Cambridgeshire
(See the site map of Cambridge and district, on which most of these villages appear, and also the site map of Ely)

Bourn
My grandfather Edmund Cornwell's grandmother Frances Huckle was born in Bourn in 1828. When she was young the family moved to Cottenham, and married into the Cornells of Histon.


Dry Drayton

Both sets of my grandmother Winifred Ellen Reynolds's grandparents were living in Dry Drayton when she was born there in 1904. Her mother's side of the family stretch back through the parish registers into the 16th century. Her mother, Alice Mary Anable, was born in Dry Drayton in 1882. Alice's parents were Samuel Anable, born in 1849, and Lydia Stearn, born in 1856. Samuel's mother was Rachel Rodgers, born in 1825. The Anable, Stearn, Rogers and Chapman families had been in Dry Drayton for at least 300 years.


Duxford
Duxford was the birthplace of my great-grandfather Thomas Reynolds, who was born in 1880. Both his grandfathers, James Reynolds and John Carter, had moved their families to Duxford Grange for work in the middle of the 19th Century, the Reynolds from Great Sampford in Essex, the Carters from Shudy Camps in Cambridgeshire. The Reynolds and Carter families lived next door to each other at Duxford Grange, and two of their children, Thomas's parents, my great-great-grandparents Robert Reynolds and Mary Ann Carter, grew up there and married there in 1864. Robert and Mary Ann later moved their family to Dry Drayton, to the west of Cambridge.


Ely

See map. Ely is the heartland and touchstone of my family. Two of my eight great-grandparents were from Ely families of long standing. They grew up in the poor Waterside district of Holy Trinity parish. Their daughter, my grandmother Phyllis Alice Page was born in Back Hill, Ely, in 1913. her father Arthur Page was born in Ely in 1879 and her mother Sophia Cross in Ely in 1882. Sophia's father was Thomas Cross, born in Ely in 1852. In the historic parish registers of Holy Trinity parish, Cross is by far the most common surname. Arthur's mother was Alice Wiseman, born in Ely 1855. The 19th century censuses for Ely contain the names of hundreds of my family from the Page, Wiseman, Cross and Carter families. Later, all four of my grandparents would be living in or very close to Ely. My grandparents Vincent Helgia Knott and Phyllis Alice Page lived at Willow Walk from 1935 and then in Chief's Street from 1947 until their deaths in 1996 and 1990 respectively. My father was born in Ely, and so was I. You can see places significant to the Page, Wiseman, Cross and Carter families on the site map of Ely.


Grantchester
My great-great-great-great-grandmother Elizabeth Constable was born here in 1800. She married Henry Anable, and my great-great-great-grandfather William Anable was born in Grantchester in 1823. Two years later, his mother died in childbirth. Henry and William moved to Dry Drayton, where there were already other Anables, presumably relatives. William first married Ann Rutter in 1841, and after her death in 1847 he married Caroline Kester.


Great Shelford
My great-great-grandfather Henry Page was born in Great Shelford in 1851. In the 1870s, Henry moved to Ely. He was a stonemason, and was probably working on the restoration of the Cathedral. He stayed in Ely. Other page families in the city were possibly relatives.


Hardwick
My great-great-great-grandmother Caroline Kester was born in Hardwick in 1832.


Harston
My great-great-great-great-grandfather William Cornall was born in Harston in 1893. He was the first of the family to move to Histon, where the family would spend the next century or more. On the other side of the family, my great-great-great-grandfather Robert Page, grandfather of Arthur Page who was killed in the Battle of the Somme, was born in Harston in 1819.


Histon

This was the home parish of the Cornwell family. They had lived here for generations. My great-grandfather William Cornwell, was born in Histon in 1864. His father William Cornell was born in Histon in 1819.


Holywell-cum-Needingworth (then Hunts)

Needingworth is an important starting point for the Mortlock and Mansfield members of my family. My great-grandmother Eliza Mortlock was born here in 1865. Her mother Eliza Mansfield was born here in 1839, as was her grandfather Abram Mansfield. My great-great-grandparents Thomas Moody and Eliza Mortlock have an imposing headstone in the churchyard, and there are also memorials to several of their children. Mortlocks and Mansfields still live in the parish today. The parish church is in the village of Holywell, beside Needingworth


Little Thetford

A hamlet on the outskirts of Ely. My grandparents Edmund Stanley Cornwell and Winifred Ellen Reynolds lived in Little Thetford, first at Grunty Fen and then at Green Hill, from the 1920s until they died in 1951 and 1983 respectively. My mother was born in Little Thetford. I was baptised in the village church and spent the first three years of my life there.


Oakington

My grandfather Edmund Stanley Cornwell was born here in 1903. He was baptised in the church font on 27th September. His parents had moved from nearby Histon.


