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

SARAH'S TOP TIP Be aware of everyone recorded in a household on census night There are two examples this month of times where a non-family member recorded in a census return has proved to be a useful, or potentially useful, clue. On page 18 (pictured) you can see the 1901 Harry Harris who turned out to be grandfather. And in ‘Q&A’ on page 44, Dave Annal in an 1861 brick wall. Most family historians have at least one intractable problem, a brick wall that niggles them, an ancestor we feel we should be able to find in the records, but can't. I've been trying to find my father-in-law's paternal grandparents for years (his father was informally adopted). I have managed to trace his grandfather, but his grandmother Kennett's DNS case study…

PICK OF THE MONTH The Family History Federation's popular event returns The Really Useful Family History Show 17–18 November w fhf-reallyuseful.com The Family History Federation's annual virtual family history show is back this November. A packed programme includes more than 50 talks and 30 workshops from experts in the field, plus a virtual exhibition hall with stalls from family history organisations. This year's talks include ‘The Legacy of the First World War in the 1921 Census’ by Paul Nixon, ‘Death Certificates and Causes of Death for Family History’ by David Church, ‘How to Write a Family History’ by Chris Lightfoot and ‘Introduction to Forensic Genetic Genealogy’ by Penny Walters. The workshops cover such topics as Liverpool's Home Children, tracing merchant seamen, and mind-mapping in genealogy. £15. IN PERSON A CASE…

Ancestry adds UK's oldest Ordnance Survey maps Family history website Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) has released the oldest available Ordnance Survey maps of the UK. Ordnance Survey began its first national survey of Britain in 1805. The production of the maps, known as the Old Series, lasted until 1874. Maps were created on a county-by-county basis and periodically revised, notably for the addition of railway lines. The collection of 50,912 records covers England, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man, and has been digitised by Cassini (cassinimaps.co.uk). Family donates collections to Tamworth archives Papers relating to a 19th-century photographer and his author grandson have been donated to the archives of Tamworth Borough Council (tamworth.gov.uk). Tara Paulsson, the daughter of novelist Guy Newman Smith (1939–2020), has donated private, previously unseen photos, paintings and…

English Heritage has warned that its school trips to historic sites are at risk because of the cost-of-living crisis. Research by the charity shows that school trips have declined by 28 per cent since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, which the charity attributes to the wider economy. Historic sites in the affluent south-east of England also receive more school visits than sites in poorer regions of the country. On average in 2022– 2023, a historic site in the southeast welcomed almost eight times as many schoolchildren as one in the north-west, almost seven times as many as one in the north-east, and five times as many as one in East Anglia. The charity says that 83 per cent of trips to its sites are free for the…

1 CREATE A GROUP Clustering is easy to do at AncestryDNA using the coloured dots. Begin with your closest match. Click that person's profile, then choose ‘Add to group’ before selecting ‘Create custom group’. 2 SAVE YOUR GROUP Choose a colour and give your new custom group a name. This can be a generic name such as Group 1, or you can use the names of a common ancestral couple instead. Then choose ‘Save’. 3 ADD MATCHES TO YOUR GROUP Click ‘Shared Matches’. Bulk-add the coloured dot to everyone in the list to include them in your newly created group. You can then repeat the process with all of your remaining top matches. 4 FILTER YOUR MATCHES The ‘Groups’ menu can be accessed from your match list and used as a filter. By looking…

DOCUMENTING DISASTER Thanks to the creation of online family history databases, it has never been so easy to identify records of births, marriages and deaths, as well as censuses, which provide snapshots depicting an individual moment in our ancestors’ lives. However, each of our forebears will have experienced a lifetime of challenges, fortunes and adversity. As such, there may be more to be discovered concerning them than the records of such instances can reveal. In particular, one area that can be potentially fruitful for our research is that of the crisis scenarios endured by our relations, because more often than not there was somebody standing close by with a quill and ink, ready to preserve the details. Our ancestors were no different to us in experiencing hardship at times, and…

When Gethin Matthews, a senior lecturer in history at Swansea University, discovered the existence of 100 or so letters written by three brothers – Richard, Gabriel and Ivor Eustis – to family back home in Swansea during the First World War, he knew they were something special. Not only did they feed into a research project he was working on, but the siblings were related to him. However, among the letters was one that he found deeply unsettling. “I've always been interested in Welsh history, so it's natural for me to want to know how my family fit in. I've amassed a lot of information on all of my lines: 15 of my 16 great great grandparents were Welsh, and one is of Cornish ancestry – the Eustis branch.” Gethin's…

