Dear Jack,

Please accept my apologies for a rather tardy response to your last note.
Now that the tyranny of the urgent has given way to the pursuit of the
important, we can at last pick up up the strands where we left off a long
while ago.

Your information was most helpful in the identification of my forebears, and
I now have information on nine of the families from whom we are descended.
What started as a "single family search" has actually fanned out into an
amazing web of very interesting people from a wide variety of social
circumstances. Your help has been invaluable. The Eardley line is clear this
far...
Ron - myself, Alfred Ernest - father, Alfred -grandfather, Noah- ggfather,
Noah-gggfather, Charles-ggggfather. Charles was a shopkeeper who would
probably have been born about 1790-1800, and married about 1815-1825. I must
now look for the links further back...

Please find attached the photograph taken of the family in Norton Colliery
in 1923/4 just prior to Harold leaving the UK for the USA. I have marked a
copy of the photograph with numbers, m1 to m16 for the males, and m1 to m14
for the females. Matriarch Betsy (nee Forrester) is marked B.
Hereunder a list of the names corresponding to the numbers.

m1 Alfred - my grandfather child # 3 of Betsy and Noah (deceased by
this time)
- married Kate Pyle (f 2)
m2 Mr Sheridan - a neighbour
m3 Jim Shelley - husband of Mary (f12)
m4 Jim - child # 4 of Betsy and Noah - married Bertha (f13)
m5 Jack Hartshorne - married Maggie Brown (f 6)
m6 Ernest - child # 7 of Betsy and Noah
m7 Harold - child # 8 of Betsy & Noah
m8 Noah - child # 5 of Betsy and Noah
m9 A neighbour - name unknown.
m10 Reginald - child # 6 married Sally (f 4)
m11 Mr Pointon - a neighbour
m12 Frankie - son of Jack (m5) and Maggie(f 6) Hartshorne
m13 Pointon's grandchild
m14 Leslie - son of Jim (m4)and Mary(f12) Shelley
m15 George - son of Jim(m4) and Bertha(f13) Eardley
m16 Alfred Ernest - son of Alfred(m1) and Kate(f 2) Eardley - my father
as a lad of 10.

f 1 Mrs Sheridan - a neighbour
f 2 Kate (nee Pyle) - married Alfred (m1) - my grandmother
f 3 Margaret - child # 9 of Betsy and Noah - later married Edgar
...?
f 4 Sally - married Reginald (m10)
f 5 Mabel - daughter of Jack(m5) and Maggie(f 6) Hartshorne
f 6 Maggie Brown married Jack Hartshorne (m5)
f 7 Mrs Pointon - neighbour
f 8 Nancy - daughter of Edna(f 9) and Joe Hartshorne
f 9 Edna - child # 2 of Betsy and Noah - married Joe Hartshorne (not
present)
f10 Edna - daughter of Joe and Edna(f 9) Hartshorne
f11 Margaret - daughter of Jack(m5) and Maggie(f 6) Hartshorne
f12 Mary - child # 1 of Betsy and Noah - married Jim Shelley(m3)
f13 Bertha - married Jim (m4)
f14 Ethel - daughter of Alfred (m1) and Kate (f2) - later married
Leslie Dean
B Betsy (nee Forrester) widow of Noah - mother of nine

I trust this transmits quite well, and that you are able to make sense of
it. It has been most interesting following the intricacies of who's who in
this zoo !

Best regards,

Ron Eardley
Donnybrook South Africa

PS dThe email address on this letter is temporary, so replies should be to
reardley@futurenet.co.za or to geardley@futurenet.co.za

The Noah Eardley Family.

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