Been a busy few weeks working on a large-scale project but had to write about the discovery of the week that came about really because of a dream I had a while back. Some branches of my tree seem to come so easily that it feels at times as if ancestors are throwing themselves at me whilst there are some lines that seem to grind to a halt and you can’t seem to get any further on them despite searching every possible avenue. I have a few brick walls in my tree that have proven to be very difficult but can testify that time and long-suffering and widening searches can be fruitful and pay dividends if you have the patience for it.

Today I am writing about my Great Great Grandfather on my father’s side of the family. His name was James Thorpe and for many many years all we had known about him had come from my mother’s research and our knowledge of him consisted of his life after marriage to my Great Great Grandmother Eliza or Elizabeth Powderley. Information about him prior to marriage was limited to the information contained on his marriage record and search after search had proven inconclusive. However, prompted by a post I made on my social media sites to mark the 160th year of Eliza Powderley’s birth and by an idea that had come about through a dream about James Thorpe I decided this week to look again at James to see if I could make any sense of my theory about him and find any answers as to why I was struggling to discover anything more about him. Continue reading →