Initial Header and Introduction

Welcome to the blog on the Dixon and Simms Family Tree. These are my immediate paternal and maternal lines though, as we know, there are many other surnames that enter in every generation. I have uncovered, in my limited time, such incredibly history and stories that i want to capture and share for future generations. I found quite a lot of the material here online and in the most unlikely of places. I want to make sure that others, looking for certain individuals, can also stumble upon stories exactly as i have done.

I will begin publishing individual articles going forward on each of these families, primarily, and those that are connected to them. The Dixon's hail primarily from Yorkshire and the Simms' from Warwickshire. I was born in surrey when both branches made their respective ways done here at the turn of the 20th century.

I have taken an ancestry DNA test and you can find my profile on GEDMATCH under kit # A961122. I have also recorded extensive information on ancestry.co.uk itself and as i currently look at it there are 1,160 individuals within that tree.

What makes this all the more interesting is that i am adopted. The information i have uncovered has been undertaken without meeting my birth parents and DNA was the key to uncovering several curious stories indeed. Hopefully, i will do so going forward, but as a skilled amateur genealogist this has not been a stumblingblock to discovering copious amounts of history.

More articles to come...

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Charlotte Simms, her son born out of wedlock, and who the probable father was.

As i go through my family tree i often mark down individuals for further consideration, especially if they are not priority research targets, and especially if initial research yields little. One such person was Charlotte Simms . I came across her when i was filling out the family of my 2nd great-grandfather William Simms. I found her, and marked her down with her year of birth, which was 1876 and in Brailes. I tend not to go into huge detail on indirect descendants of my connections straight away - and, even less so, those that are daughters. These can be, and are, explored at a later date. However i came across a curious article about a young girl called Charlotte Simms who simply had to be the same person. The story, published on the 14th of April 1892, and warranted deeper investigation. Article published 14th of April 1892 She was making a case against a young boy called Frank Bloxham that he was the father of her son born just a couple of months before on the 2nd of Jun...

Jack Dixon, and the rumour of his decapitation...

When i spoke to my first DNA contact within the Dixon family one of the first things they told me about Jack Dixon [1928-1968] ( who i may be more directly related to than would initially be considered ) was that he had been decapitated in a fatal road accident, in Surrey, in the late 1960's. It is not in our immediate thoughts to question such things. In fact a quick turn up of the registers of deaths does indeed confirm his death. I left that to lie for a while in favour of other tasks and research i wanted to do but the graphic nature of his death kept coming back as a question mark in my mind. I made a careful search of local newspapers which turned up nothing of this grisly death. I guess the question started to form in my mind that... was he really even killed in a car accident? This is a prime case when, outside of a registry or death, we absolutely need a death certificate. I ordered one and it answered my questions. Something also circumstantial worthy of ...

The family of Emil Winker - Part 1

I offered to help trace the family history of a good friend of mine recently and, after he passed on the details i needed to begin my search, i asked him which branch he would like me to delve into first and this [Emil] was the one he chose. Details of living (or recently deceased) people are withheld - exactly as they would be for any similar such research shared online. This information i am sharing here is 100% publicly available to anyone. The start point for my research is for Emil Winker (1866-1919) . I knew the details of his son which in turn gave me my start point for him. Emil Winker spent most of his life in Iowa. We know this thanks to the various Iowa State / US Federal Census' records that we have (more on that). From the records we quickly learn that he was not native born in Iowa. He was actually from Germany . He arrived in the USA in May 1883 from a ship sailing from Hamburg as a 17 year old teenager and was among some 1.4 million German settlers who came to ...

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