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

There are lots of things I love about family history. I love gaining a better understanding of and connection with the past, I love finding new records to grow my tree and I love getting my deerstalker hat out and doing some sleuthing when things get tricky. In December I also like to set myself projects and targets for the year ahead. Sometimes they are big and sometimes they are small, but they all help to give my reserach focus. On page 12 I've shared some ideas for projects that you can have a go at yourself. Do share your family history projects with us, we'd love to hear about them! This month we head to London, not just for our regular 'Around Britain' article on page 59 but also…

TNA publishes Caribbean emigration maps online The National Archives (TNA) at Kew has created free online maps shedding light on the journeys of Caribbean emigrants to Britain in the 1940s. The first set of maps charts the voyages of three ships that travelled from the Caribbean to the UK – the SS Ormonde (which arrived in March 1947), the SS Almanzora (December 1947) and the HMT Empire Windrush (June 1948). The second set shows the journeys of immigrants within the UK after they arrived. The maps are at mapping-caribbean-migration-nationalarchives.hub.arcgis.com. Survey finds shipwrecks of 27 vessels from Dunkirk A seabed survey has revealed the locations of 27 shipwrecks in the English Channel from the 1940 evacuation of Dunkirk, known as ‘Operation Dynamo’. The French marine heritage agency Drassm, in partnership with…

The price at auction of a Bristol Old Vic theatre token from 1766 (tinyurl.com/bbc-vic-token) WB Yeats A mysterious inscription in a book belonging to the author has now been deciphered (tinyurl.com/guardian-yeats) 79 The number of historic US local papers that have been added to newspapers.com Craven Museum The attraction in Skipton has won the Family Friendly Museum Award 2023 (tinyurl.com/kids-mus-win) 500,000 The total number of images now available in Shropshire Archives’ digital collection (tinyurl.com/shrop-star-images) 72,086 The 2,086 number of Irish Catholic parish records (1740-1900) that have been added to the free website familysearch.org…

KNOW YOUR CELEBRITIES These celebrities all uncovered their roots in the 2023 series of Who Do You Think You Are? – name them and match them to their relation’s story a Transported to Australia because they were involved in the Swing Riots. b Member of the First Nations of Canada. c Made their fortune as a professional whistler. d Descended from Robert the Bruce. OCCUPATIONS Can you decipher these occupations taken from census records? SOMEONE WHO… a looks after horses at an inn. b serves drinks at a tavern. c makes a liquefied clay for pouring into moulds in the pottery industry. d makes candles. e makes shoes. KEY FAMILY HISTORY DATES When was… 1 Civil registration introduced in England and Wales? 2 Civil registration introduced in Scotland? 3 The…

FOCUS ON PARLIAMENTARY RECORDS The Parliamentary Archives is based in the Victoria Tower of the Palace of Westminster, and holds approximately four million records. The collections are diverse, encompassing five main areas: the House of Commons and the House of Lords; the Palace of Westminster; Societies and Staff; Private Papers; and the UK Parliament Web Archive. What lies within is an exciting and rich resource that allows researchers to explore the history of the nation. Records have been kept in Westminster since 1497 when Master Richard Hatton, clerk of the Parliaments, decided to retain the Acts passed that year in the Palace. Prior to this, records had been transferred to the Chancery along with government records. These earlier medieval records are now held at The National Archives in Kew and…

STEP ONE You will need a free reader’s account if you want to view images of records, request a quote for a hard copy, make a searchroom appointment or order records for your visit, so register via the hyperlink at the top right. STEP TWO After you’ve registered and logged in, you can search the catalogue using the basic or advanced search on the homepage. Here I’ve used Handel’s full name, and the only result is his naturalisation Act. Click ‘View Details’. STEP THREE The next screen includes more information about the record. Click ‘Ordering and Viewing’ if you want to consult it in the searchroom or request a quote for a hard copy. There will be a hyperlink if a digital image is available too.…

