Miners, Mercenaries and Millionaires

Welcome to my blog - Miners, Mercenaries and Millionaires – the ramblings of a repressed writer. Now you may be wondering why I chose this slightly unusual title. Well it all started back in 2006 when I undertook to investigate what happened to my elusive great-grandfather Benjamin Dalton with a view to writing up his story in a two or three page essay. As it turns out Benjamin was quite a character. He even created a new branch of the family by using the D’Alton surname when he married my great-grandmother Caroline Dickson in 1902. As I researched further I discovered the interesting exploits of other ancestors. What started out as a seemingly simple exercise soon turned into a mammoth project chronicling the wider family history. Nearly two hundred pages later the resultant book - Miners, Mercenaries and Millionaires - is still a work in progress. Along the way I have discovered long lost relatives around the world and had the privilege of working with some interesting researchers...