Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2024 i Who Do You Think You Are?

Eighty years ago, thousands of young men from around the world risked their lives on what became known as D-Day. The invasion of Normandy by the Allies has gone down in the history books as one of the most significant and bloody moments of the Second World War. On page 14 Gavin Mortimer pays tribute to the ordinary men who experienced an extraordinary event. Many of them did not survive to tell their stories, but we keep them alive in our hearts and in our family trees. We also met up with journalist and presenter Clive Myrie (page 23) to talk about his family and his new TV series Clive Myrie's Caribbean Adventure. And if you have ever struggled with a family name that has multiple variations, you will enjoy…

Email wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk Write to WDYTYA? Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol BS1 4ST PRODIGIOUS PLOUGHING The photograph of a ploughing competition in Nina Hoole's article about agricultural shows (April) was of particular interest to me, since my 3x great grandfather, John Godden, took part in the annual Four-horse Ploughing Competition run by the Faversham Association for the surrounding rural villages in the 1860s. Local newspapers revealed that apart from the ploughing awards, prizes were given for Best Hop Management, Length of Service (one winner had worked on the same farm for 34 years), and those who sent their children to school for the most days of the year. The prize for the Ploughing Competition was £3 in 1869 when John Godden finally won. The association's annual dinner was enjoyed by the dignitaries and…

Jim Booth had a front-row seat on D-Day as one of the crew of a midget submarine whose task was to guide in the invasion fleet. Jim, who died in 2022 at the age of 101, joined the Royal Navy not long after the outbreak of war, but he “soon got bored with normal navy life as a junior officer”. So he volunteered for a special-forces unit called the Combined Operations Assault Pilotage Parties (usually abbreviated to COPP). Their expertise lay in coastal reconnaissance during the planning of amphibious assaults, and COPP personnel had operated with success during the invasions of North Africa in November 1942 and Sicily the following year. But they were smallscale compared with the Normandy Landings, the largest amphibious invasion in history. And Booth had one…

Autosomal DNA tests look at both your mother and father's lines, and are the most commonly used test. The results can help you to prove your tree back five or six generations, depending on which branches you have inherited the most DNA from (usually measured in centimorgans, abbreviated to cM). Your cousin matches may help to prove a theory about surname change if they can be linked back beyond the brick wall that you are trying to break down. Be careful when viewing other peoples’ online trees, and always make sure that the DNA match lines up with several sources of documentation before adding a person to your own tree. The results of a DNA test may help you to confirm any unexpected findings of ethnicity in the case of…

An oceanic swell of migrants left Britain in the 19th and early 20th centuries, looking for fresh opportunities in the Americas. Among them were three brothers from Samantha Taylor's family, who grew up immersed in the rhythms of maritime life. Samantha is retired and lives in Clevedon, North Somerset, overlooking the Bristol Channel. “I grew up on the south coast of England, and I love the sea,” she says. “It's important for me to look at it each day.” Samantha began tracing her genealogy in 2013, after her daughter created a family tree as a present for her birthday. “All I knew was that my maternal grandmother Marion Farrington was born in 1902, and that her father Frederick had visited America and thought of emigrating there. He even told his…

Comedian and actor Emily Atack featured in Series 20 of WDYTYA? last year. Emily was told by her father that her great grandfather Bill Atack was a miner in the pits around Nostell, Wakefield, Yorkshire. His birth certificate revealed that he had been born in Nostell Cottage to Joseph Atack in 1884, and the 1881 census showed Joseph with his wife and an older son on Nostell Row. Joseph was a banksman who oversaw the men and materials going into and out of Nostell Colliery, and the mine's owner Lord St Oswald had built this terrace of cottages to house workers on his estate, not far from his stately home Nostell Priory. Sadly a newspaper story from 1889 explained that Joseph had drowned himself in the dammed lake on the…

