Elizabeth (Betty) Pool was one of Ari’s 6x great-grandmothers. She was born in about 1774 in Oddingley, Worcestershire, which is “pleasantly situated about 3½ miles to the south-east of Droitwich on the slopes of a valley through which run the Worcester and Birmingham Canal and the Bristol and Birmingham branch of the Midland railway” (https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/worcs/vol3/pp456-460).
Worcester and Birmingham Canal approaching Oddingley, Worcestershire
Betty married a farmer called John Perkins. Searching for the marriage on TheGenealogist website, I have just found two children I didn’t know about. Mary Perkins was born in 1807 in Oddingley, and John in 1809. The website also offered this possible marriage:
TheGenealogist Potential Marriage SmartSearch
So now we have her surname, Pool, and I can try to find her parents.
There were three more children: Jane in 1814, Sarah in 1816, and Anne in 1821.
Oddingley is known for the “Oddingley Murders” in 1806 (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oddingley_Murders). There is a John Perkins who gave evidence, but this may be a different person:
Worcester Journal, 18 March 1830, Findmypast.co.uk
(Confirmation will need to wait until I write about John!) I have just ordered the book Damn His Blood: Being a True and Detailed History of the Most Barbarous and Inhumane Murder at Oddingley and the Quick and Awful Retribution (by Peter Moore) so will find out more!
After Betty’s husband John died in 1837 I think she went to live in Sale Green with her daughter Sarah, who had married John Tyler. This is where she was in the 1841 census:
1841 census, Ancestry.co.uk
Betty died at Crowle two years later, on 13 January 1843, from breast cancer.
The death was announced in the Worcester Journal.
Worcester Journal, 2 February 1843, Findmypast.co.uk
She was buried in the churchyard at Oddingley on January 19th.
Ari, this is how you are related to Betty:
