Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2017 i Who Do You Think You Are?

ADVERTISING 0117 314 8823 andy.williams@immediate.co.uk EDITORIAL 0117 314 7400 wdytyaeditorial@immediatemedia.co.uk Q&A QUERIES wdytyaquestions@ immediate.co.uk SUBSCRIPTIONS 0844 844 0939* wdytya@servicehelpline.co.uk WDYTYA? APP SUPPORT apps.immediate. co.uk/support WEBSITE QUERIES wdytyaeditorial@ immediatemedia.co.uk *Calls to this number from a BT landline will cost no more than 5p per minute. Calls from mobiles and other providers may vary. Overseas subscribers call 01795 414697…

1.2 million – the number of civil registration records from the German city of Nuremberg that appear in a free index available at familysearch.org 48 skeletons of Black Death victims, 27 of them children, have been excavated near Immingham, Lincolnshire. Story at bit.ly/2gwzBY0 750,000 US Presbyterian church records have been published on ancestry.co.uk. (available to UK users with a Worldwide subscription) 117 – the age of Emma Morano, the last living person in the world to be born in the 19th century. She celebrated her birthday on Tuesday 29 November 4.2 million viewers tuned in to watch Danny Dyer’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are? when it aired on BBC One on Thursday 24 November…

Every year thousands of family history enthusiasts from across the globe flock to Who Do You Think You Are? Live in Birmingham in the hope of meeting like-minded genealogists, furthering their research and crucially finding that all-important brick wall breakthrough. That is most certainly the case of three Belgians who met at the show and found common ground when embarking on a mission to find the identity of a mysterious British Tommy. With the upcoming First World War centenary commemorations in mind, Philippe Maree of the Belgian Tourist Office decided to take a stall at the show in 2011, presenting attendees with the opportunity to visit the locations where their ancestors fought and are commemorated on the Western Front. “We thought that it would be a great way to talk…

Quarter sessions These mid-level courts, local to every county, met four times a year and dealt with a range of crimes from sheep stealing to robbery. Collin’s trial paper was among quarter session files at the Devon Heritage Centre (formerly the Devon Record Office) and revealed details of his crime of indirectly stealing from the King. Muster rolls In a time before individual army service records, regimental muster rolls held at The National Archives are the next best thing. Recorded every month for accounting purposes, they list the name of every officer and private and show where a regiment is stationed. As well as detailing the wages for each man, a ‘notes’ column provides extra details, for example, if a soldier was sick, deserted, or had died. Royal Marines ‘description’…

Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum was England’s first secure psychiatric hospital. It was built amongst the pines of Windsor Forest; a vast, Victorian walled estate, set on a ridge and with fine views across the valley below. When Lazarus Hempstead was admitted in 1864, Broadmoor had been open just over a year. Lazarus was one of 100 men and 20 women moved from Bethlem Hospital in London to their new, rural location. Over the next few years, Broadmoor grew in size until it housed 500 patients. They had all been transferred from the justice system: either found not guilty at trial and sentenced to detention “at Her Majesty’s pleasure”, or diagnosed with mental illness while in prison. Many of the patients – both male and female – had killed their nearest…

Q I’m researching my husband’s great great grandfather John Ferguson. He was born in 1805 in Scotland, possibly in Halistra, Isle of Skye. The 1841 census shows a John Ferguson of about the right age living there with his father, Donald, and siblings, Flory, Alexander and Duncan, but no births or marriages were recorded on the island until 1818. Later census records show John serving in the Royal Artillery, though his son John’s birth certificate states that in February 1854, he was with the 95th regiment as a master tailor. I cannot find them in the 1861 census, and believe he may have been serving abroad. The Indian Mutiny Medal Roll 1857-1859 lists a private John Ferguson of the 95th Foot (Derbyshire), service number 3826, with notes stating that he…

‘The magazines are particularly poignant in 1914-18, where issues are peppered with obituaries’ Delving into our family histories, we often try to discover which schools our ancestors attended. Many schools have their own archives, while for others you may find records deposited in county record offices or city archives. Among the collections, you find magazines which give us insight into school life and if you’re really lucky you may find mentions of your ancestor or even articles written by them. This month, Nikki Thorpe, archivist at Bromsgrove School in Worcestershire, tells us about why she loves its historic collection of school magazines. Which document have you chosen? I have chosen The Bromsgrovian, Bromsgrove’s school magazine, which was published termly from November 1881 and has continued for 135 years. The first…

