We are Richard and Lesley White, a husband and wife team.
We began researching Lesley's family history about fifteen years ago when her Great Aunt asked us to check the family story that
"We came from a Danish Sea Captain who died at sea". We found out that an ancestor who was a junior hand on a fishing boat had
died in a storm and that an earlier one was called Denmark - So much for family stories!
Once we had got that far we were hooked. The stories we uncovered have kept our enthusiasm going - the fisherman's Grandfather
was Denmark Dunch, who's parents, Mary Dunch and John Denmark, got married a few years after his birth... and then had children
called Hamlet Denmark... William King Denmark... and Elizabeth Queen Denmark, among others! Hamlet called his son
Hamlet Prince William Denmark and there were at least four more Hamlets in the family later on. Just in case anybody missed the
Shakespearean connection, Hamlet lived in Globe Lane! Obviously the entire family shared a very particular sense of humour!
We hit 'brick walls', of course. We could not find Robert Hall being born even though it should have been easy. Then Lesley had a
brainwave and thought "what if his mother wasn't married?" and there he was, being born as Robert Robinson - he took
his step-father's name after that, without any legal formalities, which means that Lesley's maiden name is wrong! Then our story
became part of world history, because his grandfather, Andrew Robinson, was the village schoolmaster who taught Arithmetic to
George Stephenson, the engineer who, with his son Robert, began the Railway industry. So next time your train is late...
it's all our fault!
Discoveries like these are the high spots, but even the more mundane things can be fascinating, such as the lady who had her
three illegitimate children christened on her wedding day... that takes nerve! Other discoveries are poignant, like the time
a few years ago, on Richard's birthday, when we found the grave of Lesley's Great-Great-Grandparents, who died a few days apart
and had been buried 90 years earlier to the day. Their gravestone carries the names of their two sons who died on the Western Front
during the First World War.
And then there was Mary Ellen, who underwent Adult Baptism just before her daughter's wedding... and who's mother (and siblings)
went by at least three different surnames on different occasions, and we still don't know which of the names was actually
theirs!
Part of the fun is to visit the places the family came from, so we have been to alleyways in Norwich and Great Yarmouth and a
derelict church in Norfolk where one of the few identifiable features is a family gravestone. There are also the cottages on an
estate in Cumbria, and the church nearby with the family monument carved by a relative who was a stonemason, and who became one
of the earliest Mormon converts in Britain and emigrated to America with his family. We also identified the spot in the road where
Mary Ellen's Father-in-Law was run over and killed by his own cart.
Great-Great-Grandma Mary Ellen
We've never looked into Richard's family very much, mainly because his brother has worked on it, and also because we can look up
part of it in "Burke's Landed Gentry", which rather takes the fun out of it. Only... we once followed one line at random on a
particular website and it just kept going, with names gathered from the Norse Sagas, until we got back to the earliest purported
ancestor, who was in Finland in about the year 230 AD! That gave us quite a laugh!
There is plenty of other entertainment to be had from his family, such as the feud they had with the neighbouring Montgomerie family.
It lasted nearly 200 years. You know how these things go - they burnt one of our castles, so 50 years later we burnt one of theirs.
Then, after another 50 years of general unpleasantness, a gang of 30 of our lot laid a trap for their Chief and murdered him.
It was a classic consiracy, complete with the Chief's hostess, who belonged to our clan, signalling the gang with a lantern in a
window! Not unnaturally this annoyed the Montgomeries who went on the rampage through our lands, looking for the killers.
They found at least one of the ringleaders hiding in a chimney and killed him. Luckily for Richard's existence, his direct ancestor,
also one of the ringleaders, managed to leave the country for a few years until the heat had died down. The feud was reduced to a
simmer when King James VI of Scotland became James I of England, and so was strong enough to insist that his subjects stopped
doing that kind of thing - Spoilsport! It only finally ended when our chief married the Montgomerie heiress. Oh... and what started
it? Well... the King gave a job to one of the Montgomeries which we thought should have been ours... so next time you go for a job
interview, just think what might be at stake!
Every family has stories like these waiting to be discovered, some sad, some funny, some wonderful, some embarrassing, but most of
them fascinating! You can expect to uncover things about your own ancestors which will astonish you. We hope to enjoy beginning
this voyage of discovery with you.
Our Genealogy courses are informal, friendly and fun! We love what we do, and we hope that you will too.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to phone us on 01704 547114,
we’re very friendly and would love to hear from you!
Or you can email us at:- enquiries@findmyfolks.co.uk.
