RONS-2008

The fifth ROWBERRY Family Gathering was held over the weekend of Friday 18th to Sunday 20th April 2008. As usual The Hundred House Hotel at Great Witley provided our base, as we followed the career of Emanuel ROWBERRY from his birth and baptism at Hallow, through his apprenticeship at Royal Worcester to his marriage at Tenbury and finally his move to Stourbridge.

Sadly most of us did not make that last move, we lingered too long over the wonderful Sunday Roast lunch and it was too late to get there by the time that we had finished!

Now I have recovered, hopefully I can begin to pick up the threads and post a little more often to this Blog.

The end of the tail...

Today sees the publication of the final episode of The Mysterious Case of the Vanishing Cat: in Search of the Real Procol Harum and you can see the complexities of the ROWBERRYs which Marcus Gray had to unravel, with a little help from the ROWBERRY ONS!

A cliff-hanger!

Well I suppose all of you who have been looking at this Blog will have given up by now, thinking I had abandoned it for good! Not so, but this year has been a very busy one for me in many ways, leaving the minimum of time for family history, which was expended on the day-to-day running of the ROWBERRY One-Name Study, and there just wasn't time to keep the Blog updated.

My apologies to anyone still left out there along with a promise to try harder in future!

There are many stories to tell in order to catch up, but here is a timely one to start with.

Towards the end of July 2007 Marcus Gray sent me an email with the Subject "Tracing a Rowberry" which began:

Hi, Polly Rowberry,

I was wondering if you might be able to help me?

I'm trying to trace a David Rhys-Rowberry who would now be in his sixties or maybe even older.

No suspicious motives: I'm researching the life of a pedigree cat (of all things) for a magazine article, and the records show that Mr Rowberry and his then partner Elisabeth Coombs were the cat's owners back in 1965, at which time they lived in Hampstead, London.

The cat was a pedigree Blue Burmese named Procul Harun and was the inspiration for the name of the band Procol Harum best remembered for their hit Whiter Shade of Pale.

As it turned out I was able to help Marcus and the resulting article is being published on the Beyond the Pale website to celebrate its tenth anniversary. But as it is, as its title suggests, a tale of "wondrous complexity", not to mention "scholarship", it is being loosed on the world in episodes. Today has seen the release of episode two, which ends:

My searches also throw up Nicky Rowberry’s 'Peasants to Puddles' family history site. Rowberry is not a common name, apparently, and has strong links to the Hereford area. As Hereford abuts Wales, that might explain the ‘Rhys’ and perhaps even the location of Ian Marchant’s meeting with Ash. There’s no mention of a David Rhys-Rowberry on the site itself, but I e-mail Nicky David and Elisabeth’s details along with an age guesstimate. She can’t help, but suggests I try another Rowberry family historian named Polly Rubery …

This is the first (and probably the last) time that I have ever been a cliff-hanger!

Enjoy the tale (or should that be tail?)!

First yDNA test results

The first, partial, test results for the yDNA Project have been posted on the ROWBERRY Group page. Whilst not complete they are exciting in that they show that the yDNA of the ROWBERRY alias GOMERY Family indicates an Anglo-Saxon origin.

As the first documented bearers of the name in the Herefordshire/Worcestershire area were Manorial tenants wealthy enough to be taxed two shillings in the 1327 Lay Subsidy, this seems to be a reasonable theory. It will be interesting to see what further test results show.

The latest periodical check of GenesReunited showed 79 entries, of which 3 were replaced previously removed entries; 8 were additional entries posted by people already contacted and the remaining 68 were posted by 14 new contacts. Many of these have replied with a mutually benefical exchange of information.

Henryk GORA 1923-2007

As mentioned in a previous post (Catching up) Ted ROWBURY's brother-in-law Henryk GORA, known as Frank or sometimes Henry, died recently on January 17, after suffering a stroke the day before. Ted has sent this brief note of his life:

He was born 2 May 1923 at Podgrodzie, Poland to Kazimiesz and Zofia GORA. In 1942 his family were hiding at night in the forests as people were being rounded up for work in the concentration camps. During that year while on his way to college Henryk was caught and taken to Dachau concentration camp in Bavaria.

My brother told me that Frank had told him that when he first got taken to the camp he was given a number and told to stand in line with others.

An old man who was standing nearby took this number and stood in the line and told Frank to move away as he was old and Frank was young.

It was a line to the gas chambers.

Even in those terrible conditions there was still compassion from one to another.