ARCHIVE IRON MOUNTAIN a PO Box 3238, Stafford ST16 9LS t 0844 264 1486 e britishcoalrecords@ironmountain.co.uk w ironmountain.com/en-gb The firm holds the records of the NCB/British Coal Corporation. To inquire, quote a full name, birthdate and (if known) the colliery. BOOKS My Ancestor Was a Coalminer, Third Edition David Tonks Society of Genealogists, 2014 Learn more about sources. Tracing Your Coalmining Ancestors Brian Elliott Pen & Sword, 2014 Elliott includes case studies. MUSEUMS BIG PIT NATIONAL COAL MUSEUM a Blaenafon, Torfaen NP4 9XP t 0300 111 2333 e bigpit@museumwales.ac.uk w museum.wales/bigpit Take an underground tour of this former mine in Wales. NATIONAL COAL MINING MUSEUM FOR ENGLAND a Caphouse Colliery, New Road, Overton, Wakefield WF4 4RH t 01924 848806 e info@ncm.org.uk w ncm.org.uk The museum's website includes themed galleries. WEBSITE…

ARCHIVES HUB w archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk Find physical and digital sources held in more than 390 institutions across the UK, including archives of specialist bodies such as the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. COMPANY OF CUTLERS IN HALLAMSHIRE w cutlers-hallamshire.org.uk/the-company-is/ The company was established in 1624. You can explore a company index via the site Sheffield Indexers (sheffieldindexers.com) – just click ‘Apprentices & Freemen’ in the sidebar. HISTORICAL DIRECTORIES w tinyurl.com/uni-leicester-sco-direct The University of Leicester's Special Collections Online offers free access to digitised trade directories from across England and Wales. LONDON METROPOLITAN ARCHIVES w tinyurl.com/lma-search-albion LMA's catalogue can help you find records of livery companies, and material from individual firms such as Albion Iron and Wire Works. MUSEUM OF ENGLISH RURAL LIFE w reading.ac.uk/merl MERL has collections relating to all kinds of rural…

ARTICLES INDEX OF WILL ABSTRACTS IN THE GENEALOGICAL OFFICE, DUBLIN w jstor.org/stable/25511851 The digital library JSTOR has Analecta Hibernica No. 17 (1949), which contains an index by P Beryl Eustace of wills found in the Crosslé papers in the Genealogical Office (now part of the NLI). You can access the index if you create a free account. REGISTERS OF THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF NEWRY, CO. DOWN 1779-1796 w https://www.irishfamilyhistorycentre.com/product/the-irish-ancestor/ Genealogist Rosemary Ffolliott produced the journal The Irish Ancestor (1969–1986) containing transcriptions of many sources, including the aforementioned registers in Volume XI No. 1 (1979). A PDF with every volume can be viewed for free online, and bought if you want a permanent copy. Also an index of surnames in the journal can be downloaded from irishancestors.ie/the-irish-ancestor. WEBSITE SOURCES FOR…

Q My 3x great grandmother, Louisa, was born c1846 in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. In the 1851 census, she appears as Louisa Fulcher, age five, daughter of William Fulcher and Hannah Albrow. They also had a daughter Hannah (born 1841). In the 1861 census, she is Louisa Reeve aged 16, boarder with the same family. She married in 1865, giving Reeve as her maiden name, there's no father's name and William Fulcher is a witness. Some children born to this marriage have mother's maiden name Fulcher, others Reeve. I can find no birth record for her. However, there is a Louisa Woodrow born 9 May 1845 to Louisa Reeve in Yarmouth with no father listed. Is this her? Diane Humphrey A When William and Hannah Fulcher's daughter Hannah was born in…

Nancy Dawson was born under the name Ann Newton probably in London, although some sources say Devon. As with so many notorious public women, her biography is muddled. Most agree that she began working for the Griffin Puppeteers when she was around 16, with a sideline in acrobatics and dancing. Dawson edged her way up in the theatre, but was rumoured to lead a “notoriously immoral life”. She made her stage debut at Sadler's Wells Theatre in Islington, dancing in the chorus of Thomas Betterton's opera The Prophetess in 1758, but the work was seasonal and supposedly she fell back into prostitution each time the season was over. In 1759, Dawson moved on to Covent Garden Theatre where she danced the hornpipe between acts of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728), and…

