I started this project in 2005 after finding the death certificates of my father’s parents in my mother’s belongings when she died here in Spain. 

Not living in the UK I had not realised that many people were looking into their family history following a BBC program a few years earlier. This of course helped as the ancestry “business” had developed since the program. There was far more information on the Internet than I could have guessed.  

Of course what I had not anticipated was how absorbing it would become, how much time it would take and how much it would cost!! 

One of the first discoveries was who would be the families. 

Obviously I knew there must be Henderson on my paternal side but soon found that the other family name to add was Humphrey being my father’s mother.  

The roots of the Henderson family have so far been traced to the Bedlington area in Durham (later becoming part of Northumberland) in the 18^th century, where one of my earliest ancestors was proprietor of one the village pubs. In the 19^th century my direct ancestor, who was a saw mill manager, took the family from Northumberland to Wisbech on the Norfolk/Cambridgeshire border where two of his sons met and married two Humphrey sisters. They were daughters of a farmer and he had uncles and sons all of whom had farms.  My grandfather, one of the sons, took one of the farmer’s daughters to London to marry and live and so this how this side became based in London. However later part of the Henderson family returned to their roots in Newcastle. 

One major concern was that my grandfather was illegitimate and I am therefore unsure whether his father was “my” Henderson, but hope so, or perhaps I should be researching his mother’s name (Potts), who was the daughter of a coal mine manager. 

On my mother’s side I have had lots of fun with her paternal family name which is Bussicott. Again I have managed to trace them back to the 18^th century. This particular Bussicott came from a small village in Devon and had an interesting time in the army and then married in London and where the family lived for over 100 years mostly in the Chelsea area. Two of his sons also became soldiers and between them and their father Bussicott’s served in China in the Opium Wars, in India, the Crimean War and also fought in Spain against Napoleon. The fact that one got in lots of trouble for being drunk whist on posting in Gibraltar was a disappointment as I always thought I was the first member of the family to have drunk too much in Spain. 

One of the successes of all this research is finding and contacting a branch of the Bussicott family in South Africa where they have lived for 50 years. I believe this is the only surviving branch other than Chris Bussicott and his family in Surrey. 

My mother’s sister married a New Zealander and this family has lived in New Zealand for 50 years as well. 

On my mother’s maternal side the family name is Batchelor and this has been traced so far to the early 19^th Century to the small village of Barby in Northamptonshire. He married a Somerset girl, became a policeman, settled in London and actually died from injuries received while on duty and who I found on the Police Roll of Honour.  

The Batchelor name has effectively been lost in our family but my grandmother had sisters and one married a Tanner and this family and their children are very much part of our family today. However some of the Batchelor family in Barby looks as if they immigrated to Australia early in the 19^th century and I am still trying to follow this up.       

I joined the Ancestry.com internet site which has been invaluable as has the FreeBMD site. A list of some of the web sites that I have used is shown on the Links page. However with these two sites I was able to trace families from the censuses every ten years from 1841 to 1901. Using a government site I was able to order birth, marriage and death certificates the first being a birth in 1837 the first year in which these certificates became legally required.   

Soon I found I needed a software program to hold the information. I now have well over 400 family names on this system.  

One of the fascinating events of this whole project has been talking and meeting family that I have not met since a boy and also meeting other more distant relatives who I did know existed. Many of these families have also helped with information and provided family photographs of their family. 

Also through the internet I have two families who are direct descendants of the female side of the Bussicott family. 

I have explored on the internet many locations such as the villages that the ancestors were born in and these are being added as links in the site. I have much yet to do especially in the London area especially Chelsea and uncle George who was born and brought up is helping me on this.  

With my Mum being born and marrying in Chelsea and me spending many weekends as a boy in Chelsea, including supporting the football team with my Dad, uncles and cousins from about being six years old, the family to this day support the team. We remember only too well the many many years without any success but the team was always actively followed since the 1940’s. Chris and his son are keen followers now as are part of the Tanner family as well as Uncle George and I. The link to our roots in Chelsea is maintained. 

I was accumulating so much information and data on web links that it became obvious that if I was to do this properly then I should really put all this information on to a web site. 
Here I need to thank Norbert Holtz here in Javea who created and maintains our company web site – www.javea-online.com. He agreed to build the site for me at a reduced daily rate and as you can see he has made a great job of it. Thanks Norbert.  

I have made many mistakes particularly trying to follow everyone I found using the Censuses and particularly tracing ladies in the family. With more discipline I would have just kept to the four family names and not been sidetracked. That’s not to say you are not important girls but if you can imagine trying to explode into probably another fifty families was just not practical. 

I did not expect to find anybody famous as it soon became obvious that in the main the earliest ancestors were from poor backgrounds, lots of labourers, house decorators, engineers, autobus drivers, laundresses, servants, soldiers, farmers etc. However many had interesting lives and most of them moved around, congregating in London and by and large improving their lot.  

As of today although well on top of the Henderson and Bussicott history I still have much to do on Batchelor and Humphrey but hope to have these recorded by the end of 2006. Then in 2007 I need to work on more information on Locations an all the families which is interesting as it gets you into all sorts of things including social history. Then the current family will hopefully help to add what has happened to everyone in the 20^th Century. 

Will this ever end?  

Strangely I have had much success in the 19^th century where births, marriages and deaths have now been recorded on the Internet. These are constantly becoming more current and I can keep an eye on this as it tracing what happened between 1901 and 1940. We can handle from that date from living memory. 

The 1911 Census will get to the end of the 100 year privacy rule in 2011 and just perhaps I will look at this in 5 years time but don’t hold your breath. 

In closing many thanks for all the information, help and photographs that I have received, particularly from Tony and Joan Ashton and daughter Sally, Victor, Steve and Pat Craik, John Graves, George, Jo and Chris Bussicott, John and Gordon Bussicott in South Africa, John Evered in New Zealand and also Pauline Barton and her daughters Mandy and Sarah. Thank you also to Diana and Don for encouraging me as even though you may inherent this site perhaps with Chris Bussicott! 

Lastly, thanks to my wife Jo who made fun at me for so long as I disappeared for hours on my “FT” (Family Tree). However she has never complained as this project consumed me and maintains her sense of humour even though it still has not spat me out on the other side.