How much do you know about your history?  Do you know your grandparent’s names, their birthdays, their brothers and sisters – their parents?  Have you looked through old photo’s and wondered ‘who was that person?’

Around 25 years ago my journey into my family history started, after a lifelong love of history I was able to take a look at my own history.

Mum’s maiden name was Bletcher, fairly unusual and therefore pretty easy to research – so that, I decided, would be my starting point.  I knew my grandparents, but I didn’t know their families – brothers, sisters or mums and dads. 

My first search was for my maternal grandad, Harry Moores Bletcher, who was born in 1898 when the family lived at 28 Store Street, Manchester.  At the time I started my research I was working in a building on this very same street – just WOW !!  My gran and grandad married in a church which used to stand right next to the building I now worked in (sadly the church had been demolished many years before and the area was now a car park ☹) 

As my research continued it showed that both sides of my family lived around the centre of Manchester, indeed at one stage in our history both sides collided and were on opposite sides of the law …………..

Harry had 8 brothers and sisters …………….. my journey began

Grandad Spencer, two brothers and sister Mary