A Sea-Faring Family – the PINES of Bristol, Liverpool and Australia
A large part of the fun of family history is making contact with distant relatives that you never knew you had. This is especially so nowadays with the joys of the internet and this...
My World Cup, 1966
Did I dream it? Did it really happen? And did Mum really say “Well, I’ve never seen anything like that…..the poor chap,” as the North Korean player in one of the qualifying rounds came...
A Bristol Policeman – 1836-1857 – Revisited
Isaac Pillinger was born in 1806 and christened on Christmas Eve 1809 at St John’s church in Bedminster, the son of William Pillinger and his wife Jemima. (These parents are a mystery couple: though...
The Temperance Queen & the Whitsuntide Procession
In my young days one of the highlights of the year was the Whitsuntide Procession which took place in Kingswood every Whit Monday. The Procession, 10,000 strong, made up of the congregations of local...
Tracing my ancestry – How did it all begin for me?
Would any of this have happened if we hadn’t come to Brislington to live? Perhaps, perhaps not. I never had anything to do with Brislington before and although I knew vaguely that it was...
Victoria Park: The Anatomy of a Dead-end Street
The Story of the street in Kingswood where I was brought up. For thirty years of my life, give or take the few when I went travelling, I lived at no. 33 Victoria Park,...
The Pillinger Family History in Four Volumes
How it all started for me! This is the history of the Pillinger Family that I began to unearth nearly 50 years ago when I stumbled across a gravestone in St Luke’s churchyard in...
The Life of Edwin Fray, 1833-
I am now starting on a short history of my early life of what I remember about the District of Keynsham where I worked and what I did, also some of the chief events...
Diverted by the Bristol “L” – a tale of the Keynsham Workhouse
My great great grandfather Henry FRAY was so afraid of being incarcerated in Keynsham Workhouse that he fatally cut his throat with a razor in 1900. “The Workhouse” cast a terrible shadow over the...
The Fray Family
Find me a scientist was a challenge issued by my late brother Colin Pillinger. At Christmas I would send him a story about our numerous ancestors but the nearest approximation to science I came...
About Me
I have been researching the social history of the West Country for 45 years. During this time I have collated information on a wide range of people living and working in the West Country including miners, ethnic minorities, petty criminals, sailors, tommies, benefactors, brassmakers and many more. The thing that I find amazing is that ordinary people always lived extraordinary lives. I hope you like my blog that brings together my lifetime of research.
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