Ancestry of the CANNINGS-BUSHELL family of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire


Table of Contents



The signature and seal of John Bushell of Great Bedwyn on his Will of 1720. The seal features three water bougets and is identical to the seal of the Worcestershire Bushell family although no link has been established. John Bushell styled himself a gentleman but this may have been poetic license along with his assumption of the right to use a coat of arms


This research brings together a number of families in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire. The Wiltshire ones are centred around Great Bedwin and Enford, with a pocket around Liddington; the Gloucestershire ones around Cranham in the Cotswolds, the city of Gloucester itself, the Gloucestershire - Worcestershire border north to Broadway and the region of the county lying to the north of the Forest of Dean, centred on Newent and Hartpury. On the very eastern boundary of the county, there is a substantial family foothold around Kempsford and Marston Maisey and in the central Cotswolds around Chedworth.

Strays from other areas of the country do appear but in the nearly 500 years worth of records gathered, the number involving other counties is small - a bit of Cornish or Worcestershire. These are, in the main, families of the land or of the village - yeoman farmers and farm labourers; village bakers, carpenters, masons, carters, etc. Very few of them appear to have become swept up in the industrial revolution or the drift to the cities of the Victorian period; nor were many of them persuaded, involuntarily through criminal acts or despair or voluntarily through the hope of riches, to head for lands overseas.



The research results are arranged as flexibly as possible. There is an on-line searchable database which included a downloadable GEDCOM file (about 3.2Mb).

One major change concerns the FRANKIS familiy who for many years I believed I was linked to but recent research has convinced me that this is not the case. This has been placed it on this site as a stand-alone FRANKIS.GED. No further research will be done on this line.


Send e-mail to: dave@canbush.com


Cranham under heavy snow in the late 19th century


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