37 Jemima Isaacson married Andrew Durnford which brought the Durnford family into our lineage

At this point in the story of our ancestors another family comes into our tree.

This time it is the Durnford family from England

Some were members of the Military, and were involved in projects in Canada, West Indies and the United States and in England, both in military, and then in engineering.

The military prowess extended across the continents, India and South Africa.

In the 1300's one was among the youngest to study at Oxford he was then involved in the construction of some beautiful castles and cathedrals.

Some were Knights, and fought in the War with Scotland, some were sheriffs and landowners.

Many were in the clergy in various roles including Bishop of Chichester.

To be an engineer in the 1700's suggests that the person must have had a good education, and that the family were of a certain standing within the community.  In fact some of our great grandfather's worked at the Tower of London

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But before the story of Jemima and Andrew, firstly we concentrate on just where the Durnford's originated in England.

Unlike Jemima's family line, from the royals, sheriffs, merchants, land owners, and most of whom had proven records available for research, the beginnings of the Durnfords had not been established.

There were theories that they came from France with King William, or they were members of a very old Anglo Saxon line.

To try to establish those links has taken an enormous amount of time.

There are at least two areas where research indicates there are old village known as Durnford, or a derivative of that spelling, in Cornwall and the South West Coast of UK, and Wiltshire.

The following posts are numbered the series 40.

There is a lot of historical research, in order to prove which area our line comes, but the history is very interesting and informative.

Some of parts of England were nearly wiped out in the Black death, and many records are simply not available for research, so many people died in battles, someone was always at war, and marriages were vast.  Children died very young, were married off when they were young, and always there were Bonds at the time of the marriage.  The bond became part of the wills of future generations.

Knights and barons and land owners often left their lands to their descendants and their descendants forever!  It seems that the Kings of the medieval times, when not organising the next battle, or who to marry off to whom to extend their powers, spent a lot of time on the Court Rolls.


At this point I would like to say a special thanks to Cynde Durnford-Branecki, who established the Durnford family website   www.durnfordfamily.com

It was the knowledge gained from that website that allowed me to research the Isaacson line, and to then arrange our trip, where we walked in Our Ancestors Footsteps.

The stories that were learnt about each of the different great grandfathers and their lineage needed to be told, because they were just so interesting


Kris Herron