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

Thinking outside the box is probably one of the most important skills a family historian can have, along with a questioning mind. Our ancestors are not always where we expect them to be – and who would want it otherwise? Chloe's excellent tips this month (Page 14) will get you examining your family history puzzles from a different angle. We also look this month at inherited trauma and whether understanding your family history can help improve your mental health (page 19). We would love to hear from readers who have found that understanding their family history has helped them. If your forebears struggled with mental illness, or had learning disabilities, you can find out more about asylum records on page 28. Crime and punishment also feature this month, with an…

Family history website Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) has added a major new collection of 49,105,506 electoral register records from Birmingham, dating from 1833–1972 and featuring notable residents, from former prime minister Neville Chamberlain to heavy-metal legend Ozzy Osbourne. Electoral registers are lists of eligible voters. They include information about individuals such as their name, address and how they were qualified to vote. They were first introduced following the 1832 Reform Act, which was passed to address campaigns for greater voting rights for the population of newly industrialised cities such as Birmingham. The Act greatly increased the number of voters by granting suffrage to small landowners, tenant farmers, shopkeepers, and all householders who paid a yearly rental of £10 or more, although only to men. Voting rights were further expanded in the 1867…

The Great Northern Railway Society (gnrsociety.com) wants to hear from anybody whose relation worked for the Great Northern Railway (GNR). GNR received its first Act of Parliament in 1846, and existed as an independent company until the end of 1922 when it was subsumed into the new London and North Eastern Railway. No staff records created by the GNR exist, because they were all destroyed during the Blitz in 1941. The society is endeavouring to plug the gap by creating a database of company employees using surviving records, including trade-union records, newspapers and census records, and has found 26,500 people so far. If a member of your extended family worked for the company, please get in touch with the society by emailing genealogy@gnrsociety.com.…

More than 600 letters, photos and papers showing a powerful British family's role in the slave trade are now being digitised by the University of Cambridge. The material was collected over 20 years by Malik Al Nasir, who is studying for a PhD at the university based upon his genealogical research. Al Nasir was inspired to research the family-run trading company Sandbach Tinne & Co. after discovering that he is descended from the Sandbach Tinne dynasty and those whom they enslaved in Guiana. He said, “As it grew, what is now the Sandbach Tinne Collection began to reveal an astonishing family who criss-crossed Scotland, England, Australia, India, the Americas, the Caribbean and beyond, encapsulating the complexity, cunning and callousness of the British Empire and its chief source of income –…

Marriage registers give the names of at least two witnesses from 1754 onwards. These are often relatives of the bride or groom, so it is worth tracing these individuals to see if they are members of your ancestor's family. They may alternatively be friends, neighbours or parish officials. The latter is more obvious, because you will notice the same names appearing as witnesses in other marriages in the parish around the same time. Using marriage registers to find your forebear's potential siblings can also be a great way of breaking down a brick wall. Siblings often married within the same parish or a neighbouring parish. Look for marriages within a five-mile radius of people with the same surname as your ancestor, and within 10 years of their marriage date. If…

Try searching newspaper databases for related search terms other than your ancestor's name. Historically newspaper articles often don't feature people under their full name, or where they do, the text may have been incorrectly transcribed by optical character recognition (OCR). Try searching using their title, such as ‘Rev’ or ‘Mrs’ with their surname, or a rank such as ‘Cpl’, ‘Pte’ or ‘Sgt’ – see for example the awards “to local n.c.o.'s and men for military service in France” listed on this newspaper page from 1919. You may also find a person by searching for their street, narrowing results down by county and the date that they were residing there. Searching by surname and parish may also bring up results for your ancestor and other relations. As well as the births,…

