Background
Several of my relatives have tried to track down our Rhodes
family over the years. My cousin Christine started it
as a history student in the 1960s and it was continued
by her mum and mine and later by my Uncle Ronnie. They
traced them from Mottram in north east Cheshire to Flockton,
near Wakefield in West Yorkshire the hard way —
through trips to churches to study dusty registers for
each elusive clue.
It was on the evening of 25 August
1999 after I had attended my Uncle
Ronnie's funeral that I searched the web to see what
may or may not have been out there that might have helped
in his research. On the second click, I contacted a' lost'
relative who within a couple of emails had added many
more names to the Rhodes family and pushed back our research
by two generations.
That was when I set my first
challenge — to trace the ancestors of my grandparents
and those of my wife Pat to 1700 if it could be done.
I got sucked into an enthralling hobby that has opened
my eyes to events in the past and thrown up some fascinating
stories. And along the way, we have had the pleasure of
discovering other 'lost' relatives, sometimes in the most
unlikely places.
There were three reasons for
publishing this research to the web. The first is entirely
selfish — despite the excellent software packages
available, they soon struggle to handle the mass of information
and images that we collect. Viewing family history through
a browser seems to work much better. Second, it is a convenient
way of sharing what I have discovered with others with
the same interests. Finally, I hope it is a means of preserving
my research for future generations who will hopefully
have an easier entry for further research.
How
the site works
Not even rocket from a bottle science! Each page represents
a couple or an individual with links back to their parents
and forwards to their children. There are two sets of
colour coding — one for my family and one for Pat's.
The solid colours indicate direct ancestors. If you need
help working out a relationship of two people with a common
ancestor, click
here.
The Yesterdays section is where
I have summarised information from the Ashton Reporter
which publishes news from 100 and 50 years ago in a regular
column. The churches section is where I photos of the
various churches mentioned in our families' records, like
St Peter's, Ashton to the left. This section has grown
as I now oaks photos of any churches that I pass, depending
on the weather and if I remembered my camera.
The People section brings together
the various albums being collected on the site, while
the Maps pages display extracts of maps to show where
people lived. In places you find one or two, well Places!
The search facility comes free,
courtesy of Pico. It works well, there are no ads and
I recommend it if you have a largish site to index. I
have also added a Links page of useful sites to visit.
Where
the site is up to
The pages here are far from complete. So far, your will
find my RHODES, HARROP, BINNIE and PRESTWICH families
and my wife's CRABTREE and MOLESDALE families. The others
will be added in time, but if you have arrived here to
be disappointed, please contact me and I will let you
know as they are published. Nor do I claim that all the
information is accurate. This is family history, not genealogy,
so sometimes there is guesswork involved, rather than
certified certainty. I have put question marks after entries
of which I am unsure. Please treat with caution.
You will notice that I have
kept private information about people who I know to be
living. If you are one of those people and want details
to be published, let me know. Alternatively, if I am publishing
information about you that you would prefer to be kept
private, please contact me.
I hope I have acknowledged
everyone who has helped me along this journey on the appropriate
family pages. If not, I apologise — putting it down
to blind obsession! Meanwhile, please enjoy what these
pages have to offer.
<<<
Back from whence you came