My go-to website is the British Newspaper Archive (britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk), which is unbeatable for quantity, quality and variety. It is an excellent starting point for historical research, including some foreign topics. There is always something new to discover, especially if you let your eye wander to other stories on the page. The archive is free to search with some free-to-view content. Otherwise a paid subscription is needed, although subscribing to Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk) at ‘Pro’ level or above provides full access to the same collection. Family historians should find at least one ancestor in these old newspapers. Discoveries range from the date of birth, marriage or death, through to detailed accounts of forgotten incidents. And of course there’s economic data, legal trials, political reports and readers’ letters, all of which can be…

John ‘Jack’ Harrison’s POW questionnaire is held by The National Archives and available digitally through Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) 1 NUMBER The first three questions cover the POW’s name, rank, serial number, branch of service, unit and division (Army) or command (Royal information is useful for locating unit records. 2 DATE OF BIRTH The next three questions feature personal information, including the POW’s dates of birth and enlistment, and his civilian job and address. 3 CAPTURE Questions 8 and 9 relate to the place and date of capture, and whether the POW was injured. You may be able to find more detailed information about what happened in unit records. 4 MAIN CAMPS Details of the main camps/hospitals where the POW was held, and when, can help you find reports from the Red Cross or other organisations…

Q William Westwood was a tailor in Edinburgh. In 1821 he married Jane/Jean Gibson (born 1789 in Perth, died 1863 in Midlothian) in Edinburgh. William died in 1843, aged 61 years. I have a list of possible births and baptisms for William Westwood from ScotlandsPeople (scotlandspeople.gov.uk), but how do I pick the right one? I have no information about who his father or mother were, or where he was born. Keith Driscoll A William’s death record noted him as a 61-year-old tailor at 35 Buccleuch Street, but at the same address in the 1841 census, he was recorded as aged 50. This census rounded down adult ages to the nearest five years, suggesting a birth in 1786–1791, so you should widen the range for his birth to accommodate all possibilities.…

Q This is my grandfather, Matthew Clement Hobson, who I believe was in the East Lancashire Regiment. Could you confirm this and let me know of any other information you can deduce in the photograph? Jane Clendon A This is a studio portrait of a Royal Artillery driver, probably taken in early 1917 when he received his two years’ Good Conduct stripe. Curiously, there’s no Medal Index Card for Matthew Hobson in the Artillery or East Lancashire Regiment. I then looked for a service record and found one for Matthew Hobson, private 49352, East Lancashire Regiment, on Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) and Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk). Inside this record is a discharge certificate for Private Matthew Clement Hobson, 49352, from the 5th Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment, on 29 December 1918. Following on immediately is…

Many fathers of illegitimate children born in past times disappeared from view, both in person and on paper. If you’ve hit such an obstacle, it may be possible to tease out his identity using DNA tests, court records and old wills. Peter Rollin was perplexed regarding the father of his great great grandfather William. However, with the assistance of WDYTYA? Magazine he has found an ancestor to be proud of. MY BRICK WALL I got the family history bug in 1998. My wife was adopted, and that year we decided to trace her birth mother. I spent hours in Birmingham Central Library combing through records, and it took around three months to find her. Today, I could probably do it online in an afternoon. By 2003, I had taken my…

With so much material online through the partnership between the London Metropolitan Archives and Ancestry, a great deal of first-steps research for London can be carried out at home. The availability of source material such as parish records, electoral records, directories and school records drawn from LMA’s stores can help you circumnavigate some of the inherent difficulties of researching in such a vast sprawl. You can see the full extent of the collections at ancestry.co.uk/search/categories/london_met_archives and explore LMA’s own catalogue via www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/history-and-heritage/london-metropolitan-archives. Despite this jumping-off point, things soon become more complicated as you dig deeper, or if you’re researching parts of Greater London outside LMA’s coverage area. If you’re after occupational records, for example, then you have a complicated patchwork of borough archives to consider. In the process of compiling…

Walsall grew from a village of 2,000 people to a town of more than 86,000 during the Industrial Revolution. At the time Walsall was part of Staffordshire, and many of its residents suffered poverty and danger working in its growing industries and on the railways. Dorothy Pattison, known as Sister Dora, was a nun who selflessly ministered to the people of Walsall. But secret letters discovered after she passed away revealed her romance with local businessman Kenyon Jones. On the 145th anniversary of her death in 1878, Walsall Archives’ archivist Ian Gray tells us more about her last letter to Kenyon. WHO WAS SISTER DORA? Sister Dora was born Dorothy Wyndlow Pattison on 16 January 1832 to the local rector and his wife in the village of Hauxwell, near Richmond…

