Family Tree

Back in the spring when I visited Hafodyrynys with my Dad and my girlfriend Monika, we found ourselves - whilst clambering over what my grandmother has always called the 'Mountain' - in the company of a farmer, who, with his two sheepdogs, took us on a short tour of his land overlooking the village. He was a man who having been brought up in the area knew that part of the world intimately, and who, as he traced the blue horizon with his hand, reeled off a list of villages resting amongst the hills and fields rolled out below. As we looked over towards the town of Llanhilleth, where my great-grandfather, Elias Jones, had worked as a miner, I couldn't help but imagine him standing there 100 years before, looking at the same villages and reeling off the same names. Down below, in Rectory Road, he would see the house in which he lived, and in which also lived my grandmother as a child.

Elias Jones died of lung disease in 1929 at the age of 47, caused as a result of breathing in coal dust down the mine in which he worked. He was buried in the churchyard at Cefn-y-Crib, where his wife, Mary Jane, would be buried 40 years later. Also buried in the same churchyard, as we saw that day, was Elias Jones' father, my great-great-grandfather, Henry, who died in 1889 at the age of 49 when Elias was just 7 years old.

We could see the churchyard from the brow of a hill as we stood in the company of the farmer and his dogs, and in between, a scattering of buildings, vivid and white against the green of the fields, made darker for a moment by the looming presence of clouds which gathered around us as if to experience a view which they would know for only a very short time.

It was as we looked that the farmer pointed to one of the buildings and explained how in December the previous year a young woman was found hanged inside. It was a story which seemed at odds with the beauty of the landscape - a landscape which, nevertheless, just as it had shaped the existence of my paternal family, had shaped the death of this young woman.

In amidst the fields, the seemingly empty barns and houses, and bordered by the forests which clung to the hills surrounding us, one could feel very small and insignificant. In a place such as this one's awareness of self is augmented, or at least, one's awareness of individuals. Indeed, of all the people I have researched so far, the two which to me are perhaps the most clearly defined are my great-grandfather, Elias, and my great-great-uncle, Jonah Rogers, who was killed in 1915 in the second battle of Ypres. Perhaps this is in part because of the place in which they lived (and in which that day I was standing), not so much because it's changed so little, but because its shape, its beauty and its timelessness, serve to delineate the individual better than any city.

I'd always heard that one of my ancestors on the Welsh side of the family had been killed in a mining accident, but I've never found anything to even vaguely corroborate the story. Of course accidents were common as my grandmother recalled, remembering how blinds would be drawn in all the windows when another body was brought back up to the surface. Having seen Henry Jones' grave, I decided to obtain a copy of his death certificate to see if perhaps he - having died young - had been killed in an accident of some kind. As it turned out, the truth was indeed tragic, but for altogether different reasons.

It took me a while to decipher the spider-like writing of the registrar, but suddenly it hit me; cause of death, "suicide while temporary insane," place of death; Cefn-y-Crib.

In my previous post 'Real People' I wrote a little on the life of John Stevens, my great-great-great-uncle (my great-great-grandfather, Jabez's older brother) who was born in Reading in 1837. Firstly, I must correct something I wrote in that entry; John Stevens was never in Broadmoor . Before entering the Moulsford Asylum, he was first an inmate at the Littlemore Asylum in Oxfordshire to which he was admitted on 24th March 1871. He was suffering from mania caused by epilepsy and had been ill for three months.

He was 34 years of age when admitted to the Moulsford Asylum on 17th May 1871. He was a tailor, married to Emma and had been subject to fits from the age of 17. This was not his first attack of insanity the cause of which was epilepsy. He told the doctor on admission that "he has been all around the world this morning; that he was seen John the Baptist; that he is John the Baptist; that he in a fighting attitude is addressing God." He had been observed "standing for an hour in one attitude looking at the sky, squaring his fist to fight the Nurse and ill-treating his wife a few days after her confinement." In the same year he was admitted, his wife Emma gave birth to a daughter, Kate.

As a patient, he still worked in his trade as a tailor as the asylum had its own tailoring shop. However he was still subject to frequent and severe epileptic fits.

On July 28th 1877 he was attacked by another patient, Harry Mulford, who knocked him down and kicked him breaking one of his ribs. Two years later in 1879 he stopped working as his condition began deteriorating.

