Instant Cousins

Instant Cousins : archiving my ancestry

  • A London Field Trip

    Last week I was in London for a sports and culture break. I had been recommended to stay in the Farringdon area of London, EC1 because of its historical links and interesting streets. Never one to miss an opportunity, I realised that it was next to Clerkenwell which is where one of my ancestors lived…

  • The Legendary Bennisters

    In January 2024 I wrote an annual review to this blog to take stock about my activities. I wrote about how researching, using popular research archives, can throw up surprising and exciting avenues which, although connected in some way to the families that I write about, are not directly family members. I mentioned that I…

  • Tracing the Carvers

    Part 3 For the past two weeks I have been tracing my grandfather’s origins and the lives of his brother and sister, two relatives who I never met and who I knew nothing of until I started researching their records. This week I look at Evelyn Daisy Carver, my grandfather’s only sister and my great…

  • Tracing the Carvers

    Part 2 Last week, I was discovering the line of ancestry of my grandfather, Clarence Carver (known by his middle name George), who was born in Lodsworth in Sussex. This was the heart of the Sussex countryside, one of a vertical line of parish villages, Lodsworth, Selham and Graffham that was home to the Aylings,…

  • Tracing the Carvers (1)

    This week I return to my family tree and the Carver’s who originated from Lodsworth in Sussex. Well, my grandfather, that is. Clarence Carver was born in the village of Lodsworth to an agricultural family. There were a lot of people named Carver around Lodsworth, and I believe the churchyard in the village has burial…

  • 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…

  • Dorothy Dick

    Dorothy Dick, Sculptor, Artist and Engineer This week’s post is an appreciation of a sculptor who once lived in Earlspark Avenue, the street where my house that is the subject of House History is located. Dorothy died in 2023. It was at a branch meeting of the Labour Party that I first met Dorothy. This…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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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