In the early 1990s I started to develop an interest in Family History and
Genealogy. My father and many generations of my ancestors were born around the
Ruardean area of the Forest. My grandfather Albert who was a coal miner moved up
north during the depression years, this was about 1920, he had been out of work
for 5 years.

I myself was born in Manchester and came to Australia when I was 18 looking for
a little more sunshine than what Manchester had to offer and I have lived here
ever since.

The Web site came about from being a member of the Royal Forest of Dean Family
History Society. In the early days of the internet, I can dig up the exact date
but it was probably 1994/5, I communicated with a Michael Holman who was an
officer of the RFODFHS. After a little time, Michael after a lot of opposition
from the other officers of the society he managed to get them to agree that they
should have a website. I then went ahead and made up a few web pages which
were very simple by how things are today.
http://www.iinet.net.au/~davwat/royalfor/

A year or so later the RFODFHS was about to disband as all was not going well
for them and they no longer had a Editor to put together their Journal. Rod Neep
who lived in Ruardean at the time agreed to take on the roll for a short time.
But not long after the RFODFHS was all finished. All the material they held was
given the GFHS and the name of the society de-registered.

I wanted to keep some web pages of the Forest of Dean so I set up the Forest of
Dean Genealogy Pages. Using the word Genealogy in the name so there was not
confusion with the old societies name. All of the above was the beginning of
what is the Forest of Dean Family History Pages of today.

Never did much with the Web site for many years but it was always there with a
simple guestbook. It was only about three years ago or so that I changed the
site name to what it is named today as many years had gone by and also using the
words Family History in the tile was more appropriate. Since then I began to
develop the site more and as you know it keeps growing all the time.