Richard ELLEY b1812, Berry Hill, West Dean. (Parish Records)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Sunday, October 08, 2017, 20:58 (2596 days ago) @ Brenda Hughes

Hi Brenda,
thanks for that. Re my post, I'm afraid due to my own mistake it was meant to have been posted earlier today and so before you came back online, and to cap that I only posted half of what was intended, I've just finished adding some more links to prior related threads, but for ease of your reading I'll add the rest of my input on a separate post later. I'm afraid I'm not on the Genes Reunited site, altho' I may possibly get back to you via this forum if I get any particularly tricky queries. I must say how impressed I am that you were doing your research on this tricky line in the years before it got "easy" with internet coverage etc.
I'm just today revisiting my brother-in-law's rather sparse tree and filling in the MANY gaps (not helped by my old researches, incuding many newspaper articles, being unavailable to me at the mo). My Brither-in-law's mother was Olive May ELLEY, her mother Mary Ann Elley (also a lot of Marys in this tree !) married an ALBERT Hale at Christchurch in 1906. I think my Mary Ann ELLEY was born Berry Hill area c1884 to Mary Ann Jenkins of Varteg nr Pontypool who is the Widow WILLIAMS who married Richard Elley "Junior" in 1864, her first husband John Williams was buried at Christchurch aged 23 a few weeks after the 1861 census. Least I think that's how it is, these are far from unusual names, and currently I'm relying on free access sites eg FamilySearch. As you say, SO many second marriages in these mining families, shows just how dangerous it was for the men underground.
atb Jeff