BOOKS Emotional Inheritance Dr Galit Atlas Short Books, 2022 These stories from the casebook of a US psychoanalyst illustrate how intergenerational trauma can have an impact on descendants’ lives. Genealogy, Psychology and Therapy – Uncovering Trauma, 2nd Edn Paula Nicolson Routledge, 2022 This more academic approach includes some useful insights about the benefits of researching family history to mental health. WEBSITES HELEN PARKER-DRABBLE w https://helenparkerdrabble.com Visit Helen's site for more information about how ancestral research can affect our understanding of ourselves and our wellbeing. MENTAL HEALTH FOUNDATION w mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/public-engagement/world-mental-health-day The charity's website has information about World Mental Health Day on 10 October, plus advice for building and protecting good mental health. MINDPEBBLE w mindpebble.co.uk/reframing-roots/ Celia Heritage explains her approach to family history and the Reframing Roots programme on her website.…

Researching Welsh roots can be a challenge, since you usually have to contend with the overlapping identities of ancestors amid the swirl of patronymic names, endless recycling of first names, and a limited pool of surnames. So pinpointing one of the earliest of his forebears to work the land at the family farm at Caeadda in rural Montgomeryshire, Mid-Wales, was a big moment for Antony David Davies. “This was more than just a genealogical find – it was a rare glimpse into a world often lost to time, where records are scarce and oral memory fades. It was a quiet eureka moment: realising that I hadn't just found a person, but had crossed a historical threshold into the world that they actually inhabited.” Elinor has championed Welsh music and language…

1 LOCATE THE COLLECTION Click ‘Search’ at the top of the homepage then ‘Card Catalogue’ in the dropdown. Enter ‘lunacy’ as your keyword, then click ‘Search’. Choose ‘UK, Lunacy Patients Admission Registers, 1846–1921’ in the search results. 2 SEARCH THE REGISTERS FOR YOUR RELATION Search for your forebear by typing in his or her name. You can narrow down the search results by adding a year of admission and/or the name of their institution, if known. 3 REVIEW THE SEARCH RESULTS Remember that there may be several relevant results if your relation was treated more than once in different asylums, so make sure that you check every page of the admission registers.…

BOOK Life in the Victorian Asylum Mark Stevens Pen & Sword, 2014 This social history was written by an archivist at the Berkshire Record Office. MUSEUM BETHLEM MUSEUM OF THE MIND a Bethlem Royal Hospital, Monks Orchard Road, Beckenham, Greater London BR3 3BX t 0203 228 4227 w museumofthemind.org.uk The museum preserves art, records and objects, plus has learning resources online. Its archives are open weekdays by appointment. WEBSITES COUNTY ASYLUMS w countyasylums.co.uk/the-asylum-list/ Use this excellent site to find out more about specific institutions across the UK, including previous names. INDEX OF ENGLISH AND WELSH LUNATIC ASYLUMS AND MENTAL HOSPITALS w studymore.org.uk/4_13_ta.htm Andrew Roberts’ website has this comprehensive index. MENTAL HEALTH FOUNDATION w mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/public-engagement/world-mental-health-day Learn more about World Mental Health Day. THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES w tinyurl.com/tna-guide-mental-health TNA's site includes a…

ANCESTRY w ancestry.co.uk As well as a large criminal registers collection, the site has Lancashire quarter session records, calendars of prisoners for South Wales and more. BLACKSHEEP ANCESTORS w blacksheepancestors.com This site brings together prison and convict records, court records, and biographies of outlaws from the USA, Canada and the UK. CONVICT RECORDS w convictrecords.com.au Search details of 154,587 convicts who were sent to Australia by name, ship's name, or year. OUR CRIMINAL ANCESTORS w ourcriminalancestors.org This collaboration between universities in Hull and Leeds has research guides, timelines and case studies featuring more everyday criminality. SCOTLAND'S PEOPLE w tinyurl.com/scots-peop-guide-crime-crims This guide describes records unique to Scotland's justice system. Registers for prisons in Perth, Edinburgh and Largs can now be searched free of charge. SCOTTISH INDEXES w www.scottishindexes.com/scotlandscriminaldatabase.aspx Search over 800,000…

