Norman and Richard John Annett; a father and son team. Norman (b.1927, Exeter, Devon) spent his professional  life in the Education Service, the last thirty of which as a headmaster. From  1958 to 1963 he served at the North Molton County Primary School on the fringe of Exmoor leaving to open a new school, Wilcombe County Primary, in the market and industrial town of Tiverton, Devon. There he remained for twenty-five years  through several organisational changes after his school became one of the  largest in the county. Always interested in history he became well known for his work in the  localities in which he lived and particularly for his work on the parish of  North Molton. The Devonshire Association, of which he became Chairman of Council, published a much-quoted paper on the population of that parish. An  unpublished book held by the West Country Studies Library in Exeter on the same parish is much mined by later writers seeking information on the area. His family had moved from its immediate origins in the south east of England and because of several early deaths amongst his male parental line he was quite  unaware of his family background. Thus in the early 1970's he began to  investigate the Annett Family. He soon discovered the work of Captain Stephen  Frederick Annett who had carried out a long-term investigation between the two  world wars and into the 1950's and copied all his correspondence and used it as  a basis for further work. A broad approach to selected holders of the family name proved useful in contacting other interested people and a long-term exchange of information followed. From this Norman drew up family charts of different Annett families  with the hope that further investigation would one day link some together. Indeed this has happened. At the outset much information was gathered regarding those whose name was Annetts, rather than Annett and all was gathered in although it soon became  clear that whereas those with a consistent Annett surname could claim an immigrant background the Annetts were a native family whose antecedents were in  Wessex. Some twenty years after Norman began his personal  odyssey, his elder son, Richard John (b. 1953, Reading, Berkshire), who had helped at various times in the recording of basic registrations in the public  domain, saw the merits of converting the information contained in many charts  and folders into a more readily accessible form on the computer. He then investigated the various programmes available commercially for the storage of genealogical information and assessed their usefulness. He carried  out the first transference of information from the Annett charts to computer format via the 'Pedigree' suite of programmes. Latterly, more extensive use has  been made of 'The Ultimate Family Tree' and the 'Family Tree Maker' programmes each of which has complementary strengths. He then instructed his father on how  best to  record the information and develop the various family groups into separate files. As a result the different Annett family groups recorded have  been put into 'Gedcom' files for easy transmittal to any interested party. Richard's professional background is quite different from that of his father.  A scientist who graduated in mathematics from the Imperial College of Science  and Technology, London,  and with a personal interest in astronomy, he was first  employed by British Aerospace, Filton. There he specialised in the analysis of  the dynamics and control of both spin stabilised and flexible spacecraft. He was deeply involved with the design of the 'Giotto' satellite that was successfully  launched and intercepted Halley's Comet and had a considerable input to the  design of the solar array tracking system for the 'Hubble Space Telescope'. He later went to work for 'Flight Refuelling', a company based in Dorset which was a pioneer in that particular sphere. This internationally renown company, a member of Cobham plc, is deeply involved in the manufacture of equipment and systems for the world's commercial and military aircraft. In his capacity as Director and General Manager of FR-HiTEMP, the aerospace components Division of Flight Refuelling Ltd he worked closely with numerous of the world's leading Aerospace manufacturers, and was directly in charge of factories both in  the UK and the USA. He combined an active business life with hobbies which include breeding pedigree Shropshire sheep and flying helicopters!. Unfortunayely, Richard died recently at an early age. It is Richard who, when investigating family links on the internet, suggested  that the initial Annett web site be opened so that information on the family world wide may be  more easily gathered and distributed. The challenge has been taken up of getting the site back to the Web by another Richard, the son of Ken.