About
Why I made this website and why I need your help....
I am Jonathan Copeland and this website is about my ancestry and ancestors. It is in the nature of family history that genealogical information applies to a greater or lesser extent, dependent on the family connection. There are only three people in the world who share all the ancestors listed here - myself and my two brothers - but of course it is relevant, and so I hope will be interesting, to my children, grandchildren, cousins, second cousins.... You get the picture. And on the subject of pictures the one to the left is of those two brothers, and our mother, taken by me on my Brownie camera in, I believe, 1959 - a family holiday, possibly in the Isle of Wight.
Can you help?
There are two parts to this website. This part is largely narrative. Although I have been a "family history detective" for more than 30 years it still never ceases to amaze me how much information still exists about our ancestors, tucked away in record offices, in archives of one kind or another, in old newspapers or is freely available via the internet. The idea is to have content in this part of the site that is not simply data, not family trees, but the stories of some of the people I have traced. Not necessarily famous, or for that matter infamous, but still interesting, especially to their descendents.
Can anyone help identify the family and the event in this photo? Clearly a wedding, my Great Grandfather, Arthur Dalzell Piper is standing far right of the picture, but who anyone else is, and when it was taken, are a mystery and it would be good to solve it.
Much of the information I have found, or have been told, about individuals is kept in a genealogical database on my own computer, and and then from time to time I upload a copy of the data to this website. Through the data part of the website you can search for view ancestors, see the data I have about them, view them, their descendents and ancestors in tree form and much more. More instructions are within that part of the site, which can be found under the Genealogy tab above, but please note;
TO SEE THESE RECORDS YOU MUST HAVE A USER NAME AND PASSWORD. If you are, or believe you might be, a family member use the Contact Me button below to ask me for access.
Inevitably all of this is work in progress and each time you return more information should be available. Any information is welcome, and any photos or documents you would like to share can be attached to the ancestor. Comments and suggestions for improvement are also welcome.
Although I do my best to check and record sources, data is only as good as the information gathered from government records, church records, relatives, and other online sources. If you spot a mistake, please let me know
If you have information about your or my ancestors or relatives that you would like me to include please phone me or send me an email