A lot of families have, in their history, houses that have been lived in by several different generations over a period of decades, sometimes centuries.

As I’ve been researching our family history I’ve come across a few houses that fall into the category of family homes’

The first that comes to mind is 4 Telegraph Street, Stafford which my grandparents Charles Thomas and Gertrude Ann Rogers were certainly living in by 1921 (see photo right, dated 1925). Gertrude had been living there in 1918 as Charles had sent a postcard to her at that address. They both died there, Gertrude in 1933 and Charles in 1943. As a young child we regularly visited 4 Telegraph Street to visit ‘Aunt Betty’. However although she was a Rogers (I remember sending Christmas cards to her) she wasn’t my Aunt as dad never had any sisters. As yet I have not been able to identify her positively. And then there’s the 2 great aunts in Leek - I wonder which Rogers they are.

Then we come to 34 New Road, Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex. My grandparents on my mother’s side were living there in 1901, but appear to have moved out sometime prior to 1908, only to move back again sometime before 1938. My grandfather, Sydney Edmund Barker, died there in 1949. Sydney’s brother William John Barker was also living in New Road in 1901, 3 doors away. At some time after the death of Sydney his son Reg took over number 34 and I believe lived there until his death in 1980.

Another candidate is 1 Tudor Road, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, which first appears in the Nelson family history in 1917 at the time of the birth of my father-in-law, Charles Edward Nelson, when it was the home of his parents Alfred Charles and Gertrude Ivy Nelson. It was still in the family in 1943 when Alfred Charles passed away. It then passed to Charles Edward until the late sixties when he moved to Hampshire.

MORE TO FOLLOW..........