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Special Feature (100,25 and 50 years ago back next week)
Hemeltoday reunites Canada cousins
TWO branches of a long-established Hemel Hempstead family have been reunited thanks to Hemeltoday and The Gazette.
Re-united | Denise Chennell, of Brambling Rise, Grovehill welcomed her distant relative Frank Chennells and his wife Wendy of Ontario, Canada, to the UK last week after the pair were introduced through a Gazette heritage article that appeared on Hemeltoday
To see that feature on Chennells grocers, just click here
Denise had been investigating her family history and wrote a piece about AJ Chennells grocers in the High Street, Hemel Hempstead.
Denise said: “I wrote an article and it went on the website with a picture. It was almost exactly two years ago. Frank and Wendy found the article and got in touch with The Gazette who put us in contact. It ended up with me and my friend June going there and spending five weeks over in Canada earlier this year.”
Frank and Wendy had been carrying out extensive research into Frank's family when they came across The Gazette article on the web and wrote to ask Denise if there were any family members still living in the town.
Frank said: “Once we had the contact with Denise we began to exchange photographs and research with each other. We would write back and forth and ask about what the Chennells had done.”
The High Street shop | Using the internet Frank and Wendy had managed to trace records of Chennells in the area all the way back to the late 1600s and have added pictures to their family trees thanks to Denise.
Denise was actually born in London, but as her family originated from the Dacorum area, she returned to live here.
She said: “At some point in our branch of the family we lost the letter ‘S' from the end of our name but the other Chennells kept it.
“We're still not sure exactly how myself and Frank are related but we know we have some common relatives,” she added.
After inviting Denise over to Canada earlier this year Frank made the return trip this month.
To celebrate the Canadian Chennells' arrival, Denise held a family reunion with nine members of the family from the local area.
She said: “We had relatives from Hemel, Berkhamsted, London Colney and Canada of course!”
Frank's grandfather was a farmer who moved up to Passenham in Buckinghamshire before emigrating to Canada in 1898.
During their visit Frank and Wendy visited the old house in Passenham where his grandfather left from and the church of St John the Baptist in Great Gaddesden where 12 members of the Chennells family are buried.
Frank said: “We're also going to visit Northchurch and the shop in the High Street and end up in Taunton, Somerset where we hope to find out more about other relatives.
“It's been a lot of hard work to do the research but this trip has made it worth it.”
“It's a huge thrill for people in Canada. We have a couple of elderly relatives in their 90s and they will be fascinated to hear about this.”
Denise added: “But for The Gazette we wouldn't have ever met!” | 