ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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Years before genealogy was a common pursuit as today, family members had begun work towards finding early members of our family in the Bermondsey area of London. At this time before the advent of personal computers, the quest entailed much determination along with a good deal of leg work and hours of searching through Church and Civil records. Such records were not always easy to find and often difficult to read and decipher, by comparison we can to day, to a large extent, sieve the internet in search of useful data bases and tools. Genealogy sites have sprung up all over the internet; many have organized data into logical order making searches by name, place or time relatively easy.

It’s with this in mind that we acknowledge the early work of Reginald Pettard which was a considerable contribution in its own right. Much of the hard facts and dates within these pages stem from the hard work and dedication of my uncle, it would also be appropriate at this stage to acknowledge Reggie’s wife, my aunt Betty for passing down to me all of her husbands findings.

In his pursuit and search for our early family Reggie was not always alone, for he was often helped and accompanied by Stanly Tomin husband of Margaret Pettard. Also during his genealogy searches he was aided by a William Ford who was also tracking down the line of Pettards in Bermondsey. William Ford was the son of Louise Maud Pettard and in researching his family he had unearthed much data related to the family of Joseph Henry Pettard and Annie Holland. I had the good future to be in contact with William Ford, and found him to be of immense help when I first took up this challenge after the death of my uncle Reggie Pettard.

Finally thanks to my wife Barbara for being a great help with spellings and the odd proof read through, along with her encouragement, and help from her family book Gunter Genealogy by Trevia Ramzy Smith, from which I got some good ideas on presentation and content. Thanks also to Barbara Goodyear for proof readings and corrections.

Just one last thanks must go to my aunt Margaret for supplying material and so much in the way of her family memoirs that you, the reader, will find scatted throughout these pages on the History of the Pettards of Bermondsey.

And finally to all those family members I have pestered for information, thank you.

             

                                                     Melvyn Francis Pettard

                                                                 ~2011~