About this site

Genealogy - it's all relative!

"I will set down a tale as it was told to me by one who had it of his father, which latter had it of his father, this last having in like manner had it of his father - and so on, back and still back, three hundred years and more, the fathers transmitting it to the sons and so preserving it. It may be history, it may be only legend, a tradition. It may have happened, it may not have happened: but it could have happened. It may be that the wise and the learned believed it in the old days; it may be that only the unlearned and the simple loved it and credited it."

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known as Mark Twain, (1835-1910),
Preface, The Prince and the Pauper
[Clements is one of our family names - no known relationship]

his site gathers together genealogical material related to the families of John Maurice Roy (known as Maurice to his mother and Maurie to everyone else) and Eleanor May Royes (known as May), married in Cairns, North Queensland, Australia in 1940. Not everyone in this database is directly related since there are some "entries of interest" such as an extended look at the Dukes of Normandy and English Royalty 800-1400. There are some details about numbers in the Statistics page.

hey say that the cheapest way to find your family tree is to run for public office! But mostly they are hard work and can get quite expensive as information is gathered from registries. Most - and I mean most - of the genealogical data on this site has been gathered by my late brother George Roy (pictured right, top) for Australia and Ireland, and by English genealogist and thirteenth cousin Robin Young (pictured right, middle) in regard to the Hougham line originating in Kent and Normandy, and possibly Scandinavia. My vision has been to gather what they have done, to include supporting material and to put it all together for family members in a presentable form viewable in a web browser. I have always felt that having a family tree with a lot of names on it is only mildly interesting, but to have comments about the people in it, to get some idea of their place in their world and to appreciate their environment with stories and notes is to raise the level of interest and understanding.

hen approached about having his name included in the credits, Robin wrote:

"Please don't forget Marian Hurley Pratt. After all it was she who started it all. Briefly, I got involved after I was given a copy of her book. I decided to try to draw up a family tree on a bit of paper but quickly gave up as it was just too complex. Some while after I was reading a computer magazine about genealogical software and decided to give it another go using the latest technology.

It was so easy that I decided to do three things.

• One: To check Marian's references on the early years.
• Two: To see if I could get back further than she had, and
• Three: To bring it up to date. (Her book was published in the 1950's)

So for the last [few] years I have been using the internet to contact as many Houghams/ Huffams/ Huffhams and Hufhams as possible and the tree grows almost every week, but without the help of so many researchers all over the world I could not have put it all together and I think they need a mention too."

Robin has the Hougham family tree at hougham.royroyes.net, and, at over 23,000 names and growing, has a lot more information about more Houghams than is on R~RFL - which has nearly 6,000 names and concentrates, in respect of the Houghams, on the Royes pedigree and Antipodean connections and with a few other branches of interest. So if you are interested in following through on the Houghams, use Robin's web site.

How are Marion Hurley Pratt, Robin, George and I related? See the chart.

Acknowledgement must also be made of contributions, comments and photographs provided by

• Anne (Hogan) Phelan (Ireland),
• Jack Hogan (France),
• Charles Royes (Jamaica),
• Wes Girvan (Victoria),
• Nola (Royes) Gallagher (Normanton, Queensland),
• Glenda (Weatherburn) Pollard (Mareeba, Queensland),
• and many others.

Not forgetting the many people George and Robin have had conversations with also, and whose contributions are in the data provided by them for your enjoyment and interest. Robin has also provided several of the photos and graphics in respect of the Hougham's.

Disclaimer: Web addresses and email addresses can change very quickly. Let me know if you find a link that doesn't work or gives an error message or has been re-located.

Family Tree data © Bruce Roy and contacts
Please do not use any of the material on this site in any public form without checking for permission.

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