About

About Me and This Blog

Alison Vainlo

My name is Alison Vainlo, Breach by birth, and I live in South Yorkshire, England. I became interested in our family history at an early age; the name 'Breach' was pretty rare in Yorkshire so I became curious as to where all the rest of the Breaches were. I knew that my Great Grandfather was from East Sussex so this is where I started. I soon found out where all those missing Breaches were, they were concentrated in an area of East Sussex just west of Eastbourne. Not only that, they went back generations which led me on a fascinating journey through history, and even overseas. This is their story, and mine.

How this Site Began

I started researching in the mid 1990's but progress was slow. I didn't have a computer and had to relay on a friend to look things up on hers, not ideal!

Once I had my own computer my research really took off. With sites like Ancestry and Family Search I was able to cover a lot of ground in a short space of time.

Recording my findings for other family members to read was the next challenge. At first I wrote a hard copy of my research which worked out quite well, but had one major drawback. If I was to continue researching I would have to rewrite the book every few years to keep up. Not very practical. So the idea for a family history blog seemed a good way to keep the information updated and also allow more people to find it, so I launched this blog site in 2012.

How Far Back Have You Gone?

Is a familiar question whenever I mention that I'm researching my family history. Well, I have gone quite a long way back on one line, back to the fifteenth century in fact. But the object of this exercise is never about digging a tunnel through time, you have to include all the people who fill out your family sideways too, and that is where the bulk of my research lies. 

Updating

I confess that I do take long breaks from researching. After doing it for so long I find that you reach a point where you have all the basic information and you need to wait for Ancestry to launch new collections of records. I also found my family tree was getting so huge it was getting out of hand and putting me off. In 2018 I pared things down a bit, removing some branches that were on here previously. Another update undertaken in 2022 has had the advantage of having new information added and better photos.

Privacy and Errors

In order to protect the privacy of any living relatives mentioned in this blog I will keep their personal details private and only mention them by name.

By its very nature genealogy is not an exact science and errors will be made. Please feel free to contact me on any issue which you believe to be incorrect, and as this is an ongoing project, new information and corrections will be updated from time to time.

The Purpose of this Site

This site is very much a personal account of my ancestors, ordinary families who lived ordinary lives. I hope the site will be a useful resource for anyone researching the Breach name, so do let me know if we share a common ancestor.

Please read the introductory post on the home page to find out how to use this site and get the most out of it.

Thank you and enjoy!

Alison Vainlo 2022