Hello Kerry
Thanks for that. I had looked at the Surrey Wills site but had overlooked the will of Miss Ann ROFFE which you have now come across.
As you say, not of importance to the TRAIES side but quite useful to Sigplat and myself who are also connected to the ROFFE family. (Brothers George and William Henry ROFFE had married two of the daughters of James TRAIES).
George and William Henry were two of three known children of John and Jane ROFFE of Tunbridge Wells. Sigplat was able to tell me that a John ROFFE and Jane SIMMONS had married in 1802 and John had been a widower on marriage. The eldest of their three known children was born in 1813 and we thought they could well have had other children as a nine year gap between marriage and first child was unusual.
An earlier marriage of a John ROFFE had taken place in 1785 and produced four known children including a Hannah. After reading the will that you found it now looks as if this first marriage also produced an (up to now unknown) Ann ROFFE who was the person who died in 1840 and whose will you discovered.
The will mentions her sister Hannah as well as her father John ROFFE and her mother in law, Jane. The term Mother in law in those times was usually applied to someone that we would today call a step mother. (By law once her father had remarried his new wife had become Ann's mother). This would seem to prove that the two marriages found were indeed for the same John ROFFE, making Ann ROFFE (the testator) the step sister of the ROFFE brothers who married into the TRAIES family.
Many thanks for posting that.
Bernice
