One of the things which you do while you are waiting to fall asleep - think: I need to check the birth date of Matthew's oldest brother.
This morning I did this and found that the eldest sibling was born in 1795 and therefore Sarah Lockwood (married 8-7-1790) is the only possibility. I had the right name but the wrong Sarah on my family tree. Now that that is all sorted I looked at the births of the three siblings - 1795, 1803 and 1808 so either Matthew's father was away a great deal or Sarah had difficulty carrying a baby to full term as in those days the family popped one out every year or so until the mother died of exhaustion, usually after number nine or ten.
D2, who is a doctor, told me that after number three birthing becomes more and more dangerous for the mother and in the late eighteenth century all that the women had was a midwife of varying competence and looking through my tree I have found a number of women who died with a newborn baby which tended to die at the same time. It must have been very scary for women; men had it easier, they just married again.
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