John Rogers (1817-1880) was born at Bricklehampton, Worcestershire, in 1817, the eldest of six children of Thomas and Hannah Rogers. By 1821, John and his parents were living at Wickhamford, as all his five youngers siblings were baptised there.
On 5th August 1838, John married Badsey-born Ann Hartwell at Wickhamford. They had three children: Jane Amelia (1839), Oliver (1845-1911) and Thomas (1848-1972). The children were all born at Wickhamford, although, at the time of the 1841 census, John and Ann were living in Badsey; John was a labourer.
At the time of the 1851 census, the Rogers family was living in a cottage in Wickhamford which has long since been demolished. By 1861 they had moved to Aldington; both John’s sons were also working as labourers. In 1871, they lived in Badsey at The Leys (demolished in the 20th century, on the site of the current-day Hither Green), in a cottage next-door to their son, Oliver, and his wife, Ruth.
In 1873, Oliver and Ruth emigrated to America. At some time in the 1870s, John and Ann decided to join them as, by 1880, they were living in the same household in Auburn Township in the county of Geauga in the state of Ohio. Just nine houses away lived another Vale of Evesham family: John and Mary Ann Sears, who had emigrated in 1872, plus Mary Ann’s father, John Heeks, and step-mother, who had emigrated in 1875. John Rogers’ wife, Ann, was the sister of John Heeks’ first wife, Mary, who had died in 1854.
John died later in 1880 and was buried at Shadyside Cemetery, Auburn. His wife died in 1893, his daughter-in-law in 1910 and his son in 1911; they are all buried in the same plot.