Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2025 i Who Do You Think You Are?

As family historians, we focus a lot on family trees, but there are other ways of looking at your research. This month I've been inspired to have a think about how timelines can give a fresh perspective. As Chloe O'Shea explains on page 14, a timeline approach can flag up missing records, suggest new avenues to explore and help you add context to the lives of your forebears. I find them particularly useful when writing up short biographies of ancestors to share with my family. We've also included a tutorial looking at software that creates timelines for you using your digital tree (page 52). This month we've introduced a new series of occasional articles looking at five different resources to research an aspect of family history (on page 19 we…

CHLOE O'SHEA Author of Discover your Dorset Ancestors Chloe blogs about her ancestors via thepastrevealed.co.uk. Turn to page 14 to see how she uses timelines in her research. PAUL WILKINS Paul is a genealogist based in Birmingham who has taught family history for over 10 years in libraries, archives and colleges. On page 19 he shares tips on Irish migration. DANIEL GRAY Daniel’s book about Britain’s obsession with fish and chips, Food of the Cods, was a finalist in the Food Book of the Year awards last year. On page 54 he looks at the dish’s origin story.…

1 LIFE SUMMARY From your ancestor’s facts page, click onto the ‘LifeStory’ tab. This will then show an automated short summary of their life at the top which you can customise. 2 MAP OF KEY PLACES Below this is a small family tree showing the person’s parents and the descendant through which they are linked to you, followed by a map of their key places. 3 CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER The person’s timeline is then displayed in chronological order using the details and images you’ve inputted into their facts screen as well as their family’s information. 4 FAMILY EVENTS Click the ‘Show’ tab to select whether you wish to display ‘Family Events’, such as births and deaths of children, parents and siblings, and ‘Historical Insights’. 5 ADD A LIFE EVENT Clicking the ‘Add’ tab allows you to…

In England and Wales, there were numerous criminal, civil and equity courts where the crown or the people could seek justice at law, but it wasn’t until 1873 that the majority of the courts were merged. From around the 14th century, the fate of most criminals would have been determined either at the Assize or at the local Quarter Sessions, with the most serious of cases being heard at the Court of King’s (or Queen’s) Bench. (For more details on this, see ‘Criminal Justice in England and Wales’ in the December 2024 issue of WDYTYA? magazine.) The important exception to the above was in the City of London and the county of Middlesex where the system of criminal justice was different from the rest of the county – and more…

1 FIRST CASE The first case reported here is for Elizabeth Forrester, aged 35, who was indicted for feloniously stealing a copper saucepan, two iron candlesticks and a pair of sheets. She was found guilty and sentenced to six months in the House of Correction and to be whipped. 2 SECOND CASE The second case here was more serious. Ann Moore, aged just 16, was indicted for feloniously stealing on 26 March, in the dwelling house of Vincent Winch, six Bank notes, each of the value of 2l. and one other Bank note value 1l, the property of Peter Hendrick. 3 WITNESS Peter Hendrick gave evidence. He was lodging with Winch at the time and, being a foreigner, an interpreter was provided (not uncommon). The stolen notes had been taken from the £14…

The use of cemeteries and burial grounds in identifying/establishing familial relationships is often a daunting task, especially when faced with a severely eroded grave marker displaying no identifiable inscription – only a series of carved chevrons, symbols and possibly part of a motto. This is especially true when researching grave markers that date back to the 17th and 18th centuries here in Scotland. When faced with such a conundrum, my first point of call is typically the website of the Heraldry Society of Scotland (heraldry-scotland.co.uk). Living in the remote Highlands as I do, gaining access to physical library collections can be difficult, involving journeys of many hours and hundreds of miles. As such the society’s site has become a valuable research tool in the identification of damaged or weather-worn familial…

1 OCCUPATION The document is headed by the Home Office References including the Certificate No. 20959. Emil Komenda’s occupation, mariner, is also recorded. 2 RESIDENCE In addition to his current address in Plymouth (7 Waterloo Street) his alias is also noted (Emanuel Kamborak) – useful when searching for other records. 3 NATIONALITY It is recorded that he was a ‘subject of Germany’ and was born at Dziergowitz, District Kosel, in the Province of Silesia on 16 April 1872. 4 LINEAGE His parents, Daniel and Mariana Komenda, were also both subjects of Germany. 5 MARITAL STATUS Further details about Emil are included: he was a ship’s pumpman, was married and had no children. The information that has been crossed through refers to the three children of his wife Florence that she had from a previous marriage.…