People who had what we now understand as learning difficulties routinely spent their lives in hospitals in the 20th century. Two such institutions were located near Whalley, Lancashire. Calderstones Hospital opened in 1921 after operating as Queen Mary's Military Hospital for injured servicemen during the First World War. Brockhall Hospital opened in 1904 as an institution for inebriate women before becoming a home for people with learning difficulties. Most of the patients at both hospitals moved to living in the community during the 1980s. Brockhall closed in 1992, while Calderstones shut at the end of March. Both institutions had cemeteries where patients who died in the hospital were buried. There are 1,175 people buried in Calderstones Cemetery, and 587 buried in Brockhall Cemetery. After the hospitals closed, the cemeteries passed…

ASSIZES RECORDS w tinyurl.com/derby-lib-prison The Derby Libraries website has a selection of digitised material, including calendars and sentences of prisoners at Derby Assizes between 1713 and 1881. DIRECTORIES w tinyurl.com/uni-leic-derb The University of Leicester's collection of digitised trade and street directories includes 18 volumes covering Derbyshire. PARISH REGISTERS w freereg.org.uk FreeREG has 1.5 million baptism, marriage and burial transcriptions for Derbyshire. Also try FreeBMD (freebmd.org.uk) and FreeCEN (freecen.org.uk). SCHOOL REGISTER w bit.ly/derby-school-register Visit the Internet Archive for a copy of The Derby School Register, 1570–1901. WAR MEMORIALS w derbyshirewarmemorials.com This ongoing project has transcribed more than 31,000 names recorded on over 2,000 war memorials across the county. HISTORIC MAPS w tinyurl.com/dro-old-maps Via Derbyshire Record Office's Heritage Mapping Portal you can view a range of historic maps depicting the Derwent Valley…

ARCHIVES AND LIBRARIES DERBYSHIRE RECORDS OFFICE a Derbyshire County Council, New Street, Matlock DE4 3FE t 01629 538347 e record.office@derbyshire.gov.uk w derbyshire.gov.uk/recordoffice The county archive holds parish registers, wills, Poor Law records, maps and plans; material relating to hospitals, workhouses, schools and the police; plus borough, petty-sessions and cemetery records (the oldest are from 1855). The record office is also home to the Derbyshire Local Studies Library. You can catch up on latest news via the blog at recordoffice.wordpress.com, search the catalogue at calmview.derbyshire.gov.uk/CalmView/default.aspx and view historic maps at the Heritage Mapping Portal: tinyurl.com/dro-old-maps. CHESTERFIELD LOCAL STUDIES LIBRARY a New Beetwell Street, Chesterfield S40 1QN t 01629 533400 e chesterfield.library@derbyshire.gov.uk w derbyshire.gov.uk/leisure/local-studies/local-studies-libraries/chesterfield-local-studies/chesterfield-local-studies-library.aspx Here you'll find material for Chesterfield and North East Derbyshire, alongside resources for the northern half of the…

WILLIAM BUTLER, ELA KACZMARSKA AND ROGER KERSHAW The History Press, 144 pages, £17.99 WW2 Captives accompanies ‘Great Escapes’, an exhibition at The National Archives (TNA) in Kew that runs until 21 July (nationalarchives.gov.uk/great-escapes). The book highlights incredible stories and histories of prisoners of war and civilians who were confined in internment camps, some of them well known. I particularly enjoyed reading about the ‘Great Escape’ of Allied prisoners from Stalag Luft III and British officer Airey Neave's escape from Colditz Castle, and how it was possible to survive mentally and physically in captivity by using art and theatre. Captives includes many photographs of the individuals involved, plus letters, maps and plans. My only problem is the size at which the documents are reproduced. I could only read the text on…

