Whenever I visited my Auntie Marie Talbot, two things always caught my eye. The
first was a superb grandfather clock, with the faces of the Moon, that stood in
her hallway. Secondly was a faded photograph of a Victorian family in their
Sunday best under a walnut tree. I concentrated on the photograph because it
looked so familiar. 

Straightaway the fob of the watch the young lad standing at the back had in his
waistcoat pocket caught my eye. It was just liked the one my grandfather, Jim
Lowe had left to me when he died in 1972. Looking about 14 in the picture and
born in 1882 meant that the picture must have been taken about 1896.

As I looked closer I was sure that the photograph was taken under the walnut
tree in the field just behind 151 Trench Road. 

Who then were the other children and were the proud parents really my great
grandfather and grandmother. 

Auntie Marie quickly ran through the names of the 11 children, Henrietta
standing on the left followed by Thomas, Joseph, Philip James, Elizabeth, Jack
and Sabina Jane (her mother) whilst Caroline and William sat with their 
parents,
and Blanche and Nancy sat in front. 

My great grandfather was Joseph Lowe and my great grandmother Sabina Shepherd. 
I
have taken her line back through her father William Shepherd and mother
Elizabeth Poppit to William's parents Isaac Shepherd and his wife Anne Rogers
from Little Wenlock in the 1690's as far as Joseph Sheppard and his wife Anne 
Jones.

William was a Chartermaster (pit boss) of a coal mine in Donnington Wood
killed when the crank broke on his winding engine in Feb 1859 throwing him 200
feet into the air. Many of my relatives lived and died in those early East
Shropshire coalfield pits.

Other ancestral lines going back several generations have brought in families
including the Kinseys, Lathams & Browns of Eyton and Trench Farm, the Poppits ,
originally from Montgomeryshire, Shepherds from Little Wenlock, Easthopes &
Matthews from Dawley and Lavenders from Sussex in 1560. I have followed their
descendants throughout England even to America & Australia.

My paternal ancestors, the Skellons, have been traced back to my great great
grandfather Francis Skellern and his wife Nance, all within a few miles of
Sandbach in Cheshire. It seems that many of my ancestors were involved in the
production of salt by boiling brine. The frequent change of spelling over the
years has made this quite difficult and the same people can be found at times
called Skellern, Skellan, Skellorn and even Skelhorn.

My paternal grandmother Florence Allcock took me to her parents Joseph Allcock
and his wife Adah Garner. An internet search found a reference to an Allcock
family tree taking the Allcock line back through 9 generations to George 
Allcock
back in the early 1700's.


Research has added other ancestral lines including Gibson, Stubbs, Bostock from
the Sandbach and Warmingham area, Brough from Colwich in Staffordshire and
Garner in Rempstone, Nottinghamshire and Wymeswold, Leicestershire

On my wife Krystyna's side, a family party in London ended with me on the 
carpet
writing on the back of an old sheet of wallpaper as her Sudol family called out
names and relationships from the Polish side. Soon I was receiving information
from the family in Poland who were spurred to tracing their relations. This 
tree
quickly stretched to over 140 people and they have since produced a booklet 
with
details and photographs of many of them.

The whole tree now contains almost 8500 names, through 18 generations back to
1470, with 1300 surnames covering 1800 marriages so far.

I hope that this family history will be a valuable souvenir for the whole 
family.