Welcome to My Family History

I am proud of where I've come from...come on the journey with me.

The great bulk of the research into our family history was carried out by my brother, Bill.

He was the brains of the family. He was awarded two doctorates and when I asked him why he'd studied so hard he said it was so that he could legitimately answer when someone did a doctor doctor joke. I should have known better than to ask really.

The journey through my history has resulted in these five siblings.

Wanda, Joy, Jackie, Yours Truly and finally, brother Bill.

I always said that Bill was the lucky one. When it came to 'hand-me downs' I only had three older sisters.

The history Bill uncovered resulted in more surprises than we could have imagined.

Finding that our family could be traced back to the fifth century, 498 to be precise, resulted in surprise, shock and even some embarrassment.

Being able to go back so far. almost to living memory of Roman Britain, was achieved with the discovery that our fourteenth great Grandad was King James ll of Scotland who died in 1460.

We share this ancester with the late Queen and King Charles. He is the fifteenth great Grandson.

You'd think that with such a connection I would know what the inside of a Buckingham Palace Garden Party was like but, alas no. But I digress...

The poor chap lived for only thirty years and died in a most ignominious manner.

He was one of the first kings to champion the development of a canon as a means of warfare.

And he was right. A body of men marching agressively towards your position would have their minds concentrated when a gun-stone landed amongst them when they were still a mile from their objective.

No doubt they would suddenly realise how much they were missig their families back home.

So, the King knew what he was doing.

Alas, we don't know if there was a problem with the casting of the weapon or whether the Sergeant-at-Arms was over enthusisastic but, on firing a salute in honour of his wife's birthday, an almighty explosion split the gun into many pieces and the King into two pieces.

Naturally, having established a Royal connection within the family, all the records were in place to trace back farther still. In our case all the way back through Scottish, Pictish and Viking royalty to Eric who died in 498.

Coming closer to home, as it were, we were intrigued to discover great great great great grandad Caleb Buglass who had a most interesting life.(Now, I don't know about you but, I think to have a great grandad called Caleb is a wonderful thing.)

He began as a book-binder in Scotland but, by all accounts, he didn't fare very well. In fact he was made bankrupt and we were able to find the newspaper advertisement he took out to sell all his tools. He wasn't completely daft, though, because it looks like he used the proceeds of sale to finance his absconding to America.

The authorities, at that time, had not long gained their independence from Britain and were vexed to find that their Book of Common Prayer had many references to the health and well-being of the King.

I think we can understand their concern and their need for a new Prayer Book.

Step forward one Caleb Buglass of Philadelphia, who gained the contract to rebind all the Prayer Books once they'd been amended.

Examples of his work are displayed in all the leading museums in America.

His workshop and bookshop was in Front Street and is the oldest surviving building in Philadelphia today.

Of course, in those days, the street was named Front Street because it was on the banks of the Delaware River. Today it fronts a six lane highway.

Although he was married here and had children, (hence yours truly), in America he eventually married again and had his American family buried with him in St Peter's churchyard in Philadelphia.

After they'd died, of course!

America and the West Indies is where he, and his brother Ralph, made their fortunes.

The contract for the prayer books and others he gained led him to prosper and when he died, on March 27th 1797, he was a very wealthy man indeed.

He named his successor as his son, Caleb Buglass of Berwick who, regretably, died in 1804 when he was only 41 years old just before his faher's will was proved in Philadelphia.

It appears that the vast bulk of Caleb's wealth went to the City Fathers of Philadelphia as no-one was able, or willing to track down any further heirs.

Despite the injustice of it all and, even with our 'special relationship', I'm sure the Americans would not be impressed by our claim to half of Philadelphia.

Coming nearer to home still,and this is where the embarrasment might come in, I and my siblings were often told "ask no questions and you'll be told no lies" whenever we enquired about our history.

It was probably a good thing that as children, we had no idea of the skeletons rattling around in cupboards in London and the South-East of England.

People that we thought of as being married turned out not to be and people that we thought of as being married only once turned out to be extremely familiar with the wedding service!

In carrying out this research one of the most fascinating things to discover has been the manner in which some of our ancestors died. We also discovered that the death of our paternal Grandmother, that we were always told was an accident turned out to be very suspicious indeed and may well account for some records, like death certificates, being missing.

It would seem, therefore, that when researching your history, you must be prepared to forgive your ancestors anything.

Perhaps, then, you may rest assured that your descendants will do the same.