Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2023 i Who Do You Think You Are?

When the 1921 census came online, I went onto our street WhatsApp group and offered to do ‘look-ups’ for my neighbours. It wasn’t long before a group of us started digging deeper into the stories of past residents and the dramas of our street. It’s surprisingly satisfying and there’s plenty that can be done easily online, as our guide to house history on page 14 explains. And if it’s guidance with your family history that you are looking for, then why not join a family history society (see page 20)? It’s a great way to benefit from expert local knowledge, and support these groups who do so much for family historians and local archives. You can even get involved as a volunteer, and help shape their future. We’ve got plenty…

Email wdytyaeditorial@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 AncestryDNA test worth £79 – so drop us a line and share your thoughts with us. MISTRESS OF SWING Being an avid family history researcher since I was at school, more years ago than I care to remember, I have always enjoyed WDYTYA?, but I found Lesley Manville’s search for Aaron Harding of particular interest. I have been researching the Swing Riots since the early 1990s, firstly looking at riots in Gloucestershire, as I thought some of my ancestors might have taken part as there were riots in Bibury, the village where they lived in 1830. By the time I had found out that…

HUDDERSFIELD & DISTRICT FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY FAIR 14 October a Cathedral House, Huddersfield e secretary@hdfhs.org.uk w hdfhs.org.uk/the-family-history-fair The society’s annual fair will feature three talks by local historians – David Hinchliffe on ‘A Most Gross and Groundless Prosecution: the Denby Witchcraft Case of 1674’; Dr David Allen on Georgian silver, who will share pieces from his collection; and Trevor Spencer of the Huddersfield Film Makers Club, showing archival films. There will also be stalls, the chance to consult members of the family history society and search their resources, and transcribed census and parish records available to buy as CDs and booklets, together with a café serving food and drinks. £3.…

Berkshire Record Office gets royal name change Berkshire Record Office was granted permission to change its name to the Royal Berkshire Archives as it celebrated its 75th anniversary on 10 August. The change reflects Berkshire’s status as England’s only royal county. All six Berkshire councils jointly applied for the privilege, and were granted the title by the Cabinet Office. The archive holds a variety of documents with royal connections, including a Charter from Charles I dating from 1638. You can find its website at royalberkshirearchives.org.uk. IHGS holds annual awards ceremony in Canterbury The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies (ihgs.ac.uk) held its annual awards ceremony on 5 August at Canterbury Cathedral Lodge. Fifteen students passed its courses in heraldry and genealogy. The 2023 Bickersteth Medal for outstanding services to heraldry…

The amount awarded to heritage skills training in the UK and Commonwealth by the charity the Hamish Ogston Foundation Oxfordshire The 1910 Valuation Office Survey records for the county have been added to thegenealogist.co.uk 60% The proportion of the British public worried about heritage and cultural attractions closing due to spending cuts, according to a new survey (tinyurl.com/indepen-sur) £35k The value of the grant awarded to Dorset History Centre by The National Archives to catalogue the records of writer Thomas Hardy (tinyurl.com/pr-hardy) Machu Picchu Scientists have analysed the DNA of servants buried at the historic Peruvian site (tinyurl.com/smithson-mac)…

PARISH RATES These can include several different types; the most common is the poor rate, where the householder was taxed according to the value of their property to provide the poor relief in the parish. However, there can also be sewerage rates, watching (ie security) rates, church rates, and others. These can be invaluable for the period before the census. LAND TAX This is another useful tax record, usually surviving from about the 1780s through to 1832, although you can find dates stretching beyond this range. Although it refers to land, it can be a guide to the accompanying house as well. Land tax records were also used as evidence of those eligible to vote (based on the value of land ownership), but disappeared following the changes in eligibility introduced…

If you haven’t joined a local family history society yet and want to dip your toe into the water, one of the best ways is to attend a family history fair. Societies from across the country will be exhibiting at the FHF’s virtual Really Useful Family History Show on 17–18 November (fhf-reallyuseful.com). The federation will also hold an in-person event for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic began in St Ives, Cambridgeshire, on 20 April 2024 (fhf-reallyuseful.com/2024-live). You can find details of more family history society events on page 9 of every issue of the magazine.…

