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I travelled up to Junction 10 of the M56 today, to meet and pick up Jane, who has been up in Lancashire, visiting her mother for the last week. It's a convenient pull-off from the motorway, which just happens to house The Stretton Fox, a very decent hostelry serving food and good ale to the weary traveller. Rather than retrace the boring steps back home via the M56/A55, we took a detour to Ruabon in Denbighshire, the origin of my Welsh ancestors [cf. blog posts passim].

We had a look at St. Mary's church, as I hoped to find the grave of a relative of mine who died in infancy - a couple of weeks old - who is reported to be buried there, according to the family tree. There appears now to be no graveyard within the Llan of Eglwys Santes Fair, but rather an associated place of rest just up the road, where all the gravestones are laid around the perimeter walls of half an acre or so of land.

Now, Harriet Rudge, was born and died in 1825, the age of around the oldest stones we found there. But no sign of her, and anyway, an infant's memorial stone would probably have been quite modest in size, where few in the garden were. In any case, the record I've got could be wrong, or the stone lost in the nearly two hundred years since her brief life ended. I found a couple of Parrys there: my Welsh connection, including the above, although I suspect that could just be a red herring, but who knows? The parish records are the next place to look, so I'll keep you posted...

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