Emma Elizabeth Thoyts aka Mrs. John Hauntenville Cope, was an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 palaeographer

Palaeography

Palaeography, also spelt paleography is the study of ancient writing. Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating historical manuscripts, and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which writing and books were produced, and the history of...

, historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 and genealogist

Genealogy

Genealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...

.

Emma was born in Bryanston Square

Bryanston Square

Bryanston Square is a square in Marylebone, Westminster, London, England. Named after its owner Henry William Portman's home village of Bryanston in Dorset, it was built as part of the Portman Estate between 1810 and 1815, along with Montagu Square a little to the east and Wyndham Place to its...

, Marylebone

Marylebone

Marylebone is an affluent inner-city area of central London, located within the City of Westminster. It is sometimes written as St. Marylebone or Mary-le-bone....

 in Middlesex

Middlesex

Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...

 on 8 July 1860, the eldest daughter Maj. William Richard Mortimer Thoyts of Sulhamstead House in Berkshire

Berkshire

Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...

 and his wife, Anne Annabella Puleston. She was the great granddaughter of William Thoyts

William Thoyts

William Thoyts was High Sheriff of Berkshire.William was born in 1767 in Bishopsgate, the son of John Thoyts of Sulhamstead House in Berkshire and his wife, Mary, the daughter of Thomas Burfoot, the Treasurer of Christ's Hospital...

, the High Sheriff of Berkshire

High Sheriff of Berkshire

The High Sheriff of Berkshire, in common with other counties, was originally the King's representative on taxation upholding the law in Saxon times. The word Sheriff evolved from 'shire-reeve'....

, and grew up at Sulhamstead House where she gained a fascination for history. She wrote widely, particularly upon subjects related to Sulhamstead

Sulhamstead

Sulhamstead is a village, electoral district and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It lies off the A4 national route between Reading and Thatcham, some west of central London.-Location:thumb|left|250px|1888 Ordnance Survey Parish Boundary Map...

 and the surrounding village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

s and the families who lived there. She transcribed many Berkshire parish register

Parish register

A parish register is a handwritten volume, normally kept in a parish church or deposited within a county record office or alternative archive repository, in which details of baptisms, marriages and burials are recorded.-History:...

s and soon became a recognised expert on the reading of ancient handwriting. One of her few published works, 'How to decipher and study Old Documents' (1893), is still in print today under the title 'How to read Old Documents'. Her many manuscript works are now in the Berkshire Local Studies Library

Library

In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...

 in Reading

Reading, Berkshire

Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....

.

In 1899, Emma married one of the last of the great Cope family from Bramshill House

Bramshill House

Bramshill House is a Jacobean mansion standing on of land in the civil parish of Bramshill in northeast Hampshire in England. It has been the location of the Police Staff College since 1960.-History:...

 in Hampshire

Hampshire

Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...

, John Hautenville Cope. He was a fellow historian and major contributor to the 'Victoria County History

Victoria County History

The Victoria History of the Counties of England, commonly known as the Victoria County History or the VCH, is an English history project which began in 1899 and was dedicated to Queen Victoria with the aim of creating an encyclopaedic history of each of the historic counties of...

 of Berkshire'. The two settled in Finchampstead

Finchampstead

Finchampstead is a civil parish near Wokingham in the English county of Berkshire. Its northern extremity is situated south of Wokingham, west of Bracknell, south-east of Reading, and west of Central London.-Geography:...

 in Berkshire, where Emma died on 9 November 1949, having outlived her husband by seven years and a day. They are buried together in the churchyard at St Mary's, Eversley

Eversley

Eversley is a village and civil parish in the Hart District of North-East Hampshire, England, 21 km North East of Basingstoke. Its northern boundary is formed by the River Blackwater....

, the Cope family burial ground. They also have a memorial plaque

Commemorative plaque

A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, typically attached to a wall, stone, or other vertical surface, and bearing text in memory of an important figure or event...

 inside the church.