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Dog Bite Old Roper: a Midlands Genealogy
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INTRODUCTION
My grandad died in 1929 when he was 49. Apart from the stark facts of his life – birth, marriage, children, occupation – one of the very few personal things I know about him is that when he was surprised by something he used to exclaim, "well, dog bite old Roper".
Where did he get that expression? Did he hear it from his own father or grandfather? Who knows.
My other grandad died in 1920 when he was 46, leaving a young widow and a year-old baby. The only quirky thing I know about him is that when she was a child my mother once met his ghost coming down the stairs and he told her, "don’t you know who I am? I’m your father".
So yes, this site is about my family and its history, all those interconnected links going way, way back through the centuries. It’s also an acknowledgement and a thank you to them all.
As far as I know, none of my forebears were very important outside their own immediate circle. Some were richer than others; but (except for one or two) not by much. And the majority of them lived out their existences amid the noise and grime of the industrial Midlands and died prematurely of disease, so in that respect they didn’t take up too much space in the scheme of things.
Whatever lost graves their remains rest in, I hope I’ve done a bit to put the flesh back on their poor old bones and restore some memory of them: but for them, however small and ordinary their lives may have been, I and my own descendants wouldn’t exist - and come to think of it, I guess neither would hundreds of others alive now whom I’ve never met but to whom I’m related by the same not very blue genes.
So here is the history of my family through its various branches. If anyone recognises the names of their own forebears, I’d be happy to hear from you. After all, we’re all links in the same chain.
Judith Lloyd
née Glover
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