BOOKS Man Walks into a Pub, 2nd Edn Pete Brown Pan, 2010 Don't miss this entertaining history of the pub trade. Researching Brewery and Publican Ancestors, 2nd Edn Simon Fowler Family History Partnership, 2009 You can borrow Simon's book for free via the Internet Archive (archive.org) at tinyurl.com/arch-fowler. Victuallers’ Licences, 3rd Edn Jeremy Gibson Family History Partnership, 2009 Find out more about the records available in archives across the country. WEBSITES INN SIGN SOCIETY w innsignsociety.com It is worth contacting the society if you want to know about the names of pubs. There is also plenty of useful information on its website. LICENSED VICTUALLERS DATABASE w tinyurl.com/warwick-lvd Search a free database of victuallers (1801–1828) based on registers of calendars of recognizances at Warwickshire County Record Office, plus details of the…

ARTHUR LLOYD w arthurlloyd.co.uk This long-running mine of information covers the British music hall, pantomime and variety scene. BRITISH NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE w britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk Alongside national and local papers, BNA also has specialist titles such as The Stage and The Era. LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA w tinyurl.com/london-symph-orch-archive The LSO archive includes programmes back to 1904 and a downloadable discography of every recording session the orchestra has undertaken. MUSIC IN GOTHAM w www.musicingotham.org Search performers in opera, oratorio, symphony, chamber, band, minstrel, choral and solo concerts in New York (1862–1875). NATIONAL FAIRGROUND AND CIRCUS ARCHIVE w tinyurl.com/sheffield-uni-nfaca The archive looks after thousands of images, books, posters, handbills and programmes. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND w digital.nls.uk/catalogues/theatre-programmes Browse almost 14,000 programmes by location or venue, or search by keyword. ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC w https://keimages.ram.ac.uk/IMU/#/home…

BOOK The Archives of the Valuation of Ireland 1830–1865 Frances McGee Four Courts Press, 2018 McGee was an archivist, as well as a former acting director of the National Archives of Ireland. WEBSITES IRISH GENEALOGY TOOLKIT w irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/revision-books.html Journalist, family historian and author Claire Santry shares her own tips for the Revision Books. TIMELINE w timeline.ie/revision-books There is a helpful article on the Revision Books on Nicola's company's website by its co-founder Dr Robert Somerville-Woodward.…

TECH TIPS We're always keeping an eye out for new ways to organise your family history, and this issue we're taking a fresh look at a free program called Ancestris that runs on Windows, macOS and Linux and provides you with all of the core tools you need to manage your tree. Ancestris currently offers two different versions – we're featuring the stable version, 11, while version 12 is a testing version that's updated almost daily. Start your journey at ancestris.org by scrolling down the homepage and clicking the correct download link for your operating system for Ancestris 11. Once downloaded, double-click the set-up file and follow the prompts to install it. We've assumed that you already have a tree online or on another program, in which case you should…

BOOKS The Clergy and the Clearances David Paton John Donald Publishers, 2006 Learn how the Kirk hindered and helped the expulsions. The Highland Clearances John Prebble Penguin, 1969 This classic can be borrowed for free from the Internet Archive at tinyurl.com/arch-preb. The Highland Clearances Trail, 2nd Edn Rob Gibson Luath Press, 2023 This handy guide shows the locations of cleared heartlands. MUSEUM STRATHNAVER MUSEUM a Clachan, Bettyhill KW14 7SS t 01641 521418 w strathnavermuseum.org.uk This museum documents the Clearances on the Sutherland Estate. It is now closed for the winter, but reopens in April. WEBSITES PAPERS ON SUTHERLAND ESTATE MANAGEMENT 1802–1816 w tinyurl.com/nls-sem These two volumes from the Scottish History Society look at how different factors managed the Sutherland Estate. THE NAPIER COMMISSION w tinyurl.com/uhi-napier You can read the report…

BMDs w staffordshirebmd.org.uk Staffordshire BMD reaches back to the beginning of civil registration in 1837, and currently has some 2.3 million births, 1.5 million deaths and one million marriages. COAL-MINING RECORDS w tinyurl.com/north-staffs-coal This old but still functioning website dedicated to the North Staffordshire Coalfield has the names of victims of accidents, managers and union officials. PARISH REGISTERS w bit.ly/fs-staffs The free website FamilySearch includes the collection ‘England, Staffordshire, Church Records, 1538–1944’, although images are only available at Family History Centers or with a Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk) subscription. DIRECTORIES w bit.ly/special-staffs You can download free digitised trade and street directories covering Cambridgeshire from the University of Leicester's website Special Collections Online. WILLS w staffsnameindexes.org.uk This key site includes the recently expanded collection ‘Diocese of Lichfield and Coventry Wills, 1570–1790’, plus new…

