Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2025 i Family Tree UK

This remarkable Victorian building, which served customers for over one hundred years, is a time capsule of commercial history. Once an ironmonger, the shop owner John Henry Adams specialised in fitting and maintaining Hagan Norwegian ice skates – lightweight metal-based speed skates popular with local fen skaters. Through the Historic England Missing Pieces Project, the organisation would love to hear the stories of people who worked at or visited the shop and for people to add their photos, memories and more. • https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/missing-pieces/…

Read on to learn Dr Sophie Kay’s views on how, by taking a more structured and thoughtful approach, you can unlock breakthroughs and save yourself hours of frustration. Plus learn about three genealogy ‘tools’ that can actually help you accomplish this. Why is having a methodology so important to your genealogical research? ‘A research methodology – the how-to roadmap of our investigations – can sound scary if someone hasn’t tried to approach things in a more structured way before,’ explains Sophie. ‘But I want you to think of a good research methodology as being like the scaffolding that’s going to help you construct a really wonderful building. I think sometimes there can be a misconception that being very structured and focused about our research takes all the fun out of…

We begin this month with an intriguing submission from David Capewell which is as much an own goal as a transcription error. While researching records for his ancestor John Caple, David discovered that in 1813 John began a 7-year-and-1-month apprenticeship with William Booth, a knife maker. The transcribed information is: Caple John, son of Eliz., Sheppard hat, Eyam, sp.; to Booth Wm., k.; 7-1, 1813 At first, David spent considerable time searching for a marriage between Elizabeth Caple and a man named Sheppard. He also pored over numerous maps of the area around Eyam in Derbyshire, trying to locate a place called ‘hat’. It wasn’t until he took a closer look at the punctuation in the original record that everything finally began to make sense. It reads: John Caple is…

I grew up with no grandparents on my mother’s side, my mum (Evelyn Nellie Malyon) having become an orphan at the age of 5 with no knowledge of her father (her mum having tragically died in 1917 when her nightdress caught fire). In 2008, I started researching through Ancestry to see if I could find out about my grandfather. By this time, I did have a name – William George Malyon. Almost immediately I found someone on Ancestry researching the Malyon name, so I contacted him and sure enough we established that his Malyon family were also my Malyon family. The fact that my mum was born in the home of his Malyons sealed it. This was a family I never knew existed. This led me to meeting Marguerita Beatrice…

One of the major reasons people take a DNA test is to find a ‘missing’ ancestor. It may be that they have no knowledge of their family due to adoption or were brought up by a single parent with no information about their unknown father or mother. Perhaps in your family history research you have uncovered an illegitimate ancestor and want to find out who was the daddy! But how likely is it that DNA will help you uncover those potential brick walls? The truth is … it’s difficult to know. There are several factors that can have a positive or negative effect on your chances of success. I’m going to show you how I approached some missing ancestor searches I’ve been involved in, and some of the tips and…

Is this a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse)? Q One of the photos is of my paternal grandmother in what I’m sure is a VAD uniform but I can’t find her listed anywhere. I’m assuming this was c. 1914/16, as my father was born early 1918. She was born and brought up in India, her father being a British soldier, and married in 1902, aged 20. Her husband, my grandfather, a Scotsman, was a Sgt Major in the Mounted Infantry. Both were living in Poona, India. I’m sure as a married woman she couldn’t be a VAD and she does look younger than the 20-year-old bride. Not sure what she has on the chain/ribbon, although it looks like a ring but she would surely have had to wear that under…

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What was the significance of the Bayham Abbey uprising? 4 June 2025 marked the 500th anniversary of the Bayham Abbey Uprising (1525), a remarkable story of courage which saw over 100 men from the surrounding villages of Kent and Sussex, with painted faces and armed with makeshift weapons, swords and clubs, storm the abbey. The cause of their dismay? It’s closure by Cardinal Wolsey. Viewed by historians as a foretaste of the turbulent years of religious reform to follow, Bayham Abbey’s suppression and the subsequent protest is an indication of the esteem in which monastic houses were held. This was not just a spiritual matter however – as the abbey was also a significant employer. The rioters and the men who took part in the uprising were predominantly local tradesmen,…

