Florence Bellamy Palmer, my great grandmother.

My great grandmother, Florence Bellamy, born on November 20, 1883, in Roath, Cardiff, South Wales, to William and Elizabeth Bellamy. Photo courtesy of Jacqueline Vesterinen.

Here is the register of birth, so that I could order her birth certificate.

Here is the first census on which Florence appears, living at #396 Zinc Street in the parish of Roath, Cardiff, South Wales. Her father, William, works in coal but I can't make out his profession. She has 3 brothers; Joseph, William and Edward, and 2 sisters; Deborah and Elizabeth.

In 1901, Florence is 17 and a servant at #10 Preswyfla Street in Cardiff, South Wales.

Her employer is George B Newton and his wife Kate. The census has the family split on two pages, which is something you have to watch for when searching for your family!

The 1911 Welsh census which shows Florence married to Herbert Palmer, with three children; Herbert, May and Norman. (May is my grandma) Here she is age 25, but it should read age 27. Maybe she didn't wish to appear as two years older than her husband, who was born August 11, 1885 and was age 25.

Yesterday, June 16, 2016, I had the delightful thrill of discovering my first family member in the newspapers! The Naicam Progress newspapers are online at this link.

Some of the years have been digitized. I knew Florence had died on June 20, 1931 which was 85 years ago, so I looked at the newspaper closest to her date of death and her obituary was on the first page! I was quite thrilled to find her.

By Loretta (Williams) Houben

Alfred George Palmer, cousin to my grandma, Alma May Palmer.

(photo kindly provided by Angie Hodges on Nov 16, 2015)

On November 13, 2015, while searching on UK Ancestry where I'm currently a member, I discovered Alfred George Palmer. Alfred is my 1st cousin, 2xs removed. He was the son of Henry George Palmer, brother of my great grandpa, Herbert Henry Palmer. They were the sons of George Palmer my great great grandpa.

Alfred died at age 21 on May 31, 1916 in the Battle of Jutland.

The above shows the list of ships Alfred worked on.

HMS Broke where Alfred died.

I had a great time searching online for any information I could find.

This image is from Panel 3 in Stoke sub Hamdon, England, on top of Ham Hill, at the memorial built to remember the men who died in WWI.
Here is the LINK to the website.

From the Commonwealth War Graves Commission

The above shows Alfred's name on the right hand side.

By entering Alfred's name and date of death into the Google search engine, I discovered a wonderful website:

Stoke sub Hamdon

It contains a letter sent to Alfred's family with details of his death.

The site is written by Angie Hodges, and after an inquiry sent to her on the weekend, she kindly replied today and sent me the photo at the top of this post.

Although it's a blurred image I'm thrilled to have it, as I have no other image of Alfred.

Isn't it amazing what happens if you begin to research into your family tree?

You never know where you will wind up.

March 30, 2016  I added Alfred Palmer's details to "Lives of the First World War" website today.

The 100th anniversary of the Battle of Jutland is this year, 2016.

By Loretta Williams Houben

Somerset, land of my ancestors.

These are my Palmer relatives.

I've mainly been blogging about the Williams side, but it's time to write about the Palmers.

Here's how the people above are related to me.

Florence (Bellamy) age 43 and Herbert Henry Palmer age 42 are in the middle, surrounded by their children on their way to the new country of Canada.

My grandma, Alma May (19) is on the right of her father in the cloche hat.

Notice the warm clothes all are wearing in the month of July!

The youngest children, Violet on the right, and Harry in front of his dad, are the twins, age 5.

John, (11) is on the left with Norman (17) beside him.

On the right is Sydney (9).

Today I found an interesting item on Ancestry, UK site.

I'll write about that in a separate post.

But I want to include a link to a post about Somerset England here.

It has beautiful photos and posts about this beautiful land where my ancestors lived since the 1600's.

Yes, I've been able to trace the Bellamy family back that far.

I've had an exciting 2 months searching Ancestry's records.

The above shows how I can trace back to the Bluetts in 1669.

I think I have many things to research.

By Loretta (Williams) Houben