Family History Event - Sunday May 3

I am attending the Family History Event on Sunday May 3 at the Exhibition Hall 2, in the Barbican, London.

I will be on the computer help desk (Table 6) from 12:00 to 13:40, and from 15:20 to 17:00. If you are attending do let me know and we can perhaps arrange to have coffee.

The event looks to be very promising, with 15 lectures throughout the day, and over 90 exhibitors.

Henry David & Beatrice Minnie Dent née Dengate

This information relates to Chart 5: Thomas & Mary Uridge née ? who lived in Buxted, Sussex between 1759 and 1803.

Yesterday I heard from Angela Slater, who is the granddaughter of Henry David & Beatrice Minnie Dent née Dengate. Beatrice Minnie was the daughter of George & Louisa Sarah Dengate née Uridge.

Initially it was thought that Minnie Beatrice Dengate, and Beatrice Minnie Dengate were two sisters. However Angela confirms that Minnie was also known as Beatrice.

Angela has provided several photographs, including the one above taken c1944. Henry Dent is in in air raid wardens uniform. Their youngest son, Reg, is also in the picture.

Descendants of Henry & Ansley Uridge née Killick

This information relates to Chart 6: John & Rebecca Uridge née Jeff lived in Buxted, Sussex in the 1750s.

Today I received a very interesting e-mail from Robert Smith of Sydney. He writes:

My research leads me to believe I'm related to Sophia Uridge who married George Smyth. I also think Sophia's brother Henry Uridge married George's sister Elizabeth Smyth. It's interesting to note that in the 1841 Census, Eliza Uridge age 20 Dressmaker was living with Sophia and children nr. the Clappers, Barcombe Cross, Sussex. Presumably this was Eliza was Sophia's niece.

Robert also provided a detailed 4-generation narrative on the descendants of Henry & Elizabeth Uridge née Smyth, and George & Sophia Smyth née Uridge.

Robert's well documented information will be included in the database, and subsequently on the website in the future.

Rudd-Uridge Wedding 1919

This information relates to Chart 5: Thomas & Mary Uridge née ? who lived in Buxted, Sussex between 1759 and 1803.

Today, Peter Griffiths provided a superb photograph of the 1918 wedding party of Robert & Lizzie Rudd née Uridge. Amongst the party is 15 Uridges.

Furthermore, Peter has provided an annotated view showing all the people he has been able to identify.

Peter writes:

There are a few gaps, but I suppose some of these could be from the Rudd side of the family.

Can you identify anybody?

Blog Update 10 April 2009: Peter has contacted us again. He has been in contact with Matt Stevens, and the following has been determined:

No. 26 ("Mr Rudd, father of groom") is identified as Philip Rudd. Also that probably Nos 24 and 25 are reversed - 24 is Ada and 25 is Eliza.

Eliza confirms that the old lady in the foreground is certainly Eliza the Sydenham girl. The second from right is, according to Matt, Eleanor Footner née Bodle, the mother-in-law of Robert Rudd Jr.

Blog Update 4 June 2009: Peter has contacted us again. The key to the photograph has been updated with 3 updates/additions on the Rudd side provided by Robert Rudd, and a couple corrections.

Publishing Your Family History to the Web

Early last year I gave a a half-day tutorial at the Society of Genealogists on Publishing Your Family History to the Web. See blog titled Publishing Your Family History to the Web.

Shortly afterwards I included the PowerPoint presentation on a website that hosts presentations, called www.slideshow.net. It's a free website that enables you to upload and share your PowerPoint presentations and Word documents.

Today they wrote to me and advised:

We've noticed that your slideshow on SlideShare has been getting a LOT of views in the last 24 hours. Great job ... you must be doing something right. ;-)

Not sure whether this is an April Fool's joke, but the statistics say that 30,000+ people have viewed the presentation in the last 24 hours. For those interested, you can find the presentation on http://www.slideshare.net/TeresaPask/publishing-your-family-history-to-the-web.

URIDGEs in New Zeland

Recently we became aware of a new website that lists the New Zealand Government records for births, deaths and marriages (BDM). The information available includes:

• Births that occurred at least 100 years ago
• Stillbirths that occurred at least 50 years ago
• Marriages and eventually Civil Unions that occurred 80 years ago
• Deaths that occurred at least 50 years ago or the deceased's date of birth was at least 80 years ago.