June 2025 saw an additional 69,000 records added to the Railway Work Life & Death Project (bringing the total to 125,000 records). It’s a project that Dr Mike Esbester has been passionate about since its inception, to make railway records more accessible via a freely available online index. ‘It is a project about our railway past, but it is about our social, cultural history,’ explains Dr Esbester. And it’s a project that includes more of our ancestors than you might at first think. In 1913 alone, for instance, 30,000 railway workers were injured, and 4,000 passengers. Admittedly many of the accidents were minor, but in an era before statutory sick pay and antibiotics, any injury could have a significant impact on our ancestors’ lives. Dr Esbester has found that the…

There’s nothing I love more than a madcap gallop down the decades, seeing just how far I can go on one ancestor’s line before I have to take a tug on the reins. So with the Tonge family still largely unchartered territory, I head to Findmypast to search for my great-grandfather John, born c1864. Crumbs, that returns 90-odd BMD/parish register hits, and almost 1,500 census/survey results, but when I look closely, there are actually only two births registered in Bolton that year, one in the June quarter, one in the September. And as the 1939 Register says John’s birthday was 9 August, it must be the latter. Order a download of the birth entry from the GRO and job done. What about a baptism? John’s marriage certificate names his father…

A confession! My name is Claire Bradley and I’m a professional genealogist with a confession. I don’t use any of the main family tree software programs. I do have something very old, out of date and buggy, so was delighted to take part in Family Tree’s project to test out various programs. I was allotted RootsMagic10, which is one of the market leaders. Phil Isherwood’s article last month discussed criteria and requirements for family history software. For me, the software needs to do two crucial things: • Collect all my data, prompt me to find other details and have space to grow; • Produce diagrams that I can use in my client reports. Many people will also want software to generate reports showing ancestry across multiple generations filling in all…

Q: Is my maternal grandfather a Wellbrook or a Johnson? Reader Michael Goodey writes: My mother Edith Maud (Tessa) Newble (born 1916) was the illegitimate daughter of Emma Newble, née Adams (born 1877). Emma was previously married to Joseph Lewis Newble, but he died in 1911. I have tested my DNA with Ancestry and have matches with Wellbrook descendants including Sally (185cM) and Wendy (183cM) and matches with Johnson descendants such as George (398cM) and Doris (285cM) who are half siblings. Both Wellbrook and Johnson could be my mother’s father, but who is the most likely? William Thomas Johnson senior (born 1886) was a New Zealand seaman, who made his way to Great Britain during the First World War, where the suggestion is that he fathered my mother. He already…

Little lies I was interested to read Kim Bull’s letter (FT April 2025), in which she writes that her ancestor’s husband William Auld was named as the father of Sidney Harry Thomas Auld years after his death – as my greatgrandmother, Hannah Barned, also had her mother’s husband named as her father on her birth certificate years after his death. Hannah’s mother, Ann Brompton/Brumpton (known as Annie), was born in Newark on Trent, the daughter of Joseph and Mary Brompton née Strutt. Her family bible gives her date of birth as 13 April 1840, though it is likely she was born in 1841 as Ann Brompton’s birth is registered in Newark in the 1841 June quarter. On 28 May 1860 she gave birth to her first daughter in Newark, Sarah…

When I was thirty-two I wrote a poem about my old age. I’m not sure why I felt the weight of years at that time, but probably because it was my final year at university, and I was sad to be leaving the academic life. The words ‘mature student’ may have rung the tolling bell! I was writing my thesis on a certain John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, Restoration rake, libertine and poet of searing satirical wit on the human condition. He died aged thirty-three after a colourful life. Don’t look him up if you’re feeling a bit down, have delicate sensibilities or find more than a pinch of filth offensive! Do read on though because, never fear, this isn’t going to be an English lesson. My thoughts on family…

Helen Tovey & Karen Evans report on news from the world of genealogy. Do you have a story to share? Please email helen.t@family-tree.co.uk Medieval expert Professor David Carpenter was looking through Harvard’s online catalogue when he spotted a charter dated 1327 in Harvard Law Library. When he saw a digital image he instantly realised that it looked very like the version of Magna Carta confirmed by King Edward I in 1300, the final issue. Prof Carpenter immediately sent the image to his colleague Prof Nicholas Vincent asking him: “Is this what I think it is?”. Prof Vincent’s rapid response being, effectively, yes! Prof Carpenter believes the document was misidentified as a copy, and mis-catalogued by the auction house – which had bought the ‘somewhat rubbed and damp-stained’ vellum from First…

