who is the real William George Allen?…
The search for my ancestors really began when I saw an advert in a heraldry magazine, in about 1982. A firm in Canterbury specialised in carrying out family history research, so I wrote to them to enquire.My interest in Coats of Arms took a back seat while I exchanged correspondence with my researcher: I passed to him what little detail I had about my father and in return I received periodical reports of what the researcher found in the London record offices.In a remarkably short time I received copies of my father’s (John Alfred Allen) and grandfather’s (John Stephen Allen) birth certificates, followed by a transcript of the 1881 census return for No. 3 Crooms Hill, Greenwich, showing my great-grandfather’s (William George Allen) whole family in residence. After this, the pace slowed down; we discovered that my great- grandfather (a master Lighterman on the river Thames) had been one of two boys (both of them named William George Allen) who had served their apprenticeships together.My
