Recently discovered baptism record for Rev. John Wing in English: See top of right-hand page

New Documented Birth and Baptism Discoveries Concerning Rev. John Wing

By Raymond T. Wing, Previous WFA Genealogist

The 2006 Wing Genealogy, Vol. I, p. 8 compiled by Raymond Wing, stated the baptismal record for John Wing, son of Mathew and indicated the following: “John Wing, baptized son of Matthew and Mary Wing, born January xii eighth (child baptized).” The genealogy stated that the original Parish Register was in Latin. This information came from the 1998 OWL, page 5311, which had a photograph of a portion of the page from the original Parish Register. The photograph (as it appears in the OWL) is grainy and almost impossible to read.

Since then, Ancestry.com has obtained electronic scans of the St. Mary’s (Banbury) England Parish Registers. Searching for baptismal records for John Wing born 1584 shows a Parish Register written in English (not Latin) and the baptismal record is at the top of the page (while the image from the OWL was from the middle of a page). This Parish Register stated: “John Wing the sonne of Mathewe and Marie Wing was christened the 12th daye (January 1584).

While I had noted the apparent duplication of this baptismal record, I made no real note of it because the two records appeared to give the same information. However, I received a message from a professional genealogist, Eugene Cole Zubrinsky, FASG who noted that the Latin record stated John [Ionnes in Latin (which is why it was not found in the Ancestry.com Index under John Wing)] Wing was born January 8th rather than him being the eighth child born. In addition, the given name of John’s mother was Mariane.

The given name of the wife of Mathew Wing is another significant new discovery. In 2021, I received an email from Sarah Long which stated that Mathew Wing married Marian Norman at Chacombe (St. Peter & St. Paul Church), Northamptonshire (about 3.2 miles from Banbury) on 7 Jul 1571. She gave the following website as the source: https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_records/58184664e93790eb7f7ec4d3/marian-norman-mathewe-wing-marriage-northamptonshire-chacombe-1571-07-07?locale=en

At the time I received this 2021 email, I had assumed that Marian Norman was a first wife of Mathew, as she was the mother of Fulk (bp. Chacombe 10 Oct 1571) and I believed she died shortly after giving birth. My reason for this was that there is a four-and-a-half-year gap between the baptism of Fulk (Oct 1571) and the baptism of the first child of Matthew and Mary (at Banbury), namely Thomas (Apr 1576). However, the earlier Parish Register (in Latin) clearly gave the name of the mother of John Wing as Mariane. In addition, the original Parish Register (in English) names Marian as the mother of Mathias, John’s younger brother. Mathias also has a duplicate Parish Register of his baptism (indexed under Mathew Wing in Ancestry.com) which called his mother Marie.

Finally, Mary in Greek is μαίρη (Marimae – pronounced Mah-ream-eye), so Marian and Mary are sometimes used interchangeably.

This new documented discovery provides solid proof that the Wing Family has a new line, the surname Norman, to investigate.