Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2018 i Who Do You Think You Are?

I’ve really enjoyed this month. Sharing some of my tips for busting brick walls (see page 15) has reminded me of how much I love family history and the thrill of the chase! If you want to take your sleuthing skills even further, then why not consider a family history course? Claire Vaughan has had a look at what’s on the market – I hope it inspires you (see page 22). It seems an age since the last series of Who Do You Think You Are?, but when I heard that the Scottish Association of Family History Societies was running a conference and family history fair in April (see page 93) with the theme of criminal ancestors it reminded me of singer-songwriter Lulu’s story. During her episode she discovered that…

‘There are many excellent war memorial sites the length of the land, but this is the only one that gives you a universal search’ Memorials to those who lost their lives during the First World War will now be easier to find thanks to the creation of a new free database. The War Memorials Register, published on the Imperial War Museums (IWM) website, contains approximately 1,025,000 names from the UK’s War Memorials and Rolls of Honour and more than 23,000 images of the memorials. The database can be searched by individual or memorial. As well as showing the location of the memorial, gravestone or Roll of Service where they are commemorated, it allows researchers to see what further biographical information is available about their military service and date of death.…

TNA starts charging for parking The National Archives (TNA) began charging for parking on 3 April 2018. TNA said that it had introduced the charges to deter people who weren’t visiting the archives from using the car park, and “to invest in services for the majority who arrive by public transport or use our services online”. The new charges are £2.50 for up to two hours, £4.50 for up to four hours and £7 for over four hours, although there are free parking bays for Blue Badge holders. Findmypast acquires Twile Twile, a start-up that allows users to create a timeline of their family history in parallel with world events and illustrated with infographics, photos and more, has been acquired by Findmypast. The move means that Twile’s timeline feature will…

Family history is a funny business. Sometimes we love it the most when we can’t do it. Of course it’s enormously satisfying when you hit a rich vein of relatives – a family baptised, married and buried in the same parish for generations, or people who stick conveniently in their family groups for the census. But let’s be honest, we all love a bit of a challenge. Over the years I have spent many hours chasing lost family, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. It can be frustrating, but it never feels like time wasted. When you hit a so-called ‘brick wall’, it makes you slow down and reflect. Why can I not find this person? It’s a chance to think about different records, different routes and also to ponder what your…

Q Previous issues of your magazine have informed me that bigamy is not common, and when it does happen, it is more likely to be a man than a woman. So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that my 3x great aunt Eliza Bewsey was not only a bigamist, but married two men on the same day! When I first glanced at the marriage certificates, dated 18 May 1840, it appeared as though Eliza married William John Hills in Alverstoke then hopped on a boat to marry William Roe in nearby Portsea. Both of the marriages were by banns and had a witness in common. William John Hills described himself as a mariner, with father John Hills listed as a carpenter. William Roe described himself as a seaman,…

‘The letter reveals how her methods changed the lives of the most deprived children’ Charlotte Mason (1842–1923) was a teacher who became an educationalist and writer, helping introduce major reforms to schools in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She promoted the ideas of a broad curriculum for all children, including the arts and sciences, the treatment of pupils as individuals, and involving children actively in their learning. Many of her theories are still used today. The Armitt Museum and Library in Ambleside now holds Charlotte Mason’s papers. As curator Deborah Walsh explains, they include a letter from a grateful headteacher that shows why her methods had a dramatic impact on education. What did Charlotte Mason do? Charlotte Mason was one of the prime movers in advocating radical changes,…

While you should see what ancestry.co.uk and findmypast.co.uk have to offer, myheritage.com is particularly strong for European connections, and each territory may also have specialist websites. Sweden, for example, has the long-running ArkivDigital (arkivdigital.net), which boasts millions of colour images of historical records, while the top-notch blog French Genealogy (french-genealogy.typepad.com) includes a directory of departmental archives and a glossary of French terms. Europeana (europeana.eu) is a wonderful place to find out more about historic artefacts, books, documents, newspapers, artworks, videos and oral histories from collections across Europe, and millions more that have been submitted by users. Genealogy Indexer (genealogyindexer.org) is a useful tool for anyone searching for ancestors in Central or Eastern Europe, although much of the data was produced using optical character recognition (OCR) software, so remember to try…

