Innholdsfortegnelse for Sep-22 i Who Do You Think You Are?

Anyone tracing their London family 10 years ago would have found it tricky. The sheer number of people involved meant that the chances of there being more than one person with the same name were high, and finding the right parish when people were always on the move was frustrating to say the least. But with millions of records now online, London is a fascinating place to research. Turn to page 16 to discover how you can map a family’s movements around the capital, and why that’s so important. I was over the moon when ‘super recogniser’ Mike Neville got in touch with us. I had seen him on a TV programme about super recognisers, and was intrigued to see that his team is helping family historians (see page 22).…

RNLI Lifeboat Museum reopens after refresh The RNL Lifeboat Museum in Whitby (tinyurl.com/rnli-whitby) has reopened its doors after renovation work. The 124-year-old boathouse in North Yorkshire was the subject of a nine-month restoration project that saw the building refreshed and its displays modernised. Volunteers also spent hundreds of hours restoring the woodwork and paintwork of the 104-year-old lifeboat the Robert and Ellen Robson, which last saw service in 1955. The Whitby location is one of eight Royal National Lifeboat Institution museums in the UK. Ukrainian-Cornish cross given Grade II-listed status A cross built by Ukrainian refugees in Cornwall in 1948 has been granted Grade II-listed status. The news was marked at Mylor Bridge near Falmouth by refugees who have recently fled Ukraine. Hundreds like them settled in Cornwall following the…

DNA-testing company FamilyTreeDNA (familytreedna.com) has launched a new feature to help family historians better explore their Y-DNA results. ‘Discover reports’ provide greater detail about haplogroups and what they say about the paternal ancestral line. They include information about when ancestors branched off, where descendants can be found today, connections to notable people, and the migration history of ancient ancestors. Only males can take a Y-DNA test.…

The number of books that can now be explored in the digital library on the free site familysearch.org 300 The age of Great Wishford Primary School near Salisbury, which is celebrating the arrival of its first pupils in 1722 3 The number of sets of parents - biological, foster and adoptive - that can be included in the family tree builder on myheritage.com, thanks to the launch of new functionality 1891 The date of the census that has been added to the ‘Map Explorer’ tool on thegenealogist.co.uk, enabling you to explore where your ancestors lived 206,489 The number of records in the Scottish National War Memorial index featuring those killed during the world wars that have been added to ancestry.co.uk…

CENSUS RECORDS Censuses provide a snapshot of a family every 10 years. The 1921 census is exclusive to Flndmypast. BEST WEBSITE w findmypast.co.uk FIRE-INSURANCE MAPS These detailed large-scale maps were produced for urban areas so that insurance firms could assess the fire risks in buildings. BEST WEBSITE w oldmapsonline.org CIVIL CERTIFICATES The General Register Office’s birth, marriage and death certificates are one of the best sources for addresses. BEST WEBSITE w www.gro.gov.uk/gro ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPS Historic OS maps are invaluable for pinpointing the location of a particular street, particularly if it no longer exists. BEST WEBSITE w maps.nls.uk/os DIRECTORIES Street and trade directories can reveal where an ancestor lived over a period of time. Later directories include most householders. BEST WEBSITE w ancestry.co.uk PARISH REGISTERS These provide at least the…

The oldest verified person ever to have lived is Jeanne Louise Calment, who was 122 years old when she passed away in Arles, southern France, in 1997. Sceptics began to question her longevity and speculated that Jeanne had actually died decades earlier, and that her daughter Yvonne had assumed her mother’s identity for tax reasons. Fast forward to 2021, and ‘super recogniser’ Kelly Jo Desborough scotched these rumours by analysing precise facial differences in known images of Jeanne and Yvonne. Pictures taken of Jeanne in youth and later life highlighted her long, slender nose with a slight droop at the tip. Yvonne, in comparison, had a wide, upturned nose with a distinct kink in the bridge. Jeanne Calment was no fraud. Kelly Jo is the chief operating officer of the…

