Hello again, I was still off the board for a long time - builders followed the final house move, need I say more? - but did work away in the background building my mother's tree via her grandmother, Mary Ann Spicer, using all the information on this thread so generously given by all of you, and in particular Priscilla and easterHammer. This Christmas I gave copies to my sons and grandchildren with various reactions.
From two of the grandsons, "never mind all the boring bits, look at the names at the end! They're royal!" From one of my sons "Mum, we are all descended from someone aren't we?" Well, yes, but it's quite nice to know who they were, isn't it?
All this bears out what I've always believed, that most of us don't really have any interest in where we come from until the last person we can ask has gone - hence force feeding my family their own copies of family history and asking that they just shove them in a cupboard somewhere because, who knows, one day they may even wish to look at them - and I probably won't be there to ask.
So to all of you on this thread, thank you again
I hope you all have a very happy, healthy and successful 2018 and look forward to getting back on the board a lot more and getting involved again in this really great community. I don't know anywhere else where help and advice arrives so generously from strangers (and sometimes unknown relatives) around the world.
Maggie x