ARCHIVES The Staffordshire and Stokeon-Trent Archive Service (whose site is at staffordshire.gov.uk/archives) runs both the county headquarters in Stafford and the Stoke-on-Trent City Archives. STAFFORDSHIRE RECORD OFFICE a Eastgate Street, Stafford ST16 2LZ t 01785 278379 e staffordshire.record.office@staffordshire.gov.uk The office is closed until the new Staffordshire History Centre opens, but there are lots of useful online resources at your fingertips – not least Staffordshire Name Indexes (staffsnameindexes.org.uk) and the Gateway to the Past catalogue (archives.staffordshire.gov.uk/CalmView/Default.aspx). STOKE-ON-TRENT CITY ARCHIVES a City Central Library, Bethesda Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent ST1 3RS t 01782 238420 e stoke.archives@stoke.gov.uk The office is in the process of moving next door to the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery (see the ‘Museums’ section below). BIRMINGHAM ARCHDIOCESAN ARCHIVES a Cathedral House, St Chad's Queensway, Birmingham B4 6EU t 0121 230…

Gathering up her voluminous skirts, luggage and teenage ward Matilda, Louisa Snelson stepped into a Māori canoe on the Manawatū River. It was 1871, and she was about to become the first known European woman to travel into the dense bush of the upper Manawatū-Whanganui region. This was a wilderness located on the lower edge of New Zealand's North Island. Louisa is the 3x great aunt of Becky Bull, who is amazed by her bravery. “I found out about Louisa via my cousin Rachel Baskerville in New Zealand, who has researched the family extensively,” Becky explains. Her obituary described her as ‘the Mother of Palmerston North’ Louisa was born in Wellington on North Island in 1844 to British settlers Henry and Elizabeth Buck, two decades before the city became the…

Debbie Kennett Debbie is a genetic genealogist and author of DNA and Social Networking. She shares the story of her hunt for her great grandparents using DNA tips we can all try on page 15. CHRIS PATON On page 20 genealogist and blogger Chris explains how family disasters can lead you to find more records, and on page 54 he explores the tragedy of Scotland's Highland Clearances. SIMON FOWLER As the author of Researching Brewery and Publican Ancestors, Simon is your ideal guide to tracing the history of pubs and the people who worked in them (page 31).…

Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk) has uncovered Sir Michael Caine's family links to the First World War to coincide with the release of his new film, The Great Escaper. Released on 6 October, The Great Escaper stars Caine as Bernard Jordan, a real-life D-Day veteran who ‘broke out’ of his nursing home in 2014 to attend the 70th-anniversary D-Day commemorations in France. Findmypast researchers found that the actor has many military veterans in his family tree. During the First World War, his father Maurice Micklewhite served as a private in the Rifle Brigade, while his grandfather Joseph was a private in the Middlesex Regiment and the Labour Corps, receiving both the Victory Medal and the British War Medal. Both survived, but Caine's uncle Daniel was not so lucky; he was injured in battle…

Tales of murder in the Middle Ages can now be searched online for free thanks to a research project from the University of Cambridge. Medieval Murder Maps (medievalmurdermap.co.uk), run by the university's Violence Research Centre, has published maps of London, Oxford and York showing the locations of 354 murders across the three cities that were committed in the 14th century. The accompanying background information, taken from the cities’ coroners’ rolls, makes for gruesome reading. For example, the Oxford map shows the location where John de Snowdoune, clerk, died on 24 February 1344, after being “shot… in the eye with an arrow” by one Hugh Mymmes.…

In 1921, Mary Thomson applied for relief in Glasgow because she was no longer supported by a daughter who had just married. In the notes at Glasgow City Archives (glasgowlife.org.uk/libraries/city-archives) Mary said that she had four children, and that her second husband had died. She was admitted to the poorhouse, then granted outdoor relief. In 1922 Mary's husband was found to be alive; he had left her due to her “drunkenness and immoral conduct”. When he refused to support Mary financially, he was sentenced to three months’ hard labour, then absconded. Mary was also discovered to have been prosecuted twice for breaches of the peace, and in 1917 for keeping a brothel, with a daughter noted as a well-known prostitute. Her outdoor relief was therefore stopped. Mary was again prosecuted…