ANCESTRY w ancestry.co.uk Ancestry's collection ‘England, United Grand Lodge of England Freemason Membership Registers, 1751-1921’ includes some overseas records. Nigel gained a lot of reassurance from the correlation of the information in its registers with the resources on the Meiji-Portraits website. GENERAL REGISTER OFFICE w www.gro.gov.uk/gro Several of Nigel’s relations were married at the British Consulate in Japan. The records are held in the consular collection at the General Register Office, and are available to order. MEIJI-PORTRAITS w meiji-portraits.de/welcome.html This site has a large amount of material from trade directories and other sources about people who lived in Japan during much of the Meiji Restoration period.…

1 NAME Estate records usually name individual tenants rather than all of the members of the household. You will regularly find female tenants listed (especially widows). 2 PENTRE Identifying the name of a house or farm associated with your ancestor can help you to find other relevant records within the same archive. 3 MAP 9 The survey includes cross-references to a map which is catalogued separately. Many records within estate archives are interconnected. 4 HOUSE AND SMITHY Estate records can include information on the condition of the houses lived in by your relations. 5 BRYN CEYLIN Note that Ceylin is spelled “Celyn” three rows down. It’s important to be creative with your search terms when looking for your ancestor’s name online. 6 LET HERETOFORE Although many families lived on the same estate for generations,…

ADELPHI THEATRE CALENDAR w umass.edu/AdelphiTheatreCalendar Search for actors, composers, musicians, singers, dancers, management and backstage staff, entertainments and spectacles at this leading London theatre. CONCERT PROGRAMMES w concertprogrammes.org.uk This vast database features programmes held in libraries, archives and museums across Europe. GENGUIDE w tinyurl.com/genguide-sources-act-ent This is a useful summary of the kinds of sources available for researching actors and entertainers. THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ARCHIVE w Iso.co.uk/orchestra/history/about-the-Iso-archive.html The orchestra’s archive contains programmes, minute books, photos and attendance sheets. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND w digital.nls.uk/gallery/category/theatre The highlights of this digital gallery include programmes, playbills and posters. ROYAL COLLEGE OF MUSIC w rcm.ac.uk/library/collections The college’s archive boasts some 700,000 programmes. There’s also the Royal Academy of Music: ram.ac.uk/museum/collections. UNIVERSITY OF KENT SPECIAL COLLECTIONS w tinyuri.com/uni-kent-theatrical-perform This page details the university’s theatrical and…

How can I find out more about seaman John Keenan? Q My great great grandfather, John Keenan, died aged 34 in June 1864 at the Royal Naval Hospital, Great Yarmouth. His death certificate stated he had suffered from insanity for four years, and paralysis for two years. I suspect that they were due to syphilis. John left a widow, Mary, and two sons aged five and three in Troon, Ayrshire. When he married in 1856, John was a seaman in the merchant service. How can I find out more about his life? Colin McKinnon A The Royal Navy (RN) established its own asylums for men affected by mental illness. One such was the Royal Naval Hospital at Great Yarmouth. There are records of inpatients here, but unfortunately not for the…

ARCHIVE THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES a Kew, Richmond TW9 4DU t 020 8876 3444 w nationalarchives.gov.uk You can find material relating to air raids during the First World War in Air Ministry: Air Historical Branch papers (AIR 1). BOOKS The War in the Air, Vol. 3 HA Jones Clarendon Press, 1931 The air raids feature in volume three of the official account of “the part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force”, as well as in volume five (1935). They are freely available via the Internet Archive (archive.org) at tinyurl.com/arch-war-air-3 and tinyurl.com/arch-war-air-5. Zeppelin Onslaught: The Forgotten Blitz 1914-1915 Ian Castle Frontline, 2018 This is the first book in Ian’s three-voiume series Forgotten Blitz, which includes many firsthand accounts and, for the first time, a national list of those…

The town of Dunkeld, located in Perth and Kinross, takes its name from the Gaelic Dùn Chailleann, meaning ‘Fort of the Caledonii/Caledonians’. This indicates the town’s history as a political and military stronghold dating back to the Iron Age. In 1994 the Friends of Dunkeld Cathedral launched the Chapter Flouse Museum. Dunkeld Community Archive (historicdunkeld.org.uk/community-archive) was developed as part of the museum, and preserves documents from Dunkeld and the surrounding area. The archive also holds the records of the Scottish Horse. The yeomanry regiment was raised in Johannesburg in 1900 to gather Scottish men in South Africa to fight in the Second Boer War (1899-1902) under the leadership of John Stewart-Murray, Marquess of Tullibardine and later the 8th Duke of Atholl. The Murray family’s ancestral home is Blair Castle, near…

