Scene of Crime

My visit to The Somerset Studies Library in Taunton and Evershot Dorset

Last year I went to The Somerset Studies Library where I found all the newspaper reports of the trial and subsequent hanging of my 5 x great grandfather on 28th March 1795. Last week I visited the village of Evershot in Dorset where he robbed the draper's shop. You can still just about see the name of the owner Grace Kellaway painted on the brickwork, although it looks as if another name has been put over the top of the original. If only she hadn't been unwell that night and kept a candle alight in her bedroom, my grandfather and his two accomlices might have got away with the burglary. As it was by the time they got back to Chideock with the spoils it was getting light and they were seen and arrested some days later. It's amazing that after more than 200 years you can just about read the shop sign!

What a Weekend!

I've had a wonderful Bank Holiday weekend

On Saturday I went to "Who Do You Think You Are Live" at Olympia with my friend Rita. We had a great day. One of the experts found a relative's marriage details for me, so as soon as I arrived home I sent off for the certificate.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote to someone who I thought was my cousin, he phoned me last night and confirmed it. He knows much more about our family than I do, so this has opened a whole new avenue of research for me. I never met my Grandfather,in fact I was always led to believe that he was dead. Yesterday I found out that he was captured at Dunkirk and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp in Poland.