Welcome to the Turner Collins Genealogy

Included here are links to my research of the ancestors of Edward George “Ted” TURNER & Phyllis Mary COLLINS ,my maternal grandparents. When I began this pilgrimage into my past over 30 years ago, I was armed with nothing more than a big curiosity, a smattering of family remembrances, a lot of sharpened pencils, and a 3-ring notebook binder. These days I rely on technology. My software of choice is Rootsmagic4, which is installed on my laptop and functions as my working copy of the data. As I write narratives of the research of different surnames, I will upload them to pages here. The research is ongoing, so check back frequently, and please….if you notice a mistake feel free to contact me!

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Acknowledgements

I’d like to acknowledge the efforts of Mrs Jean Barker of Leicester England, and thank her for all her help over the years in gathering what information she could and searching her memory for the little minutiae that turn dry family facts into a readable story. Thank you Aunty Jean!! I am particularly indebted to Mr Gordon W. W. Wood, who came through at the eleventh hour with old family photos he found in his attic. If not for his kind interest and helpful contributions we’d have no images of the Moyses family to put with the stories! I would also like to thank my husband and children for putting up with a messy house and a distracted Mum while I spent countless hours, weeks, and months delving into our past and transcribing 30 years of research into something cohesive that I felt was worthy enough to pass on to others. I greatly appreciate the kindness of the Reverend David Meakin, Vicar of Whitchurch, for his help with the Baker’s history in Hoggeston. And it’s also important to mention the kind people at the Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, and Oxfordshire History Societies, in particular Dr Hugh Kearsey and Mike Dewey; as well as the incredibly helpful people of the Rootschat Genealogy Forum, who were all wonderfully generous with their time and without whom researching UK family history from ‘across the pond’ would be impossible. To all of you, I am extremely grateful.

A Word or Two on the Research….

History is, as the word suggests, really just a compilation of stories and as such is to a large degree limited by the vagaries and inconsistencies of memory as well as the passage of time and the fragility of aging written documents. Our personal histories are no different. The genealogist in search of English roots is fortunate that the British have, for several centuries, taken great care in maintaining detailed parish records and were concerned at a very early date with the preservation of all kinds of civil documents. But paper fades and transcription errors happen despite the best of intentions. People lied occasionally on licenses and rather frequently on the census forms, which were sometimes illegible or worse, embellished in all sort of ways at the whimsy of the census takers. And so we must accept the written evidence from hundreds of years ago for what it is: with a certain amount of incredulity, but also with the faith that this is probably the closest we can hope to get to the truth of things.

I’ve spent years compiling the data in this Turner Collins family history, and have tried to cite all of my sources as accurately as possible. Sometimes the lines were easy to follow, but other times leaps of faith were required to go back another generation. In those instances, where the information wasn’t as clear as I would like it to have been, I looked for ways to come at the facts from a different direction and to seek out second and sometimes even third sources to substantiate my opinion.  And while I’d like to think I’ve judged correctly, it’s possible my inferences may have occasionally missed the mark. If you come across anything which doesn’t ring true, please contact me.  And lastly, while the internet is a wonderful tool for the family historian, it is important to remember that for every factual date or document available online, there are at least as many if not more inaccurate, carelessly researched facts published as well and with that in mind I have looked for additional evidence to verify every online claim before adding it to my tree. So… be aware that, as confident as I am that the information contained here is accurate and verifiable, it’s entirely possible that I’ve got a bit wrong here or there.