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Category Archives: Stories
Conjectures, traditions and the search for the truth…
Sir Denner Strutt, Knt., was of Little Warley, of which place he was created a baronet in 1641; he suffered severely from the arbitrary exactions of the parliament in the time of King Charles the First, being compelled to pay … Continue reading →
Back From The Dead?
This is the second part of the story of Stephen Willis, the Ramsgate hawker, and his parents, Stephen Willis senior and Ellen (née Foley). In the first part, we followed Stephen senior from his birth in Bishopsbourne near Canterbury in … Continue reading →
Posted in Document Sources, Local History, research, Stories, Surnames
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Tagged census, Hawkers, newspapers, Ramsgate, the national archives, Willis family
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4 Comments
A Waste of Time and Money
I remember thinking, when I was just setting out on my family history research as a naïve fifteen year old, that this genealogy business was quite a simple affair. Once you’d found a record of someone’s birth, you looked for … Continue reading →
Posted in Local History, research, Stories
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Tagged Barham, Canterbury, Ellen Foley, Hawkers, Henry Mayhew, Maidstone, Stephen Willis, Willis family
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2 Comments
Unhappy Differences
It’s every family historian’s dream to have the opportunity to research and write about an ancestor who left a mark. It doesn’t even need to have been a big mark. Perhaps they were involved in a major political event or, … Continue reading →
Posted in Local History, research, Stories
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Tagged Houghton, Houghton-le-Spring, Isabel Nelson, James Lawson, Robert Hutton
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Blank spaces and circumstantial evidence
This is the fourth part of the three-part story of the life of my great, great, great grandmother, Mary Ann Port, which aims to explain why, despite the absence of evidence that she ever had any children, I believe her … Continue reading →
Posted in research, Stories
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Tagged biography, buckingham, census, Dorchester, family history, genealogy, Hertfordshire, newspapers, research, tna
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My friend Miss Mary Ann Port
This is the third and final part of the story of my great, great, great grandmother, Mary Ann Port. You can read the first part here and the second part here. The long, drawn-out Chancery Case, Port v. Hovil[1], had … Continue reading →
Posted in research, Stories
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Tagged biography, buckingham, documents, family history, genealogy, newspapers, research
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1 Comment
Humbly complaining
This is the second part of the story of my great, great, great grandmother, Mary Ann Port. You can read the first part here. Humbly complaining shew unto your Lordship your Oratrixes and Orator Elizabeth Port of Samuel Street Saint … Continue reading →
Posted in Stories
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Tagged biography, buckingham, chancery, family history, genealogy, research
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3 Comments
All and every my child and children
Our efforts to reconstruct the lives of our pre-Victorian ancestors are all-too-often thwarted by the lack of available source material. In an era before the decennial censuses and the (virtually) comprehensive civil registration system, our reference points can be severely … Continue reading →
Posted in Document Sources, research, Stories
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Tagged biography, chancery, documents, family history, genealogy, Port family, research, tna
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4 Comments
The story behind the stone
About 35 years ago, I was involved with a project to record the monumental inscriptions in Aldenham churchyard for the Hertfordshire Family History Society. The churchyard contains hundreds of gravestones but one in particular, recording the death of a woman … Continue reading →
Posted in Local History, Stories
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Tagged Aldenham, census, documents, drowning, family history, gravestones, Hertfordshire, newspapers, research
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A mariner’s tale – with a twist
William Annal was born to the sea. His father, John, together with his uncle William, left their native Orkney, and worked as fishermen along the UK’s east coast, before eventually settling on the Thames Estuary in Gravesend, Kent, sometime around … Continue reading →
Posted in Stories, Uncategorized
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Tagged census, documents, family history, Gravesend, Greenwich, Mariners, Merchant Navy, orkney, research, tna
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