Peasants to Puddles
My Family History - By Nicky Rowberry

The Brookes Family of Mordiford in Herefordshire

I've spent many years researching my own Brookes family in Herefordshire, making the occasional note of other Brooks or Brookes, but not paying them much attention. But recently a DNA test indicated that our Brookes family was related to a hitherto unknown Brooks family with descendants in the USA. This set me on a quest to link up the two families, so I started searching the Herefordshire records for Brooks/Brookes references. While still no closer to finding the connection I was looking for, I started to build up a large amount of information about other families. So in the hope that this information might be of use to someone out there and that maybe in turn someone can help me find my "missing link" I thought I'd start putting some other Brookes trees up on the Peasants to Puddles website.

So this is the second of those trees - I've called it the Brookes family of Mordiford, just because Mordiford is the village in Herefordshire where many of the early generations lived, although latter generations obviously spread out from there.

The first definite person in this tree is James Brooks who was born in the latter half of the 18th century. I'm fairly sure this James Brooks is the one who married Ann Apperley in 1794 in Fownhope and subsequently had children first in Hampton Bishop and then in Mordiford. James died in 1827 in Mordiford and left a will in which he names his wife Ann, his sons James, Henry & Charles and his daughter Alice Symonds. The image below shows part of his will from 1827.

On his burial in Mordiford, James was said to be 63, which would put his birth about 1764. By far and away the most likely birth is that of a James Brooks baptised in 1770 in Mordiford to Richard & Elizabeth Brooks. This would be a few years later than his age at death would suggest, but is close enough to be viable if not definite (so I've left it as a dotted line on the tree below).

Two of James & Ann's sons married and settled in Mordiford, each raising large families. Charles Brooks married Hannah Watkins and they had at least 8 children in Mordiford. James Brooks married Sarah Prosser in Yarkhill and together they had 10 known children who grew up in Mordiford. Many years ago I acquired a photo of my Corbett family who lived at Stallenge in Withington - with my Corbetts in the photo was a young man in navel uniform who had the name HMS Gladiator on his cap. I eventually discovered that this young man must be Arthur James Brooks who served on HMS Gladiator around 1900. His father was Charles Brooks one of James Brooks and Sarah Prosser's children and he was a neighbour of my Corbett family. Here is the photo with Arthur James Brooks seated to the left.