The Beaumont Project
Introduction and background.
After over 10 years of research, I am overwhelmed by an incredibly deep sense of History, Achievement, Hope, Faith and sometimes Failure. In my travels which in some instances have gone back as far as 800 AD and the time of King Charlemagne, I have come across amongst others:-
- An English king who had at least 23 illegitimate children.
- A South African father who had 23 legitimate children.
- The last peer to be beheaded in England.
- The first person to be hanged in South Africa.
- The first person to fly from London to Johannesburg.
- The first person to fly from London to Windhoek.
- An unbelievable numbers of Kings, Queens, Lords, Ladies, Barons, Baronesses and other titles I never dreamed of.
- The inventor and forefather of forensic medicine.
- A woman who got run over by a herd of cows.
- Pirates and ship's captains.
- Statues in England and Sri Lanka for bravery.
- Multiple drownings and births at sea.
- Bravery and adventure beyond belief.
- Whole military families with every military rank possible.
- Military decorations that would fill a small phone book.
- Whole medical families.
- Travel, hardship beyond words, slavery, entrepreneurship, wisdom.
- Unbelievably brave women.
- Wealth, riches and good fortune.
- Ceremony ranging from coronation to pauper burials.
- Abject poverty.
- Multiple cultures, religions and atheism.
- Great wars from the Crusades and the Boer War to WWII and Vietnam.
- Blind marriages and illicit sex.
- Outright rogues and super heroes.
- Trekkers and Pioneers
- Shipwrecks and generosity
- Inventors, Journeymen and Gunsmiths
- And on and on....
The number of people who have helped me build the data is huge and I cannot thank them all individually. In particular major information has come from two people on the Weakley family, one person on the Van Ryneveld family and two people on the Utton family. This project would not have been possible without their endless support. My special thanks to all who contributed and especially the major contributors described above.
The early South African records on this site would not have been as good as they are without the enormous work done by Delia Robertson. Where there are website addresses containing http://www.e-family.co.za..., I record the citation should read Robertson, Delia. The First Fifty Years Project. This website can be found at The First Fifty Years Project.. The South African records would not have been as thorough without the Genealogical Society of South Africa (eGGSA) and immense help from the Cape Town Archives. I acknowledge the free input from The Church of the Latter Day Saints both in Durban and Johannesburg, South Africa.
On the subject of confidentiality, the vast majority of the data was obtained by me online. Many people will be astonished at the plethora of information on families (both living and dead) that is available online. Where appropriate, I have listed the online source as described above. Once again, I cannot personally individually thank or acknowledge all the sources. Therefore, I now thank and acknowledge them in a generic way.
The information is a little different from the conventional "source style" genealogical information as I have used Web based information to speed the process up rather than the individual certificate numbers for example. I have personally been to every URL recorded here and am reasonably satisfied that the basic data is correct. Inevitably a site such as this is fluid. There will inevitably and most certainly be errors and omissions and the whole purpose of creating this online record, is to invite feedback and corrections. Please be sure you read the copyright and disclaimers and the Privacy page.
The site is of necessity split into families. I have deliberately left it in family legs. Combining them all into one tree is incredibly complex due to the repetition of both first and last names and I have been concerned about the preservation of accuracy. Some of the families overlap and there are common individuals in the data.
In the interest of privacy there are two versions of this data. The main one contains info on family members who are no longer living. To see the second version which is a full version including living people you need a password and you will need to login using the menu on the left. This is done to protect privacy of living individuals. Please use the contact form to reach me and I will send on the passwords as and if appropriate.
The data is specifically for non-commercial use and my clear intention is to build family records. The data may, therefore, not be used in any way for the purposes of financial gain. It is a requirement that should you choose to use one of the URLs as a reference, the reference should read "The Beaumont Project: followed by the relevant Beaumont Project URL". Please be absolutely clear that the information is provided in good faith and is subject to change.
Caveat:- Throughout the project UK GRO birth, marriage and death index data appears. The GRO data appears in Quarters. Q1 = January, February and March, Q2 = April, May, June , Q3 = July, August and September and Q4 = October, November and December. Similarly, Mar Q = January, February and March, Jun Q = April, May, June , Sep Q = July, August and September and Dec Q = October, November and December. Where these dates occur, they represent the date of Registration of the event rather than the date of the actual event. Logically, registration occurs AFTER the event. In some cases this may be days or months or even years after the event. The important thing is that the event was recorded and a copy of the document of registration could be obtained if necessary. This also applies to South African NAAIRS records.
Similarly, the UK system is confusing to the uninitiated because registration districts can span several counties. Accordingly GRO locations may not record the true location of the event. They do record where the record is actually kept or recorded.
Caveat #2:- I have used URL's throughout the website as sources. The URLs are often from paid subscription sites so you may not be able to access them without an account. Inevitably there are broken URL's. I have been to every URL recorded here and at the time they were operational. In this regard, the Ancestry24 records are a problem. There are numerous references in the South African data citing Ancestry24 records. Unfortunately Ancestry24 has closed down and these records are no longer available on line.
This is a deeply fascinating hobby and I welcome contact from anyone who can improve the data either by correction or addition. I also look forward to meeting family members around the world. Please use the contact form to reach me.
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