Q My great great grandfather was John Cain, alias ‘Whisky Jack’, the illicit whisky distiller of mid-Victorian Durham. In 1855, he was arrested for the murder of Dr Robert Stirling, but was acquitted in 1856. Local MP, Joseph Cowen Jnr, took John into his employ and he worked there successfully for several years. In 1865, my great great grandmother, Elizabeth Simpson/ Middleton/ Robson, tried to get the allegedly volatile John committed to a lunatic asylum, but failed. Most accounts state that Joseph paid for John’s passage to Australia, but what really happened to him? Stuart McLeod A Unfortunately, there are no centralised immigration indexes for Australia, and it is a matter of searching state by state for someone’s arrival. As John was 53, he would not have qualified for a…

If you’re looking to create a timeline chart, you’ll likely find existing options are a little limited. Thankfully, Progeny Genealogy’s Genelines (progenygenealogy.com) fills that gap for Windows PCs. There are seven types of chart, but here we focus on the Individual Biographical Chart, which visualises an ancestor’s life via their recorded events and relationships alongside key events in world history. The Comparative Biographical Chart option lets you do this for two or more specified people. There’s also a Pedigree Chart for viewing a person alongside their immediate family, and a Direct Line variation that links them to a specified descendant. Full Descendants displays the timeline of a specified person and all their descendants via individually coloured branches. Finally, a Family Chart displays timelines for a person, their spouse(s) and children,…

BOOKS Food of the Cods: How Fish & Chips Made Britain Daniel Gray Harper North, 2023 Part-travelogue and part-social history, Gray’s book tells the story of Britain’s fish and chips obsession. Fish & Chips & the British Working Class, 1870-1940 John K. Walton Leicester University Press, 1992 Masterly account of fish and chips’ rise and establishment, with strong focus on working-class life. ARCHIVE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF FISH FRIERS a New Federation House, 4 Greenwood Mount, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS6 4LQ t 0113 230 7044 e mail@nfff.co.uk w nfff.co.uk As well as being a fantastic source of information, the NFFF have trade newsletters going back almost 100 years. WEBSITE BRITISH NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE w britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk In an under-documented history, local newspapers in particular are vital for tracing the narrative and detail of…

DEEDS w registerofdeeds.org.uk Here you can search for names hidden in Yorkshire’s various registers of deeds. There’s not much information given, but the reference should help you find the original documents. FAMILYSEARCH w familysearch.org/search/collection/4439317 Parish registers from across the East Riding. To see original images you’ll need to access the site at a FamilySearch centre or affiliate library. HISTORICAL DIRECTORIES w specialcollections.le.ac.uk There are numerous trade directories available from the University of Leicester’s Special Collections Online. These include a General Directory of Kingston-upon-Hull and York from 1851. EAST RIDING DIGITAL ARCHIVE w eastriding.access.preservica.com Explore some of the ‘born digital’ collections, as well as newly digitised oral history recordings. HULL FISHING CREWS w catalogue.hullhistorycentre.org.uk/advanced Hull History Centre has some 25,500 records of crew lists for fishing ships sailing out of Hull…

During the early 19th century, a Royal Navy dockyard was established on the Cleddau Estuary in Pembrokeshire, southwest Wales. The town of Pembroke Dock grew around it, and the dockyard thrived until 1926. In 1930, the Royal Air Force established a flying-boat base at the former dockyard, which grew to become the largest in the world during the Second World War. Today the Pembroke Dock Heritage Centre is dedicated to preserving the town’s important history. Trevor Clark, collections manager at the centre, tells us about a remarkable document from its collections – Second World War mechanic Ronald Fisher’s account of being stranded at sea. WHO WAS RONALD FISHER? Ronald Montague Fisher, known as ‘Ronnie’, was born in Morecambe, Lancashire, in 1923. Growing up in the 1930s, Ronnie developed a passion…

VICTORIAN HISTORY Ruth Derham Amberley, 288 pages, £22.99 Decadent Divorce provides a fascinating perspective on the workings of the Divorce Court in the final two decades of the 19th century – set in the context of the broader history of divorce from the Reformation to modern no-fault divorce. Having taken over from the ecclesiastical courts in 1858, the Court’s remit, as author Ruth Derham shows, included cases of nullity, separation and restitution of conjugal rights as well as divorce. Drawing on a wide range of primary and secondary sources, she provides vivid portraits of the individuals who trooped through its doors – the unhappily married who were seeking a means of escape, the lawyers who advised them, the detectives who ferreted out evidence of adultery, the judges who interpreted concepts such…

