See the Fooks tree here.

Ann Williams Mackenzie was William Fooks’s wife and my 4xgreat grandmother. She was baptised ‘Anne-Williams, daughter of James & Elizabeth [Betty] Mackenzie’ on 28 October 1759, at Wyke Regis. This would put her age at twenty when she married William in May 1780. She was two months pregnant at the wedding – hence the marriage, no doubt – and the couple’s first child was born on 7 December 1780 and baptised a month later as ‘James Mackenzie, son of William & Ann Williams Fokes’. Hereafter the name seems to have been generally spelled as ‘Fooks’.

A Miss Ann Williams Fooks is mentioned in the will of Jane Iles of Cerne Abbas, written 6 November 1824 and proven 24 April 1829. This could be her daughter.

Ann died at Weymouth on 18 October 1832, aged seventy-three – ‘wife of Mr Wm Fooks, much respected in life, and lamented in death’, ran The Times announcement. She was buried at Wyke Regis, on 24 October 1832 just six months after her son Stephen.

Ann’s Father, James Mackenzie

My 5xgreat grandfather, James Mackenzie, was buried at Wyke Regis on 4 January 1769, aged forty-seven (thus born in 1721/2). The gravestone is now a listed monument.

Apart from his marriage to Betty, nothing more is known about James, but an Alexander Mackenzie was buried at Melcombe Regis on the last day of October 1746. Was this his father, thus my 6xgreat grandfather?

Ann’s Mother, Betty Williams

Ann’s mother was baptised as Betty Williams, at Wyke Regis on 21 May 1725. She was the daughter of Richard and Anne Williams. Betty married James Mackenzie by licence at Wyke Regis, on 19 January 1750, the year her father Richard died.

In 1801 the ‘widow Mackenzie’ (surely this is her) was occupying premesis at Melcombe Regis registered to William Fooks (her son, presumably). She followed her husband to the grave on 22 December that year, aged seventy-six. In land tax records the following year she is listed under the property belonging to William as the ‘late Mackenzie’.

Ann’s Grandfather, Richard Williams

Richard Williams, Betty’s father, would thus also be my 6xgreat grandfather. He died in April 1750, aged sixty-five – nine years too soon to have met his granddaughter, Ann – and so was born in 1684/5, probably during the rein of Charles II. This was a particularly bloody period in Dorset’s history: 1685 saw twelve men hanged at Weymouth in the wake of the Monmouth Rebellion, after the Duke of Monmouth landed along the coast at Lyme Regis on 11 June 1685 to claim the throne from James II. After the Battle of Sedgemoor in July, Monmouth was executed for High Treason at Tower Hill and his supporters were sought out, imprisoned and awaited their fateful trials. Which side were the Williamses on? Is it just coincidence that one of the two ships that sailed out of Weymouth transporting the convicts to America was called the Betty?