There are many family trees online which indicate that Jane Pollard was born in Halifax. Also, before the recent changes to the website, the International Genealogical Index on www.familysearch.org had an entry stating that this Jane Pollard was baptised in Halifax but this entry appears to have been removed. Bearing in mind that many researchers seem to copy what others have put online, mistakes and all, and that there were several Pollard families in Essex at the time I have to tread carefully!

However, there is an article online by Dorothy Streeper (1906-1996) who was a great-great-granddaughter of Jane Pollard about Jane's daughter Mary (sister of my ancestor Sarah) and it is clear from this that she has done quite a lot of detailed research. Mary had become interested in the Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter-day Saints (i.e. the Mormons) and in 1868 together with some of her children (including Dorothy's grandmother) made the journey to Utah.

The article indicates that Whitworth Filby was the superintendent caretaker at Purleigh Hall and that Jane Pollard, who was born in Halifax, had come to Essex to be a lady's maid at the same estate.

According to the entry in the Purleigh burial register for 1834 Jane was aged 55 at death which makes her year of birth about 1779. However, quite a lot of ages at death in the register were mulitples of 5!

Some websites show Jane's parents as Thomas Pollard and Ann Bentley: one with the Christening on 9th May 1779 and others with just a year - 1779 or 1782 - and none of them specifying which church so I regard the information as unreliable. The May 1779 baptism appears to have been at St John the Baptist but the parish register is almost illegible and does not appear to name mothers. There appears also to be a Christening on 18th July 1779 with father William Pollard.

One of these Janes is presumably the one in the 1851 Census living in Halifax aged 72. She is living with Eliza Mitchell aged 14; probably pure coincidence but the next entry in the St John the Baptist register was for a Mitchell (if the Ancestry transcription is correct - I struggled to read it!).