Just so you know how I fit into the family, this is my DOXEY line:
- William DOXEY (b. 23 May 1739, Middleton by Wirksworth, Derbyshire)
married Mary Smedley 1765 in Middleton
- Abraham DOXEY (b. 1773, Middleton by Wirksworth, Derbyshire)
married Hannah LONGDON 1799 in Middleton
- Abraham DOXEY (b. 1809, Middleton, Derbyshire)
married Bridget HISCOCK 1841 in Kendall, Westmorland
- George DOXEY (b. 1850 Ashford, Derbyshire)
married Mary GRAHAM 1871 in Chorlton-on-Medlock (Manchester, England)
- Tom Graham DOXEY (b. 1874, Warsop, Nottinghamshire)
married Emma Pearl HAYES 1899, Salt Lake City, Utah
- Graham Hayes DOXEY (Born 1900, Salt Lake City, Utah)
- David Watson DOXEY (born 1931, Salt Lake City, Utah)
- Cynthia DOXEY (Born 1964, Salt Lake City, Utah)
I never met my great-grandfather Tom Doxey, and my grandfather died when
I was 5, but I have heard much good about both men. The story goes that
Tom's father and mother (George DOXEY and Mary GRAHAM) married in Manchester,
moved to Warsop, had a few children, and then must have moved back to
Manchester. Mary died there when Tom was only 3 years old. By that time
two younger children had died, and Mary died in childbirth. Tom and his five
year old sister Mary Ellen went to live with their grandmother, Bridget
Hiscock Doxey SCHOFIELD (she had remarried after the death of her husband
Abraham DOXEY), also in Manchester. George DOXEY was not with the rest of
the family for most of the rest of Tom's life.
From Tom's point of view, his father George was sort of a ne'er-do-well,
and really didn't take care of the family. However, it may have been that
he was grief-stricken and felt like he needed to get away--and he probably
found a better job someplace else, too. In the 1881 Census, Thomas and
Nellie are shown as grandchildren to William and Bridget SCHOFIELD in
Chorlton On Medlock (Manchester). George Doxey is not living with them.
There is a possibility of a George Doxey being Tom's father, but he is
living in York. When Tom was about 13, his older sister Nellie died,
which was very difficult for him.
Sometime during that period his grandmother Bridget met the Mormons and
joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Tom joined the
church also. I don't know where George was at the time. I think Bridget
had been widowed yet again by that time. One of Bridget's other sons,
William DOXEY, and his wife Agnes also joined the Church. William and Agnes
came to America on the ship "Wisconsin" in 1885 with their children,
eventually coming to Utah. Bridget SCHOFIELD and Thomas DOXEY came on the
ship "Wisconsin" four years later in 1889, disembarking at New York,
and then taking a train to Utah where they eventually settled.
Almost 40 years earlier, a Thomas DOXEY from Derbyshire had joined the
Church and emigrated to Utah in 1853. This Thomas was a great-grandson of
William DOXEY and Mary SMEDLEY in Wirksworth, but through their son, Thomas
and his son Thomas. William and Mary are our common ancestors. After
Thomas (the Utah pioneer) arrived in Utah in the 1850's he settled in Ogden,
a town about 45 miles north of Salt Lake City, Utah where he married and had
a large family. When Bridget and my great-grandfather Tom arrived in Utah,
they first went to Ogden, probably to be with their cousins. Bridget stayed
there for some time, but Tom decided to let a room in Salt Lake City and get
a job here. Tom married in Salt Lake City in 1899, and his descendants have
stayed in or near Salt Lake until my generation when many have moved further
afield throughout the United States. The pioneer Thomas Doxey's descendants
for several generations stayed in or near Ogden. Hence, we call ourselves
"the Salt Lake Doxeys" and the others are the "Ogden Doxeys." They are not
all in Ogden now, most of the other Doxeys we meet come from the original
pioneer, Thomas Doxey.
Eventually, George DOXEY (Tom's father) ended up coming to America as well.
He married a woman in New York and settled there, having another child with
her. My father said he remembered when his father (Graham) went to New York
and met the other son who didn't go by the name of DOXEY. As George became
older he came to Utah (leaving his wife in New York). My grandfather said he
vaguely remembered meeting him just before he died in 1904 (my grandpa would
have been 4 years old). George stayed with the relatives in Ogden before he
died. Bridget also died in 1904, having lived a long, hard life, raising
several children that were not her own (I think she bore about 10, but reared
several grandchildren, plus children from both her husband's previous
marriages). My great-grandmother (Pearl HAYES) described her as a remarkable
woman, having reared 19 children. She must have had quite a life!
Well, that's the story as far as I know it. It may have been more detail
than you wanted.
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