To interpret 16th-century records correctly, you must not only think like a Tudor (requiring you to learn about Tudor social history) but talk like one. Many words had different meanings, and it’s vital to be aware of this when reading documents from the period. ‘Nephew’ and ‘niece’ meant ‘grandson’ and ‘granddaughter’ and, sometimes, a cousin of a younger generation, while the word ‘cousin’ itself often meant ‘nephew’ or ‘niece’. However, it could also mean ‘first cousin’, ‘second cousin’ or even ‘third cousin’. ‘Uncle’ and ‘aunt’ sometimes referred to cousins of an older generation. ‘Brother’ and ‘sister’ extended to half-siblings, including illegitimate ones by mistresses. These were regularly sired by the Tudor gentry and accepted as part of the family. ‘Natural son’, however, did not mean ‘illegitimate son’ but ‘biological son’.…

Wellington called his troops “the scum of the earth” and the occupations given by most men on enlistment show them to have been, in the vast majority, working class. Of nine men shown on one page of the Description Book for the 2nd Battalion of the First Foot between 1826 and 1831, six describe themselves as “labourers”, two as “weavers” and one as a “moulder”. All but one have enlisted for life (which meant at least 21 years), presumably in the hope of job security with a pension at the end. Over the following pages “labourer” and “weaver” make up the vast majority of trades recorded. One man is recorded as a “schoolmaster”, but within three months he’d been promoted to sergeant, probably so that he could teach at the…

Rev Francis Orpen Morris (1810–1893) was an Irish clergyman, a passionate naturalist and a wildlife campaigner. In 1850 he began publishing A History of British Birds, which described every British bird, with coloured illustrations. It was hugely successful and was reprinted repeatedly throughout the century. Morris used his acclaim to help protect wildlife. In 1867 he lent valuable support to the creation of the UK’s first bird-specific conservation charity: the Association for the Protection of Sea-Birds. This petitioned against the killing of seabirds – up to 1,000 wings a month were sliced off gulls at places such as Flamborough Head in Yorkshire just to feed the fashion trade. In 1885 Morris established the first organisation to campaign specifically against the plumage trade as a whole and its impact on wild…

A long-serving gardener on a large country estate could expect to be provided with a house on the estate in old age and a small pension in return for some light work at busy times, and would be cared for when he became sick or too old to work. If he married, his widow would be looked after in a similar manner. Sadly many gardeners were not this fortunate, and when they became incapable of working any longer were forced to apply for outdoor relief from the local Poor Law board of guardians in order to survive, or to seek financial assistance from a parish charity, if one existed. The only alternatives were to go and live with their children or suffer the indignity of spending their final days in…

1911 IRISH CENSUS The 1911 census of Ireland, covering all 32 historic counties, is available to search for free at census.nationalarchives.ie. The website also provides access to the 1901 census, as well as surviving census fragments and substitutes from 1821 to 1851. Sadly census records for the second half of the 19th century were destroyed. A LETTER FROM IRELAND Initially launched as a weekly email newsletter, A Letter from Ireland (aletterfromireland.com) contains a wealth of online resources aimed at researchers tracing their Irish ancestry. The biggest feature of the website is the ‘Green Room’, a subscriber-only area that gives users access to video tutorials, e-books and a forum where they can discuss their research with genealogy experts. IRELAND REACHING OUT Ireland Reaching Out (Ireland XO) is a non-profit organisation that…

869 King of East Anglia Edmund, in power since c855, is killed by Viking invaders after refusing to renounce his Christian faith. c1473 Thomas Wolsey is born in Ipswich. He will rise to become Henry VIII’s chief minister, Archbishop of York and a cardinal. 1567 Thomas Nashe is baptised in Lowestoft. His picaresque novel The Unfortunate Traveller is first published in 1594. 1622 The first recorded race takes place at Newmarket, a match between horses owned by Lord Salisbury and the Marquess of Buckingham. 1800 Convicted horse-thief Margaret Catchpole escapes from Ipswich Gaol using a clothesline. She will eventually be recaptured and transported to Australia. 1839 Maria Louise Ramé is born in Bury St Edmunds. Under the pseudonym Ouida (from her pronunciation of ‘Louise’ as a child) she will become…

