There should be a picture of Maria Stockdale (c.1854-??) here, but I haven't found one yet...

That's where the picture record runs dry, but now let us speed up time a little, and look further back into the past, to those venerable Butlers of Ormonde...

And now, let's - but hang on, this time machine's going faster and faster!

I can't control it! The lever's come off in my hand!

Okay. This is just getting weird.

I suppose they are very distinguished trilobites...

And so at last we've reached the primaeval swamp - hurray!

These two bacteria are in fact the very earliest Butlers.

I think there's a family resemblance, don't you?

Yes, I know it's kind of sexist to concentrate on the male line, and I will be climbing out along the other branches of my family tree in due course, but it so happens that my Butler pictures go back further than the rest. Over time I'll be adding information about the people here. Meanwhile, sit back and enjoy a tour into the past...

My grandparents, Montagu and Amy. My grandfather was a harp-playing, vegetarian, Quaker Esperantist - long before it became popular! My grandmother, alas, I never met.

My great-grandfather, Thomas. Thomas was a Church of England clergyman, like many of his brothers. Maria was from the East End of London, daughter of a shoemaker - and before she got married she taught music.

My great-great- grandparents, Thomas and Jane. Thomas spent most of his long life working for the British Museum - of which he was Assistant Secretary by the time he retired. His daughter Annie Robina wrote a book about his life, Nearly a Hundred Years Ago (c.1907).

My great- great- great- grandparents, Weeden and Annabella. Weeden followed his father (also Weeden) in running the school at 6 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. He was the author of the anti-slavery narrative, Zimao the African (1800).

My great- great- great- great- grandparents, Weeden and Anne. Weeden began his school in Chelsea in the early 1780s - the family living there until 1854. By a strange coincidence, this is the very house that was chosen for the Historical House series written by Linda Newbery, Adele Geras and Ann Turnbull - as I discovered only when I happened to find myself sitting next to Linda at an SAS lunch.

My father, Tom. Dad was (amongst many other things) a potter, an art teacher, a masseur, a healer and a dowser. You can hear him talking about inspiration here, in the mid-1980s.

This is where my mother should be, but I feel a bit queasy about putting her picture here when she's very much alive!