The photograph above is of a print by J W Gantz, 1841, courtesy of British Library |
The Herons of our study originate with Elijah Heron who was born around 1768, we know not where. He married Sarah Ann Bilcliffe at St Mary's Church (pictured left), Fort St George, Vepery, Madras on 4 April 1789. The record of his marriage, which shows that he was a Conductor with a military unit of the British East India Company, unfortunately does not give any details about either Elijah's or Sarah's places of birth and neither does it give any details about their parents so this makes it extremely difficult to trace them further back.
A Conductor was a military rank of Warrant Officer status. These days it is a rank that is used only in the Royal Logistics Corps to elevate a limited number, currently only eight, of selected Warrant Officer's. It is the most senior non-commissioned rank in the British Army. Sadly though, the records of the British East India Company hold only a very limited amount of information about the non-commissioned members of their forces. As a result, nothing positive has yet been found about Elijah's own ancestry or that of his wife but it is known that they had at least two sons and it is from one of them that we can chart descent to the Cambridge Herons. Elijah and his wife are the great, great great grandparents of Chris Heron, who commissioned this study, and his brother Mike. Unfortunately, at this stage we cannot offer any more information about either Elijah or Sarah Ann - but, watch this site and remember that............ ........in genealogy a step backwards is progress ! |