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Hi Jenbrie

Interested to find another fellow "Grant Explorer!

My connection to the Grant family is via my 2gAunt Alice Whitcomb 1858-1941 who married one of Charles Grants’ sons, a William Richard Grant 1850-1904.

My information mainly deals with this branch of the family, but I have some more general "Tree's .

Yes, you are correct in identifying the strong military connections and subsequent travels of various  family members. My Alice &  William Richard started their family in Bermuda, then Ireland & the UK.
William Richard was in the Royal Engineers’ submarine mining section, they were responsible for protecting the Royal Navy’s shore establishments - dock yards etc upto 1900. Mainly they laid mine fields to protect the harbour approaches.

I would be pleased to send you copies of my data, But there seems to be no private message facility??

Hi
I have a William Richard Grant in my tree who was born on St Helena circa 1850. (all his records confirm this). At the time of his marriage he was a Sergeant in the Royal Engineers (sub-marine mining corps), stationed at Pembroke Dock in Wales. His wife, Alice Whitcomb, was a 2g Aunt of mine. They had around 9 Children, many of whom were born at different places where William was stationed. (Bermuda to Chatham etc!) Charles Grant was born circa 1806.

I've been led to believe that William's parents were a Charles & Louisa Grant from Winchester, Hampshire, and that Charles may have been a soldier. There is a census record from 1841 which has a family consisting of a Charles & Louisa Grant living in Winchester, at the time they also had 2 children living - Benjamin aged 4 months & Caroline aged 6 years - Charles appears to have been a Tailor?

There are no subsequent UK census records of this family until 1871 when a widowed Charles Grant
turns up as a lodger in Winchester. This would tie in with the family having gone / emigrated to St Helena before 1851. One question is why did Charles go to St Helena, was he a Soldier or a Tailor did he join up to 'see the World'

Information gleaned from various web sources suggests that 'my' William Grant may have been a brother of a Benjamin Grant who was well known on the island - this Benjamin was born circa 1834
(place not known) and was the editor of a St Helena newspaper.

If I could find a birth record of 'my' William Richard Grant born circa 1850 on St Helena island, that may go towards fixing which family he actually belonged to. I have searched the GRO overseas births, and the overseas military births but to no avail.

So help, anyone got any ideas??

Ray Whitcombe

I have Belgian roots and living Relatives on my Mother's side and have now reached the point of wishing to add to our Family history from this perspective.

I found some of the 'tips' on this forum very helpful and together with Google began to 'forage' around. There are some local history sites around in Belgium, and one was able to give the names of 2g grandparents. Also the Belgian national Archives are a mine of information, but much of their data is 'ongoing', thus not complete. However I found some very useful information, as well as an unknown relative! As I do not speak Dutch, and only 'rough' French I expected a problem, however Google translate is very good at translating this type of stuff.

Now a word of warning! I came across the web site "GeneaNet", which has a lot of French and Belgian family trees posted freely on line. I joined this site (for free), and put in my Mother's family name - luckily not a very common one even in Belgium where it originates from?  Up came a reasonable list, but few lined up with any known ancestors or locations, that is except for one, my Aunt! I opened the tree, and to my absolute surprise it listed all my Cousins plus their Children up to the present, all living people!!!

I contacted my Cousin to enquire which one of them allowed this info to be posted, but he was as in the dark as myself!!! I tried to contact the publishers, but up to now they have ignored me. Actually there are a few 'typos' in the tree and I / We would like them to be corrected. My Aunt was 'fostered' after the death of her Mother in 1919, and the "GeneaNet" tree does not reveal this, thus erasing her true Ancestral history. (At least this has prevented my details being plastered all over the web!)

My warning is that be very careful if using the "GeneaNet" site as they don't appear to filter out living people from the published trees. This could be a security risk, and also some family members may object to having such details floating around on the web!!!