Emma Explores… Stories, Mysteries and Fame » Emma Cox » July 2025

As with each of her Emma Explores programs, professional genealogist Emma Cox regaled us today with stories from her family tree. This time, she focused on the Upcott family and their involvement in the Wool industry in Devon.

As in each of these episodes,

Emma - Journeys into Genealogy

generously shares her slides, notes, and tips. In fact, among the resources she used to collect the material for today’s program was a book she picked up in a Devon museum while on holiday, “Tiverton Cloth – The Story of the Town’s Woollen Trade 1475-1815” by Peter Maunder. Delightfully, many of her ancestors are mentioned in the book, which reminds all of us of the benefits of a tight focus in research. These are the slides from her talk:

Projectkin Emma Explores: Wool, Trade and Piracy in the Upcott family

1.83MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Slides used during Emma's presentation.

Download

Included among the tools Emma mentioned was this remarkable map in the collection of the US Library of Congress. You can explore the full map here or in the link below.

“A compleat description of the province of Carolina in 3 parts.” US Library of Congress Geography and Map Division. (hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3870.ct001123)

These were some of the other tools Emma mentioned:

• Port Books – show what was traded in and out of a particular location.

  • Nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/merchant-trade-records-port-books-1565-1799

• Nehemiah Upcott's family tree.

• Devon Family History Society — devonfhs.org.uk, and a reminder to consider joining the FHS of any UK region you’re interested in.

• Historic Cullompton — historiccullompton.co.uk/the-cloth-trade.

• Heritage Gateway (Hobhorse mill) — heritagegateway.org.uk/gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MDV21346&resourceID=104.

• GENUKI — genuki.org.uk/big/eng/DEV/Probate/DevonWills/Wills1661.

  A sidebar here to reference Emma’s delightful interview with Brian Randell of GENUKI for her Journeys into Genealogy podcast.

  GENUKI with Brian Randell

• TNA 1661 Will discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D895785.

• South West Heritage Trust devon-cat.swheritage.org.uk.

You’ll know Emma for her two Substack publications: My Family History, where she shares stories from her tree, and the acclaimed podcast:

Have you just discovered the Projectkin Community Forum and this wonderful genealogy community on Substack? Welcome, it’s a delight to have you. I look forward to seeing you at future free Projectkin events. You’ll find many more programs like these in our events calendar:

Projectkin.org/events