CATHOLIC RECORDS w tinyurl.com/fs-cath-lincs This FamilySearch collection contains Roman Catholic baptism, marriage, burial and congregational records from parishes in Lincolnshire, plus several other counties. Also this page details millions of indexed parish register records for Lincolnshire: tinyurl.com/fs-lincs. WILLS w tinyurl.com/bho-linc-wills On British History Online you can explore text from four volumes of will transcriptions for Lincoln dating from 1271-1526. PARISH REGISTERS w freereg.org.uk The no-cost stalwart FreeREG boasts about 80 per cent county coverage in Lincolnshire rapidly closing in on four million entries. DIRECTORIES w tinyurl.com/sco-leics The University of Leicester’s site Special Collections Online includes Kelly’s and Pigot’s directories for Lincolnshire, and city directories of Lincoln. WAR MEMORIALS w memorial-lincs.org.uk This site has information about local memorials, including details of many of those who died.…

ARCHIVES AND LIBRARIES GRIMSBY LOCAL HISTORY LIBRARY a Town Hall Square, Grimsby DN31 1HG t 01472 323600 w tinyurl.com/lincsinspire-glhl The Local History Library is situated on the first floor of Grimsby Central Library, and holds such items as pamphlets from the Civil War, council minutes, material about the local fishing industry, maps, newspapers and photos. LINCOLN CENTRAL LIBRARY a Free School Lane, Lincoln LN2 1EZ t 01522 782010 w tinyurl.com/lincs-gov-lcl Lincoln Central Library holds copies of census returns, local newspapers and some 40,000 pictures of Lincolnshire towns, villages and people. LINCOLNSHIRE ARCHIVES a St Rumbold Street, Lincoln LN2 5AB t 01522 782040 e lincolnshire.archives@lincolnshire.gov.uk w lincolnshire.gov.uk/history-heritage/lincolnshire-archives The diocesan record office looks after registers and parishchest material for the whole of Lincolnshire, and its online catalogue is at www.calmview.eu/lincolnshirearchives/calmview. The archive…

Pen & Sword, 224 pages, £25 It’s no coincidence that the most famous song from the Second World War features birds. Vera Lynn sang the inspirational words anticipating an Allied victory: there would be “bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover”. The way that birds inspired people or kept them going during the dark days of war is a recurring theme of ornithologist and historian Nicholas Milton’s book. Field Marshal Alanbrooke watched and filmed birds to help him cope with the stress he was under; three British inmates of Singapore’s notorious Changi Prison wrote a secret bird book to distract themselves; and birds may even have inspired the design of the Spitfire. On a wider scale, one of the most popular wartime publications was Watching Birds by James Fisher, which…

REVIEWS What did you know about your family history before you started researching the book? I knew that we were from the East End of London, but not much more. In the book I refer to a family story that I had picked up when I was 15 or 16, which unfortunately is quite a time ago now. I found out that it was wrong, but it led to an interesting aspect of the story, although that’s not really the point of the book. The novel is about the strange borderline between fact and fiction that lies at the heart of any historical writing. How closely did you stick to the facts you uncovered in writing the novel? The facts are a framework, and I set myself the task of…

Email wdytyaeditoriai@ourmedia.co.uk Write to WDYTYA? Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol BS1 4ST WIN an AncestryDNA test kit from ancestry.co.uk WORTH £79 The writer of our star letter wins an Ancestry DNA test worth £79 - so drop us a line and share your thoughts with us. A LIFE IN OBJECTS When I pass on and members of my family have to clear out my house, they will find my family history research and many treasured possessions. I tell them about my research into our ancestry, but their lives are too busy at the moment to really appreciate it all. I am lucky to have some items that belonged to my parents, grandparents and even great grandparents, and I want my family to know why I’ve kept them and their history. Perhaps they will…

