Me: Live in rural Bedfordshire, work in IT in central London, married, three children, and one smelly dog. When not working or providing a taxi service for a never ending series of children’s activities I indulge in family history research. I have been dabbling on and off for the last 10 years or so, researching first my Gatward ancestors, and more recently my maternal forebears, which turned out to be very interesting when I discovered several lines of royal descent.

“Family history is part of every day life. If you take the time to do the research, you know where you came from. If you know where you came from, you’re given a sense of purpose to guide you where you’re going”

Website: This website / blog is an attempt to bring together much of my research into one place so that it is publicly available to others with similar research interests. The website was created using WordPress and a customised version of the Twenty Eleven theme. My aim was to create something a bit brighter, fresher, and more modern than the normal dull and dreary family tree and genealogy websites that you generally come across. The site is hosted by tsohost who I had not used previously, but have proved to be very good. WordPress installation and setup was a breeze using their automatic application installers. The tree pages have been generated using the excellent and free Adam: The GEDCOM Family Tree Builder web service.

Gedcom: (an acronym standing for GEnealogical Data COMmunication). My family tree software of choice, is the excellent Family Historian from British company, Calico Pie. This is used to record all of my genealogy research, produce reports and diagrams, and creates 100% compliant Gedcom files which are ideal for loading into Adam. It also has strong community support through the Family Historian User Group and can be enhanced with various add-ons.