Request – WW1

Hi everyone,

I’ve been trying to find time to add more detail about each of the lost servicemen on my website, including all those who are mentioned on the Bwlchgwyn War Memorial. If, by chance, you have also been researching these men, I would love to add the details to my website. Basically this is a free site, I’ve only paid to remove the advertisements, and as far as I know the information will stay online even if I never add anything else to it – hopefully that’s a long, long way off! Similarly, if you have an interest in any of these men, you can contact me and we can share what information we have.

Lloyds Shipping Registers

This morning I am reviewing a presentation by Ken Nisbet, on the theme of researching WW1, that was organised by the Anglo-Scots Society (part of the MLFHS) at the Manchester Central Library recently. Whilst verifying all the links for the article I came across this great site for finding scanned volumes of the Lloyds Shipping Registers and I’ve added it to the Links Map page.

Lloyds Register of Shipping Online

The Hwntw

This was a very popular public house in Bwlchgwyn, my great grandfather, Robert Belton, was the licensee for a while and I remember a few stories of life in the 50s that involve mention of The Hwntw. I never had a good picture then, out of the blue, I was sent this great picture. I couldn’t add anything to my old website at the time, but I always kept the picture until I could display it on this new site. So here it is, The Hwntw, and more or less as I remember it, too. (If you choose to  copy this into a FB group or other place, please be courteous and link back to my site). When this picture was taken the landlord was George Davies. There was a lovely pull-on place along the front of the building which facilitated all sorts of visitors from groups of cyclists to the occasional charabank on a day excursion.  Thank you, PB!

DNA Test Results

I’m predictably British Isles, but I love having about 5% Iberian in the mix. I really must follow up those stories of Spain via Cornwall to North Wales from the Belton family, one day…

Bwlchgwyn, looking from Ruthin Road across the Gors (correct original spelling) to the Penllyn (that’s what we called the mountain)

Oh Dear! The recent update by Ancestry (and by My Heritage) has altered my ethnicity. I’m now not-so-Iberian after all – but I am an extra 3% British Isles, and that leaves just 2% that’s not British Isles – and it’s 2% Norwegian. And that doesn’t surprise me. Someone with a Scandinavian surname copied and pasted a huge chunk of my old website about ten years ago. That’s fine, at least I knew someone was interested! From where does this Scandinavian DNA emanate? From my mother’s side of the family, the Braidwood, or one of the wives of the Braidwoods is my best guess, based on conversations with some of my internet contacts. If you know of a Norwegian link, I would love to know!

But is any of that true? My Heritage have matched my results with their reference datasets and come to a different result. According to them I’m 2% Finnish. Anyone in Finland reading this?

Liverpool Workhouse Registers

A few days ago I went with David and his cousin and her mother to Liverpool Central Library, mostly to look for David’s Joynt records; each one of us had some research questions to try and answer whilst we were there. The filmed Workhouse Registers for 1859-60 were easy to find and we had good reason to think that the elusive ancestor might have spent a night or two, at least, in the workhouse, but he wasn’t to be found amongst any of the records. Other people were found, though, including a Joynt that we hadn’t seen before. Not finding someone in a record set does close one line of enquiry, that is a result of sorts. We continue the search.

Pier Head, Liverpool.

Old Newspapers

I don’t have many ancestral connections with Europe, but when I came across the European Library I knew it was something worth recording, so I’ve added a link to it on my Links page.

Welcome to my History Pages

This is my new site, replacing the ‘broken’ site at http://www.belton.me.uk. Not everything has been transferred, that’s a work in progress, but the main starting points are The Belton family of Bwlchgwyn, the Ellery family of Cornwall, the Salthouse family of Nether Alderley and Liverpool, the Ralston family of Liverpool, the Braidwood family of Scotland and Liverpool, the Dooley family of Stoke on Trent, and the Joynt, Hartigan, Mcnally/McAnally and Hudson families of Ireland and the Renshaw family of Stretford. Scroll down the People menu for names with a family tree and search the Surnames page in the People menu for most of the other surnames on this site.

There will also be stories about people not related to us. They might be people who only share a surname but who have interesting tales to tell, they could be connected with my friends’ families, or be part of the times and places where these families lived. It will take a while to upload them, but their stories are interesting.

Please get in touch if you can add to anything on these pages, expand on the family trees or just have a family or history interest in common. There is a contact link on the top menu.

Surnames Update

A long job, taking the surnames out of the original table format and putting them into a list format – a one-off job, and I can see that I have another ten years of surnames to add to this list. That should keep me busy for a while 🙂

Liverpool

A trip to Liverpool this morning to learn more about the docks, I have a few interests from my Salthouse family to explore. After the talk we had a walk through Liverpool One and we really, really, were going to go down past John Lewis’ to look over the wall and see the recently discovered old dock – but the cold wind changed our minds and we ended up in Waterstone’s, instead, browsing the books.

Hartigan Updated

I decided not to rewrite all of this page. The trees have been tidied up, but further down the page are the notes I made about nine years ago, when we knew bits about the family but not all the information was available. It’s interesting, sometimes, to remember the challenges and the brick walls, and the shouts of joy “I’ve got it!” when that missing link is found! Heady days, indeed.