Website updated 1 November 2018

I have updated the website with just a few additional items.  Do look at recent updates to see these.  If you have any additional information, stories, pictures please send for next inclusion.  Look forward to hearing from you.  Contact me using or my own personal email addreses

Website updated 1 October 2018

Just updated the website with all the information found this month.  Do look at recent updates

Greathead Lane

I have just been alerted to Greathead Lane, New Germany, Pinetown 3610 in South Africa.  Not the best part of town. lots of barbed wire for protection and/or gated entrances.  Anyone any idea what the Greathead connection is?

Dad Greathead

I have been sent this photograph and on the back it says 'and Dad Greathead'.  The gentleman who sent is not related as far as we know to any Greatheads but does live in South Africa

Anyone recognise the man with the moustache?

Strickland family

Lots of updates to the Strickland family.  George Ingram married Elizabeth Greathead on 18 December 1838, their daughter Mary married John Strickland and the link to our name progressed.

George is my 3rd cousin 5 times removed, so this family really were close to my personal interest. Thanks to John for pointing me in the right direction

Leonard Greathead

For a long time I have struggled to discover what happened to Leonard Greathead.  This week however the mystery was solved.  He changed his name before he married to Leonard Norville.  Thanks to his grandson for alerting me.

Website updated September 2018

The website has now updated again, the usual monthly progress.  Do visit recent updates to see what changes have been made.  Please don't forget though that narratives on living people do not appear.

New contacts

Have been delighted to receive emails from Robert Hamilton Greatheads daughter and to find out more about her Dad, all will be included in the next update.  I was interested to see that both he and his Dad joined the Home Guard helping to protect our country.  She has promised some all important photographs when she returns from a few days away, so hopefully...

Website updated 31 July 2018

Secrets of the Waterloo and City Line

Great utube, do watch to at least 2.26 minutes for a wonderful view of the Greathead Shield in the Waterloo and City Tunnel

Sad news

Today I heard some very sad news.  My second cousin once removed Hugh Reginald Birks sadly died earlier today.  Hugh had developed Shingles (on his face) starting 1 September and had recovered but the toll was simply to too great.

Hugh was born on 26 August 1917 in Hartlepool.  He was part of the crew when the "Strathallan" was sunk.  It was a P & O liner and was converted to a troop ship off coast of Oran, Tunisia.  He was also took part in Operation "Corkscrew" liberation of Pantelleria 7th Armoured Division.

He married Catherine Vansteenwinckel on 20 August 1945 in St Mary the Virgin in Arkengarthdale.  They had two sons with whom they emigrated to Toronto in June 1951.  While in Canada they had two further sons and and a daughter.

When my own parents died and I discovered some photographs which I found strange.  My parents were only children and so why had they kept a photograph of a family and written 'Uncle' Henry on the back.  Uncle Henry Lamb turned out to be Hugh's grandfather and my great great uncle.

I started my search for Hugh and found what I hoped was his email address and wrote to him asking whether he might be or know the gentleman I was after.  His reply came swiftly and read the few magnificent words 'I am he'.

I was so fortunate to meet him when he came to London for a short visit and spent an amazing afternoon with him and his daughter.  We spoke on several occasions by telephone and once by skype and exchanged endless emails.

My heart goes out to Catherine and his immediate family, who have become real friends.  I feel really privileged to have known him.  I have lost someone I held really dear.

Sadly Catherine died just five weeks lateron 1 November 2017.

Website updated 1 August 2016

I have updated the Greathead One-Name website again as I do on the first of every month.  I do not plan to keep informing you of this, this is the last monthly reminder, so please make sure you look regularly.  Better still why not send me some photos and information.  Then when you look each month it will be very relevant to you.

Periodically when I make a real discovery or someone sends me something extra special I will post on this blog

Just because I am not going to remind everyone of the update does not mean I am grateful for all the contact I receive from so many different sources.  I get emails, facebook messages, telephone calls and even letters through the post. I answer every one.

Hope to hear from YOU very soon

Website updated 1 July 2016

Many thanks this month especially to Jayne, Mandy, Rod, Corey, David, Ann, Peter, John and William.  I bought a marriage certificate this month, hoping it would solve a mystery.  Sadly it did not it just added another brick to the wall.

Today, I and many others remember lads who fell at the Somme.  Many people will understand this.

I dedicate this update all the lads who served and fell in WW1 but especially a relative of mine Lance Corporal Arthur Reginald Birks who died 100 years ago today, killed instantly (thank goodness he did not suffer)  He signed up with his mates into the Durham Light Infantry. 