FOCUS ON THE SECOND BOER WAR There’s an invisible gap in the 1901 census. In addition to the Regular British troops involved, thousands of Volunteers found themselves still in South Africa fighting in the Second Boer War (also known as the Anglo-Boer War, 1899–1902). Could your missing male ancestor have been among them? The conflict was between the British Empire and the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, independent Boer republics. They’d defeated Britain previously in the First Boer War (1880–1881), ruining plans to incorporate them into a South African union. The discovery of gold and diamonds in their territory caused a huge influx of Britons to work in the Boer mines, but they weren’t allowed the vote. Tensions mounted, and the Boers purchased modern weapons and pre-emptively invaded South Africa…

ANGLOBOERWAR.COM w angloboerwar.com Dr David Biggins’ invaluable site includes a busy forum, information about units and medals, 130 digitised or transcribed books, and details of Boer fighters. THE GREAT BOER WAR w tinyurl.com/gutenberg-acd-boer This 1900 book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a volunteer physician during the war, is freely available as an e-book. You’ll find references to units and battles, not individual soldiers. THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES w tinyurl.com/tna-guide-second-boer TNA’s essential online guide to its wide range of holdings relating to the war includes subsections offering advice on researching soldiers, sailors and military operations.…

In my work on the Long, Long Trail, I try to make it easier for researchers to find and understand records relating to the British Army during the First World War. This web page focuses on campaign medal rolls: longlongtrail.co.uk/soldiers/how-to-research-a-soldier/campaign-medal-records/ the-campaign-medal-rolls. These large, heavy, bound volumes are held at TNA, where the collection reference is WO 329; thankfully they are now digitised for online access, and Ancestry’s collection includes images of the pages. The rolls were compiled by the Army Medals Offices as a record of issue of the various campaign medals, mainly during 1919–1922. They are organised by type of medal and by regiment, and each contains details of thousands of issued medals. The information they include sheds crucial light on a man’s service. An index-card system (the Medal…

This valuation roll from Inverness-shire, submitted to the Scottish Exchequer, is held by the National Records of Scotland. The roll has been digitised and is freely available at the website ScotlandsPlaces (scotlandsplaces.gov.uk) 1 INVERNESS The first entry states that this roll was commissioned by the commissioners of supply for “the Shyre of Inverness” on 14 May 1791. Note that if you struggle to read any of the handwritten script, a full transcript for each page of the roll can be found immediately beneath the image on ScotlandsPlaces. 2 E106 The accession number for this particular roll at the NRS can be seen at the top-left of the page. 3 PETTY PARISH The roll for Inverness-shire is divided in this case into individual parishes in the county. Seven parishes are featured in total. 4…

Butcher, baker, candlestick maker – discovering our ancestors’ professions can be one of the most fascinating elements of genealogy. Bryony Parsons explains how newspaper articles and marriage records helped her to explore the career of her 5x great grandfather. MY BRICK WALL Music was a passion for some of my 19th-century ancestors. My 4x great grandmother Priscilla Bennett was born in Sheffield in 1813 and married Thomas Kaye, who was a lay clerk. This was a professional adult singer who performed in an Anglican or Roman Catholic cathedral. The couple settled in Durham, where Thomas sang in the cathedral choir and worked as a music seller. They had seven children; one, Charles Bennett Kaye, became a professor of music in Hertfordshire. Tracing Priscilla’s parents proved to be more of a…

We paid a visit to Somerset Archives and Local Studies just as staff were marking the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the National Health Service, tweeting images of an annotated copy of the NHS Act that still lurks in the county strongrooms. Alongside were photos of Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, originally built by the US Army during the Second World War, and images and cast details from a jollylooking staff pantomime called Little Red Nursing Belt. The county archive is run by the South West Heritage Trust, a charity that was founded in 2014 and also manages the Museum of Somerset, the Somerset Rural Life Museum and the Somerset Brick & Tile Museum. The archive’s home, the Somerset Heritage Centre in Taunton, boasts a number of unusual name-rich…