We found:

Births - 7 Uridge

Deaths - 11 Uridge

Marriages - Females: 3 Uridge

Marriages - Males: 4 Uridge

There were no BMDs for the name Euridge

These will be included in the database in the near future, and will be available in due course on the website.

Northfield & Uridge Families

This information relates to Chart 5: Thomas & Mary Uridge née ? who lived in Buxted, Sussex between 1759 and 1803.

Earlier this week after including the information on John George & Minnie Louisa Northfield née Uridge, I searched the photographs and documents provided by Kathleen Uridge, previously mentioned in a blog two years ago, titled Kathleen Uridge's Collection. I came across a photograph that I guessed might be the Northfield family.










Kathleen confirmed today that it was this family. She wrote:

The back row from left to right - George (who was the youngest), Elizabeth (Betty), Winnie and my father (Minnies brother). At the bottom -me with Joan (daughter of Betty husband Thomas Moore) and my mother Daisy Uridge.

It's so good to put names against faces. Brings to life a photograph taken 70 years ago. Makes family history so enjoyable.

Chart 5: Thomas & Mary Uridge

This information relates to Chart 5: Thomas & Mary Uridge née ? who lived in Buxted, Sussex between 1759 and 1803.

This chart was originally "stuck" at John & Mary Uridge née Harcourt who lived in Sydenham [Lewisham registration district] Kent, in the 1810-1850s. However research has now established that his grandfather was buried in Buxted in 1803. Undoubtedly there will be a link to Chart 6 (also from Buxted), but the connection has not yet been established.

Charts 5, 9, & 10 are believed to be related, but further verification is required.

This information has been included in the latest website update.

Website Update

The website was updated on Tuesday 17 January. It includes recent information from:

Descendants of Thomas & Ann Whiffen née Uridge

John George & Minnie Louisa Northfield née Uridge

In addition, I have assigned icons depicting the tree, or chart a person belongs to.

indicates the main families




indicates a subsection of a main family, matching the colour of the main family. Hopefully this will help you identify who belongs to which charts. A full list of charts is available in the Chart section.

A full list of the recent changes to the narratives is available in the New or Changed Narratives section. The narratives section now includes 2678 people, an additional 70 narratives since the last update in May 2008.

Hopefully the website will be updated more frequently now that I have sorted out the computer problems I have been plagued with over the past months.

John George & Minnie Louisa Northfield née Uridge

This information relates to Chart 5: Descendancy Chart for John & Mary Uridge née Harcourt from Sydenham, Kent.

This week I received several e-mails from Peter John Griffiths, who is the grandson of Minnie Louisa Northfield née Uridge, who was the daughter of Walter & Louisa Jane Uridge née Woods.

Peter writes:

My mother Constance Emily Griffiths (née Northfield) was one of the children of Minnie Louise Uridge and John George Northfield.

Peter also provided the names, and details of Minnie's eight children, including photographs and the 1911 census information.

This will be included in the database, and in the next website update.

Many thanks to Peter for contacting me, and provided this information.

England & Wales Births 1911-2005

We are in for a very busy period!


Ancestry has just released their index of England & Wales births for the period 1911-2005. This database is a searchable, digitized version of the indices of civil registrations in England and Wales, reported quarterly to the General Register Office (GRO) in London.


This index spans the years between 1916 and 2005. You can search for a christian name, surname, year, or even mother's maiden name. This will revolutionize family history! When I think of the hours spent transcribing the births, marriages, and deaths. Now it is all done for you.

Descendants of Thomas & Ann Whiffen née Uridge

This information relates to Chart 1: Descendancy Chart for William & Marie Ewridge née Wickenden who lived in Cowden in Kent.

Calvin Uridge Whiffen, III from San Diego, California wrote today and provided me with a 5-generation tree of the descendants of Thomas & Ann Whiffen née Uridge. Each generation has included the name Uridge as the first, or second name. This has provided the link between a missing generation. In addition Calvin (Cal) has found that Ann was the daughter of John & Sarah Urige née Baul (my own ancestors).

