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

I love using Facebook to share photos, milestones and opinions with friends and family, but recently I’ve been getting more and more interested in genealogy Facebook Groups. It made me realise that social media platforms and how we use them are changing, making them genuinely useful tools for family historians. I suspect that few of us are reaping the full benefits of social media when it comes to researching our family history. Luckily we’ve got social media guru and genealogist Kelly Cornwell to offer us guidance (page 14). We’ve also got the inspiring story of one man’s mission to uncover the names of all of the victims of German air raids on Britain during the First World War (page 18). I so admire the tenacity and ingenuity of people like…

Email wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk Write to WDYTYA? Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol BS1 4ST A VISION OF DOLLY What an interesting article “Visions of the Future” was in your April issue. It got me thinking about a photograph in our family album of my aunt Dolly working at Olympia when Queen Mary was being shown round in 1949. Attending Olympia has featured a lot through my family generations but not always to visit, more for work. My maternal grandparents lived just a few streets from Olympia and their daughters, my aunts Audrey and Dorothy (known as Dolly), were the ideal age to help at the exhibitions. Audrey had been training and working with children since she was aged 16, and as well as studying had gained experience with the Red Cross. Dolly had two…

Members of the public are invited to contribute to a new project investigating the history of a 19th-century area of Edinburgh. A Plan of the Lands of Newington and Belleville, an 1826 map of seven streets in the West Blacket area, has been published on the National Library of Scotland’s maps website, superimposed on modern-day maps and aerial photographs (maps.nls.uk/projects/newington). The blue and green annotation boxes contain information about the inhabitants of the buildings in 1826, the history of the area, and how it has changed over time. Further contributions are welcome as part of plans to commemorate the bicentenary of the map in 1826. If you have any information to add to the annotations, please get in touch by emailing Ron Hill on r.g.hill@talk21.com.…

English Heritage has launched an appeal to locate a bell from a historic site in Shropshire. Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings first opened as a flax mill in 1797. The site became a maltings in 1897, was an army training unit and barracks during the Second World War, and closed in 1987. After being restored by Historic England it has now opened as English Heritage’s first new paid-for site in 21 years (english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/shrewsbury-flaxmill-maltings/). The factory’s bell, installed when it first opened, would ring out to mark the start and finish of each working day. It is believed to be about 24 inches high with “1797” cast upon it. The bell has not been seen since the factory closed. Matt Thompson, curatorial director of English Heritage, said, “Whilst it is possible that the…

bsky.app x.com ESTIMATED USERS Over 33 million ESTIMATED MONTHLY ACTIVE USERS Over 586 million Both ‘micro-blogging’ sites are textbased, although your posts can contain up to four images. There is a tighter character limit than the likes of Facebook: 280 for X (unless you pay to upgrade your account) and 300 for Bluesky. Both platforms are used by a wide age demographic, and they tend to post less than on TikTok but more than on Facebook, mostly due to the succinct content. Bluesky/X is second-best for connecting, learning and sharing. 3 ACCOUNTS TO FOLLOW @GenealogyJude (Both) Follow individual researchers/family historians such as Judith Batchelor, who shares posts containing wonderful stories and useful advice. @OnePlaceStudies (Bluesky) The Society for One-Place Studies shares articles about the places your forebears may have lived,…

youtube.com ESTIMATED MONTHLY ACTIVE USERS Over 2.5 billion YouTube is all about video content – varying in length, but generally longer than those on TikTok. You can add a text post to accompany the video, but viewers are mostly here to watch rather than read. The demographic has a wide age range, and the platform is relatively slow-paced – and while there is a comments feature, engagement is much less than elsewhere. It’s the best platform for learning, since instructional talks and lectures are widely available. 3 ACCOUNTS TO FOLLOW @FamilySearch Here you can watch talks from past RootsTech events covering a vast array of topics, including genetic genealogy. @SocietyofGenealogists You can watch videos about the society’s collections, as well as talks from the annual All About That Place virtual…

