 The Rowbottom Family
Charles Rowbottom, the grandfather of Irene, Winnie, John, Warwick and Barbara, pictured below in 1945. was indeed a Yorkshireman - born in Sheffield two days before Christmas in 1866. His father was a John Rowbottom but John himself may have been either from Cheshire or from Derbyshire - we're still trying to find out - see below. Charles married Sarah Ellen Shepley on 17th March 1884 in Wombell, Yorkshire and they had three sons, all born in Pontefract, Yorkshire, Samuel, John Henry (1895-1959) and Frank (1897-1971) before sadly Charles died at the age of just 31 in 1897. So John Henry had few, if any, memories of his father and Warwick and his siblings never knew their Rowbottom grandfather. It's partly for this reason our knowledge of the Rowbottom history is not as complete nor as certain as some other parts of the family - though by Christmas 2023 we were making huge progress.
John Henry Rowbottom worked for the railways and work took him to Redditch for a time where he met Beatrice Young. They married in 1920 in Rotherham and settled there living at 129 Canklow Road next door to the shop. It's here, on the banks of the River Rother, or at the nearby nursing home, their five children were born, Irene, Winnie, John, Warwick and Barbara. Rotherham remained their home through the 1920's and 1930's. School was at Alma Road Primary School where they did well, especially Warwick - though one of Barbara's school reports had her as "Given to Chattering!". The older siblings would have left school and went to work whilst still at Rotherham. Winnie was in Service whilst John, aged 15, worked down the pits looking after the pit ponies. The family left Rotherham in 1939 and moved soulh to Redditch where Beatrice was from - along with her 17 brothers and sisters! John Henry's Brothers John Henry Rowbottom had two brothers, Samuel and Frank. Frank remained living in Yorkshire until his death in 1971. He married Agnes Morris in 1924 and they had three daughters Marion, Jean and Brenda. Samuel, the second brother is more of an enigma! According to Warwick he deserted from WW1 and changed his name to White so as not to be found. True? Unlikely we'll know for sure. Tracing the Rowbottoms back further We are 100% sure of the Family tree back to Charles Henry Rowbottom and his brothers Miles and John. We are less confident of the generations before that but are still working to check its accuracy. We know for sure Charles Henry's father was John Rowbottom but who was John's father? There are a couple of main possibilities:
Option 1 John Son of Miles! John Rowbottom was born in 1843 in Charlesworth, Derbyshire, the son of Miles Rowbottom and Amelia Nield. John himself married Emma White and together they had three sons Charles Henry, Miles and John. Sadly Emma died just after John was born and John went on to marry a Mary Ann Marsden (tbc). From the records this all seems plausible. DNA also aligns with this showing three matches for Lynette - two reasonably strong DNA Matches with descendants of John's sister Nancy and one more tenuous match with a decendant of Miles' brother Edwin. There is a fly in the ointment though - Lynette's DNA does not match with two people we are fairly sure are descended from Miles and that we are in touch with - Jackie Boon and Kevin Forbes Mitchell. These would be fourth cousins so it's not guaranteed a match would be shown - but surprising there is none nontheless. Here is a chart showing both the the DNA matches and Gaps Option 2 John Son of Cordingley!!
The potential for ambiguity is clear. Both Johns were born in 1843, both married a Mary Ann and both had a Charlesworth connection. What compounds the uncertainty is that Lynette's DNA has thrown up matches to this version of events as well - through the descendants of Cordingley's daughter Martha, John's sister, and through the Jackson family via Mary Ann Thornley. Combined Tree. The DNA matches are all real but in many cases they are very small levels of matching. What this all may highlight though is the need to be cautious over the proposed family trees showing the connections to Lynette. These are provided by Ancestry's "Thrulines" and are only as good as the Family Trees entered into Ancestry. So beware reading too much into them. It's fascinating nonetheless. What follows was written before the DNA results came back and is mainly favouring the "Son of Miles" option. We'll contnue to update the page as more evidence comes in. Some distant relations In October 2023 we came across two distant relations on Ancestry from the Rowbottom and Shepley families. The first was Clair Gillman who explained she was a fourth cousin to Lynette's father Warwick and of course to Irene, Winnie, John and Barbara too. She helped us extend the Rowbottom family tree back a couple of generations to Joseph Rowbottom (1803-1850) Lynette's 5x great grandfather and Clare's 3x GG. A family tree showing the connection is available here. Clare helped point us in the direction of the burial place of Lynette's 4x and 5xGreat Grandfathers Miles and Joseph Rowbottom. "Hi Steve, my great great grandmother Martha Elizabeth Gillman (nee Rowbottom), and her father, Joseph Rowbottom (me and Lynette's shared ancestor) are buried at St John the Evangelist (Parish Church of Charlesworth), Derbyshire. Lynette's ancestor, Miles Rowbottom (my great great grandmother, Martha Elizabeth Rowbottom's eldest brother), is also buried here."
