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Hello to you Brushbroomstick,

We too are descendants of the Joseph Fletcher who married Ann Powis. Thereafter and up to date the records are clear and the family line directly traceable through the BMDs up to today. As you say its the generations before Joseph and Ann that are problematic. I suspect that Thomas and George are brothers or cousins and equally possibly the father of Joseph. But they are still 'family' and if you are working back in time then they are both from the same immediate family. I have been chasing the same line for sometime now and did hand search (online) each and every page of the Little Wenlock parish records for that time frame. In fact there are not many Fletchers there and the settlement is not that big. The parish register is quite well preserved as I am sure you know already.The family are Ropiers and this is directly mentioned under Little Wenlocks entry in British History online. The family I have are not originally from Little Wenlock. They are displaced during the English Civil War and are in Sutton Coldfield according to my research. Originally I have the family coming from Lapworth, displaced during the Civil War John Fletcher (being the father of George and Thomas Fletcher). Because the Civil War period is so difficult I pursued double tactics. Firstly I tackled the matter by looking at lineage (george son of........ etc and dates). Then I checked my findings by casting the net really wide and looking at all Fletchers for each time frame gradually reducing the the likely fits by dates, location so on and so forth. It has taken over five years but in the end I have the 'Best Fit' for the Civil War years and earlier. It might be all I can get but I can't help noticing that the settlement populations are really quite small and with only a handful of Fletchers which probably means that they are siblings or cousins (using the Consanguinity table).

I sincerely hope that the above ramblings are of help to you and wish you well with your research.

Hello Keyboard86...... and once again a huge Thank You for your help.

I have added the details in your post onto my tree and am chasing up the points made about Eleanor and Charles Paul.

Now that I can turn my attention to this one again I have just spent some time getting things into order. Because I was getting muddled I put each persons detail onto a printer label on the back of a playing card and together with some wildcard searching have managed to push the family in Madeley, Broseley and Little Wenlock back to 1694. Any time I find something I write the member on a card and keep it. This way I am starting to pick up cousins, siblings and second wives etc.

I have now got

A. Joseph F b 30/9/1792 (Madeley. Shrops) to Thomas F and his 2nd wife Sarah Morrell dau/niece of the verger/cleric.  Thomas F and Sarah M were married in Much Wenlock  2/3/1788. The first wife of Thomas F was Sarah Bartlam and they were married in Leighton  11/7/1785. I presume she died and have to check this yet.

B. Thomas F was b 24/12/1752 Little Wenlock to James F and his wife Elizabeth Evans who were married in Madeley 21/6/1747.

C. James F was bap 1/1/1724 Little Wenlock to James F and Elizabeth ?Beddoe. Broseley 22/9/1694.
James F (C) seems to be the second James to James (D) and Elizabeth Beddoe. 12/4/1718 an earlier son James was born, Little Wenlock and died. James F (C) also had a brother, Joseph, b 28/10/1722 Little Wenlock. James F (C) also had cousins Daniel, James, Ann and others who appear in my 'cards' in Little Wenlock and whom I am currently investigating.

D.  James F married Elizabeth Beddoe. Broseley 22/9/1694


I am now going to continue researching the Lapworth/Tanworth/Dudley angles because I suspect they were all known to each other.

This is as far as I have got Keyboard86 and Thank You for your help.

Kind Regards to you and Annette7

Annette7,

Thank You so much for joining in my family research. I am extremely grateful to you. The matter of Joseph and Mary Fletcher is a tantalising one. It seems that by 1850 various members of the family were in Aston, Birmingham or very close by (St Matins Church). As its the younger generation of the time it's probably for economic reasons? At the 1800 to 1822 junction my research hits the skids so I decided to investigate the matter based on other info as well. I took Dads trip and Grandpa Fletchers assertion that the family had come from Lapworth and checked out the Fletchers who are there from 1394 to 1790ish and following the new information given to me by the very kind Keyboard86 I checked out the Fletcher family in the very thorough Broseley Parish records and found a well documented branch of the Fletchers from 1690. But again the trail goes cold as the 18th century closes.

Overall it feels like the information is coming together and maybe it's going to be something like my branch of the Fletchers starts in Lapworth (at this stage I don't disbelieve the oral information) and that a branch/member relocates to Broseley or near by. Then by 1850 it is firmly in Aston/Birmingham central and the subsequent generations we have full knowledge and dates for.

So................. it's back to the gap at the beginning of the 19th century and some other work on social and economic events in 1690ish to see what might have caused a move from Lapworth to Broseley?

Thank You again Annette7 and also to Keyboard86 for giving this one a big push forward for me, any other thoughts you might have would be gratefully received.

Best wishes

Yes, you did and Thank You so much. It really starts to close the gap in time so Thank You once again for this amazing help. I will continue to drill down on this one unless you have access to anything more about Joseph and Mary Fletcher and prior to them.

Kind regards

Wow! That was quick. Thank you Phillip.

Earliest concrete Aston family member is a reference to Charles Paul Fletcher married down the road at St Martins Church in 1847 but somewhere there is a reference to his birth in Aston circa 1822. He is on the 1881 census aged 59 living at 19 High Park Street Aston.

Thank you for taking this up for me Phillip.