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How the search whiz got started....
The reason I got into genealogy in the first place was because of stories my grandad would tell me about his grandad. Apparently our surname wasn't Whiting, it was Bilney and the only way his grandad found this out was when he was pensioned from the army after the Boer war. He'd always told my grandad that we weren't Whitings and legend has it that a sea captain came over from Ireland and left his son in the charge of two sisters called Whiting. For one reason or other the sea captain never returned for him and his son changed his name to Whiting.
I'm a very inquisitive person and was incredibly interested in that so went about tracing the family back, and lo and behold, he was right. The first generation Ii can find is William Bilney commonly called Whiting, unfortunately i have never been able to get past him but you never know one day I might. Some of Williams children took the name Whiting and some of them kept the name Bilney/Bilner.
It's so interesting the things you find out doing this though...William died in Barham workhouse, unfortunately I can never find out why he was there as the record have been destroyed. His son Samuel, whom I am descended from, was a bigamist, and Samuel's daughter Mary Ann had a illegitimate child (grandad's grandad). It's quite sad about Mary Ann as her son's father Fenn Fenning she married a couple of months after he was born, then died less then 3 months after they married she was only 19. Samuel and his wife Charlotte went on to raise grandad's grandad (William Fenn Bilner).
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