ARCHIVE THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES a Kew, Richmond TW9 4DU t 020 8876 3444 w nationalarchives.gov.uk The Parliamentary Archives’ collections including the Protestation Returns are currently being transferred to TNA. The relocation is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2025. ARTICLE The Protestation Returns of 1641–1642: Part I, The General Organisation Anne Whiteman Local Population Studies No. 55, Autumn 1995 This comprehensive article about the origins, administration and content of the Protestation Returns, with an analysis of those who took the oath and those who refused, is freely available at the website of the Local Population Studies Society (tinyurl.com/lps-whiteman-1). BOOK The Protestation Returns 1641–42 and Other Contemporary Listings Jeremy Gibson and Alan Dell Federation of Family History Societies, 2004 This handbook lists the surviving Protestation Returns and published transcripts…

Q I'm looking for any information about my great grandmother, Jane Elizabeth Bradford. The only facts I have about her are from the birth certificate of my grandmother, Selina Lowe (born 1877), which records her mother as Jane Elizabeth Lowe, formerly Bradford. The next time she turns up is in the 1881 census, when she and her father were lodging. In the 1891 census, she was living with her uncle, John Lowe. There was no mention of Jane. Could she have died in childbirth or soon after? Graham Linton A When you meet a brick wall like this, always consider alternative spellings of the surname. If using a transcript, as with Selina's birth certificate, could the name have been mistranscribed? Might Bradford be Bradfield or Brailsford? In this case, the typed version…

Charles Hare was 13 years old and two years into his Royal Navy career when his ship, HMS Minerve, was captured by the French in 1803, and all hands taken prisoner. As Napoleon steadfastly refused the usual prisoner exchanges, the midshipman spent the next six years as a captive, until he pulled off an audacious escape. Charles left the prison in the town of Sarre Libre (now Saarlouis in Germany) disguised as a French customs officer, having persuaded one of them to obtain him false documents, a uniform (pictured) and a hired carriage. He then embarked on a treacherous two-week sprint across Europe. Had he been caught, he would undoubtedly have faced execution for espionage, but the teenage sailor reached Rotterdam in the Netherlands without discovery. Friendly fishermen rowed him…

ARCHIVES & LIBRARIES CUMBRIA ARCHIVES w cumbriaarchives.org.uk The county archive service's site has plenty of digital resources, and sections for the four Archive Centres it runs – see below. BARROW ARCHIVE CENTRE a Ramsden Square, Barrow-in-Furness LA14 1LL t 01229 407377 e barrow.archives@cumberland.gov.uk w cumbriaarchives.org.uk/barrow-archive-centre The centre preserves collections for Westmorland, plus parts of Cumbria that used to be in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Industrial material includes the records of Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering. CARLISLE ARCHIVE CENTRE a Lady Gillford's House, Petteril Bank Road, Carlisle CA1 3AJ t 01228 227284 e carlisle.archives@cumberland.gov.uk w cumbriaarchives.org.uk/carlisle-archive-centre Here you'll find material from Carlisle, Keswick, Penrith and Maryport, as well as other parts of historic Cumberland north of the Derwent, in addition to parish registers alongside records of the Diocese of Carlisle, and the Dean and Chapter…

THE DESCENDANTS theguardian.com/australia-news/series/the-descendants This two-part podcast and accompanying reporting from Guardian Australia uncover the legacy of colonial violence against Indigenous Australians in the 19th and 20th centuries. The first episode discusses colonial settler Major Logue, while the second investigates rumours that Tom Wills, one of the founders of Australian rules football, took part in the massacres of Gayiri Aboriginal people. Free. SPEED OF LIGHT tinyurl.com/bbc-speed-of-light (UK only) or bbc.com In this five-part series from Radio 4, writer Laura Cumming tells the story of 19th-century photography through the lives of five pioneers. Episodes include Alexander Gardner's images from the American Civil War and Parisian police officer Alphonse Bertillon's creation of the front-and-profile mug shot of criminals. Free. FOR EVERMORE iOS and Android The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has launched an app for…

BRITAIN'S RAILWAY EMPIRE IN COLOUR Channel 4 Streaming now September 2025 marked 200 years since the birth of the modern railway. To celebrate, Channel 4 aired this two-part series, bringing to life the story of the railway with newly colourised photos and footage. The first episode tracks how the railways grew from coal trucks in north-east England to transforming the lives of the Victorians. Francis Bourgeois – famous for his trainspotting TikToks – tells the story of his 19th-century equivalent George Tod, who took stunning photos. And if you're a fan of railway history, you'll also want to catch both episodes of Michael Portillo's 200 Years of the Railways on BBC iPlayer. HOUSE OF GUINNESS Netflix Streaming now For millions around the world, a pint of Guinness is deeply associated…

