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FATHER'S FOOTSTEPS

Issue 28 now shipping!

 



Hi there!

I am Dave Twitchett, Editor and publisher of our "Fathers' Footsteps" booklets. Firstly let me tell you how it all came about.

There is a legend passed down in my family which I believed to be inaccurate. I therefore wondered whether the same story appeared in other Twitchett families.  So, way back in the1980's, I set aside one pound each week for stamps, drafted a letter and photocopied it many times and sent some out each week for quite some time, to addresses found in the Nation's telephone directories.

Many people responded and all wished to be informed of the results of my researches. That was a problem and the only way I could write to them all was by the printed word. So Fathers' footsteps was born. Issue no 1 contained many differing legends as to our origins.

After that first issue went out most if not all of the recipients wrote back again, so I was obliged to answer many more letters! I did this by means of Issue No 2. I was now on a treadmill and, to date, have not been able to get off.!!! 

You may be mystified as to how I arrived at our title. Well a friend found and presented me with an Edison Bell phonograph cylinder complete in original box. It was sold by Mr H. C. Twitchett's Talking Machine Depot in Sudbury Suffolk. Actually it was a bike shop but in the early days, before there were record shops, the cycle shops would replace the spring in one's wind up gramophone. The song on the cylinder was "Following in Father’s Footsteps". The Amateur Genealogist does just that . Grandfather's and Great Grand father too. So it seemed apposite.  

The booklets are not published regularly-only when there is enough of interest to print. Lately, however, we have been running at two a year. Upon receipt a donation is called for to cover printing and postage. 

Fathers' Footsteps has evolved into a Twitchett Family History Society and is now represented at The Guild of One Name Studies. It can be found in the library of The Society of Genealogists. In the case of the Twitchett FHS the word society is used rather loosely. There are no subscriptions, there is not a Committee and we do not meet as a group. Various people write their researches. I edit and publish. Peter does a web site, and we have treasurer, Daphne. What would you like to do?