THE GREEN FAMILY
of Bedfordshire 

The Parish Register does not give the name of the mother so it is not certain if she was Margaret, who was William Green's wife when he died in 1625.

Mark was only nine when his father died.  His father left him £3 so that he could be bound apprentice as soon as a place fitting could be found for him.  It is not known to what trade he was apprenticed.  There is a gap from 1625 to 1644.  During this time Mark married Judith.  
The first record is of the baptism of their son, William, at Sandy, Bedfordshire on the 10th of February 1643/4.  Another son, Thomas, was baptised there on the 2nd of May 1652.

These were troubled times in England.  The quarrel between King Charles I and his parliament had come to a head and civil war had broken out.  Many Parish Registers for this period are faulty so there may have been other children.

Sandy, Park Lane (approx. 1905)

Bedfordshire was mainly on the parliamentarian side but it is unlikely that the war affected the lives of most of the common people much.  The Monarchy was restored on the 29th of May, 160 when Charles II returned.  Mark Green was buried at Sandy on the 23rd of July 1660 and his widow, Judith, was buried on the 26th of  January 1662/3.

 William Green was born in the time of Charles I during the time of the Civil War.  He was the son of Mark and Judith Green and was baptised at Sandy, Bedfordshire on the 10th of February 1643/4.

His father died when he was 16 and his mother two years later.  Five years later, when he was 23, he married his first wife, Elizabeth Miers, on the 30th of August 1667 at Great Barford.  William and Elizabeth set up home in Roxton. 

Roxton - High Street

Their first child, John, was baptised on the 5th of October 1668 followed by a daughter, Elizabeth, baptised on the 14th of October 1670  In 1671, William Green appears on the Hearth Tax Return
for Roxton.  This was a tax on all occupiers of houses of 2/- for every hearth or fireplace in the house.  William is listed as "discharged by Certificate" which means he was too poor to pay the tax.  Two more sons followed William, baptised 27 March 1674, and Thomas, baptised 26 December 1676.  Sometime after this, William's wife, Elizabeth, must have died and he was left a widower with four children under 12 and on the 4th of April, 1681, he married again. He was 37 and his bride, Elizabeth Fisher, was only 18.  They had three sons, Richard, baptised the 9th of February 1682/3; Edward, baptised the 6th of June 1686; and Leonard, baptised the 26th of June 1690.  Leonard died 9 months later and was buried on the 22nd of March 1690/1. 

William Green, labourer, was buried on the 17th of April 1705.  He was 61 years old.