Many thanks Tricia,
As you rightly say, I am far from 'put off', in fact you have found so much more about my family in the past few days than I could have hoped. Indeed, the responses you have given, and the leads I can now follow, simply pose even more questions, and for me that is one of the most fascinating and addictive aspects of our common interest in the history of our families. As I thinkyou know, my particular interest is to 'reconstruct' not simply the facts and figures relating to my ancestors, but to, in some limited way bring them back to life. I can see only one way to do this, and that is to understand how they lived and worked, to combine family myths and legends with known facts, and to present all the available information, whether factual or not in the context of social conditions and attitudes of the time. With regard to this particular family I am particularly interested in the effect the industrial revolution evidently had on their lives, since only two generations earlier they were undoubtedly agricultural workers. I have also already hinted that the advent of the motor car clearly affected their fortunes.... Fascinating; And all that before I start to ask about their origins, be they Norman (perhaps I returned to my roots) or be they Saxon.
Like us all I find the whole process addictive and each answer produces ten further questions. I'm grateful for your help and that of anyone who may have something to contribute, however indirectly.
Lets hope that one of the two threads keeps running for some time to come.
best regards, Martin
