Welcome to two new members who have joined the Sole Society with an interest in the Sewell name, Naomi Linnell and Moira Greenwood.

Naomi Linnell is trying to trace Esther Frances Sewell her paternal grandmother’s direct descent. Esther was born about 1860 most likely in or near Wexford, in Ireland. Naomi knows that Esther was descended from Robert the son of Sir Thomas Sewell who I have written about on more than one occasion. Robert married Sarah Lewis and their son Henry Frederick married Esther Dawson. Naomi believes that Esther is the daughter of their son Henry Robert William Frederic (Henry R W F) who was baptised 14th May 1821 in the British Chapel in Calais. Although we have a lot of information on his father and indeed the whole family we have almost nothing on Henry R W F. Naomi’s grandmother told her that her father had settled his wife and two small daughters on a ‘poor farm’ near Wexford town, while he was away at sea. After leaving the navy he went to Australia looking for gold. He was said to have found a great deal but on the way back to England the ship went down in the Red Sea, with all hands, except for the ships cook. Esther and her sister with her mother then moved back to Liverpool.

Moira Greenwood has only recently joined and so I look forward to hearing about her area of research.

Ron Sewell joined the Sole Society a few months ago and I omitted his research details from my last report. Since then I have heard from Ron that his Sewells come from Cambridge. Ron had got back to John Sewell whose age in 1841 was given as 70 living in Caxton. From then Ron has found the records confusing with the same names appearing in several dwellings and ages not tallying. Ron thinks that John came from somewhere Caxton. I have to agree with Ron some of the Caxton/Croxton records are confusing, particularly as the name often changes from Sewell to Saywell and back again. Our records show that John born about 1769 died in 1843 in Caxton, the 1841 census of course only show that he was born in Cambridgeshire. John’s son William born about 1805 in Croxton married Mary Ann. They had seven children and Ron is descended from their son John born 1832 Caxton who married Mary Shadwell in 1855.

Apart from answering and researching queries, I have to admit I have not done much research on the Sole Society records for a while. I took out the time to research my mother’s side of the family. However since Christmas I have been busy going through some of our records in particular looking at families in our records where the earliest person in a family starts in the mid 1800’s. I have made a good start with the London and surrounding area records. While there are many Sewell families in London before the 1800 I have managed to trace several families back to their original counties. This is always difficult as many families moved around a great deal. I think the record goes to a family originally I had starting in Lambeth. With a bit of digging around looking at census records I found Thomas Sewell had been born in Leeds in Yorkshire. Thomas married Emily Bristow from Dalston, East London in March 1861 in Hoxton, I found the banns were called twice, in October 1860 and again in February 1861. Thomas and Emily’s first child was born in Dalston, in between the banns being called, they then moved to Lambeth in south London, where their second child was born.

The family then moved to Ipswich in Suffolk where two more children were born. They were then off to Yorkshire to Sheffield for the birth of their fifth child. The last child I have found was born in St Albans in Hertfordshire, and to commemorate the fact he was named Thomas St Albans Sewell. I have also been making good use of the parish records on ancestry.co.uk. They have been particularly useful in making sure we have the correct connections as well as finding other children and fathers of married couples.

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