It was in that quiet contemplative time between Christmas and New Year that I decided to take a deep dive into my family’s history. The catalyst for this was a question from Katie Heaton
of Poole Museum, who writes our genealogy feature. When discussing what topics to cover in 2022 we talked about how women often get lost within a fami]y tree. ‘I could look into your family’s maternal line?’ she suggested. I quickly pointed out that there was no point as my
f ami]y hailed from London and Kent, though I had a vague notion that one ancestor may have had a brief toe-hold in Wiltshire. This final thought bub bled away at the back of my mind, and I dug out some notes I had made back in 2003, around the time that researching family history online was beginning to grow.
Going over the various documents I had collated, on my father’s side the Stiles family are essentially Kent agricultural labourers through and through, no surprise there. And reading through the notes I had made on the Short family, my mother’s maiden name, confirmed their London roots.

Helen1 Stiles Editor,
Dorset Magazine

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• EADT Suffolk – March 2022
• EDP Norfolk – March 2022