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Welcome! This website was created on 27 Oct 2003 and last updated on 25 Dec 2023. The family trees on this site contain 649 relatives and 52 photos. If you have any questions or comments you may send a message to the Administrator of this site.
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About The Briggs, Basketts and Coppingers
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Briggs, Baskett and Coppinger are the main lines I am tracing. I have registered the surnames  BASKETT and BRIGGS with the Guild of One-Name Studies http://www.one-name.org.   The Coppinger branch has been well researched by John Coppinger(deceased) and several others.

It took me many years to find our living cousins in the UK.  My mother Ellen and I  would read over old family letters  most written in the 1930’s. We wrote often to  those old addresses, to no avail.  Finally I contacted the Salvation Army Missing  Persons Office and asked if they could help find our cousins.  The Salvation Army is  more than happy to help reunite families and on their request I filled in a form,  paid a fee, then I sat back to play the waiting game once more.   To my surprise  within two weeks I received a phone call from an Officer of the Salvation Army saying  they had found Bernard Briggs and his sister Margaret and that our English cousins  were very happy to be found and would be writing to me immediately.   My husband and I travel to the UK, Scotland and other European destinations on an  annual basis and during these trips have met with our cousins living in Hampshire  and Nottingham and have contact with other cousins in Wiltshire and Kent.   Cousin  Carol (Nottingham) has for many years researched our COPPINGER line and has kindly  presented me with a photograph of our mutual great-great grandparents, William &  Ellen Baskett (nee Coppinger).    The family group photo taken in 1897-1898 most likely in Ryde,  Isle of Wight. Cousin Carol is concentrating on both the NUTTY and COPPINGER branches  and has been a great help to me, always sharing what information she finds.

The Coppinger branch has been traced back to King Edward the 1st (aka Longshanks). John Coppinger  was part of the Court of Henry V11 and must have been  considered a worthy person in the court,  because he was granted a bolt of cloth to make mourning clothes when Henry V11 died.  John was also  with the court of Henry V111 and his wife Catherine of Aragon and is known to have been present at  the historic event "The Field of the Cloth of Gold" (see link below).   In December 2003  I had a very brief visit to their old haunt "All Hallows Hoo" near Sheerness, Kent.

My earliest records of the Basketts' are found on the Isle of Wight, Hampshire. They migrated to  Sheerness, Kent in the early 1850's.   I am tracing the origin of their surname & whereabouts prior  to their settled on the IOW. Hence I have registered the surname BASKETT with the Guild of One-Name  Studies (GOONS).

The birth records of our great-great-grandfather Thomas Briggss (a blacksmith) born  about 1830 is still to be uncovered.  Unfortunately, his mother's name is not on his  marriage certificate & this makes much more difficult to match him up with one of the  many thousands of Thomas Briggs found in the various records.   Thomas's wife Maria Richards and her family originated in the Plymouth area of Devon  and migrated to Kent about 1850.   Sadly Thomas died suddenly  aged 24yrs, just three  months after their marriage and Maria aged 22yrs, was a bride, a widow and a few weeks pregnant all  within three short months. Maria did not remarry until 1885 when she married Dr. Edward Swales,  Sheerness, Kent (he was born in Helmsley,a vilage in the Yorkshire Dales). I have been lucky enough to obtain photos of her parents Maria and Thomas Richards (a  blacksmith), and her brother Edward Charles Richards, taken in 1866.  The photos were  sent by Margaret Campbell nee Briggs, daughter of Frank Briggs.  Despite her age and  illness Margaret, who sadly, died last year (2008) aged 87yrs, learnt to use a  computer and would email me on a regular basis. Frank’s son Bernard Briggs is living  in Hampshire. 
 Books Printed: Briggs & Baskett: I am currently re-writing the book I put together  some years ago along with another book titled Laidlaws & Lindsay – Lanarkshire to  Sydney.

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