Southampton has been an important port for centuries. Southampton Docks opened in 1842, and the town became known as the ‘Gateway to the Empire’, because many Southampton residents made their living from the sea. However, there was a high risk of accidents and disasters, and in 1887 tragedy struck when 10 men were killed in an accident on the steamship Elbe. Here Joe Baldwin, archives and local studies assistant at Southampton Archives, shares a letter written by a bereaved mother in the aftermath of the disaster. WHAT HAPPENED IN THE ELBE DISASTER? Elbe was a steamship built in 1870 and owned by the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company. In 1887, its old boilers were replaced, and its engines upgraded. Before it could resume its usual duties as a mail ship,…

DNA TESTING Barbara Rae-Venter Ballantine, 256 pages, £21 The Golden State Killer is a serial killer and rapist who committed at least 13 murders and more than 50 rapes in California in the 1970s and 1980s. He escaped detection for decades until he was finally caught in 2018 through the use of genetic genealogy. This case effectively led to the birth of a new discipline known as investigative genetic genealogy – the use of consumer DNA databases, namely GEDmatch (gedmatch.com) and FamilyTreeDNA (familytreedna.com), to identify the perpetrators of violent crimes as well as human remains. Barbara Rae-Venter is a former patent attorney who took up genealogy as a hobby when she retired. Her volunteer work using genetic genealogy to help adoptees identify their birth parents eventually led to her assisting…

There can be lots of reasons why you may not find someone in census records. Their entry could be mistranscribed, they may have given false information or they could have travelled abroad. Another possibility, for men of fighting age in 1901, is that hey may have signed up to fight in the Second Boer War, as Phil Tomaselli explains in this month’s ‘Focus On’ (page 29). As he shows, there are plenty of resources to explore online.…

STAR LETTER My mother-in-law used to tell a story about visiting family who lived in a caravan on Hampstead Heath. They remembered the excitement of going into the caravan and seeing all the polished brass. Nobody seemed to know if the family they visited were Romani or travelling showmen. After researching the Weatherhead branch of the family, the story started to become clearer. My husband’s great grandmother was a Weatherhead, and the family had owned fairground rides and driven the steam engines to power them. Research showed that a static fairground existed in Deptford High Street, and the family owned gallopers (merry-go-rounds with horses) and swing boats. It appears that some travelling showmen overwintered in a caravan enclosure in Deptford. My mother-in-law’s great uncle George was a travelling showman as…

More than 80,000 records of Second World War prisoners of war (POWs) have been published on Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk). The family history website’s new collection, ‘UK and Allied Countries, World War II Liberated Prisoner of War Questionnaires, 1945–1946’, contains 83,560 records in total. The questionnaires are held at The National Archives in Kew, in record series WO 344. They were distributed to surviving POWs by the War Office Directorate of Military Intelligence following the end of the war, and have not previously been published online. Each man was asked to supply information including his name; service number; rank; details of any medals; his date of birth; his date of enlistment; his address and telephone number; his profession before the war; his place and date of capture; and the camps or hospitals…

Royal Museums Greenwich (RMG) is appealing for help from the public identifying a portrait of an unknown officer in the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) from 1945. RMG acquired the portrait last year, and there are relatively few portraits of female service personnel in its collections. The woman depicted is a third-class officer who appears to have been awarded a medal and be wearing a wedding or engagement ring. The portrait was painted by an artist from Chelsea named Joseph McCulloch, which suggests that the sitter must have been serving in the UK in 1945, and was probably familiar with the West London art scene. If you think that she could be someone in your family tree, please email RMG on rmgenquiries@rmg.co.uk.…

THE CENSUS The early census returns (1841–1881) are vital for providing information about the history of a house. Many other sources only list the head of the household but the census also records spouses, children, servants, lodgers and visitors on the date of enumeration, providing a clearer picture of the life of the property. While the earlier census returns have more limited detail, they still record key information: names, occupations and ages. ORDNANCE SURVEY MAPS OS maps were produced in detail (25 inches to the mile) from the mid-to-late 19th century (depending on the area), and then periodically updated every 20–30 years. This enables you to clearly track your house, but also the development and changes over the decades. TITHE MAPS AND APPORTIONMENTS These were produced from the late 1830s…