Churchill’s Secret Agents: The New Recruits April BBC Two On 22 July 1940 the Special Operations Executive (SOE) officially came into being. Its purpose was to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in Nazi-occupied Europe, and later in Asia. This was dangerous work, and its agents needed to be highly trained. Just how highly trained is explored in a new ‘living history’ series in which 14 people who have a historical parallel with individuals who served in the SOE, or in some cases a family connection, put themselves through the same physical, psychological and mental assessments as 1940s candidates. Along the way, the hopefuls get instruction in weapons, explosives and coding, endure mock interrogations, and learn to use gadgetry worthy of James Bond. The 14, who include a maths graduate, a…

Cumbria Archive With more and more local archives publishing their catalogues on the web, family historians from all over the world who have Cumbrian ancestry can easily do an online search of the records in the Cumbria Archive Service Catalogue (CASCAT). 1 Visit archiveweb.cumbria.gov.uk/calmview . You can do an Advanced Search, but for our purposes a Basic Search will suffice using the facility at the top-right-hand corner of the page. Enter a name, for example “joan fogg”, with quotation marks to search for it as a phrase. Click ‘Search’. 2 All relevant hits in the records will appear, complete with their references, titles, the start of their descriptions, dates and the particular archive centres. You can refine your search, or click a reference to view the record in detail. 3…

Early census advice I was interested to read Gill Blanchard’s article on parish census records in your February issue. These listings – and especially those deriving from the national censuses 1801–1831 – are particularly useful in the absence of official census returns for these years. Your readers may find it useful to check the comprehensive listing of these records provided by Census Schedules and Listings 1803–1831: An Introduction and Guide (2004; republished 2012), by Richard Wall, Matthew Woollard and Beatrice Moring, which they can download for free from the University of Essex’s website at www1.essex.ac.uk/history/documents/research/rt2_wall_2012.pdf. Stuart A Raymond Editor replies: Thank you for the recommendation Stuart. We have featured this guide in the magazine before, but it’s certainly worth highlighting again. Remembering a First World War soldier I have just…

661 new Oldham burial records indexed on familysearch.org 9 suffragette newspapers added to britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk to celebrate International Women’s Day 13 million people in the “world’s largest family tree” used to research family history patterns in a paper published in the journal Science 5,608 Bombay Times arrival and departure notices from 1846 added to the Families in British India Society database at bit.ly/fibis 932 years after the Domesday Book survey was carried out, there will be a rare chance to see Britain’s oldest land survey documents in an exhibition at the British Library from 19 October…

‘The surge in interest in family history has generated career opportunities’ Do you fancy improving your chances of discovering what happened to the family fortune, or perhaps you’d like to give up your day job and become a professional family history sleuth, solving other people’s genealogy mysteries? Whatever your dreams, a course could make them come true. There are plenty on offer –from free bite-sized options to degrees with an £8,000-plus price tag. The Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA) actively promotes learning and continued professional development among its members and potential members. Antony Marr, chair of AGRA’s Board of Assessors, says: “Researching our family history is something many of us slip into as a hobby, and the knowledge and experience of the subject is picked up piecemeal…

NEWSPAPERS Local newspapers from the 1920s and 1930s, including the Glasgow Herald, Evening Citizen, Evening News and Evening Times, along with district newspapers such as the Glasgow Eastern Standard, are available on microfilm at the Mitchell Library, Glasgow; some have been digitised and are accessible via the British Newspaper Archive (BNA; britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) and, for Pro-level subscribers, Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk). The library has a printed annual index to the Herald, which lists the criminal trials reported by the paper each year by prisoner’s surname. National papers the Scotsman and the Sunday Post have also been digitised and are on BNA and Findmypast; the Scotsman is also available through archive.scotsman.com (two-day access costs £7.95). These newspapers frequently reported on gang cases in Glasgow, especially in the late 1920s and 1930s. PRISON REGISTERS Registers…

An heir hunter contacted Colin Ward in 2011, following an intestate death in his mother’s family. “I was curious to discover more about this,” Colin explains, “and some musical royalties that my mother received from the Performing Rights Society. These were used to pay toward my education.” But delving into his family history opened a Pandora’s Box. Colin was born in Ilford, Essex, in 1936 to Henry and Margaret Ward (née Bidgood). “Mum never talked about her father Albert, so that side of the family was a mystery. She knew that he lived in New Zealand, but the only contact they had was via solicitors. “One ancestor she did speak of was her grandfather, Thomas Bidgood, in connection with a military march called Sons of the Brave. This turned out…

