Genealogy ...

  The Brewer descent, to the immediate post WW2 generation, is from English and west country ancestors. William Brewer (1835-1898) arrived in 1879 with his wife Charlotte, nee Buffett/Puffett (1860-1947). He came from south Gloucestershire-Cold Ashton and Marshfield. The family had lived there since at least the 15th century. The Buffett/Puffetts originally came from Filkins in Oxfordshire via the Forest of Dean to Radyr and Pentyrch in  south Glamorganshire. 

Scans of some of the family birth, marriage and death documents, 2004 photographs I took on a visit to Cold Ashton, and some transcriptions of old manorial records of the Cold Ashton parish can be found here: Cold Ashton Parish Registers. The manorial records are copied from a photocopy of the original transcriptions from Gloucestershire Notes and Queries, and are a useful record. Men and Armour 1608 contained one record of a Nicholas Brewer in Cold Ashton, although there are a few others in neighbouring parishes. There is also some stuff from the very early 14th century 1302-9, it is in latin and extremely difficult and I will include it when I have a decent copy.

  The Mudges, my maternal antecedents, are from the Torquay area in Devon. They arrived in 1838. Several collateral lines migrated about the same time. Some of the family claim a connection to Zachariah Mudge (1694-1769), vicar of St Andrews Plymouth. That connection may exist I cannot find it, and so if  there is a connection, it dates from before Zachariah Mudge was born. His ancestors appear to come from Berry Pomeroy in Devon, a few kilometres from St Marychurch, where my mother's line seems to have originated. My grandfather Angus Mudge (1885-1975) married Olive Westbrook (1889-1947), who was the child of a marriage between John Westbrook (1855-1931) and Louise Schilling (1858-1943).

  The Schillings, arrived in South Australia in 1838 from Langmeil, a small village in Kries Zullichau Brandenberg, an area now part of western Poland, about the same time as the Mudges. This page is of pictures taken in Poland in Okunin (Langmeil) and  Klepsk (Klemzig) area in 1996. There has been a lot of material gathered on this family including two editions of a very good history of the Schillings.

  Of the Westbrooks I know very little at the moment and would appreciate any help from descendants of John Westbrook.

To contact me-Kevin Brewer- parse the following words into the correct email form: "brewer" "at" "themeda" dot "net". I have done this is to prevent the spammers harvesting my email address and inundating me with their rubbish. Thanks.

Updated July 2009

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