NAVAL HISTORY David Grann Simon & Schuster, 352 pages, £20 In September 1740 a small squadron of Royal Navy ships set off from Portsmouth to capture a Spanish galleon full of South American treasure. Among the large men-of-war was a smaller ship, the Wager, once a merchant vessel but now adapted for war. What happened to that ill-fated ship, and the men on it, is the subject of this gripping tale. Shipwrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia, the marooned sailors questioned allegiances in their struggle to survive. That we know their story at all is thanks to the dogged determination of two groups who eventually made it back to England, and caused a sensation with their conflicting accounts. David Grann brilliantly tells the story of these…

Large bottle-shaped brick kilns are a landmark feature of the Potteries area of Staffordshire. In past times, ovenmen would carry up to 50 tons of ware into the kilns each day, in an environment fraught with danger. Intense heat disrupted their circulatory system, scorched their lungs and sometimes led to blindness. Lead poisoning was another risk due to glazing used on the pottery. This was the environment that Sarah Hattersley’s ancestors toiled in during the 19th century. “My 3x great grandfather Thomas Edwards was born in Hot Lane, Burslem, in 1838,” Sarah says. “I’ve always known about him, because my grandmother Jessie told me that he was the last lord mayor of Burslem.” A newspaper dubbed him the ‘father of the working man’ At the age of eight, Thomas began…

ALEX FISHER Alex is an archivist who has worked at the Parliamentary Archives for over three years. On page 27 she shares some of the archive’s key records that can help family historians. PHIL TOMASELLI Phil is an expert in military records, and one of our most prolific contributors. This month he tackles POW records (page 36) and answers readers’ queries in our ‘Q&A’ section (page 41). CAROLINE ROOPE Caroline is a writer specialising in social history and genealogy. She looks ahead to the festive feast and reveals the fascinating story of our traditional Christmas dinner on page 52.…

Family history website Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk) has added an exclusive collection of 25 million electoral registers from Manchester, dating from 1820–1940. Electoral registers are lists of the names and addresses of eligible voters in a particular district. They are a good resource for seeing where your ancestors lived, particularly in years when census records are not available, although note that they do not include additional information such as the person's age or profession. The collection can also be searched by address, making it useful for anyone researching the history of their house. Woman only gained the right to vote in national elections in the UK in 1918 subject to a property qualification, but before then some women were allowed to vote in municipal elections, so they also appear in electoral registers.…

Children’s charity Coram is appealing for volunteers to help transcribe records of London’s famous Foundling Hospital. The hospital was founded by sea captain Thomas Coram in 1739 as a home for unwanted children, particularly offspring of unmarried mothers. ‘Voices Through Time: The Story of Care’ is a project by Coram to digitise the hospital’s archive, and explore its history in creative projects with young people. As part of the project, volunteers are invited to transcribe the Foundling Hospital Archive’s collection of 30,000 petitions from new mothers. The letters date from the 18th and 19th centuries, and were written by women imploring the hospital to admit their children, including explanations of their circumstances and character references. You can help transcribe the letters via the crowdsourcing website Zooniverse at zooniverse.org/projects/jojo38/voices-through-time-the-story-of-care.…

Christmas will be only days away by the time this issue of the magazine goes on sale, which makes me wonder what our ancestors really thought about it. We know that it was a time of celebration, and that there were special meals and feast-day foods… and there’s a lot of evidence from diaries, journals and letters to show that by the beginning of the 19th century Christmas had become one of the high points of the annual calendar. It was a time of bright celebration during the coldest and darkest weeks of the year, and for many people there was a welcome holiday – or at least, a day off from the quotidian burden of heavy work and hard labour. Unlike Easter, which was (and still is) the most…

