When I finally decided to fork out my £30 a month to ntl nearly a year ago, the first Google search I did was for my own name, Hundleby. I was looking for Prime Ministers, poets, winners of the VC and Olympic gold medals. All I found were thousands of references to estate agents in North Lincolnshire, parish council meetings and a fishmonger in Manchester.
But I scrolled down and down, and down, until I came to a date and a name that seemed familiar: Samuel Hundleby, 18 hundred and something. An old enquiry from Evelyn. Frankly, I was more excited by the fact that I could so easily communicate with someone on the west coast of Canada than by family history.
Now, as a former librarian, living in Lincolnshire I had no excuse for neglecting to research my family tree. After all, I worked in Lincoln Central Library, with its local studies department, and the Lincolnshire Record Office was across the road. But all I ever did was scan through the censuses back to 1851 and jot down the names of fathers and forefathers from Thomas Hundleby (b 1794) onwards.
According to my notes, Samuel was the brother of my great-grandfather, Henry, probably his twin, and Thomas was his father. I e-mailed Evelyn to inform her of this momentous fact. She politely pointed out my error; that, in fact, Samuel, despite being born in the same year (1842), was Henry's uncle and Thomas his grandfather. Henry appeared to have been born out of wedlock to Thomas' daughter, Sarah, who died the same year, aged 20. Henry was brought up as one of the family and given the surname Hundleby, which passed down along with the forename Henry, to my grandfather, 'Harry', my father 'Ernie', myself and my own eldest son James.
I made contact just in time. Otherwise I may never have known about the Hundleby Convention next year. About which more soon.
Roger Hundleby
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