FAMILY ACCOUNTS Ask older members of the family to see if they have diaries and letters tucked away. Contact more distant relations too, because such items may be passed down through other branches of your tree. Gethin was able to cross-check events referenced in Richard's diary and the letters he wrote. WAR DIARIES w tinyurl.com/tna-ww1-war-diaries If you know the unit your relative served with, you can trace their movements during the First World War. The diaries are held at The National Archives at Kew and can be downloaded from its website for free if you sign in, while those relating to Gallipoli and the Dardanelles are on Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/60380). WELSH NEWSPAPERS w newspapers.library.wales This free database of 15 million Welsh and English-language articles can reveal events that affected your Welsh…

1 SURREY The county is named here, and in the fifth line. 2 KINGSTON UPON THAMES The town was historically in Surrey, but is now part of Greater London. 3 OCTOBER The precise date of the record is given here: Tuesday 18 October 1825. 4 ST GEORGE The parish was St George in Southwark, but the volume also has details of premises in the rural parts of Surrey. 5 EDWARD ALFORD The name of each victualler – that is, the licensee or landlord – is listed in this column. 6 CATHERINE WHEEL The “Sign of the House” column refers to the name of the premises. Here street addresses are also given, but this is unusual. 7 FREDERICK GRAHAM The name of the person who provided the surety is given, in addition to their…

Can you solve the mystery of my seafaring Poate ancestor? Q Captain James Poate (1781-1852) of the Royal Navy was my 3x great grandfather. According to the Wikisource Naval Biographical Dictionary, James entered the Navy in 1784. If this is true, he would only have been three. I've also been led to believe that he was aboard HMS Sirius, flagship of the first convict transportation, as the assistant ship's carpenter – but he would only have been six years old. Anne Thomas A The two James Poates you identify who served with the Royal Navy are not the same person, and neither of them was a captain. One was carpenter's mate on HMS Sirius when it sailed to Australia in 1787–1788. The Fellowship of First Fleeters website lists the complete…

Millions of people were displaced across Europe during the Second World War, many disappearing without trace in forced labour camps or on arduous journeys. Nadia Rupniak has uncovered a tale of monstrous cruelty meted out to her Polish ancestors. It's testament to their spirit and hers that she has also found hope and inspiration amidst the darkness. MY BRICK WALL My father Captain Marcin Rupniak was a Polish Second World War veteran, who defended his country when it was invaded by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. When he was unable to return to communist Poland after the war, he settled in England. Dad never spoke to me about his wartime experiences. After he died in 1998, I was shocked to find a letter from my Polish cousin Helena.…

Researching your roots in this part of the world has always been tricky. The historic county boundaries of Staffordshire are easy enough to define, but as you move forward in time the story becomes increasingly murky, with parishes passing between neighbouring counties, or being swallowed up by Birmingham's expansion following the Industrial Revolution. This means that there are not only the county collections to think about (see staffordshire.gov.uk/archives) but also numerous museum collections, alongside major city and borough archives. For those just getting started, Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk) remains the most useful single resource. A long-term partnership with the county's archives has produced millions of fully indexed images of parish registers, banns, marriage licences and probate material, and indexes are free on FamilySearch (familysearch.org). In-person research, however, is currently on partial hold…

Email wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk Write to WDYTYA? Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol BS1 4ST STAR LETTER 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. Like many others, I was very upset to hear about the recent fire at the Crooked House pub in Gornalwood, and its demolition. My parents and ancestors were from the Gornal area, and the Crooked House very much featured as part of their lives. I am now in my 90s, but one of my own memories of the Crooked House involves being taken there when I was roughly 10 or 11 years old in about 1942 by my father (William Walter Burrows), a Gornalite. We were…

Kiplin Hall, near Richmond in North Yorkshire, is appealing for relations of the family who lived there to get in touch. The house was built in the 1620s by George Calvert (1580–1632), 1st Baron Baltimore, and has been owned by four related families over the centuries. Local amateur genealogist Dr Tom Banfield is researching the Hall's family trees, and has recently discovered a living relative of George Calvert in Bradford. Banfield is keen to hear from any descendants and other relations of George Calvert, particularly three men from Stokesley, North Yorkshire: father George Calvert (1715–1785), son Stephen Calvert (1753–1827) and grandson Peter Calvert (1802–1873). If you are related to the Calvert family, please email admin@kiplinhall.co.uk or call 01748 818178. You can find out more about the Kiplin family trees via…

