Simms and Dixon Family Movements

Simms family

The earliest ancestor i can currently locate within the Simms family tree is my 9th great-grandfather William Symes (Born. 1590). His descendants lived in Warwickshire for around THREE centuries! This was initially in Barton-on-the-heath but a great deal of it was spent in Brailes. Eventually, in the very early 1900's, my great-grandfather Alfred Simms moved down to surrey. They lived in Great Bookham and later, Epsom and Leatherhead. I love in surrey - but was born in Leatherhead. I even work at a company in Leatherhead nowadays. A significant branch, led by my 2nd great-uncle Joseph Simms, migrated to the USA.

Dixon Family

The earliest ancestor i can currently locate within the Dixon family tree is my (likely) 5th great-grandfather Francis Dixon (Born. 1761). The Dixon's spent a noteworthy amount of time in Yorkshire and specifically Ryedale (see previous articles) before eventually finding themselves in York. My (likely) great-grandfather Frederick Shann Dixon eventually found himself down in Dorking after serving in the first world war. My father is highly likely to be descended from him - although i am trying to track that connection down and verify it.

My father and mother likely met in the Dorking / Leatherhead area. As an adopted child many questions still remain and yet i have been able (especially with thanks to DNA) answer and figure out extensive family history without having uttered a single word to either - without having even had laid eyes upon them. This is something i hope changes in the future, obviously.... though that is out of my control.

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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 2

In the last article we discuss the immediate birth, immigration and subsequent family of Emil Winker (1866-1919). Now we need to delver deeper into who his parents and siblings were, where they came from, and where they went. We are confident that Emil was born in Spaichingen, Wurttemberg deep in the southern part of Germany at real crossroads in Europe. Switzerland, Luxembourg, Austria are all in close proximity. Spaichingen, Wurttemberg In Emil's marriage to Katherine Schroeder, in 1898, we learned of his parents names. Parents Lawrence and Elisabeth This gives us our first starting point... although, finding a marriage between Lawrence and Elisabeth, anywhere in Germany, proves initially troublesome. We know for a certainty they were both native-born Germans like their son. This is a fact and there would have been no reason to lie about that on the census returns when listing their parents birth country. Locating them in records from Wurttemberg will prove...

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