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Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

Mary Ann Whatmore’s great grandparents - Joseph and Elizabeth Dyson

Ordinary folk, unless they were criminals, left few traces in historical records. It is therefore difficult to find out much about Joseph and Elizabeth Dyson who were the great grandparents of Mary Ann Whatmore, my grandmother.  Joseph and Elizabeth were my own great x 3 grandparents.
I would like to thank very much Alice Kern, President, […]

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Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Dr. Isaac Watmough of Pockington, Yorkshire

For the son of a gamekeeper to become a doctor in the early nineteenth century was most unusual and this makes Isaac Watmough, who was a doctor at Pockington, of great interest.
In writing this post I have made a great deal of use of the information placed on the ancestry website by Alvina Greg. I […]

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Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

Thomas Whatmore alias Henry Gamble of Mortlake, Surrey

 Click pictures to enlarge them
Over the course of time, most family surnames change their form. A vowel or a consonant is added or lost but the basic form usually remains the same. When members of a family migrated to a new area, if their surname was an unfamiliar one in the new locality, it often […]

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Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

John Smalman of Quatford - another illustrious relative of Margery Watmore nee Smalman

  Please click on pictures to enlarge them
John Smalman of Quatford  has ample claim to being another of Marjory’s illustrious ancestors as he was talented builder and architect. 
John Smalman was born on 7 April 1782 at Munslow, the eldest son of John Smalman and his wife Jane Wainwright. John of Quatford was a direct descendant of […]

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Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

Marjorie Whatmore nee Smalman of Neenton and her illustrious relatives

 Click on pictures and charts in this post to enlarge them
 Marjory Smalman is of importance in the annals of the Whatmore family as she was almost certainly the mother of Thomas Watmore of Curdale from whom a very large number of the Whatmores in the West Midlands descend. 
We have very few definite facts about Marjory, other […]

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Sunday, July 12th, 2009

The Whatmore Family of Mortlake, Surrey and Australia

There must have been compelling reasons for families to uproot themselves in the nineteenth century and make the long and hazardous journey from England to Australia. By the 1850s, the reasons were unlikely to have been religious persecution at home. It was more likely to have been the chance of a better life with new […]

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Thursday, July 9th, 2009

A Shropshire Interlude

This is a fictionalised account of a real visit to Shropshire during the First World War.
It was March 1916 and the war which had started in 1914 and was ‘sure to be over by Christmas’ continued unabated and the news from the various fronts seemed to get worse every day.
Polly Whatmore looked across anxiously […]

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Thursday, July 9th, 2009

The Watmough graves at Caistor, Lincolnshire

A few days ago I came across some photographs of Watmough graves at Caistor which had been placed on the net by Linda Mason of the Grimsby Family History Group. Linda Mason has generously given me permission to reproduce these pictures on this blog. Please note that Linda possesses the copyright for these pictures and […]

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Thursday, June 4th, 2009

The Road to Cleobury Market

 This a fictional story by Geoffrey Whatmore based on real people. It is set in Shropshire during the Civil War.
Lucy Watmore was worried  and confused,  which  made her irritable. She flounced up the lane with her new flame-red skirt spattered by mud.  A sudden  shower had scattered damson petals like snow flakes on the pathway.  […]

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Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Mary Ann Whatmore (nee Dyson) and the Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet, Sheffield

Sometimes genealogical research turns into a debunking of long held family myths – the famous surgeon who turns out to have been a country vet, the disinherited son whose family were actually paupers and the treasured photo of great great granddad which is actually a picture of Lord Kitchener. This post pursues the tale which […]

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