I guess a love of history has fuelled my fascination with my family history, which when I think about it, has been going on for 25 years. As a result, I have explored the world of both mine and my husband’s ancestors, some ancestral lines with amazing ease and other lines have been frustrating with stops and starts and missing information and, to be honest, in some ways, the Emptages have been the most frustrating of all. That said, every time I have come across an Emptage/Emtage I have captured the person in my records and even though there maybe no direct link to me, exploring the lives of Emptages in the 17th and 18th centuries, has been great fun and there are some amazing families/events back in time!

My grandfather was Edward Emptage, born in Barbados in 1862, which may make you think that I am really old, however, he married my grandmother when he was 56 and she was 19 years old, an interesting age difference in 1919, but after the end of World War One and with so many men dying, it must have been a match made in heaven. They went on to have 8 children and Edward died in 1936.

Being born 28 years later offered me no opportunity to quiz Edward on his journey around the world before he settled in London, England in the 1890s, his first wife and why they parted company, being a Freemason, his bicycle making business in the East End of London, and the 1904 fire that started in his workshop, resulting in the Whitechapel fire brigade rescuing his wife and another family’s children from the first floor of the building.

Numerous days, whilst on holiday in Barbados, have been spent at the Barbados National Archives in Black Rock, instead of lying in the sun. A fascinating place, and a world apart from the National Archives at Kew. With the ocean breeze come through the open window (there is no glass) and parish registers being delivered by a hand cart, it is a scary moment, when you realise that part of the page has been left behind because the quill used back in the 18th century has sliced through to the next page when lines were originally drawn.

So, as well as being part Barbadian and part English, I also have French ancestry, as my father was born in Normandy, France to a French mother and an English father (another World War One match). French genealogical records are so much easier than the English and Barbadian ones, once you know where to look and I have got good understanding of the French Republican Calendar, allowing me to trace my father’s maternal side back to the early 1600s.

Interests and obsessions: researching both my own and other’s family histories, travelling and wildlife adventures, and I am obsessed with Emptage genealogy, especially with John Emptage, who was sentenced at the Old Bailey in 1745 and has been a thorn in my research for many years, along with my grandfather, Edward Emptage.

Lineage:

John Emptage died 1798 and Elizabeth Stafford 1747 – 1787
John Emtage 1766 – 1845 and Elizabeth Frizzel 1758 – 1832
Henry Emtage 1806 – 1850 and Lovey Haynes 1811 – 1886
Margaret Ann Emptage 1844 – 1927
Edward Emptage 1862-1936 and Mabel Angelina Gunnell 1895-1981