This site was created for the purpose of collaborating on our family history and sharing our research with families related to us.
Viewing the family tree is open to everyone. However, to preserve the privacy of the living, unregistered users will not see information about living people.
This collection of family data is constantly growing and certainly contains errors. We would be grateful if you could inform us about corrections that are needed. We are always interested in additional information, pictures, or documents. Every comment is welcome.
This is our family. These are the 304 relatives we have researched to date, and the records go back to 1661.
Family history research can be fascinating, and we have discovered many interesting things about our relatives that have surprised us. Someone we thought of as an aunt turns out to be a cousin. We can find no record of some grandparents being married.
The apparent stories of some of the people are both tragic and uplifting. On one branch there are a lot of adoptions and particularly unofficial ones. This family branch lived in Durham in the north of England, where it was common to take in and adopt children where the birth family had problems. These problems were usually the early death of the father or mother, often through disease or industrial accident – many relatives worked in the coal mines. In such times the friends and family took in the children. Only through scrutiny of census records were the facts discovered and the back story revealed.
The geographic distribution of the family is also interesting as one part of the family were colonial British and they went everywhere around the world.
If you are related to persons in our collection, we would be pleased if you register for a free membership. This will give you access to more information, including information about living family members.