I loved reading about Ronnie Fisher (page 66) in this month's 'Gem from gripped. It also reminded me that there are lots of specialist museums and archives out there that may hold gems about our family. To some extent you can search across archives via Discovery (discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk) for England and Wales and the new Scottish Archives portal (yourscottisharchives.com), but it’s also worth talking to people with local knowledge and approaching relevant museums.…

Email wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk Write to WDYTYA? Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol BS1 4ST WIN an AncestryDNA test kit from ancestry.co.uk WORTH £79 The writer of our star letter wins an AncestryDNA test worth £79 – so drop us a line and share your thoughts with us. STAR LETTER MUSHERS NOT "DOG SLEDDERS" First, thanks for the great story about using DNA and finding such a spectacular story in one’s family history (January issue, Reader Story). We all should be so lucky! I am writing to suggest that Kim Thompson looks deeper into Susan Howlet Butcher, and for the writer Claire Vaughan to follow up on mushing’s Colonel Norman Vaughan, both revered and important contributors to that world (where they are referred to as ‘mushers’ not ‘dog sledders’). I lived an unforgettable 30 years in…

A quarter of a century ago I got a phone call from my mother, who said: “Your Polish cousins have been in contact”. Although we had scarcely any information when I started researching my family tree, I always knew that we had Polish relatives. My dad, who died when I was 23, had never known his father and had only a few scraps of information about his family, but he was told that his father’s sister, my great aunt, had married a Pole, gone to live there, and had children. In my early 20s, now obsessed with family history, I managed to track down Dolores, a first cousin of my father, in Stratford-upon-Avon. She was the daughter of the aforesaid great aunt, born years before the Polish gentleman came on…

Not long after noon on 9 December 1870, a huge explosion rocked Birmingham. “After a short interval came another, then another and another,” read the Western Daily Mail of 12 December. The blasts came from the cartridge factory of Messrs Ludlow in Witton. The first, from the priming shed in which 60 women were working. “The men employed at nearby Messrs Kynoch’s factory came up and worked earnestly and zealously at their sorrowful task of extricating from the sheds which were accessible those, who by reasons of their injuries, were unable to extricate themselves. The task was dangerous, and in its details horrible and sickening.” That day, 17 women were killed – most aged between 16 and 25 – and around 50 “shockingly burned” victims were taken to the city’s…

Jonathan Wild was born about 1682 in Wolverhampton, the son of a carpenter. He settled in London in 1708 and two years later was committed to the Wood Street Comptor, a debtors’ prison. On his release in 1712, he’d become well-educated in the ways of London’s criminality. Around 1713 he was approached by Charles Hitchen, the City’s former under marshal, and became a thief-taker – a profitable occupation paying £40 (around £8,000 today) for each felon caught. But in truth, Wild was a criminal mastermind, running a successful gang of thieves. Stolen goods were held on to until the theft was publicly announced – he also fenced stolen goods from other thieves. He would then claim to have ‘recovered’ the booty and collected any reward. When one of his own…

WEBSITE THE LONDON ARCHIVES RESEARCH GUIDES w thelondonarchives.org/your-research/research-guides/ In addition to those detailed in the article, further research guides available on the London Archives website include: Criminal Court cases: an overview; Criminal Court cases: Middlesex Sessions up to 1889; Criminal Court cases: Middlesex Sessions post 1889; Criminal Court cases: City of London Session; Criminal Court cases: County of London Sessions; Criminal Court cases: Magistrates Courts. BOOKS Underworld London: Crime and Punishment in the Capital City Catherine Arnold Simon & Schuster, 2012 An entertaining and easy-to-read account of criminality in the metropolis. As well as the crimes, Arnold also looks at the grotesque punishments meted out to those who transgressed the law throughout London’s history, ‘from the cutpurse to the Krays’. Nether World: Crime and the Police Courts in Victorian London…

DECEASED ONLINE w deceasedonline.com This UK-focused pay-to-view database has records supplied by local authorities as well as private cemeteries and crematoria. FAMILYSEARCH w familysearch.org FamilySearch provides free access to all sorts of cemetery records and inscriptions. Examples include the Cemetery Search (familysearch.org/en/cemeteries/), as well as the BillionGraves and Find a Grave indexes. FINDMYPAST w findmypast.co.uk As well as burial records in parish registers, this site hosts the National Burial Index for England and Wales with over 12 million records. HISTORIC GRAVES w historicgraves.com This site provides information from more than 900 cemeteries in Ireland and the UK. INTERMENT.NET w interment.net Here you will find more than 25 million cemetery records, transcripts and burial registers from across the globe. IRISH WAR MEMORIALS w irishwarmemorials.ie Explore a growing database of cross-conflict memorials…

