Welcome to our Web site!

Officially we are Anthony Geoffrey Cousins and Constance Lynn Ashley Sturdevant Cousins, however, you can call us Tony and Connie.

Tony was born in Manchester, England and moved to the USA in 1997 for an employment opportunity. Connie was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, USA. By sheer divine intervention we met and fell in love at the end of 2000 and married in January 2001.

We love genealogy research, doing the Sunday New York Times Crossword, Sudoku, traveling, and spending time with our grandkids and extended family. Of course, all this fits around going to work.

Talking about work - we started a research company (C & T Research) and up to now completed a number of projects for people around the world, USA, England, Canada and Australia. It doesn't replace our full time jobs, but who knows, maybe it will one day.

  • Sturdevant DNA Testing - A number of times we've looked at each other and wondered what kind of people go to the length of DNA testing, seriously!!! Well, hands up, we did it. We did get Connie's Dad to agree to provide a sample and sent it off. This was really to prove a line that goes back to 1735 in Connecticut - the tests are still ongoing with other descendants of the Sturdevant line. Through this test we actually proved the link back to William Sturdevant born in Connecticut around 1654. Tony took part in the Ancestry DNA project, up to now the nearest linked generation is 350 years ago.

  • No Longer "Searching in vain" - Connie's great great grandfather, Henry Thomas Baker, was from England and was an "artiste" and musician. His family traveled with different shows and while two of the four children were born in London another was born in Germany and one in France. We came to a brick wall in trying to find them between 1877 - 1901 and then after 1901 until Jeannette who is Henry Thomas Baker's great grand daughter found this site. We now know what happened, how names changed and generations have now been discovered. There's a link on the stories page with much more detail.

  • Finding living relatives - it's been very rewarding to find and become friends with Cousins relatives we didn't know existed! We have cousins in Suffolk that we try to visit each year during our annual trip to England.  We've been in contact with Don and Helen Cousins and their family many times and our tree has now expanded to include their branches. The Baker side really took off when Jeannette a second cousin found our site and provided a wealth of new information that has opened many more doors.

  • Discovering things - sometimes we find a new person, track them through the census and civil records and bury them all in an hour or so! We get sad when we find infants dying within the year of birth and in one case where four children in one family all died within the same month along with a person we think is their grandmother [Mayhew]. We  did learn that there was an outbreak of malignant diphtheria that hit Suffolk in 1891.

  • Misspelled names - well it seems like they're misspelled! How many variations of Cousins and Sturdevant do you think there are? We haven't actually counted but there seems to be a jillion! At least soundex searches help discover some of the variations. We will also search a census using just a first name, location, and birth year range to see what adaptation the name has taken this time.

  • Royal Connections -  while there is not a proven link as yet within the Shelton lineage, it appears that Connie is a descendent of Anne Boleyn [yes, the one who married King Henry VIII and was later beheaded!]. That was a surprise, especially since Tony is from England - although we did find a Madam Cousins who attended Anne Boleyn at the wedding!

    We hope you enjoy the web site and that it helps in your research.

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