The 1908 Old Age Pensions Act is often credited as the beginning of Britain’s welfare system. However, the provision of regular pensions to the elderly or needy goes back much further. The workhouse was the most visible part of the poor relief system, but a greater portion of the poor rates was always spent on supporting people outside the workhouse. This could be as an ongoing, regular payment or the one-off purchase of items such as shoes, clothing or other necessities. An interesting picture of this system is given by parish overseers’ account books, such as those from Dorset now available via Ancestry. In November 1799, at Holy Trinity, Dorchester, 35 named individuals or families were receiving a regular weekly payment, typically around 1s 6d, with 15 of the recipients…

Register entry The page shown contains two DDR entries. The bottom half of the page relates to Silvester Reed. The deceased Name, occupation and date of death of the deceased: Silvester Reed, innkeeper, died 27 February 1861. Executors Silvester’s executors were his wife, Ann, his son, Silvester, printer of Whitby, and Simeon Templeman, farmer of Pocklington. Probate court Date and court where the will was proved: 24 May 1861 York Registry (the year is at the top of the page). Duties owed These columns provide information on the duty owed and payments made. In this case £6 was due, paid on 17 July 1861. Observations Silvester’s daughter Sarah is named and the note states that she took a coffee pot in addition to her original legacies. Will date Date the…

Some of the best and most accessible adoption resources around at the moment are online, and can go some way to take the place of missing or inaccessible original sources. However, it is essential to try to verify any information you find. Adoption files Records may still be held by the agency or society, if it is still in existence, or maybe with another agency evolved from the original one. Expect access restrictions to be in place, especially if you are not one of the key individuals involved at the time, or a close relative of the adoptee. Adoption organisations The sourcing of adoption records is a volatile area, with increasing interest in the subject prompting new information constantly being added to the various databases. The outstanding, regularly updated adoptionsearchreunion.org.uk…

The daughter of a gentleman, Kate Fox trained as a lady nurse at the Norland Institute in 1894. After graduation, she was soon posted abroad. Travelling with the aristocratic Italian Ruspoli family, Kate quickly became accustomed to a train of servants. Yet aspects of the privileged lifestyle went against all her training. On her arrival in Italy, she was shocked to find “Edmondo aged five, eating a three-or four-course dinner immediately before going to bed”. In 1903, Kate moved to the Greek royal family, caring for Prince Nicholas’s first child Olga, with Princesses Elisabeth and Marina quickly following. Kate described accompanying the family on a diplomatic visit to Constantinople, where the bed linens were “too good to lie on”, and where the Sultan conferred on her a national award. Moving…

FAMILY MEMBERS It’s worth making contact with other distant members of the family via online family history communities or via post/email to pool resources and verify your findings. They may have access to information you don’t and in some cases vital documents may have been passed down their branch of the family. WORKHOUSE RECORDS These and other related Poor Law records can be a real treasure trove of information about ancestors who fell on hard times. Many of these are coming online now (findmypast.co.uk and ancestry.co.uk) but much can still be discovered in local archives. The workhouse infirmaries were often used as hospitals by those who couldn’t afford a doctor – say, in childbirth – so an ancestor recorded there may not necessarily have been an inmate (see p52).…

The London Metropolitan Archives houses some 100km of records City of London Jonathan Scott visits the City of London to discover records for researchers interested in the Square Mile The City of London sits at the heart of the modern-day capital, on the site where the Romans established a settlement soon after the invasion of 43 AD. It’s often known simply as the City or the Square Mile. The medieval walled city had seven ancient gates, all of which were gradually demolished from the 1760s, although their names survive in the streets and tube stations. For centuries, commerce in the City was concentrated in markets such as Smithfield, Billingsgate and Leadenhall, and some major institutions were established here, including St Bartholomew’s Hospital, the Guildhall, and various livery halls and Inns…

The Victorian Slum DVD (Spirit Entertainment, £12.99) If you were gripped by the BBC2 series The Victorian Slum then you’ll be pleased to know that it’s now out on DVD. The show took modern families (who had slum-dwelling ancestors) and gave them a taste of what life would have been like for their forebears in London’s East End in the 19th century. The families even experienced professions, such as tailoring and candle-making. Bradshaw’s Continental Railway Guide (Collins, £20) When it was first published in 1853, Bradshaw’s Continental Railway Guide provided travel information in unprecedented detail, which helped your Victorian ancestors explore the Continent. This beautiful hardback reprint gives a real insight into the adventures of 19th-century travellers, with plenty of vivid descriptions of destinations, hotel information and railway timetables. A…

