Fresh Links

I've been using Ancestry.co.uk for a couple of years now and I had started to become a little disheartened that nobody on there seemed to be researching any of my ancestors. Shared information and research is a real gift when looking into your family tree. So I slogged on alone.

A couple of weeks ago, however, I was contacted by an individual through Ancestry who is related to the Lockwood branch of my family. I now have names for certain unknown photographs and I've also managed to fill out the life story of one of the Lockwoods.

I've spoken of William Lockwood before on this blog. From census information, I found out that he and his sons worked as gardeners on the estate of a merchant called James Taylor. In the current day, the Lockwoods garden nurseries are located on the same site. From servant/tenants to land and business owners is a wonderful story of family progress.

Fingers crossed I can make more links through photographs and documents I have.

Following in my father's footsteps

This is my father, Charles Whittaker Roberton, or Charlie to his friends. He was an ever supportive influence in my life, softly spoken, strong, thoughtful and eternally optimistic. He was probably better thought of and more kindly remembered than he realised.

When he retired, my father decided to research his family history. I can remember the trips he took to London and Edinburgh (sometimes with my mum and on other occasions, alone) and holidays spent traipsing through overgrown graveyards in Scotland. He was a searcher, my father, a lover of knowledge, and that applied as equally to his family research as to other parts of his life.

When my father died in 2002, I had a newly born baby and a newly widowed mother to look after and my father's research was put away in a box. Since that time, my mother has passed away and my children (two of them now) can amuse themselves sufficiently to give me some time to myself so I've decided to take up where my father left off and continue with his family history research and that of my mother's side of the family too.

My father's parents were Charles Roberton and Lydia Jane Whittaker. My mother's parents were Alfred Lodge and Maud Lockwood. Those four branches - Roberton, Whittaker, Lodge and Lockwood - will be the focus of my research and this blog, although I'm sure ancestors with other surnames may occasionally want a chat. I have my father's notes to kick me off and a lot of available information on the internet too.

I look forward to sharing my findings with you. Who knows? We may be related.