By Nancy Jennings
My ancestors include landed gentry, farmers, a pirate, at least one illegitimate child, Counts and Countesses, royalty, sugar planters who made vast fortunes from slaves, a female police officer, a suffragist who lived with her life partner (a woman), activists, politicians, a young man who was killed in a Nazi gas chamber as “unworthy of life”, horse breeders and racers, military officers in both world wars, a talented engineer who invented the torpedo, a Red Cross nurse, artists, a famous author, and many more fascinating characters.
This blog documents my ongoing research into my heritage. Please email me if you would like to contribute or if you see an error.
Blog posts are collected together in family categories below. Scroll down to access Excellent Luck, my project to document the relationship between my father and uncle over 10 years as they grew from boys into men, against a backdrop of war.
Many people have helped me, including my mum, my son, my big sister Clare, and Helen Atherton, who got me started.
Vaughan Vault
The Vaughan family lived at Dell House, Wooburn from before 1900 until the 1980s.
Morris Memories
Landed gentry from Carmarthen, south Wales.
Abadam Archive
Edward Adams, of Middleton Hall, south Wales, changed his name to Abadam in 1851.
Hoyos History
In 1869, Georg Hoyos, a naval officer, married Alice Whitehead, daughter of the engineer Robert Whitehead of Fiume.
The Czech Kinský family
The Kinskys are a noble Czech family from the Kingdom of Bohemia, settled in Austria-Hungary at Fiume.
Excellent Luck:
the private lives of two brothers, 1940-1950
I have collected together hundreds of candid, witty and personal letters, supplemented with diary entries, images and documents, to provide an insight into the lives of two brothers from 1940 – 1950. They started to write to each other when John Vaughan, aged 13 in 1940, joined the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth as a cadet and was separated from his brother Richard (my father) for the first time.