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George
Long
Ellen
Stentiford |
I knew for certain that I did not resemble any of my father's
family who came from London, but as I grew older, I came to look more
like my mother and her younger sisters. My mother's father was John
Snell Parkhouse from Ashreigney. He married Elizabeth Ann Long from
Chawleigh, the daughter of George and Ellen (née Stentiford) Long.
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John
Parkhouse
Elizabeth
Ann Long |
A young second cousin of mine prompted my interest in
family history; he was never able to get his head around the
relationship between his grandfather and myself.
So I set myself the task of putting it all down on
paper with as many photos as I could find of every family member. They
say a picture is worth a thousand words so I thought that by doing it
that way, he would be able to put faces to names and that the whole
thing would be more understandable and a lot more interesting.
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Charles
Isaacs
Gertrude
Parkhouse
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It
was while I was assembling this collection of photographs and
information that I became interested in where the Parkhouse family came
from, and who our ancestors were.
Initially
I did very well and found that the first relevant record in the
Ashreigney Parish Records was dated 1700. The next family that I looked
for were the Longs. My grandmother's father - George Long - was born in
South Tawton, and it is there that his family can be traced back to the
1700s.
I
imagine that it was the search for work that brought him to Chawleigh
where he met and married "Ellen" Stentiford. |
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Reginald
Norton
Doreen
Isaacs |
Now
this is where I met my first stumbling block. Every document I examined
named my Great Grandmother as "Ellen". So I started to look
for "Ellen " Stentiford's birth certificate and it took many
hours of searching before I discovered that she was baptised
"Victoria Ann Ellen Stentiford, born 1 Dec 1844 in Coldridge -
Mother's name Ann".* This was the next stumbling block. Which Ann?
The search was frustrating so I put everything to one side.
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