Over the years, I've done a lot of work on my Birmingham family. Although slightly hampered by the Green family's common surname, they luckily gave most sons the middle name Fiddian. So, when I saw that Ancestry had digitised the Birmingham electoral rolls (page 10), I wasn't expecting any surprises. I might have not even bothered to look. But there, sharing a ‘qualification’ of a warehouse address, along with a William Fiddian Green, was a William Frank Green. I still can't quite place him, but that will keep me busy for a few days and is making me question all my William F Green records.…

Email wdytyaeditorial@ourmedia.co.uk Write to WDYTYA? Magazine, Eagle House, Bristol BS1 4ST HURRAY FOR OFFICER OF HEALTH REPORTS Alan Crosby's column headlined “Gone Much Too Soon” in the September issue highlights the devastating rates of infant mortality in earlier generations. Susan McGuire expanded on this in an article she wrote for the Washington History Society called “Killer Cures for Teething”, which is on the society's website: www.washingtonhistorysociety.co.uk/community/washington-history-society-12965/killer-cures-for-teething/. In it she revealed the shocking remedies once used to soothe babies’ teething pain. These included dangerous folk treatments like leeches, chicken grease, hog's hair and hare's brains, alongside widely advertised patent medicines containing opium, cocaine, mercury, morphine and alcohol. Alan references the 1903 Medical Officer of Health report for Preston. This is part of a vast archive of annual public health reports produced by…

TheGenealogist adds over 500,000 clerical records TheGenealogist (thegenealogist.co.uk) has released more than half a million records of Anglican and Methodist clergy, dating from 1890–1952. The records added to the family history site include Crockford's Clerical Directories from 1904, 1923, 1927 and 1933; Ministers and Probationers of the Methodist Church (revised to August 1952), which provides chronological and alphabetical lists of ministers and probationers from the Wesleyan, Primitive and United Methodist branches; and the London Diocesan Clergy Succession, which lists the bishops of London. FIBIS adds probate records to its online database The Families in British India Society (FIBIS) has added transcriptions of 3,620 early probate records of the British in India to its database (search.fibis.org/bin/index.php). The transcriptions are of the indexes to the accountant's general records in the India Office…

A 1642 will at the centre of a family legal dispute about a house that belonged to William Shakespeare has been discovered at The National Archives at Kew (TNA; nationalarchives.gov.uk). The will, made by Thomas Nash on 25 August 1642, was found in a box of 17th-century documents from the Court of Chancery. Thomas Nash (1593–1647) was the husband of Elizabeth Hall (1608–1670), Shakespeare's granddaughter. The couple lived in New Place, a house in Stratford that Shakespeare purchased in 1597. In his will, Nash left the house to his cousin, Edward Nash. However, Nash had no right to bequeath the house since it had been left by Shakespeare in his will to his daughter Susanna, Elizabeth's mother, who was still alive at the time and also living in New Place.…

Charles II visited Norfolk in September 1671, accompanied by other members of the royal family and a large retinue of gentlemen and servants. Royal visits were a great rarity in the 17th century, as was the case almost until our own times – the difficulties of travel, the complications of making arrangements, and maybe a lack of enthusiasm all contributed to the infrequency of these occasions. Elizabeth I was famous for her ‘progresses’, which were slow tours around the south, east and Midlands of England (never to the north or further west) – she enjoyed the journeys, which were relatively effortless for her because she was in a coach or open carriage, or even a litter carried by strong young men! But later monarchs were far more reluctant to go…

