Dear Birch Colleagues, If you cast your mind back to May, you will recall that I hoped to call in on John Birch while travelling in the UK from NZ. I am now able to say that on 27 June I visited John at his home on the edge of Leicester, just off the M1. He made me so welcome. John has a slight connection with NZ, insofar as one of his daughters, Alison, now a speech therapist, spent some time there. As some of you suspected, I found that John had not been well last year, but he is now much recovered. We enjoyed a lovely couple of hours - talking generally about the Birches and spending time at his computer while he pushed back the boundaries of my Cheshire Birches a little on Ancestry. John was able to find the birthplace of my ggg grandfather Henry Birch in the late 1790s. It turned out to be the village of Partington, Cheshire. Do any of you connect to Partington? It is now considered part of Greater Manchester. I asked John where the great centres of origin of the Birches were, within the British Isles, and he told me there were three : Ireland (Tipperary), Yorkshire, and Manchester; he added that there was also a significant group in Staffordshire. John honoured me with a copy of his book The Birch Chronicles Vol 1, and told me he has begun work on Vol 2. John also showed me his copy of a book written in 1998 by Bernie O'Neil (USA) about his wife's Birch ancestry, which includes good introductory pages on the English Birches. I was also shown a book written in 1992 by Joan Gouldston of Bovey Tracey (Devon) which covers her ancestry in the Manchester Birches. John assures us that he is now in a position to answer email inquiries again. He receives about 34 emails a day, and has entered 60,000 names on his data base. One of the reasons some of us didn't get email replies from John last year was that the Tiscali server started to malfunction and a whole lot of emails never reached him. That persuaded John to leave Tiscali, and as many of you know, his address is now birch659@btinternet.com. John told me he plans to build a website "in a bit". I told him that some of us on the List had wondered if we could help with funding, though he and I did not reach any conclusion on that. John is such a hospitable man, and I am sure he would welcome other Birch members if passing. His phone number is +44.116.2772550. Warm wishes, Michael ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Jones" <mejones@slingshot.co.nz> To: <birch@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 9:09 PM Subject: Re: [BIRCH] BIRCH one off name. > Thank you, Margaret, I will see what I can do - Michael > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "John & Maggie" <johnmaggie@xtra.co.nz> > To: <birch@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 8:05 PM > Subject: [BIRCH] BIRCH one off name. > > >> Hi again List, >> >> I do know apart from John not being well last year he has also put out a >> book called "John William Birch" >> I would like to think that this is why he's been too busy to reply to >> peoples e-mails and not his health issue again. >> I think Michaels idea is great if that could be done and I'm sure such >> alot of us would benefit from such knowledge that >> John has put together. If you get to see him Michael on your trip. Wish >> him well from the List. I do not have a phone number for him but here is >> an address that maybe of some help. >> The Birch chronicles >> 166 Lutterworth Road. >> LEA 4 DP Blaby >> Leicester >> England.