About this Site
A Family Story started life as a
personal family tree in about 2006. At that time I used RootsMagic for organising my data,
exporting the data as a gedcom file then turning it into another
format (XML) that enables me to select and organise the data in
the many different ways you see on this site.
A connection through my brother-in-law to a family in
Desborough (Northamptonshire) led to a fascination with that
small town. I was intrigued by the number of families living in
one street with the same surname and occupation, and wondered
whether they were all related. I still haven't answered that
question completely, but the process led to the Desborough Study
which forms the greater part of this site.
Over the years I have changed and improved the way I record
and publish my research.
I have found it invaluable to transcribe complete census
records for the households in which family members were listed,
and to display on one page all the census records for an
individual. This has enabled me to identify relationships that
are not explicit in the census (such as a father or brother in
law being shown only as a "lodger"), and this in turn can help
to determine which of two people of the same name and age
belongs to a particular family.
For the same reason I have found it a great help to record
brothers and sisters, their spouses and children. As well as
helping to identify members of a family it can also give hints
as to how people met their spouses.
I hope you find the site interesting and informative. If you
have a connection with anyone on the site and can offer any
information, please do get in touch with me.