Ari’s 6x great-grandfather John Sims was born in Heage, Derbyshire, in 1775 and baptised on 17 July at St Alkmund’s Church, Duffield. His parents were Samuel Sims and Mary Smith. Sheep grazing in the snow, below Heage Windmill On 19 May 1807 John married Sarah Badder at Bradley, near Ashbourne. They had a daughter, Sarah in 1810, and then John’s wife Sarah died in January 1815 just after giving birth to a son, John. Derbyshire, England, Church of England Burials, 1813–1991, o

John Sims was Ari’s 4x great-grandfather, born in Yeldersley, Derbyshire, in 1843 and baptised at the church in Bradley on 23 April. His parents were farmers Samuel Sims and Harriet Goodall, and John was their fourth child. Baptism record, Derbyshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1916, Ancestry.co.uk When John was five, his little brother Samuel died. The 1851 census shows John as a scholar, and the 1861 census gives no occupation for him. No doubt he was working

Thanks to the very helpful service provided by staff at the Derbyshire Record Office at Matlock, I now have some more information about Thomas Murfin. They were able to send me four pages. One was the Register of Removals, Discharges and Deaths, which says that he was admitted to Mickleover Asylum on 1 April 1896 (so he was in the asylum for three years). The record says that he died from tuberculosis of the lungs and cerebral degeneration, and the archives assistant who sent

Site of one of the goals for the annual Ashbourne Shrovetide football match, which dates back to the seventeenth century Ari’s 7x great-grandmother Mary Pegg was born in about 1733, probably in or near Ashbourne in Derbyshire. She is one of the ‘newer’ (i.e. older) ancestors that I have discovered by writing this blog. So what do we know about her? If there is a record of her baptism, we should expect to find it on Ancestry.co.uk, in the collection Derbyshire, England, Church

Joseph Goodall was Ari’s 6x great-grandfather, born in 1758 in Bradley, Ashbourne, Derbyshire and christened on 5 October at All Saints’ Church. His parents were William Goodall and Mary Pegg, who had married in Ashbourne earlier in 1758. We know that Joseph was a farmer, from his daughter’s marriage certificate, but there are no other records to confirm this. In about 1801 he married Ann, and their first daughter Hannah was born in 1802, followed by Fanny in 1804, Elizabeth

Samuel Sims was Ari’s 5x great-grandfather, born in 1817 at Morley Park, Ripley, in Derbyshire. Coke iron furnaces at Morley Park, c.1780 and 1818. Built for Francis Hurt. Samuel was the oldest son of John Sims and Ann Slater, and Samuel was a farmer like his father. In 1837 Samuel had a son, Samuel Salt Sims. The child’s mother was Elizabeth Salt. I don’t think they married, or if they did then Samuel didn’t tell the truth when he married Harriet Goodall on 6 June 1838 at St