Jacob Sheldon was born in 1767, in Bonsall, Derbyshire. He was the fourth of six sons of Benjamin Sheldon and Elizabeth Haynes, and was baptised on 11th October 1767 at the church of St James. On 29th December 1795, he married Elizabeth (Betty) Rowbottom, also in this church, the banns having been read on the three preceding Sundays. Derbyshire, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754–1932, on Ancestry.co.uk By the time that Jacob and Betty’s eighth child, Esther