The People

People name map

This website brings together the ancestral roots of two English families - the Ottersons and the Berrys. The Ottersons' ancestral lines were from County Durham and East Anglia, with one line into Northern Ireland. The Berrys and their ancestral lines center on Merseyside, the West Midlands, Cornwall and Ireland.

Click on a name to learn their stories.  If there is no live link, we are working on the research and writing!

Some of these stories are vivid with detail. Others are just a few lines of information - virtually all that's left to tell of a life of seventy or eighty years. Family historians know that it takes only three generations for stories to be lost forever. If stories of our parents are not passed on to our children, it's unlikely they will ever be found by anyone.

If you have a story, information or pictures to share in relation to any of the members of these families - even if it's just a snippet of information or a story that has been passed down - please get in touch.

People montage
Image: Origin unkown
Image: Origin unkown

Tribute to the Fallen

Few aspects of family history are more poignant than the stories of those who served in the armed forces, many of whom died on a battlefield far from home, shot down by anti-aircraft fire or enemy fighters or torpedoed at sea. And it's not just about the lives that were tragically cut short. It's also about the people they left behind - wives who for months would cry themselves to sleep, or children who would grow up without fathers or sometimes mothers.  This short video is a simple tribute to a few of the men from our extended families who fought and died in battle, or were fortunate to survive, from the British Empire in its heyday to World War II.