One day as I was visiting a curio market at our local village hall, my attention was caught by an old photograph album. As I picked it up and browsed through the treasured photographs I was saddened that those memories so lovingly collected and presented by somebody from a previous generation were now lying on a table and waiting to be sold to strangers.

Imagine how you would feel if you had a picture of your great-great-great grandmother. Imagine how you would feel if you could read from the journal of some distant ancestor from generations past. Imagine how much more interesting your history classes at school would have been if you had a diary from someone who lived in that period of time.

Generations come and go and time passes by, it is a natural process as old as time itself. Will you be remembered by your great grandchildren or will you disappear as memories fade and the present generations pass on. Will your treasured family photographs end up on a table in a village hall junk market or will they be treasured by generations to come.

Tracing my family tree has been like an exciting treasure hunt. Working with my mother we have traced back through several generations, and as our records grew we have been contacted by other people who have helped us find more and more information. More recently we were given access to family photographs and we were able to put faces to the names on our files.

When I got married we worked on my husbands family tree too, and when my son was asked to do a project at school on his family tree he was able to prepare and present a portfolio that by far exceeded his teachers expectations.

Our ancestors are long gone but it is amazing to see what information we can find if we are prepared to do the research. This site contains the results of research covering 11 generations, with as much information as I can give, including photographs of my Victorian ancestors.

This is my gift from me to my ancestors and presenting it in this way is my gift to future generations. I am happy to share it with you. Maybe the branches of our family trees meet somewhere.

A happy family is but an earlier heaven.

                                                                               Sir John Bowring

My Family History

Click the graphic below to visit one of the most popular pages on the web. This site contains over 400 million names for you to research, provides information to help you research your family ancestry and you can download a free workable copy of Personal Ancestral File so you can fully organise your own family history records with ease.

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