The Goodmans... by Sarah Henson  Contact me

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One of my great-grandfathers was a Goodman and I followed his family line back to John Goodman who was born in around 1799 in Everton, Bedfordshire. His wife is as yet unknown to me but they had four children who were all born in the village of Potton in Bedfordshire and they were William (1821), Maria M (1825), John F (1830) and Susannah (1832).

William Goodman who was born in around 1821 married Ann Clarke in Bedford in 1842 and they lived in Blunham in Bedfordshire where they had the following children. Elizabeth (1840), John Henry/Harry (1844), Amelia (1849), William (1851), Agnes Maria (1853), Georgina (1855), Robert (1858) and Edward (1863).

John Henry Goodnam became both a butcher and publican and he married Mary Ann Woodward in Blunham in 1864. Their children were born in a number of areas including Blunham, Hatfield in Middlesex and and Newport Pagnell, Bucks where the family later moved to.

The children of John and Mary Ann were Sarah Elizabeth (1867), William/Wilfred Henry (1871), Thomas Edwin/Edward (1873), Maria A (1875) and Annie Georgina (1879).

Thomas Edward Goodman who was born in 1873 became an apprentice butcher but later 'ran away with the gypsies' after meeting Romany Reservoi Smith. They married in Bedford in 1893 and had 12 surviving children, one of whom was my great-grandfather Ted (Edward) Goodman. He married Ethel Louise Bennett in Newport Pagnell in 1925.

Thomas and Reservoi eventually stopped travelling and settled in the vardo (caravan) in New Bradwell, Buckinghamshire where they began a scrap-yard and horse dealing business. Their offspring eventually settled in Newport Pagnell, Bradwell and Stony Stratford.

This is a picture of Thomas Edward Goodman (1873) who married into the Smith gypsy family.

Thomas Edward Goodman Photo
Click on the photo to see a larger version.

Everton or Everton-cum-Tetworth is in the Tetworth Parish and has existed in both Huntingdonshire and Bedfordshire.

Potton is a market town in the Parish of Biggleswade in Beds.

Blunham is also formerly a market town in the Beds Biggleswade Parish, containing the hamlet of Moggerhanger.

Ted & brother Peck Goodman

Ted & Peck Goodman

 

 

 

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