Tracing the Snelgroves back into Hampshire and Wiltshire
Having concentrated for so long on investigating the ‘unknown’ branch of my paternal family tree, I realised that I had neglected thoroughly recording the history of the branch of the family tree that I have always known best – that of my maternal grandfather, John Snelgrove. William Snelgrove It was back at the end of 2022 that I last posted on the history of how the Snelgroves had made the change “from New Forest gardeners to London florists”. In that post, I traced the ‘Snelgrove’ branch of my family history forwards in time from the 1851 census to the 1920s. In this post, I will explain how far I think I can trace that history back into the past. Jane Brown Tracing back from 1851 My starting point in the previous post was the 1851 census for the Eaglehurst estate in Fawley, on the edges of the New Forest. The census confirms that one of the workers on that estate, one of its gardeners, was my great-great-grandfather William Snelgrove. Alongside William (aged 31), that 185...