Currently the only information I had was from the Biography from Our County and its People (Oneida, NY) by Daniel Wager 1896.

I will include this information in the Uridge database, and merge the two Anns. Also I will determine our exact relationship. This indeed is a very rare occasion to find a cousin, albeit very distant.

Uridge-Webb-Pye-Baxter Families

Earlier this week I wrote in the blog Philip Uridge, that I received an e-mail from Judith Batt of New Zealand, who helped me extensively research a New Zealand Uridge-related family in 2002. Surprisingly today, I received an e-mail relating to an Australian Uridge-related family I extensively researched in 2001.

This time the e-mail came from a new researcher, James Dalziel, who lives in Sydney Australia.

He wrote:

I am Myrtle Sarah Webb’s great-grandson, via her only daughter Rosa Jean Harper, and Rosa’s daughter Delphine Little, my mum. I’m happy to share any information I have with you that may be of use. In particular, I’ve just scanned all the old family photographs from Rosa (who died a few years back), and these include Myrtle, as well as David William Webb and Ada Pye, plus various other people who look like relatives, so you or some people you know may be interested in this, and able to decipher some of the unknown photos.

This family was extensively researched by Keri Webb, and more information is detailed on the webpage Uridge-Webb-Pye-Baxter Families.

I look forward to including more information and photographs, as offered by James. In the meantime I will put James in contact with Keri.

Uridge Misspellings in Censuses

Judith Batt noticed that there was a lot of misspellings both by the enumerators, and in the transcripts of the censuses. This is probably because Uridge is such a rare name, transcribers invariably have trouble working out what it says.

These include:

Elridge,Herrage,Hudge,Midge,Ubrich,Uredge,Uridze,
Usidge,Voidgo,Voridge,Vridge,Whitlge,Widge,Wrich,
Wridge,Wridye

So if you don't find your Uridge, Euridge ancestors in the censuses, do try these alternatives.

Many thanks to Judith for compiling these. A list will be compiled in the Variants section.

Philip Uridge

Judith Batt from New Zealand has been in contact with me again. In 2002 & 2003, Judith provided an extensive amount of information on the Uridge Families in New Zealand, including several photographs on the New Zealand Descendants of Pheoby Uridge and Richard Bathurst.

She has started looking at Uridge records again. I welcome this as researching such a unique name has it's downsides as new information does not come up often.

Judith has looked further afield from New Zealand, and is looking at USA census records, and tracing the families of Philip Uridge, also known as James Philip Uridge who went to Michigan.

She writes:

The most interesting family is William Uridge (1830-1898). I believe that he married twice. With his first wife (Marg or Mary born in Canada abt 1836) he had four children

William 1862-1880
Philip Alex 1866-aft 1880
George 1867-aft 1920
Daniel C 1869-aft 1930

His first wife died 1870-1876 and he then married Mary Lappard or
Sappard (on 21 September 1876 in Detroit) and had six children with her

Elizabeth (Schwergert) 1878-aft 1910
Sarah Ann 1879-bet 1880-1900
Willis William 1882-aft 1920
Ethel Barton (Schumacher) 1886-1946
Two other children were born and had died before 1900.

Judith's information will be included in the next website update.

Website Update

You may have noticed that there has not been any website updates for sometime. I have had a technically challenging couple of months! Not only has the website been plagued with a problem with malware, but I have had major problems with my hardware.

I use a desktop when working at home, and a laptop when travelling. Unfortunately in October my desktop went wrong, after several previous malfunctions I decided it was time to have a new desktop. I purchased a new latest technology high specification desktop. This meant I would be using Windows Vista with a 64-bit processor. I tried to install all the software I use for family history, however experienced several problems due to the 64-bit processor. This includes the software used to update the website. I perservered with this time-consuming task. When I was almost finished, the desktop developed a major fault and had to be returned to the manufacturer.

Whilst waiting for the repair to the desktop I used my laptop. Unfortunately one morning I switched on my laptop only to find the harddisk has gone wrong.

Fortunately most of the information is backed up and retrievable. However, it has been a slow process, I trust you understand. Normal service will now be resumed.