Despite the fact that I have now been researching my family history for almost 25 years, there are always new documents to be found and ancestral haunts to visit, so in this final post of the 52 Weeks challenge I’m going to reflect on the discoveries that stood out as particularly memorable during the past… Continue reading Memorable
Tag: Page
Musical
This week’s post could easily have been very short as I have never heard a single member of my family playing a musical instrument ! I know that my mother and my aunt had piano lessons when they were children, and my grandmother’s sister, Ada Howe, played the violin in an orchestra in Winchester, but… Continue reading Musical
Rural
Wantisden is a tiny rural parish in Suffolk, which lies mid-way between Woodbridge and Orford in open countryside that still feels isolated today. For more than 100 years, my ancestors called it home - in 1851, there were just 78 inhabitants living in 23 houses, and remarkably they include three sets of my maternal 3x… Continue reading Rural
Animals
My Suffolk ancestors once worked with an animal that is now rarer than the Giant Panda – the Suffolk Punch horse. Bred as a heavy draught horse, in the 19th century there would have been several thousand at work on farms in East Anglia, but today there are fewer than 500 left in the UK with… Continue reading Animals
Off to Work
When I started researching ancestors who lived in rural Suffolk in the late 19th century, I soon noticed that young men were quite often missing from census records for the places where I would expect them to be. For example, my great grandparents, Samuel Cullingford and Esther Page, were married in Wantisden on 29 July 1890… Continue reading Off to Work
Travel
For the first time since I started the 52 Weeks challenge, this prompt had me stumped. One of the most striking features of my tree is that on the whole my ancestors didn’t travel very far from the place where they were born and those that did, thanks to a seafaring occupation, wartime service or… Continue reading Travel
Family Secret
I do feel a little guilty when I uncover the long-held secrets that some of my ancestors must have thought they had taken to the grave, but there is no denying that resolving these intriguing puzzles is an immensely satisfying aspect of researching family history. Inevitably, now that DNA testing is so readily available, such… Continue reading Family Secret
Sleuthing Notes 