ANTHONY ADOLPH is a professional genealogist, broadcaster and the author of seven books CELIA HERITAGE is the author of Tracing Your Ancestors Through Death Records ANTONY MARR is a former deputy registrar and a member of the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA) REBECCA PROBERT is professor of law at the University of Exeter and the author of Marriage Law for Genealogists STEVEN SMYRL is a member of Accredited Genealogists Ireland ALAN STEWART is a family historian with over 30 years of experience and the author of Grow Your Own Family Tree PHIL TOMASELLI is a military family history expert and the author of Tracing Your Air Force Ancestors – don’t miss his article on page 63 HELEN WHITTLE is a member of AGRA and the Association of…

Actor Brian Blessed was keen to learn more about his paternal ancestors in the 2014 series. He always believed that the Blessed line was deeply rooted in Yorkshire, and wanted to learn how far back it went. However, it wasn’t long before his investigations took him back to his 3x great grandfather, Barnabas Blessed, a book binder who actually hailed from London. Digging deeper, he then came across the sad story of Barnabas’s son, Jabez Blessed. Much of Jabez’s childhood was spent in the notorious St Martin-in-the-Fields Workhouse. After leaving he was apprenticed to a master mariner and settled in Brigg, Lincolnshire, just a short distance from the Yorkshire town where Brian was raised. The first clue about Jabez’s life in poverty was indicated by his baptism record on ancestry.co.uk…

‘The archive is a living historical record of so much that has been lost’ Long ago I lived in Norfolk, fell in love with the county and made good friends. It was therefore a delight to encounter the WISEArchive, an oral-history project that has published dozens of interviews with Norfolk people online. The website includes transcripts and some audio clips that, project volunteers note, “demonstrate the energy and enthusiasm with which working-life stories are told and afford opportunities to enjoy the rich Norfolk accent”. I had a happy time reading and listening to the stories on the website. They’re packed with human interest. Some are entertaining, others deeply moving as they recall a vanished world of farm horses, cider-making, steam engines and a countryside filled with wildflowers. The website began…

BOOK Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather by Tessa Boase (Aurum; due on 3 May 2018) This upcoming title tells the parallel stories of the suffragette movement and the women who campaigned against the trade in feathers. BUSINESS RECORDS London Metropolitan Archives bit.ly/lma-catalogue Local archives may have details of plumage-related businesses, especially in London, which was the hub of the industry. Trade directories and advertisements in newspapers are also useful sources of information. CENSUSES You can access census records on ancestry.co.uk and findmypast.co.uk, and will find that a wide range of job titles were used in the plumage industry. Broadly, people who sourced feathers for sale in the UK are described as “feather merchant”, “dealer” or “importer”. Those who owned plumage businesses were often called “feather manufacturers”, whereas people working on…

BOOK Diary of a Victorian Gardener by William Creswell (English Heritage, 2006) The diary of William Creswell, a gardener on a prestigious Essex estate, was discovered at a flea market and published in 2006. MUSEUMS The Garden Museum Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 7LB 0207 401 8865 gardenmuseum.org.uk The museum has a permanent display of paintings, ephemera, tools and gardening artefacts. Lost Gardens of Heligan Pentewan, St Austell, Cornwall PL26 6EN 01726 845100 heligan.com Abandoned in 1914 but restored in the 1990s, the Lost Gardens are a living museum of gardening during the Victorian and Edwardian periods. WEBSITES British Newspaper Archive britishnewspaper archive.co.uk Search for horticultural news in the articles digitised on this site (or, for Pro-level subscribers, at findmypast.co.uk). Historical Directories of England and Wales…