LONDON Reel to Reel: A Century of War Movies Until 8 January IWM LONDON iwm.org.uk/visits/iwm-london 020 7416 5000 Go behind the scenes of some of the most famous war films in history and learn how cinema has taken inspiration from real-life conflicts. Adult tickets £10. My Ancestor Was an Agricultural Labourer 14 January SOCIETY OF GENEALOGISTS sog.org.uk/events 020 7553 3290 Nearly everyone has an ‘ag lab’ or two lurking in their family tree. In this three-hour afternoon session, Ian Waller reveals the best resources for learning more about their lives. Price £20. SOUTH-EAST PAST Skills & Methodology Workshop 24-25 January THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES bit.ly/PAST24Jan Hosted by The National Archives, this two-day course will provide advice on using medieval and early modern sources. Although it’s aimed at postgraduate students, other researchers…

Historic Liverpool If your ancestors are as Liverpudlian as actor Ricky Tomlinson’s then you can learn a lot about their lives by visiting historic-liverpool.co.uk. It’s free to search with a lot of detail relating to the city’s past including maps, plus localised histories 1 One option is to read the history of a local area of Liverpool. For example, Ricky had a great many ancestors living in the Everton area, so it could be useful to focus your research on Everton. Navigate to the homepage and choose the option to explore ‘Historic townships’. 2 A map of the different townships of Liverpool will appear. As we’re interested in Everton in this case, click on the area to see what information is available. Click on a ‘History of Everton’ or explore…

‘The excited crew of the Russell cheered wildly as he drew close and hauled him aboard’ Every family hopes to find heroes, those who have gone above and beyond inspire us all. One WDYTYA? Magazine reader can look back proudly on his 3x great grandfather, Samuel Northcote, who not only saved a ship but all those aboard when a savage gale struck. “He swam from one ship to another through the storm carrying a cable to rescue a stricken vessel,” says Tony Cole. The events in question took place in early February 1838, when a violent storm hit a mixed fleet of English merchant and naval vessels sheltering in Gibraltar Bay. “As the savagery of the storm increased, HMS Bellerophon was driven ashore and 53 merchantmen wrecked,” says Tony. “Nearby…

Ever since we first ran it in 2010, our annual ‘websites to watch’ feature has grown in both size (the first time we did it, it was just 25 sites) and stature (it is now seen as the definitive preview of the year ahead for family historians). I hope you enjoy going through the list and discovering the new datasets and features coming our way in 2017 (p17). Do please email us if there is a website you would like us to contact next year! I also want to take this opportunity to highlight our first ever transcription day on 17 January (p12). I don’t think there’s a family historian out there who hasn’t benefited from the work of thousands of volunteers across the globe, who transcribe records so that…

‘Sometimes, I fear, the same man had more than one family’ Towering achievements On a visit to the majestic Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, Alan Crosby remembers the men behind this feat of 19th-century engineering Last October, I very courageously took a canal trip across Pontcysyllte Aqueduct near Llangollen. I’d visited before, but on those occasions I had very hesitantly ventured onto the towpath, walked about 20 yards, and then took fright – I don’t have a good head for heights and it’s really scary. For a start, the aqueduct is 38.4 metres high (126 feet in old money). What’s much worse is that the towpath merely has widely-spaced railings instead of a comfortingly solid wall and the trough which carries the canal has no parapet – you simply look over into the…

“ was obsessed with dressing up as a I French person,” recalled actor and Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden as she contemplated a snapshot of her childhood self in full French onion seller garb – complete with string of onions, beret and pencilled-on moustache. In many ways the image is unremarkable, but it reveals a deep-seated passion. “Amanda had this French fascination,” says director Russell England. “She really wanted to find that French link – but it wasn’t what she thought it was going to be at all.” From a Napoleonic love affair to a Second World War disaster, the French connections WDYTYA? uncovered were the result of some difficult research. Amanda’s mum Judith had already found a French link on her family tree. She and Amanda wanted to…

LUNATIC ASYLUM RECORDS If you have an ancestor who was detained at Broadmoor, the Berkshire Record Office (berkshirerecordoffice.org. uk) should be your first port of call as it looks after the institution’s archives. These are available for family history research – subject to restrictions. You must first download a form from its website. Documents available include material from the Victorian period up to 2004, such as plans, maps, staff records, patient records, plus photos of patients, staff and the site itself. To research asylums elsewhere in the country, check local record offices for holdings. Some material is also available via the Wellcome Library (wellcomelibrary.org/collections/digital-collections/mental-healthcare). PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE It’s amazing what letters and documents passed down through the family can reveal. With a bit of digging you can put them into context and…

