Family of Joseph Mitchell Rogers, of Saint Buryan and Kiama

It was good to hear from Beverley Barlow. A volunteer at the Kiama Family History Centre, she is the great granddaughter of Joseph Mitchell Rogers (1843-1916) who was the youngest brother of Susan Dennis nee Rogers (1822-1901).

Beverley knew the bare bones of her family history because Susan Morrison, who has access to Church records of St. Buryan, is a fellow volunteer at the Kiama Family History Centre and specializes in Cornish history. However my book puts meat on the bones of a list of names, events and dates produced from parish records.

Beverley provided me with several pieces of information additional to what is in the two Rogers chapters in my book -

1. Joseph Rogers was sponsored by his cousin John Dennis to come to Australia.
2. When Joseph's second wife Margaret had a son named Arthur Sydney Rogers, born at Short St, Balmain in 1881, the nurse and or witness was Mrs.Susan Dennis.
3. When the family moved to Kiama about three years after arriving in Sydney, Joseph was an engineer with the different Blue Metal Quarries in the Kiama area.

Beverley also provided some brief details for the life of her grandmother, Hilda Florence Rogers, who was born at Kiama in 1885 and later married a New Zealander, Ernest Cox. These would be useful for anyone researching the Rogers family. Beverley says that Hilda's half-sister Ellen Rogers, born in Cornwall in 1878, has a granddaughter who has a picture of Joseph. It would be great to obtain a copy, as my book contains only a picture of his second wife Margaret.