Peter gave a really detailed illustrated family history talk with a local theme, based around his Deal ancestors. Sharing some of the quirks and coincidences that have come out of the research into the maternal line of his family which is primarily based in and around the local East Kent area.
While investigating his family history, he had noticed many coincidences, flukes and happenstances. He was born opposite the Drill Hall in Hope Road (formerly Grove Terrace) and that was where the ‘Hope’ in the title of the talk came from. His father’s family name of Rose came primarily from the Suffolk area but his grand-father William H. Rose, a Royal Marine, had moved to Kent and married a local girl in 1907, Emily Eliza Birch from Ripple. Emily had two brothers, Charles and Henry Thomvas (Tom) and both brothers married sisters from Goodnestone. Tom also had a successful military career, winning a military medal in WWI and becoming a Major, so military careers ran in the family. Further back in the Birch family, Peter’s 3 x great-grandfather James Birch married Ann Elizabeth Amos at Guston Church in 1814. Whilst Peter's two grandsons were baptised at Guston Church, before researching his family tree, Peter had never realised that there was a prior family link with that particular village church.
On his mother’s side, Peter’s maternal grandparents were Ethel Norris and Alfred John Easton. Alfred’s father Joseph Henry Easton (1855 – 1932) was born in Peckham and moved to Margate, aged 15, to live with his uncle and learn the trade of whitesmithing. The only surviving child from Joseph’s first marriage, Harold Victor, emigrated to Canada and worked as a printer (Peter was also a printer during his working life) – another coincidence? Joseph later became a licensee of the ‘New Inn’ at Minster with his second wife, mother-in-law and sister-in-law and there was a great picture of the pub and Joseph with a luxuriant moustache. The confectionary and tobacconist trade in Deal later beckoned for Joseph (with a shop near the library), a trade that Peter’s parents also worked in, at a shop opposite the Town Hall in Deal.
Ethel’s father, George Thomas Norris, was also an apprentice whitesmith but his career ended badly when he accidentally set fire to some gunpowder stored in the basement. He was severely burnt by the explosion but recovered although he was ‘not since employed by the owner’! George Norris also became a licensee at the Deal Hoy so being a landlord was a popular occupation within the family. George Norris and Joseph Easton became close friends over the years and the two couples are buried side-by-side in Deal cemetery – that can’t be common for many in-laws, can it? At The Chance Inn, Guston, run by Peter’s daughter and son-in-law, are many photos of Norris family members, a previous landlord of the inn – so another potential link between Guston and Peter’s family. With many more ancestors and great fertility on the Norris side, Peter’s expectation is many more quirks, similarities and chance occurrences in his future research.
Report by Lesley J Smith
Next Meeting
Tuesday 11th September 2018
How far did our ancestors travel by Ceilia Heritage