Family History
Family History
12 Feb 2025
Venue: St Mary's Church small hall
Address: Vale Road, Ash Vale, GU12 5JE (Go to Map)
Who was Ann Elizabeth Epitaux? - how a Victorian girl's needlework sampler inspired the search for her life story - Sally Gardiner, Woking Area u3a Genealogy Group
In 1853, Ann Elizabeth Epitaux, aged nine, embroidered a large sampler. 170 years later, it was purchased at a local auction and became the focus of a year long project for Woking's u3a Genealogy Group. This talk will explain how group members traced Ann's life, as well as those of her siblings and their families. Their lives proved fascinating beyond expectations. A mixture of great successes and luxurious living contrasting with struggles to survive and tragic family events.
With roots in Wales and Switzerland, Ann was born into a family, that was at the heart of the fashionable London restaurant scene, and her father was responsible for creating some of the first (and best!) London ice creams. Links were uncovered to eminent medical practitioners, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and to Sir Henry Irving, the famous actor, who was the first to be knighted for services to the stage. There are family resting places that range from a humble grave in Brookwood Cemetery, in Worthing and in two of London's "Magnificent Seven" cemeteries - Brompton and Nunhead. This is a tale of Victorian London and seaside Sussex.