ARCHIVE THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES a Kew, Richmond TW9 4DU w nationalarchives.gov.uk The Air Ministry: Air Historical Branch: Papers (Series I), reference AIR 1 at TNA, include documents relating to all air raids on Britain during the First World War, such as police reports. BOOK Gotha Terror: The Forgotten Blitz 1917–1918 Ian Castle Frontline, 2024 Together with Ian’s previous books Zeppelin Onslaught: The Forgotten Blitz 1914–1915 (Frontline, 2018) and Zeppelin Inferno: The Forgotten Blitz 1916 (Frontline, 2022), this series offers a unique insight into every raid, utilising first-hand accounts, many previously unpublished. Each title has a national list of those killed. WEBSITES BRITISH NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE w britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk This is an invaluable source for contemporary reporting. COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES COMMISSION w www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/ You can track down the air raids’ military victims via…

Without question, every French genealogy research project begins with parish and civil registers. For some 250 years prior to the French Revolution (1787–1799), the Catholic Church in France, under a royal mandate of 1539, recorded in duplicate registers every Catholic person’s baptism, marriage and burial. These registers of Catholicity (registres de catholicité) were kept in order to be able to determine who was Catholic and who was not. Protestant churches had their own registers, often kept in secret and frequently illegally. Registers recording life events were also maintained, at least to some extent, by the country’s Jewish communities. REGISTRATION REVOLUTION With the abolition of royal and church authority by the French Revolution, the registers were taken from the parish priests and the documentation of life events and identity became the…

The London Westminster & Middlesex Family History Society covers much of North London – namely the City of London, the City of Westminster, and the boroughs of Barnet, Brent, Camden, Enfield, Haringey, Harrow and Islington, together with parts of Ealing and Hillingdon. Family history societies are of course there to help people locate records of their ancestors. And our website (lwmfhs.org) contains some very useful and unique features to help researchers hunting for relations in this part of the world. Click the ‘Research’ dropdown in the website’s menu bar and you will find ‘Which Place is Where’. If you are struggling to find out where somewhere in Greater London actually is, then this can help you. Just type the name of a place into the search box and the site…

1 CHARACTER SHEET The sheet provides information on the employee, the division number and the type of employment/occupation – here, the gangs John worked in. He was a milesman responsible for track maintenance. 2 PERSONAL DETAILS Questions 1–7 record personal information about the employee including year of birth, literacy and physical health, and remarks from the half-yearly inspector. 3 PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT Particularly useful for family historians, Question 8 records the former occupation (sometimes naming the employer) and the reason that the worker left. 4 FIRST EMPLOYMENT Questions 9–15 relate to actual railway service from the date of the worker’s initial employment, including temporary service. The additional remarks can also be revealing. 5 RULES Emphasis was placed upon rules and regulations, so confirmation was needed via Questions 16–22 that the employee understood and would…

Q How can I find out when a particular area of the country was surveyed for the 1910 Valuation Office Survey? The National Archives at Kew (TNA; nationalarchives.gov.uk) indicates that the individual surveys were carried out between 1910 and 1915, but in its online catalogue Discovery (discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk) the Field Books (series IR 58) are all dated 1910. Martin Gething A The 1909–1910 Finance Act introduced legislation, the main object of which was the proposal to introduce a tax at 20 per cent on the increase in the value of a property between 30 April 1909 and when it was sold. The initial survey – commonly known as the Lloyd George Domesday Survey – recorded the value of all UK property as at 30 April 1910. This original land-valuation exercise was…

Q This is a photograph of one of my great aunts – possibly Alice Christina Nuttall. I have no information on the gentleman with her. Was he a soldier and, if so, what regiment did he serve in? Karen Crowley A This is a young couple, possibly brother and sister, more likely sweethearts, taken in Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, a few years before or after 1900. They’re probably local. Even blowing the image up I can’t see a ring on her finger, but one may be hidden in the shadows. It’s clear, though, that they’ve made an effort to look good. He is a soldier in the Royal Horse Artillery with some military service behind him. If you have Cambridgeshire ancestors, you might find some names you can explore. The soldier is…

We’ve seen over the years how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to repair, colourise and transform old photos. FlexClip (flexclip.com) is a relatively new website that offers a range of image, sound and video tools through a single online portal. But while it’s primarily a site for creating videos and slideshows, FlexClip also includes a series of tools – many powered by AI – that family historians will find extremely useful. This includes an Old Photo Restoration tool, designed to take your aged pictures and improve them with a single click. There are also tools for colourising, upscaling and removing scratches and creases, plus one for improving any scratchy and hissy old audio recordings too. You can apply up to four AI tools simultaneously with FlexClip, but sometimes it’s…