In December 1886 he suffered with pneumonia and in March 1887 records state that John "is a wretched epileptic, frequently getting wounds in the head." A year later in December 1887, he was so weak he was spending the entire day in bed, still suffering frequent fits. The next and last entry in the records of Moulsford Asylum regarding John is dated 10th February 1888. It states that he had:

"...been constantly in bed, at times noisy but thoroughly exhausted. He quietly passed away today at 2.30pm." His cause of death was "exhaustion from epilepsy."

For about seven months now I have been researching my family tree through Ancestry.com and in that time I have been quite successful, tracing four lines (Hedges, Stevens, Jones and Sarjeant) back to the beginning of the nineteenth century and in some cases well beyond. I have exchanged emails with a second cousin in Canada (to whom I owe a great deal as regards his efforts with the Sarjeant tree), visited the graves of ancestors I never knew I had in Wales and, having visited the Menin Gate in Ypres a year ago, discovered that my great-great-uncle is commemorated upon it having been killed in the second battle of Ypres in 1915 (there may be a second great-great-uncle who died at the Somme, but until I receive his death certificate I cannot be certain). Having done all this and talked with both my 95 year old grandmothers about their respective childhoods, and having looked at various photographs, these people I have drawn from the past have come alive, but it was only at the end of last week, that the fact these were once real people became truly apparent.

The furthest I've gone back with the Stevens family is to a certain John Stevens, a tailor, who was born in Oxford around 1812. The Stevens side of the family (my maternal grandfather) came to Oxford in 1952 from Reading, so it was strange therefore to find that they'd originated in the twon where I was born. He had six children by his wife Charlotte; John (1837), Samuel (1839), Elizabeth (1843), Rosetta (1844), Henry (1846) and finally, my great-great-grandfather, Jabez (1848). Having turned my attention recently to those to whom I am not directly descended, i.e. the siblings of great-grandparents and so on, I decided to look at the eldest sibling in this family, John.

Born in 1837, I traced him through the censuses and discovered that in 1857 he married Emma Fisher and with her had seven children; Emma (1859), William (1861), Henry (1863), Mary (1865), John (1867), Martha (1869) and Kate (1871). All of these I found listed on the 1871 census along with their mother, but, there was no mention of the father John. I looked ahead to 1881 and while I couldn't find Emma, I found her children and her husband, and it was here in this document that the whole tree assumed a much more tangible dimension. In 1881 John was listed as a Pauper Patient in the Berkshire County Moulsford Asylum (now Fair Mile Hospital). Why he was in there I couldn't say, but next to his name was his trade 'Tailor' (the same as his father) and the word 'lunatic'.

Suddenly, this man seemed more real than any of those I'd previously discovered; so for that matter did his wife and their children, after all, if he was in an asylum, what had become of them? I couldn't find any mention of Emma, but some of his children had been separated; Henry and John were living with their Uncle Samuel, also a Tailor; Mary was living with her Aunt Rosetta, and sadly, Martha and Kate, the two youngest sisters, were inmates at the Reading and Wokingham District School (workhouse).

Turning back to the fate of their father, John, I tried to find him in the 1871 census, and eventually I discovered him; it seemed his misfortune had come much earlier for he was at this time an inmate at 'Broadmoor Asylum for the criminally insane.' I've no idea yet what he did but clearly it was serious. Reading about the asylum I read that those found 'not guilty' of serious crimes through their insanity were at the end of their sentences assessed, and if found to be unfit for release were sent to county asylums which seems to have been the case with John.

As regards his wife Emma, I have yet to find any trace of her in the 1881 census. It might be of course that she died in the 1870s but a search for the record of her death yields a more likely date of 1885; this will of course require more research. As regards John, I found reference to a John Stevens, born in 1837 who died in the district of Wallingford (in which Cholsey - the location of the Moulsford Asylum would fall) in 1885. No doubt he never recovered his sanity or his freedom.

As to the fate of their children, that will of course need further research.

I have been looking to find the first wife of Henry Jones for a while now having got it wrong first time round, albeit getting her first name right. I had - for reasons I cannot recall - listed her as being Mary Carey, but have since discounted that having found no matching record for their marriage.

In May, we visited the graveyard in Cefn-y-Crib which some of my Welsh ancestors are buried, and there found the grave of Henry Jones, which we could see was also the grave of his second wife Rachel and his first wife Mary and daughter Lydia.

The gravestone was a little damaged and the name of his first wife a little bit obscured, but one could nevertheless make out the name, Mari - the Welsh spelling of Mary. But what was her surname?

