Strategy for distinguishing between two possible baptisms, and thus people, parents, etc.? My partner has an ancestor, Peggy Crossley, probably born around 1750, who married Henry Rawlinson in Burnley, Lancaster (source) in October 1767. I have two candidate baptismal records that seem plausible, though neither of them have any link to the James Crosley who witnessed the marriage. * daughter of John Crosley baptised 14 Oct 1750 in Heptonstall, Yorkshire, about 13 miles from Burnley * daughter of Abram and Ann Crossley, baptised 23 Sep 1750 in Rochdale, Lancashire, about 16 miles from Burnley. I have no particular reason to favour one or the other possibility, and this far back there aren't many other records to go on. Does anyone have any suggestions for approaches to take to help work out which is the right one? If it helps, I'm pretty sure the other one married a William Howorth, also in Burnley.

The strategy I would adopt is to thoroughly research both individuals for whom you have baptisms forward in time -- look for deaths, marriages (not necessarily in that order), sibling baptisms -- anything that lets you build up a picture of each individual which may or may not be consistent with the facts you know about your person of interest.

Look also for wills of the parents of the individuals -- you might be lucky and find a smoking gun as I did (the will of the father of an Ann John that explicitly named her husband and residence, which confirmed without a doubt that she was my ancestor).

Another possible source of information that will help is the record of banns of the marriage of Peggy Crossley and Henry Rawlingson (as published in both their home parishes). It's not unknown for the parish incumbent to helpfully record additional information when recording the banns, so worth checking even if you have the marriage entry from the PRs.