Welcome to the Worldwide Greathead family my One-Name Study - About Me

I was christened Janet Susan Greathead. My mother would use Janet with sufficient force when I had been naughty, not often of course.

I am very fortunate to have Martin, three children, three children-in-law and six grandchildren all of whom I am so very proud and would love to see more of, but our busy lives so often prohibits frequent visits: Paul married Lucy, they have two daughters, Abigail and Camilla, John married Helen, they have a son Maxwell and daughter Darcey, Linda married Steve, they have daughter Jessica and a son Harry, and we had Sid the tabbycat that adopted us in 2009 but sadly died ten years later.

My 50th birthday was the turning point in my life, for many reasons. Forget life begins at 40. I met and fell in love with Martin shortly after my 50th birthday. I adored flying with him in our single engined Cessna 170B, which we tried to fly most weekends and used to enjoy our peaceful French holidays to the forgotten Lot valley. Sadly both these things are now in the past. Father Christmas gave me 2020 a lovely new digital camera. I can take fantastic pictures of documents when I go to the National Archives and other record offices, although Covid did put a holt to that activity. I am also trying to take pictures of historical places connected with my study. We are avid Archer fans.

I enjoy meeting people, my address book is increasing daily and I dearly want to travel to see places and meet people relevant to my one name study. History and Geography are now fun. I had assumed for the first fifty years of my life that my paternal family came from the North West of England (Cumbria - or rather Lancashire as my Dad used to say. Cumbria was formed to help the Ordnance Survey sell maps).

Following finding some professionally taken photographs of a vicar, a gravestone and many rather 'grand' people. I decided to find out who they were, and what was the significance of the gravestone of Matthew Lamb grave Matthew and Anne Lamb Some of the photographs of the people had some writing on the reverse. I believed it to be my fathers writing. One said Uncle xxx, another Aunt xxx. But I had grown up with no knowledge of immediate family. My mother was an only child and my father had an older brother who died aged sixteen. We didn't 'do families'. It now transpires that my paternal grandparents were born in Hartlepool. My mother's maternal family come from Suffolk and paternal family from Wales. All news to me. Why did I not ask??? Can I call myself a "monkey hanger?"

I have been trying to make up for lost knowledge ever since. I initially collected everything I could on the Greathead name and anyone who shared it. Soon I was told that I had the makings of a one-name study and after checking out exactly what I was letting myself in for, I still continued along that line, joining the GOONS and registering my research. Mad, idiotic some would say but oh so much fun. I have met and corresponded with so many wonderful people, not all named Greathead either. They have all, without exception given their time, help and information so freely and willingly. Genealogy surely brings out the very best in everybody. My personal database now include in excess of 460,000 names and has been extended to include not only my paternal ancestors, but also my maternal ones and the extended Greathead family. Do contact me for further information.

The names I am particularly interested in are: Anderson, Banthorp, Birks, Bullock, Curchin, Hutchinson, Lamb, Mitchell, Tunley and Turmaine.

P.S. Oh, and the grave was that of my 2x great grandparents in Holy Trinity churchyard, Seaton Carew in Durham and the vicar the Rev. John Lawson who married my great grandparents.

P.P.S. The picture at the top of my home page is of the weddings of my grandparents (left), my parents (right) and 'the boys' George (my great grandfather), Tom (my grandfather) and Norman (who would have been my uncle had he not sadly died aged sixteen from leukaemia).