There are just 3 Tasker IGI records from Gloucestershire before 1600, out of a total of 130. All three are marriages, and all three the only records for those villages. John Tasker is the first record, marrying Margerie Honington in 1544 at Buckland, a small village just a mile or so from Broadway, Worcestershire and less than 10 miles from the Warwickshire border.

The second wedding was Henry Tasker marrying Tasie Silke on 10 July 1564 at Woodchester, just south of Stroud. And the third was Jane Tasker, born about 1546 in Olveston, about 10 miles north of Bristol, marrying Henry Commins on 4 November 1567.

Then in the early 1600s there are a number of Tasker families that sprang up in north-east Gloucestershire, close to the Warwickshire and Oxfordshire borders, and possibly all related. The three main villages are Shennington (once a detached part of Gloucestershire that is now part of north Oxfordshire), Ebrington and Mickleton.

Records in Shenington start with James Tasker, christened on 18 Feb 1613 and presumably his brother Richard, christened on 22 October 1620. Daniel Tasker must have been born somewhere between 1630 and 1655, and with his wife Elinor, they established a Tasker tribe that was to span several generations. Their seven children were: Daniel and Robert (probably twins, born 1677), Elizabeth (1679), Frances (1681, who died aged 20), Daniel again (probably a twin with Joyce, in 1682) and Thomas in 1688. Robert was to marry Dorothy and have a further seven children, whilst Thomas married Ann Ward and had another seven children in Wroxton, Oxfordshire. Although the Shenington Taskers seem to have died out by the late 1700s, the Wroxton Taskers continued well into the mid 1850s.

Meanwhile at Ebrington, Nicholas Tasker and his wife had several children from 1650 onwards, including Nicholas (1650), Anthony (1652), Elizabeth (1657), Thomas (1659) and John (1681). It could well have been this son Thomas who married Alice Simmons on 29 September 1682 at nearby Mickleton, with children Thomas (1683), Phoebe (1685) and George (1687).

Some of these Tasker relations are shown further here.