Cheryl’s journey took her back to her roots in Northumberland and followed a paternal branch of the family, the Laings. Many of the Laings were merchant mariners in the 19th century. Cheryl found records for her 4x great grandfather, John Wood Laing, who became a master mariner in the 1850s. She traced his career and learned of his tragic death in 1857 when his ship, The Belle, was wrecked while returning from a voyage to Canada. Cheryl traced his career using a variety of merchant mariner records, including mariner tickets, masters’ certificates and ships’ logs. The original records are still held at The National Archives (nationalarchives. gov.uk/help-with-your-research/  research-guides/merchantseaman-serving-1858-1917) or the Martime Museum (rmg. co.uk/discover/researchers/research-guides/research-guide-c13-merchant-navy-tracing-merchant-seamen). Ancestry and Findmypast have many of these records too. Details of the shipwreck were found in newspaper…

Death duty registers (DDRs) are an important tool for English and Welsh research, providing some useful information about those forebears whose estates were subject to death duties. Running from 1796-1903, survival rates are generally good. Contrary to popular belief, death duties did not apply solely to the rich; by 1857 any estate worth over £20 was affected and a surprisingly high proportion of estates before this date were also liable. The format of DDR entries changed over time. Before 1812, you will find brief details of the deceased, including their occupation and address, the name of their executor, the value of the estate for death duty purposes, and a short abstract of the will. From 1812, you will usually find more information, not just about the deceased, but also about…

You can search by name, street and unit and even find out how many Cheshire men were in the Camel Corps! Suffrage for soldiers Volunteers in Cheshire are busy transcribing the Absent Voters Lists of 1919, Alan Crosby discovers Parliament passed the Representation of the People Act in February 1918, giving the vote to all men aged 21 and upwards and most women aged 30 or over. With the First World War still raging, it was also decided to give the vote to men who had turned 19 during military service. These young men could register as ‘absent voters’, to vote in the next general election, even though they were still under 21, and were recorded in special lists, additional to the usual electoral register. The men had to register…

ARCHIVES • Princess Christian Nurseries at Manchester Archives www.manchester.gov.uk/info/448/archives_and_local_ history • Wellgarth Training School at London Metropolitan Archives search.lma.gov.uk Several nursing training college archives are publicly accessible, such as these. BOOKS • From Cradle to Crown, C Zeepvat (Sutton, 2006) Royal nannies. • Nanny Knows Best, K Holden, (History Press, 2013) A survey of childcare from the 1800s. • The Victorian House, Judith Flanders , (HarperCollins, 2003). Vivid detail of nursery life. • Many archives hold diaries, like those of nursery nurse Alice Baldwin, who trained in 1916, (held by the LSE Library), or nanny to German aristocrats, Kathleen Wanstall’s First World War scrapbook, (at Churchill College, Cambridge).…

1865 BRITAIN'S FIRST FEMALE DOCTOR When Elizabeth Garrett put up a brass plate outside her house in 1865 and opened the door to patients, she also opened the door for any woman to aspire to be a doctor. Elizabeth had always aimed for this success. Stories were told of how as a child she promised to “start women in medicine”. She was the second of 12 children of a corn merchant in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. While attending school in London, she complained about the lack of mathematics and science in the curriculum for girls. Elizabeth read in a journal of the visit to the UK of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor in America, and travelled to see her. They became friends and Blackwell encouraged her to follow medicine as a…

1381 Wat Tyler leads the Peasant Revolt on London. City buildings are ransacked and the Archbishop of Canterbury is beheaded. Tyler is eventually killed by soldiers during negotiations at Smithfield. 1598 An Aldgate tailor, John Stow, publishes his history and topographical Survey of London. It will become an important record of the layout of the capital before the Great Fire of 1666. 1748 Samuel Johnson moves into 17 Gough Square. Here he will compile A Dictionary of the English Language, first issued in 1755. 1760 The seven gates of the City of London (Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Moorgate, Cripplegate, Aldersgate, Newgate and Ludgate) begin to be demolished. Sections of the medieval walls can still be seen in the grounds of the Museum of London. 1814 The final Frost Fair is held on…