Indian soldiers who were briefly stationed in the Highlands of Scotland in the Second World War are to be remembered at a multimedia event that will take place on 20 September. Force K6, which was part of the Royal Indian Army Service Corps, set up camp around the Cairngorm mountains in June 1942, where they took part in winter-warfare training. The soldiers were popular in the local communities of Badenoch and Strathspey, where they were based, and helped on farms, played with children, shared chapatis and told stories. After postings in other locations in the Highlands, they returned to India by early 1944. Fourteen of the contingent died in Scotland, and nine are buried in Kingussie New Cemetery. The soldiers’ story will be told as part of a performance at…

BROWSE BY MAP To find images linked to a specific location, you can search the collection geographically by browsing the underlying modern map, which displays image markers. BROWSE BY STREET Images can be found by searching for the name of a street or a building, although do remember that many streets and buildings are no longer in existence or have been renamed. BROWSE BY SUBJECT To locate images of people, themes or events you can browse by subject including ‘Streets’ and ‘Parishes & Wards’. You can sort the results by date, relevance, title or format.…

Peter Petracco, of Pennsylvania, USA, got a surprise one day while browsing the WW2 People’s War section of the BBC’s website, which presents memories of the conflict submitted by members of the public (bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar). He found himself gazing at a photograph of a man who looked just like his late father James. The image was taken outside the US Army Military Hospital in Warrington, Cheshire, and showed US soldiers escorting prisoners of war out of an ambulance. Peter knew that James had spent time in Warrington during the war because that was where his parents met. James served as a lab technician and an ambulance crew member. He liked to attend dances in his spare time, as did Lilian Davies who worked in a parachute factory. The couple married in…

DEEDS IN DEPTH tinyurl.com/uni-nott-deeds-depth The University of Nottingham’s in-depth guide to the records held in estate archives includes digitised examples with transcriptions. ESTATE MAPS tinyurl.com/nlw-estate-maps The National Library of Wales has digitised a 1587 survey of the manors of Crickhowell and Tretower as well as other estate maps. THE SUTHERLAND COLLECTION sutherlandcollection.org.uk Access part of the massive archive created by the Leveson-Gower family, the Marquesses of Stafford and the Dukes of Sutherland.…

TECH TIPS Do you have forebears who migrated to or visited Australia between 1898 and 1972? If so, you can view a record of their entry into the country for free courtesy of the passenger arrivals database at the National Archives of Australia (recordsearch.naa.gov.au). These records are invaluable for many reasons. They provide a definitive date of entry into the country, tell you which mode of transport your ancestor travelled on (whether boat or - increasingly - plane), and in many cases reveal where they came from and which part of Australia they disembarked at. Initially, passengers were recorded on manifests, but later they filled in their own arrival cards. Both types of record from ships and aircraft are included in this collection. Arrival cards are a particularly rich source…

ARTICLE THE ACCOUNTS OF THE KINGDOM w tinyurl.com/oup-accs-hughes Prof Ann Hughes examines the significance of Civil War accounting using examples from Cheshire, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire. BOOK An Unhappy Civil War John Wroughton Lansdown Press, 1999 This book reveals the war’s impact in Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire in terms of conscription and allegiance, taxation, free quarter, plunder and the disruption of trade. Edsehill and Beyond Philip Tennant Sutton Publishing, 1992 Find out how the Civil War affected our relations living in the south Midlands. MUSEUM NATIONAL CIVIL WAR CENTRE a 14 Appleton Gate, Newark NG24 1JY t 01636 655765 e civilwarinfo@nsdc.info w nationalcivilwarcentre.com. The museum is open Wednesday to Saturday. WEBSITE WARWICKSHIRE CIVIL WAR LOSS ACCOUNTS w heritage.warwickshire.gov.uk/civilwaraccounts Search accounts in the ‘old’ county, including Coventry and Birmingham.…

