Preece Family Tree

The consensus among other researchers on Ancestry and Find A Grave is that, in spite living all his adult life in Alphington, William was baptised in Ide and that his parents were Matthew and Ann Nicks. This is certainly plausibly correct (Alphington and Ide are adjacent parishes, and the villages are less than 2 miles apart), so we will take it as a hypothesis for which we will look to find evidence to support or disprove.

Firstly, William's burial record shows his age in 1811 as 50 years, implying that we should look for a baptism record around 1761. First look at Alphington; Find My Past has an unbroken series of baptism registers around this time, and no plausibly matching records - indeed, with one exception there are no records for Nicks at all within ten years of this date. Therefore we can safely conclude that William's parents were not from Alphington.

Widening our search for all children called William Nicks baptised in all of Devon within 10 years of 1761, we find matches in 1753, 1758 (both of John and Mary), and 1761 itself (of Matthew and Ann), all in Ide. The 1753 baptism can be discounted, as the existence of a further child of the same name in the same family implies that the first one had died beforehand.

Looking at records of burials for William Nicks in Ide, we find burials in both 1753 and 1758. Broadening the baptism search still further shows that there were no William Nicks baptised in Ide prior to 1753, so we can cautiously suggest that these two burials are of the children baptised in the same years.

We've now narrowed our search of plausibly matching baptisms down to a single one, but let us look for further corroborating evidence.

Will of the supposed father - we find that a Matthew Nicks was buried in Ide in 1791, and this is the only record that could match the father on the baptism record. Looking at the FRYA Calendar of Wills and Administrations shows that a will was proved for a Matthew Nicks in this year, late of Alphington. Sadly the will itself, or an abstract for death duty, is unlikely to be in existence, so we can't look to use this to confirm the names of Matthew's children.

Will of the supposed mother - we similarly find an Ann Nicks buried in Ide in 1798, and again this is the only record that could match the mother on the baptism record. We find a similar entry in the FRYA Calendar of Wills and Administrations, showing that she was resident in Ide.

Family property in Ide - the Exeter Flying Post of 30 Sep 1813 shows that Francis Nicks (William's son) had recently come into possession of farm property in Ide, and was advertising it to let. This is most likely to have been inherited from William, who had died two years previously.

William's marriage record - there is a witness Matthew Nicks.

Thus we have found a plausible connection of Matthew to Alphington and of William to Ide, and that there was a Matthew in William's family. We therefore conclude that the consensus opinion is most likely correct.