Go to my genealogy
As well as researching my own ancestors and relations, I have taken an extended interest in the Papworth surname.
Genealogy became part of my life following the death of a Grand Aunt. An old 1806 family Bible was found under her stairs, with some names and dates written inside the front. The Bible had belonged to a William Blake (no, not the one who wrote "Jerusalem"!) but at that time no-one could explain why the Bible was in the possession of my Grand Aunt.
After a slow start and several visits to St.Catherine's House, I eventually found that my Great-great-grandfather Abraham Cox married Hephzibah Blake (William Blake's youngest daughter) in 1851 at Broughton Gifford in Wiltshire, England ... and thence the Bible began its journey to me.
My mother got involved in the research and, with more time available than me, found out much of the information contained in our "family file". After she moved to Dorset, it wasn't too much of a journey to get to the Wiltshire County Record Office at Trowbridge. In addition, the Church of Latter Day Saints Family History Centre at Poole was very close and she became a volunteer helper there and went on to teach adult education classes in genealogy. Regrettably, cutbacks have meant that that particular Family History Centre has recently become much less accessible to non-LDS-members.
Other details have come from researchers who are believed to share a common ancestor. Such is the breadth of this information that much (most?) of it remains unchecked!
After starting off by recording our information in PAF, we have since changed to Family Tree Maker for Windows. This is still far from a perfect program but is the one we have settled on for the present.
The databases at this site have been exported from Family Tree Maker for Windows as GEDCOM files and then converted into a searchable database by the program Progenitor2. Modern browsers with Java enabled can hunt through this database far easier than my old Ged2html database ... and people with the same name are indexed in birthdate order!
Last Updated on 21 Oct 2001
