"A man is a bundle of relations,
                    a knot of roots,
                      whose flower and fruitage is the world" 

                                                                Annon;


"John West`s mother had a brother named Edmund Stare". So began the writing on 
some very old family documents that my late mother rescued from a dustbin in 
the early 1970`s!

I have been interested in my family history since I was around 14 so that`s 
well over 40 years!

I have found that family stories, passed down from one generation to another 
almost always have a grain of truth in them and because of that, I have been 
able to credit or discredit many of them.

In 2006 I at last untangled the mystery of which Romney we were related to.
We always understood that we descended from the same family as George Romney, 
best known for his many portraits of Emma Hamilton who was the love interest in 
the life of Lord Nelson. We are, indeed, connected to a Romney who was an 
artist and engraver but not the more famous one!

Via the wonders of the internet I have made friends with and met cousins of the 
second, third and fourth variety which is always a great pleasure but, I think, 
the thing that gives me the greatest thrill is to be able to claim that just 
like the champion dog breeds who grace Crufts each year that, I too, have a 
pedigree and this is all thanks to a wonderful couple, John & Frances West, who 
lived many years ago, and,left a generous bequest to generations to come even 
though they did not have any children of their own.

I have coal miners, Agricultural Labourers, nurses and Dressmakers as well as a 
sprinkling of school teachers and Bakers,Cordwainers and Printers in my tree 
and I am proud of them all.

One ambition I still have is to trace the person in the story that my great 
uncle, Oliver Cromwell Wilder, told me way back in 1970. He told me that his 
father, had told him about 
an uncle who had been press ganged into Nelson`s Navy. That was the moment that 
made me think how many seemingly distant ancestors could be reached by living 
memory, rather like a baton carrier in a relay race!

It has been a great adventure and, I hope, will continue to be so, as I 
clamber around the twigs, roots and branches of my family tree.
I will end by saying THANK YOU to every one who has kindly added leaves of 
their own thus adding new shoots to a very large tree, which continues to grow 
with each new day!