Whether you're looking for your ancestor online or viewing physical records in person, you need to bear all likely spelling variants in mind, because a failure to do so is a common reason for research brick walls. If you're working with online databases and catalogues then wildcards – symbols used in place of letters – will return a wider diversity of search results. Particularly helpful is ‘?’ which can replace a single letter in a person's name, meaning searching for ‘B?ll’ will return results relating to Ball, Bell and Bull among others. Another excellent option is ‘*’, which will match with more than one character. For example, searching for ‘Osm*’ will give results for Osment and Osmond, as well as any other names that have been transcribed as starting with…

COURSE PHAROS TUTORS w pharostutors.com Pharos offers a wide range of online courses to improve your genealogical research skills, and you can work at your own pace. Samantha found a course run by Janet Few extremely helpful. MUSEUM BRIGHTLINGSEA MUSEUM a Dove House, Station Road, Brightlingsea, Colchester, Essex CO7 0DT t 01206 307121 e info@brightlingseamuseum.co.uk w brightlingseamuseum.co.uk Brightlingsea Museum illustrates what life used to be like for the people of the Colne Estuary, many of whom built boats and risked their lives fishing from Brightlingsea Harbour. It's open from Easter to late December, and is free to visit. WEBSITE ELLIS ISLAND FOUNDATION w statueofliberty.org Samantha found personal details about her great great grandmother Jane Farrington on this website, which recorded her trip to New York in 1906. The database includes…

Q My grandmother, Helena Annie Davis, was born on 4 December 1890. Last year I discovered that she had a brother, Peter Randolph Davis. She also had a sister, Isabella Daisy Davies (born 5 April 1898). I have been unable to find birth certificates for either Helena or Isabella. Peter's birth certificate records his parents as James Davis and Ellen Ashton, although I can find no evidence of a marriage. James Davis appears to have died in 1895 (so was possibly not the father of Isabella). After the First World War, Peter and Helena lived with Ellen Ashton and, possibly, William James Davies at 12 Gleave Street, Liverpool. Can you help me find birth certificates for Helena and Isabella and confirm who their parents were? Stephen Bone A One of…

Q This photograph shows my great grandfather, Alfred Greenham, with his wife Mary née Bolston. Can you tell me if it was taken before, or after, the birth of their daughter Violet, my grandmother, in 1906? Alfred and Mary were married in 1903, but I don't think that this is a wedding photo because Alfred looks very casual. Helen Green A By the early 20th century, even humble working people might visit a commercial photographer once or twice to mark special occasions in their lives. I can confirm that this professional portrait, taken evidently in Southsea (near Portsmouth), very likely originated around the time of Alfred and Mary's engagement or actual marriage in 1903: well before Violet's birth in 1906. Although elements of the ‘white wedding’ were increasingly being adopted…

Q I'm trying to trace the origins of my grandfather, John Stanley. He was in the Army and one clue is the name of his sister, Kate Walker, on his attestation form. His records state that he was born in Chelsea in 1865. None of his children, all now deceased, knew his date of birth, and I cannot find a birth or baptism for him. His death record in 1929 confirms his year of birth as 1865. My cousin recalls meeting a Great Aunt Polly, who he understood to be John's sister. Beryl Stnley A There is no marriage for a Catherine, Katherine, Kathleen, Katie or Kate Stanley to anyone with the surname Walker in the civil registration indexes between 1860 and 1885. This suggests that she was unmarried when…

TECH TIPS There are many free programs out there for recording your family history, but none holds a candle to Gramps. It debuted as a Linuxonly program in 2001 but is now available for Windows and macOS too, and has evolved into one of the most powerful programs around. Gramps may appear a little too feature-packed when you first open it, but it's actually quite straightforward to use. What we particularly like about it is that it encourages you to be precise, providing lots of ways to record information, but in a way that promotes consistency. To begin, head to the homepage (gramps-project.org) and click ‘Download’ in the menu bar to find installers for your chosen platform. Simply download the one you want (such as Windows 64-bit for most PC…

