Ancestors Abound

William George White (1832-1901) was my mother's maternal granny's father, so one of my great-great-grandfathers. I guess the locket will have belonged to his wife, my great-great-grandmother, Anne Maria Barnwell (1830–1893). With the gemstone facing out, her husband's photo lay close to her heart.

Wm Geo was a grocer in Kensington, London. His mother, Jane Neal (b. 1811), was the eldest of nine children whose father, Joseph Neal (born 1776 in Brampton, Northants) farmed 200 acres in Lathbury, Bucks. His maternal grandmother was Elizabeth Bunting of Long Buckby, Northants. (So Joseph and Elizabeth were my great-great-great-great grandparents.) Joseph's parents are named on his baptism register entry as James and Jane Neal, together with a sister (twin?) called Winifred, so James and Jane must have been born in the mid-1700s, presumably in Northants. These are two 'new' names that I added to my family tree last week, found while researching thru the Ancestry.co.uk site.

So I decided the well-whiskered 'Grandpa White' - as he was known in my mother's family - deserved a place on my blip today. (Suitably small for 'Tiny Tuesday'!)

William George (and a number of members of the Neal family) are buried in the Southern Cemetery, Manchester, so the family certainly moved around.

My sister has a sampler that Jane Neal (Wm Geo's mother) – are you keeping up? – embroidered when she was a child. As she had eight siblings, I wonder if there are members of the Neal family still living in Northamptonshire. If you happen to know of any with an interest in family history, I'd love to hear – this being such a small world, an' all!