Like the majority of Genealogists I started my research by working from the known to the unknown. My major known fact was that my grandfather was born in the Parish of Wanborough, which is the neighboring parish. As I worked back to my great grandmother and beyond, my links with the village of Puttenham were firmly bought home.
By the time I was back four generations I reached the surname of BUDD and on looking through the vast amount of material I established that the Budd family was, in one way or another related to most of the inhabitants of the village. I decided to study the Census material for the village more fully and the day I saw my great grandmothers name listed on an official record was a very special one.
This was the great grandmother who I had sat with as a child and suddenly I realized that I was part of this village and I simply wanted to know all that I could about it. I visited the parish of Puttenham, I had heard stories from my grandfather's sisters about who lived where, who married who and so forth, and in the summer of 1986 decided to visit the village. It was beautiful summer's day, not a rain cloud in sight! and as I wandered through the village I tried imagining the atmosphere of the village at a time, several generations before my grandfather was born.
Someone greeted me from the Puttenham and Wanborough History Society and I was welcomed and introduced to the legend of the Curate Charles Kerry, who produced such a wealth of information, in manuscripts form; it is truly a Genealogical and local History treasure and the Puttenham One Place Study was born.
The Puttenham (and Wanborough) One Place Study commenced in August 1986 and is a work in progress. The photograph in the header above was taken in July 2004.
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