Esther Bailey (1757-1826). My 5th great-grandmother. Esther Bailey was the first of the Baileys to join my family tree, when she married John Weston of Banham in Norfolk on 29 September 1781. She had been born to James Bailey and Sarah Cob and baptised on 11 April 1757 and was sometimes known as Hester. John […]
18th century
Rebecca Brooks and my other Brooks ancestors
Rebecca Brooks (1784-1825). My 5th great-grandmother. Rebecca Brooks was the first of the Brooks family to join my family tree, when she married into the Wetherall family. The surname may derive from the town of Broc in France, brought over around the time of the Norman conquest, or also to the old English words for […]
Mark Rice (1787-1863) and his children who emigrated to Utah
Mark Rice (1787-1863) and Eleanor Whaley (1791-1862). My 4My 4th great-grand uncle and aunt. Mark Rice may have lived an uneventful life but several of his children emigrated to the USA as members of the Mormon Church. Mark was baptised at St Mary’s Church in Balcombe, Sussex, on 27 July 1787 and married Eleanor Whaley […]
Mary Ann Downer and my other Downer ancestors
Mary Ann Downer (1803-1891). My 3rd great-grandmother. Mary Ann Downer was the first of the Downer’s in my Finch family tree, marrying my 3rd great-grandfather William Ward. The Wards lived in Middlesex – present-day London – but my Downer family came from Hampshire. The surname is common in Sussex, the Isle of Wight and Hampshire, […]
Willoughby Staff and my other Staff ancestors
Willoughby Staff (?1803-1886). My 4th great-grandmother. Willoughby Staff was from a Norfolk family that married into the Greens. Their descendants were part of my paternal family tree, ultimately coming down to the Finches. The surname may have derived from the Anglo-Saxon stæf, which means stick or pole, and could’ve referred to people who worked with or […]
Edith Brent (1784-1871) and her soldier husband
Edith Brent (1784-1871), Charles Prigg (1782-1814) and Alexander McKenzie (c1786-1832). My 4th great-grand aunt and uncles. Edith Brent was born to Henry Brent and his wife Mary and baptised on 31 January 1784 at Holy Trinity Church in Wonston, Hampshire. The family continued to live in and around the village. She married Charles Prigg from […]
Ann Brent and my other Brent ancestors
Ann Brent (1780-1863). My 4th great-grandmother. The Brents came from Hampshire in southern England and married into the Downer family, ancestors on my paternal Finch line. The surname can derive from place names but may also refer to the Old English ‘brente’ meaning steep place – the location perhaps of where a family lived. View […]
Sarah Comber and my other Comber ancestors
Sarah Comber (1682-1758).My 7th great-grandmother. The Combers were a long-established Sussex family, some prospered as landowners and sheep farmers, and family pedigrees were presented at the Heralds’ Visitations of Sussex in 1634. The surname probably derived from the occupation of combing wool, although a ‘combe’ refers also to a valley. Curiously, some members of the […]
Frances Ann Witchingham and my other Witchingham ancestors
Frances Ann Witchingham (1773-1847). My 5th great-grandmother. Witchingham is a reasonably common surname in Norfolk and may well derive from the village of Witchingham, north-west of Norwich. Over time the name has been spelled in a variety of ways including Wychingham, Wichinham, Withingham and even Wichengim. See the Witchingham family tree and where they fit […]
Hannah Holsworth and my other Holsworth ancestors
Hannah Holsworth (1791-1879). My 4th great-grandmother. Holsworth is a fairly common surname in Norfolk and is a variation of Holdsworth. ‘Worth’ is an old English word for enclosure, suggesting the surname was a habitional name deriving from a particular place. Hannah, my 4th great-grandmother, came from the village of Salhouse and was the first by […]
Godfrey Weston and my other Weston ancestors
Godfrey Weston (1785-1862). My 4th great-grandfather. Godfrey Weston was the first of the Westons to join my direct family tree but he didn’t marry into it. Instead he fathered a child out of wedlock and then married someone else. The Westons came from north-west Suffolk and south Norfolk over the centuries. The surname was given […]
Ann Burley and my other Burley ancestors
Ann Burley (1775-1850).My 4th great-grandmother. She married into the Finch family. Ann Burley was the daughter of John Burley of Limpsfield and Sarah Goodman of Kingston, both in Surrey (see below). She was born on the 27 April 1775 and baptised on 3 June that year at St Peter’s Church in Limpsfield, where her carpenter […]
Elizabeth Wetherill (1713-1799?) – businesswoman of Norwich
Elizabeth Wetherill (1713-1799?) and Edward Peterson (1714?-1783). My 7th great-grand aunt and uncle. Elizabeth was baptised on 1 February 1713 at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth, her parents being schoolteacher Thomas Wetherill and Mary Corpe. Her brother William Wetherill’s will referred to her as Elizabeth Peterson and mentioned her children but I’ve not found […]
Sarah Rice and my other Rice ancestors
Sarah Rice (1791-1871). My 4th great-grandmother. Sarah was the first of the Rice family to join my family tree. She was baptised on 3 July 1791 at St Mary’s Church in Balcombe, Sussex, to parents George Rice and Mary Harman (see below). She married William Budgen at St Nicholas’s Church in Worth, Sussex, on 2 […]
Rebecca Lock and my other Lock ancestors
Rebecca Lock (1778-1861). My 4th great-grandmother. Rebecca was the first of the Locks to marry into my family, when she wed Charles Goulty in Woodbastwick, Norfolk, on 17 May 1796. She’d been born in the village on 25 April 1778 and baptised at St Fabian and St Sebastian’s Church on 15 April 1779 – her […]
Thomas Finch (1686-1755) and a family of Sussex yeomen
Thomas Finch (1686-1755), Elizabeth Greenfield (1695-1715) and Mary Hobbs. My 7th great-grand uncle and aunts. Thomas got off to a rough start in life but married into a prosperous Sussex family. He was born in the village of Slinfold to carpenter John Finch and his wife Sarah Richardson but he was clearly very ill as […]
Thomas Goulty (1778-1857), Norfolk husbandman
Thomas Goulty / Goughty (1778-1857) and Sarah Russell (1779-1865). My 4th great-grand uncle and aunt. Thomas was born in 1778 and baptised at St Swithin’s Church in Frettenham, Norfolk, on 11 October that year. His parents were Charles Goulty and Elizabeth Quantrel. His surname was spelled in various ways in the parish records, from Goulty […]
William Wetherill (1711-1789) – eminent teacher of maths
William Wetherill (1711-1789), Elizabeth Clarke (????-1767) and Elizabeth Shorten (????-1794). My 7th great-grand uncle and aunts. William was baptised on 14 October 1711 at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, to parents Thomas Witherill and Mary Corpe. He followed his father into teaching and left significant property on his death. William married Elizabeth Clarke […]
Sarah Rose and my other Rose ancestors
Sarah Rose (1817-1886).My 3rd great-grandmother. Rose is a common surname in Norfolk, which is where my branch of the family come from. The surname’s derivation is hard to pin down but may have related to people who lived near a notable rose bush or in a property covered with a rose. It may also have […]
Elizabeth Maria Symonds and my other Symonds ancestors
Elizabeth Maria Symonds (1826-1911).My 3rd great-grandmother. Elizabeth Maria Symonds was the first of the Symonds to marry into my family. The Symonds came from Norfolk, while the surname is considered patronymic – it generally referred to someone as the son of Simon. There have been many variations on the surname’s spelling over time including Simmons, […]