BOOKS London Labour and the London Poor Henry Mayhew 1851–1862 Investigative journalist Henry Mayhew explored the working conditions and daily routines of London’s ‘street folk’, from stall owners and mudlarks, to pedlars and prostitutes. He collated his findings in a four-volume ‘cyclopaedia’, which is freely available from Project Gutenberg at tinyurl.com/guten-mayhew. Tracing Your Pauper Ancestors Robert Burlison Pen & Sword, 2009 Burlison tackles the shadowy and oft-hidden lives of Victorian paupers in this handy guide, identifying useful resources. WEBSITES BRITISH NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE w britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk Millions of 19th-century newspapers have been digitised in this online archive. Search by date or location to reveal crime reports, local news and other fascinating articles about both the richest and poorest echelons of society. CHARLES BOOTH’S POVERTY MAPS w booth.lse.ac.uk/map View the reformist’s original notes…

BIRTH, MARRIAGE AND DEATH RECORDS w westmidlandsbmd.org.uk Search more than 2.7 million indexed birth, marriage and death records from the register offices of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall. DIRECTORIES w bit.ly/uni-leic-special The University of Leicester’s website Special Collections Online includes street and trade directories for Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire, plus some city titles. STAFFORDSHIRE INDEXES w staffsnameindexes.org.uk This site provides a number of indexes to Staffordshire sources. Recent additions include Stoke-on-Trent police and special-constables indexes. WARWICKSHIRE DATABASES w tinyurl.com/warwick-data This collection of finding aids includes a database of licensed victuallers in Warwickshire (1801–1828), and a titheapportionments database (1838–1853). WORCESTERSHIRE INDEXES w tinyurl.com/worcs-ind This site’s indexes include Absent Voters’ Lists (1918–1919), marriage licences (1853–1916), a militia list (1824-1831), wills and quarter-sessions records.…

The rich history of Whitby on the Yorkshire coast includes industries such as fishing, whaling and jet jewellery, and inspiring Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula (1897). The collections in Whitby Museum Library and Archive tell the story of the town from ancient times to the present. Among the books and documents is a beautifully illustrated scrapbook depicting a British woman’s life in India during the rule of the East India Company. Archive Development Officer Claire Marris tells us more about this fascinating scrapbook and its creator, Isabella Wells. WHAT IS THE SCRAPBOOK? In 2021 one of our volunteers, Janet Kukk, found a scrapbook in our archives filled with beautiful portrayals of India. There was a signature on some of the illustrations that looked like I or J Wells. Carrying out more…

SOCIAL HISTORY Georgina Sturge Bridge Street Press, 384 pages, £25 From the early years of the national census in the 1800s, to narratives of social change, race and politics in modern times, Sum of Us takes in a 200-year sweep of UK history, showcasing national trends through the lens of public statistics and official records. This is no dry, technical tome, but an engaging account of UK life: family historians will find much here both to interest and inform. While the various national censuses are the main focus, the range of sources mentioned – including Mass Observation diaries, taxation records and poverty maps – offers a plethora of jumping-off points to explore. It was disappointing to see occasional inaccuracies, such as in the role of the census enumerators (who, contrary to…

I loved reading about Rob Earnden’s hunt for his East London ancestors in our ‘Reader Story’ this month (page 24). He encountered a common problem when dealing with a surname that starts with a vowel in London. It may come as no surprise that Londoners tend to drop an ‘H’ from the start of a name, but did you know that they also used to overcompensate in a formal or official situation, and add an ‘H’ to a name that begins with a vowel? So, when Rob was looking for an Earnden, he found that the birth was registered under the name ‘Hearnden’. So experiment when looking for those East London forebears!…

When I became hooked on genealogy, as someone who grew up with tech, social media was an obvious tool for me. I realised quickly though through reading blogs, websites and magazines (including this one) that nobody talks about this. For anyone who has a tech/social media aversion, don’t skip ahead! Hear what I have to say, and how you could still make this incredible resource work for you. Take Facebook (facebook.com) for example. Facebook has a wealth of Groups run typically by a couple of volunteer admins. These are groups of tens of thousands of people just like you, of all ages, happy to help each other. I can’t count the number of times I’ve posted “Hi everyone, can you help me read this dreadful handwriting”, and had Good Samaritans…

