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It has long been thought that the Thomas Grey who married Susanna/Susan Faben had a considerable family with her, including the famous, or infamous, John Budd Grey. However, recent research offers a different explanation with the union of Thomas Grey, a widower, to Susannah Budd in Hilgay, Norfolk in the … Continue reading →

Ishmael Organ was baptised in the parish of Llantilio Pertholey, Monmouthshire, on 21st August 1887, the son of Joseph and Trinity Organ. The couple claimed to have come from Cardiff, and the cleric noted that they were ‘strangers, Gypsies, travelling by van.’ Ishmael’s father, Joseph, was one of the six … Continue reading →

The Monmouthshire Beacon of December 1869 mentioned a significant Gypsy family when it noted that ‘Mary Ann Organ, daughter of Henry Organ, who is a hawker and travels the country with a horse and cart was charged . . . with hawking without a licence.’ Mary Ann had been less … Continue reading →

In August 1864 the London Evening Standard, along with several other London and national newspapers, reported on the death of a Gypsy, Barbara Lee, and the subsequent inquest at the Greyhound Tavern, Old Ford Road, Victoria Park, which leads into Bethnal Green. She was described as ‘a celebrated member of … Continue reading →

My parents named me Anne, and for my mother this was to name me after her grandmother, for my father it was rather a tribute to his favourite aunt, Anne/Annie, who was born in 1905, when her mother, Adelaide, was some forty years of age. Having been widowed in January … Continue reading →