My Family Tree
There are a number of heraldic coats of arms attached to the Lee family. There is no proven connection with our family but I am told that the second one originated in Shropshire, England and recent generations of our branch of Lee's originated from Worcestershire before moving to London. Welcome to my family tree. My daughters and I started researching my family history around the year 2000. The tree now contains a lot of people. In order to respect the privacy of living family members you will find several individuals where no or limited information is provided. If you are included but would like to be removed please accept my apologies, email me, and I will remove you. If you are a family member and would like a copy of the full family tree then please email me. If you have any information that will help me in my genealogical research then I would love to hear from you. Our family tree so far covers ten generations and obviously touches many families, the 'Quick Find' below will open the earliest pdf file containing the surname you select:
The earliest records show that my branch of the Lee family were from around the 1760s agricultural workers starting with John, who may have lived around Upton-upon-Severn in Worcestershire or in Worcester itself. His son, William moved village by village up the Severn valley and ended up in Kempsey, four miles south of Worcester. In the 1880s, one of his many grandsons, James moved from there to Birmingham and then to Middlesex (West London) looking for work. John Lee was baptised in January 1761 and baptised at St. Swithin’s, Worcester. At 26 he married Elizabeth STOORS. They had only two children Martha and William. Elizabeth died at age 66 in Upton-upon-Severn just two months after her son was married, so that may be were they lived or she just moved there to live with with her son after John died. (There is another record for a John Lea, same age, born in Bromsgrove, Worcester and married to Mary, with son William baptised January 1791 who married Sarah Willis) William Lee was baptised in January 1789 (age 50 in 1841 Census!) and worked as an agricultural labourer. He was married at age 37 to Sarah Willis from Earl’s Croome, a village north of Upton-upon-Severn, just before her 28th birthday. Four months later she had a baby girl at her home, where they may have lived for a while. They then moved to Severn Stoke, a village further north for maybe 7-8 years, where they had another girl and 2 boys before moving north again to Perton around 1835 where they had another boy. Finally, by 1841 they ended up in Kempsey, a village four miles south of Worcester.
James Price Lee was born on 28th February 1858. He lived with his parents Benjamin Lee and Elizabeth Price, 6 brothers and 4 sisters on The Common, Kempsey, Worcestershire. When he was older he moved to live in Lozells, Birmingham to find work and this is possibly where he met Sarah Jane Blocksidge from Stirchley, Shropshire; whom he married in 1880 at the age of 22. By 1885 they had 2 children, Edith and Benjamin, and decided to move to London to find work. James managed to get a job looking after horses at Brentford Wharf, then in Middlesex, west of London. The wharf was situated where the Grand Union Canal meets the River Thames and would have been a very busy place in those days with horse-drawn barges and wagons coming and going throughout the day. They lived at the wharf and following his parents' sense of procreation had 7 more children - now 5 boys and 4 girls, one of whom was my grandfather John Joseph (Jack) Lee. As far as I can discover none of those 5 boys produced any direct male descendents other than me. I have just 2 children, as we now have birth control in this century. Both are girls, so it is the end of the Lee line from you James, sorry. Maybe your 6 brothers produced surviving male descendents. However, in the true spirit of the 21st Century, one of my daughters has kept her surname Lee for herself and for both of her offspring Benjamin and Eleanor.
Imagine you were born in 1900. When you're 14 World War I begins and ends at 18 years old with 22 million dead, among them possibly your father, uncles and brothers. Shortly after, a global pandemic Flu called 'Spanish', kills 50 million people. You come out alive and free. You are 20 years old. Then, at 29, you survive the global economic crisis that started with the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange, causing inflation, unemployment, and hunger. At 33, the Nazis come to power in Germany. You turn 39 when World War II starts and ends at 45. During the Holocaust, 6 million Jews die. There will be over 60 million deaths in total. Your sons would probably have been conscripted into that war and may not have returned. Then civil unrest and wars for independence from the British Empire errupted in Africa, Asia, and the Far East so National Service continued until 1960. Other family links: freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~wemckenzie Useful related links:
www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl 1837+ Expeditions | Family Tree | Paddy |
