Explanation of data presented as well as limitations

The search for the ancestry of Greg Martin began mid 2020. The start was based on what Greg told me. Greg's father Richard provided August-September 2020 additional information, especially based on the memoirs about the family written by his father, Eric Martin, in the 1980s. For the Phillips family (of Eric Martin's wife) a handwritten tree was provided from the archive of Richard Martin. For the early Phillips lineage (well before the great-grandparents) a descendancy list was made available January 2021 by Anthony Martin (full cousin of Greg, son of William (Bill) Martin), that reaches back to well before the 16th century. Diana Martin (full cousin of Greg, daughter of George Martin) delved August 2021 from her archive a handwritten ancestor tree of the Martin side going back to the mid 17th century, prepared by (most likely) Kath, one of the sibblings of Eric Martin; it includes data up to as recent as 1958.

Further research was carried out using the internet, which in some cases led to data on ancestors through genealogical websites (although many of those are not very accurate). Data taken from there were verified through other sources, if possible. Most genealogical sites require financial subscriptions, which were not taken (except for a one month trial subscription for South African records taken out by Greg). In case of conflict between notes from the family and genealogy sites, the handwritten data from the family (all assembled before the internet and thus from actual church records) were given preference, but official transcripts from civil registry (as of about 1820) were regarded as highest quality.
In England, census data would have given lots of information about the composition of families. Alas, much of that data has to be paid for (with few exceptions). In a good stroke of luck, part of the census could be accessed during a trial-offer by one of those commercial sites.
Trade directories of towns published as of the late 19th century were of great help. Several of those are available through local heritage websites.

Additional information could be included from the general internet (Wikipedia, websites on towns and places, images, etc.) to bring the locations of and stories about the ancestors to life. For those ancestors for which Wikipedia websites exist, only a few essentials were copied into this data base.

Data structure

The data is provided as a stand-alone collection of html-pages. Starting with the main directory and its index.html page, one can step through the data as available. To understand the overall structure of the data base as well as the names of the html-files, please read the page overview.

For some couples, much information was available which warranted making a separate html-page of which the file-name ends with "m", signifying "more".
Images are stored in relevant subdirectories; these are named after the main page where they are used and have "clips" at the end of the subdirectory name.
Names of files in the subdirectories consist mostly of a calendar date followed by some (criptic) info on the content.

The data collection also contains a subdirectory rm-input in which input data is stored (such as the scans of originals of memories by Eric Martin and the Phillips lineages, etc.) as well as intermediary versions of images or maps.

The printed version

In a printed version, the embedded links are shown with blue-coloured letters. Only few of those links are spelled out. Numerous links are internally, to other pages in the RM-Ancestry. Other links are external ones that, in many cases, are not spelled out. For most, the context should make clear if the link is internal or external. Links to town names are almost always to Wikipedia sites. Links to commercial ancestry data bases are only in exceptional cases spelled out.

Since all data were assembled into html-files, the collated printed version has no continuous nubering. The sequence in the print follows the genealogical logic.

Further information can be obtained from Klaas de Boer.