My 8 great grandparents
My 8 great grandparents
To complement the 16 great grandparents threads
Some of us may not have been able to go back to our 2 x great grandparents and find all 16 of them.
I thought I’d start another thread for the next generation - our 8 great grandparents. I never met any of them however my parents are still here and I have one or two stories from them about their grandparents. I’ve added a short bio to each one.
I used DNA Painter to create the following image (I like the clear and simple layout).
Paternal
Starting with my paternal side…
Percy Stuart Cox (1868-1929) and Naomi Edwards (1881-1956)
Percy and Naomi were second cousins and he was 13 years older than her. There’s a lot of information about their wedding and I’m planning a separate article about that.
He was Editor of Queen Magazine (now Harpers and Queen). Both came from wealthy families. They lived in Woking in Surrey and sadly Percy became ill with cancer. They moved down to Sussex as the air was ‘better’. He died very soon after the move. Naomi built a house nearby for my grandparents and that’s where my father and his sisters were born. Naomi’s sister Vivian moved into the house next door to my grandparents and lived there until her death in 1972. I don’t remember meeting Auntie Viv as I was quite young when she died but I always knew of her.
John Berkeley de Fonblanque (1888-1963) and Dorothy Isobel Cattley (1881-1941)
JB, as I refer to him, was apparently the first specialised divorce solicitor in London. I have his books of press cuttings of the cases he worked on, or was interested in, dating from the 1920s. My father remembers travelling to London as a small boy and seeing him in his study surrounded by papers. That was the only time he met him.
Dollie was born in St Petersburg, Russia where her father and other family were part of the “English Merchant Circle”. Her grandfather was physician to the Tsar.
Theirs was not a happy marriage and after having 3 daughters they divorced and Dollie remarried to Allan Leslie. Unfortunately this second marriage was a not a success either and JB supported Dollie in later life.
Dollie was killed in the blitz in 1941 when a bomb fell on Clarges Street in Mayfair, London.
Maternal
All of them came from Scotland.
Archibald Simpson (1871-1964) and Margaret Japp (1873-1955)
Archibald Simpson was a shoemaker with a shop in Laurencekirk.
They lived in a house called Beattie Lodge and had 4 sons. My grandfather David was number 2.
Margaret’s family came from Montrose and had lived there for 8 generations, several of which specialised in furniture making (and I have a Davenport desk created by the Japp business).
I have Margaret’s diaries for several years in the 1950s. She wrote about every day life, the weather, the letters sent and received, visitors, hanging out the washing and life in Scotland. Archibald continued them when she died.
My mother remembers being very fond of her grandpa and I have a photo of them together when she was a teenager.
William Dey (1870-1951) and Mary Hosie (1868-1945)
This is the line I know least about.
William ran a wine and spirits shop in Aberdeen and they lived in Nigg.
There was some sort of falling out between my granny and her brother over an inheritance and she never spoke of him.
However I have traced quite a few DNA matches on this line.
In conclusion
So do any of these names ring bells? I look forward to reading about your 8.
Fabulous to have the photos. I wish I had more of mine.
Wow, so great to know so much about them, and to have photos.