Family History Writing Challenge 2013 - Day 2

In the early days of researching the King family at Puttenham I was contacted by someone who resided in the village. The simply wrote me a lovely letter, which I still have which simply said did I know the story of the Bellasis family had been written in a book and in particular there was a whole chapter devoted to the King sisters.

I wrote back and thanked them for the details and immediately set about locating the book. I eventually sourced a copy and read the entire book cover to cover, twice. Through this book I was able to glean further details which confirmed some of what I already knew and other information that was new to me. Each fragment of information went into a notebook for further investigation.

Honourable Company
by Margaret Bellasis
Published 1952

The book also directed me to a book written by the husband of another of Esther’s sisters. In turn, that book directed me to further information, and as in the case of the first book some details were known and others were not. As that book was autobiographical it provided personal insights and information and I could read the details of for example the consequences of the George Bridges Bellasis dual from an observer at the time perspective.

I was then steered to back to the Bellasis line and to the brother of George Bridges Bellasis and his family who married into another well connected family who lived only a few miles away from my current address. Whilst not directly connected to me the Bowring family had to be researched. The details of them were right on my doorstep and such a prominent family surely had left papers, which might provide clues and information to the King sister’s, especially as the Bowring family were involved, like the Bellasis and King families in India.