Rowney Family Tree

George was born around 1693. He was christened that year in the village of Langford, in Bedfordshire, England, where his parents resided.

In 1722, George was married to Ann SHELTON in the village of Dunton, in Bedfordshire. He was around 29 years of age at that time. Ann was 25 years old and was a native of Dunton.

After their marriage, George and Ann settled at Dunton and began raising their family there. Their first known child, son William, was born around 1723 and christened that year in Dunton, but unfortunately he died soon after. His birth was followed by that of Sarah in 1724, then George arrived in 1726, and finally their son John was born in 1728.

It seems that Ann died just a few days after John's birth in December 1728, possibly due to complications. Ann was buried at Dunton on Christmas Eve. She was 31 years old when she died. After Ann's death, George (aged 35) was left with their three very young children to raise on his own; Sarah (aged 4), George (aged 2), and newly born baby John.

The ROWNEY family had a difficult time in the years after Ann's passing. Eldest daughter, Sarah, died about a year later, in 1729, when she was around 5 years old, and just two years later, in 1731, young George also passed away, when he too was just 5 years of age. Later that same year, in 1731, George's new wife, Mercy, gave birth to a son who was also named George.

George's second wife, Mercy HARPER, probably moved into his household around 1829-1830, shortly after Ann's death. There does not appear to be a record of their marriage. Mercy was apparently a widow herself, and perhaps even had surviving children from her previous husband, Stephen HARPER, although none have been identified. It appears that she and Stephen had been married, then lived and had at least one child in the village of Abington Pigotts, in Cambridgeshire. Mercy was originally from Dunton, and had been born there as Mercy RECHFORD around 1702. It is possible that George had known her from her early years in Dunton. Mercy and Stephen HARPER had a daughter, Elizabeth HARPER, who was born around 1724, but it is not known whether Elizabeth survived long enough to have joined the ROWNEY family along with Mercy.

In 1736, John, the eldest of the two known surviving ROWNEY children died. He was 7 years old at that time. The remaining child, young George, was about 5 years old at that time.

George (sr.) himself passed away two years later, in 1738, when he was 45 years old. He was buried in Dunton. The tragic story of this family thus continued, with Mercy again widowed, at the age of 41, and her young son George, the only known surviving child, fatherless at 7 years of age.

Mercy appears to have remarried very soon after George's death. There is a record of a Marcy ROWNEY's marriage in Dunton to Thomas WATTS later in 1738, which is probably the same woman.

In 1742, an Elizabeth HARPER was married to a man named John WILTON in Dunton. They settled in Dunton and had several children over subsequent years. It is possible that the bride may have been Mercy's daughter, who, if still alive, would have been around 18 years old at that time.

NOTE: It needs to be remembered, when correctly sequencing some of the events in this family's life, that prior to 1752 the months of January and February were notionally at the end of the year, after December, not at the beginning, and that the years advanced on the 25th March, rather than 1st January, before that time. Sometimes data in the IGI seems to be "corrected" for this, and sometimes not, leading to possible confusion and error. This may be reflected in some of the above narrative.