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Family history - main menu (Roots)

General

Welcome to the family history section of our website. There is so much information available on the Internet these days that you can very likely find out quite a lot about your ancestors from about 1800 to the present day, especially if they have unusual names. For us, the initial reason was to find out something about the grandparents we never knew,  the jobs people did, and the way people lived in earlier times.

We went on to help friends with their family history, research other families for a village history project and find out more about notable residents of Malvern. Some of their stories can be found listed on our local and social history menu.

On our family history pages you will find a miscellany of information which we hope you will find interesting and will aid you, in some small way, with your own research

Researching your family history

Interesting though it can be to trace your ancestors, beware; researching your family history is time consuming, can become addictive and there may be much more important things to do like pursuing your career, leisure activities and looking after your partner, children and aged parents!

If you want to find out more,

See our guide - how to research your family history

and consider joining a club such as,

The Malvern Family History Society

Families often throw out photograph albums when relatives die, either because they have no space or because the photos are not annotated with name, place and date; in the past we have also been guilty of this. 

So why not mark up your albums for later generations before it is too late, or include an index with your digital photo folders.

We were lucky and found relatives had kept some interesting old photos. Click link below to see a short illustrated story about one family.

Ancestors

Ever wondered how to describe the relationship between two ancestors - click below to find out.

Genealogy relationship chart

Families

Here are a few  examples of information we have come across.

One branch of the family were bakers in Greenock, and Ayr in Scotland.

Click here to view the family of baker John Brown

Other shopkeepers were found in Alfreton and Clay Cross, in Derbyshire.

Click here to view the family of shopkeeper Henry Evans

The story below about the occupations of a group of people in the city of Southampton, Hampshire, England was put together for the Malvern Family History Society

Click to view story of 'Relatives and others in Southampton'

Another trail led to Glasgow, where the death of James McCulloch in 1849 was found recorded in the archives of the Glasgow Herald.

Click here to read  the obituary of James McCulloch

You can read more about his family by clicking the link below.

Click to view the family of James McCulloch junior

Wills

Wills can sometimes be a valuable resource providing information, clues and links which can then be further explored using the census returns and index of births, marriages and deaths,

Wills were once obtainable by post from the probate registry for a fee of about £5, but now you need to go to the GOV.UK website and the fee is £10. Here is the link:

https://www.gov.uk/search-will-probate

You ideally need to know the date and place of death to identify the individual, particularly if they have a common name like Brown.

One branch of the family carried the forename Evans through several generations, and we followed the trail back to Henry Evans of Greenhill Lane in Derbyshire who died in 1864. In the census he is simply described as a 'Maltster' but his will shows more extensive business interests.

Click to view the will of Henry Evans

Henry's youngest daughter Mary married shopkeeper Joseph Robinson of Somercotes (Alfreton) and later Clay Cross.

Joseph's will mentioned an inheritance from Eliza Godber, and her will revealed that she was his sister, and that there was another sister, Rosamond, living at the time of Eliza's death.

Click here to view the will of Eliza Godber

A few years ago there was a free web site for sharing transcriptions of wills which was named Will Transcriptions Online. This service by Peter Ward appears to have been discontinued about 2013 and the domain name acquired by another company. However some wills can still be viewed using the archive.org/web internet archive 'waybackmachine'. Once there enter the domain www.willtranscriptions.co.uk and you may be able to see those pages archived.

Casualties of war

One of our retirement projects was to help write a book about life in our village during the last century. We were surprised to find that WWI had an even bigger impact on people's lives than perhaps we first imagined.

Later when tracing our ancestors and their cousins we came across 'our own' casualties of war, and others.

Click the link below to see their names

Lest We Forget

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