Having searched through the marriage indexes I came across a few possibilities that fitted in with the dates they would have been wed; Mary Lewis (1859), Mary Harris (1860) and Mary Issacs (1860). The last of these names rang a bell, and when I looked at the certificate for Henry's marriage to his second wife Rachel, I saw the name Anne Isaac as being one of the witnesses.

Edmund Jones, the other witness, was the father of Rachel Jones (Jones was also her maiden name) and so I can only assume that both Henry's parents were dead at the time. Of course, Isaac is not Isaacs but then spelling mistakes were made. Furthermore, when searching for Mary Issacs' birth, I found only a few, all of whom would have been too young to have married Henry in 1860. Could the name have been wrong on the marriage index? Should it have been Isaac?

We know that she died in 1869 at the age of 27 and having searched for Mary Isaac in the birth records I found one Mary Isaac, born in the Pontypool district in 1843. But what of the other contenders; Mary Lewis and Mary Harris? There were a number of Mary Lewises born in 1842 (which one assumes is the correct year of birth), as indeed there were a number of Mary Harrises also born in 1842.

Following on from my previous post on this subject (see Rogers Conundrum) I obtained today a copy of my great-grandmother's birth certificate.

On the certificate, it clearly states that Mary Jane Rogers was born on 27th November, 1886 in Crumlin, Mynyddyslwyn; that her father was George Rogers and her motherMary Ann, formerly Brooks. Having Mary Ann's maiden name is obviously a great help, but it just goes to show that censuses can be wrong.

Below is a detail of that census.

In this entry there are two errors; one the name of George's spouse which should read Mary A and not Sarah A, and secondly the name of their daughter (my great-grandmother) Mary Jane which is given as Bessie J.

Having discovered that my great great-uncle, Jonah Rogers, was a Private in the 2nd Battalion of the Monmouthshire Regiment (he was killed in active service on May 8th 1915 and is commemorated on the Menin Gate) I began searching for anything which might tell me more about the place in which he fought and died. Fortunately, I happened upon a book which couldn't be more useful; 'A History of The 2nd Battalion The Monmouthshire Regiment' compiled by Captain G.A. Brett, D.S.O., M.C. in the 1930s.

The first thing I wanted to do was be sure that this book covered the history relevant to Jonah, and in the back, in the Roll of Honour, I found him, JONES J., one amongst many other names.

In the book, the author relates in great detail information concerning the preparations for war and the route the Battalion took as it moved into the theatre of this terrible conflict. It seems that there were three units of the 2nd Battalion, the first formed from the outset of war in August 1914, with two and three following thereafter. I wondered to which unit Jonah had belonged. The following is a passage taken from the book:

"The 7th November, 1914, is an historic date for the and Monmouthshires, for early on the morning of that day the Battalion landed at Havre on active service. Over four long and terrible years were to drag their slow length before it would recross the narrow sea from France, and few of those who disembarked with it were fated to return with it. Its strength on landing was 30 Officers and 984 Other Ranks. Before it came home t8o Officers and 3,878 Other Ranks had passed through it. But they had earned for their Battalion a name for fighting and endurance of which their county, with all its old traditions of border pugnacity, could well be proud. While some of the officers came from other counties, a few indeed from the colonies and abroad, the vast majority of the men were from the mining valleys of Monmouthshire, every town, village and hamlet of which must at one time or another have been represented in the 2nd Battalion."

The key part of this passage is of course the date, 7th November, 1914, and having consulted Jonah's medal records, I discovered 'the date of entry therein' corresponded exactly: 7-11-14.

The movements of Jonah Rogers and the 2nd Battalion can be listed as follows:

