Lee Family Website
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.
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.
Family-Tree Portfolio: John LEE (1761-?) + Elizabeth STOORS (1760’s-?)
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.
Family-Tree Portfolio: William LEE (1789-1847) + Sarah WILLIS (1798-1864)
Benjamin Lee was born in June 1830 and by age 11 was living with his parents William Lee and Sarah Willis, 2 sisters and 2 brothers in Kempsey, Worcestershire. His brother William’s grave is shown here. While working as an agricultural labourer he met a local servant girl, Elizabeth Price. They married when he was 22, lived their whole lives at The Common, Kempsey and managed to produce 11 children.
Family-Tree Portfolio: Benjamin LEE (1830-1910) + Elizabeth PRICE (1831-1906)
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. As far as I can discover 4 of those 5 boys did not produce any direct male descendents.
Family-Tree Portfolio: James Price LEE (1856-1942) + Sarah Jane BLOCKSIDGE (1856-1935)
John Joseph (Jack) Lee, my grandfather, was born on 31st May 1896 to parents James and Sarah at 1 Grand Junction Wharf, Brentford End, Middlesex. At the age of 23, he married Violet and eventually set up home at 276 Lionel Road, Brentford. He worked as a turner and store manager where he lost an eye in an accident. He had 3 daughters but one died young and 2 sons, only one of whom, my father, went on to have children. Pop Lee lived to the ripe old age of 95.
Family-Tree Portfolio: John Joseph LEE (1896-1992) + Violet Harper FREEMAN (1898-1982)
Douglas Norman Lee, my father, was a bomber pilot during WWII, was shot down over Berlin in 1942, and spent the rest of the war in a prison camp where he studied a correspondence course to become a qualified accountant. On returning home he immediately married his childhood sweetheart and purchased a newly built house at 72 Windmill Lane, Southall, Middlesex. He continued as a pilot for a while then got a job as an accountant at Fuller’s Brewery in Chiswick. They had 2 children, me and my sister Diane, but he run off before I was born with a woman he met at work and played no part in my upbringing.
Family-Tree Portfolio: Douglas Norman LEE (1920-2010) + Doreen Ellen BOAKS (1921-2002)
Ian David Lee, finally me. I was educated at Chiswick Grammar, as was my father and studied chemistry at Hull University. I was a science teacher but crossed over into IT when computers appeared in the 80s. Like my father, I also married my childhood sweetheart and have just 2 children (we now had freely available birth control). Both are girls, so it is the end of the Lee line from James. Maybe his 6 brothers produced surviving male descendents. However, in the true spirit of the 21st Century, both of my daughters have kept the surname Lee and one has passed it on to both of her offspring Benjamin and Eleanor Lee.
Family-Tree Portfolio: Ian David LEE (1950-) + Joan BEESLEY (Burnett) (1951-)
Family-Tree Portfolios
By visiting the Family-Tree Portfolios listed above, you can see more details about the people and use the links that are provided to follow through the generations on both the paternal and maternal branches at any point.
Full Family-Tree Flowcharts
| IAN’S FAMILY TREE |
| PATERNAL: |
 LEE (1710+) |
| LEE (1856+) |
| BLOCKSIDGE (1695+) |
| DICKINSON (1890+) |
| FREEMAN(1866+) |
| FREEMAN/RILEY (1760+) |
| BROADLY (1887+) |
| PEARCE/URWIN (1883+) |
| MATERNAL: |
| KING (1826+) |
| BOAKES (1635+) |
| BOAKS/MUMFORD (1793+) |
| BOAKS/KING-2 (1900+) |
| JOAN’S FAMILY TREE |
| PATERNAL: |
| BEESLEY (1710+) |
| BEESLEY (1794+) |
| MATERNAL: |
| WALKER (1878+) |
| HOWARD/WALKER (1907+) |
Our family tree so far covers ten generations and obviously touches many families, the ‘Quick Find’ below will download the earliest flowchart pdf file containing the surname you select: