CHAMBERLAIN/MORGAN (General)

by Morgana, Tuesday, August 05, 2014, 19:50 (3757 days ago) @ MPGriffiths

Yes, William married Mary Catherine Bockman. I'm not too sure about the 'merchant' bit - he had followed his father into the Navy and had then risen into the service of the Admiral of the Fleet as Secretary of the Jamaica Squadron. He was then involved with provisioning in Portugal at the time of the Peninsular War (perhaps that's where the merchant comes in) and was praised by Castlereagh. I have details of the Chamberlain family, but it's the Morgans I need to trace. Family stories say that John Morgan professed to being a cousin of Jane Morgan of Tredegar and that her marriage to Charles Gould and his subsequent adoption of the Morgan name to enable the title and property to stay in Jane's family had cost him his inheritance. The marriage of Anna and Sir Henry, by the way, took place in Rio de Janeiro. William's son, another John, was British Consul there and Sir Henry was posted out there.

I have begun trying to track all mention of Morgans anywhere in the 16th and 17th centuries and sorting out which branch of the Tredegar line they might have come from, but of course after all this time the records cannot be easily slotted into branches because of gaps in information. The first William Morgan was born in the Vale of Evesham and I have identified 3 or 4 families of Morgan in the area near Pershore. He may have moved to the Forest to be near other Catholic families connected to Tredegar. The Morgans at Lydney were part of a Tredegar spinoff and the Winter/Wintour, Hopton and Baynham families were related by marriage. Of course, I may just be clutching at straws here. Also, the mention of burials at Machen, although unproved, would be a pointer if true.

I've been working on the tree for about 5 years now - fortunately I have got a lot further with William and Mary Catherine's granddaughter-in-law, a Portuguese Brazilian from a very highly placed family, so it hasn't all been brick walls. Very many thanks for your interest, I just hate to be beaten!