ARCHIVE CHRIST CHURCH ARCHIVES a St Algate's, Oxford OX1 1DP t 01865 276171 e archives@chch.ox.ac.uk w chch.ox.ac.uk/college/library-archives/archives University archives often hold detailed student records that can shed light on our academic relations. Trevor Owen Davies attended Christ Church, and its holdings were very helpful. BOOKS Chapel Minute Books Alongside chapel registers of births, marriages and deaths, these records of officials’ meetings can shine a light on local politics, community discipline and religious life, although many minute books are missing. They are often held in county record offices, or by denominations such as the Presbyterian Church of Wales (ebcpcw.cymru/en/). WEBSITE WELSH NEWSPAPERS ONLINE w newspapers.library.wales Via this free resource from the National Library of Wales you can search and view 15 million articles back to 1804.…

Q Margaret Orpah von Zastrow, the niece of my husband's great great grandfather, was born into a Liverpool shipping firm, but became an opera singer using the stage name Madge Inglis. In 1884, aged 28, she married Francis William Edward von Zastrow, a musical director. In May 1880, Francis had been arrested for receiving stolen goods, and had used the alias Francis Edward Selchow. In 1892, Margaret married again to an Edward Frederick Joachim Selchow, declaring she was single. When Margaret died in 1898, a newspaper obituary referred to her husband as Francis von Zastrow and it was he who registered her death. When he died the following year, he was buried in the same plot as Margaret. Was Margaret's second marriage bigamous, and who was Edward Frederick Joachim Selchow? Annie…

Q I've found this photo among some family papers and wonder if you can give me an idea of when it might have been taken. Jean Stephens A This carte de visite studio portrait of five ladies, taken by a Wolverhampton photographer, is really interesting and probably dates from around 1900 or just into the early 1900s. The popularity of coloured card mounts for photographs grew from the late 1880s, with dark shades favoured in the 1890s. After the exuberance of the more ornate mounts of the early 1890s, the fashionable simplicity of an understated matte-finished mount, especially in dark grey, came to the fore around the turn of the century. Detailing and texture was important, with pressed-in borders, hatching and incised lettering, as here. By the later Edwardian period, the mount…

Q My wife's great uncle, Kenneth Stanley Gilbert (born 28 February 1897), served in the First World War. We have not been able to find any information about him during or after the war. We were told by relations that he suffered from shell shock, but have been unable to find positive proof. The last record, apart from photos he sent home, is the 1911 census. He was living with his family at 88 Goldhawk Road, Shepherd's Bush, London. Are you able to shine any light? John Haynes A One photo you sent clearly shows a Wolseley helmet on the table next to Kenneth. Designed to protect the head and back of the neck from the sun, this implies service in the Middle East, Africa or India. Searching for Kenneth on Ancestry…

Back in our Summer 2018 issue we showcased Microsoft Lens, a brilliant free tool for scanning documents using your smartphone or tablet. Sadly the company has recently announced that it's retiring the app. But don't worry, the good news is that you can enjoy all of Microsoft Lens’ functionality for free with OSS Document Scanner, which is available for both Android and iOS. If you're switching from Microsoft Lens then you'll have a good idea about what it can do. If you're new to the concept, then OSS Document Scanner turns your smartphone or tablet's camera into a scanner. Line up your document in the viewfinder and watch OSS Document Scanner magically detect the edges. Snap the shot, and the app automatically straightens the document to produce a full-screen image…

BOOKS In Nelson's Wake: The Navy and the Napoleonic Wars James Davey Yale University Press, 2015 Davey sets the experiences of our late Georgian Royal Navy ancestors in context. Jack Tar: Life in Nelson's Navy Roy and Lesley Adkins Little, Brown, 2008 The authors paint a picture of dayto-day life for ordinary seamen in the Napoleonic Wars. MUSEUMS HMS VICTORY a Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, HM Naval Base, Portsmouth PO1 3LJ t 023 9283 9766 w historicdockyard.co.uk/attractions/hms-victory/ The world's oldest commissioned warship was saved for the nation. NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM a Romney Road, Greenwich, London SE10 9NF t 020 8858 4422 w rmg.co.uk/national-maritime-museum The gallery ‘Nelson, Navy, Nation’ explores life in the Royal Navy (1688–1815), and houses the coat Nelson wore at Trafalgar and Charles Hare's French uniform. WEBSITES THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES w…

