James Brock Family Website
     
               
         

                                     
                                 

     
              Many surprises have popped up on the way, I suppose like many people,        
              the reality was very different from the stories I was told as a child.        
                       
              I would imagine that family embroidery is common to most families as        
              reality sometimes seems a little dull.        
                       
              Finding out that my very dignified paternal grandmother was born in a        
              workhouse was quite a surprise, as you would never guess that she        
         

Family Background
    started life with that sort of stigma.        
                      Reputations were very important in those days, as I am finding out!        
         

Home Page
    The amount of time that children were claimed by parents as  their own,        
                      when in reality they were actually grandparents is commonplace, to        
         

Background
    save the daughter's and more importantly, the families reputation.        
                                               
         

Research
    Then I found out that my maternal grandfather had been using the wrong                
                      surname for over 60 years!!                
         

History
    He was born the wrong side of the blanket, along with his brother, then                
                      his mother married and had two more children, and everyone naturally                
         

Gallery
    assumed her married surname belonged to the whole family!                 
                                                       
         

Trees
    I clearly remember my rather eccentric aunt telling me that some of our ancestors were called Seaborne.      
                      The reason being that a young boy was washed up in Bristol Harbour and the authorities gave him the surname      
         

Surnames
    'Borne from the sea therefore Seaborne'.      
                      A very romantic tale but nothing could be further from the truth, as they were mostly coopers and innkeepers      
                      originating from Uley in Gloucestershire, but a sweet tale nevertheless.       
                                                       
                      Brock is a of ancient Norman origin. The Name arrived in England with the Norman conquest of 1066 with      
                      Henry de Broc, who was granted lands and castle by the King, Henry II.      
                      The Broc family had estates in Essex granted after the conquest, which included a fine castle, farms and forests.       
                      The name however, derives from the families former residence in Broc, in the area of Anjou in France.      
                                                       
                      Sir Ranulph de Broc was one of the four knights who, in 1170, responded to the best known incitement to      
                      murder in history!  Henry II's despairing cry; "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?"      
                      Shortly afterwards, Thomas à Becket  was murdered  with considerable brutality inside Canterbury Cathedral.      
                                                       
                      The Family motto on the Coat of Arms is "Courage grows stronger at the wound".