All about My Family

13 Sep 1991 was an ordinary school day. I was fourteen. We went on a tortuous day visit to the Bristol Old Vic but on this day I also received a letter from Susan Jones. By the end of the day the Old Vic's ghosts had not mesmerised me, but those of my Welsh cousins always would.

About my own family I knew rather less than the royals, whose mediaeval bargains were splashed through the pages of my father's encyclopaedia, till my father devised a black-inked, pencil-ruled tree celebrating my birth and that of my sister (the other being not yet born). 

Later came notes of my great-uncle the headmaster, which I obtained. They recalled summer holidays spent with his father in Somerset. What struck me most were the 35 cousins with their funny names: Amy, Mabel, Norton and Gypsy. I found Norton's farm on a map and pored over it. I found a lovely photograph of this family in our collection, smartly dressed, looking jolly outside their home. It was almost a hundred years old.

A slight tug and several square feet of Somerset family tree came tumbling down. The ample skeleton of this tree wound itself like around nineteenth-century Somerset in all of its manifestations.

I was also in Wales. Cousins bore an unusual name, Hood-Williams, and put me onto a lady, Susan, in a rainy part of Powys. This second Welsh lady gave me the name of another Susan, deep in Carmarthenshire, whose relationship I couldn't possibly guess; she was known to be related to my grandfather's grandmother, Jane Harris. It was this Susan's letter which I received in 1991.

Exeter was surprisingly fertile considering there was no car, bike, email and access to a phone was stolen. Above Next, if you please, a room where you could find out about any will from Victorian times. I had the run of this room. Round the walls hundreds of thick leather-bound volumes - my own Tom's Midnight Garden.

Here is the resulting list of families to which I belong, should I so choose.

IRELAND

• Descendants of Patrick Walsh and Miss Muldowney: Tobin, O’Sullivan, Walsh (Eire), Walsh (US)
• John Dawson of Limerick, Dennis Carroll of Tipperary and their wives
• The Cleary family of Limerick (Ballylanders area)

The Airey family of Troutbeck and Windermere

• Descendants of John Airey the Grocer: Jack, Bessie Slater, Lillie Edmondson, Arthur Airey, Geoff Atkinson, Cath Davies, Freda Spring, Geoff Drummond, Teresa Arnall
• The Aireys of Hensingham
• John Airey Draycott of Liverpool - his family
• William Barton of Westmorland - his family, plus nephew Hugh in Barrow
• The Barnetts of Troutbeck and Mellrays of Kentmere - Eleanor Garnett (married)

CARLINE

• Descendants of Joseph Carline and Jane Fox
• The Fox family of Starkholmes
• The Bagshaw family of Eyam

CORNISH in WALES

• The Francis family of Marloes and New York
• Family of John Francis of Bishop Auckland - Annie Holmes (British Columbia), Jack and Mary Guile
• Family of Maria Weeks of North Shields - Lydia, wife of John Smith, Jane and John Weeks (grandchildren), the Oeppen family of Merthyr Tydfil
• Family of Thomas Rodda of Morriston - Richard Rodda Blewett schoolmaster Leedstown, Joseph Blewett blacksmith Reading Pa., Richard Lathlean (Morriston), William Reynolds carpenter Hea, Penzance; plus Rodda, Leonard, Tweney and Williams families Swansea
• Family of John and Mary Harris of Morriston - in US: Eckelberger, Allen, Francis, McGuire; the Hood-Williamses, Englands and Farmers; theTaylors, Jenkinses, Jones, Walker; Hanneys, Richards, Barrons, granddaughter Mary Davies of Canton Ohio, family of Ann Hughes, the Mitchells, the Knapmans, Heinsons, Lowes, Elliotts, Urens.
  
• Descendants of Edward Bowden and Margaret Trewhella his wife of Deveral, Gwinear:
  From Matthew: Libbie Hunter, Vera Brine, the Bettanys, Peter Ford, the Broad sisters
  From Mary: the Shuggs of Tuckingmill and Los Angeles
  From Edward: the Cornishes, Joe Craze, Leylie Montgomery, Rachel Wiltshire
  From Eliza: the Hanneys, the Shuggs and Fishers (USA)
  From Emma: grandsons Gerald Halpin in Australia and Harold Harvey schoolmaster Cornwall
  From Jane: the Merifields of Camborne
  
• Bowden cousins: various, including the Crofts of Lincolnshire
• Also: the Rapsons and Oates’s, descendants of Margaret’s half-siblings
  
• Descendants of Hugh Hambly Hunter and his siblings from Redruth, including Mary Rowe of Birmingham, John Hunter of Australia, Hannah Tank of Illogan, Catherine Pollard of Redruth, the Seccombes and Brightons, the Heads and Mellens, the Daveys and Burchalls (these last all of Australia)

• Descendants of Martin and Catherine Trewhella, formerly Baragwanath, of Towednack - very numerous!
• The Cock and Hockin families of Gwithian (ancestors of Edward Bowden)
• Descendants of John Hambly of Gwinear, including the Shuggs - family of Margaretta Richards, Eliza Mugford, Kelynacks of Gwinear, Tembys, Thomases, Shuggs and Stephenses of Yackandandah Australia; plus Jennings, Michells, and a few Hamblys!

CREED and ANSFORD

Descendants of Richard Creed of West Pennard, plus earlier annals at North Barrow

Descendants of Edward Murrow of Ansford

In addition, the following families:

• That of Francis Scott of West Pennard (issue: Elizabeth Laver, George Scott, Ann Clarke, of North Wootton)
• That of Stephen Newport of Northwood, Baltonsborough (from whom we have: Sophia Mrs Charles Bendall of Wells, James Urch of Ipswich, Sophia Tuck of Castle Cary)
• That of Octavius Worner of Ash, Martock (who married Stephen’s granddaughter Jane): William Indoe Worner of Somerton, Augustus F Bishop gentleman’s outfitter Portsmouth, Octavius Smith of London, Annie P Spencer of London and Augusta M Williams of Martock
• Family of Joseph Padfield of Holcombe and Mary his second wife (they both had family by previous marriages) including Joseph Padfield (1835-c1882) the publican, and the Rudmans and including the family of Benjamin and Susanna Padfield

In addition:
The Haine family of Stone, East Pennard, including the Millears, Olvers, Treasures and Jacobs

SMITH

• Family of Robert Smith of Silfield, Wymondham, Norfolk - including Bowgens, Blowers, Barhams, Skinners
• Descendants of William Lain of Wymondham - including Martha Winning,William Page, Samuel Doubleday

MARSHALL

• Family of John and Jane Marshall of Bodmin most interestingly through their daughters: Ann Scott, Fanny Bray, Catherine Lowry, Elizabeth Hugo and their granddaughter Jane Yeo - including Ambrose Coviello, pianist
• Also including the descendants of James Lowry of Truro (who married Catherine Marshall), via his son Henry, who had surviving with issue:
  Thomas, Edward, Alfred, (Frederick), Polly, Hespie (branch has died out), through the following grandchildren: Winifred Maud Battershill, Thanetta Waldron, Thomas Martin Lowry (Dr), Henry Newton Lowry, Ellen Hofland Donington, Annie Edith Nugent-James (of Patagonia, DC, Burma and England)
• Family of John and Jane Pearce of St Austell - their daughter Mary married Thomas Martin - including the family of Mary’s grandson Thomas James Henwood Martin - how could I forget!

April 06

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