Research

Ann Rosser is a historical figure in the introduction of Methodism to the valleys of Wales. So whereas I would not normally record the investigations that have led me to Ann Rosser’s maiden surname and to her family, I think that I should record aspects of those investigations so that those who follow me on this journey will be able to study the context in which I worked. Further, given the distance in time from the events of Ann’s life there remain some research activities that to date (December 2016) I have not performed. I hope to provide elements of these research activities in this section.

I started researching my family history in 2008 after I had retired. I had inherited a significant amount of family history material when my father had died but it had lain in a drawer for many years leading up to my taking an interest. From the start of my investigations I had become a paid up subscriber to the “Ancestry” site and I also made significant use of the IGI which is freely available on the web.

Amongst my father’s papers was a handwritten family tree containing a significant list of the descendants of Ann Rosser (of which I’m one) but tantalisingly, some of the information was missing in this account and had to be researched. I had a second document available to me at this time and this was the booklet produced in 1991 by the Caldicot Circuit to celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the building of the Earlswood Chapel by Ann Rosser.

The handwritten family history – written by Elizabeth Cooper and reproduced elsewhere on this site – does not enlighten us on the identity of Ann Rosser’s first husband, nor her maiden name at birth. However, the 200th Anniversary booklet did have information on these points – namely that her first husband was a James Lewis and that her maiden surname was also “Lewis”.

Unfortunately, using the IGI and Ancestry did not allow me to reproduce the research path that would take me to these same conclusions. The “best” I could do was to locate a marriage, in 1769, between a James Lewis and an Ann Powell, but this was in Abergavenny and there was no child by the name of Thomas who could be identified from this marriage. In terms of the reference to Abergavenny, the handwritten document places Ann Rosser’s birth and marriage “in the Earlswood area”, and in terms of a son Thomas, this is a necessity for the handwritten document to have recorded the family accurately.

So, when I looked again at this problem in August 2016 I decided this time around to fund Gwent Archives to assist me in this research. Using Shirenewton data it did not take long to obtain Ann’s maiden name and the identity of her first husband. Her name at birth was Ann Richards, and her first husband was a Thomas Lewis. They had (at least) 7 children one of whom was Thomas Lewis, baptised in 1775. ALL of this fits sympathetically with the handwritten family history that has been handed down to me. And further research continues to support this.

In hindsight I should have gone to the Gwent Archives “at the start of the investigations”. Because in hindsight I have discovered that the Shirenewton Register data was not in the IGI at the time, nor was it available to Ancestry. It is available at “Find My Past” but I did not have access to this site until recently. My view is that early research that led to James Lewis as being Ann’s first husband was performed on data that did not include the Shirenewton Registers. I look at this more fully in one of the menu items at the left.

It is entirely possible that, like previous workers, I have been looking at a subset of the Register data for the Earlswood area and that there is further information that would yield a different result for Ann’s maiden surname and her first husband’s identity. However, as all of the information fits so well with everything that has been recorded in the family I believe that there is only a very remote possibility that I have arrived at the “wrong” information and were I just looking at my family alone – as distinct from a person who has a historical significance – I would not be looking any further to confirm the correctness of the conclusions.