Author: colinsp

Since the last update I have added another 70 individuals to the GB data file. I have also resolved a further 10 duplicate entries. I have also migrated to using Family Historian V5 as my programme of choice for storing all the data. This makes the creation of individual trees much easier than before. There is an exceptionally useful plug-in available for this genealogy programme Ancestral Sources. This makes the adding of census information to an entire family very easy and saves a lot of unnecessary duplication of typing effort. It can also add baptism and marriage records to all concerned individuals as well. It was worth the purchase price purely to speed up the census data entry. A couple of interesting data items that I found in this update the spouse of one of the Lefevre’s went from owning his own pub for some 30 years to being employed as a barman in later […]

Today I have done another data update to the GB data file and added an additional 34 individuals and additional data items to another 25 individuals. The new individuals are mainly in Kent and the new data items are mainly in Cambridgeshire. A couple of interesting stories that I have found in this data update is of a couple who had been married for 44 years in 1911 and in their census entry they listed themselves as having no children. This was rather odd as in earlier census they had a total of 8 children listed. Maybe they misunderstood the question on the census form. I found yet another Metropolitan Police Officer in 1911 from Lewisham so that is two so far.

Today I have added another 30 records to the GB database. These are all Lefevre’s from Kent. I didn’t find any particularly notable stories other than one of them moved from Canterbury to Manchester in the late 1800’s certainly a long way from home, he married locally but she died fairly young and he moved back to Kent.  

For the last few weeks I have been tidying up the UK database and combining duplicate records. This is now completed and so I have started adding additional records to the database. A further 50 Lefever names have been added, some of whom were still alive in the 20th century. One interesting person in this update was Jim Lefevre born in March, Cambridgeshire. His father and siblings mainly worked on the Great Eastern Railway. He was an agricultural labourer who married and moved to Islington in London where for a few years he was a policeman. He then returned to Cambridgeshire and worked on the railways for a short while before becoming a publican (a regular job for retired policemen). I will try and do some research to find out about his police service in the coming months. I have had a couple of contacts from people researching the Lefevre name in North America and […]

I now have today added the first 15 records to the French LeFever page on this site. Rather than being new data this is data split out from the other country pages and displayed on this page on the site. There are some significant challenges in researching LeFever and variants in France. Firstly the name is very common in France and secondly there is no central repository of French Birth, Marriage and death records which makes remote research somewhat challenging. As a result I only intend to add French data as it becomes available to me rather than making it an active research country. If anyone wants to volunteer to do any research in France or any other country for that matter I would like to hear from you.

Today I have added another 21 records to the US database. These are mainly records for the LeFevre family from New Platz. The information is derived from the details of documents stored by the Huguenot Historical Society. My thanks go to them for making this data from their paper archives readily available. One interesting record in this set is that of the marriage of Josiah P. LeFevre in 1836 to, presumably a relative, named Elizabeth LeFevre. This is certainly a record to find out more detail about. I am still trying to track down a copy of ‘The Pennsylvania LeFevre’s’ book for delivery to Spain. So if you come across one please bear me in mind.

Today I have added the first of the US records available to me. This means that there are now 68 LeFevre’s from the US on the site. My thanks go to James Miller for allowing me to use the data from his website and to add this to the growing collection of LeFever’s around the world. Unfortunately the email address for James is not working on his website and so contact can only be through the guestbook on his page. I thought that it would be good to get a copy of ‘The Pennsylvania LeFevre’s’ book by Newton LeFevre to catch up on a few more of the US LeFevre’s. Amazon US has two copies available from independent suppliers as this book is long out of print. Unfortunately neither of them will ship the book to non US countries. In the 21st century this is very frustrating, when will supplier realise that if they advertise […]

I have added an additional 36 record to the GB data file today. They are mainly from the late 1800’s. A few interesting facts that I found whist recording this latest update. Emma Lefevre born in about 1821 in Hampshire in a large country house called Heckfield Place. In the 1891 census she was a 70 year old spinster employing 13 staff to look after her and the house. The house is currently (2012) being converted into a 70 room luxury hotel. In Sunderland on the night of the 1891 census there was a visiting French ship the Alice Depeaux from Rouen and its captain was a Frederic Lefevre. In Bedfordshire in 1891 Marie Lefevre 14 years old and her sister Angela 13 years old are employed as school teachers. I have heard of starting young but they would have only left school a couple of years before. In this latest update there were several […]

After a few weeks of research I have just added another 35 individuals to the GB Lefevers page. I have tracked down a small clump of them living in Scotland mainly in Aberdeen in the 1840’s and 1850’s. This is the first trace that I have found of the name in Scotland. The website has been updated with the latest version of software and now marriage details are being shown correctly where they weren’t before.

I have just updated the Lefever GB page with an additional 450 death record entries from London, Middlesex and Surrey from between 1837 and 1900. Next week I will start adding the other counties of GB records.