STERRY Ruardean Woodside (General)

by peteressex , Friday, August 24, 2012, 22:03 (4469 days ago) @ mrsbruso

It's difficult to be exhaustive because you'll find a spread of Sterrys around Awre, Blakeney and Viney Hill without Blakeney Hill being a specific parish, and also because the Sterrys from around Blakeney gravitated towards Lydney as well as finding themselves registered under Westbury-on-Severn. Parishes, free church outfits, and registration districts have all evolved gradually.

However, I would say broadly speaking the Sterrys from the Blakeney area are from the Minsterworth tree. Apart from earlier links by a DNA sample recently provided by a Minsterworth "Sterrey" in Lydney, which proved the Minsterworth-Longhope connection, the progenitor of the Minsterworth line is Richard Sterry who died at Awre in the early 1820s after marrying at Minsterworth in 1794. As far as I know, his only male child who survived long enough to have children of his own was William Sterry who lived around Blakeney, and his son Richard was born there (c. 1823) and died Lydney 1894.

You would need to search the parish records on here for all Sterrys, with first names, in whom you are interested from your Blakeney Hill angle, and see to what extent the search comes up with births, marriages and deaths in the Blakeney area. You could then duplicate your searching on www.sterryworldwide.com.

At all events I don't immediately recall any Longhope or Ruardean Sterrys being recorded in the neighbourhood of Blakeney Hill. I do know of a mystery interloper in the form of a Sterry at Oaklands Park, Blakeney in a late 19th century census who was put down as a grandson of the Crawshay mining and ironfounding dynasty who owned the place and were, as they say, worth a bob or two.

Richard of 1823 had children by three wives. I think the first wife (Elizabeth Stidder) probably died in course of giving birth to an only daughter. The second (Caroline White) bore him a son whose family broadly speaking settled at Primrose Hill before moving down into Lydney. The third (Eliza Jay) bore him two sons at Lydney, the younger of whom had the misfortune (did he but know it) to be my great-grandfather. Descendants of these second and third marriages continue to inhabit the Lydney area in numbers.

I do remember a thread on here in which there was an enquiry about "Sterry Cottage" somewhere near Viney Hill, and I went after it but didn't find a connection. I can't pretend to have gone after every Sterry from the Blakeney area, especially where female children might have had children out of wedlock. However, I do know that prolific childbearing took place around there. For example, Mary Ann Sterry, a daughter of the William mentioned above, married into the Turley family and ran up approximately 13 kids, and they lived around Blakeney although the births are registered under either Awre or East Dean.

Anyway the short answer is that any Sterrys of Blakeney Hill were probably of the Minsterworth tree.