And finally we dixcovered a third and fourth, Jackie Boon and Kevin Forbes-Mitchell - both fourth cousin to Lynette - it took a while to contact them but when we did it raised a question - see below. Their connection. But then we remembered a fith, Paul Johnson, who we were in touch with a while ago - his conection is through the Shepley family as well. So putting these together the links are Lynette-Paul-Nikki and Lynette-Jackie-Kevin-Clare. St Johns The Evangelist, Charlseworth Following the really helpful input from Clair we looked in more detail at Charlesworth and got in contact with the church. We obtained tremendous help from Carol, the Church Warden at St Johns in tracking down some of the family graves from the burial registry. We're already planning a visit there for next year!
G We also received confirmation of this information from Steve Hoon, another church member "Dear Steve (and Lynette), I have only just picked up your query re. your family history enquiry. I apologise. I am our church web editor (amongst other things!) so I can see ACN emails but don't get an automatic feed to my personal inbox (email as here). However, I have found details of the Rowbottom family covering the period and antecedents that you are interested in. I'm not sure if we have a grave location plan as such, but I can check. I can ask our wardens. Not all of the graves are marked and the churchyard is now full soclosed, but freely accessible. But the good news is that I found Lynette's relatives, and others besides. They should crossmatch with the families listed in the 1851 / 1861 / 1871 censuses. I attach a pdf printout from my / the church burials register. You may of course have seen these entries already,, but the Rowbottom family, their general location and the personal tragedies they are likely to have suffered are all deducible from this. I am a keen family historian myself - so I'm always happy to assist in such matters. I find that these records give me an insight into real lives, often with sadness, but also tenderness too. If you are far away I could look for the Rowbottom graves and send you photos if the grave stones are still accessible and legible. Do contact me via this e-mail if I can assist you further in any way. Best wishes, Steve" The DNA investigation We had extended the Rowbottom tree far further back than before and we were thinking of planning our trip in the Spring to Charlesworth but one or two things seemed uncertain. We previously had Charles Henry's mother as Mary Ann Thornley but Jackie Boon pointed out the marraige records showed that the John Rowbottom that Mary Ann Thornley married had Cordingly Rowbottom as his father. We looked around and with help from Clare Gillman saw that Charles Henry's mother was an Emma White instead. Our searching led to a more recent inconsistently - baptism records for Lynette's grandfather John Henry Rowbottom showed his DOB as September 14th but on the 1939 census records it was Sept 22nd. We had to obtain his birth certificate. Gratifyingly this confirmed that his bithday was indeed on Sept 22nd - the baptism record was wrong! We guess it was because the date of the baptism was a Sept 14th and the vicar abscent-mindedly put that for the birth as well. In the meantime to resolve the various uncertainties Lynette had a DNA test. This helped confirm some links through to Miles Rowbottom but also produced some inconsistencies - people like Jackie we expected a DNA match to but there wasn't one.. See here for the DNA matches - puzzling? In summary Lynette shows three DNA matches to other descendants of Mile and Amealia Rowbottom but there was no link to two people we had been in contact with - Jackie Boon and Kevin FM. Perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised - research elsewhere shows that the probability of not finding a link to a fourth cousin, which is what they are, is 30%. Nonetheless more work is needed and here are some notes on the outcome of the DNA investigation! It's work in progress. Documents & Pictures Birth certificate of John Henry Rowbottom
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Rotherham
In this option John Rowbottom was born, also in 1843, in Hollingworth, Cheshire, the son of Cordingley Rowbottom and Maria Beswick. John, a policeman, married Mary Ann Thornley from Charlseworth in 1866. By the time of the 1961 census, 5 years prior to the wedding, Cordingley had moved the family to Whitfield, Glossop which is just 2 miles from Charlseworth.