WILLS AND INVENTORIES w tinyurl.com/arch-surt-wills This 1853 volume contains wills and inventories from the registry of the Archdeaconry of Richmond covering parts of York, Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancaster. PARISH REGISTERS w tinyurl.com/fs-cumbria FamilySearch has parish register entries from Cumbria (1538-1990). You can see the images at Family History Centers and affiliate libraries. INDEXES w tinyurl.com/cumb-ind The county archive's site has indexes to the likes of cemetery records, newspaper articles, bastardy bonds and memorial inscriptions. BIOGRAPHIES w cumbrianlives.org.uk Cumbrian Lives contains details of “men and women who have been significant in Cumbrian history”, including almost 150 full-length entries. DIRECTORIES w tinyurl.com/sco-dir The University of Leicester's website Special Collections Online includes a host of digitised directories for the area listed under both Cumberland and Westmorland, not least a Cumberland Post Office directory…

The Society of Writers to His Majesty's Signet, better known as the WS Society, is an incorporated body of Scottish solicitors that was founded in 1594. The society owns the neoclassical Signet Library in Edinburgh, which holds a rich collection of records of Scottish history. Here James Hamilton, the library's research principal, shares a set of records from John Watson's Institution that reveal the society's charitable work, and the lives of some of the many orphaned children in 19th-century Scotland. The forms offer a window into the lives of ordinary people in periods of crisis WHAT WAS JOHN WATSON'S INSTITUTION? John Watson's Institution was a school for orphans opened in Edinburgh in 1828 by the WS Society, one of the oldest bodies of lawyers in the world. It took its…

Edmund de Waal Ivorypress, 250 pages, £28 Ceramic artist Edmund de Waal is also the author of The Hare with Amber Eyes, the bestselling memoir about his family history published in 2010. His new title, described as “a book about archives that is itself archival”, is a collection of writings and companion pieces to his work. HISTORY OF ARCHIVES “Archives are purposeful and they are random,” de Waal writes. Those of us who have inherited an archive from our ancestors know how fragmentary the artefacts left behind by the dead are – often precious, but also random, reflections of their lives that can fall frustratingly short of the whole picture. De Waal's writing, and the accompanying illustrations, is similarly fragmentary, and this book is most of use to people who have…

History is rarely a straightforward matter of heroes and villains, as Phil Green knows only too well. “My mother Maryvonne Plurien was French, and when I was a child we used to spend summers in Toulon, Provence, in the south-east of the country with my grandmother Lucie,” he remembers. “The bright light and colour, and the red geraniums, stay with me to this day. “I began researching the French side of my family last year, building a tree from Lucie's Hamon relatives. “My great grand uncle Yves Hamon was a rear admiral in the French Navy. His daughter Annie married a man called Alain Darlan, which rang a bell. After some digging, I realised that Alain was the son of Admiral François Darlan, which blew my mind. Darlan was an…

CHLOE O'SHEA Chloe is a genealogist as well as the author of Tracing Your Staffordshire Ancestors, reviewed on page 70. On page 14 she shares some favourite tips for busting brick walls. CLAIRE VAUGHAN Claire writes our ‘Reader Story’ every issue (page 24). This month she also looks into inherited trauma (page 19) and a sad tale from the Second World War (page 22). PAUL BLAKE Although they're not technically a census, the Protestation Returns are the closest we get for England in the mid-17th century as genealogist Paul Blake explains on page 38.…

Family history site Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) has added 728,466 school records from County Mayo and County Sligo (1802–1928). The collection is one of the most significant sources of Irish school records online. It includes registers, roll books, exam rolls and supplementary rolls. It contains useful information about the pupils such as their age, date of birth, residence, names and professions of parents, religion, and entry date into the school. The records were created to document attendance and provide statistics for grant applications to the Commissioners for National Education, formed in 1831 to administer funds for educating the poor in Ireland, and with effect from 1922 the Minister of Education.…

Most of us have unfortunate brick walls in our family trees – those frustrating relations who seem to have appeared into the world as if from nowhere. Perhaps a person does not feature in the baptism registers for the place they stated they were born in. Maybe when asked their birthplace they said “not known”. These elusive forebears can take up much of our research time, and it is easy to feel as though you have exhausted every possible research option. In situations like these, it can often help to think outside the box. For example, a common reason for being unable to track a baptism for an ancestor in England or Wales is because their parents were nonconformists. You won't find a baptism in the regular parish registers for…

