The ladies who use the Beeb site already know this ... but Mum was handed a sheet, by her older brother, of their father's family tree - the Stockers. This sheet only traced the Stockers, not any wives and each person had a number referenced against it.
So, I entered each person in a family tree and then started researching the various branches, but started with my grandfather's branch first. In next to no time, I was matched to someone in New Zealand whose partner was a Stocker and it transpired that he came from another branch of the Stocker Family Tree. She forwarded to me an email from another branch of our Stocker Family Tree, whose ancestors went to America and in 1923 someone in the family commissioned a solicitor or someone called John Sherwood to trace our family tree. The reference numbers I mentioned earlier all belong to this research and throughout this email there is reference to "Source: 21Sherwood.FTW", date of Import: May 9, 2000". There is also reference to "Leona Marian Stocker, Married 1 Fritz Schuster". I have tried searching for Leona Stocker and have also searched for 21Sherwood.FTW and neither has come up with anything, but it maybe that I need to pay for world access. I even contacted the National Archives in case they had a record of these Sherwood Papers, but they do not
So I kind of had the wind taken out of my sails because I didn't have to do much research. However, the woman from New Zealand and the man from America have only researched their particular branches in detail and I'm still finding a lot of our branches in the Census and records.
So you ask which counties I am researching ...
The earliest Stocker is Edward Stocker born about 1630, died about 1674. There is a burial record of 3 June 1674. He is from Fareham, Hampshire. I also have others from Titchfield and Portsea in Hampshire. My own Stocker branch were either surgeons or reverands and the surgeons are all focused around Guy's Hospital London, whereas the reverands come from different counties.
I am still entering all the info I have from 48 pages of research and am doing my own research along the way, as well and adding Census records etc. Once I have completed all the entries, I am going to make an alphabetical list of all the towns and countries I am researching, which, so far, seems to be around London and down south to Kent and Hampshire.
Sorry, I tend to be a motor mouth!!
Dora
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