Descended from angels

My mother used to tell me I came from the angels.  I used to think, what is she talking about? Then, years later when I began to research my family tree, it all became clear.  I knew Mum’s Mum, my grandmother, Harriet, was born in Pembroke Dock, Wales in 1893. Digging deeper I discovered Harriet’s maternal grandmother, Mary Ann, had been born in Plymouth, Devon but moved to Pembroke Dock with William, her seafaring father, and family in the early 1800’s.  Researching William’s line revealed that his mother was called Ann Angell, so Mum had been right about our “angels” connection. What I didn’t discover until later was that this line had links to royalty!

Many hours tracing this Angell line further revealed an amazing account of this Angell family. I was to discover that in the 1600s a John Angell held several privileged positions including that of Acatery at Windsor Castle being responsible for purchase and storage of perishable goods such as meat, cheese, vegetables and eggs and also Verderer, a judicial role being responsible for the maintenance of law and order in the royal forests. I believe this John Angell was my 9x great grandfather. John and his wife Elizabeth were blessed with twenty children although only nine survived to adulthood.

One of John and Elizabeth’s daughters, Mary, married John Hardware of Peele Hall, Tarvin in Cheshire. Sadly, shortly after their first child was born, Mary’s husband John died. Her mother Elizabeth, doubtless anxious to comfort and support her daughter, made the long journey (almost 250 miles) from Crowhurst, Surrey to Tarvin.  However, in March 1661 only a month after Mary’s husband John’s death, Elizabeth also tragically died.

This story has stayed with me, partly because it is so sad, but also because it happened so close to where I now live.  I wondered whether Elizabeth was buried in the churchyard at St Andrew’s Church, Tarvin but when I visited, I could find no graves of that era. However, something made me take a quick peep inside the church and where to my astonishment on the south wall of the church I found a very old wooden plaque dedicated to the life and death of Elizabeth Angell!  A truly remarkable find. 

The plaque reads: “Here lyeth y body of Elizabeth wife of John Angell of Crowhurst in the county of Surrey Esq & only daughter of Sir Robert Edolphe of Hinxhill in the county of Kent. She bore unto the said John Angell 20 children but left after her alive only 9.  6 sones: William, Robert, John, James, Justinian & Thomas and 3 daughters: Mary, Thomasin and Frances. She dyed 16^th March 1661 at Peele Hall, being aged 62 years"    

Elizabeth Angell raised her family in Surrey but died in Tarvin, Cheshire in the 1600’s. I relocated from Somerset to Cheshire in 1980’s.  Was it a co-incidence or fate that led me to end up living a stone’s throw from my 9x great grandmother’s resting place?

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Sources: Ancestry, Family Tree sites, National Archives, Cheshire Archives and speaking to my family.