stroudwaterboy
07-05-2008, 01:43 PM
Hello everyone,
My Name is Robin and I live in the beautiful county of Gloucestershire in England.
I have been tracing my family for around two years now, my background is in computing and systems design so I have been lucky in finding it relatively easy to use the internet for my research and from day one used a computer for record keeping. I have now got to the stage that I feel I have a good tree that I am happy with at the moment and understand that I am at the point known as time to put some flesh on the bones.
The reason I started was that my mother in law was seriously ill and one day when we where sitting with her trying to keep her spirits up she said that see would like to have known some more about her previous generations so I got going, unfortunately she only lasted another two weeks but I got bitten by the bug. One of the big problems I had at the start was that my mother in law was the last of our parents – if only I had started earlier!
I seem to have been lucky in that most of our ancestors appear to have stayed put and married local people. Geographically I am looking at Sussex mainly, villages of Laughton, Hurstpierpoint, Kirdford and Edburton. Gloucestershire around the Bisley area and one family in Wilton Somerset.
The family names are PAYNE(Sussex), WRIGHT(Gloucestershire), VOYCE(Sussex), FUNNELL(heavily research by others already,Sussex), ARBERRY(Somerset), TULLEY(Sussex).
Of course having got to my current stage I am now going to record offices, luckily Gloucester office is not too far away and I am often seen there but I find this part the most frustrating, often I have narrowed someone down to a period in time and place get the fiche and discover that the records may as well not have survived as all you have is a sea of white and the occasional line, then I go to the BT's and find that the transcriber was I assume bored and they just can't be read, happens so often. But then of course you get the times when you suddenly find a record you did not expect and you get a breakthrough, makes it all worthwhile.
My Name is Robin and I live in the beautiful county of Gloucestershire in England.
I have been tracing my family for around two years now, my background is in computing and systems design so I have been lucky in finding it relatively easy to use the internet for my research and from day one used a computer for record keeping. I have now got to the stage that I feel I have a good tree that I am happy with at the moment and understand that I am at the point known as time to put some flesh on the bones.
The reason I started was that my mother in law was seriously ill and one day when we where sitting with her trying to keep her spirits up she said that see would like to have known some more about her previous generations so I got going, unfortunately she only lasted another two weeks but I got bitten by the bug. One of the big problems I had at the start was that my mother in law was the last of our parents – if only I had started earlier!
I seem to have been lucky in that most of our ancestors appear to have stayed put and married local people. Geographically I am looking at Sussex mainly, villages of Laughton, Hurstpierpoint, Kirdford and Edburton. Gloucestershire around the Bisley area and one family in Wilton Somerset.
The family names are PAYNE(Sussex), WRIGHT(Gloucestershire), VOYCE(Sussex), FUNNELL(heavily research by others already,Sussex), ARBERRY(Somerset), TULLEY(Sussex).
Of course having got to my current stage I am now going to record offices, luckily Gloucester office is not too far away and I am often seen there but I find this part the most frustrating, often I have narrowed someone down to a period in time and place get the fiche and discover that the records may as well not have survived as all you have is a sea of white and the occasional line, then I go to the BT's and find that the transcriber was I assume bored and they just can't be read, happens so often. But then of course you get the times when you suddenly find a record you did not expect and you get a breakthrough, makes it all worthwhile.