The three men gaze into the camera, and behind them is what looks like a recreation ground or school field. The two on the left of the photograph stand as if to attention, but the chap on the right looks more relaxed – he has his hands on his hips and a slight smile on his face. Ian Cooper’s mother had always told him that the man in the middle was her “Grandpa, Nathaniel Allen, with two other policemen”, but when a newspaper story surfaced about the 100th birthday of one of Nathaniel’s daughters, its contents prompted Ian to start investigating his great grandfather in depth. He has uncovered links to notable events in Liverpool’s history, including a notorious murder trial. And there’s even a Jack the Ripper connection. “I…

Local newspapers are an excellent source of information about local men and units – it sold newspapers! Embodiment of local Militia units is reported along with information about where they were to be sent. Many stayed in Britain or Ireland to fill gaps left by Regular units going overseas. But, if the men agreed, they could be sent abroad to garrison Gibraltar or Malta, to St Helena to guard prisoner-of-war camps, or even to South Africa itself. For example, the Daily News reported that the commander of the 5th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Militia, asked that any man who didn’t want to go to South Africa step forward. Nobody did, and he remarked, “Just what I expected – not a single man” and was cheered off the parade ground. The return of…

ARCHIVE THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES a Kew, Richmond TW9 4DU t 020 8876 3444 w nationalarchives.gov.uk The War Office campaign medal and award rolls in WO 100 cover 1793–1984. BOOK The Boer War Thomas Pakenham Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979 This lengthy but readable history can be borrowed from the Internet Archive at tinyurl.com/arch-pakenham. WEBSITE ANCESTRY w ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/1686 Search details of more than 2.3 million officers, enlisted personnel and other individuals entitled to medals and awards for their British Army service (1793–1949), taken from WO 100.…

BRITISH MEDAL FORUM w britishmedalforum.com/index.php This forum boasts more than 1,130,000 posts. EMPIRE MEDALS w empiremedals.com/collections/medal-ribbon If you’re lucky enough to own an ancestor’s medal, this firm supplies replacement ribbon. There are also plenty of pictures on its website. IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM w tinyurl.com/iwm-ww1-service-medals The IWM’s handy guide includes illustrations. LIFE SAVING AWARDS RESEARCH SOCIETY w lsars.org.uk This group helps anyone researching medals and decorations awarded for gallantry in lifesaving. MEDALS OF THE WORLD w medals.org.uk Views photos of the obverse and reverse of many military awards, plus the official ribbon. ORDERS AND MEDALS RESEARCH SOCIETY w omrs.org The society’s US equivalent is the Orders and Medals Society of America (omsa.org). ROYAL MINT MUSEUM w tinyurl.com/rmm-waterloo-medal-roll Here you can search the museum’s copy of the Waterloo Medal Roll free of…

BOOK A Directory of Landownership in Scotland c1770 Loretta R Timperley (editor) Scottish Record Society, 1976 This guide has information taken from valuation rolls. A digital version can be purchased online via tannerritchie.com/srs. WEBSITES SCAN CATALOGUE w scan.org.uk/aboutus/indexonline.htm The Scottish Archive Network catalogue includes details of burgh and land tax records that are held in archives across Scotland. SCOTTISH HANDWRITING w scottishhandwriting.com This website from the NRS can teach you how to read older forms of handwriting.…

Q My 4x great grandfather, William Sanctuary, married Elizabeth Gent on 12 September 1790 in Hilgay, Norfolk. I can find no baptisms for him near Hilgay but there is one in Wendling, Norfolk, on 18 March 1770, which is 21 miles away. Banns of marriage were read in Wendling for William Sanctuary and Elizabeth Capes on 28 March, 19 April and 30 May 1789, but I can’t find a marriage. On the occasion of the second reading, Samuel Capes, Elizabeth’s illegitimate son, was baptised. Was this William my ancestor, and did he do a runner to Hilgay? Janice Thomson A The purpose of reading banns in a church was to allow members of the congregation to declare any reason in law why a marriage should not take place. Banns were…

Q I’m researching the Victorian British songwriter known as Claribel, whose real name was Charlotte Alington Barnard. She died on 30 January 1869 in Dover, but I cannot find any evidence of her will, which I've seen references to in letters from family members. Charlotte left a widower, the Rev Charles Cary Barnard, but no children. She lived in England most of her life, but the family were exiled to Belgium and she died on holiday in Britain after contracting typhoid fever in Brussels. If she never made a will, could probate have been granted instead? Whitney Thompson A It is most unlikely that Charlotte could have made a legally valid will. Until the 1882 Married Women’s Property Act, it was considered that on marriage everything a woman owned became…

