Ann Wigglesworth

Ancestors

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I was raised in the UK, daughter of Frederick George Wigglesworth and Agnes Ruth Wigglesworth (born Latham). I am researching my family history with a particular interest in the colonial period and family connections to India and elsewhere. I work in the international development aid sector and came to Australia as an adult where I settled. I have been surprised to find family who also settled in Australia in the 1800s and am interested in exploring more about them.

The family of my paternal great grandfather, Alfred Wigglesworth, was from west Yorkshire. He married Selina Hardy, from Belfast, Ireland where all his children were born. However, the family lived in Aberdeen where he was manager of a jute factory, and later they moved to Dundee where he set up his own mill. I later came to cross the footsteps of his son, also Alfred WIgglesworth, in Tanzania where he was involved in sisal production and marketing for the company he set up, WIgglesworth & Co.Ltd.

My grandfather Frederick married a Mary LT Montgomery, whose father George Montgomery and mother Isabel Niven were both Scottish. The Niven’s have several links with our family.

On my mother’s side, my great grandfather was Colonel Hugh Latham, born in Derbyshire, was one of many family members to have served in the Indian Army and/or lived much of their lives there, including his sons, my grandfather, who was with the Gurkhas and three of his other brothers two of whom were born in India.

My grandfather married Emily Dallas Baker, also from Derbyshire. She brings to the family some notable ancestors though her father, William Baker, and mother, Christian Bernard.

My maternal grandmother, the only grandparent I ever met, is from the Birkbeck family, one being the founder of Birkbeck College. Her father, Edward Birkbeck was also from west Yorkshire although from my mother's time all of my family were in the south of England.

My DNA shows 44% English, 11% Scottish, Irish and Welsh, 41% Scandanavian and 4% southern European. The most surprising is now low my Scottish and Irish ancestry is, which I always thought to be 3/8th of my heritage. The Scandanavian component is likely from the Viking invasion of England in the 9th century though what was then the Kingdom of York (and elsewhere).

Sources

• I have a Wigglesworth Family tree handed down from mu uncle Gordon Wigglesworth, drafted in 2005.