British Family History Websites

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Hey all, after a relative sent me some information on my ancestors, she was able to get names going all the way back to 1582 in a town called "Masongill" England, which is my name, minus a letter, and something I find really amazing. Just wondering if you Brits know of a website that stores records or information over there for names or family trees, ect. We have a few things here in the States, but nothing that I know of that crosses over to England.

[andrewman~SPARTA~]

Hi Durka,

 

Try these guys,

 

http://www.ancestry.co.uk

 

There are some more focus sites dependant upon the county that Masongill is in, [googled - North Yorkshire] looks like it is on the border with Lancashire, maybe you ancesters were caught up in the war of the roses ?

 

http://www.yorkshirefamilyhistory.genealogist.net will probably do the work for you but I have no idea what their fees are

 

http://www.originsnetwork.com looks like a promising site

 

try this for some info on the areas http://www.ingleton.co.uk

 

 

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Andrew, thanks big time! Last night I was able to reference from a few other sites names and locations back to Whitby, but the trail stopped cold at 1520, although there were references to some guy that was a Rector of the Church, which sounds scary. I'll look this stuff up and see what I can find!

[andrewman~SPARTA~]

Whitby gets closer to my home town of Newcastle, do you known it's twinned with Port Stanly in the Falkland Islands, a nugget of info that comes with so much travel LOL.

 

Getting back to that date is a super effort, preceeds the break with Great Britain and therefore you have done well

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Whitby gets closer to my home town of Newcastle, do you known it's twinned with Port Stanly in the Falkland Islands, a nugget of info that comes with so much travel LOL.

 

Getting back to that date is a super effort, preceeds the break with Great Britain and therefore you have done well

 

Yeah, I'm really really surprised at what I was able to find. Even found a book from 1930 that detailed the family, but I can't find proof of my actual blood line beyond about 2 generations of Engrish, when there was supposedly about 4-5 geneations, and even a "hall" in that town named after ancestors. The guy who wrote the book about my ancestry said they were a bunch of yeomen and sailors, but doesn't list any sources, although I was able to find one will of the guy who brought us over to America, who was "giving himself to the sea."

 

Another cool fact, I was checking my mom's side last night using ancestry.com, and in about 3hrs was able to trace back to a US Civil War soldier who fought for the South, quite a bit of detail on him. Said he fought in the battle of "Spring, Tennessee" which I'm thinking was Spring Hill. Sound familar Halli?

[Halli~SPARTA~]

Yeah Dave the Spring hill battle was fought with the CSA tring to retake Nashville and surrounding area and has alot of info on what company's were involved North & South.

 

And being in TN you may very well find some microfisch with Roll calls and ect at your Library or UT.

[Elvis~SPARTA~]

Have you paid for the international version of Ancestry.com? You should be able to pull some of the Euro resources with that.

 

Most of my ancestors have been here since the 1600s. Some of the old Euro history goes back to AD1000 or before.

 

Famous ancestors of me:

 

Henry I

Thomas Jefferson

Charlemagne

Richard II

 

Once you get the royal blood, the bloodlines have been documented back quite a ways.

 

and for Halli: Col Congreve Jackson of the Confederacy (later Brigadier General), famous for battle of Pea Ridge, as well as for kicking the Mexicans out of Texas, the Mormans out of Missouri, the Navajos out of everything that was theirs... probably not my most PC ancestor.

 

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

I've actually started to trace my other bloodline back, from my mother's side, which produced much more detailed results back to Berkshire/Oxfordshire in the 1300s. "Yates" is and was a very popular name, and unlike my dad's side, who only had one person immigrate and start the family in America, there were multiple Yates, which made it harder to trace back. If I had not had ancestry.com and its sister site ancestry.co.uk, I would probably be doing this for years upon years.

 

Only 3 that I know participated in war where he could be traced effectively, one of which was actually a soldier in the American Civil War, the other 2 just provided services in the Revolutionary War.

