Does anyone know of a good Travellers site (family history site that is!) - does one even exist?
Have found one of my Rowlands was "given to the gypsies" aged 8 years when her mother died and research shows she was. She was reunited with her family as an adult and described a very happy childhood with visits also from her original siblings and her surname had become Rowland-Smith. She married a John Wesseldine and had several children. The lady who brought her up was a Beatrice Smith who was married to an unknown Wesseldine and it was their son that Alice Emily Rowland married.
Alice's original parents (unmarried until 1893 i.e. 3 years before she died) were Richard Fergus O'Connor Rowland b 1877 Long Buckby, Northamptonshire and Alice Packer. Alice had 2 children also who were not Richard Rowland's children and a Will Smith may (not proved) have been involved somewhere - perhaps he was the father of the two children who did not belong to her eventual husband.
Can my family get any more complicated?
Sue
Have found one of my Rowlands was "given to the gypsies" aged 8 years when her mother died and research shows she was. She was reunited with her family as an adult and described a very happy childhood with visits also from her original siblings and her surname had become Rowland-Smith. She married a John Wesseldine and had several children. The lady who brought her up was a Beatrice Smith who was married to an unknown Wesseldine and it was their son that Alice Emily Rowland married.
Alice's original parents (unmarried until 1893 i.e. 3 years before she died) were Richard Fergus O'Connor Rowland b 1877 Long Buckby, Northamptonshire and Alice Packer. Alice had 2 children also who were not Richard Rowland's children and a Will Smith may (not proved) have been involved somewhere - perhaps he was the father of the two children who did not belong to her eventual husband.
Can my family get any more complicated?
Sue
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