This is a transcript of the interview with Roger Phillips from Radio Merseyside.

 

Roger A graveyard, an odd place to begin an Internet project but 13 year old Anna Tumilty's interest in the stories behind the names inscribed on her local churchyard have developed into an award winning web site. The Little Crosby teenager began visiting, that's "Little Crosby" she's not little, the Little Crosby teenager began visiting the village graveyard with her father Peter, keen amateur historian. I met Anna by one of the first gravestones she started researching.
Anna "Of your charity pray for the soul of Richard Adamson who died 16th June 1882 aged 49 years RIP."
Roger And that's where it all started for you Anna isn't it?
Anna Yes.
Roger Why, why did that get you going?
Anna Well My dad had recently bought the 1881 census so I thought it would be interesting to find out what his occupation was and where he lived in the village.
Roger So it wasn't that your called Adamson, your not called Adamson, or that you had an aunty or anything?
Anna No.
Roger That was the one that struck you?
Anna Yes.
Roger And it turned out that there was a slight connection with what he did or what you enjoy?
Anna Yes, he was a Blacksmith and I'm interested in horses and he lived in the village as well.
Roger Was it a day like this when you first saw it, pouring down with rain?
Anna No it was nice and sunny and hot. (laughs)
Roger Let go and find a quiet corner and talk further.
Roger A little quieter around here, its rather a nice little church it's got a lot of sheltered corners. Just explain what the church is and where we are Anna.
Anna This is St Mary's Little Crosby Church and its 150 years old and we recently had like a celebration about two years ago.
Roger Now when you tracked down Mr Adamson and the fact that he was a Blacksmith and that you like horses why did you then move on to do all the rest that you've done?
Anna Well my dad had found relatives on the Internet in Canada and I thought it would be interesting to help other people around the Country because they can't get to here in Little Crosby say they live in Australia I help them find them and it's an easy way to get the message across.
Roger One of the advantages of course this is a relatively small grave yard so I don't known may be 150 graves here something like that?
Anna It's a bit more I think it about 200 more like that.
Roger And what did you decide to do to track each one down or what?
Anna What we did is we collected all the names first and now we are going back and getting the inscriptions of every single grave and posting it onto the Internet.
Roger Now that is quite a thing to do first you have to set up a web site how did you do that?
Anna Well my dad helps me do the web site he does like the technical bits because I'm not very good at that but I write all the inscriptions down.
Roger And how much time does it take you collecting all the information and putting it on?
Anna Well we spend about like two hours a week just coming down and if it's horrible weather like this we don't come down. (laughs)
Roger Very sensible. (laughs)
Roger But otherwise you collect more information, get it onto the website. Do you have any contact with people who have actually used the website?
Anna Yes we've managed to link some families that lived in the village called the Frith's and we've managed to contact people from Australia and link them into people here who live in the village.
Roger And have you had any requests, any direct requests, someone saying "well I think I might have somebody who........" you know!
Anna We have had some requests and what we do is we go directly to that grave stone and get the information.
Roger And then post it back into the website and directly to them?
Anna Yes and we E-mail it directly to them so they have got the information.
Roger Have you made any new Internet friends from this?
Anna (laughs) Yes made lots of friends with this. (laughs)
Roger And you have done it all on your own, well your dad helped a bit sure, but you've done it all on your own?
Anna Well my dad and I just do it by ourselves.
Roger Has it got you interested in doing this kind of thing as a career or what?
Anna No I'm just going to keep this as my hobby and I'm going to go in for a career with horses I think.
Roger Ah so it is the horses that really interest you most of all?
Anna Yes (laughs)
Roger Was it more than you could, when you started it you thought it well it's one person you could do a bit of checking on the Adamson fella but it's quite a big project now isn't it?
Anna Yes we find it quite hard to keep up with the information because so many people have contacted us with different names and information so it is actually quite hard to keep up with it.
Roger So do you limit yourself, I will only do two hours this week that sort of thing?
Anna Yes (laughs) yes just come down a do a bit.
Roger How much do you have to work on the web site though our website the BBC one has three people working on it and they are changing it all the time. Do you manage to do that or not?
Anna Well yes we keep adding to it each week like now we've put on moving pictures on it to just like make it more interesting for the people who are reading it.
Roger Do you actually come to this church yourself?
Anna Yes I do every Saturday night because I go to the stables on the Sunday morning.
Roger Right so you come to the Saturday Mass and then it's the horses Sunday morning, so it was of those Saturday nights that you were walking past and you thought.....
Anna No it was during the week, a school night, we were walking the dogs down the road and we just came up here and had a look.
Roger How long have you been doing it now?