The archives service launched its new website in June 2016 (suffolkarchives.co.uk). The catalogue is constantly expanding and staff have already uploaded images of wills from West and East Suffolk. Paper catalogues are being added, and there are two special collections of digitised maps and architectural drawings. There’s also the Friends of Suffolk Record Office (fosro.org.uk), the Suffolk Archives Foundation (suffolkarchivesfoundation.org.uk), the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History (suffolkinstitute.org.uk), Suffolk Local History Council (slhc.org.uk) and the Suffolk Records Society (suffolkrecordssociety.com). The FamilySearch wiki on Suffolk’s church records can be found at familysearch.org/wiki/en/Suffolk_Church_Records. It lists what is available on Ancestry and Findmypast, plus coverage elsewhere. You can buy copies of parish registers via suffolkarchives.co.uk/services/parish-register-copying-service. Findmypast.co.uk has a generous quantity of Suffolk datasets, mainly through partnership with Suffolk Family History Society and…

Dear Old Blighty: Britain’s First World War Home Front by Mike Brown Sabrestorm, 96 pages, £9.99 Much has been written and spoken about the First World War over the past four years of centenary commemorations. We have all heard of the atrocious conditions endured by the lads at the Front, but little has been said about the hardships encountered back home (admittedly, they were in a completely different league). However, Mike Brown addresses the matter in this excellent little book. The bite-sized chapters lead us from the days immediately preceding the war up to those after the Armistice. Among the subjects covered, we learn about the women working in various fields – after all, their men folk were busily engaged fighting the foe – and the deprivations suffered on the…

Lenny Henry: The Commonwealth Kid April BBC ONE Sir Lenny Henry is the son of Jamaican parents who came to the UK as part of the post- Windrush generation in 1957. It’s a heritage that has long fascinated him, both on a personal level and in terms of the UK’s relationship with other countries in the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting takes place in London in April, the first time that it’s come to the capital in over 30 years. So it’s a timely moment for the actor and comedian to examine the relationship between the Crown, the Commonwealth and its people, who number 2.3 billion. It’s an exploration that takes Henry on a tour of the Caribbean, visiting the Bahamas and Jamaica where he meets a cross-section…

I thought readers might be interested to hear how I was reunited with a piece of my family’s history through the kindness of a complete stranger. Before she married, my grandmother Christina Beatrice Matcham née Knight (1883–1968) was in service. When she set up home with my grandfather William Thomas Matcham she continued with many of the routines she had learned as a housemaid. Every Thursday morning her brass and silver were polished, and unless you wanted to help a visit at that time was to be avoided. One of the items that was shined with particular care was the First World War plaque that came to the family to commemorate the death of my grandfather’s youngest brother Maurice Martin Matcham. Maurice had been killed in action in France on…

Do you have an ancestor who spent time as a patient in a lunatic asylum? Have you researched their story and found their records? Genealogist and Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine contributor Michelle Higgs is working on a new book, Tracing Your Ancestors in Lunatic Asylums, to be published in late 2019 by Pen & Sword. It will cover the history of mental health patients from the 18th century to the Second World War. Michelle is looking for information about real people who were asylum patients to include in the book as case studies. Please contact her if you have information to share – all responses will be acknowledged. Anyone whose ancestor’s story appears in the book will receive a free copy on publication. To get in contact…

‘People 400 years ago were all too willing to fabricate a pedigree to tie themselves to a noble family’ Using documents dating from the middle decades of the 14th century, I’ve been doing some landscape history research into parts of medieval Cheshire. My Latin is not up to scratch for reading such sources, but fortunately they’ve been printed and published with exact English translations – a real blessing! One aspect of the work that has particularly interested me is that some of my ancestors come from the area I’m looking at – and among the sources are lists of tenants on various manors, describing their landholdings and the amounts they paid in rent. The obvious question is, “Were these people my ancestors?” It would be great to link back seven…

COURSE PROVIDERS Aberystwyth University  aber.ac.uk/en/lifelong-learning/genealogy Aberystwyth runs a part-time flexible Certificate in Higher Education. Modules start at £55. Celia Heritage Family History E-course  heritagefamilyhistory.co.uk/ecourse Go at your own pace with this modular e-course. Prices start at £110 – a full course costs £299. Dundee University  dundee.ac.uk/cais/programmes/familylocalhistory Dundee University’s options range from short six-week courses to a full postgraduate Masters. Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies  ihgs.ac.uk/courses IHGS has various offerings, from day courses to a Correspondence Course in Genealogy. Pharos Tutors  pharostutors.com/coursesmainsd.php Pharos runs online genealogy courses covering a variety of topics. Prices start at £34.99. Society of Genealogists  sog.org.uk/books-courses/events-courses From evening courses to daytime lectures on an array of topics, the society’s offerings start from £8. Strathclyde University  strath.ac.uk/studywithus/centreforlifelonglearning/genealogy Strathclyde offers a postgraduate distance-learning course and short courses with…