Childhood crime appalled many of the luminaries of the Victorian era, not least Charles Dickens who highlighted the problem in Oliver Twist (1837–1839). As more migrant workers flooded into the cities, the juvenile crime rate rocketed. Unsurprisingly, poverty was the driving force and many children became pickpockets just to put food in their stomachs, often joining gangs like Fagin’s. Those who were convicted were thrown into filthy, overcrowded gaols alongside adult felons. Imagine such a fate befalling one of your ancestors. Mary Jones is a writer from Llandudno in Conwy, North Wales, who has published genealogy-based mystery novels under the pseudonym MK Jones. She became fascinated by family history 25 years ago, and has delved deep into her Irish roots. “My mum’s maiden name was Josephine Collins,” Mary explains. “She…

Born in Halle, then in Brandenburg-Prussia but now in Germany, in 1685, George Frideric Handel (baptised Georg Friedrich Händel) spent his early life developing his talent in his homeland. It was not until the early 18th century that Handel began to ply his trade abroad, firstly in Italy and later in England. By the mid-1710s, Handel had settled permanently in England where he was composing music for his numerous patrons, among whom was royalty. In 1727 Handel became a British citizen following the passing of an Act of Parliament (Private Act, 13 George I, c.2) that granted him citizenship in the country he had settled in all those years before. The composer was naturalised alongside three other individuals, and the Act lists him as “George Frideric Handel son of George…

ARCHIVE PARLIAMENTARY ARCHIVES a Houses of Parliament, London SW1A 0PW t 020 7219 3074 e archives@parliament.uk w archives.parliament.uk Note that the Parliamentary Archives is moving its collections to The National Archives at Kew, although most of its material will continue to be accessible at Westminster until June 2024. Find out more information at archives.parliament.uk/visit-us/plan-your-visit. Also, you can read blog posts from staff and external contributors highlighting stories from the archive’s records at archives.blog.parliament.uk. BOOK Covenanting Citizens? John Walter Oxford University Press, 2016 Subtitled The Protestation Oath and Popular Political Culture in the English Revolution, Walter’s book examines the wider context of Parliament’s Act. WEBSITE THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES w tinyurl.com/tna-research-guide-natural TNA’s online research guide to records of naturalisation, registration and British citizenship provides an informative overview of the evolution of naturalisation…

BRITISH LIBRARY w bl.uk/collection-guides/newspapers# This web page has the British Library’s online guide to its newspaper collections. GALE HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS w gale.com/primary-sources/historical-newspapers Available through subscribing institutions, this website’s British newspapers include complete archives from the Daily Mail, the Financial Times and the Illustrated London News. GOOGLE NEWS w news.google.com/newspapers Google abandoned its newspaper-digitisation programme over a decade ago, but you can still explore back issues from some 2,000 titles. JAMAICA GLEANER w gleaner.newspaperarchive.com Established in 1834, this newspaper is key to researching Jamaican ancestors. A subscription to the site also gives access to many US titles. NEWSPAPERS.COM w newspapers.com Although dominated by US titles, this Ancestry-owned site added millions of pages from 200 UK papers last year. The newspapers on Ancestry’s own website include The Times (1788–1833). THE WORD ON…

WEBSITES INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS w tinyurl.com/icrc-request-pow The ICRC releases 250 Second World War POW records three times a year in January, May and September. The above web page usually includes an online form where you can request information about someone held during the Spanish Civil War or Second World War to be included in one of these releases, but the form is unavailable until 22 January 2024 because a quota has been reached. In the meantime the page offers details of alternative archives for POWs’ records. NEW ZEALAND ELECTRONIC TEXT COLLECTION w tinyurl.com/nzetc-stalag This Victoria University of Wellington website includes a report on conditions at Stalag VIIIb, Lamsdorf, from the New Zealand Army. Details of other POW camps should also be available online, so try Googling the…

Q In the ‘Q&A’ section of your Summer 2023 issue, Katherine Cobb refers to the General Register Office (GRO) indexes to marriage records. I can only see access to birth and death records when I go to the GRO’s website (www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content). What am I missing? Derrick Norton A The original GRO indexes of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales were large, heavy, handwritten books, most of which were subsequently replaced by equally unwieldy typed volumes. The indexes were held at Somerset House, London, before being moved to St Catherine’s House and then to the Family Records Centre, both also in the capital, where they were on open access. Since these indexes were removed from public display in 2007, the information they hold has been accessible via various websites,…

