This page tells how this genealogy of the "Jefferies" families came about.
The primary reason for titling it a Jefferies genealogy is that it was started by my father, Frank William Jefferies, (in the early 1980’s) in response to questions from two of his grandchildren; Louise and Melissa Jefferies, as to the family connections and history. To do this he built it from the most distant Jefferies ancestor he could find as a starting point.
He also wrote two accounts of his life, one on his early years to his marriage to my mother, Edith Galton in 1930 and the other on his war experiences from 1940 to 1946. The 'Early Years' were produced in a loose leaf form by my father with photos from the family collections. After his death my brother produced a printed version with scanned photos in the text. This text has some useful information on some of the relatives in the early 1900's. These memoirs can be accessed here and are stored on the Scribd web site.His War experiences are now on the web site here; I aim to provide some pictures later.
On my father’s death my brother, Peter Stacey Jefferies, took over the data that Frank had collected and developed it further. Peter first had to extract the data from one computer format to another and then decide how to record the data. After some research he settled on a program called The Master Genealogist (TMG) as being the most flexible and comprehensive for this purpose. As a software programmer he had the skills essential for these tasks. He did a lot more research on the family, corresponded widely and incorporated material from a number of other family members and from family histories and diaries.
After Peter’s untimely death in 1997 I had rather intermittently and sporadically tried to maintain the database and update the version of TMG it is kept on. However since March 2007 I have been able to devote more time to this project and am reviewing the information we already have given that it is now much easier to collect data from distant and diverse sources via the Internet than it was even in the 1990s.
To present the data here I use a program (called Second Site) that takes the data in a TMG project and turns it into a form readable by web browsers thus enabling it to be put on the web for all to see. In addition it is possible to make CDs with the same program.
If you have comment, requests, notes on errors and omissions and any additional material I may have you would like to see please contact me Michael Jefferies and I will be glad to correspond.