The Blissenden Blockage

One of the main blockages in my family tree that I would like to resolve is that of my Blissenden ancestors (my mother’s family). I can trace them from North Yorkshire to Deal in Kent in the 1800s and 1700s and then possibly to Sanderstead in Surrey for a generation but no further back.  

Wilf Blissenden on one of his motorbikes

It has always struck me as odd that I can’t trace the family back further in Surrey because Blissenden isn’t a common name (although it can suffer a multitude of spelling variations and is “Besenden” or “Bisenden” whilst the family are in Surrey) and together with the fact that there is a much older family with deep roots in Kent, not too far from Deal, makes me wonder if the Sanderstead connection is the right one.  Or whether the move to Sanderstead was a temporary one for personal or social reasons perhaps for work or marriage before moving back to Kent.  If they did move back to live with or close to family then they certainly did not benefit financially – the family wasn’t wealthy and a number ended up in the workhouse and sadly ended their days there.  

The Croydon Bissendens?

There is a Bissenden family in Croydon, also in the 1700s, just 3.5 miles north of Sanderstead but I have not been able to establish any connection with the Sanderstead Bisendens.  The Croydon family have property and some quite extensive wills and probate records regarding that property but there is no reference in those wills or other records to the Sanderstead family, i.e. to cousins or brothers, sisters etc, that I can see.  

Because I have tried to work back through my ancestors to trace the Blissenden’s beyond the 1700s in Surrey without success I am instead starting further back and working forward and sideways to see if that gives me any clues. I have started by looking at the “ancient family” of Blechenden’s in Kent and will devote a number of posts to that family.  

My husband often asks me why I am researching the Blechenden’s if I don’t know whether or not they are my family.  And the answer is, well they may be, but if not I have learnt something about them, the often turbulent times they lived in and the closet historian in me finds all of that fascinating. 

So Who Do I Think I Am?

First Things First

For my first blog here I thought I should start with a little bit about me and why I am blogging.  

About 15 years ago my husband introduced me to genealogy – he has been researching his family tree for quite some time – and fairly quickly I was hooked.  To start with I realised that I didn’t know some basic information such as the names of my grandparents.  They had died when I was quite young and to me they had only ever been Grandma and Grandad, Nana and Grandpa.  I didn’t know where they were born or where they met or what they did for a living.  When you are a child these aren’t the things you ask.  Luckily my parents were able to fill in the gaps for me and this helped to set me off on the right tracks to go back further (although I often made the novice mistake of accepting other people’s work without checking and have had to reset branches of my tree more than once).   

Nan and Grandad with two of my aunts and uncles taken circa 1924

I was born and brought up in the North East of England, in a small town that used to prosper when the coal mines were open but not any more.  My aunts and uncles and cousins all lived close by and as far as I knew this is where the family had always lived.  It was therefore a revelation to me to learn that only a couple of generations ago the majority of my family were from Kent and Hampshire at the other end of the country, “down South”.  Ironically, I learnt this when my husband and I had moved to Kent and I did wonder at the co-incidence of going back to my roots! 

My DNA suggests that I am almost 100% English, whatever that means, and even though I know there are French Huguenots in my tree. Ancestry suggests an elusive 2% from Sweden but I haven’t worked that one out yet.  But overall my DNA shows that I am predominately from the North and from the South of England – hence the title of this blog.

Researching my family tree has uncovered poverty and nobility, clerics and criminals and one line that takes me back to 1066!  But there are lots of blockages, lots of gaps and puzzles and this blog will explore those and share some of my research in the hope that others may also find it useful.