Everything that you
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Covington name
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HOW IT
ALL BEGAN
The
information for my work on the Covington History has been acquired from various
sources and locations throughout the UK and abroad. Numerous libraries and
proven genealogical institutions have been the source for much of the material.
Indeed, many happy hours have been spent poring over Web pages, Microfilm,
Microfiche, Army Records, Files, & Books, as well as walking, head bowed
reading the inscriptions, in churchyards around the country.
The whole
project started out, in Brighton, Sussex circa 1982, soon after the birth of my
first child, as being simply a desire to find out if there were many other
Covingtons listed in the U.K. phone directories. Some months after this initial
interest, a job move meant a transfer to Exeter in Devon and I spent 4 months
lodging, waiting for my house move to be completed. It was then that I first
started to spend early evenings in the local library searching through the
various genealogy books for more details of the Covington name.
Those
early records were kept on scraps of paper, with no real clear idea of how much
information I might find or, more importantly how I was going to collate the
data. Again, my interest waned as I reached a dead-end for information in all
of the local Devon libraries. Two more house moves in the next 4 years found
our family in High Wycombe and it was from here that, whilst travelling around
West London as a sales rep, I stumbled across the Public Records Office in Kew.
At least
once a week I would spend my lunchtime searching through all sorts of material,
from microfilm of World War 1 medal rolls to discharge papers from 19th century
Army records. Quite by chance, I came across the 1892 Royal Artillery discharge
papers of one Charles James Covington. Within these torn and mottled sheets, I
spotted the christening details of Ernest Albert Covington at Bow Barracks in
1883, my grandfather. Until then neither myself, nor my father and his 3
brothers, even knew of my great grandfather's, and therefore, their
grandfather's, name. Needless to say, this spectacular find was the spur to
much more searching and, as they say, the rest is history.
Ernest Albert Covington – my grandfather
There
is no doubt that the project was easier to attack living in the London area, as
major libraries, the Census Rooms & the Public Record Offices are within
easy access. It certainly helps, when one can spend full days at these
locations without the need for expensive travel or overnight costs.
Initially
all the information that I wanted was to ascertain my own family tree, however
it wasn't too long before it became apparent that most, if not all, U.K.
Covingtons are likely to be in some way distantly related. Whilst some family
group off-shoots have appeared in more out of the way parts of Britain, I have
been able to trace the largest colony of U.K. Covingtons, over the past 300
years, as living in the Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Cambridge & North
Buckinghamshire areas, with many moving to London for work in the late 18th and
early 19th centuries.
The College of Arms in London did some work for Arthur Edwin
Covington, a distinguished Canadian radio-astronomer, and managed to trace his
side of the Covington family to Turvey, North Buckinghamshire, back to the
early 1600s. Although I have managed to obtain a lot of the details, through
Arthur Kenneth Covington, the College of Arms, at that time, required some £240
to send me a full transcript, which was regrettably over my financial limit for
the project.
An interpretation of
the Covington Coat of Arms
Within
6 months of serious part time searching, I had traced details on over 1000
Covingtons and printed my first works, "The Covington History", using
an Amstrad 8256 Word Processor. About 30, fellow Covingtons, invested in the
book, and their interest and kind words after reading the content, encouraged
me to delve further. It was at this stage that I decided to create a Covington
database, so as to be able to cross-reference all the different levels of
information and, hopefully, link various Covingtons to their descendents. I traded in the Amstrad for a second-hand
Olivetti M111, IBM compatible lap-top (more luggable than portable!!), and
started to write the necessary programs. The results produced The Covington
Database Book, which I had considered offering as a full manuscript to a
publishing house, however the number of potentially interested Covington
Families in the U.K. then stood at just over 200, so the cost of production and
printing was prohibitive.
As I
searched still further, at that stage still concentrating on UK Covingtons, it
became apparent that there were a number of links to the U.S., as mid 18th & 19th century Covingtons emigrated to their
shores, be it some by choice and others at His or Her Majesty’s request/demand
following a criminal act. The same scenario was found in regard to Covingtons
in Australia. I found that many U.S. counties, cities & towns were named Covington. Many of these
were given the name after a local person. So, I started to widen the search and
try to trace the family trees of non U.K. born
Covingtons. This moved the size of the project into a much wider playing field
and, as such, created interest from many more, potentially interested,
Covingtons (as at 2014 there are said to be 37,575 of us living worldwide).
Now with
the massive scope of the internet, I can make my work available to Covington’s
throughout the world.
Please send e-mails to: covingtonhistory@mhcovington.plus.com
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