APP PhotoScan Google Photos, free There are always times when you want to share an original photo with family members or fellow researchers. This nifty Google app makes it easy to scan your snaps using your phone without glare and it’ll even rotate them so their always the right way up. This app is available for both iOS and Android devices. WATCH Discovery for Family History, free   www.youtube.com/ watch?v=GRFW1uOam-Y Audrey Collins is a records specialist focusing on family history search at The National Archives. In this informative hour-long talk, she gives an insight into using TNA's Discovery catalogue to boost your genealogical research. This talk includes some great advice for beginners. EBOOK Genetic Genealogy in Practice by Blaine T Bettinger and Debbie Parker Wayne Amazon Kindle, £7.93 If you’ve just…

Our annual look ahead is again being shaped by events that took place 100 years ago. Great War centenaries are continuing to generate online content and this year anniversaries include the US entering the war in April and the Battle of Passchendaele in July. Some other highlights for 2017 include a new geographic website from the National Library of Wales, which will initially be launched with output from the crowd-sourcing Cynefin project (cynefin.archives wales.org.uk), plus we have news of some fresh datasets on the horizon for Findmypast, Ancestry, TheGenealogist and more. In our look towards 2017, we’ve had unrivalled cooperation from friends in record offices and archives across the UK. Despite difficult times and budgetary constraints at present, there’s lots of innovation and sheer (volunteer-led) hard work out there, all designed…

Thousands of Allied servicemen and civilian refugees crammed aboard the Lancastria . Most of the servicemen had been working in supply and transport bases of the Royal Army Service Corps, Royal Engineers, Ordnance Corps and RAF. When the Germans crossed the River Somme, they began a chaotic retreat to the coast, where the Lancastria was anchored in the Loire estuary near St Nazaire when the bombs struck. With no lists of men aboard, the Army and RAF struggled to compile casualty lists. Nominal rolls for units were assembled by Regimental Record Offices and matched against men who’d survived, but no-one knew who’d even reached St Nazaire, let alone boarded the Lancastria . Many men might yet be prisoners of war, killed elsewhere or still uncaptured. Slowly something like a casualty…

‘Soon after her return, Lazarus’ mental health seemed to deteriorate’ All families have some mysteries. But for Maureen Evans the whole of her ancestry was a closed book – one that ultimately turned out to contain some very dark secrets. “My mother never allowed any discussion about our family, so I had no idea where I came from,” she told Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine. While this was just “the way things were” when Maureen was young, as she grew older Maureen became curious about her roots. “When I got to 55 and retirement started to loom, I began to look around for something to do,” she says. “I thought I’d give family history a try and enrolled in a class. That gave me the skills to get…

MEET OUR EXPERTS PAUL BLAKE co-wrote Discover Your Roots and is a Fellow of the Society of Genealogists (SoG). JANET DEMPSEY is a records specialist at The National Archives, concentrating on maritime and transport records. SARA KHAN is lead genealogist on the Who Do You Think You Are? BBC TV series. ANTONY MARR is a member of the Association of Genealogists and researchers in Archives (AGRA). ALAN STEWART is a family historian with 30 years of genealogy experience and author of Grow Your Own Family Tree. STEPHEN THOMAS is a genealogist with more than 20 years of experience and appears regularly on TV as an expert. PHIL TOMASELLI is a military family history expert and the author of Tracing Your Air Force Ancestors. IAN WALLER is vice chairman of the…

Photo age? bit.ly/2gDU6kW Found the attached photo last weekend (right) In a trunk of papers that belonged to my great grandfather and I’m now wondering whether this was his father. If anyone could help me date this, it would help no end. Also a good guess at his age too? The photo was almost unrecognisable as a photo as it was in a lovely little leather box, which at first I thought was a mirror box (about two inches square) but if I tilted it at an angle the image appeared. Looks like the image is directly processed on to copper. Any thoughts? RichardJohnston Finding a foreign ancestor bit.ly/2geDVxv It has long been said in our family that we had Russian roots and, on finding my great grandfather…

WEBSITES • The Workhouse workhouses.org.uk Information on the workhouse system and many institutions. • The National Archives Ruskin Avenue, Kew nationalarchives.gov.uk • Connected Histories connectedhistories.org An all-in-one search of several major online resources. BOOKS • The Workhouse Encylopedia Peter Higginbotham (History Press, 2012) A to Z of the workhouse, plus statistical appendices and more. • Poor Law Union Records Volumes 1-4 Jeremy Gibson et al. (Family History Partnership) PLACES TO VISIT • The Workhouse Upton Road, Southwell, Nottinghamshire NG25 0PT. nationaltrust.org.uk/ workhouse A complete workhouse restored by the National Trust. • Ripon Workhouse Museum Allhallowgate, Ripon, North Yorkshire HG4 1LE. riponmuseums.co.uk/ museums/workhouse_ museum_gardens A growing workhouse museum with original tramps’ quarters. • Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse Gressenhall, Dereham, Norfolk NR20 4DR. museums.norfolk.gov.uk/Visit_Us/Gressenhall_Farm_ and_Workhouse Rural life museum with good workhouse displays. •…