ARCHIVES Glasgow City Archives and Special Collections Mitchell Library, North Street, Glasgow G3 7DN 0141 287 2999 libraries@glasgowlife.org.uk glasgowlife.org.uk/libraries/the-mitchell-library Visit the Mitchell Library to search local newspapers on microfilm plus records of the City of Glasgow Police, including albums of criminals’ mugshots from c1930 and c1934. National Records of Scotland General Register House, 2 Princes Street, Edinburgh EH1 3YY 0131 535 1314 historical_enquiries@nrscotland.gov.uk nrscotland.gov.uk NRS holds registers of Duke Street Prison and Barlinnie Prison, together with records of trials of gang members held at the High Court in Glasgow and at Glasgow Sheriff Court. BOOKS The Barlinnie Story: Riots, Death, Retribution and Redemption in Scotland’s Infamous Prison by Robert Jeffrey (Black & White Publishing, 2009) Veteran journalist Jeffrey tells the story of the Glasgow prison, which was built in the 19th century…

DUKE OF YORK’S ROYAL MILITARY SCHOOL The late Art Cockerill’s history of the school helped Colin to understand more about his great grandfather’s life and career. It can be viewed on the website bit.ly/duke-of-york-rms. MUSEUM OF ARMY MUSIC Based at Kneller Hall in Twickenham, the museum contains documents, manuscripts, uniforms, paintings and medals that build a history of military music. Members of the public can visit on Wednesday afternoons or by appointment. Find out more at bit.ly/m-o-a-m. MUSICAL MEMORIES Colin found useful information in back issues of The Discographer Magazine, which can be viewed online at 78rpmcommunity.com, and The Stage at britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk (together with findmypast.co.uk, if you have a Pro-level subscription to the website). Colin would also like to thank Kit Jackson, the writer and musicologist Dr Andrew Lamb, and…

George Frederick Helsden bit.ly/2FuMH8A My brother and I are researching our tree, but we have hit a brick wall while researching our great great grandfather, George Frederick Helsden. Our problem is that he was born at sea on The Tagar and therefore his birth was not registered in this country. We know (from his marriage certificate) that his father’s name was James, but we have no idea of his mother’s name. We also know that he was a mariner and married in 1846, but prior to this there don’t seem to be any records. We have tried all the usual subscription websites but they have told us nothing new. If anybody out there can point us in the right direction we would be very grateful. Justmaz James Turner –…

“One of the many blessings of having mixed ancestry is being able to explore and compare genealogy resources in different countries. Almost all of my maternal ancestors came from the rural region of Galicia in north-west Spain. Over the years researching other people’s families I have come to rely heavily on Galiciana: Galicia’s Digital Library (bit.ly/galiciana-digital-library), which holds a wide range of documents, from photographs of local festivities to official government gazettes. “My favourite collection, however, is the repository of Galician newspapers broadly covering 1850–1960. In a country like Spain, which does not have a centralised index for its civil registration system and where church records are rarely digitised or available online, finding references through newspapers (such as birth and marriage announcements, obituaries, migration movements, civic events and of course…

ARCHIVE The National Archives Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU 0208 876 3444 nationalarchives.gov.uk TNA is open every day except for Sunday and Monday. BOOKS The Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer (Vantage, 2013) The bestselling author reveals ordinary life during the reign of Elizabeth I. The Tudor Age by Jasper Ridley (Constable, 1988) Ridley’s book was republished as A Brief History of the Tudor Age in 2002. When Death Do Us Part: Understanding and Interpreting the Probate Records of Early Modern England by Tom Arkell, Nesta Evans and Nigel Goose (eds) (Leopard’s Head Press, 2000) The essays in this book explore different aspects of probate. WEBSITE Palaeography Tutorial nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography TNA has created a tutorial to help you read handwriting from documents created between 1500…

