What began as an attempt to separate “my” ancestors from
their identically named cousins has evolved into a sprawling, incomplete and
still evolving tree documenting one family from the late 18th to the
early 20th century. Its been
patched together from publically available sources - often found free through
libraries or inexpensively online – including newspapers, trade directories, parish
records, census transcripts and birth, marriage and death indexes.
Constructing this tree has been similar to working on a jig
saw puzzle: fitting pieces together, trying to make out the overall picture,
even when pieces missing or it suddenly becomes clear that an entire section
has been joined in the wrong place, upside down or back to front.
As the project progressed, I’ve become increasingly interested
in watching how far the family spread geographically and socially over the
generations, long after they’d lost touch with the more distant cousins than in
tracing just “my” ancestors.
I plan to continue to adding to the tree as I
find information, I’m happy to share information on the sources I’ve used and
how I’ve spliced facts together and would love to hear from anyone with a
similar interest.
