As usual, the response was positive with several posters offering suggestions to point me towards further research. Then I heard from professional genealogist Richard Carruthers-Zurowski who hails from West Vancouver, Canada.
Richard explained that he was related to Benjamin Large, the father of Eliza, and he was able to pass on quite a lot of information concerning the Large family that he and his cousin had assembled. He suggested that - as I had also thought - the Parish Register entry showing Eliza's mother as Mary was an error. Furthermore, he was able to furnish me with details of the Memorial Inscription on Susanna (Matthews) Large's gravestone which confirmed that she was the daughter of Thomas & Mary Matthews and probably died soon after giving birth to Eliza.
A little later Richard was able to slot the last brick into the wall when he found the Parish Register entry for the marriage of Sarah West to Benjamin Large. I must express not only my very grateful thanks to Richard for this (and all the information he has provided) but also much admiration because the record was very badly indexed by Ancestry. I'm going to blame Ancestry for me not finding it, but in truth I have to admit it might have something to do with the fact that I keep forgetting that some of the parishes near to Highworth and where my ancestors' families often resided are actually over the county border in Gloucestershire!
So actually three lessons learned here: publish your searches and queries to get help from others; keep your searches very broad to account for mistranscriptions, etc; and know your geography!
Richard's blog can be found at http://vademecumgenealogy.blogspot.ca/. Do look it up.
Until next time ... cheers!
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