This page hosts the family trees and pages of the key ancestors of Ruth Leah Stern/Florence Browne. Ruth changed her first name when she converted to Judaism. Interestingly, her grandmother Emily Ruth Browne (Woodward) shared the name, as did an earlier ancestor, Ruth Trennant, who we are sure Ruth Leah had never heard of. She told us she thought she had ancestors from Truro in Cornwall, Newbury in Berkshire, Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, and Skibbereen in Ireland. We've identified ancestors from the first two places and probably the last, so far. It's also likely that her grandfather Thomas Ambrose came from Norfolk. This fan chart shows Ruth Leah's recent ancestors:
We are much more certain about some of these ancestors than others at the moment. Robert William Woodward came to Australia from London with his wife Margaret Caroline Elliott via the fledgling colony of Nelson New Zealand. William Thomas Jordan came from Berkshire in England and married Jane Davis who arrived from Cornwall. Jane came on the ship Mary and Ellen together with her parents George and Catherine Davis and some of her siblings in 1853. Both George and Catherine have extensive documented ancestries in Cornwall, though George doesn't actually have a baptism or birth record. Based on DNA analysis and other evidence, we think that William Browne was born in Skibbereen in 1853 and that Thomas Ambrose was the son of Phillis Pilgrim and born in Norfolk.
Below, are links to family trees of each of our ancestors who immigrated to Australia and pages on the history of each family as well as Ruth Leah Browne's ancestor tree. With eight family trees, one for each couple of Ruth Leah's great-great-grandparents, we could include all fourth cousins of David and Rafi Stern. But because Margaret Moore's brother Hastings Moore married Courtney William Browne's daughter Jane Browne, all descendants of James Moore and Elizabeth Swanton are included in the Browne Family Tree. So, we don't really need a separate Moore family tree - only James Moore and Elizabeth Swanton themselves are missing from the Browne Family Tree. Though we think that Phillis Pilgrim was Thomas Ambrose's mother, we haven't yet identified his father. So, we just include the Pilgrim family tree. Therefore, we only need six trees: Browne, Woodward, Elliott, Pilgrim, Jordan, and Davis. All trees start with the earliest known paternal line ancestor. But they don't include any other lines of ancestors nor those ancestors' descendants. Importantly, they don't include the ancestors of Clarinda Oliver, mother of George Davis, who has a deep documented ancestry in Cornwall. Ruth Leah's ancestor tree naturally includes all their ancestors. There are also five family webpages. We haven't written a webpage about the Elliott Family yet, and we only have a webpage for the Ambrose Family rather than the broader Pilgrim Family.
We also include a tree with a large number of relatives of David and Rafi Stern, their spouses, and ancestors. This is harder to navigate but allows you to see all your ancestors and cousins simultaneously and make your own fan charts or ancestor trees on MyHeritage. Ruth Leah's ancestor tree goes much deeper into the past.
Family Trees, Pages, and Links
Last updated on 16 January 2025
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