Richard Hancox has found stories of prostitution, bigamy and scandal amid his extended Victorian family. He uncovered this drama through teasing out the story of a man who, unsurprisingly, wanted to put the past behind him. MY BRICK WALL I My family tree had suffered a glaring omission for many years. It related to the father of my great grandmother Florence Ellen Walters, who was an identical twin born in 1883 in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. Florence’s parents were Henry Walters and Eliza Baker. I found them on the 1891 census living in Chandos Street, Leamington, with Henry identifying himself as a tailor from Cambridge. I had no information regarding Henry Walters prior to Florence’s birth, and couldn’t find a marriage certificate for the couple. They also appeared to be…

Take a peck of garden snales and put them into an oven, as hot as for chiesecakes; when they have done making a noise take them out and wash them very clean in beer; take likewise two quarts of great earth worms, slit and scoure them with water and salt, then wash them well in beer and let both stand to drain well…” This is the rather off-putting recipe for ‘Snail Water’, an old remedy that was displayed in the vault at Lincoln Castle, rubbing shoulders with the Magna Carta. It is just one of the unique highlights of the county collections housed in Lincoln. The recipe itself comes from a sumptuous home-remedy book, clearly compiled for a wealthy household that had access to a wide range of ingredients and…

BROCKLESBY This is taken from a village near Grimsby that was recorded in the Domesday Book as “Brochelesbi”, BRUMBY Brumby is a locative name from Brumby in the hamlet of Frodingham. ENDERBY This habitational name has two possible places of origin in Lincolnshire and Leicestershire. HILDRED Hildred crops up across England, but the surname is particularly popular in Lincolnshire. JACKLIN Most commonly found in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, this surname comes from the Old French personal name Jacquelin. KEAL In 1881, Keals cropped up in the census districts of Boston, Halton Holegate, Laceby and Louth. MUMBY This name originated in the villages of Mumby and Chapel-Mumby, both in the East Lindsey district. PADDISON Most commonly found in Lincolnshire, this is an English variant of Pattison. SLEIGHT This nickname comes from the…

Following the start of the First World War in 1914 Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of Stated for War, launched a mass-recruitment effort to meet the demand for more soldiers on the Western Front. This unprecedented military mobilisation meant men travelled across the country for training and recruitment. In Whitchurch, Shropshire, an autograph book belonging to a local girl provides a poignant memento of the meeting of different groups that occurred in Britain during the war through the signatures and messages left by the soldiers. The book is now held by the Whitchurch Heritage Centre, where curator Dr Judith Hoyle tells us more about it. CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE BOOK TO OUR READERS This recently donated item is covered in red leather with “Album” embossed in gold on the front. Unusually…

Macmillan, 448 pages, £16.99 This very powerful debut novel written by Melanie Levensohn is inspired by the story of one of her husband’s relatives. The book, which is a journey of discovery, is set in three different periods: first Montreal in 1982, then Paris in 1940 and Washington DC in 2006. I was hooked from the very beginning because it is like a family history detective story, searching for the truth about unknown relations who are only revealed by a father on his death bed. Another theme is the lengths that you have to go to if you want to find out about your Jewish ancestors who suffered in the Holocaust. A Jewish Girl In Paris pays great attention to the accuracy of historic details, and the depiction of the…

For many years, Barry Maguire drove a bus on the beautiful route between Keswick and Lancaster. “One day in 1976, I was driving a heavily loaded coach out of Kendal,” Barry explains. “As we struggled up to Windermere, I noticed an elderly lady pushing her way to the front. She asked me to drop her off at the ‘whale’s jaw bones’, which seemed an odd request. “I pulled in beside a pair of large bones that formed an arch over a farm gate. I joked, ‘It must have been a high tide when they arrived here.’ The lady replied, ‘The whale was fine when he arrived, but that’s what happens when you’re waiting for buses.’ There was a real risk of the Laga filling with water and sinking “Her remark…

A nationwide search is under way for untold stories about the Battle of Britain. Author and historian Dilip Sarkar is planning a seven-volume history of the aerial conflict in 1940 that saw the Royal Air Force stop the German invasion. He wants to hear tales of volunteers, factory workers and other family members who played their part on the ground while pilots in the air tackled the threat from the Luftwaffe. The history will be published by Pen & Sword in association with the Battle of Britain Memorial Trust. If you have information that you think is relevant to the project, you can submit your story at battleofbritainpeoplesproject.com.…

