The Clements family of Cambridgeshire
The Clements family appears twice in my ancestry, and I have yet to identify a connection between them despite their close proximity in two villages in Cambridgeshire.
Both branches are from my maternal family tree, with one based in the village of Soham, just a few miles South-East of the city of Ely, and the other in the village of Haddenham - just a few miles West of Ely, in Cambridgeshire, England.
The earliest ancestors in both Clements family groups feel as if they are just one generation out from matching up.
Clements family of Soham
The Soham Clements family are my earliest Clements family group, making their earliest appearance in 1765, at the marriage of my 7x Great Grandmother Elizabeth Slack of Soham, to John Clements.
The family remain in Soham, with John reaching the age of 91 years - a very impressive achievement considering he died in 1831, when it was probably considered 'elderly' when you reached your 30s. Similarly, his daughter Elizabeth Clements - my 6x Great Grandmother, repeated the same feat upon her death in 1861.
Clements family of Haddenham
The Haddenham Clements family are a closer branch, but this one has an element of uncertainty, as it only appears briefly, (just two generations so far), and there's some contradictory evidence over the number of children - with their being a possible three Rebecca Clements - the middle one being my 4x Great Grandmother.
Whilst it's not impossible that my 5x Great Grandparents John Clements and his wife Sarah Edwards may have had three Rebecca's where the second one survived, and 7 years later they had their third one who didn't survive any longer than a few months, but something is not quite right with this branch.
My research treads carefully to try to solve the puzzle.
At the 1810 marriage of John and Sarah, he is noted of Mepal, yet I cannot find any entry for him there. Haddenham Clements surname-bearers have appeared in the parish records there since the late 1500s.
Clements family connections
The two Clements family is connected to a few ancestral families: