My name is David William Green and welcome to the Introduction Page of my family history website.
About Me
I am the 8th generation of my known line of Greens, the first one, William was born in 1715 and the 10th generation, my Grandson was born in 2010. My father, Granville Green, was the 7th generation and the last career farmer in this line. He would tell the tale that he was educated ‘at Cambridge’, often followed by a pause, a wry smile when he would add that he left his Cambridge school at 14 to join the family farming business. He was definitely a livestock man and wanted to be a vet but he did not have the opportunity.
Due to his later health issues I also had the opportunity of taking over the farming business, also at 14. The offer was declined by me, much to my parents relief I believe. I studied Agriculture at Bangor University and had my initial career in accountancy. I returned to the agricultural sector being employed by a bank and an agricultural machinery manufacturer. Finally, I work part time for an agricultural machinery dealership in the Cotswolds.
MARRS AND THE GREENS – A Short History of Two Farming Families
In 1991, I became one of 34 subscribers to the Marr/Green genealogy history book above. This was written and printed by my Marr cousin Robin (RP) from over 40 years of research. I only spoke with Robin the once when I made my purchase. I admired his fortitude in publishing this. He had a great love of history and was very successful in making corrolations to the families in this book.
The information had been obtained from a variety of ‘traditional’ sources. This includes census records, documented family interviews, family anecdotes, visiting sites. He made some assumptions and conclusions and I hope you, the reader, will challenge me on. Robin Press acknowledges many family contributors:- Derek Philip and David Marr, Sally Wilson, Betty Harris, Frances Holt and to a larger extent Alan Green. Alan had undertaken a large amount of research, particularly on the Greens from 1940 onwards. He gave his encouragement to Robin to complete this book. I had got to know Alan Green over the last 20 years until his death in 2015. We met on numerous occasions to compare and exchange family history research material.
More Family History Sources
On the death of my father in 1999 he had been a ‘unknown’ custodian to a variety of family items. These included furniture, account books, trophies, letters, family bibles and some old photographs. To a genealogist’s delight many of these photographs were named. These items largely complemented the above book but were not available to the author. I have found other information that fills some of the gaps in our knowledge from village publications and the internet. With your help I seek out further information. Due to the sheer volume of information on the Marr connections in the book, I have not fully researched it. Nor do I have access to the underlying source documents. I have effectively left the Marr section intact only with a few of my comments attributed as (DWG).
In 2002, and as a separate project, I inherited a quantity of family photographs from my mother but all I had done with them was to ask my Uncle to see who he could name in them. At that time he furnished me with a Witter Tree, my mother’s maiden name. It was only recently, after the initial publication of this website, that I started to build a story around the photographs for my mothers paternal and maternal sides. Both the Suttons and Witters are large families in South East Cheshire and many descendants live there, but not to any great extent identified by me.
Planning my Website
The age of the PC, internet, e-mails, pdf’s, storage medium, online access to parish, census, newspapers, military and shipping passenger lists mostly happened after the book was written. This access made research and communication easier, faster and largely possible from the ‘comfort of one`s armchair’.
The information available in the above book to 34 subscribers has, I suggest, a limited shelf life and a restricted audience. The book probably won’t even make one of the many charity shops selling used books! My objective was create my first website as well as making information available to an increasingly technologically savvy audience. Additions were made which compliments the previous work, particularly because I had additional photographs. I have added new families relevant to me e.g Mitchinson, Straker, Hemmant, Witter and Sutton, some are currently under construction.
Subsequent to my website becoming live in 2019, I have made quite a few additional contacts so I have been able to enhance the website content and make corrections.
It’s up to you to judge if you think I have achieved my objective. If you have any queries, observations or corrections please e-mail me via my Contact Form in this website.
Robin Press Introduction
When my Aunt Muriel Marr died in 1984, aged 95, she left two lifetime’s collections of photographs and family papers. Her mother (my grandmother, Ada Marr nee Green) was very sentimental and she had kept letters and pictures since at least 1870. In the absence of other obvious claimants I volunteered to see what kind of record of the family’s past could be drawn from these documents.
My mother Amy Catherine (Kittie Marr) Press had already died at the age of 85 in 1970, and her collection of postcards and photographs had been put away, to be looked at and disposed of somehow, sometime. We were then busy getting a derelict farm and a collapsing house under control. So her smaller but equally useful hoard has contributed to this note. Of especial value was her wedding-group photograph, for which, a few years before she died, she provided our daughter Alison with the names of nearly all those who attended. They included many Marrs and Greens of her own, and of the previous, generation. By cross reference we have been able to identify many of the unnamed pictures in the two collections.
Amoungst the papers were a few Wills, an indenture which apprenticed my great-grandfather to a chemist and druggist in 1825, some letters passed between some Marrs and Greens in the 1870’s and 1880’s, with a few in 1900, and more in 1910-1917, with many newspaper cuttings. Without some basic family trees the foundation of this story would have been very flimsy. Fortunately at sometime before WW11, Lilyanne and I, frustrated at hearing my mother’s reminiscenses of her early years in Yorkshire, and having no peg on which to put people into context, had drawn a rough Marr tree, under my mother’s guidance, She had an extraordinarily accurate recollection of family dates and reletionships. Birth and deaths were usually dated to the year. This formed the basis for much of our investigation.
After WWII my wife Christina drew a similar Green tree, again guided my mother. This was sent to Muriel for her correction and simplification in the 1950’s. It was not seen again until it came back with the rest of Muriel’s papers in 1984!
Then for Muriel’s 90th birthday party, Bill Marr prepared a more complete Marr tree. From papers recently seen it appears that our tree was the origin of his, so when comparing them, one is in danger of chasing one’s own tail!
We also had a copy, prepared by Alison, of the anecdote recorded by Owen Gibbon, recounted by his father-in-law Henry Green, telling how William Green escaped from the Press gang at the time of the French Revolution and founded the family from which my grandmother descended.
Finally, at Muriel’s funeral, I met Alan Green, who has amassed much Green family data, and I am indebted to him for a great deal of information. He works with exact dates and relationships. Perhaps I should have an equal regard for facts, but the sources of data lie too far from Cornwall to be tapped easily. This account is stronger on vague datings than on precisely identified events, and I have dared to make some guesses at uncorroborated relationships. Some of these proved to be false, and have been corrceted, other assumptions may still be unfounded, I shall be happy to be told of more reliable “facts” to correct errors.
The story really terminates with my generation. After this the field is too wide to cover and to remain of general interest.……….
End of Robin Press Introduction……….
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