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 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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An Interesting Wedding
Laura Esther Spillett 1906 -1992 My Great Aunt Laura was someone who I can never remember meeting, if I did, I expect I was very young, too young to remember. I think that I heard my father talking about her. I have a nice photograph of Laura and my father at the annual Crowning of…
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George Anderson, Wright and Builder
George built my house in Earlspark Avenue. He also built the whole of Earlspark, other than some new houses that went up in the 1960’s on the site of a farm where George had his offices. George was a prolific builder in the beginning of the 20th Century. He bought up land from Sir John…
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Stevenston, New Street Cemetery
Last week I went on a field trip to Stevenston to search a cemetery in Ayrshire that I guessed might have the graves of some of the Nicol family who grew up and worked in the town for nearly 90 years. Stevenston is a town on the coast of Ayrshire that became associated with the…
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Mapping the Nicol Family
An initial chart of the Nicol family line after Peter and Elizabeth were married The family dynasty that Peter and Elizabeth Nicol created in the 19th Century with children who were directly connected or married into connections with the Dynamite Factory in Ardeer had taken me by surprise when I began to research them. Peter…
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Ramblings….on archives
I am recuperating from a serious cold this week and have not had the mental energy to produce research for my usual blog post this week. That has not stopped me from reading. Two things have come to my attention that made me think much about my family and house research and the accumulation of…
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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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The origins of Earlspark Avenue
Last week I offered the legal origins of the house that I live in with descriptions of the Sasine Register entry and the Feu Ledger entry for No 7 Earlspark Avenue. Today I am looking at the early editions of the Ordnance Survey maps to try and establish when Earlspark Avenue was created. Two date-markers…
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The Feu Register
When I started out studying Scottish ancestry and house history, I was introduced to things such as the Sasine Register and Feu Duties. It was where property transfers and ownership were registered and where the registration of Feu Duties were made. It has taken my own research into the history of my house in Earlspark…