Alan March’s Family History
This site is a work-in-progress. There is a massive amount to cover. I have included both male and female lines, and some go back many generations. Keep coming back for more.
I have numbered the generations working backwards from Alan’s as (1)(1)
SIMON ROFFEY and SARAH GOLDSMITH (7)
SIMON ROFFEY. Simon’s age at his burial tells us that he was born in 1759-60. At the time of his marriage he was living in Beddington, but we have not found a plausible baptism for him, there or elsewhere.
If he was not born in Beddington, then he moved there before he was married, and brought up his family there.
This is not the Beddington in Sussex, 40 miles south. Beddington in Surrey was a village 2 miles west of Croydon. It is now part of the parish of Wallington.
His son James became an agricultural labourer, and then a shepherd. It is likely that Simon also worked on the land.
Church of St Mary, Beddington[1]
SARAH GOLDSMITH. We know from Sarah’s burial that she was born in 1768-9. Since she was married in Ewell, this fit well with the following baptism.
Baptism. St Mary, Ewell.
1769 Jan 6 Sarah the Daughter of John and Mary Goldsmith was baptised Jan 6th.
There is a succession of five baptisms for children of John and Mary Goldsmith, beginning in 1765, of which Sarah’s is the second.
These follow the wedding in 1762 of John Goldsmith, yeoman, of the adjacent village of Cuddington, and Mary Goldsmith, of St Edmund the King, City of London. But the picture is complicated by a second marriage, of John Goldsmith, bachelor, and Mary Shepherd, both of Ewell, in 1767. Either of these could be Sarah’s parents. There is no obvious evidence of two such families being raised in Ewell at the same time, but nor is there evidence that one partner died.
Both Simon and Sarah came to adulthood at the time of the French Revolution, which began in 1789. It caused considerable alarm in Britain, which feared that this country might go the same way.
On 6 Feb 1798 Simon Rofee of Beddington with Wallington married Sarah Goldsmith of Ewell in her parish of Ewell in Surrey. Ewell is 5 miles west of Beddington.
We have 3 baptisms in Beddington.
Baptisms. Beddington.
1800 Dec 14 John
1803 Apr 17 James
1811 Jun 28 Maria
The long gap between James and Maria makes us wonder whether there were others.
They raised their family during the French Revolutionary War against Napoleon. There was much fear that England would be invaded. This ended with Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815.
Simon was buried at St Mary, Beddington, on 2 Mar 1826 aged 66.
Also in 1826, Richard Roffey died in Beddington, aged 68. He could be Simon’s elder brother.
There is also the possibility that Mary Roffey who died there in 1811 aged 76 was their mother.
Sarah died three years after Simon. She was buried in Beddington on 14 Jun 1829, aged 60.
[1] https://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-environs/vol1/pp49-67,
NEXT GENERATION: 6. ROFFEY-HERSEY
PREVIOUS GENERATIONS: