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By Bernard E French
Family history
22 January 2008 14:00
Bernard E French of West Sussex tells us his dramatic family tale… I am now aged 75, I retired from British Rail in 1992 after 30 years of service. In 1996 I decided to try and trace some distant relatives in New Zealand. Years ago my father mentioned that we had relatives out there, so I went to see my aunt Ivy aged 85, the last survivor of her family. She showed me some old photographs and gave me the last known location of them some sixty years ago. Apparently my grandmother Edith French (nee Spray) had an older sister Fanny Augusta Spray who emigrated to New Zealand in 1891. I wrote off to the town where these relatives were and within a couple of weeks I had a reply from one of the grandsons. He informed the two elderly daughters still living and in no time at all I had a few people writing to me and sending me loads of photographs and family history news. They were absolutely thrilled to hear about their relatives in the UK and since then I have had visits from two of them.All this started me off on tracing my French family history and over the years it has got so addictive, it just grows and grows. I do not have a computer so I visit our local East Sussex Record Office at Lewes and the Family History Centre in London very regularly. I also researched the two surnames on my mothers side, my mothers maiden name of Southouse and her mothers maiden name of Barden, also my fathers mothers maiden name of Spray.
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frances1
19 November 2007
14:20
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aman says
Fascinating exploration indeed
Fascinating exploration indeed. Many people in the world search for their roots through out their lives. Not only roots, but long lost friends as well. Sometimes people find them, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they have only photographs. In some parts of the world people keep ashes in urns after cremation. There are places where one can get urns for ashes.
18 October 2011 06:41
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25 February 2011 11:24
lisahardy says
That's a great story Bernard! My mother in law grew up and went to school in Australia (on the £10 tickets!) but her family couldn't settle and came back home to the UK. She lost complete touch with the family over the years in OZ. I was doing my family tree and through my computer links got in touch with a woman who had a similar name in her family tree to me, and incredibly it turned out that my mother in law was the missing link in her tree! She has now been reunited with all her relatives in Australia and also found some more in the US. As you can imagine she is really excited and my in-laws are now flying out there in three weeks for a massive family reunion. If anyone ever wants any computer help in searching for a relative (pref in the UK) I am more than willing to help if I can. I subscribe to many different search systems and have helped other people in tracing relatives. Lisa H
14 August 2008 19:59
samatuzzi says
I have great respect for Mr French and his "manual" search. You can feel his excitement in his discoveries, and it is wonderful to share this. I have recently been in touch with relatives in South Africa who I have never met, and this too is very exciting. My search was through Facebook, I cannot express adequately the pleasure I have had of seeing photographs of cousins and their children.
22 May 2008 22:16
