Averill Happenings Past and Present: Rice Ancestors

Reading an Ancestor Tree

This is a post in which I summarize what I have found out about the Rice Family. As near as I can tell, the people known as "Rice" originated from Nottinghamshire. Most of them were born in "Barton in Fabis," though it appears another Rice family lived about a mile away in "Clifton in Glapton."

About 1825, John Rice moved to Great Grimsby got married, and then on to Gainsborough in Lincolnshire. They stayed there for another generation.

Some time around 1875, Thomas Rice moved the family from Gainsborough to the Sheffield area. At the time, this was part of Yorkshire West Riding (the other two parts of Yorkshire were North Riding and East Riding). Today, that'd be in South Yorkshire.

It was while in Ecclesfield (near Sheffield), that William, Thomas's son, met and married Rhoda Ibbotson. Pretty much the entire Ibbotson family was from the West Riding. With one exception, they were all from less than ten miles from Ecclesfield, where Thomas Rawson was born in 1896. Rhoda Ibbotson's mother's side of the family were all from High or Low Bradfield, going back to at least around 1500. In fact, the farm where Rhoda's mother and paternal grandfather was born was called "Smallfield," and it still exists. A photo of it from Wikimedia may be seen here. Her grandfather's wife's Bramall side of the family historically lived at "Rocher End" and "Rocher Head." There is a photo of the ruins of Rocher Head here.

Anyway, the first three generations going back are shown below. After that, click on any of the images or links to bring up a large ancestor tree for each ancestor family branch.

At this time, I haven't chased back the Whitworth and Hopkinson family, though there's probably more info due to the efforts of the Whitworth cousins of Eileen and Audrey. More on THAT later!

1st gen	2nd gen	3rd gen
		William Rice (click here for ancestor tree)
	Thomas Rawson Rice May Rice
		Rhoda Ibbotson (click here for ancestor tree)
Audrey Lucille Rice
Eileen Whitworth Rice
		Samuel Henry Whitworth (click here for ancestor tree)
	Lucy Whitworth Sam Whitworth
		Lucy Hopkinson (click here for ancestor tree)