Letter sheds new light on Shakespeare’s marriage A professor of English at the University of Bristol has produced research arguing that a fragmentary letter from the 17th century could show that William Shakespeare’s wife Anne Hathaway lived with him in London, rather than separately in Stratford-upon-Avon. The letter fragments, found bound in a book, are addressed to “Good Mrs Shakspaire” and appeal to her to pay money owing to a young apprentice on her husband’s behalf. Prof. Matthew Steggle’s paper is online at tinyurl.com/steggle-shake. Charles Darwin archive recognised by UNESCO A major archive documenting the life and work of naturalist Charles Darwin has been added to UNESCO’s International Memory of the World Register (unesco.org.uk/our-sites/memory-of-the-world). The archive spans more than 20,000 items across six UK institutions, including Cambridge University Library and…

What are parish registers? I’m sure we all know the answer, or at least we think we do; I am surprised how often I read that registers recorded births, marriages and deaths, rather than baptisms and burials. We are so used to them, that it probably doesn’t even occur to us how remarkable it all is – that parish registration was introduced almost 500 years ago, and that in quite a few parishes it has been continuous for that entire period. So what was the original intention, and what was it about the idea that attracted the attention of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s chief minister and the man who, more than any other, was responsible for its introduction? The idea of keeping a register of, in particular, all baptisms was…

facebook.com ESTIMATED MONTHLY ACTIVE USERS Over 3 billion Posts are mostly text-based, with some pictures and occasionally video ‘reels’. There is a high character limit (more than 63,000 per post) and a wide age demographic, but fewer younger users. The ‘Groups’ facility is excellent, and they can be public or private. However, the platform is slower-paced, so new accounts are not likely to reach high levels of engagement quickly. Facebook is best for connecting, sharing and advertising to a wide demographic. 3 ACCOUNTS TO FOLLOW @AFewForgottenWomen You can follow pages for family history projects on Facebook, including A Few Forgotten Women sharing stories from their research. @AGTSomerset Company archives are great for finding records of ancestors’ employers. The Alfred Gillett Trust holds the collections of Somerset shoemaker Clarks. @PharosTutors Follow…

A classified advert published in the 15 August 1912 issue of weekly Australian news magazine The Bulletin reads, “Mrs C Skingley of No 1 Victoria Road, Oxney Green, Writtle near Chelmsford, England, wants to hear from her brother Ivy Earnden, who was at Uanda Station, Australia, some years ago.” It’s a crucial bit of the puzzle Rob Earnden patiently pieced together as he searched for the truth about his Earnden family. There’s no way of knowing if Mrs Skingley’s advert helped her trace her brother, but 120 years later, it allowed Rob, one of their relatives, to reunite the siblings – in family lore at least. Rob, who lives in Nottingham, began wondering about his origins in 2023, when his son was a year old. “I didn’t have many pictures…

ARCHIVES NATIONALES FINDING AIDS w tinyurl.com/arch-nat-finding The national archive’s online finding aids provide access to over eight million images. You can request a copy of the record you need if it has not been digitised. LEGION OF HONOUR DOSSIERS w tinyurl.com/arch-nat-honour These dossiers can contain copies of birth, marriage and death records, summaries of military service, and details of heroic acts. Nearly all of the records are digitised. MÉMOIRE DES HOMMES w tinyurl.com/memories-des-hommes The website of France’s military archives is a superb resource. It is constantly being updated, and volunteers work together to index the country’s military records.…

BOOK French Jewish Genealogy Anne Morddel Lulu, 2024 This is the latest of Anne’s booklets, all published via Lulu (lulu.com/spotlight/morddel), covering various research topics and based on her blog posts. In English. MUSEUM MÉMORIAL DE LA SHOAH a 17 rue Geoffroy l’Asnier, 75004 Paris t +33 1 42 77 44 72 w www.memorialdelashoah.org/en/ The museum examines the French experience of the Holocaust. Its website includes genealogical information and scanned records. Many languages, including English. WEBSITES FAMILYSEARCH w familysearch.org/en/wiki/France_Genealogy FamilySearch’s wiki has useful advice for the country, including links to online records here and elsewhere. In English and French. GENAMI w www.genami.org/en/ The website of the French society GenAmi, the Jewish Genealogy Association, has helpful research guides. In French and English. GÉNÉAWIKI w fr.geneawiki.com/wiki This is an encyclopaedic source of information,…

