30 Years of Family History Research

This month sees us celebrate 30 years of genealogy research into the family name. We began with the Titheradge surname, but quickly realised that we needed to expand the study to include Titheridge, Tidridge and Tytheridge as the various spellings were interchangeable in the olden days.

Starting Our Research

We started our research because we got fed up with people commenting – “Titheradge that’s a strange name, where does it come from?” We didn’t know; so in August 1988 we decided to try to find an answer. Of course, genealogy isn’t that straight forward and the more we discovered the more questions arose that needed answering.

Our first attempt at research was a visit to Brighton library. As we stood looking at the genealogy bookshelves, unsure what to look at first, we met Albert. Albert was an elderly gentleman, a member of Sussex Family History Society, who was keen to share his genealogy knowledge. He started us off on our research including introducing us to the local family history group and the National Archives. Surprisingly Albert lived next to a person called “John Titheridge”.

Family History Research 30 Years Ago

Family history research was so different in 1988. To look up data you had to physically go to the data source. In the summer of 1988 we made numerous visits to London, visiting St Catherine’s House to find records of births, marriages and deaths. It took two of us, one to transcribe the data and one to carry the large heavy ledgers back and forth to the shelves; one ledger for each quarter of the year. If we covered more than 30 years in a visit we were very happy.

The other easily available source of records in 1988 was the IGI (International Genealogy Index) produced by the Church of Latter Day Saints which you could access at the library. There were 181 Titheridge / Titheradge entries in our first IGI download, mainly based in Hampshire. A search of their current on-line data base today reveals 9096 records.

There was no Internet, so to follow up the data it was necessary to go to the Hampshire Record Office in Winchester or London Record Offices and painstakingly search micro fiche or micro film for Parish Records and census. These sources were not indexed and a whole parish could be searched without finding any relevant data.

There was no email in 1988, so to contact other family members we extracted the family names and addresses from the UK telephone books and wrote letters asking if they were interested in their family history and if they would like to share information about their ancestors. We had mixed responses. Most people were interested, but the overwhelming theme was that most family members knew very little about their wider family. Over the years we have met up with some of our correspondents and many have become firm friends.

The research soon became world-wide as contact was made with genealogists in Australia, New Zealand and Canada who shared their family trees with us.  Thirty years later we are still in touch with several correspondents from those early years.

Family History Research Today

With the arrival of the Internet research today is much easier; you can sit at home and acquire a wealth of data. Sites such as Family Search provide free data, while Ancestry and Find My Past provide a wealth of data for a fee. Type “Titheridge” into Ancestry and you get 13,242 items, while “Titheradge” produces 3,631 entries. I think this is overwhelming if you are starting out and I think if I found that much information at the start I would have given up defeated by the magnitude of the task. I am really glad that we started our research long ago with a small amount of information. We have been able to build up the information into small family trees and gradually join little trees together.  I do not resent the many hours we spent looking for data 30 years ago, it has made me appreciate the Internet data more and realise the value of seeing the original documents.

The Best Discoveries

My favourite find was made on our first visit to Hampshire Record Office. It was a booklet entitled “A Narrative of the Life and Death of Richard Titheridge by W. Day – A native of Alresford and better known in Southampton as Dickey Dung Prong”. Dicky Dung Prong – what a name and one everyone remembers. The booklet, which was originally written in 1835, told his life story. It is the tale of a rogue who was converted to Christianity. 

The most surprising find was to discover a book called “With Disastrous Consequences – London Disasters 1830 -1917” this contained an article that described an explosion and fire in Moscow Road, London in 1869. The fire destroyed the property and killed three young Titheradge children aged 7, 5 and 3 and four lodgers. The fire was in the shop and home where Mike’s Great Great Grandfather and his family lived. Later research showed the story of this tragedy was recounted in Newspapers throughout the country. This was a family story that had been lost in time and a story that had never been passed down and was never talked about in any branch of the family.

Our Research 30 Years On

So here we are 30 years later with 33 files stuffed full of paper, records of over 3950 people connected to the family name and a computer loaded with information and images. During this time period we have corresponded with over 220 people interested in the family names.

The study started as a list of births, marriages and deaths but it has been transformed into so much more. We attempted to link the individuals together into family trees, these were quite small at first but gradually the trees have linked together. We have 15 main trees at present. Our Titheridge Tree from Cheriton links more than 1650 individuals while our Titheradge tree of Portsea links over 560 individuals. Gradually we have tried to find out more about the lives of these individuals and link this information to the social history of the times, so the data has become more than just a list of names.

We have tried to embrace modern technology and share our knowledge with a Blog containing family stories, a website full of family facts and a Facebook Group where family members can interact and share knowledge and photographs.

When we started we could not envisage where we would be by 2018 and did not imagine that our quest for a little information in 1988 would turn into a hobby. We certainly did not imagine that we would still be researching the family name 30 years later.