#52ancestors (Wk12): Membership – Arthur Vickery

The case of my 2x great grand uncle Arthur Vickery is of particular interest because he married somewhat beyond the immediate agricultural labourer set of his family in Elvetham, Hampshire, UK where he was raised. In doing so he could be said to secure membership of wholly different ‘set’ by marrying the daughter of a …

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#52ancestors (Wk11): Lucky – Elizabeth Vickery

The Vickery family line flows back from my Mum’s Mum’s Mum’s side of my family tree and is one of the lines I can trace furthest back, with still further promise. I am on pretty solid foundations going back to at least my 8x great grandparents John Vickery (1675-1737) and Elizabeth Page (1675-1729) of Bentley, …

#52ancestors (Wk10): Translation – Charlotte Hale & sons

A powerful force which has been evident when delving deeper into family tree research is how places where people have been born, brought up or lived translate into a longer-term sense of ‘home’ or some other relationship with an equal intensity in shaping our experiences or even our sense of self. It can even rattle …

#52ancestors (Wk9): Gone Too Soon – Esther Kinge

Porridge usually guarantees a good start, but your Dad ‘doing porridge’ when he steals a large enough quantity of oats to be sentenced to three months with hard labour in Winchester Gaol can’t have felt good for a ten year old girl in 1854 looking out on what the world has in store for her. …

#52ancestors (Wk8): I Can Identify – John Willie Simpson & Ellen Walton

I can identify John Willie Simpson and Ellen Walton as one of my four sets of great grandparents, but they are the couple with the least essential information associated with their profiles. In the case of Ellen, her family line goes no further back than this, and is the least well populated on my entire …

#52ancestors (Wk7): Outcast – Joseph Noad

The Penal Servitude Act (1853) substituted imprisonment with hard labour on UK shores for what had been transportation to a distant British colony when the sentence was for less than for fourteen years. Had it not been for that Act of Parliament, my 2x great grandfather Joseph Noad [8 May, 1834 (Leeds, Yorkshire) – June, …

#52ancestors (Wk6): Social Media – Alfred Vickery

Surnames provide those instinctive foundation ‘props’ when first getting stuck into drawing up a family tree. Over time, stories become the driving interest, but when I began, it was always those names. When it comes to this week’s #52ancestors theme of ‘Social Media,’ surnames provide an easy ‘hashtagable’ way of sharing my interest areas, not …

#52ancestors (Wk5): Oops – Thomas Backhouse

When I first started doing my family tree as a teenager in the 1980s, I thought my first mistake was pretty justified. Unilaterally, I decided that when it came to research, I was only interested in my Mum Mary’s side of the family. It was because my Dad’s Dad, Spencer Simpson (1914-1982) was such a …

#52ancestors (Wk4): Education – Rhoda Phillips

While the theme for this week’s chosen ancestor is ‘Education,’ the inspiration for the choice is related to a simple link, more to do with the home address for the last few decades of her life – School Hill, Little Sandhurst, Berkshire. My 2x great grandmother, Rhoda Phillips. Rhoda Phillips [7 February, 1876 (Dipley, Hampshire) …

#52ancestors (Wk3): Out of Place – Sarah Halfacre

The Basingstoke Canal navigates its way through the area of Surrey and Hampshire that I call home. Never a real commercial success after its completion in 1794, it was brought back to life in the last forty years through volunteer restoration. The waterway does however provide the picturesque backdrop to the early life of my …