A family history
of the ancestors of Andrew Wager
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The history of this family is typical of many of the people of this country. Some
of the lines have been traced back to the middle of the 17C - just about
to the time of Civil War. There are no famous people, and indeed, the
majority are agricultural labourers, living in typical obscurity in
Shropshire, Norfolk and other counties in the south and midlands of
England. There is a leavening of coal miners, a brewer and publican or
two. Very few of them were rich enough to leave wills (although the
wills there are provide much insight into their lives), and few of them
got into trouble with the law. As a result they left few traces.
However, there is still much of interest both anecdotally, and as a
snapshot of the social history of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. The sections below provide a guide to the material
 | General Ancestry describes the
genealogical listings that are the main description of the family
history |
| Locations discusses the geographical
scope of the histories |
| The First Five Generations provides
a start to the family history in the form of a 5 generation pedigree
chart. It fill the gaps not covered by the notes in General
Ancestry. |
| Detailed Studies provides some
links to more detailed studies of the various branches of the
family. In some cases these are |
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General Ancestry
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The family history listings reached from
this page cover the ancestors of my 16 great-grandparents. This is hyper-linked
so it is easy to move from generation to generation. It is accessed from
the following:
| an index
of surnames |
| an index of persons
- reached directly, or from the index of surnames |
| a list of
sources |
The people in the study have been selected from a larger database
using the following criteria
| The individuals who are my direct ancestors have been
selected. |
| Myself, my parents grandparents and great-grandparents have been
omitted. |
| There are 138 individuals remaining, of which there are 16 wives
whose surname is not known. |
| The families of those individuals have been selected and all the
know children of those families included. |
| Additional spouses (previous or later families) were added making
532 people in 85 families. |
The way in which you can navigate around this family history is described
on a separate page |
Locations
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My parents and I were born and brought up in Sheffield. None of my grandparents
were actually born there, but they spent most of their married lives in
that city. So that we think of ourselves as being Sheffield people.
However, we have been there for only a couple of generations. Before
that,
| the Wagers came from Brentford in Middlesex, and before that from
Painswick in Gloucestershire |
| the Lawleys from Leighton Buzzard in Hertfordshire |
| the Chesters from South Shropshire and the Forresters from North
Shropshire |
| the Cliffs and the Heafields came from NE Shropshire and the
adjoining parts of Staffordshire |
| the Pearsons and the Butters were from central Norfolk - now the
Breckland |
The study of these families - at least over the last five generations
- is a study of the way in which the forces of the agricultural and
industrial revolutions drove people away from the land and into the
cities. |
The First Five Generations
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These are named on the ancestor chart below.
My great-grandparents have all been dead for long enough that I do not think that they
would object to the publication of their basic details - public domain material relating to their birth, marriage and death.
Elsewhere in this study, there is no information about anyone in my grand-parents generation. I have a great deal of material about that generation and later but it
is not in the public domain. If you want to discuss it, then please contact me.
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Detailed Studies
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There are more detailed studies of various branches of the families.
Some of these can be reached from hot links on the chart above. They are
also listed here
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