Born and Bred

I have just added a number of new individuals to the site, the new total stands at 1277, up from 1133 at the start of the year. As well as new individuals added, some of the information on the existing individuals has been updated where I have found out more, or corrected mistakes. In particular I have been adding a lot more details regarding where certain dates have come from, just click on the little icon next to the date of an event. Too much to list everything that has changed here, so have a browse through the site.

Also my youngest daughter, Victoria, has suddenly got interested in this whole family history thing, she particurlarly likes the investigation side of it all and tracking things down. Since she is on Facebook (that one's not for me I'm afraid) she has managed to put me in contact with a distant relative on Janet's side of the family, one Rodney Hutchinson, who has kindly shared some of his own research with me.

I hope to do another update to the site before Christmas (no promises) and I'm currently looking into ways to display an individual's timeline, from birth to death, listing things like residences and occupations, but that may not come until the new year, so watch this space.

Pat was diagnosed with Cancer in early August and died a few weeks later with Janet and myself at her beside. Pat was a lovely woman and you can read a little about her story here.

I have also put together a video slideshow celebrating Pat's life, you can find it on the 'Album' page.

Well, I've been a bit busy of late and coupled with a slight improvement in the weather I've been doing some work in the house and garden. In between times I've been consolidating some of the information I have and trying to tidy up my family tree.

I don't know about anyone else, but all this research is addictive and it has caused me to diverge from my initial aim of just researching my paternal and maternal lines. I now seem to have branched out all over the place and now instead of having a nice clean family tree, I appear to have a small copse of trees. It is fun though!

Not sure when I will get round to adding new stuff to the site, hopefully towards the end of June, however, there is a lot of good stuff coming. So until next time ... happy researching.

Over the past month I've been bringing my Family Tree up-to-date and have now updated this site with the new information. There are a number of new individuals on the site now, the new total stands at 1188, up from 1133 at the start of the year. As well as new individuals added, some of the information on the existing individuals has been updated where I have found out more, or corrected mistakes. Too much to list everything that has changed here, so have a browse through the site.

The other thing that is new, is that I have added a 'Statistics' page. As well as basic information like number of males/females, living/dead etc it also provides a breakdown of the places those individuals were born or died.

I hope to extend this statistical information in the year ahead, but for now, I hope you find the information interesting.

These are for: Alfred Tiffany and one of his daughter - Alice Tiffany

Once again, when I come to put together these "stories" it is sometimes difficult when you didn't know the individual personally and there are few, if any, documents or possessions on which to hang a story. So I am indebted to various family members for helping me to put a little flesh on the dry old bones of facts, with their memories and recollections, and thus helping me to bring the lives of our ancestors, once again into the light of the day.

The photographs I have just added to the album consist of members of Sydney Hirst's family, his siblings (though I don't have photographs of all of his siblings) and his own wife and children. If there is anyone out there who have any photographs of Sydney's two older brothers, Oliver and Leonard, or know anything about his younger brother, Joe, especially his military record, what Regiment he served with etc, then please get in touch with me.

I have recently been going through my collection of old family photos, and actually found some I have not seen before. Anyway, I've added a number of new photographs to the Album page relating to the 'Porter' family and the 'Lunn' family. More photos will undoubtedly follow, as and when I find the time to do so.

These are for: Violet Mary Amy Berryman, Richard Nigel Porter, Elizabeth Ann Palfrey, Swain Richardson and Hilda Clark.

When putting together these "stories" it is sometimes difficult when you didn't know the individual personally and there are few, if any, documents or possessions on which to hang a story. So I am indebted to various family members for helping me to put a little flesh on the dry old bones of facts, with their memories and recollections, and thus helping me to bring the lives of our ancestors, once again into the light of the day.

In the 'Details' section of an individual, alongside the date an individual was Born, Christened, Died and Buried, I have added the following symbol (for larger displays only) that when clicked will pop-up information on where I obtained this information from.

I have also added the same feature for any Marriages that an individual may have had.

In all cases, where it indicates a certificate, then it means I have the actual certificate or a copy of that certificate in my possession and the details have all been verified by myself.

To access this, simply click on the "SEARCH" button on the left-hand side menu (for larger displays), or select "Search" from the "Tools" drop-down menu (on smaller displays). Either way, this will result in the 'Search' page being displayed. From here you can search for all individuals with a specific "Given Name" and/or "Surname".

For now this 'Search Facility' is fairly simple, but I may add additional features to it in the future, once I have had the chance to add more content to the site.

You may also have noticed that it has changed location, it used to be located at: www.dark-moon.net/born-and-bred, as you can see it is now located in the home directory of www.dark-moon.net.

Why the change? Well since retiring, back in 2020, I have decided to stop designing websites for other people and so can now concentrate on my own website dedicated to my Family History interest.

So what has changed? Obviously the site now has a new "look and feel", it has also been re-designed to be "responsive" so that it should look and work better than the previous website no matter whether you are viewing it on a monitor, tablet or even your phone.

I've also changed what information is displayed and how it is displayed, also, as this is very much a "work in progress" there will be further tweaks to how it looks and works from time to time. Any such changes will be detailed here.

Naturally, as I find out more about my family history I will update the information on this site, but it is my intention to try and put a bit more of the "story" into my family history and to tell the stories of some of my family members, so watch this space.

I hope you like the changes and if you think we may have a common ancestor please contact me, I would love to hear from you.