Instant Cousins : archiving my ancestry
- Cheesemongers and Dairies
- House History
- Other Stories
- Reviews, Reports and Research
- Stone, Steam and Dynamite
- The Welsh Connection
- Wheelwrights, Publicans and a Country Lad
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The South Africa Connection
This week I am returning once again to the amazing Nicol family. The family that is a gift that keeps on giving when it comes to family history research. First, I have to offer a recap on Peter Nicol Jnr and his life in the Transvaal. After writing about Peter recently and discovering his connection…
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The Swinging Sixties
This is a continuation of my stories about the history of 7 Earlspark Avenue in Glasgow. It had nine owners but changed hands only seven times because it was inherited by a brother or a spouse. I and my wife are the seventh owners. This week I have come to the tail end of ownership…
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Written in Stone
Last year, in March 2024, I went down to Stevenston in Ayrshire to search the headstones in the New Street Cemetery. I wrote a post about this trip that gave some background to the relevance of this interesting burial place. It is where my wife’s great grandparents Peter and Elizabeth Nicol, have a headstone, alongside…
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The Smiths of Stevenston
This week I return to the land of dynamite, Stevenston in Ayrshire, where the Nicol family, my wife’s maternal line of ancestry, had established themselves and created a dynasty of workers associated directly or by marriage, with the Nobel Dynamite Factory on the Ardeer peninsula. Peter and Elizabeth Nicol, you might recall in earlier posts,…
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Rosina Elizabeth Spillett
This weeks post is written by my cousin, Sue Toms, who has been researching the story of her grandmother, Rosina Spillett, who was also my great aunt. Sue and I share the same great grandfather whose son, Henry fell in love with Rosina. They became responsible for the heart of this fascinating story. My grandmother,…
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John and Jennie
I never knew them. My mother never talked about them. My grandmother never mentioned them. There are only two photographs that I have in hand that can give me an image of one of them. They had no children as far as I know. I knew where one of them was born for certain and…