A 6xgreat grandmother of mine was Mary Hughs, who I believe to have been baptised at Bitterley, Shropshire, on October 12th, 1718, the daughter of John Hughs, alias Pembridge. Mary married Mathew Harper on June 14th, 1731, at Bitterley, and had two children, John (1732) and Elizabeth (1741). Mathew died in 1742. Mary, then of Bitterley, remarried to Edward Goodman of Wheathill at Bromfield on December 18th, 1743. They had three children: Ann (1744, my 5xgreat grandmother), Mary (1748) and Edward (1752).
It would appear that Mary's mother was Elizabeth, as a John Hughs, son of John Hughs, alias Pembridge, and Elizabeth, was baptised at Bitterley on 27th July, 1717, and buried the same day. Another infant, John Pembridge alias Hughs, was buried at Bitterley in 1721.
The alias Pembridge is a mystery, and it seems that they progressively assumed the name, such that by the time of their deaths, according to the burial register of Bitterley, they were known as John Pembridge (1734?) and Elizabeth Pembridge (1747).
It is possible that John was the son of Richard Hughes and his wife, Francis, baptised at Bitterley in 1674, but there was another one or two John Hugh(e)s in Bitterley at the time, who married Margaret Perks in 1702 and Phebe Fayzie in 1711, both marriages bearing children, respectively 1704-06 and 1712-24.
The earliest Hugh(e)s record in the Bitterley registers is the burial of Margaret, wife of John Hughes on July 20th, 1667.
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