Welcome

Hi my name is Bill Read and though I have always had an interest in my families history I never seemed to find time to do anything about it. In 2005, shortly before she died, I sat with my Nan Mary Read (nee Sexton), my last living grandparent, and on a tatty piece of paper cobbled together some notes on the paternal side of my family. Nan had always been a bit secretive about some things in the family, perhaps believing the skeletons should remain hidden, but on this day for the first time she seemed to want to share information, and asked that I follow up some work her sister Helen had written on her Sexton-Dalton roots. I agreed without realising that it would soon become almost an obsession.

My research began in earnest in late 2006 and as the bug bit and I found I just had to know more and more, and find ways of breaking down the inevitable brick walls encountered in my research. Four years later I find I still need to know more, and I imagine it will remain that way long into the future.

There are many people I have collaborated with and exchanged information, a big thank you to you all, you know who you are. However at this point I would to say a special thank you to Marion Palmer, who although a distant relative by marriage, who took considerable effort to find, has been of great help both with my research, and in collating the content of this site. Never mind providing me with papers, photos and other items she possessed which are of great importance to my family.

About this site

The creation of this site is something I have wanted to do for some time. It has several purposes, the main one of which is to share the results of my research not only with other “family” but with anyone who is interested in family history. At the same time I hoped to engender enough interest for other people to share their research with me, and to help me by perhaps giving me information that I haven’t previously found on my family, and also in finding ways to further progress those branches where I have come to the infamous brick wall! To this end I have included a CAN YOU HELP? section with brief descriptions of the problems I have on some lines and the work I have done, in the hope you may hold the elusive clue I need to break down that wall?

The third reason for this site is the fact that I discovered if I upload my information to many generally used Family History sites, it will be listed and indexed and incorrect data then seems to be forever more floating around the Internet, the IGI is a good example of this. Before incorporating any information at all in my families history I usually try and obtain copies of all original documents, and carry out as much verification as possible before use of the data. If there is any doubt at all in my mind the work sits in WIP (work in progress) files, and separate Gedcoms which document the problem, and research lines taken, until such time as I am happy to place it as part of my family. For all this it is still possible to make mistakes and I feel that by having my own site I will be able to more easily update information and correct errors.

I have had to accept that it just isn’t possible to include everything, first because of time constraints, (Any family historian knows how long it takes to compile your data into a family tree, Gedcom or other database), and secondly the sheer amount of data that I have collected to date, which means this site could become easily become cumbersome if I did try and incorporate everything, so I have been selective in the information included, particularly in the FAMILY TREES AND DATA section, which has been generated from Gedcom output from the Family History programs I use. The data used has been restricted to try and give all the useful details you may be interested in, but keep in mind that much more exists, so please contact me if you have any questions. Further updates will be added as and when time permits, so please check back.