The War of the Roses (1455-1485) between the two branches of the royal house of Plantagenet, the House of Lancaster and the House of York had ended and it was the age of the Tudor Monarchs in England and of a renaissance throughout Europe. In 1476 William Caxton had produced the first printed book in […]
The Mission
My grandfather was Frank Haines Jefferys. I had inherited from my father, John Anthony, a copy of Frank’s birth certificate which gave his place of birth as Wernham Farm, North Savernake, Wiltshire. His father was Thomas King Jefferys and his mother was Elizabeth Haines. It was a start.
Introducing the Jefferys
In 2004 my aunt had asked me if I could ‘find our family’. Of course I said yes but then wondered how to go about it. My father had met his paternal aunts but knew very little about the family other than that his father was born in Wiltshire and there was farming in the background.
Yeomen of England
William Jefferys, who died in 1639, referred to himself in his will as a yeoman. The term was repeated in later wills and on the early censuses.
I dimly remember hearing on the radio reference to a song called Yeomen of England but what was a yeoman?