Monthly Archives: June 2018

A Trip to County Galway, Ireland

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Occasionally you hear a story of someone who arrives in a country looking for their ancestors and commences wandering the roads and byways. Suddenly, seemingly by chance, as they have done very little research, they stumble across a record, a house or the burial place of a long lost relative. The other story, and the most common, especially if your relatives came from Ireland, is the one where you do endless research, go up and down genealogical roads, constantly hitting … Continue reading

Echoes of our Past: NZ Society of Genealogists 2018 Conference

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The New Zealand Society of Genealogists annual conference has just been held in Christchurch. Christchurch is a beautiful city that has been through some very hard times and the scars are still visible. Sadly, many of their historic buildings were lost. Much reconstruction work has and is being done. Many families are only now getting back into their homes. I was privileged to be a speaker and attendee. While the weather was not the kindest, being cold and wet, this … Continue reading

My coalmining ancestor Joseph Stirland (1816-1879)

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I have several ancestors named Joseph Stirland. This post concerns my 2 x great grandfather, son of William Stirland and Dinah Hofton. He was born into a coalmining family in June 1816 in Cotmanhay, Derbyshire and, like his father, became a coalminer. He was born at a time and place when men were transitioning from the increasingly mechanised industry of framework knitting to the rapidly developing coalmining industry. The Stirlands and related families were non-conformist and this perhaps explains why … Continue reading

William Powell – a man with vision

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This wonderful portrait is of William Powell, the father of the USA branch of the Powell family from Loughborough, Ghent and Tiverton. Imagine my surprise when one of my extended family sent me a link to a website containing this photograph of their ancestor.  William was the brother of my 3rd great grandfather James Powell, and therefore my 4th great uncle. I had been researching my Powell family for many years, primarily because it was one of those family lines … Continue reading