Here he was put to work in a factory making spark plugs for engines. He told me that they would sabotage them so that they would not work. When I asked him what would happen if they were caught he said they would have been shot but it was no big deal as they had a terrible life and spoiling the plugs gave them something to hopefully help to win the war.

After they were liberated in 1945 he joined the Polish Army and was then transferred to the British Army. Eventually they were asked which country they wanted to go to so Henryk came to England. He was at Manchester first where for a short time he worked for ICI.

After a time he came to Birmingham and met my sister Joan ROWBURY. They were married on the 22 Mar 1952 at Birmingham Register Office, but did not have any children.

After a short time he started work at James Booth Aluminium where he worked for over 30 years. He was Naturalised on 25 Oct 1960. He was a very keen gardener and a couple of days before he died he was doing bits and bobs in it.

He was a great person to be with and I spent many happy hours in his company.

At Frank's funeral as we were leaving the church the organist played You are my Sunshine. Afterwards Frank's God-daughter asked Joan why that was played as it was her father's favourite song.

Joan told her that when Frank and Johnnie (her father) were in lodgings together in a friend's house the friend had a young daughter and she taught them both the words.

It was the only song that Frank knew all the words to and it was also his favourite.

This made everyone smile on a rather sad day.

ROVERY mystery solved

Somewhat busy with work, although just about managing to keep up with answering the query emails that have been received over the past two and a half weeks. Also managed another GenesReunited update on Saturday February 3 when I found 42 new entries, 29 of them posted by 11 new contacts. Have heard back from 7 of these, and while all were able to help in their own way one gave me some very useful and interesting new information relating to the ROVERY of Sussex Tree. This solved the mystery of who did Thomas ROVERY marry in the Tonbridge RD in 1838, and where did his son Frederick in the 1841 census come from?

The answer was that he married Elizabeth KNELLER (maiden name WALTER) and Elizabeth had a son Frederick Rovery KNELLER baptised 18 Jun 1938 at Speldhurst, Kent just before her marriage to Thomas, although no father's details are given. She then died in 1839.

There is a 13 year old Frederick KNELLER born Speldhurst in the Tonbridge Workhouse in the 1851 census, and with him is a Thomas KNELLER aged 15 born Speldhurst. Thomas KNELLER is Elizabeth's son by her first husband, Thomas KNELLER, and he was baptised 7 Aug 1836 at Speldhurst. In 1841 Thomas KNELLER is in the Tonbridge workhouse with his sisters Mary (11) and Rosina (10).

Neither of them can be found in the censuses after 1851, although a Frederick KNELLER married Dec 1861 in the Tonbridge RD.

But as so often happens solving one mystery finds another! On 12 Feb 1837 Susanna Rovery KNELLER was baptised at Speldhurst. She was the daughter of David KNELLER and his wife Emma KNELL. The census shows that she had an older brother Edward, who married a Sarah Frances TESTER (Sep 1855 Tunbridge) and then they had a son Edward Rovery KNELLER baptised 3 Feb 1856 at Speldhurst (Mar 1856 Tunbridge. Why these children had Rovery as a second forename is not immediately apparent.

Catching up

Well over a week has passed whilst unable to post, due first to pressure of work and then to losing broadband in the storms of last Thursday. During this time have heard that two Y DNA Test Kits have been returned to FamilyTreeDNA. Now to await the results!

Have also received enquiries about the Y DNA Tests from a few other people, so hopeful that some more will be ordered soon.

Other emails include two from fellow researchers who have found R entries in the course of their own researches; confirmation of William ROWBREE's place of residence (Gresford) from the Thetford RD Marriage Challenge; some sad news from Ted Rowbury that one of his brothers-in-law has died; one email enquiry; two email updates; five general emails from Rs; one email offering copies of two R death certificates; one from a fellow GOON about a query for ROBREY in Ross in this month's Family Tree Magazine and finally one in reply to a contact sent through GenesReunited on 10 Dec 2006.

The postman brought some splendid cuttings from a New Zealand magazine showing Anna ROWBERRY's new baby - they will go alongside similar previous ones detailing her wedding in Fiji to Jeremy STANLEY [New Zealand Family, ROWBERRY Tree Two].

Finally time once more for the periodic check of new R entries on GenesReunited. Again (amazingly!) found 70 new entries of which the majority were added by previous contacts. Found 10 new contacts who between them had added 19 new entries. Emailed them all and have already heard back from seven of them. Several have been able to fill in details on their trees - however small these are all very useful.