The mystery of the Kersey headstone

In April, I paid a visit to Kersey in Suffolk. Like many Suffolk villages, it’s picturesque and full of ancient timber-framed houses, but Kersey is slightly different as its main street runs down and up the sides of a valley – quite unusual for a country that’s famously not very hilly. A ford runs across the main street, and at one end the church is perched above the village on a hill.

There’s some interesting memorials inside the church, and a large number of legible headstones in the churchyard. Some more legible than others, I noticed…

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Stoke-by-Nayland transcriptions

Stoke-by-Nayland c.1810-11 John Constable 1776-1837 Bequeathed by Henry Vaughan 1900 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N01819

Over 2,000 baptisms from 1558-1626, and over 1,200 marriages from 1558-1754 now online for Stoke-by-Nayland in Suffolk. The village is right on the border with Essex, not too far from Colchester. So if your Essex ancestors aren’t appearing in Essex registers, give the Stoke-by-Nayland transcriptions a try. There’s quite a few Colchester couples in the marriages, as well as people from Boxted, Dedham, and other nearby Essex parishes.