I found something that I think is interesting – an ancestor who was martyred during the Marian Persecution in the 1550s.

My mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother was named Sophia Anne Rogers. A member of the Protestant Ascendancy, she lived in Northern Ireland in the 19th C. Her grandfather was Rev. George Rogers (1695-1769). George Rogers was born on December 27, 1695, in Lisburn, Antrim, Northern Ireland. He married Ann Hanna on December 9, 1725, in Glenavy, Antrim, Northern Ireland. He died on July 24, 1769, in Clough, Kilkenny, Ireland, at 73. He was a Curate at several parishes in Northern Ireland in the mid-1700s, including Glenavy near Antrim, and he was the Rector of Donaghy from 1763 to 1769.

I was looking for more information on the Rogers family and I came across the following as the result of a search at Google books:

 Searching some more, I found a pedigree connecting George Rogers to his great, great, great, great grandfather, John Rogers.

 According to Wikipedia:

“John Rogers (c. 1505 – 4 February 1555) was an English clergyman, Bible translator and commentator. He guided the development of the Matthew Bible in vernacular English during the reign of Henry VIII and was the first English Protestant executed [burned at the stake] as a heretic under Mary I of England, who was determined to restore Roman Catholicism.”

 “Rogers was born in Deritend, an area of Birmingham then within the parish of Aston. His father was also called John Rogers and was a lorimer – a maker of bits and spurs – whose family came from Aston; his mother was Margaret Wyatt, the daughter of a tanner with family in Erdington and Sutton Coldfield.”