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Welcome! This website was created on 08 Oct 2007 and last updated on 06 Feb 2024. The family trees on this site contain 21206 relatives and 1501 photos. If you have any questions or comments you may send a message to the Administrator of this site.
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About May Family History, and much more !
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I started tracing the family tree in early 2000, and what you see here is   the majority of that work.

For some time I have resisted listing so many people, as its not easy to control, but  have "given way" to several people who were interested in various parts of it and had  requested I list everyone.

In obtaining this information, I have NOT downloaded anyone elses GEDCOM files, and  in normal circumstances, don't provide GEDCOM files for other people either (that  sounds a bit harsh, but its not meant to be that way !)

A lot of this site is about the following families-Bell, Bowsher,  Bradley, Earl, Gilham, Hampshire, Higglesden, Igglesden, Jarvis, May, Mortley, Swan, Upson, and  Van der Werff, although there are many others.

The name Higglesden is quite difficult to follow in places. It seems it  started as Igglesden, before a part of the family changed it to Higglesden  for some reason, only for others to change from Higglesden, to Higglesdon and  Egglesden. There are probably other variations as well.

Many of the people are Kent based, and it seems that if you are doing any  Kentish research at all, you sooner or later come across some of the names  above-in particular Earl's and Hampshire's.

If you want to know how any two people are related, just click on the "People" box at the top of the page,  then "Relationships", and just follow the instructions-you will however need the Security Access Code to use this function.

Not everybody listed here is related. There are a few "branch lines", and a fair  number of people who I feel are related somewhere along the line , but can't  currently fit them in. I have listed these people anyway.

It has largely been reconstructed with a combination of the valuable help of  various family members, visits to various Records Offices,The Census 1841- 1911,  the IGI Index (with some caution hopefully),and the Internet- which  importantly is now a very integral part of most family tree tracing. In  particular many of the Parish Registers for the County of Kent have been  verified by using the free City Ark site, (http://cityark.medway.gov.UK) and  most importantly of all, a wide variety of willing people  who knew more about  this than I did when I first started, and were prepared to offer their time, help and  advice. I hope with a little more experience now, I may be able to help others in a  similar way.

I have frequently quoted the URL address from the City Ark site, however the  address is too long for the space available on this site and the display is  incomplete. You cannot go directly into the site from this link. Contact me  if you cannot find the full address.

I hope the information contained here is intrinsically correct, baring any  typing errors etc of which I am just as likely as anyone to make. However there are a  lot of people here, and it is inevitable that some mistakes have crept in. If you are  able to correct anything, I would be pleased to hear from you.

What you see here is by no means complete. It is constantly evolving and will  of course never be finished. Sometimes it seems its easier to get information  on distant relatives going back hundreds of years than it is on those in the  present day. I would liken it to trying to do a jigsaw with an unknown number  of pieces with the picture missing on the box.

There are many people who have helped enormously, and these include-

Victor E.R.Gladwish. Much of the Gladish and assorted variations on the name  are from Victor's Publication- 'The de Gladwyshe Family History 944-2000'-  which runs to over 30 volumes.Victor has been researching his line for over 30  years, and has spend many thousands of pounds in the process.

J.G.N. 'Hans' Van der Meulen from Friesland in the Netherlands who has offered  invaluable assistance on the Dutch side.

Wayne Iggulden, in British Columbia, Canada, who knows just about  everything there is to know about the Igglesden side and its various  alternative spellings.
 (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~iggs/)

Steve Goldsmith, who has over several years, offered sound advice and  assistance with various aspects of the Bates line. 
 (http://website.lineone.net/~steve_and_jan/)

In no particular order, I would also like to thank the following people who have  helped me enormously- Alex Prichard, Edward Airs, Andrew Bradley, Harry Beeken, Paul  Hampshire, Geoff Clout, Kathryn Maynard, Janice O'Shea (nee Franklin), Vic Farrow,  Susan Robitaille from Montreal in Canada, Karen Mortley, Dennis Bell, Ivor Bell, Georgina Bell,  Michael Duffy, Ray Sewell, John James Quinlan O'Brien, Mark Heptinstall, Christine St.Johanser (nee Collett) from Auckland in New Zealand, Steven Porter from Melbourne in Australia, Jackie Chappell,  Francesca Day, Gordon Lickfold (who has kindly supplied information on the  Lickfold's, and has been conducting a one name study of the Lickfold surname since  1972) and last but not least, Peter Holden in the Dominican Republic.

There are still many more people, too numerous to mention. Apologies if I've missed  anyone out !

I  have tried to protect those still living by making information on them 
password protected. If you are family, please contact me, (click the "send a message" 
button above) to request the access code, which will reveal more details. 
However, I would ask that you are sensitive to concerns that some people may have 
regarding details being published on the Internet, notwithstanding that the  majority 
of the information is in the public domain anyway.

If you are able to add anything please let me know. I know some of the  family can also help fill in some of the missing pieces, and let me have a few  photos as well !

If you found the site helpful, (or even if you didn't !) please leave your comments  in the GuestBook.

If you would like me to colour code your own particular line to make it easier to  follow, just let me know.

I have plenty of space for photographs on here, so if you would like any included,  please E Mail them to me in .JPG format, and I'll include them.

If you have an interest in either the BELL or the ROBINSON families, take a look at  the unidentified photos (click on "Photos", at the top of the page), I found these at  the home of Leonard Walter Bell and Edith Maud Robinson. None of them have names on,  but logically they should be of people in the Bell or Robinson families. If you can  name them, or even place the approximate year the photo was taken, that would be a  great help. I'm sure everyone here remembers to put names and dates on their photos !

And finally, these details on TribalPages are imported from my own GEDCOM file which  is from FTM 2014. Some aspects don't "translate" very well-in particular some of the  citations are a bit garbled, so apologies for this.

Tribal Pages somewhat curiously assume that anyone without a death date is still  alive. As a consequence of this, you may find some people who are obviously not alive  shown as living. Currently I can only change this by going into each person  individually to change it, but as soon as I upload a GEDCOM file again, it reverts  back to living. Because of the number of people I have on the site, this isn't really  practical.

I have suggested to Tribal Pages that their system defaults to deceased at something  like 100 years after any date, but we will have to see if anything happens !


Nigel May
 

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Getting Around
There are several ways to browse the family tree. The Tree View graphically shows the relationship of selected person to their kin. The Family View shows the person you have selected in the center, with his/her photo on the left and notes on the right. Above are the father and mother and below are the children. The Ancestor Chart shows the person you have selected in the left, with the photograph above and children below. On the right are the parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. The Descendant Chart shows the person you have selected in the left, with the photograph and parents below. On the right are the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Do you know who your second cousins are? Try the Kinship Relationships Tool. Your site can generate various Reports for each name in your family tree. You can select a name from the list on the top-right menu bar.

In addition to the charts and reports you have Photo Albums, the Events list and the Relationships tool. Family photographs are organized in the Photo Index. Each Album's photographs are accompanied by a caption. To enlarge a photograph just click on it. Keep up with the family birthdays and anniversaries in the Events list. Birthdays and Anniversaries of living persons are listed by month. Want to know how you are related to anybody ? Check out the Relationships tool.

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