Tomlinson Family


Dorothy Spurstow Tomlinson, 1763-1828		Dr. John Tomlinson was christened in Plemstall, Cheshire, England, on 18 Jan 1759. John lived in Chester where he was a surgeon and apothecary. He married Dorothy Spurstow, 1762-1828, supposedly his second cousin, the daughter of George Spurstow and Elizabeth Hayes of Chester, on 9 February 1786 in Chester, Cheshire.¹ Dorothy and John had nine or ten children before John died in 1808 in Chester. Dorothy died twenty years later, on 20 September 1828, in Parkgate, Cheshire, on the Wirral Peninsula between Liverpool and Chester. Dorothy wrote a will in 1820 which was probated in 1830. The two executors of her will were her nephew, Rev. Charles Miller, son of her sister Mary Spurstow Miller, and John Ansdell, the husband of her sister Elizabeth Spurstow Ansdell. Mentioned in the will were two sons, Charles and William John, and six daughters, Anne, Mary, Elizabeth, Martha, Ellen and Esther. The two youngest children, William John and Esther, were to be left in the care of the older daughters, Anne, Mary and Elizabeth. By the time Dorothy died, the two youngest children were adults.²

John and Dorothy’s daughter, Elizabeth Tomlinson, married Joseph Dundas Miller, a Liverpool merchant, in 1821 in Neston, Cheshire, about a mile or so from Parkgate. Joseph Dundas was her first cousin, the son of her mother Dorothy’s sister Mary. The witnesses were Charles Tomlinson, brother of the bride, W. Miller, the groom's father or brother, Anne Tomlinson, sister of the bride, John Ansdell, husband of the bride's maternal aunt, and John Miller, brother of the groom. Rev. Charles H. Miller, brother of the groom, performed the ceremony.

The portrait of Dorothy Spurstow Miller is from a photo of an oil painting, Glendale Studio, London. The photos of bothy Dorothy and her daughter, Elizabeth Tomlinson Miller, are courtesy of Hope Healy Koontz.

Dr. John Tomlinson's father was Randle Tomlinson according to a family tree that was handed down and according to his christening record. His mother was Ann Bagnell (Bagnall) according to the tree but no record has been found to confirm that she was his mother. According to the family tree, John was the fourth child, after Ralph, Charles and Ann; another sister, Mary, was the last child. Dorothy Spurstow, John's wife, was the granddaughter of Elizabeth Bagnell, the sister of John Bagnell, the great grandfather of John Tomlinson. This is all unverified information.
According to the Tomlinson family tree handed down in the family there were ten children. The last two children were William John and John. No christening record has been found for John who married Ann Eden and had several children. William John was christened in 1806. No further information is known about him. However, in Dorothy Spurstow Tomlinson's will, she mentions all her children by name and there is a William John but not a John. So most likely John is really William John and it was he who married Anne Eden. More research needs to be done on this family.

Anne Healy's Genealogy, Created October 2002
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5 May 2013
Updated 16 Jan 2015

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