Dawn's Family History Page

Dawn's Family History Page

My Surname Interests

Paternal Line: Mills, Whitton, Osman, Freeman, Bell, Ayre, Cor(d)ner, Hilton, Armstrong, Robinson, Kelly, Whyte, Reece, Smith, How(e)s, Wright, Line, Ward, Gilpin (Kilpin), Odel, Ashby, Cole

Maternal Line: Bowey, Bragazzi (Bregazzi), Wardle, Grabham, Layton, Gibson, Howe, Armstrong, Danby, Rawlin(g), Couch, Cooper, Jackson, McNally, Campbell, Flannag(h)an, Regan

Dovetailing Branches: Dono(g)hue, Atkinson, Pursell, Lawson, Graham, Boulton, Youll, Allan, Hodges

Geographical Areas

Co Durham, Northumberland (esp Newcastle-upon-Tyne), Yorkshire, Cumberland & Bucks, Guernsey, Ireland, Italy (Northern Lakes).

Recent Computer Crash!

My apologies to those people who may have tried to contact me recently and to whom I have not replied.

A computer crash obliterated my e-mail, some of which I had not yet opened or replied to. Also, I have lost many of the e-mail addresses of my cousins in my contact list. Could I please ask you all to mail me again so I can re-build my contact list and answer your queries.

Many thanks guys for your patience

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Please be patient Ever found a cousin on the Internet? Well, I have! As it turned out my first cousin once removed, Yvonne Bowey and her husband Martin, were rather more experienced in the Family Tree business than I was. When I met them my tree suddenly grew by a factor of ....oooh...lots. I am thankful to Martin and Yvonne for a significant amount of the data on my maternal grandmother's line on this site.

I also owe a special thank you to my cousin from across the Pond, Russell Jones, for his work in pushing back the Danby line and so much fascinating data on the American Danbys. Thanks also go to my maternal cousins Barry, Annie, Louise and Richard for their data and lovely photographs. On my paternal tree I am grateful to my cousins Shelly, for her help with the Whittons, Marion for the picture of Frances Louisa Mills, John Hodges for his extensive research and photographs in the Howes/Hodges line and Lynda Griegg for her work with the Freemans. (A link to both John and Lynda’s own sites are available below). Aside from these sudden expansions to the chart, of course, Family History is a lot more fun when you've someone to collaborate with on the research.

You can't, of course, "do" your family tree on the Internet. There's just no substitute for laboriously trawling the original sources if you want to be sure you're getting it right. But the Web is a great tool for pointing you in the right direction and meeting people who might just be tackling the same tree from a different starting point. If part of your tree looks like it's overlapping mine or you'd just like to talk about our mutual surname interests, I'd love to hear from you. My e-mail address is on the left. Who knows, maybe we're related!

To navigate around my database just use the surname or index links on the left or take a look at my pedigree chart here. There are lots of notes about the lives of individuals in the wider database; the fruits of the research of my cousins and I. You can get to these by using the index. My personal favourites are the chequered career of Matthew Wardle Bowey and the brutal murder of Benjamin Couch Danby…and then there’s John Thompson Danby the recidivist tea leaf who did time in the Scrubs…

By the way, that's me (above right), although, dare I say it, the picture is 14 years old. Enough said! The good-looking lady to the left is my great-grandmother, Elizabeth Bragazzi....

...and these handsome sailors are my grand fathers, Patrick McNally (left) and William Mills (right).

Think you’ve got the right name in the right place but can’t see a connection to my tree...? May be a little of the data I’ve collated along the way can help. I have spread sheets of extractions of certain surnames in my database. If these might be of assistance to you please e-mail me.

Using Surnames as Middle or First Names

That old fashioned tradition of naming children with family names as middle or even first names, may seem rather odd, or even unkind, today but our ancestors’ aims to preserve the surnames of female lines in this way do all us genealogist a BIG favour. It doesn’t ‘arf help you spot the connections especially when dealing with family surnames which are common as the proverbial muck. Have you spotted any of the following used in your tree? Maybe there’s a connection! Why not check for an overlap in my Index ?

Mills + Witton (Whitton), Robinson, Gibson, or Parkin as a first or middle name

Bowey + Danby, Wardle or Wilson as a first or middle name

Data Protection

To protect the privacy of individuals in the database who are known to be still living, or who could be still living (under 100 years of age), such individuals have been mostly removed from this internet version of my data base. The few which have not been omitted are referred to as simply 'Living' + the surname. Exceptions have given permission for their full name to be included. 'Full' charts are available to family members only.

Links

Links to Other Researchers of my Surname Interests

Bregazzi:

Howard Slatter

Fran James

Howes; Wright & Gilpin

Also for the descendant’s of Thomas Howes and Sarah Wright, visit my cousin John’s site.

(See also for his wider tree including the surname Hodges):

John Hodges

Freeman and Reece

Lynda Griegg

Links to other Resources for my Geographical Areas of Interest