The Fison/Fyson family of Cambridgeshire

The earliest Fison ancestor that I can be sure of is my 6x Great Grandfather, Thomas Fyson, a tinker, who I find being buried on the same day that his son (and my 5x Great Grandfather) also named Thomas Fyson, is baptised at Ely's Holy Trinity Church.

Thomas senior's widow, known only as Ursula, must have been utterly distraught - to lose her husband, and to face life with a tiny baby. She remains a widow until her death in the May of 1764.

Thomas Fyson junior would go on to live to be about 50 years old, and he married Elizabeth Whiteley. The couple had at least seven children between 1764 and 1777, but at least three of them failed to thrive, and they died in their infancy.

Their second son to carry the name Thomas Fison would become my 4x Great Grandfather, and after losing his first wife Elizabeth Smith, and their son William Fison by 1793, he re-married to Mary Meadows, and added two more children to his family. The oldest of these was my 3x Great Grandmother Elizabeth Fison, who upon marrying Ely shoemaker Robert Cooper in 1828, when she was about 20 years old, therefore brings an end to my Fison ancestry.

Elizabeth and Robert remained in Ely until their deaths in the 1880s, and had 13 children, therefore growing the Cooper family.

James Fison and Sons

In 1789, and less than 40 miles East of Ely, in the Suffolk village of Barningham, a James Fison opened a flour mill and bakery. This expanded to a maltings, and by 1808 he formed the business James Fison and Sons.

This business would eventually go on to become a highly successful fertilizer business, diversifying into explosives during the First World War. The business was sold off in the 1990s, and it ceased to exist by 1998.

The proximity of this family, and their business, may suggest that there is a link between my Fison family and theirs, but so far, a link has remained elusive.

Variants of the Fison surname

The only variant of the surname that I have found so far, whilst investigating the parish records of Ely, appears to be Fyson. This is used interchangeably at times, and both Fison and Fyson still appear to be used in modern day.

Fison family connections

The Fison family has provided me with small number of ancestral links to other families in the Ely area: