Rolf Murray Sweeny

The Rolf chidren: Nora, Kitty, Annie and Teddy in about 1913

The earliest Liverpool migrant ancestors found on this line are George ROLF (b. 5 May 1821 Arreton, Isle of Wight) and Elizabeth HOSKINS (b.around 1818 in Beaumaris, Anglesey) who were living with his brother, James ROLF (b. 12 September 1831 Gatcombe, IoW), in the centre of town at 61 Moorfields at the time of the 1851 census. George and Elizabeth were married at Liverpool Parish church (St Nicholas at the Pier Head) in 1844. Within two months of Elizabeth's death on 7 March 1859 George was married again on 5 May 1859, the bride was Margaret JONES 'of full age', daughter of Thomas JONES, mariner.

Sometime around 1853 George and Elizabeth's son (and only child?) Thomas ROLF was born - his birth record still eludes me. He was twenty years old when he married Mary Ann MURRAY in 1873 at St John's Church of England in Liverpool. St John's Gardens now occupy the site behind St George's Hall where the church once stood. Their first child was grandfather Charles ROLF, a french polisher by trade, who, according to family memory, fought in the Boer War and in the Royal Flying Corps in World War 1.

Mary Ann's father, John MURRAY, was born in Castlebar, Co Mayo, Ireland in about 1829 and her mother, Mary Ann SWEENY, was born in Madras, India in 1830, where her father, John SWEENY (b.1797 in Dublin, Ireland) was a serjeant in the 2nd Madras European Regiment of the East India Company. John's wife Ann MARSH (b.1798 in Eltham, Kent) was a widow at the time of their marriage in India. In 1851 they were living in Marlborough St. Liverpool.

When the Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat in 1915 with a considerable loss of life, feelings ran high, and anyone with an apparently 'foreign' name became a target for harrassmen: my mother remembers house windows being smashed. And so an 'e' was added to the surname to make it look 'more English' - this branch of the family became ROLFE.

Grateful thanks are due to Eric Rolf for all the information on the Isle of Wight connections on this and the Rolf family tree page.