Hello,

Welcome to these pages, especially if you are family of course, or a reader of Family
History Monthly, for which I am a contributing editor.

Florrie Ford is my maternal grandmother.

My modest maternal researches have so far yielded more results than my paternal branch:
this is because I have more maternal cousins able to contribute their recollections and
suggest avenues to pursue.

But whichever branch you explore, you will find no Royal blood coursing through our
veins, nor can we count any traceable aristocrats among our forebears. There is a
similar dearth of landed gentry, captains of industry, marshals of the Armed Forces or
Princes of the Church.

There is no horde of treasure waiting to be claimed (I've looked), nor vast country
estate to be inherited. Some family legends may have us as masters of a huge commercial
empire up north; others have placed us in politics and governance in the antipodes.
None of that can be verified. We seem to come from a long line of peasants. But some of
us could dig a ditch or make a road. Some of us cut and carved wood or stone. Some of
us shaped metal or recorded commercial undertakings. On the whole, we made a useful
contribution.

A family history is never over, which is why there are gaps in this account, together
with my own incomplete research notes. I have other material - maps, place
descriptions, copies of certificates - to which you are welcome if you are interested.
You can email me from here.

Unless otherwise indicated locations will be in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England.

James Taylor
Genealogists live in the past.