given the other John’s parents.