Q I’m searching for a death record for my great great grandfather, William Frederick Hellendaal, born 1813 in Westminster. The 1871 census shows him as a musician living in Lambeth with his second wife, Mary, and their five daughters. Mary died later in 1871. The 1872 marriage certificate of daughter Helen suggests William is still alive, but by December 1875 the two youngest daughters had been admitted to the Lambeth Workhouse School and the parent listed is Frederick Hellendaal. Hellendaal is a Dutch name and is usually easy to find in records, although transcribers have introduced some interesting variants. Jennifer Crossley A As you have discovered, the flipside of an unusual family name is that it is often spelled incorrectly in the records. Armed with the facts – that William…

The Victorian era is oft-quoted as having defined Christmas and Charles Dickens (1812–1870), one of its greatest literary figures, placed feasting at the core of the celebrations, as well as highlighting the plight of the poor. A Christmas Dinner (1836) was the first of his many seasonal sketches. It describes the essence of a perfectly traditional wrong, and everybody is in the very best of spirits… a stout servant staggers in with a gigantic pudding, with a sprig of holly in the top, there is such a laughing, and shouting”. Dickens’ idyllic scene was not representative of everyone’s experience however, and he sought to ameliorate poverty by encouraging the generosity that Scrooge demonstrates at the end of A Christmas Carol (1843). He was far from alone. Newspapers ran appeals for…

ANCESTRYDNA w ancestry.co.uk/dna A DNA test may link you to an illegitimate father’s other descendants. At least 18 million people have tested with Ancestry, and its huge database improves the chance of a match. THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES w nationalarchives.gov.uk A man could be imprisoned if he failed to support his illegitimate child. TNA holds central-court records, and has advice on how to search for county assizes on its website. THE WORKHOUSE w workhouses.org.uk Many unsupported mothers and illegitimate children were forced to enter the workhouse. Try Peter Higginbotham’s brilliant site for more information about poorhouses across Britain.…

1749 Magistrate Henry Fielding recruits six Bow Street Runners as forerunners of the Met. John Towsend (1760–1832, left) will become one of the most famous Runners. 1759 Mary Wollstonecraft is born in Spitalfields. Her groundbreaking feminist work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is published in 1792. 1837 Buckingham Palace is made the main royal residence when Victoria becomes queen. 1839 The original Highgate Cemetery opens. It forms part of what is now known as the ‘Magnificent Seven’ cemeteries around Central London. 1851 The ‘Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations’ opens in May at the newly built Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. More than six million visitors see the exhibition before it shuts in October. 1858 A combination of hot weather and human waste and…

FAMILY BIOGRAPHY MICHAEL PALIN Hutchinson Heinemann, 336 pages, £22 Michael Palin – Python, writer and travel broadcaster – can now add family historian to his impressive output. Here he tells the story of his great uncle Harry Palin, who was killed in action on the Somme in September 1916 at the age of 32. Like many of the fallen he had no grave, merely a name etched in stone on the New Zealand War Memorial. This is also a tale of the British Empire. Born in the rectory at Linton, Herefordshire, on leaving school Harry was sent out firstly to India, where he worked on the railways, followed by three unremarkable years on a tea plantation in Assam. Next it was to New Zealand where he worked as a farm…

Email wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk Write to WDYTYA? Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol BS1 4ST SCOTLAND'S 1939 REGISTER I agree wholeheartedly with the comments in Andrew Tebbutt’s letter (September) about using the 1939 Register for Scotland, and am very disappointed at the unhelpful response that ScotlandsPeople (scotlandspeople.gov.uk) gave to your editorial query. I’ve no idea what the National Records of Scotland think they’re playing at. Their interpretation of data protection is way over the top, and the whole system seems to be engineered with the idea of deterring as many applicants as they possibly can. On one occasion, I sent for an extract, giving as much relevant information as they asked for – only to receive a document giving me the exact same information as I had sent to them in the first place, and…

