Why and when did you start on family history? (General)

by poytheboy , Friday, January 16, 2009, 00:37 (5863 days ago) @ admin

I’m 47, Male and form the 80% of UK researchers. My Mothers family are from Taynton and Huntley from 1700 until 1900 and during 1840’s her direct ancestor moved to Cheltenham then as from 1860’s the family were born in Birmingham / surrounding area’s.

Around the time my Gran died in 1978 I remember the news reader Gordon Honeycombe tracing his family roots from Cornwall. I believe the shows were conbining his own family history research with a view of showing viewers how they could do it themselves. I remember he used the local libraries and Somerset House (the very old Registry Office in London) holding the national volumes containing the index‘s of Births, Deaths, and Marriages. In the back of my mind as a teenager I was always curious about my own history due to the fact many of my family were much older than my own peers.

In January 1989 there was an item on a local news channel and live camera’s in Birmingham city centre celebrating Birmingham’s 100 years as a city. I thought my Grand father would have been born that year - 1889 and started asking questions about him with my Mom. She knew very little of her family such as grand parents, uncles and aunts and even cousins, although my Mom being the 12th of 13 children. On January 19th 1989 I purchased my Grand Fathers birth certificate in a bid to start looking into who his parents were as my mother didn’t know them. He was born in November 1887. I did this was going to Birmingham Registry office and they did a 5 year spread search for me. My Mom did know his mothers name was Charlotte.

I went to Birmingham library with my certificate and I was pointed to the 1881 census based on the address on the Birth certificate. The librarian did say I’d be lucky to find the family in the same place 7 years down the line, however viewing the film I found the family 5 doors away. The father and mothers names matched and there were his elder brothers. (Later released censuses showed him and a sister)The surprise was my grand dad’s father was born in Cheltenham.

I visited Cheltenham library saw the 1861 census and this showed the family was originally from Taynton.

I then went to Gloucester records office and got back to 1700.

Over the 20 years I’ve expanded my research and visited Salt Lake City 3 times, looked at records at Edinburgh, Cardiff, London, Lincoln, Hereford, Worcester. I have connections via the internet as family moved to New Zealand, Australia, America and India.

Dave Poyner