Category: Cheesemongers and Dairies
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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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The Furnells of Kentish Town
This is a poor copy of a portrait of my great grandparents, Cornelius and Susan Walker. A scan of a photocopy of a photo. The photocopy was made by my late sister, Janet Walsham, and I don’t know where the original photo is or who is looking after it. They spent their married life in…
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West Norwood Field Trip
On Monday this week we went on a field trip to West Norwood in search of my Great Great Grandfather, Samuel Walker who died in 1888. I have only the research and records of my ancestor’s life, there are no images of him or his wife Emma, that I have yet to find. In previous…
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A Will and a Codicil
This week’s post is based on one piece of research that I am using that triangulates other stories from the National Archives. When my cousin Elsa died at the beginning of the Covid lockdowns, a funeral that I would not have missed under other circumstances, she also left some papers and photos that her brother…
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Grace, before marriage.
This week I am concentrating on The 1911 Census return for a house in Acton, London. In 1911, Grace Walker, my grandmother, before she married William Wilcox, had moved to London from Offord D’Arcy in Huntingdonshire, to lives with a cousin. The address is 39, Mill Hill Road, Acton. It is a large house, three…
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The Cheesemongers of Bermondsey
My Great Great Grandfather Samuel Walker could, I suppose be called a Bermondsey Boy. Born and brought up there, married in St. Mary’s Church, Rotherhithe. He was ticking some boxes there. He was not a Bermondsey Boy in the traditional sense. That sense would have its roots in the nostalgia of the 20th Century like…
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A Question of Identity
Is it illegal to change your name, without going through the legal route of deed poll ? Not according to the National Archives. As long as a person does not change their name for illegal or fraudulent reasons, it is not illegal to change, for example, a surname. “It is still perfectly legal for anyone…
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Herbert Wilcox
This is the story of Herbert and his family and my unknowing connection with his grandson. Herbert was the eldest son of my Great Grandfather John Thomas Wilcox, but not the first born. He was born in in 1874 and baptised on December 13th. That was 149 years ago. The Wilcox family were living in…
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Uncle Sydney serves his country
The following picture shows my Great Uncle Sydney in the garden of my Aunt Dorothy’s house in Palmers Green. He is standing behind my cousins. I have been trying to work out the year this was taken. I am the same age as one of my cousins and judging by looks I am suggesting that…
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Grace, in her own write
My Mother, Grace Carver (William Wilcox’s eldest daughter), often talked of the number of places and houses that she lived. I think she once told me that she lived in 26 different addresses. That would be with her parents and in married life. I can certainly make a claim to six of those addresses. This…