5th August 1914 - Orders to mobilise the Battalion.
6th August 1914 - 7.30pm. The Company entrained at Crumlin nearly 100 strong, en route for Pembroke Dock.
Evening of 7th August 1914 - The transport moved off and halting for the nights at Llanellen, Hereford, Ludlow and Church Stretton, completed the march to Oswestry on the afternoon of the 11th August 1914.
20th August 1914 - The Brigade moved to Northampton where the Welsh Division was concentrating.
Evening of 5th November 1914 - The Battalion embarked at Southampton on the 'Manchester Importer'.
6th November 1914 - Arrived off Le Havre and anchored until night.
7th November 1914 - The Battalion landed in Havre.
8th November 1914 - Entrained, arrived at St. Omer, 10th November 1914.
18th/19th November 1914, passed fit by Inspector or Reserve Troops, marched to Bailleul, halting for the night at Hazebrouck and reaching Le Bizet the following day.
21st November 1914 - 'C' and 'D' company enter the trenches, relieved by 'C' and 'D' on the 23rd.
2nd December 1914 - 2nd Monmouthshires relieve the 2nd Essex, taking over a battalion frontage of eleven hundred yards of trenches.
Christmas Day 1914 - Informal Truce
January 1915 - Redistribution of troops. The forward company of the 2nd Monmouthshires, which was relieved every 2 days, held some cottages and some trenches behind Le Ghier Wood.
20th February 1915 to end of March 1915 - The Battalion relieved the 2nd Essex taking over the same frontage occupied in December.
2nd May 1915 - 2nd Monmouthshires experienced the heaviest shelling they had yet encountered. Later in the day, the enemy launched a fierce attack under cover of asphyxiating gas.
Night of 4th/5th May 1915 - The Battalion relieved the 5th South Lancashires about Weiltje. Another heavy gas attack, not followed up by infantry assault. The position included Mouse Trap Farm (known also to the British as Shell Trap Farm).
8th May 1915 - Battle of Frezenberg Ridge with desperate fighting ensuing for the following six days. Private Jonah Rogers was killed in action on the 8th May 1915.

Although I have no photographs of Jonah, there is a photograph in the book showing a front-line trench in 1915. It's impossible to say whether one of these men is Jonah, but what one can say is, he was no doubt just like them.

The following is a map of positions occupied by the 2nd Monmouthshires during the 2nd Battle of Ypres. You can see (click on the image for large view) that on the day Jonah was killed, they were positioned in Shell Trap Farm.

Having made the recent trip to Wales, I decided to try and get a bit further with a line on my family tree - that of my grandmother's mother's parents. My grandmother's maternal grandparents were George and Mary Ann Rogers and their grave can be seen in the photograph below.

In my family tree I have them and their children listed as follows:

George Rogers (1864-1944)
Mary Ann Rogers (1864-1941)
Alfred John Rogers (1886-1954)
Mary Jane Rogers (1887-1969)
William George Rogers (1887-1897)
Ruth Rogers (1890-1925)
Evan Rogers (1892-?)
Jonah Rogers (1894-1915)
Enoch Rogers (1896-?)
George Rogers (1898-1916)

Although these dates aren't all 100% accurate, they are for the most part within a year or two. I discovered them through a combination of the 1901 Welsh Census and a visit to the churchyard at Cefn-y-Crib, but what I want to know now is the maiden name of Mary Ann Rogers which I began to look for by searching for details of her marriage to George, narrowing my range between 1880 and the date of their first born. However, having located several possible entries for George Rogers I found that none of them tallied with anyone called Mary Ann; in fact, I could find no evidence at all for their marriage within this range.

I began to wonder whether (as was the case with my great great-grandfather Henry Jones) George Rogers was married twice. Perhaps this was the reason I could not find the dates I expected. I therefore noted down all the references for George Rogers and looked up all the female names which correlated. There were a fair few names one of which stood out as the most likely. This was a lady called Sarah Hiley who was married in Pontypool in the second quarter of 1885 to one of two possible grooms, one of which was a George Rogers. Given that his first child was born in 1886, this date seemed to lend credence to this theory.

It was then as I looked through the Wales Census of 1891 that I found the following entry along with the ages of those listed:

George Rogers (28)
Sarah A Rogers (26)
Alfred J Rogers (7)
William G Rogers (4)
Bessie J Rogers (5)
Ruth Rogers (1)

What struck me was of course the names, all of whom (except for Bessie and William (who died in 1897)) I'd found in the 1901 census albeit with a different mother. But what about my great grandmother Mary Jane? Having run through a number of permutations as to what might have caused her to be missing in the 1891 census (a search for her name revealed nothing) I suddenly realised that Bessie J Rogers, born around 1886 must be her; they were one and the same person.

George Rogers I believe was once married to a woman called Sarah and by 1891 they'd had four children together. By 1901, Sarah was, one presumes, dead, and George had married Mary Ann. Whether the other children were hers or Sarah's I don't know at this point. I decided to look for an entry for their marriage and eventually I found a possible wedding between a George Rogers and a Mary Ann Pritchard in the last quarter of 1894. What I haven't been able to find however are any entries for Sarah Rogers' death.

I have now ordered a wedding certificate for George Rogers and Sarah Hiley (if indeed they were married) and a birth certificate for my great grandmother Mary Jane. At least these should shed some light on what has become quite a mystery.