Descendants of the Pearce family of St Austell and Par, Cornwall
I am sitting here surrounded by 10000 words of the Pearce tree –which didn't even exist a week ago.
I decided to follow up on a lead given in Rev'd Thomas Martin's book 'The Stranger at Home' – his volume of poetry which he wrote in 1824 when he was only 14 years older than me – (He is my great-great-great-great-grandfather and had married Mary Pearce.)
There was a reference to Mr E Pearce of Merthyn and I just thought I would see if I could identify him as a possible relative – Merthyn sounding a pretty small place. Eventually I found his will and this led me to a whole new wave of characters. The first tide left just a few assorted shells of rudimentary relatives; the next bore dozens and dozens of tregaski and beales, who pretty much all washed up on Par Sands , where there would breed row after row of master mariner and shipwright, complete with ship's compass, hoary sea tales and salt-lashed Cornish windows.
Then came a deluge of cats dogs and rainbow frogs through the descendants of Grace Bartlett. I gained her name from the will of uncle E Pearce of Merthyn. With just this small fulcrum, I levered out the rest of the tale – out it came tumbling tumbling. Grace was the miller's wife at Knackers Knowle and the tale of her two daughters was soon found. Widowed by 30 they married (and were widowed again), producing in total nine children each.
A handful of my 200 new relatives made exchanges increasing their status upwards; others, too many others, retreated backwards into obscurity, or more bluntly, the Workhouse. Stand up Dr Ewbank Lansdown in the first category, while his cousin stole food to survive escaping to the United States. Both of these descend from Grace Bartlett, to whose daughters with wombs even then full of promise, fortune led me.
I should like to know more about Samuel Moss, Par's childless millionaire businessman, and also the mystery of the Waterwitch, rebuilt by my salty cousins at Par.
Pedigree Chart for John PEARCE