Records of British prisoners of war who were captured during the US War of Independence have been added to family history website Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk). The release includes the names of 2,405 British soldiers and German Hessians apprehended between 1774 and 1779, and follows the addition of three other record sets from the conflict on 4 July (see last issue). It also provides details of their ship or unit, where and when they were captured, and whether they were considered for exchange. The registers record POWs who were held in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.…

Family history website Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) has added four collections of Church of England parish registers from the city of York and the surrounding area. The sets, which were released on 28 July, are ‘Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812’, ‘Births and Baptisms, 1813-1920’, ‘Marriages, 1754-1936’ and ‘Deaths and Burials, 1813-1995’. The original registers are held by the Borthwick Institute for Archives, the specialist archive service of the University of York.…

OFF THE RECORD Alan Crosby shares his views on family history Once upon a time I was working in a certain record office, and was standing at the counter waiting to be given my documents. A lady came up and stood next to me, holding a parish register from the 17th century. She pointed to a baptism entry and said to the searchroom archivist who was on duty, “This is the baptism of my ancestor but they’ve spelled his name wrong, so is it all right for me to correct it?” The archivist first laughed, then realised that she was serious, and expressed understandable horror at the suggestion. The lady was most affronted, but at least she had asked permission before defacing the document. Inconsistency of spelling confuses many family…

BOOKS A Dictionary of London Henry A Harben H Jenkins, 1918 This source of information about streets and buildings is available for free at British Library Online: british-history.ac.uk/no-series/dictionary-of-london. Names of Streets and Plates in the Administrative County of London London County Council, 1905 This book is available for free on the Internet Archive (archive.org) at tinyurl.com/arch-list-streets. WEBSITES A LONDON INHERITANCE w alondoninheritance.com This wonderful blog full of photos and maps tells the history of different parts of the city. LAYERS OF LONDON w www.layersoflondon.org/map This free resource blends history, geography and digital technology. LOST LONDON STREET INDEX w tinyuri.com/web-arch-llsi This archived page lists the old and new names of streets. NEW TO OLD STREET NAMES w tinyurl.com/map-hunt-names This site also has the present and former names of the city’s streets.…

READER STORY A reader shares their discoveries The death notice in the Leicester Chronicle of 18 December 1880 reads, “GRAY - On the 19th Oct, at Yokohama, James Gray of Leicester, aged 67.” For Nigel Gray, James’ great great grandson, these 13 words were pivotal in making sense of his family history, which played out across the Far East. During his journey, he discovered forebears involved in key events and even identified his very own James Bond. VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY Nigel’s book Too Far East? is his unravelling of his Gray family’s history (with much help from a network of cousins and contacts) and the world events that affected them. When he started in 2011, he knew very little. “My parents separated when I was seven, and my father died…

The 20th century was a period of decline for countless landed families and estates, with some disappearing altogether. Many individuals and organisations worked hard to preserve the archives and records associated with these structures, recognising their historical value. Hundreds of estate archives were incorporated into the collections of newly established county record offices; others were deposited with universities or national libraries. Thomas Richards, affectionately known as ‘Doc Tom’, served as librarian at Bangor University between 1926 and his retirement in 1946. In this role he was driven by a desire to establish Bangor as a first-class research centre for students of the history of Wales. The collection and care of Welsh estate archives emerged as a central strand in these efforts. He succeeded in persuading dozens of landowners in North Wales…

BOOKS The Big Houses and Landed Estates of Ireland Terence Dooley Four Courts Press, 2007 Dooley’s guide provides practical advice about accessing and using estate archives. It focuses primarily on the Irish context, but has broader applicability. Tracing History Through Title Deeds Nat Alcock Pen & Sword, 2017 Alcock’s book, the successor to his classic guide Old Title Deeds, is invaluable for locating and using different types of deed. WEBSITES INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF WELSH ESTATES iswe.bangor.ac.uk The institute is a centre based at Bangor University dedicated to researching the history of landed estates and country houses in Wales. LANDED ESTATES landedestates.ie Search a map and database of landed estates in Connacht and Munster in Ireland, C1700-1914, including links to relevant archives and publications. NATIONAL RECORDS OF SCOTLAND tinyurl.com/nrs-estate…

