RootsChat.Com

Dear Chris

I have just joined roots and coincidentally visited St John sub Castro Lewes yesterday.  Especially interesting as an ancestor Peter Guerin Crofts built the present church (and less creditably demolished the previous one).  (PGCII's eldest grandchild was Blanche Crofts, she married my great-grandfather Samuel Tristram - they both lie buried at Sompting, where I've just been replanting their graves.)

You say, re photos of memorials and re burial transcriptions etc there,  "Dont worry if you cant get to the Church - all this information is available to you right here in the comfort of your own home through Rootschat.com and the Sussex Boards."  Being a novice I have been unable to access this, can you please point the way?

I have a fair amount of collateral info about these relatives (including some portraits), so it will be fun to put it all together.

There are a lot of Croftses on the registers of nearby Barcombe village (and one at nearby Hamsey) but I have not been able to establish any connection between those and the St John sub Castro / Malling House / Ringmer & Uckfield / Sompting Abbotts line who are detailed on my family tree.   All clues gratefully received.

I am finding it hard to trace the Crofts family prior to Peter Guerin Crofts I's father John.  I have plenty of information about the Crofts/Tristram family at Sompting West Sussex but nothing solid prior to John Crofts who married Daniel Le Pla's daughter Ann. 

One of the earliest Crofts references I have relates to John Crofts who bought Heene House (near Worthing, West Sussex, previous generation to the family's purchase of nearby Sompting Abbotts), and his father James Crofts Kt was said to have been in the Duke of Albemarle's regiment, but there the trail peters out.

A family portrait of John Crofts I's family was described in a sale catalogue as 'of Saxham Parva, Suffolk', and our Croftses crest at least has 3 bulls heads in common with that on the Saxham Parva website [plus we have the addition of a lion, and a dog on the top - might these indicate the point of departure from the main Saxham Parva line?].  But, I have not been able to trace any direct connection with the Saxham Parva lot who had apparently died out in the C18.  Maybe there was a genuine link - or maybe the connection and even the crest was adopted in order to beef up our lot's pedigree!  Either way makes a good story but I'd like to find out which...

I hope to be able to put together a pretty thorough story about this Crofts line, as part of the history of the land they owned at Sompting, and will be grateful for any pointers. 

Thanks,
Mike