My name is Pauline Cockrill, originally born in London in 1960 and have called Australia home since 1992. Now based in Adelaide, South Australia, I’m a professional museum curator, historian and writer.
Since a teenager, I’ve been fascinated by our name, its origins and our family history. A family bible belonging to my great-great grandfather George William Pursell which came into our possession in 1975 really got me started on the long, addictive genealogical journey. It began with hand-drawn family trees and ‘old school’ research at St Catherine’s House in Aldwych or local libraries and county archives. I wrote letters, talked to relatives and tramped streets and cemeteries taking photos of family related locations. Fast forward to the 1990s and I’m now living in Australia. The internet not only kept me in touch with home but was also a game changer for family history research. The accessibility and speed of online searches meant the tree grew branches I could never have imagined. Digitisation also meant the ability to share my own and discover new family photos.
So today our family tree – which is still essentially a work in progress – is now accessible via Ancestry. You’ll find the link below. This blog attempts to highlight some of my research and bring to life many of our ancestors as well as create a space for other family members to share memories and information.
I look forward to getting this all out of my head and into the ether – enjoy!
Butchers, Bakers but No Candlestick Makers (so far) 
Wow Pauline!
I have only just found this via your FB post about your great aunt Lilian.
It is wonderful and extraordinary! So beautifully presented and written – really engaging. Clear to see you are a professional! What an amazing body of research you must have done over all these years and much of it from afar.
Wishing you well as you continue to capture all you have discovered. Congratulations.
All the best, Elissa
Wow back to you Elissa! Lovely to hear from you and thank you! I am so pleased that it is engaging to those outside the family. It’s been a way of getting all the research out of my head but also a practice space for getting back into creative writing. There are so many stories to research and capture, and rabbit holes to disappear down. It certainly has been a labour of love but a fascinating one. I think I can thank the likes of Miss Rowlatt and Mrs Lucas for the writing and presentation – I hope they are looking down with interest from somewhere in the ether! Cheers Elissa, Pauline