Getting Started
far as I was concerned we were the only Storers in town. Little did I suspect the surprises in store. I did not for instance, expect to learn that our roots are in the wild and lawless Northumberland of the 1500s
When my father died all his papers, photos etc came into my keeping and they included grandfather’s death certificate. Working from that I soon acquired copies of his birth and marriage certificates. He had married Frances Lamb Gilhespie and was the son of George Lowes Storer and Margaret Hudson.
Local Studies Centre - North Shields
My enquiries led me to to the LSC and I wrote asking for information re the Storer family. To my delight I received a great deal culled from census returns, newspapers, cemetery records etc. It was all fascinating, albeit in many cases very puzzling. I read of Storers in North Shields in the 1800s and 1900s of whom I had been completely unaware. Since that first contact the LSC has been unfailingly helpful.
Digging Deeper
Having traced my Gt Grandfather I went to the Central Library in Bristol and began searching for him in their IGI microfiche records. After some digging I had his record which enabled me to obtain copies of his birth and marriage certificates . Now I knew his parents and wrote to the LSC seeking more information. The reply included copies of correspondence between the LSC and Mrs Dorothy Whitaker from which it was clear she had also been hunting Storers. I wrote to introduce myself and her reply included one of those surprises.
She said she was pleased to be in touch and enclosed a copy of her family tree. To my astonishment and great delight I realized I was looking at a complete Storer family tree going back five generations to 1727. It was clear we shared a common ancestry in that she was descended from the second sister of my gt grandfather.
The tree yielded another great surprise; our origins lay in Rothbury in Northumberland. We were brought to Tyneside by 4* gt grandfather Thomas (b1757 in Rothbury). He was a mariner who brought his family to Shields in the 1780s. We know little about Thomas. He vanishes around 1800 and we think he was lost at sea. It was his son Jonathan who settled the Storer family in North Shields.
Our correspondence also brought to light other researchers related to the Storer line, Mrs. M Bell and Mr. J Baty, of whom more later.
