The Village of Cranham is located in Gloucestershire England, just southeast of the City of Gloucester. Cranham is the village where Richard Wiggall was born in 1609. Many of his descendants were born, baptized, lived, worked, worshipped, died and/or buried in this Village. It has very special connections to our family.
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Archivist for the |
Archivist for the Cranham Local History Society
An Archivist for the Cranham Local History Society started doing research for a book about the Village of Cranham around 1997-98. During her research she began to find quite a bit of information about a Wiggall Family that lived in the Village in the 1600, 1700 and 1800‘s. She put all that information aside in a separate binder. Today she has at least 2 huge binders full of information about our family. It is because of her that we know anything about our family from 1600-1900. Over a year ago, she went on an Genealogy Computer Program and recorded a tremendous amount of information about our family. When printed out it is 80 pieces of paper. We can never say how grateful we are to her for this tremendous gift!
Book about the Village of Cranham
The Cranham Local History Society continued the research for the book about the village over the last seven years. That book, “Cranham, History of a Cotswold Village” has just recently been completed, published and made available to the public. It is a beautiful book of 307 pages of history and photos of the village. The Front Cover is “Cranham Woods in Spring”, a photograph by another historian and artist in Cranham.
Thursday, May 19th, 2005, our Family had our First International Reunion at the Village Hall in Cranham. 109 of us gathered from the USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, Wales and all over England. Most of us met for the first time. It was a day none of us will ever forget. Two days later, on Saturday, May 21, 2005, this book had it’s official launching.
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St. James the Great Church & Cemetery |
St. James the Great Church and Cemetery
St. James the Great Church is where our family worshipped back in the 1600, 1700 and 1800’s. During our Cousins Trip to England in March of 2002, several of us had a photo taken as we stood around the Baptismal Font where our ancestor’s were baptized many years ago. Later we went outside to the church yard and cemetery. Age and weather have worn out the inscriptions on the stones, but records show that 77 members of the Wiggall Family are buried there.
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Village Hall |
Cranham Village Hall
The Village Hall in Cranham was the gathering place for the recent International Family Reunion.It was a perfect spot for all of us for that day. It was like “coming home”.
