Sidney Alfred Parsons and his Ancestors

Margaret Parsons née Rogers (1847 to 1903)

Margaret was the wife of James Parsons who was an uncle of Sidney Alfred Parsons, the person at the root of the family tree described in these web pages.

Margaret was born in 1847 in the village of Mottisfont on the River Test in Hampshire, about 5 miles north of the town of Romsey and 13 miles north-west of Southampton. Her father James was a builder and carpenter and Margaret was the sixth of her parents’ eight children. James had married Margaret’s mother Sarah Farrell in Portsmouth in June 1830 and brought her to Mottisfont where he had been born and grown up. James’s father John Rogers, who was a carpenter, builder and wheelwright, had also been born in Mottisfont (in 1769) as had James’s mother Margaret (née Mathews) whom John married there in 1797.

Margaret’s grandfather John Rogers had been moderately wealthy. In his will, dated 1837 and proved in 1844, he left three cottages in Lockerley, two in Kings Somborne, and two in Mottisfont to his three daughters and to his son James.

As a young girl Margaret spent some time living with her uncle and aunt John and Sarah Green in the nearby parish of Michelmersh. Sarah was her father James’s sister and her husband John Green was the miller in the hamlet of Kimbridge. Margaret’s older sister Ann also spent time living away from her family — she was with her uncle and aunt John and Mary Bailey in Romsey.

Some time in the 1850s Margaret’s family moved from Mottisfont to Lyndhurst in the New Forest, seventeen miles away, where her father James at first continued in his trade of carpenter and wheelwright. Margaret moved to Lyndhurst with them but when she was old enough to leave home she became a domestic servant to an undertaker and upholsterer in Southampton.

Margaret’s father James died in Lyndhurst on the 4th of May 1974. In his last few years he had become an ironmonger. His widow Sarah moved to Southampton where she lived with Margaret who by then had left domestic service and was working as a dress-maker. Sarah died eight years after her husband, in the latter part of the year 1882.

Soon after her mother died Margaret fell pregnant. Her son Frederick was born in September 1883. Margaret did not name the father when she registered his birth.

Just under three years after her son was born Margaret married James Parsons, a coachman and groom who had been born in Somerset. Their wedding was on the 28th of July 1886 in the parish church at Bishopstoke, near Southampton. Several of James’s brothers and sisters had also moved to the Southampton area and his sister Elizabeth and her son William were present and witnessed the signing of the register.

Margaret and her husband James settled in the new and growing town of Eastleigh near to Bishopstoke. They had no children but Margaret’s son Frederick soon took the surname Parsons.

On Christmas day 1893 Margaret was in Marston Magna in Somerset when her husband’s father Edward Parsons died. James may well have been with her but it was Margaret who registerd the death.

In 1903 Margaret developed cancer and on the 3rd of December, at the age of 56, she died in hospital. Her husband James died ten years later, suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

Ancestors of Margaret Rogers


Parents
Father — James Rogers, a master carpenter from Mottisfont in Hampshire
Mother — Sarah Farrell, originally from Portsea (Portsmouth) in Hampshire

Grandparents
Grandfather — John Rogers, a wheelwright from Mottisfont
Grandmother — Margaret Mathews, also from Mottisfont

Grandfather — Henry Farrell, who lived in Portsea
Grandmother — Sarah, Henry’s wife

Great-grandparents
Great-grandfather — Stephen Rogers, from Mottisfont
Great-grandmother — Martha Harrington, from Broughton in Hampshire



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You are free to make use of the information in these web pages in any way that you wish but please be aware that the author, Mike Parsons, is unable to accept respsonsibility for any errors or omissions.

Mike can be contacted at parsonspublic@gmail.com

The information in these web pages comes from a number of sources including: Hampshire County Records Office, Somerset Heritage Centre; Dorset County Records Office; Southampton City Archives; the General Register Office; several on-line newspaper archives; several on-line transcriptions of Parish Register Entries; and several on-line indexes of births, marriages and deaths. The research has also been guided at times by the published work of others, both on-line and in the form of printed books, and by information from personal correspondence with other researchers, for all of which thanks are given. However, all of the information in these web pages has been independently verified by the author from original sources, facimile copies, or, in the case of a few parish register entries, transcriptions published by on-line genealogy sites. The author is aware that some other researchers have in some cases drawn different conclusions and have published information which is at variance from that shown in these web pages.