About My English Roots To open a Music Player, click here. There is some Vaughn Williams, the original Flower of Scotland by the Corries, some folk tunes (including Steeleye Span) and even Sting's Fields of Gold. All very easy listening whilst you browse.

How to navigate my site

For all my ancestors who worked on the land for long centuries.

The Land - by Rudyard Kipling

About my site

Welcome to my site. Meet my ancestors, I am blood of their blood and bone of their bone. They lie in the churchyards of parish churches in England and Scotland, and have long ago returned to the soil that nurtured them. Their history is the history of ordinary people. I make no claims to royalty, nobility or legendary figures in my ancestry. My family hasn't produced anyone famous (or infamous), they have mostly been country people, working on the land, generation by generation. For some reason, though, I do seem to have a lot of shoemakers - why is a great mystery. The one exception to this is Sir Richard Tangye, a distant cousin.

You might find a surname with the first name Collector. This is because I have found some notes on the family that I can't assign correctly, but don't want to lose. Perhaps they mean something to you. If so, please let me know.

I have both Bray(e) and Sander(s)/Saunders in my tree from the Horley Surrey area, and my project at the moment is to see if there is a connection to the Saunders family of Charlwood and the Bray family of Horley and Ewell. I am trying to gather records on these families, and if these names interest you, hopefully, you will find my research so far interesting.

Where My Ancestors Lived

So far, I have traced family to Surrey, Sussex, Kent, London, Suffolk, Huntingdonshire, Wiltshire, Cornwall, Nottinghamshire and Worcestershire in England, and Lanarkshire in Scotland. I live in England, and all my names are here or Scotland. I have a few details of people from Australia, Canada and USA, but these are only for 'married in' names.

Picture of England and Scotlandsfamily.com have produced useful maps, and are interesting sites to visit.

Click here to see Google maps of the towns and villages in more detail.

Modern views of where my ancestors lived

As Google Street View covers more areas, I will be adding to this section, but take a look anyway, some places would be recognised, some not at all. Click here to see the images.

View a List of Stories

I have tried to say a little about the origins of my family names.

I have also transcribed the diary of my great great aunt, Margaret Marion Pearce, who travelled around the world in the early 1880's.

There are also some items of general background information, which I hope you find interesting. Take a look,

The National Geographic Genographic Project.

(For my really ancient family history - back many thousands of years.)

The NGGP. uses DNA to follow the early migration history of the human race. I have taken part, and details of my results have been traced back to before The Last Ice Age.

The sources of my information

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE MAJORITY OF MY INFORMATION HAS COME FROM PRIMARY SOURCES. AFTER 1837, THIS IS BIRTH, MARRIAGE AND DEATH REGISTRATIONS, OR INDEXES AND CENSUS,AND DETAILS ARE NORMALLY SHOWN. PRIOR TO THIS, UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED, THE ENTRIES ARE MOSTLY FROM PARISH REGISTERS OR WILLS, BUT YOU MAY FIND DETAILS OF LAND TRANSACTION AND THE LIKE FROM COUNTY RECORD OFFICES OR OTHER SOURCES. ALL ARE PRIMARY SOURCES. I AM TRYING TO UPDATE EACH INDIVIDUAL ENTRY, BUT IT TAKES A TIME!

WHERE I HAVE TAKEN INFORMATION FROM DUBIOUS SOURCES, SUCH AS THE IGI, I HAVE NOTED THAT IN THE NOTES OF THE PERSON CONCERNED.

Some helpful hints

If you're not used to reading old documents, I have tried to give some helpful hints and given a list of regnal years of English kings and queens (used to date some legal documents) and a brief explanation of the change of calender dates from the Julian to Gregorian.

Please help me

Thanks to everyone who has helped me by sharing their own research and if I have missed anyone, apologies, and please let me know to include you.

I am happy to share my research, but please ask me first, and state it was from here. Also, if you find I have made a glaring mistake somewhere, please don't feel afraid to tell me, as I'd much sooner know than go on in ignorance.

If you are interested in any of my names listed above and contact me via the link in the first paragraph for the visitor password, please let me know which names interest you, as I have other information not on this site.

Thanks again for looking.

Some links to other sites that you may find useful

Lastly, please sign my guest book.

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