The way to begin with your family tree is start with someone that you know the details of.
In my case I know who my Grandparents were, so I can start off with them.

I know my Mother’s Mother was born Annie Underwood in June 1898 – so she should appear on the 1901 Census, taken on March 31st 1901, as a 2 year old child.
I use Ancestry.co.uk to search the Census data, there are other websites and other ways to do it, but Ancestry is convenient. Continue reading →

It’s getting near Christmas so I thought I’d put in a few festive posts… the first set of photographs I found came from the Yorkshire Area Christmas Dance of 1990, held in Castleford Town Hall (But then, around that time most of the Christmas Dances were !)
Christmas 1990… Cliff topped the charts with Saviour’s Day (his last Christmas Number One), Delia had her ‘Christmas’ series on TV, the top Christmas film at the cinema was Home Alone, and the big Christmas Special on the BBC was All Creatures Great and Small. Continue reading →

I’ve mentioned Nicholson House before, the former headquarters of the 18 Plus Federation in Newent, Gloucester.

For several years we used to go down and stay there, here’s a few pictures recording the antics of our 1992 trip.

At Nich house there was a large bedroom holding 7 beds and smaller rooms with 4, 3 and 2 beds. Usually when we went the boys occupied the larger room and the girls (and couples) the smaller rooms. in 1992 though this was switched round and the girls had the large room… This is important to mention because I want to tell people of the shrine Malibu Mel created on the radiator next to her bed. You see Mel is a Leeds United fan, so she went to Nicholson House armed with team posters and photographs of her favourite players, and stood the pictures up on the radiator and stuck the poster to the wall. Her favourite two players, the ones the shrine was too, were David Batty, and her top man, Gary Speed… in 1992 Malibu Mel wanted to have Gazza Speed’s babies ! Continue reading →

Geocaching – Kept up To Date
WASH – no new updates
Blog – 1 new post
Wharfedale Plus – 10 posts posted
Genealogy – No Posts
I’ve been posting in one category or other every 2-3 days, mostly in the Wharfedale and Geocaching sections, the Wharfedale posts are time consuming as there are photographs to choose and then scan and process, but I hope to keep up the rate of postings

This was probably my last weekend away of the year, not in tents this time, but at a caravan park in Hunstanton Norfolk – and with the same people that I was camping with earlier in the year and in Tenerife with. I planned my journey to take in some caches and did a couple while I was there.

November 13th 2009 – Harewood Road Cache GC1WQWQ – Cache #191
The first of the weekend, and only a few miles from home, the cache is hidden only a few yards from the road, fortunately by a lay-by so parking is easy !

November 13th 2009 – Linton Bridge Collingham GC20CGT – Cache #192
There’s a public car park by the river, with plenty of trees and plenty of ivy covering them… guess where the cache is hidden !
From this cache I collected the Geocoins Finn’s Caching On The Moon Geocoin TB2X8B4 and Bring me home to Denmark TB1EAYC Continue reading →

Of course, we didn’t always spend our time in drunken debauchery, sometimes we did more gentle things… One Sunday back in 1991 we went to the National Trust property at Beningborough Hall near York for a quiet game of croquet, and then a cup of tea in the tea room… all very civilised don’t you know ? Continue reading →