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Hi, Carol. It's good to hear from you. I wanted to communicate with you via personal message, but I don't seem to be able to do that (I think because I'm new to RootsChat and haven't posted enough yet). But anyway, here's a start. My great-grandmother, Ellen (Dodge) Cooper was born in Brighton in about 1834. I'm pretty sure that her parents were Joseph Dodge (born in Brighton in about 1812) and Mary (Wordsworth or Wadsworth) Dodge (born in Sonning, Oxfordshire, in about 1810). I don't know where they met, and I haven't been able to find any marriage record for them. But it seems that they lived together in Brighton from about 1830 or 1831 until about 1839 or 1840. Joseph was a cab driver, like his father (also called Joseph Dodge; he apparently came from Devon or Dorset originally, but spent most of his life in Brighton). They lost several (maybe three) sons in the 1830s, and it looks like they ran into difficult times financially. They moved to London in about 1840, apparently leaving Ellen with her grandparents in Whitchurch, Oxfordshire (where she was living, aged about 6, at the time of the 1841 census). A son, Alfred John Dodge, was born in early 1841, in Bermondsey. Around that time, the family apparently started to use the surname "Davis", at least for some purposes (for example, in the 1841 census), and Joseph was using the forename "Alfred". Another son, Richard Davis Dodge, was born at No. 2, Bakers Buildings, Bishopsgate, in December 1843. And another, Joseph Napoleon Dodge, was born at the same place in March 1846. Joseph/Alfred disappeared sometime between 1846 and 1851 (he probably died, but I've not been able to find any death record for him). In 1851, Mary (apparently then a widow) was living at 8 Cumberland Street, Shoreditch, with Ellen, Richard and Joseph; their surname was listed in the census as "Davis"; there was no indication of how she was earning a living. Her oldest son, Alfred John (known then as "John"), was in Whitchurch with his grandparents. Ellen married my great-grandfather, Charles Cooper, in Shoreditch in December 1853 (when her brother Joseph Napoleon would have been aged 7). In 1861, Mary was still at 8 Cumberland Street, working as a laundress, with Alfred John, Richard, and Joseph Napoleon, but now using the surname "Dodge". Charles and Ellen were nearby, at 10 Cumberland Street, with their first three kids. My grandfather, William Cooper, was born at 5 Plough Yard (very close to Cumberland Street) in December 1861. The Cooper family moved to St. George in the East, and then to Shadwell, between 1861 and 1871. At the time of the 1871 census, my grandfather William (aged 9) was with his grandmother Mary (who was still working as a laundress, but now using the surname "Davis") at 2 Plough Yard (very close to where he was born in 1861). Also there was Joseph Napoleon (my grandfather's uncle), then aged 24 and working as a porter (and also using the surname "Davis"). I think Mary died sometime between 1871 and 1881, but I've not been able to find any clear record of her death. By 1881, Ellen had died, Charles was living in Limehouse with their three youngest children, and my grandfather William had joined the army (the Army Hospital Corps); Joseph Napoleon was, I think, living on his own (as "Joseph Davis") in Shadwell, still working as a porter. Apparently sometime between then and when he married in 1889 he started working as a packing case maker. I suppose it's possible that he was doing that for his nephew Charles Cooper (my grandfather's older brother, born in Shoreditch in 1855), who by then had become a very successful manufacturer and seller of rat and insect poisons based in Limehouse (my great-grandfather, Charles Cooper Sr., appears to have worked as a salesman for his eldest son, Charles Jr., towards the end of his life).

Apparently Joseph Napleon and Johanna (Gilbey) Davis/Dodge had at least eight kids between 1889 and 1906 -- Nellie (1889), Joseph Napoleon (1890), Arthur John (1893), William Thomas (1895), Percy Ernest Mitchell (1897), Edwin Frederick (1899), Richard Charles (1902) and Bertram Leonard (1906). Which one of them are you descended from?! I don't know anything about this branch of the family, but would be interested to hear more.

I have a fair bit more information about the Dodge family in Brighton, about the Wordsworth (or Wadsworth) family in Oxfordshire and London (several of Mary's siblings moved to London in the 1830s and 1840s), and about Joseph Napoleon's siblings (Ellen, Alfred John, and Richard) and their families .... but enough for now!