How my interest in genealogy was sparked and how it grew

Maureen McCleland

In 1999 when I was librarian of a college resource centre in East London for a few years my ‘boss’, who was the deputy principal of the college, told me about his hobby – genealogy. This piqued my interest, especially when he explained about the genealogy interest groups that communicated via e-mail. He also explained about all the information available on the internet and gave me a few websites to look at. I did not know then what an adventure lay in store.

When I was a child my dad used to tell us interesting stories about his parents and grandparents always including their full names and the maiden names of the women. However, I had never thought about doing our family tree until I heard from my boss how much easier it was to do using the computer. Having somebody to guide me at the beginning of my family tree helped enormously and I was soon deeply engrossed. Through him I also learned that I could download a free genealogy database off the internet and so I began with Brother’s Keeper, which I still use.

One of my dad’s aunts and one of his brothers had started at different times to do the Loftie-Eaton family tree but hadn’t got very far. My uncle sent me a page of names he knew (or thought he knew) and I began with those. Another aunt of my dad put me in touch with a cousin who had engaged a researcher about 10 years previously. She kindly gave me copies of the christening and marriage records of some of the children of our progenitor, William Loftie-Eaton, one of the 1820 British settlers. In return I gave her a printout of all I had discovered thus far and also kept her up to date on my findings.

Through various genealogy e-mail lists I could enquire about certain people/surnames and was amazed at the response. People who are genuinely interested in doing family history research are invariably generous with exchanging information. Through the internet I met such a person who was doing a one name study of the surname Lofty/Loftie and she was such a blessing. Linda Lofty lives in England and although we eventually discovered that the Lofty and Loftie families in England were not related, she generously shared what Loftie information she had. She also transcribed parish records for me when she was doing her own research.

Linda found a book in the British Museum bookshop which she bought for £85.00 and then promptly sent me a photostat copy. It is called The family of Loftie: traced from the earliest times unto the present day by Arthur Gershom Loftie, privately printed in England in 1918. This book confirmed that the Loftie family which I had found during my research on the internet was indeed the family of my 3x great-grandfather William Loftie-Eaton. It also mentioned that the surname had been changed from Loftie to Loftie Eaton by William’s father. This information debunked the story handed down for generations that William had changed his surname for an inheritance.

One day while pondering again on how to find out the reason for the change of name, I realised that there had to have been an application to change the surname somewhere. Googling ‘surname change’ supplied the name of a book, An index to change of names 1760-1901, by Phillimore & Fry. I tracked the book down in a library in Kent, found out the name of the chairperson of the local genealogy group, contacted him and he found the details I needed. The information pointed to where and when the surname change was gazetted and I asked my friend Linda to do a lookup for me the next time she went to the Public Records Office in Kew. She obtained a copy of the licence to legally change the surname, dated 1807. At last I could put to bed the silly stories handed down over the generations – not everyone was happy about that!

In June 2000 my husband, daughter and I went on a holiday which included visiting the archives in Cape Town for the first time. I went well prepared: I drew up a death notice transcription page for each person whose death notice I was looking for with the reference I had found on the National Archives website; I filled out all the details I knew about the person in black type and then printed out all of them. At the archives I filled out request forms for all the death notices I needed. I breezed through them because I only had to fill in what details I didn’t have and also correct any details using a pencil. I had carefully explained to my husband and my daughter what to do. Between the 3 of us we must have managed to finish more than 60 death notices in a few hours. I only found out much later that one is only allowed to order 3 files at a time and I must have ordered dozens at a time. Fortunately the staff never complained and it was a very profitable time.

My latest discovery on the internet was the school my ancestors attended since the early 1700’s and which is still going strong today. The archivist at King’s School, Canterbury, Kent, has provided me with valuable information, including the correct dates of birth and christening of my progenitor, as well as details about his father, grandfather, great-grandfather and many other family members. I could then confirm information I already had and also make necessary corrections. In return I furnished him with information he did not have.

This year has also been a good one for tracking down the descendants of one of the progenitor’s sons. This has been such an elusive branch in Namibia but with determination, using the internet to find telephone numbers in Namibia and making contact and politely asking for information, it has been very rewarding. It has been interesting talking to friendly and interesting people and being able to tell them a bit about their family history. I also had to be very diplomatic because some of the members of this branch spell their surname differently and have always thought that they were correct and ours was incorrect.

Over the past 13 years, I have also been collecting information on my mother’s side of the family as well as my husband’s parents’ genealogy. I have purposely researched the female lines of both my parents as well as my husband’s parents.

It has been an interesting journey so far and I’ve met some wonderful people, some distant relatives, some unrelated. Some of my research has been published in the SA Genealogies by GISA because I wish to ensure that other family members and their descendants will one day find their ancestors when they start searching.

I am hoping to finish the story this year and the cherry on the top will be the discovery of where and when William Loftie-Eaton died and where he is buried.

After that - well there are stories to be told about all the other surnames on the tree! Real flesh and blood people just like you and me – not just names of people and places.