Instant Cousins

Instant Cousins : archiving my ancestry

  • The Welsh Dairy in Clerkenwell

    John Richard Howard Wilcox was baptised on 25 October 1893. There is a note in the Baptism register that shows John was born on 31 August 1893. That is disputed in John’s death registration and also in his 1939 Register entry. In those latter registers, John’s date of birth was 29 August 1893. There are…

  • The 1921 Census Returns

    Today marks the arrival of the 1921 Census returns, for England and Wales, on Ancestry.co.uk. Of course, the 1921 returns have been available since January 2022 when the National Archives gave the initial three-year contract to publish them, to Find My Past, who were the highest bidders for the contract. Now that the contract has…

  • Sussex Roots

    This week I am returning to the Carver’s who originated in Lodsworth, Sussex. It is December with short days. I wonder what life was like in agriculture in those mid-19th Century days. Tending cattle and looking after the farm land would have been a brutal lifestyle in the rain and wind. While writing this I…

  • Great Uncle Harry (Palin)

    If my blog was a book, then this is how I would like to approach it. Michael Palin was able to write this book because he was handed a pile of notebooks and diaries and other papers relating to his Great Uncle. He supported this with a lot of research into the historical context of…

  • Another Disposition

    After nearly a half century in the hands of a sister and brother ownership, No 7 Earlspark Avenue changed hands to an interesting clothing manufacturer whose business was in Queen Street, in Glasgow city centre, in an area know for such work. Although now, Queen Street is a street of art and clothing stores. He…

  • Tracing the Carvers

    I have been trying to discover the earlier generations of the Carver family, to whom I belong, in the early part of the 19th Century. My family originated in an agricultural area of Sussex, above the South Downs, between Horsham and Petersfield, in the registration district of Midhurst. There is a village near Easebourne called…

  • John McKie, MN

    What can I tell you about my father in law, John McKie, who died in 1986? I have yet to write about his life and times, and then that will be mostly based upon his birth and marriage records and the memories of his daughters. I knew him for only four years and the times…

  • Five Doors Down

    In last weeks post I wrote about my wife’s grandfather, Andrew Nicol, who, while still at home in Dynamite Road, Stevenston, in 1911, lived five houses up from Nobel House where the Nathan family were living. I was intrigued by the Nathan family, Frederic and Adeline and their young child, because of the number of…

  • Andrew

    You might not associate Andrew as a traditional Scottish name. However, Andrew is the patron Saint of Scotland. This is only because an English Bishop, a collector of religious relics, brought a kneecap, and finger bones, belonging to Andrew, to Fife about 1500 years ago. Andrew had been crucified in AD60, in the Greek city…

  • You Choose Your Family

    When some families fall apart, for whatever reason, some connections, very strong ones usually, remain. This might be particularly so with large families. But not always. Family fallouts can be hostile, or they can quietly drift apart – like ice floes in the Arctic, never to be joined again. It could be that these fall…


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