Strover family in Medway area

[Jonson1]

Hello

Looking through old Rootschat and Rootsweb 'posts', a number of people seem to be interested in the Strover family centred around the Gillingham, Chatham and Rochester area in Kent. Through marriage. one branch of the family became Lords of the Manor of West Court, Gillingham, and others had naval and East India company connections.

My ancestor was Thomas Strover (c.1760-1813) who some think started his working life in the naval dockyards at Chatham.  he then spent some years at Deptford as his older children were christened at St Paul's Church there, beginning with Maria in 1788.  He probably married his wife Mary Jones (c.1772-1839) in 1787/1788 when she would have been only about 16 years old.  Around 1800 he moved to Plymouth where he became the dock timber merchant at the Devonport naval dockyard.  He died in 1813 aged 53 which means he was born around 1760.

Our branch of the family have portraits thought to be of Thomas and Mary Strover and an old family tree showing Thomas to be the son of John Strover and Anna Searle of West Court, Gillingham.  I have my doubts about this, but there is a family connection in that Samuel Rogers Strover (1784-1853), grandson of John and Anna Searle and later owner of part of the manor of West Court, married two of the daughters of Thomas and Mary Strover, Mary Ann and Harriett.  They are thought to have been cousins.

The IGI is not helpful on the births and marriages of a number of the Strovers shown on my old family tree and I am having difficulty in connecting my Thomas Strover to the rest of the family.  I wonder whether there are a number of parishes in the area not covered by the IGI, or whether there are MIs, etc that might help me in my quest.

Any help would be most appreciated.

John

[bearkat]

Parish records for the Medway area (not including Deptford) are available to view on MedwayCityark

http://www.rootschat.com/links/0bl/

They are not indexed so can take some searching but it is a fantastic resource.

[Jonson1]

Thanks for a quick reply - I'll give it a go.

John

[Jonson1]

Further to previous 'post', I have had success with your suggestion of MedwayCityark so thank you again.  Thomas Strover was baptised on 2nd Dec 1759 at St Marys, Gillingham, the son of Thomas and Rebecca Strover.  This Thomas Strover was the brother of the John Strover I mentioned before and is also shown on the old family tree.  The person who did the tree put the wrong brother as father, and of course the IGI was not much help.

Looking at the images of the original registers gave me a much better idea of the Strover families in Gillingham at that time and also a picture of life there in the middle 18th century.  A lot of soldiers were quartered in the area.

Best wishes
John 

[bearkat]

Glad you found what you wanted.

There's nothing like seeing the original records.  People researching in Medway are very lucky.

[richard4914]

I have recently discovered that my wife's 3 x great grandfather was Samuel Rogers Strover and we have found your recent comments very interesting.  I would be pleased to receive any additional information you have on the Samuel Rogers' ancestors.

Richard

[Jonson1]

Hi  Richard

Have been having some success in finding out more about the Strover family and their origins in the Medway area.  Through GenesReunited and other sources on the internet, I am in touch with three other people who are actively researching the Strover family.  We are particularly interested in Samuel Rogers Strover's father, John Strover (1752-1815), who was captain of the Essex, an East India Company ship, in the 1780s and 1790s.  He had a few interesting voyages and someone is transcribing his journals at the moment, although I don't know whether he will be publishing these.

Samuel Rogers Strover was married three times and has a lot of descendants.  Do you know which one of his marriages your wife is descended from?

There seems to have been some intermarrying between the Strover family and the Rogers family and it is difficult to find the correct story.  It is known however that the manor of West Court, Gillingham passed from the Rogers family to the Strover family and that Samuel Rogers Strover was eventually part owner of the manor.

We are still working on all this and there is a lot of information, some of it dubious!

John

[richard4914]

Hi John

My wife is a descendant of the marriage between Samuel Rogers STROVER and Mary Ann STROVER (believed to be his cousin); their son Thomas Rogers STROVER; their grandson Frederick Reginald STROVER and their great grandaughter Florence Mabel STROVER - my wife's paternal grandmother.

We would be very interested in any more information that you may have on this line of the family and in particular Florence Mabel who we understand to have disappeared shortly after my wife's father was born in 1910.

Richard

[Denise Ford]

John

Re the East India Company & The Essex - have you been up to the British Museum in London to view their ships records?  Worth doing if you can get there - the Captain's Logs are available to read (the actual books themselves, not microfiche).

I got a lot of information for a relative of mine from the log (including the longitude and latitude of his burial!)