Members of our Isger family lived in Frome, Somerset from the seventeenth century to the early part of the nineteenth century. Frome was a key centre for the cloth trade for some of the period but with the opening of the large mills in Lancashire and Yorkshire the West Country cloth trade was decimated. That was probably the reason for the majority of the family to uproot and move on. London was probably the first call and then to Lewes, Sussex. Lewes was probably chosen because it was a growing town with much better living conditions than the capital city. The family appears to have settled in the St John's area of that town for about 50 years. Towards the end of the nineteenth century other towns in England were growing quickly and what seems to have been a fairly close knit family began to disperse. One branch of the family settled in Halifax, Yorkshire whilst another found its way to Swindon, Wiltshire and became involved with the fast expanding railway industry. A third branch moved to Luton, Bedfordshire to take advantage of its buoyant hat industry and associated trades. About 1851, another branch of the Isger family had migrated from London to Pennsylvania, U.S.A. In the twentieth century, particularly after the Second World War had ended, the family began to spread further afield. Members with the Isger family name currently live in Bedfordshire, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Yorkshire in the UK, whilst Western Australia, New Zealand and Pennsylvania in the United States are overseas locations.

Where our ancestors lived