On 10 June 2025 Findmypast and the British Library announced an ambitious extension to their historical newspaper digitisation project. The renewed contract will see an estimated further 70 million pages digitised. These will be made available to the public over the next five years. A wider range of regional and national newspapers will be covered, and the number of specialist titles in the archive will be increased. Greater coverage of titles representing minority communities and newspapers from across the Commonwealth will be included, too. At the same time, Findmypast will continue to improve the accessibility of the existing digital archive. Originally launched in 2011, the Findmypast-British Library newspaper digitisation project has delivered over 90 million pages covering the UK and Ireland. The newspaper collection comprises thousands of regional, national and…

As a professional genealogist I’m sometimes asked to carry out research into a particular individual – to, in effect, compile a biography. These requests most frequently come from one of my oldest and most valued clients, John Sly. John is a military medal collector who specialises in the campaign medals awarded to men who fought at the Battle of Albuera in 1811, in the Crimean War (1853–56), in the Tyrah Campaign (1897–98) and in the Great War (1914–18). Like many medal collectors John has adopted what we might call a 21st century approach to the subject and is keen to find out as much as possible about the person behind the medal. And this is where I come in. Over the years, John has very generously allowed me to use…

Over the years, I’ve shared numerous examples of our ancestors’ marriage records that contain unusual or seemingly incorrect information. But what do you do when the mistake, or omission, is on your own marriage record, and your own marriage entry is actually missing from the GRO index? Well, that’s precisely what Alan Wilkinson encountered while he and a friend were indexing the Wilkinson family’s births, marriages, and deaths in Lincolnshire. At first, Alan thought his friend had simply made a transcription mistake, so he decided to verify the record himself and to his amazement, the index entry for his own marriage was nowhere to be found. Curious, Alan examined other marriages conducted around the same time, by the same vicar and discovered that several of those were also missing from…

This is one in a series of articles; the intention is to provide an overview of useful family and local history records in existence, covering the period 1066-1485. Each article can be enjoyed as a standalone read, but the maximum benefit will be enjoyed by reading the entire series. The series will include leads and resources for all countries within the British Isles, while the case study woven through the articles is that of an English parish, Stannington, Northumberland, north-east England. Let’s get started with the case study. The case study begins … • A Norman knight – The case study begins with the Barony of Morpeth, which was initially granted to William de Merlay (Figure 1), a Norman knight in the service of Geoffrey de Montbray, Bishop of Coutances. Bishop…

Scroll back in time: how Japan joined the war Since 1940 Japan had been devoid of civilian politicians as the parties had been dissolved by the militaristic Imperial Rule Assistance Association, led by Lt General Hideki Tojo. Over the intervening years of the war, this went on to rule the now hardline military parliament. Japan lacked natural resources and had invaded China, Korea and Formosa to gain access to such. Hitler and Goering urged the Japanese to attack and take Singapore Many political wranglings – about French Indo-China and total trade embargoes, and the dominance of the European powers in the area – led to the Japanese Prime Minister, Tojo, to send Matsuoka, his foreign minister to Berlin in March 1941. There, Hitler and Goering urged the Japanese to attack…

Make-do and mend: up-cycling in World War II During and after WWII essential resources were needed for the war effort and postwar reconstruction, their use by civilians being directly controlled by the British government. Rationing, the Utility clothing scheme and ‘austerity’ orders effectively restricted the manufacture and consumption of dress items, many becoming scarce or disappearing completely. Also needed was a major shift in the concept of ‘fashion’ and widespread reduction in consumer demand for new garments and accessories. The new initiative In Summer 1942 the Board of Trade launched a ‘Make-Do and Mend’ campaign to encourage civilians to ‘…utilise every old garment before considering anything new’. This was both practical and necessary, the sense of compromise and self-sacrifice also appealing strongly to the public’s keen sense of patriotism. As…