Like Melchizedek, we do not know Joseph's parents. It's not that we have not tried. It is difficult to find information about him. We do know that he married Elizabeth Rugh on Christmas Eve of 1839. He died on Thanksgiving of 1884. He had been born on 10 June 1810. This was just ten short years after the Act of Union and millions of the Irish were already beginning to flee the country. Joseph would do so by his late teens or early twenties.
We know all of this from an important source. It is an obituary written by his son-in-law, the Reverend John Ralph. He married Rose whose sister, Susan Elizabeth, married my great, great grandfather Charles C. Pritchard. Their daughters, Rose and Minnie, married two Morrow brothers. Minnie married my great grandfather, Patrick Henry Morrow. They had three sons, Victor, Wallace and Gordon. Gordon was my mother's father.
This is all rather dense and will require unpacking through time. It is a very interesting story. For instance, Charles Pritchard and his family were tailors. His father Joseph was from Wales originally; but, he moved to Westminster, London. There his life followed the vagaries of the tailoring trade. In 2011, we had lunch in a pub that the family probably would have frequented as tailors ensured that they had their wet lunch each day! They were within bow shot of Buckingham Palace and most likely helped to make the vestments for Westminster Cathedral. They lived and worked near the main shops supplying these items.
More to tell later. I am attaching a photo of the obituary which should be able to be readable when downloaded and expanded. I'll use it over the next little while to tell the story of the family. So, if you have difficulty reading, be patient and the details will follow. We can trace Elizabeth Rugh's family back quite a ways and it is a robust tale.