Website updated 1 June 2016

Once again a fairly busy month.  Steady updates.

My particular thanks go to:

Mandy, Rod and Corey for updates and bringing families up to date.  To Tim for a very interesting story about two handkerchiefs.

I hope many people get in touch with David (see previous blog) and I look forward to his article on James Henry Greathead.

I ordered my first certificate in a long while, a marriage certificate.  Sadly it did not solve my brickwall, just added even more layers. 

I continue to try to resolve the George Greathead/Ada Ellwood query.  If YOU can help please do let me know, no matter how small the clue. 

Have a happy summer

Can you help with a J H Greathead website?

I have been contacted recently by a retired head teacher who is very interested our very own James Henry Greathead III.
I agreed to forward the following and hope someone can help him:

Can you help with a J H Greathead website? Do you have any J H Greathead heirlooms in the attic?
David Lumb BA (Oxon), MA (Oxon), MSc (Sheffield)
contact david@kinderclan.co.uk or David Lumb 10 Hogarth Rise Dronfield S18 1QG

I am contacting you with permission from Jan Cooper (née Greathead) with a request for your help.
I am planning to build a website on the sole subject of James Henry Greathead, the engineer. I will incorporate all material I can find on his life and achievements. This will be free access and available to be shared by all, though anything you request as confidential will be treated strictly as such. These days writing a book is less fashionable and I have no need of the income. So publishing free to the web seems the best way to celebrate a man who I feel is an unrecognised genius. Clearly much material is alreadily available through the web, including Jan's own www.greathead.org.
However I have almost nothing which is personal: private letters, photos, artefacts. For example, many families never throw away old letters and pass them on from generation to generation, hating to throw them away. When JHG addressed a parliamentary sub-committee to persuade them to allow permission for the first underground, he is recorded as showing them a brass model of his tunnelling shield. I imagine that would never be thrown away. Years ago, whilst in Grahamstown (his birthplace), a curator told me of a typewritten document from the 1930s by a direct descendant, discussing the hard life of an early pioneer. I guess that will not have been thrown away either.
So what I am asking you is this: do you have available any material that would help me: letters, photographs, artefacts? If so do please let me know about them. In this way John Henry's deserved fame might be enhanced and celebrated.
Thank you.
David Lumb

Website updated 1 May 2016

Website updated today ready for 1 May.


I visited WDYTYA with a dear friend but sadly I was very unwell and must have looked and behaved like a zombie.  Apologies to those I met on the day.  It took a couple of weeks to get better, but now I am fighting fit again, or as fit as I will ever be............

This month I have communicated with many people to thank in no particular order:

Jennifer for all the details about 'our Thomas'
Tony, my gene pal who always comes up trumps with new information
Ann who sent me some old wills
Miriam who offered help
Phil and Sue correcting my geography and sending new information
Rod alerting me to a death, where I managed to get a newspaper article to confirm and telling me Joseph was visiting his Aunt - I had not noticed them at the same location.  Memo to myself LOOK at census returns more closely
David for stretching my lateral imagination to help resolve a query or at least suggest the next way forward
Tracey for bringing he branch up to date and allowing me access to her Ancestry tree
Joanna for offering information, she is checking with her Mum and coming back to me
Anna who went for a stroll one lunchtime and found a gravestone, too a picture and sent it to me
Liz who told me of an extra marriage
Val with whom I discussed a Canadian Greathead
Irene with some South African information
Julianne who is hoping to come to UK next year

and many more on facebook, sorry if I have missed you off this list

Look forward to meeting more of you and exchanging emails

Website updated 1 April 2016

Family traumas have sadly meant I am not as up todate as I should be. Apologies.  The website was updated on 1 April 2016.

I have received several new births to add to my personal database.  That is where the information will stay as no living narratives are on the website.  However please continue to send the information as it brings the families up to date and makes the information complete.  Future generations will be very pleased you did.

Thanks to Phil for adding grave pictures to Find a Grave website and alerting me, all added to website.

 Thanks Val for getting me to research Ada Ellwood again.  Sadly out queries have not been resolved.  Maybe soon.  Definitely a problem to research through again in due course

The usual odds and sods have been updated and sourced more.  Always good to prove information from several different sources

I have started searching some newspapers in Find my past and British Newspapers, hopefully I can add some stories discovered from newspapers next month

Thank to those who have written kind words

Website updated 1 March 2016

Well St David's day is today and the website has been updated.  We have several Welsh Greatheads, are you related to them?  Can you add more information?

