Keziah Jones was born on 14 July 1842 of William and Sarah (nee Lobb) Jones. Oh joy! A Jones family to research! I guess we all have to have at least one. And mine are from a tiny Devon village, so I shouldn’t complain too much ….and at least my Jones relative has an unusual-ish forename.
Born at Verworthy, Sutcombe, Keziah was – it would appear – the seventh of eight children of William and Sarah, sometimes known as ‘Sally’. An agricultural labourer, William married Sarah Lobb in Sutcombe Parish Church (see below) on 23 May 1825 and before 1841, they had six children although only four were with them in the 1841 census. They lost their first Grace in infancy (baptised 1828, buried 1831) and their eldest daughter, Mary was not living at the family home (baptised 1825), so just Elizabeth (10), John (7), Grace (5) and Sarah (1) remain with their parents at Verworthy, or Virworthy as it is recorded by the enumerator.
The 1851 census sees Verworthy numbered for the first time, with the Jones’ at No. 1 with their two children, Keziah aged 9 and William aged 4 [Source: HO107/1896/72/6]:
Sadly, Sarah ‘Sally’ Jones died in 1855 aged just 49 years old and was buried in Sutcombe on 26 October 1855. Unfortunately, the Jones ladies do not seem to have longevity in their genes….
Kezia and her father, William, remained in Sutcombe and in 1861, their residence was named ‘Verworthy Lane Cottage’. A few years later, Kezia married Samuel Sillifant on 8 October 1864 in ‘Pancraswyke’:
The two witnesses to the marriage were Kezia‘s sister, Grace (the second), who died four years later in 1868, aged 30 and John Allin, Elizabeth (Kezia‘s elder sister)’s husband.
Kezia and Samuel Sillifant went on to have five children including my great-grandmother, Emma Grace Sillifant, their youngest. They lost their first born child, George William (born 1865) in 1884 at 19 and Kezia died at 53, on 23 October 1895. She was buried in Lana, Pancrasweek.