 

And Andrewman, my Yates side wasn't a part of the War of the Roses as far as I can tell, but they were definately caught up in the English Civil war between the Parlamantarians and Royalists, as well as the Catholic persecutions. The first signs of troublemaking was when an ancestor hid a priest in his house. (He ended up dying in the Tower of London) and most of the rest of the family were in trouble for not going to church. Then, during the Civil War, they were considered royalists and lost lots of their land around Lyford, Berkshire, so the son just took himself to the colonies.

 

And as for famous ancestry, I have none. Although somebody apparently linked us to the Plantangent House, through a marriage, who was married into the line about 8 generations, but I can't count that because even if it is accurate, I'm just researching my bloodline, and not somebody's stepsister's mother's cousin's gardner.

 

I'm having some problems, and have consulted a few websites in England, namely searching for any kind of references to an ancestor. I've found a book of illustrations of church brasses, but it doesn't give me the illustrations which I really need.

 

Does anyone here live in or near southern Oxfordshire, near a few towns called Lyford, Charney, or Denchworth?

[Halli~SPARTA~]

Not me!

 

 

 

 

But I have an International Ancestry.com Account and if you Pm Me I will give you the access until next week.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Not me!

 

 

 

 

But I have an International Ancestry.com Account and if you Pm Me I will give you the access until next week.

 

I've signed on for about a month with the international account, thinking that might give me enough time to print everything out

[custard~SPARTA~]

I live in Berkshire Durka but I visit Oxford often around the Wallingford area.

[Watchman~SPARTA~]

I live about 70 miles - 1 1/2 hours away but Oxfordshire is on my 2010 "to do" list for English heritage sites.

Assuming the weather picks up I'll start picking locations for next month and beyond.

If there are specific places you want checking out, I can maybe fit them in between castle hunting.

 

[andrewman~SPARTA~]

60miles for me, what do you need?

[Doppelganger]

Consider:

 

Trace Your Ancestry

[Elvis~SPARTA~]

http://www.sar.org/ for credit for your revolutionary ancestors (mine was an aid to Gen. Washington and later became Supreme Court chief justice. How I got in the family I have no idea)

 

watch out for the sons of the confederate veterans group, they have been "taken over" by some people with less than historically commemorative intentions.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

60miles for me, what do you need?

 

Well, apparently there's a church around that area called St. James that some of my ancestors are buried at, and it would be great to get some photos of the gravestones. There's also something called a "brass" relief that has the likeness of an ancestor there or something. I'd never ask anyone to go out of their way, but if someone is happening by the area and has the time to run through the graveyard, lemme know and I'd try to work out a trade or something.

[custard~SPARTA~]

Need a village name to go with the church mate there is bound to be more than one St James LOL

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Need a village name to go with the church mate there is bound to be more than one St James LOL

 

lol, yeah I'm still trying to find the exact church, since there happens to be a few of them in the area of Charney and Wantage. I'll keep looking.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

There should be a St. James church in the area of Lyford, Denchworth, or possibly a little to the south in Wantage. I have no idea how to get an address, lol.

[T_1]

It might be this one http://www.achurchnearyou.com/west-hanney-...ames-the-great/

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

That just might be it! I'll have to double check my resources to see, and to see what may be found there. THanks for the link!

 

EDIT: LoL, looking at the map on that website, I found a St. James in Denchworth too! At least there's a selection to look at!

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Does anyone have access to a library where they can look this book up by any chance? I think this is what I'm looking for....

 

 

http://home.clara.net/williamlack/pages/berks.htm

[custard~SPARTA~]

My wife goes to a couple of Librarys and we do live in Berkshire I will ask her to have a look mate.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

My wife goes to a couple of Librarys and we do live in Berkshire I will ask her to have a look mate.

 

 

That would be awesome! No rush on it, I'm just trying to put a few pieces together. One thing to note, the place might be a bit different as the area used to be Berkshire, but is now a part of Oxfordshire. I dunno how that happened.

[custard~SPARTA~]

Michelle says she can go the the local mobile library and they can do a search to see if any of the others has it, boundary changes are not that unusual she was born in Cholsey in Berkshire at that time and it's now in Oxfordshire LOL.