INQUIRIES ABOUT ANCESTORS

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26639, 26 January 1952, Page 3

INQUIRIES ABOUT ANCESTORS

MANY PERSONS WRITE TO "DEBRETT’S” LONDON, December 24. Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders are writing to Debrett s Peerage” to find out whether their ancestors in England had titles. “The demand started about the time the Royal visits were proposed some months ago, and has steadily gathered pace,” said the editor, Mr C. F. Hankinson. “We are now snowed under and may have to increase our staff. I have never known anything like it “Debrett’s” succeeds in fracing the family tree of about one in four inquirers. The essential clue is the name of the parish where the emigrating ancestor was born. Some families have been traced back to humble folk such as cobblers, and some to remittance men, younger brothers in good families paid to stay out of England. A substantial number have proved to have blood royal in their veins. Miss Pearl Watson, a business woman of Chatham, Ontario, was surprised to find that her tree goes back to the Emperor Charlemagne, through the Norman conquest. She has ordered oil paintings on wood of the coats of arms of 20 noble families' to which she is related. Mr Gordon E. Deed, of Waiuku, New Zealand, was traced back to Alfred the Great, and an Australian who was so ashamed of his grandfather that he changed his name,

was traced back through hi# real name to William the Conqueror Mr Hankinson feels satisfied that there are many ordinary people in the Commonwealth to-day who would find they were of illustrious descent if they took the trouble to delve into family papers "About 50 years ago there were 30,000 people alive who went back to Edward HI, and their num; bers must have increased since then, he said. Meanwhile tombstones are being laboriously scraped in parish graveyards all over the country and obscure records searched to discover whether a New Zealander is a descendant of a duke’s daughter who ran away with her father's coachman nearly 300 years ago.