Rationing was in full swing when the department-store tycoon born Frederick Marquis took over the Ministry of Food in April 1940, but he recognised that the battle for hearts and minds was only just beginning. Woolton embarked on an ambitious public-relations campaign to promote his policies. Among his enduring legacies is the ‘Woolton Pie’ – a vegetarian recipe bulked out with rolled oats; the myth that eating carrots helps you to see in the dark; the phrase ‘fighting fit’; and the cosy persona of ‘Uncle Fred’. Woolton knew that rationing would only succeed if it was fair, and he clashed with Winston Churchill over the exemption of restaurants. He eventually won the argument and imposed a cap on prices, a limit of three courses, and restrictions on the amount of…

1572 Welsh physician John Jones lauds Bath’s waters in The Benefit of the Auncient Bathes of Buckstones (free from the Internet Archive at tinyurl.com/arch-bathes). 1685 The Battle of Sedgemoor is the last engagement in the Monmouth Rebellion, a campaign to depose the Catholic James II. 1851 Kelways Plants is established in Langport. Known for peonies (above) and irises, the nursery continues to trade today. 1864 The Clifton Suspension Bridge opens, linking the suburb of Bristol with Leigh Woods in Somerset. 1904 William Thatcher starts making cider at Myrtle Farm in the Somerset village of Sandford. 1939 The Admiralty begins building an air base at Yeovilton. The site of Royal Navy Air Station Yeovilton today covers roughly 1,000 acres, and is the location of the Fleet Air Arm Museum. 1957 Construction…

BADMAN There were more than 400 Badmans recorded in the county when the 1881 census was taken on the night of Sunday 3 April. BANWELL Banwell is the name of a parish and small river located in North Somerset. CRIDDLE This surname may come from an Old English personal name, says The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain. DURBIN According to the website Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk/name-origin), 315 Durbin households were recorded in the 1891 census living in Somerset. GOODLAND Goodland is a locative name that shares roots with the likes of Goodacre and Goodfield. PUDDY It’s been suggested that Puddy is a nickname relating to a Middle English word for obese. ROWSELL This is a local variant of the surname Rossell. SHEARN Shearn may derive from a regional form…

FAMILY BIOGRAPHY POLLY TOYNBEE Atlantic, 448 pages, £22 Polly Toynbee is known for her left-wing journalism, and this book about her family demonstrates that she is descended from generations of writers and social reformers. The contents are spread across 15 chapters, and the supplementary material includes an introduction, a list of acknowledgments, notes, picture credits, an index and a bibliography. A family tree is reproduced across a double-page spread before the introduction, which documents the author, her parents and grandparents, and a further two generations. The details on the tree are a little sparse, but provide sufficient guidance for the reader as a who’s who. A further point is that the tree does not show all siblings, just those who are referenced in the book. Toynbee has created a fascinating…

MELANIE BACKEHANSEN Melanie has worked on previous episodes of A House Through Time and co-authored the accompanying book. Read her house history tips on page 14. PHIL TOMASELLI Our ‘Q&A’ military expert this month takes a deep dive into the records created during the Second Boer War. Turn to page 29 to explore what’s online and in the archives. JAMES HOARE A writer with a particular interest in the history of war, James’ proudest project was when he helped save the Heugh Battery Museum from closure. On page 54 he takes a look at rationing.…

Email wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk to feature your event here for free IN PERSON THE WIENER LIBRARY AT 90 Until 20 October a Wiener Holocaust Library, London t 0207 636 7247 w tinyurl.com/whl-90th The Wiener Holocaust Library is currently holding two exhibitions to mark its 90th anniversary -‘Highlights from the Archives’ and ‘The Wiener Family Story’, revealing the ancestry of its founder, Dr Alfred Wiener. Free. MADE BY THE RIVER Until 30 June 2024 a Ancient House Museum, Thetford t 01842 752599 w tinyurl.com/mus-norfolk-river This exhibition tells the story of Thetford’s riverside industries from the 1800s to the 1980s. Free with the cost of admission to the museum (£5.70). BAFHS FAMILY HISTORY FAIR 23 September a BAWA Leisure Centre, Bristol e fhfair@bafhs.onmicrosoft.com w tinyurl.com/bafhs-2023 Bristol & Avon Family History Society’s fair will feature…