BOOK Migration Records: A Guide for Family Historians Roger Kershaw A & C Black, 2009 Written by the head of Records Knowledge at The National Archives. Although written and published several years ago, this remains an invaluable guide to migration records. WEBSITES HISTORICAL BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON NATIONALITY (ACCESSIBLE) w tinyurl.com/gov-uk-information-nationality This document provides background information about the history of nationality law. THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES RESEARCH GUIDES w nationalarchives.gov.uk The National Archives has produced a number of useful research guides relating to naturalisations and immigration.…

The recent return of BBC Two’s awardwinning series A House Through Time has reminded us that house history can be just exciting as family history. It involves using the same skills to trace the lives of everyone who lived in a particular property. Derek Turner has taken house history one step further by tracing the lives of everyone who lived on his street – Waterloo Road in Bedford, 20 miles north of Luton. As he explains, he first became curious when he moved to the street in 2022, living next door to his son Mark. Derek asked him whether he had the deeds to his house, which he didn’t, because the records had been accidentally burned. But Mark did have a collection of documents relating to the Bower Estate, a…

My brother John inherited an old medal in 1961 which bore the inscription ‘Mark Ewing’ on its edge. The medal was quite a mystery – all we knew was that it had been passed down through my dad’s Ewen family. Years later, John showed the medal to an expert who said it was a Napoleonic War Military General Service medal. It was rare because it had a battle clasp for Martinique in the West Indies – most of the Napoleonic Wars were fought in Europe and the majority of medals had more than one clasp. The medal was all I had to work on at that point. So who was Mark Ewing and how could I trace his life and career? MY EUREKA MOMENT My paternal great grandparents were Ann…

MILITARY HISTORY John Nichol Simon & Schuster, 400 pages, £22 Over a million British Empire troops gave their lives during the First World War. It is impossible to imagine the heartbreaking sense of loss so many families experienced followed. Half a million of those who never returned home have no known grave. Unable to visit the resting place of a loved one, just how did those left behind find closure? In his latest book, The Unknown Warrior, John Nichol, who himself served in the Royal Air Force, begins a personal journey of remembrance at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior during a service at Westminster Abbey in 2018. Having also served in war, Nichol was no stranger to the act of remembrance and what it means. Yet, as he writes with…

WARTIME ENTERTAINMENT HOW BRITAIN KEPT SMILING THROUGH THE SECOND WORLD WAR SOCIAL HISTORY ANTON AND NICOLA RIPPON Pen & Sword, 208 pages, £25 Wartime Entertainment: How Britain Kept Smiling Through The Second World War discusses the films, radio programmes, musicians, sport, dancing and other entertainment available to both the fighting men and those left behind during the Second World War. The book covers public and private entertainment, both amateur and professional, and the struggles entertainers faced to keep going in wartime. Topics include radio, cinema, music and theatre. Of course, it also tells of tragedies when the Luftwaffe interrupted entertainment events. Some chapters provide a precis of stars of the time; some, like Vera Lynn, still known today and others who are long forgotten. Whereas three quarters of the book cover less-known…

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Email wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk to feature your event here for free PICK OF THE MONTH The Family History Show Online returns THE FAMILY HISTORY SHOW ONLINE 8 February w thefamilyhistoryshow.com/online The popular Family History Show returns with its online version, which family historians can take part in from anywhere in the world. It’s the perfect chance to learn more about family history and connect with family history experts. There will be three talks on the day: ‘Occupations: The Why, What, When, Where and How’ by Mia Bennett, ‘Wills for Family History’ by Jackie Depelle, and ‘DNA – What, When, How, Why’ by Donna Rutherford. There will also be a virtual exhibition hall featuring stalls from family history societies and companies and local archives, and the chance to discuss your family history brick…

Studying your family history can often be complex and overwhelming. With historical records, census data, personal stories, photographs, etc. it’s easy to lose track of key events and relationships. This is where a timeline becomes an invaluable tool. A wellconstructed timeline will neatly collate your research, helping you organise dates, highlight any errors that have been made and any gaps that need filling, add historical context, and, hopefully, provide you with new insights into your ancestors’ lives. So, where do you start? Well, first of all consider the scope of your timeline. Are you creating a timeline for a single ancestor, an entire family, or a specific line of descent? You might even want to focus on particular events, such as a migration journey or military service. A good timeline…

