52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Robert Rendle Croad

(Another entry in the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge)

Robert Rendle Croad was baptized on 17 March 1832 in Sydling St. Nicholas, Dorset, England.  His parents were Robert Croad and Elizabeth Rendle and he was the second of their ten known children.

On 12 December 1852, Robert married Susannah Tizzard in Sydling St. Nicholas.  They would go on to have thirteen children (nine would live to adulthood), as well as raise a granddaughter of theirs.

One of the most interesting things about these Croads are their place in history and the changing landscape.  Robert, like previous generations did farm work in a small agrarian town where his family had been for years.  His children, however, took vastly different paths.  Son William went to London and was a boot maker; daughter Agnes was a domestic servant who also ended up in London; sons George, Alfred, Frederick and Albert went to Wales to work in the coal mines, as did daughter Caroline whose husband also worked in the mines; son Charles was a grocer and merchant who also left Sydling St. Nicholas; and son Herbert left his hometown, but did not move far, to work as a railroad platelayer.  Two of Robert's children would even eventually emigrate to the US, Frederick to Michigan and Albert to Utah.

Robert never seems to have left Sydling St. Nicholas, dying there in February of 1903.  Robert's wife, Susannah died there four years later.

Robert and Susannah's son, Frederick Rendle Croad, was my great-great-grandfather.

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