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I have been researching my families for about 20 years now and find them a very interesting lot. I have cried at some of their stories, laughed at other stories and have come to know many of them as friends. I have walked the places that they walked and have visited the places they lived. I've attended the churches where the important events in their lives such as Baptisms, marriages and funerals took place. I've read their wills, found out about their occupations and discovered their relations and in some cases their friends. I've looked at their photos and found likenesses in my own children and grandchildren and we have carried their names down through another three generations. I treasure the little mementoes of some of them that have been handed down through the generations and have now been handed on to me. I have been able to return some things to family members who also treasure them through their links to their own history.
I've pored through Parish registers, learnt a little Latin to help read them, haunted archives and County Record Offices, begged for stories and information from older relatives and travelled halfway round the world twice to find them. I have found new relatives in Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada, England Scotland and Ireland and have been able to share information with them. My research has given me an anchor to hold on to when times have been troubled and has lead me to writing a little book about part of my family when I was not able to walk very well.
My family research has given me much pleasure over the last 20 years and if you are looking at it I hope that you also find something to interest you in this wonderful widespread family of ours.
My linked names are Coates, Hawes, Mudge, Cockfield, Swinburn, Beattie, Leane, Dingle, Symonds, Saunders, Mole, Graham, Relph,
and Beattie.
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