INTRODUCTION

Welcome to this family history web site: on these pages you will find detailed information on the history of 36 families, together with many photographs, biographies, diaries, letters and obituaries.

On the left, there are two navigation systems. The Family Pages bar contains links to all the family history pages. The General Site Pages bar has links to the home page as well as to the different search tools and indexes.

Home for Christmas Jeremy Archer This anthology, which covers the last 230 years, explores Christmas during time of war, in the words of the combatants of different nationalities, and also of their families. The unpolished voices of the lowest-ranking servicemen and women are here, alongside what would now be called the 'spin' of the political leaders and military commanders. Whether serving in the Peninsula, in the Crimea, in South or East Africa, on the Western Front, in northern India, in Italy, on the Home Front, in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq, or being held in captivity, valiant attempts have been made - often in the most unfavourable conditions - to celebrate the birth of Christ. Sir Max Hastings: 'Jeremy Archer has assembled a wonderfully vivid and moving collection of war-time Christmas stories, which bring alive the loneliness of conflict for soldiers far from home.' Richard Holmes: 'A wonderful Santa's sack of personal accounts - this is, beyond question, my Christmas book.' Sir Alistair Horne: 'A deeply moving book. A real work of love, and considerable research. I can't think of a more appealing Christmas present to give - or to receive.' Available through Amazon.co.uk

The purpose of this site is to make more than 20 years’ work on my family, my wife’s family and associated families available to others. In the 1880s the Reverend W. M. H. Church wrote, for private publication, A Brief Memoir of the Husey Family. In the introduction he quoted Lord Lindsay as saying that ‘every family should have a record of its own’. That Memoir was the catalyst for my own endeavours. Knowing remarkably little about my antecedents, I embarked on what proved to be an exhausting, rewarding and thoroughly self-indulgent task.

During the last twenty years, huge strides have been made in both the presentation and accessibility of genealogical information. My hope is that this site makes a contribution – however modest – towards those advances. I see that it has become fashionable to provide links to other websites; without in any way trying to set myself up as an authority on the subject, I thought that it might be helpful if I did the same. Naturally I have corresponded with many people over the years and a large number of them have contributed to these ‘histories’. To all of them I am extremely grateful. The format and notation adopted is that of the Burke’s publications. Each generation, apart from the one carried down, is indented one full space. While I accept that this can be confusing, it does at least allow plenty of personal information to be ‘shoe-horned’ in. Every person whose name appears in upper case is a direct ancestor, either of mine or of my wife. Unfortunately there is no such thing as completeness in genealogical matters, because you can never reach the beginning. Matters are also made complicated because the very existence of the relevant records is a matter of chance: over the years fire, flood and mice have all taken their toll.

In order to keep the presentation simple, I have provided no footnotes or references. All the details I have unearthed are incorporated in the text itself. Thus dates and places provide references while copious use of ‘circa’, ‘may have’ and ‘possibly’ indicate uncertainty on my part. There will be mistakes – both large and small – in each of these ‘histories’ and for that I apologise. Without precise information, such as that obtainable from wills or family bibles, it is frequently necessary to make assumptions, some of which may prove to be incorrect. However, I have tried to make no extravagant leaps across the generations and use ‘may have’ to indicate my own concerns. Furthermore, conscious that people naturally value their privacy, I have deliberately tried to exclude any references to those still alive.

For me it has frequently been the search for the single cigarette card that completes my set. I hope that this site may now perform the same role for others. If you have any comments, questions or, best of all, additional information, then please e-mail me on jeremy@archerfamily.org.uk.

Jeremy Archer