George Stedman

My maiden name was Stedman, and I suppose like most people, researching your surname is the first place to start.  With today's internet, it is easy to have a lot of information at your fingertips; if you are willing to pay a subscription then the internet is an invaluable and fascinating resource.  In the 1980s there was no such thing, and letter writing and trips to St Catherine's House in London were my only resource.

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Uncle Arthur not only drew me my first tree, but he told me that a Great Aunt had corresponded with some people in America who were family.  They had advertised in a local newspaper in 1978 asking for information on the Stedman family from Lenham.  Apparently my great aunt Doreen had responded and received a reply.  He suggested I wrote to her and asked her about it, which I did.  She gave me the details, and fortunately the lady in America was living at the same address and several years of correspondence and annual Christmas card greetings followed.

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The USA Stedmans were Mormons which was to be of great benefit to my research and would save me an incredible amount of time.  Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and discovering their ancestors is an important aspect of their religion.  When I was 19 a group of them travelled to the UK on a family history hunt and invited my dad and I to meet with them in a London hotel.  I was not a particularly confident young person and found the event pretty daunting - had I met with them today they would probably have been exhausted with all the questions I would have plied them with.  I regret I did not make the most of that occasion.

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