Rowney Family Tree

John is believed to have been born around 1691. He was baptised that year in the parish church of St Andrew's in the village of Langford, in Bedfordshire, England. John was around 20 years old when his mother died in 1712.

John appears to have married, raised his family, and lived out his days in Langford, however there is some confusion with some of the data. John's marriage and death details are possibly confused with those of his father.

John's first apparent child with his wife Sarah, a daughter named Anne, is believed to have been christened in Langford in 1719. John was around 27 years old at that time. It is also possible that Anne may have been the daughter of John's father, who might have also lived with a woman named Sarah after his first wife's death. Anne was born several years before the younger ROWNEY couple were married.

John and Sarah's second apparent child, James, was christened in October 1722. It is also possible that James could have been a son of the elder John if he was indeed having additional children.

There was a marriage in the nearby town of Biggleswade, in Bedfordshire, between a John ROWNEY and Sarah ATKINS, which seems quite likely to have been the younger couple, although the explanation for the late marriage after earlier apparent children is unclear. Perhaps Sarah came to live as a housekeeper in the ROWNEY's household in Langford after John's mother died, and it was not until after having several children, that they decided to formalise their relationship.

John and Sarah's third child, Mary, was christened in November 1729, about 20 months after the death of a John ROWNEY at Langford. This would seem to prove that the deceased John ROWNEY was not Mary's father (and consequently not the husband of Sarah), although it does not categorically allow us to determine whether Mary was in fact the daughter of the elder or younger John ROWNEY. It would nevertheless seem more likely that the father was the younger man by this late date. The older John would have been over 60 years old by that time.

However, on 15 Apr 1733 a child named Elizabeth ROWNEY was baptised in Langford. She was described as "the bastard child of the widow ROWNEY" on the parish baptism register. This seems to imply that the John ROWNEY who died in 1727 had a wife who was still capable of bearing children some years after his death, and is a significant complicating detail in our attempts to unravel the details of the ROWNEY family at Langford.

A widow named Sarah ROWNEY was buried in Langford in 1757 at the reputed age of 60 years. This would at first appear more likely to have been the wife of the younger John, however the possible existence of a second wife of the elder John ROWNEY, who may well have been named Sarah, should be kept in mind when looking at the parish records. Perhaps it is worth looking for traces of the family of the younger John and Sarah ROWNEY elsewhere, possibly around the nearby village of Northill, where their son James made his home, or some other place not too far away. In the database I have associated the uncertain Langford dates with the person who seems the most likely candidate, but it should be remembered that they have not been proven conclusively.

NOTE: An Elizabeth ROWNEY was buried in Biggleswade on 15 Dec 1737, just a few months before John. This may have been the illegitimate child of the widow ROWNEY, who was baptised in 1733 at Langford, but it could also have been John's apparently unmarried sister Elizabeth, who would have been around 38 years old at that time.

NOTE: There are deaths of both a John and a Sarah ROWNEY at Dunton, near Biggleswade, in Bedfordshire, which have been attributed to children of George ROWNEY who is known to have resided there. It is possible, however, that these may in fact correspond to John ROWNEY and his wife Sarah. If they both died relatively young at Dunton, then their orphaned children may have been raised alongside George's family there, which might help explain close connections between the descendants of those two ROWNEY families around Goldington in later generations.