Tree of Crofts Descendants from Crick Tree of Crofts Descendants from Crick

The Crofts family


St. Edith's Church, Monks Kirby, early 1900s

The oldest Crofts record that I have linked to our family line so far is of John Crofts, my ninth great-grandfather, who married Susanna Grant in Monks Kirby, Warwickshire, on the 15th November 1654. Spellings, as we know, were not standardised at that time, and Grant was spelt in various ways by different clerics, including Grannt and Graunt, as we notice in the register extract below. Crofts had its variations, too, sometimes with the 's' being dropped, and occasionally written as Crafts.

On the right is St. Edith's Church, Monks Kirby, from an early 1900s postcard.

Establishing John's birth or baptism date has proved problematic, however, as the Crofts family already had a strong presence in nearby Newbold on Avon, and three boys had been baptised 'John' between 1628 and 1638, all being feasible dates.

John Crofts marries Susanna Grant 1654

John and Susanna appeared to settle in in Harborough Magna and went on to have five children of their own:

Of these children, next in my direct line is John, 1659, who was to marry Elizabeth, whose surname I have not yet learned. In turn they had six children, the first being born in Harborough Magna, and seemingly named after her grandmother. The family then moved just a mile down the road to Newbold on Avon where they remained for the rest of their lives, giving Susannah five more siblings.

The last of our Crofts line to be born in the 17th century was Thomas, in 1698, who went on to marry Jane Hewit on the 9th December 1720 in Newbold on Avon. They soon moved, however, to Willoughby on the other side of Rugby and just inside the border with Northamptonshire, to have their five children:

Thomas moved ono to Ashby St. Ledgers, where he married Ann Spence on the 2nd April 1745 and the couple settled in to have ten children there - half of them, very sadly, dying extremely young:

Of these children, John was the first of the Crofts family to build a life in Crick where on the 27th February 1780 he married Elizabeth Underwood and went on to have six children. These would be the first of four generations to grow up in the village of Crick.

* Henry's church baptism record spells his surname 'Crafts' (which itself is not an unusual mis-spelling), but he arrives after an 11 year gap, casting a little doubt over whether or not he was really a child of the above John and Elizabeth. However, no other matching parents can be found, so an assumption is being made that he was a child of John Crofts and Elizabeth Underwood.

Crick Church, early 1900s
An early 1900s postcard view of St. Margaret's Church, Crick. (The modern day view is, fortunately, not too different.)

Crick is just two and a half miles away from West Haddon and Winwick where the Orland family was growing during the 1700s and 1800s. The two families would become related in 1939 through the marriage of William Orland to Elsie Crofts. (My grand-parents.)

On 13th May 1811 John and Elizabeth's son, Joseph, married Sarah Salsbury. Joseph and Sarah's eight children were all baptised in Crick as follows:

From these offspring, my great great great granddad was John Crofts, 1814.
In 1838, he married Mary Lee (born in Crick, 1816) and they had nine children:

St. Margaret's Church, Crick, 2002

For many of the above facts, I am very grateful to several kind people, all of whom have turned out to be distant cousins! In particular I would like to thank; Jane Aires, Wendy Monaco, Chris Donaldson and Sheila Dixon (nee Crofts) for their generous and helpful contributions to the Crofts family tree.

On the left is St. Margaret's Church, Crick, taken in 2002.

Albert and Letitia

On the 29th April 1873 Thomas married Sarah Jane Crisp, and they had five children of their own:

Close inspection of the photograph appears to show an absence of wedding rings so it would suggest a pre-1910 sitting. (Possibly an Engagement photograph.)

 
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Letitia Cook was one of nine children. Her Grandfather, Thomas Cook, married Ann Calven in Sundon, Bedfordshire in 1835, and had a son named James in 1837. In 1871 James married Letitia Ellis, daughter of William and Mary Ellis (formerly Woodard) from Harlington in Bedfordshire. Their nine children were....

My Grandmother, Elsie, was the third of seven children born to Albert and Letitia, but sadly, two of them (Dorothy May, born 1913, and Bernard James, 1920) died before reaching their second birthdays.

Pictured below are the five sisters who survived to live long and happy lives.

Here in 1916 is a two year old Elsie with her five year old sister Mabel and a very young Gladys on her mothers lap. Later, in June 1931, a lovely portrait of the two younger sisters: Daisy aged ten and a three, going-on four, year-old Violet, seated.
Letitia with Elsie, Mabel and Gladys Daisy and Violet
 
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