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My 4th great grandparents John Smyth and Sarah Osment baptised their son William on 10 Oct 1773 at St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey, Surrey, England. In the image of that baptism below seems to give their residence as "Snows X".

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I am aware that Snowsfield and Crucifix Lane intersect and I am wondering whether "Snows X" is an abbreviation for that intersection?

To enable comparisons from this same page to be made I am going to provide four higher resolution images of how "Snow..." appears in residences on that same page of the register, with the above one first:

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I am particularly interested in this because John and Sarah's eldest daughter (Sarah Osment Smyth) later married John Stacy on 19 Jul 1792 in St Botolph Aldgate, London. I have found that when John Stacy's father Henry was buried on 17 Feb 1768 at St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey his residence was given as Crucifix Lane. Henry had the same residence of Crucifix Lane when he buried his daughter Jane on 27 Dec 1765.

Furthermore, John Stacey, an Officer, of Snowsfields, buried his son John, age not given, on 20 Jul 1759 at St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey, and Thomas Stracey, of Snowsfields, buried his daughter Elizabeth, aged 4, on 8 Feb 1760, at St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey too. I suspect that John and Thomas were brothers to Henry, and that they had a fourth brother Francis, also an Officer (Custom House Officer) residing in Long Lane.

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    Are you sure that "X" isn't just a poorly formed "F"? – sempaiscuba Dec 1 '17 at 2:29
  • @sempaiscuba I'm not sure. If so, its very poorly formed. I figured X might be an abbreviation for either intersection or Crucifix. F be for field. – PolyGeo♦ Dec 1 '17 at 2:34
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I think that the "X" is actually just a poorly formed "F".

I looked at the Rocque Map for that part of Bermondsey. Although the map is a little earlier (it's dated 1746), it gives a pretty good idea of how the area would have looked when your ancestors were living there.

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Snows Field and Crucifix Lane both intersect with Barnaby Street (now just part of Bermondsey Street). The junction appears to be a little offset (not quite a crossroads), so I think it is unlikely that would be used to describe their residence in a baptismal record.

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    Nice map! There's a pan/zoom version of Rocque's map at locatinglondon.org, which can also switch to an 1870s OS map and the modern Google map. – AndyW Dec 1 '17 at 13:15

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