♀Rebekah (surname unknown)

Rebekah (died 8 July 1848) was a mother of four at Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, whose children with her husband William Phipps were baptized at Holy Trinity^W, the town’s parish church, between 1799 and 1812. She was probably the third great-grandmother of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through her son John Phipps (baptized 1803).

The children were Anne, baptized on 22 February 1799, John on 30 December 1803, William on 8 February 1809 and Mary on 24 June 1812, each entered as a child of William and Rebekah Phipps. A John Phipps, cabinet-maker and upholsterer, married Elizabeth Bennett at Holy Trinity on 28 February 1826, and their son William Bennett Phipps was baptized there the next year.

Death

Rebekah died at Stratford-upon-Avon on 8 July 1848, aged 77, a widow whose husband William Phipps had died before her. A FamilySearch transcription of the Warwickshire parish registers gives her burial at Stratford on 13 July 1848.

Notes

Her name

The baptism entries give only her first name, and her surname, her parents and the date of her birth are not known. The entries, in the form used at Stratford before 1813, give only the names of the child and the parents, with no trade or abode.

The descent through John Phipps

The link between this couple and John Phipps the cabinet-maker rests on name, parish and age. When John swore for his marriage license in February 1826 he described himself as of the parish of Stratford-upon-Avon and aged twenty-one years and upwards, which fits a baptism in December 1803; his was the only baptism of a John Phipps indexed at Stratford between 1787 and 1817. His son was named William, and the index of a November 1838 Stratford marriage of a widowed John Phipps, who may be him, gives the groom’s father as William. But William was a common name, another John Phipps of the district also had a father named William, and no document ties the cabinet-maker to the 1803 baptism directly, so the descent is probable rather than proved.

A son of Thomas and Rebekah Phipps

A James, son of Thomas and Rebekah Phipps, was baptized at Stratford on 3 January 1806. Whether that was a second couple or a clerk’s slip for William is not known, and he is not counted among this couple’s children.

A London marriage

A William Phipps, bachelor, married Rebecca Cookes, spinster, both of the parish, by banns at St Marylebone, London, on 15 June 1797. The names and the timing fit a couple whose first child was baptized at Stratford in 1799, but the entry does not mention Warwickshire, and nothing connects that couple with Stratford.

Her death and burial

The Birmingham Journal of 22 July 1848, page 5, reported her death at Stratford-upon-Avon on 8 July 1848, aged 77, and described her as the widow of the late Mr. William Phipps. The Warwickshire parish register transcription gives her burial on 13 July 1848 at Stratford, with her age as 76 and her residence as Stratford. The newspaper and the register differ by a year on her age; the body gives the newspaper’s figure.