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March 2005

Another quarter of contacts from distant relatives! Alison Ginn wrote in about the possibilities of a connection with the earliest recorded Powys, William, who died c. 1577. Chris Dover delivered some superb articles on the very early Douvres. Peter Chomley extended our knowledge of the Leighs and Austens. Michael Macturk enlarged on the connections of the Busfeilds with his family. Aileen Grant came in with more information on the Powyses who settled in Canada and then did some superb researb on my great- uncle Richard Barrington Powys-Lybbe who had disappeared, last heard of in 1925, but who in fact lived until 1956. From the blue Jane Lane corresponded profusely and most throughly on the Cheynes of Fen Ditton. Then Suzie Jackson asked about Holly Copse, an old Lybbe cottage that she now owns, and we were able to exchange new and old photographs of same. Trevor Copestake produced some interesting information on the Twysdens. Rose Webb delivered an eye-opener with excellent snippets on our Gillett forbears and led to the mutual discovery that the Grants of Moneymusk shared an ancstor with us in Eliza Coster (1821-1879), so that the current baronet is a half-third cousin (status!). Richard Daglish told the sad tale of a distant Ricketts cousin who had been stabbed to death in a fracas at school. Elizabeth Manterfield produce an account of Albert Praed Hallifax, a gt-gt-uncle through my maternal grandmother. Then Bill Lonnen cleared up my confusion over the gt-aunt Olga's husband's family and gave me a host more information and this led to Howard Smith's vast collection of the Collard family at http://www.airgale.com.au/collard/index.htm.

Through much of this time Brian Jones has been doing research on our Priestley forbears. The immediate Priestly ancestors came from Bradford, though they were only there for two generations. With my enjoyment of canal boat cruising, I was delighted to find that the senior Priestley, Joseph, (c.1741-1817) had been for almost 50 years Superintendent of the Leeds and Liverpool canal company, probably overseeing its operations through the main building and early operational phases. He can join that other desirable ancestor of that period and inclination, Greenaway Jaques (d.c.1790), bargemaster of Wallingford, Berks. It looks like we need one final cruise, along the Leeds and Liverpool.

Perhaps one minor matter need to be added in. Over the years as this site has expended, I have had to take on extra facilities that my core Internet provider, Demon, could not provide at a reasonable cost. At Chrismas I found an alternative provide that could do everything I needed and at a fraction of the current cost. So I decided to move to Plusnet, launched the site in mid-January and on the 10th of February they were changed to be the supplier of my broadband connection. With this upgrade, only Plusnet has been updated. The rest of my material on Demon and Freewebs has not been changed. But I have altered the front pages on both Demon and Freewebs so that everything in those pages leads directly to the Plusnet site. Further "powys.org" now points to Plusnet. So I expect that the usage of the old pages will slowly dwindle and in a few months I shall delete them and cancel subscriptions. Watch this space and I hope you will continue not to notice the change!

The main database now stands at 19,341 people, of whom 7030 are ancestors and 7719 relatives with the rest being in-laws. Not all these numbers are on this website as they are living people and I like to obtain agreement before including them.

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