ARCHIVE LONDON METROPOLITAN ARCHIVES a 40 Northampton Road, London EC1R 0HB t 020 7332 3820 w tinyurl.com/lon-met-arc Most of London's arrested streetwalkers were sent to Bridewell Prison. Surviving records are kept in the ‘Royal Hospitals of Bridewell and Bethlem’ collection at LMA. BOOKS Disorderly Women in EighteenthCentury London Tony Henderson Routledge, 1999 Learn about the lives of London's prostitutes (1730–1830). Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies H Ranger, 1757–1795 Some editions of this anonymous annual directory of prostitutes are in the Internet Archive at tinyurl.com/arch-harris-list. Libertine London Julie Peakman Reaktion, 2024 Julie's investigation of the sex lives of female Londoners, including streetwalkers and courtesans, is available now. WEBSITES OLD BAILEY ONLINE w oldbaileyonline.org For more serious crimes including keeping a ‘disorderly house’ or a brothel, sex crimes (and their victims) and…

AROUND BRITAIN Although the exact date is unknown, Derby School was founded some time in the mid-12th century. The local tradition of decorating (‘dressing’) wells with designs often made from petals dates back to at least the 15th century. The famous Ashbourne custom of shrovetide football, where two vast teams of players compete over a leather ball filled with cork chippings, was certainly an annual event by the 17th century. But perhaps the single most influential moment came during the 18th century, when in 1771 Richard Arkwright opened Cromford Mill, the world's first successful water-powered cottonspinning mill, sparking both the Industrial Revolution and the modern factory system. Family historians researching the area remotely can achieve a great deal. A partnership between Derbyshire Record Office in Matlock (DRO; derbyshire.gov.uk/recordoffice), run by…

Chloe O'Shea's tips for name changes on page 19 focus on surnames, but David Annal's answer to a reader's question on page 43 shows that first names can also shift, although usually to a lesser extent. Registered as an Ellen, baptised as an Eleanor but known by the family as Helena, it's no wonder Stephen Bone struggled to find his grandmother's birth certificate. This month's ‘Q&A’ section contains other examples of name changes, so it's definitely worth thinking about.…

Email wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk to feature your event here for free PICK OF THE MONTH Don't miss this Family History Federation event FHF REALLY USEFUL FAMILY HISTORY SHOW 15 June a King's Meadow Campus, University of Nottingham t 01263 824951 w fhf-reallyuseful.com/2024-live The Family History Federation, which represents local family history societies throughout England and Wales, is holding three in-person events in 2024 to mark its 50th anniversary. The second show of the year, which is co-hosted with Nottinghamshire Family History Society, will take place on 15 June. There will be stalls from local societies, the opportunity to go on a guided tour of the University of Nottingham's Manuscripts and Special Collections department (numbers are limited), and two talks. Martin McDowell will explain how to use DNA testing in family history, while…

Saul Nassé has been appointed the chief executive and keeper of The National Archives at Kew (nationalarchives.gov.uk) by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. He will take up the role at the end of July replacing Dr Jeff James, who has been in post since 2014. Nassé is a fellow of Robinson College at the University of Cambridge and former group chief executive of Cambridge Assessment, the university's examinations business. He has also held leadership roles at the BBC both in the UK and India, including producing educational content for BBC Bitesize. 111 The age of John Tinniswood from Southport, who became the world's oldest man in April (tinyurl.com/guardian-jat) Henry Avery Two shipwreck explorers say they've discovered that the 17th-century ‘Pirate King’ became a spy for William III (tinyurl.com/guardian-ave)…