The date of the earliest surviving book about British cheese, which has now been digitised by the University of Leeds (tinyurl.com/uni-leeds-cheese) Egg and sperm donation People conceived by donation in the UK are now able to request information about their donor (tinyurl.com/guardian-donation) 102,489 The number of Gloucestershire parish records from 1518– 1985 that have been added to findmypast.co.uk Cardiff Records of the Jewish community in the Welsh capital during the 19th century have been discovered in an old suitcase at Cardiff United Synagogue (tinyurl.com/jewish-news-cardiff) 588,542 The number of records from 1910–1919 and 2016–2022 that have been added to the free website missouribirthindex.com…

DNA testing is proving to be a transformative tool, not just for verifying our family trees but also for solving long-standing family mysteries. We also need to be prepared for the unexpected, as DNA testing can throw up surprises. It's easy to work with your matches once you know how, and case reports are often the easiest way to understand the methodology. I have drawn here on an example from my own family tree to show how, while trying to solve one family mystery about the parentage of my mother's grandfather, I uncovered instead a long-standing family secret. The techniques demonstrated will be equally applicable for family historians faced with similar scenarios. One of my goals when I first entered the world of DNA testing of my mum's paternal grandfather…

What Are The Odds (WATO) is a free tool provided by genealogist and web developer Jonny Perl on his website DNA Painter. It allows you to deploy the power of multiple DNA matches to determine your most likely position in a known tree: dnapainter.com/tools/probability. You can upload a GEDCOM file to select the branch of interest, or build the tree on the site. The tool works best for clusters of matches sharing at least 40 cM, but is more reliable with higher matches. I used WATO for my mystery Harris cluster to try to determine exactly where my mum fitted into the tree. I did the genealogy work to construct a family tree that traced back to John Harris and Hannah Hall who married in 1822 in Banbury. I was…

FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS ANCESTRY w bit.ly/anc-civ-div ‘England & Wales, Civil Divorce Records, 1858–1918’ includes papers from petitions for divorce, judicial separation and declarations of legitimacy. BARNARDO'S w tinyurl.com/barn-research Find out how to locate adoption papers for anyone who was in the charity's care. SCOTTISH INDEXES w scottishindexes.com Among the indexes here is the Scottish Paternity Index for men named in actions of “affiliation and aliment” (maintenance). HEALTH HHARP w hharp.org The Historic Hospital Admission Records Project has material from three children's hospitals in London and one in Glasgow. THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES w nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords/ Although no longer updated, this database can help you locate historic medical records. WELLCOME COLLECTION w wellcomecollection.org If your ancestor ended up in an asylum, you can find records of some hospitals here including Crichton Royal and…

Pubs remain a familiar feature on our high streets. Although the oldest date back centuries, most of them are no more than 150 years old. A pub is a pub is a pub, right? This may be the case today. But historically there were various types of licensed premises depending on the types of alcohol they were permitted to sell. Most pubs were only allowed to sell beer or cider. They became known as ale or beer houses, or cider houses in cider-drinking areas. They had very basic facilities. The authorities often regarded these places with suspicion as being dens of trouble. But like the men depicted in novelist Flora Thompson's 19th-century Candleford, most customers came to forget the day's woes and to gossip over a glass of beer. Rather…

BRITISH NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE w britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk Newspapers often carried stories about pubs and their staff, and the British Newspaper Archive includes the 1874 issues of the weekly Licensed Victuallers’ Guardian. ENGLISH HERITAGE w historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list Many old and former pubs have been listed as buildings of special interest by English Heritage. You can search the database by keyword (including ‘pub’) or location. THE PUB HISTORY SOCIETY w pubhistorysociety.co.uk/links.html Simon Fowler was a founder member of this society. Its site has lots of material for people researching pubs and the people who ran them, including links to other useful websites.…

Our society was formed in 1919 as the London Edison Society, making it the senior recorded music society in the world. It grew out of now long-defunct societies, often started by enthusiasts meeting where they bought their records, especially phonograph cylinders. This was often in bicycle shops, which sold bicycles in summer and phonographs in winter. Then, the emphasis was on the already obsolescent phonograph cylinder rather than the disc, and we have thus always looked backwards as well as forwards. Our website, although not as name-rich as some, can give you all sorts of information about the early recording industry: clpgs.org.uk. Our focus has always been on musicians of the early days of recording, as well as the history of cylinder and disc records, and the machines on which…

