[5] When Jane was ten years old, George Goodwin moved to Methley in Yorkshire where he was instituted as rector of St Oswald's Church in March 1709,[6] remaining there until his death in 1750.

[2] In the meantime, Jane took an active role in the Russian social scene, becoming a favourite of Empress Anna and attending various court parties, weddings etc.

She set off in January 1740, taking with her a letter of recommendation from the Empress addressed to King George II: We likewise having a particular benevolence towards the said widow for her good deserts, and consequently taking an interest in her welfare, are desirous on Our side any way to promote it; so We have found no other means than to recommend her to Your Majesty as a friend and sister to show to the said widow in her supplications your Royal Favour to her advantage and consolation in the melancholy station she is in.Rather than attempt to travel by sea through the winter, Jane set out with her servants overland by horse-drawn sledge; she was accompanied on her journey by William Vigor, a Quaker merchant, who was also returning to England.

[19][20]) They travelled over 550 miles through the region of Livonia and the Duchy of Courland (now part of Latvia) before reaching the port of Memel (now the Lithuanian city of Klaipėda) on the Baltic Sea.

[27] Jane and William Vigor were married at the non-conformist chapel at Somerset House (in the parish of St Mary le Strand) in Westminster on 4 May 1743.

Although Vigor occasionally represented the London interests of his former employers, Prankard and Dickinson, the couple settled into a life of "genteel obscurity"[19] until William's death in October 1767.

[2][24] Her obituary by John Nichols in The Gentleman's Magazine described Jane as having "lived much in the world, and being well acquainted with books, her conversation was the delight of all who had the pleasure of knowing her" and that her loss was "severely felt by the neighbouring poor, amongst whom she was constantly searching after proper objects for the exertion of her charity and benevolence".

[2] Another English resident of St Petersburg, the governess Elizabeth Justice, described Jane as "a fine woman; very tall, and perfectly genteel", and "in all her answers, even to her inferiors, she shows the greatest condescension, and most obliging temper".

[2] The German historian, Gerhard Friedrich Müller, described her as "an Englishwoman by birth: a young, beautiful, lively, well-behaved and intelligent woman".

[1] In The Gentleman‘s Magazine, John Nichols states that "she was in a manner obliged to publish, to prevent a spurious and incorrect copy from being obtruded on the world".

[35] These letters precede the originals chronologically and cover her earliest years at St Petersburg, during the reign of Peter II and were more personally revealing than those she had published during her lifetime.

[2] In 2009, London's Victoria and Albert Museum was allocated a group of twenty two embroidered sofa and chair covers together with a portrait of the Vigor family by Joseph Highmore in 1744; these had been accepted by the British Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax.

[38] The seat covers were probably worked by Jane Vigor while still in St Petersburg, "adapting Russian materials to her English design and needle skills".