Puttenham Church & War Memorial Puttenham, Surrey – Copyright of Julie Goucher 2007

Like the majority of Genealogists I started my research by working from the known to the unknown. My major known fact was that my grandfather was born in the Parish of Wanborough, which is the neighbouring parish. As I worked back to my great grandmother and beyond, my links with the village of Puttenham were firmly bought home.

By the time I was back four generations I reached the surname of BUDD and on looking through the vast amount of material I established that the Budd family was, in one way or another related to most of the inhabitants of the village. I decided to study the Census material for the village more fully and the day I saw my great grandmothers name listed on an official record was a very special one.

This was the great grandmother who I had sat with as a little girl and suddenly I realized that I was part of this village and I simply wanted to know all that I could about it. I had heard stories from my grandfather’s sisters about who lived where, who married who and so forth, and in the summer of 1986 decided to visit the village. It was beautiful summer’s day, not a rain cloud in sight! and as I wandered through the village I tried imagining the atmosphere of the village at a time, several generations before my grandfather was born.

The Puttenham (and Wanborough) One Place Study commenced in August 1986 and continues to be a work in progress.

Having purchased the domain name in 2003 I found that for such a small village I was receiving lots of correspondence from other researchers. I knew that I needed to get the material online as a way of preserving the archive. During the course of 2012, I created a blog for the study and set about sharing the material through that format, which allows for interaction with other researchers.

Then during the course of 2013, I was approached to be part of a steering group looking at formalizing One-Place Studies into a Society. I completely agreed, and had over the years always believed that such an organisation would be welcomed within the historical and genealogical communities. So, with the formation of the Society I made the decision that I would create a website for the material and continue to share the information via the blog. In essence the two formats will be interchangeable and still allow for interaction and deposits from others.

Fast forward almost another decade, (where does the time go?) I made a further set of adjustments. I retained the domain name purchased back in 2003 and began to move the Puttenham and further associated data to this site. I also gave the transcripts relating to the parish registers for both Puttenham and Wanborough to the Guild of One-Name Studies for the benefit of members who might find their study name within the records. The marriage indexes are available as a public index and therefore casting the net wider for those who descend from Puttenham Folk and to also preserve the material.

Julie Goucher, September 2013 and updated May 2022.