The Strathclyde Institute for Genealogical Studies is calling for speakers to present papers at a forthcoming conference. ‘Advancing Genetic Genealogy: How the Past is Informing the Present Through Revolutions in Genetic Research’ will be held at the University of Strathclyde and online on 7–8 June 2024. Speakers are invited to share their experiences and thoughts about autosomal DNA, Y-DNA, bioarchaeology, genetics and investigative genetic genealogy. The deadline for proposals is 8 January 2024. To find out more information, go to www.strath.ac.uk/studywithus/centreforlifelonglearning/genealogy/advancinggeneticgenealogy/.…

ANCESTRY w ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/60998 If one of your forebears voyaged overseas, they could appear in the collection ‘UK, Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths at Sea, 1844–1890’ on Ancestry. Mary found details of Michael’s illness, death and personal effects in these registers. GWENT ARCHIVES a General Offices, Steelworks Road, Ebbw Vale NP23 6AA t 01495 766261 e enquiries@gwentarchives.gov.uk w gwentarchives.gov.uk Gwent Archives holds the records of Michael’s reform school. The centre has millions of documents dating from the 12th century to modern times. WELSH NEWSPAPERS ONLINE w newspapers.library.wales Here you can search and view 15 million articles from newspapers held by the National Library of Wales. Records begin in 1804 and run up to 1919.…

1 CALLINGTON The location and date of the return are listed at the top of the page, using old-style dating: Callington, 6 March 1641. 2 NAMES Usually one person wrote all of the names, but in a few areas such as Cornwall, people wrote their own names. 3 WILLIAM HONICOMB Male members of the same family are often listed next to each other, here William and Richard Honicomb. 4 MARKS Where men could not write their own name a scribe would do so on their behalf. A space would then be left for each man to make their mark. 5 INITIAL Although many of the men used crosses, others signed their first initial as you can see here.…

Q My great great grandad, John Francis McHugh (McKeogh), was born in 1844 in Cavan. I believe his father was James McHugh. I found John’s war records and on those he had listed Anne Reilly, his sister, as next of kin. On his marriage certificate, his address is listed as a church, and his father was either born or died in Ireland. How can I find out more about John and his parents? Christine Bond A According to the documents that you provided, John Francis McHugh or McKeogh was born around January 1844 in Kinally [Kinawley] parish near Swanlinbar, County Cavan, the son of James McHugh/McKeogh, a farmer, who died in Ireland before 1887. John had a sister, Anne Reilly, living in Ballyconnell, a town in the civil parish of…

Q These are the five Dimond sisters, born in Yeovil, Somerset, between 1887 and 1903: Bessie Nellie (1887); Florence Dora (1890); Catherine Minnie (1895); Rosa (1900); and Lily (1903). I’m interested to find out more about the dresses they are wearing. Thomas Burns A This studio photograph is in the popular postcard format that dominated portrait photography in the early to mid-20th century, particularly between the 1910s and 1930s. The barely visible stamp imprint at the bottom right reads “Walter S Rendell” and “The Studio, Yeovil”. A biography on the website Yeovil’s Virtual Museum states that Walter Samuel Rendell established his photography business in 1913, later working with his son, who took over when Walter died in 1949: yeovilhistory.info/rendell-walter.htm. Key visual details of this scene composed in a studio setting…

Q My grandfather, Wallace Edgar Searle, born 1887 on the Isle of Wight, enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in Hounslow in October 1915, service number 12582. In 1918, I know he travelled across France and Italy then on to Alexandria and Ramleh in Egypt, where he served as a rigger until the end of the war. I cannot find any other details of his service in 1916/1917. Are there any records of the RFC during these years? Wendy Sutton A I expect you’ve seen Wallace’s RAF airman’s service record, in the military section of Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk) and the Fold3 section on Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk). He voluntarily enlisted on 30 October 1915, probably because he wanted to serve in the RFC, but apart from his list of promotions nothing’s said…

TECH TIPS How much of your family’s history is safely preserved for future generations? By now you’ve probably digitised most of your memorabilia: photos, documents and stories, but where’s the best place to keep them? The obvious answer is somewhere remote like the cloud, and the site WeAre (weare.xyz) is one option worth investigating. WeAre is an online archive with a difference. After uploading your tree and any digital assets, you can invite your relations to sign up – by linking themselves to their entry in your tree, WeAre is able to provide them with their own tailored experience. It also boasts a storytelling tool that you can tag to the relevant people, places and events in your tree to improve both navigation and accessibility. The following step-by-step guide reveals…

