Waterfall Family Research

Over the past few months, I have been concentrating my family research on my Bewsher line.  The Bewshers are on my paternal great grandmothers side of the family and they come from Westmorland and Cumberland. When researching this line, I have to be careful with regards to the spelling of the surname, as I can't just search for BEWSHER, I also have to look at the various other ways in which it can be spelt.  For example; BEWSHEAR, BUSHER, BEWSHAR, BEUSHER, amongst others, During my research, I have hit the proverbial brick wall and at the moment I am unable to find a way through it.  At the top of the tree, I have a James Bewsher who according to the censuses was born about 1780 in Asby, Westmorland. At some point before 1815 he married a Jane , who according to the censuses was born about 1783 at Hutton John, Cumberland.  So far in my research I have been unable to find a marriage for James and Jane and I haven't found a baptism for James in Asby either. In order to try

Finding an ancestor with a criminal past, can stir up all kinds of emotions.  If the ancestor is a distant relative or far removed by time, then it may be interesting or exciting to find out what they got up to.  So far in my research I have found two ancestors with a criminal past thanks to Findmypast's Criminal Records.  The first was known about within the family, while the other was a completely new discovery.  Today I am going to write about the former. David Cynon Jones was born in 1877 in Llandysul, Cardiganshire, Wales.  In the 1881 and 1891 census' he is living with his parents Evan and Margaret Jones in Llandysul.  Between 1891 and 1897 he becomes a printer and on the 24th December 1897, he marries Martha Evans in Newcastle Emlyn Register Office. Martha and David, live with with Matha's family at Velindre in Carmarthanshire and they go on to have two children, Jonathan Ifan Ifor Evans and Hugh Ceredig Jones in 1898 and 1899 respectively. This is were the fa

A lot of my paternal side of my family were members of the Society of Friends (Quakers), and can be traced back to the 1700s in Coventry.  When World War One broke out, they did not fight due to being contentious objectors as Quakers were pacifists. But this did not stop some of them from helping the war effort.  One  ancestor William Waterfall joined the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU).  The FAU was established during WW1 and was later revived during WW2. Click here for a history of the FAU. WIlliam Waterfall joined the FAU on the 16th June 1915 and served in Section Sanitare Angalise 19 attached to the French Army for most of the war and in 1917 he was awarded the Croix de Guerre.  William was discharged in November 1918. The Society of Friends have published the personnel cards for all those who served in the FAU in World War One.  To view and search the database click here . Croix de Guerre Certificate awarded to William Waterfall in 1917, courtesy of Kevin Waterfa

Over the past few months I have been working on a new website for the Waterfall name.  The new website has now gone live  and at the moment it only contains information on those Waterfall that came from Warwickshire, hopefully soon, I will be able to add the information of other Waterfalls from Derbyshire, Yorkshire and London. If you would like to contribute to the website, then there is a link to a form that can be filled in, which I will add to the site.  The website is www.waterfall.name Please feel feel to leave any comments.

Just before Christmas, I was carrying out some family history research into the Bewsher name at the Society of Genealogists in London, and came across the following Baptism from Greystoke in Cumberland in 1681. This Baptism made me smile, so I thought I would share...

Today is the 70th Aniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet Army in 1945.  Many people suffered at the hands of the Nazis and families were ripped apart. My grandmother's family was one of them.  Her grandmother Gisela Löwenstein was shot in 1942 in Riga and her mother Hulda Frankenbusch was captured by the Germans in France in March 1944.  Initally she was sent to Drancy and in April 1944 Hulda was transported to Auschwitz.  As a family, we don't know if she survived the journey, but if she did, she would have been sent straight to the gas chamber as her health was not great. My grandmother did not know for sure what had happened to her mother and was forever haunted by the fact she could not help get her mother to safety. My grandmother's fathers family did not fair any better.  Although her father Rudolf Frankenbusch survived by coming to England, the rest of his family perished and their names are commemorated on the walls of the Pinkas Synagogue in