________________
Ancestral Biographies
The Biographies
| Ancestor | Century | Occupation | Place | |
| James Blackwell | 19th and early 20th | Stonemason and Farmer | Bristol and Monmouthshire | Coming
Soon! |
| John Henry Cope | 20th | Great War Veteran | Yorkshire | Coming
Soon! |
| Frances Farrow | 19th | Pub Landlady | Sussex and Hamphire | |
| Charles Fordham | 19th and early 20th | Soldier | Various | |
| George Fordham | 19th | Famous Jockey | Cambridge and Berkshire | |
Henry Timothy Kitcher |
19th and early 20th | Sailor | Hampshire | Updated Read the latest installment |
| John Timothy Kitcher | 20th | Fought in both World Wars | Hampshire | Coming
Soon! |
| George Harold Kitcher | 20th | Second World War Veteran | Hampshire and Yorkshire | Coming
Soon! |
| Gwythfyr Price | 19th | Coal miner | Merthyr Tydfil | Coming
Soon! |
| Thomas Stanford | 18th and early 19th | Carpenter | Sussex | Coming
Soon! |
| John "Jack" Webber | 20th | Soldier, sailor and coal miner | Merthyr Tydfil |
Why research ancestral biographies?
This part of the web site is really what Foliages is all about. As well as telling the stories of my own ancestors, it is meant to illustrate that genealogy doesn't have to be restricted to mere lists of names and dates; that instead, it is possible to 'reconstruct' the lives of our forebears.
Admittedly, every family has a least one 'census dodger'; you know, that elusive ancestor who must have spent every census night sleeping in a ditch, because his details are simply nowhere to be found! Luckily, the census is just one of the many resources that can help us to find out about our ancestors.
Civil registration, which started in England and Wales in 1837, was a wonderful idea. For example, birth and marriage certificates can tell us if a woman had been married before, something that the census rarely can. One technique I use when researching a particular family is to buy more than just my own ancestors birth certificate. It's not a waste of £7.00, honestly! Let me explain.
In some cases my ancestors had large families, their children being born over a span of 20 years. Say, my direct ancestor was somewhere in the middle. I will then order, not only his birth certificate, but the certificates of the oldest and the youngest child. This means I'll have the family's address on three different dates and I will also be able to see if the father's career changed over time. The worst case scenario is that the information is identical on each certificate, but this apparent lack of information can actually be very useful. It tells us that the family stayed in the same house for twenty years and that the father maintain his position for a long time. Depending on the job, that in itself may be a revelation!
Some of you may have read all that, and thought, "What is this girl on about? Buying certificates you don't need! You won't catch me doing that". There are no genealogical laws about about buying certificates, nor any other resources, come to mention it. There will be some genealogists who aren't content until they've bought every certificate related to their family... in existence! And, then there will be others who only ever buy a certificate when it is absolutely necessary, and then do so begrudgingly.
My point is that you don't have to feel compelled to discover the life story of your ancestors, but if you do choose to do so, it is possible to discover a lot of interesting information. Not everybody knows where to look for for more detailed information about their ancestors, and that is why I will includ a short 'research guide' with each completed biography, detailing exactly how and where I found the sources that relate to that particular ancestor. It is by no means an 'authoritative' guide, but it may be able to help point you in the right direction.
So, why not take a look at the ancestral biography of my great-great-grandfather, Charles Fordham, for an example of what can be achieved with the resources that are available to us. I would like to stress that when I started my research I knew nothing about this man, not even his name, today I am proud to re-tell his story for you.