AIM25 w aim25.com The website Archives in London and the M25 Area has information about the material held by schools, societies, local authorities, cultural organisations and livery companies. BRITISH HISTORY ONLINE w british-history.ac.uk BHO has a host of digitised volumes relating to London, not least 45 books from the London Record Society (londonrecordsociety.org.uk). CHARLES BOOTH’S LONDON w booth.lse.ac.uk Explore maps and notebooks from Booth’s ‘Inquiry into Life and Labour in London’. LAYERS OF LONDON w layersoflondon.org Here you can access historic maps of the city. LOCATING LONDON’S PAST w locatinglondon.org Search digital resources relating to the history of early modern and 18th-century London. LONDON PICTURE ARCHIVE w londonpicturearchive.org.uk Browse more than 250,000 images from The London Archives and the Guildhall Art Gallery. Also try londonsscreenarchives.org.uk and https://boroughphotos.org. OLD BAILEY ONLINE…

BOOK Irish Railways: A New History Tom Ferris Gill & Macmillan, 2008 This book is a valuable guide to the early expansion of the rail network, its decline and its recovery. It can be borrowed for free from the Internet Archive at tinyurl.com/arch-rail-ferris. WEBSITES IRISH RAILWAY RECORD SOCIETY (IRRS) w irrs.ie/resources/irish-railway-factsheets/ The society’s site includes information about individual companies such as their history, insignia photos and further resources. RAILWAY PRESERVATION SOCIETY OF IRELAND w steamtrainsireland.com/museum-tickets/learning/irish-railway-history The society’s website includes an extremely useful brief history from 1834 to the modern day, with a map and timeline.…

Q My ancestor, Welston (Wolston) Stonard (Stanard), was born in about 1556. He married Annys Giffin in 1581 in Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex. I have been unable to find any birth or death records for Welston or Annys. Can you help? Julie Wilkinson A Well done for tracing this far back to Welston Stonard, who married on 2 October 1581 at Stansted Mountfitchet. Births and deaths were seldom recorded before the start of civil registration in July 1837, so you will have traced back to the 1500s using baptisms and burials in parish registers. These were introduced by my ancestor Thomas Cromwell in 1538, but many of the early ones were made of paper (as opposed to vellum, which was used later), so do not survive. My copy of The Phillimore…

Nicholas Oxley was a farmer who lived in the village of Warbleton, Sussex, from 1794 to 1833. Although he died nearly 200 years ago, he lives on in the diaries he kept covering 1814–1817 and 1821-1823, which still belong to his 5x great grandson Paul Oxley. In 2020, Paul loaned the diaries to the Sussex Family History Group (SFHG; sfhg.uk), who began a project to transcribe them. Between summer 2020 and spring 2021 Mick Henry, the group’s chair, and volunteer Madeline Cole transcribed the 350 pages of the diaries, with help from members of the society’s Facebook Group. “When we had sections of text that we couldn’t understand or couldn’t read I posted them online,” Mick says. “I think that’s probably why we’ve got such a good transcript of the…

Stephan Körner, my father, was born in 1913 in Ostrava. At that time the city was in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It later became part of Czechoslovakia, and is now in north-east Czechia. After serving in the cavalry, Stephan received his law degree from Charles University in Prague. His family, Jewish by descent, didn’t practice Judaism but Stephan added Hebrew to his studies of Latin and Greek. In March 1939, soon after he had begun to practise law in his home town, it was occupied by the Nazis and life changed forever. An old schoolmate, who had thrown his lot in with the invaders, came to the Körners’ home in full Nazi uniform and warned, “If you don’t leave today, you won’t be able to leave tomorrow.” My grandparents Emil and…

FAMILY BIOGRAPHY HARRIET CULLEN Unicorn, 224 pages, £25 This book is a fascinating picture of someone who was at the heart of what are sometimes called ‘the Four Estates’ during a time of vast social and political change. Lady Pamela Smith was the daughter of politician and lawyer FE Smith, the 1st Earl of Birkenhead, and married William Berry, who became Viscount Camrose and owner of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph. The author, her daughter, has had access to many unpublished diaries, photo albums and correspondence that comment upon events that are now part of history. Most of the people Pamela corresponded with became household names, and she probably influenced events via her husband’s newspapers and her associations with politicians. The book paints a picture of both the subject’s private…