ScotlandsPeople (scotlandspeople.gov.uk), the Scottish government’s genealogical records website, has removed details of adopted children from its register because of privacy concerns. The move follows a complaint from an adoptive mother after she discovered that her child was identifiable on the website. Before the changes, search results for birth records of adopted children were marked with “AR” (for “Adoption Register”) and “NRH” (for “New Register House”). This meant that if a child’s first name wasn’t changed after they were adopted, then searching for them could locate their original birth record. A spokesperson for the National Records of Scotland, which operates ScotlandsPeople, commented, “We are currently reviewing the way indexed entries from the Adopted Children Register are presented on the ScotlandsPeople website. “NRS has a statutory responsibility to make our registers open…

Tamsin Todd has stepped down from the role of chief executive officer of family history website Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk) after six years in the post. Findmypast said, “As the company moves to the next stage of its growth journey and greater integration with parent company DC Thomson, Tamsin decided the time is right for her to develop her board and leadership work beyond Findmypast.” Todd added, “I am proud of the strong business and team we have built at Findmypast, and I wish the company every success as it continues to serve and delight the global family history community.”…

Researching the history of houses has become increasingly popular in recent years. Partly encouraged by the success of the BBC Two series A House Through Time, for which I was research consultant, more and more people are looking behind the curtains to discover the history of their home, or that of their ancestor. There are so many wonderful stories to discover about a property’s former residents and owners, including their working life and involvement in national events, along with potential skeletons in the closet and links to scandals of the past. I have been researching the social history of houses for almost 18 years, and I am continually captivated by the stories that can be uncovered. Researching the histories of our houses involves piecing together a number of different sources…

Catherine Sampson, the chair of Berkshire Family History Society (berksfhs.org), reports that its membership has slightly declined over the past 10 years. “But on the flip side,” she says, “the number of people that we’re engaging with has actually increased quite significantly over the last five years.” Indeed, public engagement is really important for the society – it runs more than 150 events a year, including guided tours, informal workshops and university-level courses. There are also lots of ways that it helps members of the public who are interested in family history, including a dedicated Centre for Heritage and Family History in Reading, online resources and free library drop-in sessions. Sampson adds, “When we went into lockdown we had already started to explore online events and how we could better…

FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS Pictures can reveal a lot about your family’s past, and photos of ancestors in uniform can point you to written records. If you would like help understanding a family photo, you can email our ‘Q&A’ section on wdytya questions@ourmedia.co.uk. FINDMYPAST w findmypast.co.uk The biggest collection of digitised historic UK newspapers is available to ‘Pro’ subscribers to Findmypast, and can also be searched at the British Newspaper Archive (britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk). MERSEYSIDE MOUNTED POLICE SECTION w  merseysidepolicemounted.uk Although there are few names mentioned under the history section on this website, it’s full of details about this branch of the force, which began in 1886.…

Q I have a family photo of a boys’ football team winning a league – I’d love to know what the event was. It presumably took place in Glasgow where my father-inlaw, Christian Julius Etrop Sundstrem, who appears in the picture, lived. It shows the team with a trophy and shield. Christian, born in Bridgeton in 1920, is the boy to the front right of the team. I don’t know what school he went to, but his family were Catholic. There was a Sacred Heart Primary nearby in Bridgeton, and I believe that there was a Catholic secondary school there too. Joyce Sundstrem A If this was a school team, a list of past winners of the Glasgow schools league can be found on the website of the Glasgow Schools’…

Q Can you help me identify the little boy in this photograph? It’s a modern copy that was with my late dad’s things, and I’m pretty sure that it’s him or one of his brothers, as there’s a resemblance. My dad, John, was born in 1932 in Grimsby into a family of trawlermen, and had three older brothers: Wilf, born 1912, adopted into the family; Bill, born 1914; and Jim, born 1915. Lorraine Stanley A Modern copies of old studio photographs have lost much of the original evidence that indicates their time and place. We only have the image itself – a professional portrait of a little boy – and must study all of the visual clues. He wears a little sailor suit, a juvenile dress style first adopted in…

