A GENEALOGY enthusiast will travel 275 miles to Swindon next month in the hope of discovering any ancestral links to his family name – Groundwell.

Malcolm Groundwell, who currently lives in Cumbria, decided to plan the trip after searches online brought up a plethora of locations in the town including his name, such as Groundwell Farm, Groundwell Ridge, Groundwell Road and Groundwell Trading Estate.

The 69-year-old hopes that by visiting Swindon in person, he will be able to trawl through parish and church records to see if he can find any people with the same surname.

“I only started getting into it a few years ago when I had a bit more time on my hands,” said Malcolm. “So many people are involved in work and everything else that it is only when you start to get time to yourself that you think, where do I come from?

“We are hoping that when we come to Swindon, we will be able to look through parish and church records to help us find anyone with the name Groundwell.”

Retired Malcolm, who used to be a company director, will make the trip on May 8 with one of his sons, Richard, who lives in Suffolk.

The pair hope to visit any ancient sites that may have an historic link with their name which they can trace back to the late 1800s, but anything before that is not known.

Malcolm, who has never been to Swindon before, is looking forward to what he might discover and added: “It was about 15 years ago we first wanted to trace the name and after using an ancestry website, we found 37 people that seemed to be related to me. During the First World War, our family lost three Groundwell men and the majority of them came from West Yorkshire.

“It was after this time that we managed to trace a descendant in Colorado in America but sadly he passed away before we made contact which is why we thought we would search here.

“When I looked into the Groundwell name I was surprised by the amount of places in Swindon called that so by visiting the town, it may help shed some light on where our family name comes from and so I hope people will help us look through parish and church records to trace it back further.

“To find a gravestone with a Groundwell name on it would be really interesting as well because it would link us to somewhere else and could tell us more about where the name originated from.”

Anyone who has information about the history of Groundwell in Swindon can contact Malcolm by emailing mgroundwell@yahoo.co.uk.