‘Death duty’ is a blanket term describing several different taxes levied on the estates of a person after his or her death. The first of these, ‘legacy duty’ was introduced in 1780, although records start in 1796. The tax initially only affected legacies made from a deceased’s personal estate as opposed to real estate (land and buildings). Personal estate (sometimes referred to as ‘personalty’) usually indicated moveable goods. With time, the remit of the tax was widened significantly; notably in the early 1800s when money gained from the sale of the deceased’s real estate or leasehold land was included and in 1853 when all real estate became subject to a new ‘succession duty’ levied on a family’s principal land holding, whether or not it had been sold after the deceased’s…

By 1922 ten bills had been introduced to Parliament aiming to regulate adoption. The Adoption of Children Act finally became law on 1 January 1927, the result of dozens of witness interviews carried out in an attempt to take a broad view. Although the bill was widely perceived as improving the lives of adopted children, it was not welcomed by all. Lieutenant Commander Kenworthy, the Labour MP for Hull Central, declared that it would ‘encourage the breaking up of families and the shirking of the duties of parenthood’. Yet the new act provided important reassurances for adoptive parents, not least removing the fear that birth parents might demand their child back. Any court making an adoption order had to make sure that the birth parent/s clearly understood the implications of…

During the early 20th century, two young nannies were working in starkly different circumstances. In 1914, Margaret Evans found herself taking tea in the Swiss Alps: “two small boys of less than two-and-a-half years were busily engaged at tea, spread for us on the balcony, with a charming view across the lake.” Meanwhile, Susan Field struggled as a nursery maid in Salford: “Just me as a kid to look after four of them. Your work didn’t seem to be ever finished. Kept them clean and helped to feed them and take them out in the park in the pram. I was getting half a crown a week and had to do all the lot.” I Their experiences could not be further apart – one highly trained and paid well for…

He was lost at sea and my great grandmother never got over it How long have you been doing your family history? I started in 2004, just after my son was born. He’s the latest William in the family and I thought it would be something nice to give to him when he’s older. I love history anyway and the family, I knew, had lots of stories so that started me off and it just grew and grew. What had you managed to uncover before hitting your brick wall? My brick wall was on my mum’s side of the family – my great grandfather, Joseph Smith (born 1873). The story was that he was lost at sea and my great grandmother never got over it because she had no grave…

Why doesn’t the code that’s printed in the magazine work correctly? Each bonus content code applies only to the issue of the magazine in which it’s printed. Make sure that you’ve clicked on the red ‘View content’ button next to the cover of the correct issue. Why isn’t the code box appearing? If nothing happens when you click the red ‘View content’ button, it’s possible that firewall or virus-checking software is stopping the website from running JavaScript. You can check to see if this is the case by temporarily halting these programs and then reloading the website. Why is the data only available for a period of six months? Due to the terms and conditions agreed with some of the firms that provide the bonus content for our magazine, we…

Who Do You Think You Are? board game (Clarendon Games, £20) It intrigued me how a board game could be created on the basis of Who Do You Think You Are? The aim of the game is to piece together clues about celebrities’ family trees that are hidden around a map of the world. Players move from country to country, piecing together the clues to answer four key questions about the celebrity (who are all fictitious, although the history is real). The winner is the first to uncover all of the family secrets. Although an interesting idea, the game did not fully live up to my expectations. The game looks good, with a nice design and some interesting ‘celebrities’ and stories to investigate. However, I did find that at times…

PICK OF THE MONTH Union man Who Do You Think You Are? Thursday 22 December, 8pm BBC One Ricky Tomlinson’s father died at the age of just 55. “I should have asked my dad about his side of the family”, says his son, a plasterer-turned-actor who found fame in Brookside, Cracker and The Royle Family. His lack of knowledge about his paternal line leads him to ask a simple question: who were the Tomlinsons? His grandfather, he learns, was a carter, a family trade back to the 1830s. As a former union organiser, Ricky is especially keen to explore the working conditions of his 3x great grandfather, Richard. Riding on a horse and cart of the kind that would once have transported goods around Liverpool, Ricky discovers it…