Q I Qam trying to establish where my maternal grandfather, Captain Clarence Bailey Tapsell, was born and obtain a birth certificate or baptism record. He was born 20 April 1897 – presumably in India. His father was Charles Edward Tapsell (born 1844), and his mother was Elizabeth Sarah Bailey (born 1862). He joined the British Army’s Yorkshire Regiment as a lieutenant attached to the 52nd Sikhs in the Indian Army Reserve of Officers. After his retirement as an ex-Indian Army captain, Clarence lived in Malaysia as a rubber planter. In 1924, he married Amy Louisa Watson in London and they returned to Malaysia. In 1927, they separated and Clarence went to Australia. In 1939, he registered with the Australian Army, service no. N73283, stating his place of birth as Hove,…

TECH TIPS Do you want to share your family tree online without having to worry about web-hosting costs or tying yourself to the likes of Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) or Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk)? The answer lies with Family Echo, a user-friendly and completely free website that not only lets you upload a GEDCOM file to publish an existing tree online, but provides a suite of tools that allow you to easily build family trees from scratch. You can then print a copy of your tree on paper or save it as a PDF, or give your relations permission to view your online tree and, if you choose, edit it as well. You can take Family Echo for a quick spin by going to familyecho.com and uploading your existing tree in GEDCOM format to…

ARCHIVE SAINSBURY ARCHIVE a Museum of London Docklands, No. 1 Warehouse, West India Quay, London E14 4AL t 020 7001 9852 e sainsburyarchive@museumoflondon.org.uk w sainsburyarchive.org.uk The supermarket’s archive has leaflets, advertising materials and memos about rationing. BOOK Eggs or Anarchy? William Sitwell Simon & Schuster, 2016 This is the most comprehensive biography of Lord Woolton. MUSEUM HOME FRONT MUSEUM a New Street, Llandudno LL30 2YF t 01492 871032 e info@homefrontmuseum.co.uk w homefrontmuseum.co.uk This museum explores wartime life including rationing, but shuts for the winter in late October. WEBSITES BRITISH LIBRARY SOUNDS w sounds.bl.uk Searching for ‘rationing’ brings up a wealth of oral histories. MOI DIGITAL w moidigital.ac.uk The digitised archive of the Ministry of Information contains fascinating reports and surveys that track attitudes to rationing. WDYTYA? MAGAZINE w tinyurl.com/wdytya-brit-res Learn…

WW1 INDEXES w tinyurl.com/som-cat-indexes The indexes from the county archive for the First World War include Absent Voters’ Lists (1918–1919), muster rolls and casualty lists (1914–1919), and lists of patients treated at Bridgwater Infirmary (1916–1919). BATH RESIDENTS w bathancestors.org.uk This database draws on the names in more than 76,000 records from Bath and the local area for 1603–1990. MAPS w www.kypwest.org.uk At the site Know Your Place – West of England you can view historic maps from Somerset and other counties. QUARTER SESSIONS w tinyurl.com/arch-som-quart The vast Internet Archive includes a range of volumes from the Somerset Records Society, such as this collection of quartersessions records (1646–1660). WILLS w tinyurl.com/som-cat-ind-wills Search an index of wills, administrations and extracts at the Somerset Heritage Centre. The index provides the person’s name, parish…

LISTEN EMERALD ROOTS irishfamilyhistorycentre.com/emerald-roots-podcast Free The Irish Family History Centre, at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin, has launched a podcast for anyone who thinks they might have Irish ancestry. Recent episodes cover such themes as Irish surnames, the singer Bruce Springsteen’s Irish roots, and the history of the criminalisation of homosexuality in Ireland. NEWSLETTER SECRET SLEUTHS secretsleuths.substack.com Free Dr Nell Darby is a crime historian and TV presenter whose books include Sister Sleuths: Female Detectives in Britain (Pen & Sword, 2021). In her email newsletter she shares more of her research into 19th-century private detectives, revealing what the records show about pioneers in private detection of both sexes and the scandals that they were involved in. LISTEN THE GIRLS: THE HOLOCAUST SAFE HOUSE tinyurl.com/bbc-sounds-girls-holocaust Free Almost 10,000 Jewish…