The sky above Normandy in northern France was full of men floating to earth in the minutes after midnight on Tuesday 6 June 1944. The first to jump were 120 US Pathfinders under the command of Captain Frank Lillyman. They had sung songs on the flight across the Channel from their base in England to keep up their spirits. They left the aircraft with “wonderful” morale, recalled Lillyman, parachuting to earth without incident. They then went about their business with swift and silent precision, marking a series of drop zones with fluorescent panels and radar beacons for the imminent arrival of a huge airborne landing over an area of the Cherbourg Peninsula measuring 50 square miles. Fifty miles east of the US Pathfinders, 60 British Pathfinders from the 22nd Independent…

When we are searching for records of our ancestors, it can be easy to dismiss those where the surname does not match exactly with how we are used to seeing it spelled. The name may have an additional letter, be pluralised, be spelt phonetically or in some cases be a different surname altogether. In fact before the standardisation of surname spellings, we may find several variations of our forebears’ surnames. Some surnames are patronymic meaning they originate from a person's father (eg Robertson); some were allocated according to a person's occupation (eg Carpenter); some are topographical and named after a feature of the landscape (eg Hill); some are characteristic of a person's physical features or aspect of their personality (eg Wise); and others are habitational ie named after a person's…

When the BBC gave Clive Myrie the green light, he was surprised. Having been asked to come up with ideas for another travel series to follow in the footsteps of last year's Clive Myrie's Italian Road Trip, the journalist, newsreader and host of the legendary quiz show Mastermind put forward a number of suggestions. The Caribbean was “pretty near the bottom of the list”, if only because of the unavoidable expense. Instead, he reveals, “The BBC said, ‘We want you to go the Caribbean, there is no question about it, but we'll give you the same budget as you had for Italy.’” At which point Myrie, speaking from his home in North London, starts laughing. While he got to visit some idyllic places, the costs meant his filming schedule was…

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the National Union of Mineworkers’ (NUM's) bitterly divisive 1984–1985 strike. It's a timely reminder of how hard our forebears fought to scratch a living both under and above ground at collieries that dotted the industrial landscape from the Highlands down to Dover. Despite the history of coal mining in Britain stretching back hundreds of years, with more than one million workers employed by the early 20th century, locating surviving employment records for any era is not straightforward. You stand a better chance if your ancestor worked for the National Coal Board when the industry was nationalised between 1947 and 1994 (the NCB became the British Coal Corporation in 1987). Employment records, medical-history cards and notices of accidents or dangerous incidents for that period…

ANCESTRY w ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/62506 This accidents and deaths index can be searched by name, birthdate, date/location, role, employer and keyword. NORTHERN MINE RESEARCH SOCIETY w nmrs.org.uk View interactive maps of British collieries, a database listing sources, and an accidents and deaths index for 1900–1991. THE COALMINING HISTORY RESOURCE CENTER w cmhrc.co.uk The resources here include regional coalfield maps, a helpful glossary, and accident and disaster reports.…

Ann Spiro's long-running and recently updated Blacksmiths Index (blacksmiths.mygenwebs.com) is a hotchpotch of fantastic information about metalworkers of every kind from all over the world. The site is built around a database of references to several thousand workers drawn from a variety of sources – census entries, newspapers, trade directories and the like. While the primary focus is the UK, there are now sections for American, Australian, Canadian, European and New Zealand smiths too. The breadth has also expanded to include other trades such as anchorsmiths and boilermakers; gold-, silver- and pewtersmiths; locksmiths; and millwrights. You can explore entries via a combined surname index (although it seems to be incomplete), trade or geographical area. Some of the entries are little more than name, trade, date and usually an address. Others…

Q We think that this soldier may be William Ferriday Jones (born 1882, Liverpool). However, we're not sure he fits with the date this photograph was taken. Can you help? Sian MacDonald A This is a part-time Volunteer soldier photographed in Liverpool c1901. He's been in the Volunteers for at least a year. Since your photograph was taken in Liverpool it seems most likely, assuming it is William, that he enlisted in the 1st Volunteer Battalion, King's (Liverpool) Regiment (KLR), whose HQ was close to his address in the 1901 census. Given the date of c1901 it's probable that he enlisted while much of the regular Army was involved in the Second Boer War (1899–1902). Following the Army reform of 1908 the 1st Volunteer Battalion became the 5th Territorial Force…