A loud knock was heard on the door of an austere terraced home in Birmingham’s Gun Quarter. It was August 1826 and the parish constables had come for Josiah Perks, a lad of 18 who had already served three months in gaol for stealing coats. This time Josiah was arraigned at Warwick Assizes for breaking into a house and taking 40s. His family must have been devastated when he was convicted and sentenced to death. The judgment was commuted to transportation for life, which meant that Josiah would never be allowed to leave Australia. He was the 3x great grand uncle of Dawn Robinson-Walsh. The family clearly thrived, because Josiah owned 470 acres by the 1860s She discovered Josiah in 2023 while searching the records on Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk). “He stood…

KELLY CORNWELL A professional genealogist based on the border of Suffolk and Essex, Kelly is an experienced tutor who shares expert advice from her social media course on page 14. IAN CASTLE Ian’s project to name all of the victims of the First World War air raids in the UK has led to a trilogy of books on the subject. Turn to page 18 to find out how he found ‘the forgotten’. IAN WALLER After many years as a professional genealogist, Ian still plays an active role in the world of family history. On page 38 he explores online records of Irish railway workers.…

Email wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk to feature your event here for free PICK OF THE MONTH Discover Victorian history with this conference THE VICTORIANS 7 June a Wakefield Estate, Reading t 0118 950 9553 w berksfhs.org/events/conference-the-victorians/?occurrence=2025-06-07 Berkshire Family History Society is celebrating its 50th birthday with this one-day conference about the Victorian era. The keynote speaker is historian and broadcaster Prof. Kate Williams, who discusses ‘The Victorians: Superspeed History? From Jane Austen’s Time to the Twentieth Century’. Six additional talks cover such topics as Victorian sources at The National Archives, the 1851 Great Exhibition, crime and punishment, the lives of factory workers, and the Victorian soldier. There will also be exhibition stalls, and a chance to pick the brains of the society’s own experts. £55 for members of the society, otherwise £65. IN…

More than 1,064,000 records of financial ‘prizes’ awarded to soldiers in the British Army between 1720 and 1899 have been published online. Family history website TheGenealogist (thegenealogist.co.uk) has released the collection ‘Royal Hospital Chelsea: Prize Records’, based on material in series WO 164 at The National Archives in Kew. When British forces captured enemy property or territory, the spoils (or their monetary value) were pooled and allocated to the officers and men as ‘prize’ rewards. These records describe their allocation, whether to the soldiers themselves or a relative. The collection consists primarily of unclaimed shares. The records related to such conflicts as the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) and the Peninsular War (1807–1814). Many registers remained open for decades after the original payments, listing relations who claimed…

tiktok.com ESTIMATED MONTHLY ACTIVE USERS Over 1.6 billion TikTok is almost entirely visual – shared content is mostly short videos, but can be a single image or slideshow of images, and minimal text is used. Users have a much younger demographic than the likes of Facebook. Adding a ‘trending’ sound, challenge or filter can help a post gain traction quickly. The site is very fast-paced – weekly (if not daily) content is required to grow/keep a strong audience. TikTok is the best platform for reaching younger people. 3 ACCOUNTS TO FOLLOW @ESFHistory Follow groups like the Essex Society for Family History that shares short videos containing facts from documents found within Essex Record Office. @familytreegirl Stacey posts fun, entertaining videos on her TikTok account that include excellent research tips together…

The Pall Mall Gazette, reporting on a raid over the “south-eastern outskirts of London” on 25 September 1917, described how, “One of the bombs fell and buried itself in a narrow road, and several small dwelling-houses were badly damaged… a young man and a man of sixty-eight years of age were killed.” An eyewitness took up the story. “We had just shut the front door when the crash came… the door blew in right on top of me [and] we saw a young fellow who lived a few doors away lying dead on the pavement.” So who was this “young fellow”? The Metropolitan Police report revealed that there was only one road in South-East London where two men were killed – Marcia Road, Bermondsey. An updated report added that one…

ANCESTRY w ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/60391/ From the poverty-stricken to those who had fallen on hard times or needed medical care in the infirmary, an ancestor may appear in workhouse records. Rob got lucky with the collection ‘London, England, Workhouse Admission and Discharge Records, 1764–1921’. BARNARDO’S w barnardos.org.uk/get-support/services/making-connections-family-history-service Philanthropist Thomas Barnardo opened his first home for boys in 1870, and the children’s charity’s archives are a rich hunting ground for documents relating to sons and daughters of the poor. These include letters, photographs and records of individuals’ time in care – including Rob’s relations Charles and Ivan. Contact Barnardo’s if you think your relative might have been a Barnardo’s child. TROVE w trove.nla.gov.au This central hub for archives and records from all over Australia is best known to family historians for its newspapers…

