Welcome to my Family History Website. It is designed mainly to attract family history researchers, especially all my 'distant cousins', who are trying to find out about some of the same families as myself.

My name is Mike Carter. I started studying my family history several years ago when I was given the Family Tree Maker computer programme as a Christmas present. I knew next to nothing about my family history at that time, but after asking my mother and father what they knew I started to construct the first few branches on my family tree. I did not want, however, to end up with just a collection of names and dates, but little else.  I wanted to put flesh on the bones of those long departed ancestors. I wanted to find out what sort of people they were and how they fitted into the times they lived in.

Being a history teacher with an MA in Local and Regional History I already had a good knowledge of the historical background and the sources that are available to family historians. Now after several years of delving into the history of countless branches of my family tree I have amassed a fairly considerable amount of knowledge. Much of it has been  my own work, but a lot too has been the result of exchanging information with others, sometimes by the exchange of the old-fashioned letter, but mainly by e-mail. In the process I have made contact with numerous cousins, many of them living far away in the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I have also had the pleasure of actually meeting some of those cousins for the first time as a result of my researches.

My own research has been partly done in libraries and records offices, delving through newspapers, looking for wills, searching through census returns and parish records on microfiche and so on. I have also dragged my poor wife Jane around countless church graveyards and cemeteries looking for the headstones of my deceased ancestors. Over the last few years there has been an explosion of information which can be downloaded at home on the Internet, such as the IGI, wills, census returns and the indexes of births, deaths and marriages. There has never been a better time for the family historian.

Anyway, I have been meaning for years to set up my own website. I recently acquired a copy of Microsoft Front Page 2003 on eBay for a much-reduced price. With the aid of FrontPage 2003 in easy steps by Michael Price (£10.99) I have managed to set up this website. I shall launch it onto the World Wide Web and see what happens. I hope to be able to develop and update it on a fairly regular basis.

A Guide to the Site

The A-Z of Family Names Page This is a list of the main family names that I have been researching. Click on the name you are interested in and you will be directed to the family page. I have tried to give enough information for you to be able to tell whether there is a link between your family and mine. There is also a list of fellow researchers in that name with their E-Mail and/or website addresses. Please let me know if you would like your details to be added to the page.

The Family Tree Page  My family tree is published on the Family Tree Maker website. Unfortunately, I think you have to have the Family Tree Maker programme to access it. I've been using it since I started my family history research and can thoroughly recommend it. If anyone can tell me how I can publish my family tree on this website, I would be very grateful.

Features Page I intend to publish aspects of my research from time to time on this page.

 Links Page  I intend to supply links to websites I have found particularly useful on this page, e.g. the 1837online website.

Contact Me Page  The main purpose of this website is to make contact with other researchers to exchange ideas and information. Please use this page to contact me.

Photos Page  I have quite a substantial collection of family photographs. From time to time I would like to publish a few on a particular theme.

Famous Ancestors Page  I have listed a few ancestors who have made it into the Dictionary of National Biography. It also leads onto the Royal Ancestry Page where I show why I believe I am descended from William the Conqueror. Some people don't believe me!

Anyway, I hope this website proves both useful and informative. Please let me have any suggestions if you think it could be improved. Click here to E-mail me or go to the Contact Me Page.

 

Mike Carter