Desperately looking for something to do other than work, I punched "Earl Shilton" into Google and browsed through the results. Discovered that Hinckley library has the Parish registers available on microfilm, but apparently the library is closed for improvements until the Autumn, so I'm unlikely to be able to visit until 2007.

Added "Almey" to the search and my attention was drawn to a Rootsweb posting about a Samuel Almey who married a Lydia. Got me thinking about Nathaniel Almey and his elusive marriage to Lydia. Checked it hadn't magically appeared on FreeBMD since I last looked, then had the bright idea of searching Hinckley marriages for Nathaniel with no surname specified between 1855 and the year of Elizabeth's birth (1862). BINGO!! An entry for Nathaniel ALW* in 1857, click on the page number and find Lydia NORTON on the same page. So that's why one of their sons was named Norton!

Tried to enter Almey as a correction on the FreeBMD website but lost my nerve, faced with a barrage of warnings:

"... it is unlikely that our source will be any more readable now than it was when it was transcribed, and such corrections are unlikely to be applied."

"Submitting corrections which do not comply with
the instructions simply wastes your time and ours!" (in red font!)

and then "Your submission does not appear to comply with the rules!"

I think anyone else looking for Nathaniel's marriage will have to stumble across my tree.

Anyway, that's another twig stuck onto the tree, and another certificate to get ...