With the 1939 National Register now free to subscribers of Find my past I have been busy adding data from this register to my database.  Hopefully you have found something new about your family.  It will take a few more months work before I get through all entries on the database, so please be patient.  However this is proving very useful as it provides dates of birth - not always correct  - but hey it helps.  Some changes in surname have been recorded thus identifying possible marriages.

I have been sent notification of four new pictures of graves being added to the findagrave website so have added these.  Thanks to the gentleman who sent them.

Find my past have many Greathead marriages in the Boyd's Marriages listings but since these are only transcriptions I am holding on before I add these, most are quite old and will need much investigation.  A job for a rainy month in the future.

Some of you may well have read my facebook pages and seen my delight at resolving the Nellie Greathead marriage, well sometimes he records state she is Helen and sometimes she is Nellie.  I believe I have got the mix correct.

I have also spent a long time wondering who the parents of Thomas Eli Greathead were, then with a break through I discovered them.  Another brickwall came tumbling down.

I have added another Leicester chart maybe you can add some more Leicester relatives or maybe see where both charts link

As usual there are some addition entries mainly for birth and death, but also a few marriages.  Thanks to all those who sent them, you know who you are and are named as the source on the website.

I am always delighted when people write to me saying they enjoy the website and have lots of more information do I want it?  I of course am delighted and respond saying yes please.  But I am so disappointed when I never hear from them again.  I usually write again to remind them of their promise.  Why build up my hopes only to let me down.  Come on chaps please send the information NOW

Website updated 1 February 2016

Website updated and includes many new narratives and source references.  My dear friend Tony gave me some more information to take some of our branches back a generation - Thanks Tony

I received an email offering some information on Martha Hewitt, we worked on this, found some more and the result can be found on the website - Thanks Tim

Several previously locked entries on 1939 National Register have been unlocked.  The information on these has been updated on website.  Roll on mid February when the is information is free within my Find My Past subscription - whoopee.

Hoping you find something interesting that sparks you into writing to me, sending me a photograph or just telling me a story

Look forward to hearing from you

Website updated 1 January 2016

The website was updated on 1 January 2016.  Just getting used to typing 2016!!

Happy New Year to all

Over the past 12 months much has happened, the major perhaps being extra primary sources becoming available on the internet. 

1939 National Register has been published - Although all names on all pages have been scanned, large black lines appear over many names obscuring the information where Find my past believe the person may still be alive.  These lines are gradually being removed where proof has been found that the person has now died.  I provided my mother's death certificate and much information allowing her record to be revealed.  However as I did not know where my father might have been as I guessed he was in London in digs it took FMP longer despite all the information I sent for them to reveal where he was.  I am now delighted both my parents appear in the index and are visible.  I am told FMP remove more black lines each Friday as they discover more deaths and the record of their birth date shows them to be 100 years and 1 day old.  Sadly to find these changes incurs a fair amount of work but hey ho, anything worth having is always worth the effort.  All records that I have found are now updated and the information IS complete on the website.

Improvements, well I hope you consider them to be improvements to the website have been the inclusion of dropdown lists on menu, lists of those men included on the website who fell during WW1.  If you discover anyone I missed please let me know.

My beloved Excise men records from the minute books are now complete.  Now to find out what other records are available.

Many extra photographs are now available, do keep sending them please.  Remember to send pictures of living people as well.  They will NOT be included on the website yet but stored on my personal database.  As they say:Today is tomorrows history.

The website contains information on 22,278 people, however my personal data contains information on 31,796.

Using my facebook pages I was delighted to wish a very happy birthday to Anthony Greathead who became 100 years old in December.  You will not find him on the website as I am delighted to say he is still very much alive, and long may he live.  He is the 4th Greathead that I am aware of who reached this splendid age.


I have managed to updated the website every month with information gleaned form many primary sources and provided by my many contacts.  I always try to check what people tell me by adding other sources, but give credit to my contact in the first instance.  Sometimes it is not possible to check everything, so if you find any errors or omissions please do contact me.

I could go on forever but .......  Please contact me during 2016 with more information on YOUR twig, branch whether it be with current or older information.  I love hearing from YOU, even if it is just for a chat.

Something I may have to think about seriously is the software I use to keep all this information.  Sadly it is no longer supported so I will eventually have to move to another program.  This will no doubt cause me much pain and a I will be depending on YOU to highlight anything that goes wrong during the transition.  I am holding off for as long as possible as other programs add functions to their software to enable more data to be transferred easily and correctly.  I will then have to decide which program to move to and when.