The Family Tree

The Bowers family


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The Bowers family of Wicken (a small village South West of Soham, South of Ely) in Cambridgeshire features in my ancestry during the mid-1800's. The earliest record that I have so far of their existence is an entry dated 27th October 1832 into the marriage register from St. Lawrence's Church at the East end of the village.

The marriage was of Henry Bowers (b.1812) and Ann Bailey, both of them being in their late teens at the time. This is followed by an entry in the baptism register of their daughter Emily Bowers in the following February of 1833. There are a further six more of their children recorded in the registers - the last being in 1855 - my Gt. Gt. Gt. Grandmother - Ann Bowers. She is noted as being 12 years old when she was finally baptised. By this time, her father Henry Bowers had come to an untimely end due to tuberculosis at the age of 35 and her mother had remarried.

Daughter Emily and son Maurice both had emigrated to Australia by September 1857.

By the time of the 1881 census, Ann's mother and her second husband, Jackson Layton, were living in Burwell, Cambridgeshire at Guinea Hall. Ann was married to James Simpson Bishop and was living in Wicken High Street with 10 of their eventual 15 children.

Ann's sister, Sarah Bowers married George Farby of Little Thetford but the couple did not have any children of their own. When Ann (Bowers) died, she left her husband James Simpson Bishop with a young family. Sarah and her husband helped to look after the children and earned themselves the affectionate title of Grandad and Granny Farby.

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