Roger’s Ancestral Lines
Explore each line further …
This is a ‘work-in-progress’. Our research trees are maintained and developed on Roger’s Ancestry account. As each line is developed further, an image of it will be added to the list below. The details of each person and their relationships can be found in the person index tab.
James Elvin I was born in Wymondham in 1843 to Daniel and Mary. Some time in his late teens, he moved with his elder brother, William, to Hoyland in West Yorkshire. He became a labourer in an iron works and married Francis Thewliss in 1864, eventually moving to Sheffield, thus setting up the branch of the family from which Roger originated.
My research has run out of steam around the middle of the 1700s on several of the branches where I have found a number of alternatives but have no obvious way of distinguishing between them. I’ll come back to them when I have developed some of my other lines.
I have hit a roadblock in the search for the antecedents of Joseph Heeley (ca. 1818 – 1877). I think I have found his baptism on 12 July 1818 at Emley St. Michael the Archangel to parents James and Mary Heeley but I cannot be certain who James and Mary were.
The story below explains the details of this search, which I have temporarily abandoned to look at other lines.
I do not who my maternal grandmother’s father was. There was always the hint of scandal around my Grandma Heeley but growing up, I was not brought into the secret. It wasn’t until I began my family history research that I discovered her mother was unmarried. I do remember, however, the loving way my mother always referred to her grandmother. In many ways she was raised by her grandmother and, in their later years, I noticed a distinct coolness between my mother and her mother (although in times of crisis, it was always my mother rather than her sister who came to Grandma Heeley’s rescue).
I was expecting this line to be straightforward. I had a head start with the data in the family bible passed down to me via my mother. This gave the birth dates of William Rodgers (my 2x great grandfather on my mother’s maternal side) and his family. I also had ideas that this would be an affluent line. How wrong I was! Identifying William’s marriage and his life thereafter was straightforward but his origins proved to be ‘murky’ and certainly not affluent!
The story below explains the details of this search and the theories I have developed about William Rodgers’ origins. Having assumed that George Rodger(s) and Sarah Beal were William’s grandparents, I have come to another blockage, being unable to distinguish between several possibilities for their births. I need to track down their marriage certificate in order to find out their parents but so far have been unsuccessful.