At the British Music Hall Society (britishmusichallsociety.com) we regularly receive inquiries from those seeking to trace their theatrical relatives. We always recommend the British Newspaper Archive (britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk), which has revolutionised theatre research with the digitisation of the main theatrical newspapers including The Era (1838-1939), The Stage (1880-2007) and The Music Hall and Theatre Review (1889-1912), as well as publications such as The Referee (1877-1914) and The Entr’acte 1870-1907) which contain much theatrical content. Theatre and sport often went hand in hand as can be seen from such publications as The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News (1874-1970). The archive also has a myriad of local papers, with their many advertisements for productions in town that week and coming the next. These are also more likely to contain reviews of productions and…

At about 12.40am on 24 September 1916, a Zeppelin’s bomb struck a house in Baytree Road, Brixton, South London. It was home to music-hall performers Jack Lorimer and his wife Stella Stahl, although the couple were away on a tour of South Africa leaving their sons Alex (aged nine), Maxwell (eight) and William (four) in the care of the family’s ‘nanny-cumhousekeeper’ Betty Hobbs. The explosion tipped over the bed that Alex and Maxwell shared, providing a measure of protection from the collapsing building. A shocked neighbour, Mr Davis, began clawing away at the rubble. His vivid account was published in the London Evening News on 8 February 1935: “I heard a thin little voice crying, ‘Save me, save me!’ I went frantic; after pulling away part of the roof, and…

• Widen the search to look in detail at known siblings and offspring of your problem ancestor for any clues. • Find others keen to share the story as it develops, so that you can bounce around thoughts and ideas (however wild). • Surname changes are common when divorce was not a viable alternative to marital desertion. • Don’t discount colourful family stories. They may hold a kernel of truth that proves a vital lead.…

c1214 The date of the earliest document in the collection of episcopal rolls and registers held by Lincolnshire Archives in Lincoln. 1215 The sealing of the Magna Carta is witnessed by Hugh of Wells, Bishop of Lincoln. One of the four surviving original copies is preserved at Lincoln Castle. 1644 Lincoln Castle is besieged for the final time when its Royalist defenders are overwhelmed by the Parliamentarians. 1703 John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, is born in Epworth near Lincoln. 1884 Lincoln City Football Club is founded. The team will win the Midland League in 1889/1890, its first full season playing league football. 1918 Ruston & Hornsby, a manufacturer of diesel locomotives, steam shovels and traction engines (pictured), is founded in Lincoln. 1925 Future prime minister Margaret Thatcher is born…

WATCH A DREAM DELIVERED tinyurl.com/yt-delivered Free This half-hour documentary follows Kelley Dixon-Tealer from Houston, Texas, and her mother Alva Marie Jenkins as they team up with a genealogist from Ancestry to uncover their roots. Their journey leads them to the poignant letters written by Kelley’s enslaved 3x great grandfather as he tried to trace his surviving family. LISTEN SPITFIRE: THE PEOPLE’S PLANE bbc.co.uk/programmes/wl3xtv79/episodes/player Free Actor Tuppence Middleton presents this 10-part BBC World Service series, now available to listen to online, that tells the story of the most iconic aircraft of the Second World War through the accounts of the ordinary people who risked their lives to build and fly it. WEBSITE LONDON: A LIFE IN MAPS bl.uk/londoninmaps Free This virtual exhibition from the British Library traces the history of London via…

Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 304 pages, £25 SOCIAL HISTORY An immersive account of Caroline Norton’s life, The Case of the Married Woman encompasses the social, legal and political backdrop that shaped her experiences and drove her actions. Caroline’s story is one of loss and injustice, and was frequently played out in the public eye. Caroline married the MP George Norton in 1827 at the age of 19, and among the many subsequent visitors to her salon was the politician Lord Melbourne. George’s abuse including violence - is painful to read. He enacted a ‘criminal conversation’ case, accusing Melbourne and Caroline of adultery. He blocked Caroline’s access to their three young children, as they legally belonged to him. Caroline had a successful career as a writer, but as a married woman her…