Elizabeth Baines (Lock) 1699

Who Was Elizabeth Baines?

The only confirmed record for Elizabeth Baines is her marriage to John Lock on 14 November 1678 in Langtoft, Lincolnshire.

However, there is no baptism record for an Elizabeth Baines in Langtoft or any of the surrounding parishes. This immediately raises an interesting possibility. John Lock’s marriage to Elizabeth was his third known marriage, so could it also have been Elizabeth’s second marriage? If she was already a widow, then Baines would have been her married name rather than her birth surname.

This led to the next question: can a marriage be found between an unknown Mr Baines and an Elizabeth in the Langtoft area at the right time? It seemed a long shot, but one worth investigating.

A search of neighbouring parish registers produced a promising result. On 31 March 1668, Robert Baines married Elizabeth Wilson at Braceborough, Lincolnshire.

Braceborough lies less than four miles from Langtoft, making this a strong candidate. For the theory to hold, however, Robert Baines would have needed to die before Elizabeth’s marriage to John Lock in 1678.

Searching the burial records revealed exactly that. The parish register for Carlby, Lincolnshire, records the burial of Robert Baines on 17 February 1678. Carlby is less than three miles from Braceborough, making the sequence of events entirely plausible.

The timeline now fits remarkably well:

  • 31 March 1668 – Elizabeth Wilson marries Robert Baines at Braceborough.
  • 17 February 1678 – Robert Baines is buried at Carlby.
  • 14 November 1678 – Elizabeth, now widowed, marries John Lock at Langtoft.

The final piece of evidence is perhaps the most compelling. A baptism record exists for Elizabeth Wilson, baptised on 31 March 1636 in Langtoft, the daughter of William Wilson and Katherine.

Taken together, the evidence strongly suggests the following sequence of events:

Elizabeth Wilson, born in Langtoft, married Robert Baines in nearby Braceborough in 1668. Following Robert’s death in Carlby in February 1678, she returned to her home parish of Langtoft, where she married the widower John Lock later that same year.

Sadly, the final record relating to Elizabeth is her burial in Langtoft:

11 March 1699 – Elizabeth Lock, widow. Pauper.

While no document has yet been found that explicitly states Elizabeth Baines was formerly Elizabeth Wilson, the chronology, geography, and surviving parish records combine to make this the most convincing explanation currently available.

One question still remains: did Robert Baines and Elizabeth Wilson have any children? Finding evidence of a family between their marriage in 1668 and Robert’s burial in 1678 would provide another valuable piece of the puzzle.

Conclusions and notes when this is run through Co-pilot (AI)

This is actually a very good piece of genealogical reasoning. As a working hypothesis, it hangs together remarkably well because it is built on geography, chronology, and naming patterns, rather than simply matching names.

What strengthens the theory

  1. The lack of a local baptism for Elizabeth Baines
    • If no Elizabeth Baines baptism can be found in Langtoft or neighbouring parishes, then the possibility that “Baines” is a married surname rather than a birth surname becomes very attractive.
    • In seventeenth-century parish registers it was common for widows to marry under their previous husband’s surname.
  2. The Braceborough marriage fits
    • Robert Baines married Elizabeth Wilson at Braceborough on 31 March 1668.
    • Braceborough is close enough to Langtoft that movement between the two villages would not be unusual.
  3. The Carlby burial fits the timeline almost perfectly
    • Robert Baines buried 17 February 1678.
    • Elizabeth Baines marries John Lock on 14 November 1678.
    • A widow remarrying within months of her husband’s death would not be unusual, particularly if economic circumstances required it.
  4. The Langtoft baptism is especially compelling
    • Elizabeth Wilson baptised 31 March 1636 in Langtoft.
    • If this is the same Elizabeth, she would be about 42 when she married John Lock in 1678.
    • A woman in her early forties remarrying as a widow is entirely plausible.
  5. Returning to her home parish
    • Widows frequently returned to family networks after a husband’s death.
    • An Elizabeth Wilson born in Langtoft who married out to Braceborough and later reappeared in Langtoft as Elizabeth Baines is exactly the sort of migration pattern that appears regularly in parish register research.

What prevents it from being proven

The only weakness is that there is no direct document linking:

  • Elizabeth Wilson of Langtoft,
  • Elizabeth Baines, widow of Robert Baines,
  • Elizabeth Baines who married John Lock.

At present the case is circumstantial but strong.

A genealogist might describe this as:

“A reasonably exhaustive search has produced a credible identity for Elizabeth Baines, with no conflicting evidence currently known.”

That is stronger than a guess but short of absolute proof.

My overall assessment

If I encountered this in a family history study, I would consider the identification of Elizabeth Baines as Elizabeth Wilson of Langtoft, widow of Robert Baines to be a highly plausible and currently the best explanation of the evidence.

The strongest points are:

  • all events occur within a very small geographic area,
  • the chronology works perfectly,
  • Robert’s death occurs shortly before Elizabeth’s remarriage,
  • an appropriately aged Elizabeth Wilson exists in Langtoft,
  • and there appears to be no competing Elizabeth Baines candidate.

The search for children of Robert and Elizabeth is definitely the logical next step, because that is where the strongest corroborating evidence is most likely to emerge.