Q John Francis Moore was born on 5 February 1891 in Hythe, Kent, to John Moore and Jane Skirving. He enlisted in the Gloucestershire Regiment in March 1908. The story was that he was killed in France in 1918. However, he is in the 1921 census visiting his Aunt Mary and Henry Dutton in Forthampton, near Tewkesbury. I can’t find any record of him after that. Can you help? Michael Marsh A As John had visited his aunt and uncle in Forthampton in 1921, I looked at newspapers for bereavement announcements and found a funeral report for Mary Dutton in the 7 February 1931 edition of the Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic. Although many mourners were named, John was not among them. This was also the case with Mary’s husband,…

Q I’m hoping your experts may be able to help decipher the First World War British Army service record of my husband’s grandfather, George William Blunt, in particular the abbreviations on pages 34 and 35. We’ve had a go, but there are some things we either don’t understand or have queries about. Teresa Blunt A This is a fascinating document! It survives in full because George voluntarily returned to the Army Reserve in 1922, having been originally discharged in early 1920. Because of his later service, both his original First World War record and his later one were combined and held separately from the bulk of First World War service records, many of which were destroyed in the Second World War during the Blitz. He was given a new seven-figure…

Born in a single-room dwelling in Poplar, East London, William Crooks – known as ‘Will’ – was well acquainted with poverty. The amputation of his father’s arm forced Crooks to become a milkman aged eight, but when the family stopped receiving poor relief in 1861, he and his siblings were sent to Poplar Workhouse, and then to the South Metropolitan District School in Sutton for poor children. In 1889 Crooks was working on the docks when he raised funds for and co-led a strike to secure fairer wages. In 1897 he became the chairman of the Poplar Board of Guardians, providing insight into workhouse operations. His 1906 inquiry into Poplar Workhouse brought attention to its squalid conditions, spurring the Poor Law Commission into action. Crooks continued to campaign for social…

The West Midlands is a modern ceremonial county encompassing parts of historic Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire, including major cities such as Birmingham and Coventry, as well as the more loosely defined ‘Black Country’, which comprises Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton. At first glance this can seem a complicated region in which to conduct your research into your tree. If your family hailed from Dudley, for example, there are a number of places where you might find relevant records. There’s Dudley’s own archives of course, but local material may also have ended up in the neighbouring archives for Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton. In addition, Dudley was traditionally in Worcestershire, and yet some parts of what is now the Borough of Dudley – namely Sedgley, Coseley, Brierley Hill and Kingswinford – were…

ARCHIVES & LIBRARIES BIRMINGHAM ARCHIVES AND HERITAGE a Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, Broad Street, Birmingham B1 2ND t 0121 242 4242 e enquiries@libraryofbirmingham.com w birmingham.gov.uk/archives The Archives, Heritage and Photography section on level four has material for tracing families in the area. Rare, fragile and older printed material is accessible by appointment at the Wolfson Centre for Archival Research. COVENTRY ARCHIVES a Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Jordan Well, Coventry CV1 5QP t 02476 237583 e archives@cvlife.co.uk w theherbert.org/history-centre/ The Reading Room houses family history resources, while the Research Room is where you can consult original archival material. Both are open by appointment. DUDLEY ARCHIVES AND LOCAL HISTORY CENTRE a Tipton Road, Dudley DY1 4SQ t 01384 812770 e dudley.archives@gll.org w better.org.uk/library/dudley/archives-and-local-history-centre The centre has trade directories, census returns,…

VIDEO RESEARCHING YOUR HOUSE HISTORY tinyurl.com/yt-researching-house-history In this one-hour video, genealogist Nick Barratt talks to house historian Melanie Backe-Hansen and design historian Deborah Sugg Ryan about house history and their work on the BBC Two series A House Through Time, covering such topics as the enduring legacy of slavery and the history of home design. Free. NEWSLETTER WRITING FAMILY HISTORY writingfamilyhistory.substack.com/ Family historian and author Alison Baxter regularly shares stories from her research into her tree in her email newsletter. In one recent edition, she discusses an uncle who died serving with Bomber Command in the Second World War, while in another, she talks about a relative who survived a catastrophic avalanche in Newfoundland in 1912. Free. PODCAST LONDON HISTORY londonguidedwalks.co.uk/all-episodes/ London tour guide Hazel Baker presents this podcast about…