Susanna Green (1844-1920) – a marathon journey to Utah

Susanna Green (1844-1920) and Henry Gillins (1840-1919).My 3rd great-grand aunt and uncle. Susanna Green was born on 10 May 1844 and baptised at St Nicholas’s Church in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, on 9 June. Her parents were William Green and Willoughby Staff. She spent her childhood in the town but after the death of her father […]

Willoughby Staff (1803-1886) – a journey to the USA as a Mormon

Willoughby Staff (1803-1886) and William Green (1799-????). My 4th great-grandmother and grandfather. Willoughby Staff may have been born in rural Norfolk but she ended up as a member of the Mormon church in the American state of Utah… Her birth, though, is a bit of a mystery. Census records suggest it was Hickling, a village to […]

William Budgen (1820-1864) – killed on the railway

William Budgen (1820-1864) and Amy Frith (1826-1921). My 3rd great-grand uncle and aunt. Baptised in Worth, Sussex, on 6 February 1820, William was the son of William Budgen and Sarah Rice and would meet a gruesome end. But that was some years after he married Amy Frith, the 18-year-old daughter of a gamekeeper, on 6 April 1844 […]

Peter Finch (1845-1891) and his well-travelled son Henry

The Aorangi

Peter Finch (1845-1891) and Eliza Esther Turner (1841-1895). My 2nd great-grand uncle and aunt. Born in 1845 to parents Henry Finch and Jane Bashford, Peter could well have been the twin of his brother George as they were both baptised on 15 June that year at St Mary’s Church in Reigate, Surrey. And he ended […]