Following my ancestors through the places they knew.
I enjoy exploring family history, visiting historic places, and finding unexpected connections in archives. This is where I share the stories I’m piecing together, the places they lead me, and the questions I’m still following.
If a name, place, or story here connects with something you know, I’d love to hear from you.
Kresen Kernow · RD/1149 · 5 May 1795
Featured Digital Exhibition
Sawle, Fox & Co.
Tin, capital and kinship in industrial Cornwall
A Cornish tin-smelting enterprise documented through an eighteenth-century lease and a surviving co-partnership agreement. The exhibition brings together the manuscript, its eleven signatories, their capital and the family relationships surrounding the company.
- 1781 Documented origins
- 11 Named signatories
- £52,347 Recorded capital
In the first post of a new series exploring my great-grandmother Bridget Mary Gallagher and her family, I go back to the first records that helped me piece together who she was. What started with a marriage certificate soon raised bigger questions about her Irish family in York, her childhood, and why she was sent to an industrial school at just nine years old.
Property deeds, bankruptcy records and an Isles of Scilly council book trace Samuel Lemon’s path from Marazion merchant to HM Customs collector, while leaving unanswered what role his cousin Sir William Lemon may have played.
An eighteenth-century legal report records my seventh great-grandfather, Captain Samuel Lemon, as the owner of a one-forty-eighth share in Great Work Mine. Following that small entry helped me understand my family’s place in Cornwall’s mining history.
A little about me
My interest in family history began with a binder sent by my great-aunt when I was nine. The unanswered questions caught my attention, and I’ve been following them ever since.
I enjoy spending time in archives and exploring the places connected to my family. Sharing what I find here is a way to meet others with overlapping interests—and perhaps discover something neither of us knew.