BOOKS At Christmas We Feast Annie Gray Profile Books, 2021 Gray takes the reader on a trip through Christmases past. Christmas: A Biography Judith Flanders Picador, 2017 Flanders scrutinises the myths, legends and history of the season. Wartime Christmas Anthony Richards Imperial War Museum, 2020 Richards explains how Christmas was celebrated in the two world wars, including vintage recipes. WEBSITES BRITISH LIBRARY w bl.uk The library’s website has several articles about the history of our Christmas celebrations, such as ‘A Victorian Christmas’ at tinyurl.com/bl-vict and ‘Charles Dickens and the Victorian Christmas Feast’ at tinyurl.com/bl-feast. BRITISH NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE w britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk Christmas and all the excitement around it has featured heavily in the press since the 18th century. Search old newspapers for recipes and cookery advice, anecdotes, advertisements and seasonal short stories.…

More than one million Britons died fighting in the First and Second World Wars. So it’s no wonder that many of us have people in our family tree who fell in the two conflicts, and most of our towns and villages have a memorial commemorating the casualties from the local area. But how much do we know about the names on those memorials? In Lowestoft, Suffolk, local resident Joe Thompson came up with the idea for a virtual war memorial after being inspired by a similar project in the nearby town of Felixstowe. Joe had previously created the heritage website Lowestoft Old and Now, located at lowestoftoldandnow.org. “With my background in IT and design I thought, ‘Let’s see’,” he says. “The first thing I needed to do was to get…

CRIMINAL RECORDS w oldbaileyonline.org Here you can search a database of proceedings from 197,745 trials held at London’s Central Criminal Court between 1674 and 1913. POOR-RELIEF RECORDS w londonlives.org London Lives is a vast database with information from 18th-century sources, such as records of poor relief from St Botolph’s Aldgate, St Clement Danes and St Dionis Backchurch. PARISH REGISTERS w tinyurl.com/fs-mid-parish FamilySearch’s collections include ‘England, Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539–1988’. There are digitised images too, but to access them you need to view the website at a Family History Center or affiliate library. HISTORIC IMAGES w londonpicturearchive.org.uk Explore 250,000 prints, maps and photos of London back to 1450. Featured galleries include children’s homes, and parks and gardens. HEARTH-TAX RECORDS w tinyurl.com/bho-london British History Online has sources relating to the area now…

PODCAST MEDIEVAL MURDERS https://medievalmurdermap.co.uk/podcasts/ Free As featured in a news story last issue, Medieval Murder Maps is a University of Cambridge project to publish details of murders in 14th-century London, Oxford and York online. In the accompanying podcast, podcaster Nora Eisner teams up with her father Manuel Eisner, Wolfson professor of criminology at the University of Cambridge, to delve into the records and what they reveal about medieval life. EXHIBITION THE EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) ACT 1872: 150 YEARS OF LEARNING tinyurl.com/highlife-highland-150 Free This online exhibition was launched last year by the Highland Archive Service to mark the 150th anniversary of that Act that made education up to the age of 13 compulsory in Scotland. It uses documents and photos from a range of sources to explore how the legislation changed children’s…

KNOW YOUR CELEBRITIES d Descended from Robert the Bruce. c Made their fortune as a professional whistler. b Member of the First Nations of Canada. a Transported to Australia because they were involved in the Swing Riots. MILITARY 1 The First World War. 2 August (15). 3 The Second Boer War. 4 A soldier was given permission by his superior officer to marry, and his wife could live with him in barracks and accompany him on campaigns. 5 Absent Voters’ Lists. OCCUPATIONS 1 Ostler (a). 2 Cordwainer (e). 3 Slipmaker (c). 4 Potboy (b). 5 Tallow chandler (d). KEY FAMILY HISTORY DATES 1 1837. 2 1855. 3 1801. 4 1858. 5 1921. 6 1834. ANAGRAM FOUNDLING CROSSWORD ACROSS 2 poll 3 year 6 Y-DNA 8 certificate 12 baptism 13 birth 14 able 16 genealogy 20 Navy 22 step 23 uncle 24 cousin 26…