Prickwillow

On the outskirts of Ely, this was the original home for members of the Carter family, who married into my grandmother's ancestral Cross family. My great-great-grandmother Sarah Carter was born here in 1860.



Shudy Camps
My great-great-grandmother Mary Ann Carter, who married into the Reynolds branch, was born here in 1843.


Swavesey
My great-great-grandfather Thomas Mortlock was born here in 1842. The Mortlocks were an important non-conformist Swavesey family of farmers and millers; they had arrived in the village in the 17th Century.


West Wratting
My grandmother Winifred Ellen Reynolds was living with her family here at the time of the 1911 census.




Essex

Great Sampford

This small parish near the Cambridgeshire border was the home of the Reynolds family. My great-great-great-grandfather James Reynolds was born here in 1809, and my great-great-grandfather Robert Reynolds was born here in 1842. They both gave their birthplace in census returns as 'Old Samford', but both their births were registered in this parish. The family appear to have been tailors before leaving the village to work on farms in south Cambridgeshire. There are Reynolds headstones to the south of Great Sampford church, one to Thomas Reynolds, tayler and his wife Jane who died in 1851. He was probably the uncle of my James Reynolds.


Radwinter

My great-great-great-grandmother Abigail Darnal was born here in 1814. She married my great-great-great-grandfather James Reynolds here in 1832.


Sible Hedingham

My great-great-great-great-grandfather Daniel Harrall was born in Sible Hedingham in 1788, and baptised at the protestant dissenters chapel in neighbouring Castle Hedingham. He later moved to Kent, where his granddaughter Mary Ann Harrall would be my grandfather Vincent Helgia Knott's grandmother.



Kent
(See also the site map of the Medway).

Dartford

My grandfather Vincent Helgia Knott was born here in 1908. He was baptised in Holy Trinity church, but the family left Dartford soon afterwards.


Gillingham

My great-great- grandfather George Knott was born here in 1843. It was the home of the Knott family for many years, and my great-great-grandfather and most of his siblings were baptised here.


Greenhithe
The Knott family, including my grandfather Vincent Helgia Knott, were living here at the time of the 1911 census. They were back in Strood before 1914.


Faversham
My great-great-grandmother Mary Ann Bowles was born in the Mall at Preston on the outskirts of Faversham in 1843. Her father was from Faversham, and the family spent some years in the Faversham workhouse.


Frindsbury

The Frindsbury district of Rochester was home to my great grandparents George Knott and Mary Ann Bowles from the 1880s onwards. They lived in Grange Road, where they kept a small shop until about 1920. They had been married in Frindsbury in 1872.


Higham

My great-great-grandmother Mary Ann Harrall was born and baptised here in 1850. It was the home parish of the Martins, her mother's family. Her father, John Harrall, had come from neighbouring Hoo.


Hoo
My Harrall ancestors were from Hoo. Daniel Harrall, who had been born in Essex, moved here with his wife Sophia in about 1812 to take on the ownership of a farm of 40 acres. They were strict non-conformists, having their children baptised at the Dissenters' Chapel in Strood.


Lower Halstow

My great-great-grandfather George Waters was born here in 1849 and baptised in the parish church.


Newington

My great-great-grandparents George Waters and Mary Ann Harrall were married in this church on 15th October 1871.


Rainham

My great-great-great-grandmother Caroline Wells was born here. She married William Knott in the parish church in 1817.


Rochester
The urban area of Rochester includes Frindsbury, Strood and Gillingham, important places for the Knott family. Rochester was the place my grandfather called home. My great-grandparents William Knott and Mary Ann Waters both died in Rochester in the 1950s.


Strood

Strood, that part of Rochester on the far bank of the Medway from the city centre, is an important place for the Knott family - it was their home from the 1880s until almost the middle of the 20th Century. My great-grandparents William Knott and Mary Ann Waters were married in St Mary's church in 1892. They lived at various addresses in Cuxton Road and London Road, and then, after a brief sojourn in Dartford and Greenhithe, they returned to Strood before the First World War and spent the rest of their lives on Temple Street, which was demolished in the 1960s. Several of their children were baptised and married in St Nicholas's church.


Upchurch

My great-grandfather William Knott was born here in 1869.


Wilmington

My great-great-grandparents George Waters and Mary Ann Harrall kept the One Bull beerhouse in Wilmington, just outside of Dartford. George Waters died a few weeks after the 1911 census. Their granddaughter, my great aunt Daisy Knott, was married in the church a few weeks after that.


Wales

Denbighshire
My great-grandmother Mary Ann Waters was born in Llanferres to Kent parents in 1872. The family were back in Kent for the 1881 census.