Patrick Sellars was a sheep farmer from Elgin, Morayshire, who worked as a factor for the Marquess of Stafford (later the 1st Duke of Sutherland) during the most aggressive evictions on the Sutherland Estate. After taking a lease for Culmaily Farm in 1811 with business partner William Young, he demonstrated new agricultural techniques, including land drainage, which yielded a huge growth in crops such as flax, potatoes, wheat and oats, but involved the eviction of 213 people. Sellars and Young were soon appointed by Sutherland's wife Lady Stafford as joint factors. From 1811 they evicted 15,000 “barbarous Highlanders” to facilitate sheep farms, prompting riots, with roofs of houses set alight to prevent their reoccupation. In June 1814 a bedridden Margaret Mackay had to be rescued from a flaming property, and…

GENETEKA w geneteka.genealodzy.pl/?lang=eng This free database contains more than 30 million entries based on parish registers from all over Poland. Scans of some of the original records are also included. KRESY-SIBERIA VIRTUAL MUSEUM w kresy-siberia.org This site contains a huge amount of digitised material and is a key research tool for the Polish diaspora. It includes details of Poles who were persecuted or fought for freedom. THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES w tinyurl.com/tna-discovery-arc-polish TNA at Kew holds records of the corps that handled the demobilisation of Polish soldiers, while the Ministry of Defence has their service records: tinyurl.com/mod-family-interest.…

1818 Brothers Charles and Jeremiah Chubb move their lock-making business from Portsmouth to Wolverhampton. It becomes a major employer in the county for generations. 1881 The Prince of Wales’ (North Staffordshire) Regiment is formed on 1 July, when the 64th (2nd Staffordshire) Regiment of Foot is amalgamated with the 98th (Prince of Wales’) Regiment of Foot. 1894 Pottery manufacturer John Beswick Ltd is founded in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent. The firm will eventually be bought by Royal Doulton, which opened a factory in nearby Burslem in 1882. 1910 The County Borough of Stokeon-Trent is constituted from six former local authorities: Burslem, Fenton, Hanley, Longton, Stoke and Tunstall. It is granted its coat of arms two years later. 1924 The BBC's first radio broadcasts from Stoke-onTrent (relay station 6ST) take place in October,…

BEARDMORE This locative name originated in a lost place called Beardsmoors in the hamlet of Farley, Staffordshire. COLCLOUGH Just over 1,000 Colcloughs were recorded in the county in the 1881 census. DEAVILLE In 1881 Stoke-on-Trent had 145 Deavilles. GROCOTT Grocott is one of several regional variants of the surname Grewcock. HARTEL/HARTHILL/HARTILL This locative name originated in Cheshire, Derbyshire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. MYATT The Middle English personal name Miot is the source of this surname. RHEAD Rhead is a local spelling of the surname Read. SIMCOX This name relates to the Middle English personal name Simcock, meaning ‘young Simon.’ STONIER Stonier is a shortened version of an occupational name for someone who worked or quarried stone. WINKLE Winkle is another locative name, and originated in Winkhill in Staffordshire…

The 18th century was a time of extraordinary growth in Britain. As the empire expanded, many of our ancestors made their fortunes off growing international trade – and in many cases the trade in enslaved human beings. At home, they spent that money on luxury goods. One such figure was Sir John Boyd (1718–1800). His legacy stands today in Danson House, a beautiful mansion in the borough of Bexley in South-East London. The Bexley Local Studies and Archive Centre holds records from the estate, including Sir John's journal of accounts. Community Archivist Oliver Wooller explains how it provides an insight into the lavish spending of an 18thcentury plantation owner. WHAT IS THE JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTS? This handsome volume is a household account book kept by Sir John Boyd. He is…

PODCAST STEP INTO THE PAST findmypast.co.uk/page/podcast Free Family history website Findmypast has launched a new podcast presented by historian and broadcaster Prof Suzannah Lipscomb. In the first episode Lipscomb traces her own family history, while the second and third episodes focus on the family stories linked to the National Trust properties Quarry Bank in Cheshire and Wordsworth House in Cumbria. WEBSITE REVEALING THE SMITHSONIAN'S ‘RACIAL BRAIN COLLECTION tinyurl.com/wp-brain Free, registration required A recent investigation by US newspaper The Washington Post found that the Smithsonian museum has a collection of 255 human brains, largely taken from black and indigenous people after death without their consent. This multimedia article tells the full story, including more about those whose brains were taken. LISTEN EMIGRATION tinyurl.com/bbc-free-emig Free In this episode of Radio 3's Free…