This planning almost didn’t start, as I wasn’t feeling like going because the real reason for going was to meet my cousin Stevie — but he passed away on January first. I wrote a tribute post for him, but the idea of traveling without that meeting ahead of me left me feeling undecided.
What finally spurred me into planning mode was a couple things. First, my son’s family bought their tickets, and two — I am in the midst of revamping the gardens into a no‑till garden, and I had to get my planting schedule just right. No‑till with mulch beds should help to cut down on my partner’s watering or having one of my gardening buddies help while I am away. Once I calculated the tomatoes weren’t going to ripen until well after my trip, I was ready to start planning. If things die, I just replant, as we have a long growing season.
Getting things squared away in my mind about my garden, my cousin Stevie, and my son’s family booking their flights put me into high gear — as this was a memory trip of a lifetime — family, genealogy, and fun!
You might be wondering where we are planning our trip, and this is where it gets interesting, at least for me.
United Kingdom
Now that I had my pickle patch situated, we decided if we are traveling the long way, we might as well stay for two weeks. After my son bought their tickets, we got busy. Before we got started booking Airbnbs, we had to have two things done — airfare booked and passports renewed. Ours were about to expire.
I am sure you never had any issues with renewing, but I had a slight problem — where I have always reported my birth is different from what is on my birth certificate, and I couldn’t remember what I used almost 10 years ago. I decided to go with what I reported on documents. My husband received his passport in record time — 10 days. It made me start to worry that I put the wrong birth city. Mine came in the allotted time of just over 3 weeks. I am glad that is over. I have to say we renewed by taking our own photo and uploading it online. So a good report — it worked fine.
We didn’t get the same airfare as my son and his family, as those tickets were no longer available — and let’s say, good thing, as they have two stops and on the way back they have an 11‑hour layover. Ours was on a different carrier, and we managed to find one stop, and instead of flying into London, we are flying into Manchester — as we both have train trips to our Nottingham destination. Nottingham is our home base, close to all the places we need to visit for genealogy. We decided to get there a day ahead of my son so we can get the Airbnb ready — breakfast foods, fruit, and light meal stuff like sandwich‑making essentials.
The first half of the trip we will all be together exploring Nottingham and our genealogy interests. The second week, my son’s family goes to London, and we go west side for a little R&R with an Airbnb on the estuary, which has a lot of things for us to do — and our B&B has the perfect window to watch the estuary drain and fill four times a day.
With the travel pieces finally falling into place, we could turn our attention to the real heart of this trip — our genealogy plans
Planning Genealogy Days
Our home base is in Nottingham, and genealogy day trip 1 is in Nottinghamshire — East Bridgford, Newark‑on‑Trent, and Winthorpe. Genealogy day trip 2 is partly Nottinghamshire — West Bridgford, Leicestershire, and Northamptonshire. It might not sound like a lot, but for each place I had to find the correct contact information to make sure the churches would be open and to ask if there was anything from my ancestors inside the churches. I knew for day trip 1 they had headstones, from Find a Grave, which is always a plus. Day 2 had tombs.
The next hurdle was figuring out the logistics and using an SUV‑size taxi for 6–8 hours. We all agreed that we didn’t want to rent a car, as we are not accustomed to driving on the left side, and we could see ourselves going the wrong way or getting in an accident. So, we will use trains and taxis. When planning, sometimes it really looks good on paper, but then when you put the duration in, it ends up too busy and more expensive. On day trip 1, I included a museum stop, but in order to do the tour and then make our other tour, we had to be the first ones to get tickets for that day. So, when planning your genealogy trip for a group, keep it as easy as possible.
When contacting, I always included that we were traveling from across the pond and that we are doing genealogy. Every person has been so nice, and several said they would like to meet us — one even invited us for coffee.
While planning on the Winthorpe website, I found their Winthorpe anthem with a sound recording and the printed music. I was so taken with the song, as my 4th great‑grandfather was in a verse. I cooked up that our grandson will play the song on the recorder, and we plan to sing the chorus and the verse about G. Gamble. We are also adding our own verse. We will sing the anthem at our ancestor’s grave. I am sure he will smile and approve of his lineage. Everybody is having fun with the song, and what better way to make this trip memorable. They will always say, “Do you remember when we sang the song in Winthorpe?” We will make a joyful noise that day.
Team UK & Small Gifts
We all had so much fun on our last genealogy trip wearing my custom‑designed t‑shirts that I came up with a new design, and it has already been sent off to be printed. There’s something about putting on that shirt that makes the day feel different — like suddenly all the pieces start falling into place, and everyone begins to understand a little more about their roots.
Now, with all the planning and all the helpful people at the churches, I plan to give gifts of assorted flower and vegetable seed packets — American varieties they might not be able to purchase as readily. I’m trying to be as eco‑friendly as possible by putting the seeds in brown craft paper bags with a paper tag tied on with natural string.
I checked UK customs for bringing small, sealed retail seed packets, and I didn’t see any restrictions since they are personal gifts. The seed bags, name tags, and string are all things that will fit in my carry‑on luggage.
Did I tell you we all plan to take only a carry‑on and a backpack for our entire two‑week stay? Our B&Bs are equipped with a washer and dryer — I hope not too tiny.
The last thing to do is to make sure to take photos as in our case we don’t know when we will have the opportunity to be back.
And naturally, we plan to enjoy the foods we can’t find back home — the real English fish and chips, the cheeses, the pastries, and all those everyday flavors that make the UK feel wonderfully different. It’s all part of the adventure of tracing our roots.
