Pywells in Leicestershire
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This site reflects my branch of the Pywell family starting in Great Bowden in the 17th century.
I have created this site for my own interest and for that of my family -
I am indebted to an unknown source who had already compiled a lot of information which I found on Rootsweb, taking me back as far as my Great Great Great Grandfather Edward in 1776, and prompting me to start my own project. I can only assume he (I believe it was a he) must be related to an uncle of maybe my grandparents’ generation because the descendancy follows so closely.
My first aim was to try and document just the Pywell line of descendancy, but as one pair of parents became two pairs of grandparents became four pairs of great grandparents etc. it was difficult to leave it there. And all of these people of course feed into one’s heritage.
I’ve now researched to verify most of what I had already been presented with, and
added considerable extra detail of my own. I have found census records to be a really
valuable source of information and one of the most reliable, as they show household
units along with occupations, ages and relationships, in some years adding details
such as the duration of a marriage and the number of living and deceased children.
Because they’re so useful (and I think interesting) I’ve included a page with links
to a number of original census forms. They cover from 1841 -
Subscribing to various ancestry websites has provided a wealth of useful information, but with some caveats. Finding a number of family trees showing identical or similar information to that originally taken from Rootsweb initially gave me confidence that it all must be right. However, the way some of these websites offer hints and “matching” information from other family trees seems to lead many people to rather blindly accept such information as correct, meaning that inaccuracies can (and do) spread very widely and begin to look compelling. I found myself doing just this at first, but I’ve since become more cautious and do my best to authenticate these suggestions and hints with other sources where possible. I’m also careful to keep track of verified and unverified information as far as possible.
That said, I’m sure there are still some inaccuracies, but I’ll work at those gradually.
Stephen Geoffrey Pywell