Searching for genealogical information on British soldiers from the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly where they originated in order to check whether they might be an ancestor, can be frustrating. If they left the army to take a pension, the discharge-to-pension papers may survive and provide this information; but if they were killed, deserted or purchased their way out, it can be difficult to find anything to confirm their background. Regimental Description Books are a possible solution, because they provide, as the name suggests, a physical description of the man as well as his age, his parish of birth, his civilian trade and some details of his army service. Some Description Books are available and indexed online, but even more can be downloaded for free from The National Archives’ (TNA’s)…

As spring sets in, the green-fingered among us like to be out in our gardens. But for many of our ancestors gardening was a job, not a hobby. Gardeners have been employed to grow vegetables, herbs and flowers at country houses, stately homes and royal residences since Tudor times. Over the ensuing centuries gardening gradually evolved from being a relatively menial job into a highly skilled profession embracing flower and vegetable gardening, the propagation of exotic fruits and plants in heated greenhouses, and landscape maintenance. Teams of skilled and semi-skilled men usually undertook the more specialised tasks while women and labourers were hired on a casual basis during busy periods to weed, pick stones and rake leaves. From the late Georgian period onwards, employing a large staff of gardeners was…

How long have you been doing family history? I began researching my family history in 1983 when I inherited a Bible that had belonged to my mother’s paternal grandparents. Although I managed to research my mother’s ancestors fairly extensively, my father’s side of the family was almost completely unknown. What had you uncovered before hitting your brick wall? All I knew about my father’s origins was the name by which I knew him, Terence Patrick O’Connor, and the date and place of birth he declared when filling in the 1961 census. I was a nosy child even back then! I also had my parents’ marriage certificate, which gave his father’s name and occupation. He had been a “medical practitioner”, but I couldn’t find him in any medical registers. My father’s…

The oldest treasure looked after by Suffolk’s archive service is an early 12th-century Charter of Henry I to the monks of Eye Priory. But a chilling document from more recent times is a diagram of the Brookes slave ship commissioned by a local campaigner. The Brookes was built in Liverpool in the 1780s, named after its owner and builder James Brookes. The print was commissioned by Bury St Edmunds abolitionist Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846). It was used to illustrate the appallingly cramped and unsanitary conditions aboard the slave ship – which at the time was legally allowed to transport 454 slaves – and helped to galvanise the anti-slavery movement. The service’s Second World War resources include visitors’ books from Gainsborough’s House Hotel in Sudbury, which contain the names of many US…

A History of Women in 100 Objects by Maggie Andrews and Janis Lomas History Press, 350 pages, £20 From wife-sale advertisements to the first electric fridge, and the corset to the contraceptive pill, this book from two leading historians interweaves items symbolising the suppression and elevation of womanhood, in a fascinating yet sometimes brutal account of women’s changing place in society. Crimes & Criminals of 17th Century Britain by Daniel J Codd Pen & Sword History, 264 pages, £14.99 Set against a backdrop of a society in which corruption, violence and superstition prevailed, Daniel J Codd catalogues Britain’s most shocking early murder cases, including serial killing, rural murders and political assassinations, and sheds light on lesser-known tales. RAF 100: The Official Story by James Holland André Deutsch, 224 pages, £25…

LONDON The History of Friern Barnet Hospital (formerly Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum) 12 April 14 CHARTERHOUSE BUILDINGS, GOSWELL ROAD sog.org.uk/books-courses/events-courses 0207 553 3290 This one-hour lecture from author and historian David Berguer gives an insight into the radical practices of what was once the largest lunatic asylum in Europe. £8. The Name Event 5–6 May ILEC CONFERENCE CENTRE, EARLS COURT thenameevent.com 0207 060 1849 This family history fair will have a variety of stalls, including representatives from the Guild of One-Name Studies. £12.50 per day; booking required. MIDLANDS A Shropshire Squire 17 April OLD CHAPEL COMMUNITY CENTRE, CROSS HOUSES, SHROPSHIRE sfhs.org.uk/events secretary@sfhs.org.uk The monthly meeting of Shropshire Family History Society includes a talk from military historian David Thornycroft OBE, who discusses the scandalous life of his 19th-century ancestor ‘Mad Jack’…