Anna It was since September the 10th I first came down last year.
Roger Well you've done quite a lot in a short time.
Anna Yes.
Roger And done enough to get an award haven't you?
Anna Yes I've got an award from the Golden Gate Genealogy website project and they have given me website of the month.
Roger Do you think you got that because your so young, relatively, or because it's a good website?
Anna I think it's like because I'm so young and I'm interested in Genealogy but I think it is mostly to do with my age. (laughs)
Roger I think it's extraordinary I think there can't be very many people like you doing this kind of thing. Are you tempted to, now you say your going to keep it as a hobby, are you tempted to expand it in any way say as Little Crosby as a village rather than just the graveyard?
Anna I think I might just go around the village and say people are buried here I will go to the houses and take pictures of the houses and put them on the Internet, when it's nicer though. (laughs)
Roger Have you had anybody say "my father was born in Little Crosby, I've never been back there, I know he's not buried there but have you got a picture of our house, it was 23 whatever you know?
Anna I might be able to if they ask me that.
Roger So basically your up for grabs your up for anything (laughs) if people want to find out about the history of the area?
Anna Yes. (laughs)
Roger Have you found out a lot about the history of your own family in this way or not?
Anna Yes we found relatives in Canada and we've been over and visited them last year.
Roger Well that's a nice thing to do was that you or your dad sorting that out?
Anna Well my dad went over I didn't go over but we've been in contact with them.
Roger You do all the donkey work on the web and he takes a holiday classic isn't it absolutely typical. (laughs)
Anna Yes. (laughs)
Roger So your own family it's quite an unusual surname, it's quite an old surname, is it Irish, Tumilty?
Anna Yes it is Irish and we all came over from Ireland in the old age.
Roger So you didn't know the Canadian bit of the family until you got onto the Internet?
Anna No when we first got the Internet we found out that.
Roger Can you remember what you felt like because it must have been so exciting?
Anna Yes it was quite exciting and unrealistic to find relatives the first time you look at the Internet (laughs) It's quite good though.
Roger And they were open as well, which is nice, open to talk about it and get in touch with you that kind of thing, lovely?
Anna Yes.
Roger But you must be doing that for other people and perhaps in the future will. You haven't completed the whole thing yet have you?
Anna Oh no we're only about half way around so far we're only around the corner and that's it we haven't got around the back.
Roger So when you actually get to it you take the details on the gravestone  you then write that into your website and then you sit back and wait in effect if anybody wants anymore information or can add to what you've got.
Anna  Yes because if we have trouble with the gravestones, like it's in a different language, we post it onto the Internet, what it is, and they come back and help us transcribe it.
Roger So you've come across gravestones with different language, not English?
Anna Yes we've come across Dutch and Latin gravestones that was a bit hard to figure out though.
Roger And you literally posted what was written onto the site?
Anna Yes and people help me find out what it is.
Roger That's fantastic, is that people who are searching in Little Crosby or people just out to help?
Anna Yes just people helping me, they might not have relatives here but they help which is really nice.
Roger So you then do that translation onto the website ready?
Anna Yes.
Roger I don't know it's an amazing project I'm surprised you've only won the one award, I'm sure your going to win many more. It just surprises me your going to stick with horses and not go into I.T. you can make a lot more money out of  I.T. than you can out of horses you know.
Anna (laughs) Well I think horses are better than this it's horrible weather. (laughs)
Roger I know there's something a story about your family itself you said you tracked your family down but there's some letter involved isn't there?
Anna Yes my great, great grandfather he wrote the letter before he went on the ship.
Roger Now which ship was that?
Anna The Empress of Ireland and he was a fireman and what he did was he put the coal into the engines of the ship and he had the letter and he was going across the river St Lawrence and that's were the accident happened when the coal carrier went into the side of the ship and it sank but the letter still managed to get home to the relatives.
Roger Now those relatives, not the immediate relatives, the descendents posted this letter onto the Internet.
Anna Yes and that's when my dad found the relatives to us.
Roger How because their name would not be Tumilty would it?
Anna Yes they are Tumilty.
Roger So was it, he also had an address to check?
Anna Yes it was from Brighton Road which is now Jubilee Road.
Roger And your family is connected with that?
Anna Yes because my family used to live there.
Roger Well lets end where we began you mentioned the Frith's where's their gravestone because I know there's a story connected with that quite an interesting one, which is the Frith's gravestone?
Anna Well it's near the Adamson's grave which we went to before and there is four of the graves here and people, relatives still live in the village.
Roger But did they know that before you started your?
Anna Yes they did actually but there are actually people in Australia and Canada that didn't know they were here.