Respectability was vital to our ancestors, who often assumed a partner's surname to ‘legitimise’ children born out of wedlock. Naturally this can present challenges when building a family tree, but, as Pat Smith explains, it's possible to tease out the truth. MY BRICK WALL I knew my maternal grandmother Daisy Dawe very well. Her home was in the village of Calcot near Reading, Berkshire, close to where I live today. I remember her as a small, quiet lady who loved to watch wrestling on television. Daisy was born in Bath, Somerset, in 1890 to gardener George Dawe and his wife Mary Toghill, who worked as a laundress. She went into domestic service, and on the 1911 census she was working as a cook in Leatherhead, Surrey. We were told that…

1086 The Domesday Book records lead mining in Bakewell and Wirksworth. c1300 Bakewell Bridge, a Grade I-listed stone arch bridge spanning the River Wye in Bakewell, is constructed. 1717 Norfolk-born siblings Thomas and John Lombe open the first successful silk-throwing mill in England on an island in the Derwent. 1792 Inventor and industrialist Sir Richard Arkwright dies in Cromford aged 59, after helping to make the area a centre of cotton production. 1822 Francis Frith (above) is born in Chesterfield. He opens his first photographic studio in Liverpool in 1850. 1884 Derby County Football Club is established as an offshoot of Derbyshire County Cricket Club. Four years later it becomes one of the dozen founding members of the Football League. 1952 Hilary Mary Thompson is born in Glossop, later taking…

BEARDSLEY In 1881 there were 329 namesakes recorded in the Ilkeston census district alone. BRENTNALL Brentnall is a locative name associated with both Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. DOXEY This locative name comes from the village of Doxey in Seighford, across the border in Staffordshire. ELSE The district of Wirksworth in Derbyshire had the highest number of Elses in the 1881 census. FEARN Derbyshire contained the highest proportion of Fearn families recorded in the census of England and Wales in 1891. LIMB This name comes from a Middle English word for a piece of land bordering a river. PLACKETT Plackett is thought to be a locative name from a lost place in Derbyshire. SEVERN This locative name from the River Severn may also derive from the French personal name Séverin. WHEATCROFT The…

During the Second World War, everyday life for millions of people around the world was turned upside down. In Britain, many of our ancestors faced hardship on the home front, from air raids and rationing to worries about family members fighting with the armed forces. Many ordinary people's experiences during the war are preserved in the accounts they left behind, via the Mass Observation Project (massobservationproject.amdigital.co.uk) and others. Bedfordshire Archives holds the diary of one woman during the war – a housewife called Henrietta Argenti. County archivist Pamela Birch tells us more about what the diary reveals. WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT HENRIETTA ARGENTI? Henrietta lived in Pict's Hill, Turvey, Bedfordshire, with her husband Ambrose and their children Marigo, Virginia and Nicholas. They were part of the Chian diaspora descended…

WEBSITE THE SANKEY PHOTOGRAPHY ARCHIVE sankeyphotoarchive.uk Edward Sankey and his sons Raymond and Eric were photographers from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, who took more than 10,000 pictures of the town, charting everyday life from 1885 to the 1970s. This remarkable collection has now been published online. The images can be searched, or viewed in curated galleries such as ‘Street scenes’, ‘Maritime’ and ‘Leisure’. WATCH BURIED: HOW WE CHOOSE TO REMEMBER THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE tinyurl.com/guardian-buried In 2008, the remains of 325 formerly enslaved Africans were found on St Helena during the construction of an access road for an airport. Annina van Neel's 30-minute film, which can be viewed for free, follows the 14-year fight to have them reburied. LISTEN SIDEWAYS: THE KEEPER OF LOST MEMORIES tinyurl.com/bbc-snds-molm In 2020, New Yorker David Gutenmacher…