BRITISH NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE w britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk Most records of inquests haven’t survived, but happily they were usually reported in the press and can be tracked down if you search the British Newspaper Archive (also available on findmypast.co.uk). Newspaper reports often include a lot more details that the original records did, with background details, descriptions of witnesses and proceedings. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF WALES w library.wales/ If you come across ancestors who lived in, or just passed through, Wales, you should make the National Library of Wales your first port of call. Here you’ll find maps (including tithe maps), newspapers, charters, estate records, correspondence and digital materials. It was here that Angela found family papers relating to Alban Thomas Jones Gwynne. WILLS AND PROBATE As well as containing details of money, property and…

LONDON LIVES w londonlives.org 1690-1800 – Crime, poverty and social policy in the metropolis. A fully searchable collection of 240,000 manuscripts from eight archives and 15 datasets, providing 3.35 million names. CONNECTED HISTORIES w connectedhistories.org/ This site brings together a range of digital resources related to early modern and 19th century Britain that allows sophisticated searching of names, places and dates. THE DIGITAL PANOPTICON w digitalpanopticon.org London Convicts in Britain & Australia, 17801925. Here you can search millions of records from around 50 datasets, relating to the lives of 90,000 convicts from the Old Bailey.…

What did my grandfather, a Ship Smith, do before 1911? Q My grandfather, Thomas Gilbert Holman, was born in 1869/70. The earliest record I have for him is as a ‘visitor’ in the household of Walter Fitch, in Kelvedon, Essex, in the 1911 census. He is single, aged 41, and a ‘Retired engineer general’. Under birthplace, it says ‘BS by parentage’. Was he born abroad? On 12 October 1912, he married Ethel Purl, my grandmother. On the certificate his occupation is listed as ‘Gunsmith’. His father is recorded as John Holman, ‘Smith’s foreman at shipyard’. Thomas died in 1917, and his death certificate has his occupation as ‘Ship Smith (retired)’ and gives his age as 48. But when and where was Thomas Holman born, and what was he doing before…

Q In this photograph, my grandfather, Jesse Jethro Pettit (1880–1962), is standing on the right. The older gentleman could be my great grandfather, Jethro James Pettit (1847–1916), and the other two Jesse’s brother, Charles Jethro Pettit (1875–1946), and a cousin. However, could the older gentleman be another relative, Charles Daniel Pettit (1855–1930), with his son, Charles Stanley Pettit (1889–1961), standing on the left? Stephen Pettit A This is a cabinet card/portrait: a standard format fashionable from the mid-1880s to c1914. It’s set in the garden of a substantial Victorian house, probably taken by a professional photographer hired to visit these ancestors at their home, or a location well known to them. It apparently depicts two generations: a mature man with three sons, or possibly son/sons and their cousin/cousins. To date…

Visiting the fish and chip shop has long been a ritual for football fans on their way to or from a match. Yet there are also strong historical links between those who play the game and our national dish. With most British footballers coming from workingclass stock, it was a trade they knew well; further, a fish and chip shop represented an investment opportunity their often-meagre earnings could stretch to. Among them were Albert ‘Smudger’ Smith and Arthur Jefferson of Queen’s Park Rangers (QPR). The two met when inside forward Smith signed for QPR in 1939. Yorkshireman Jefferson – a full-back – had joined in 1936 and would go on to play 368 games for the west London club. Soon after signing, Smith was called up to serve in the…

Although we think of archives as rather static things, in reality they’re always changing. One recent addition to the East Riding Archives’ collections in the market town of Beverley is a modestlooking account book which revealed the forgotten history of a children’s knitting school in the seaside town of Bridlington. The school was established in 1670 by an elderly merchant named William Bower – a fact recorded in his elaborately carved gravestone still visible in the town’s priory church. Poor children between six and 12 were “instructed in carding, spinning and knitting for at least two and no more than five years” in a cottage on Church Green. The first master was Rowland Milner, a knitter by trade, but by the start of the 19th century the children were taught…

PODCAST NEVER MIND THE DAMBUSTERS Podcast services In this podcast, historians and authors Jane Gulliford Lowes and James Jefferies delve into the world of RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War, exploring the strategy, policy and events behind the significant and controversial campaign. Episode themes include the role of ground crew, Bomber Command’s part in D-Day and an interview with 100-year-old veteran Tom Davidson. Free. LISTEN LEGACIES OF 1619 bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m000bdxl This series from Radio 3’s The Essay was recorded to mark the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the Americas. Five writers, including David Olusoga and Caryl Phillips, tell the stories of five enslaved individuals as found in historical records, and what their stories show about slavery. Free. WATCH NEW TIME TEAM DIGS youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLgeHX3kbVxSWqIWxgMJzwJgDxhzez83w…