This family tree has been prepared from information gathered from a multitude of sources. It is part of a larger tree that also covers my mothers and my wife's families.

It all started when I asked my parents about their ancestors and siblingsa few years ago.  This information was set out on a large sheet of paper and largely forgotten about until two events occurred; the first was the publicity accompanying the publication of the 1901 census and the second was the receipt of a Christmas present from Jill in 2004 of a software package.

Since then, largely but not exclusively through the internet, I have gradually pieced together the data that I have gathered and, using the Family Tree software, have put together some of that data in the appended charts in what I hope is a relatively easy format to comprehend and (more importantly for those lacking 20/20 vision) to read.

As anyone who has attempted to do any original research in this area will know, the source information is by no means ideal. Much of the original data is difficult to read or access or, worse still, lost... Many of our ancestors were illiterate and had no idea how to spell their names and the clergy who recorded the data fared little better. In the computer records, much of the data is incorrectly transcribed and can be extremely difficult to locate. Information received from third parties needs to be checked carefully but can be very difficult to corroborate particularly that received from abroad. Information about individuals born after 190 I in the UK is also very difficult to access. The 1901 census is the latest one that is available to the public.The 1911 census will not be publ ished until 2012 and may well be incomplete due to suffragette non compliance. Birth, Marriage and Death indexes after about 1906 are yet to be transcribed onto computer searchable records and must be searched manually quarter by quarter and, even then, records located manually are imprecise and an investment of some £7 is required in order to purchase a copy certificate in order to prove that the identified index record is indeed the right person and to gain access to precise dates and locations.

For these and other reasons, it must be stressed that this tree is in a state of continuous development and that new information will be added as it comes to hand and, hopefully infrequently, corrections will be made where necessary.

Another problem is to decide where to stop. Every time you succeed in finding an earlier generation, you find perhaps nine or ten siblings, many of whom had families and descendents of their own. You also have to decide whether to trace spouse's families - siblings, ancestors and descendents. Within 4 or 5 generations trees could become enormous if you could trace all the data.

Of course one cannot trace all the data. Many earlier deaths, particularly of children were unrecorded. Many people emigrated and records of their departures or arrivals are hard to access and harder still to tie up with specific individuals. Many parish records are incomplete. In some cases church authorities refused to permit the Mormons to photograph their records (for most of the pre 1837 records available on the internet are from the International Genealogical Index (lGI) which derives from an extraordinary project by the Church of Latter Day Saints ( Mormons) to record all available birth and marriage data - they weren't that bothered with deaths).

Having said all this, I would be most grateful if anyone who discovers additional information or photographs could please forward them to me so that I can add them to the record (I can scan photos and return them).

St Mary's House, 25 Victoria Road, Wargrave, Berkshire RG10 8AD , UK Tel +44 (0)118 940 2226 Fax +44 (0)1189406499 E mail genes@lloyd.ADSL24.co.uk