We often read how important it is to extract as much information as possible from every source. Sometimes this involves looking a little deeper. You may have found your brick-wall ancestor in the 1921 census, but been disappointed that this showed no clues as to their parentage. However, the 1921 census should also tell you the name of their employer. This can be used to trace their occupational records, which may lead you to more discoveries. Depending on the nature of their employment, the records may be found in local archives or still retained by the company. Try searching the local county archive's online catalogue for the name of their employer, because these will not be categorised using the names of individual employees. Historic newspaper articles are another example of…

Leah was an intelligent, creative and empathetic young girl who benefited from a financially secure childhood and excelled in arts subjects, but struggled with her mental health as she got older. She had a successful career, but sought therapy when her marriage broke down and she realised that she was neurodiverse. In our sessions Leah examined her relationship with her father, which left her feeling angry, unloved and unvalued. A statistician with a quick temper, Gerry always said her skills in the arts wouldn't get her a job. Looking at her paternal family history, Leah started to understand his mindset. Gerry's father, Fred (born 1887), had been serious and taciturn, but financially astute. Gerry's mother died when he was 15, his brother a few years later and his father when…

The elegant streets of Charlottenburg, a district in the German capital Berlin, include several grand properties once owned by one of the city's wealthiest families. Among them is an enormous four-storey building, with sleek marble floors and a cream-white façade. The House at Number 48, a new series available on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds, retraces the journey of London film-maker Antony Easton as he discovered his links with this building via the contents of a suitcase that belonged to his late father, Peter Roderick Easton. Antony says that he always felt there was something different about his dad while he was growing up. “He had a slight accent. My friends would ask him, ‘Where are you from?’, and he'd bridle at that.” Peter always had a brown leather suitcase…

Born in Lincolnshire in 1794, John Conolly had a career in the Army before finishing a medical degree at the University of Edinburgh in 1821. He practised medicine in Sussex, London and Warwickshire, but success eluded him because of competition from rivals and his own increasing debts. Conolly's thesis had been on the state of the mind in madness and melancholia, and he decided to return to this area of medicine. In 1839, he became the resident physician at the Middlesex County Pauper Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell; his wife and four children moved with him to the asylum. Before starting his new job, Conolly visited Lincoln Asylum, run by Robert Gardiner Hill, where a system of ‘non-restraint’ had been introduced. Conolly followed a similar strategy at Hanwell, abolishing straitjackets, leg…

One of the websites I regularly use – and always find out new information at – is Prison History (prisonhistory.org), which was created by the Open University's Centre for the History of Crime, Policing and Justice. The site has a wealth of resources related to 19th-century prisons and local lock-ups. Lock-ups were where individuals might be held for a few days while waiting to be taken to a magistrate – or they might be incarcerated in the lock-up as a punishment in itself, for offences such as drunkenness. This section of the website has some interesting history about the lock-up, but it also aims to collect information about these buildings, which varied in style and size. You can both search for a specific lock-up, and report ‘new’ lock-ups to the…

1 DATE The date the Protestation was taken is given: 20 February 1641. The date was according to the Julian Calendar then in use, when the year 1642 did not commence until 25 March. The parish is recorded too: Preston juxta Wingham. 2 MR RICHARD NOKE The Protestation was taken before Mr Richard Noke, the vicar who had been appointed by the county's justices of the peace. In addition, he notes at the end that he was chaplain to the Right Honourable Robert Earle of Warwick. 3 NAMES This section identifies everyone who took the oath. All of the information is written in the same hand. On many Returns, the names would be their actual signatures or marks. 4 NICHOLAS GIBBS Two refusers are named, the first being Nicholas Gibbs, whom the vicar thought…

Q My family believe this soldier is my great great grandfather, Walter Brain (1846–1912). I can't find any other military connections to Walter. Can you tell anything from his uniform? Anna Wilson A This is a splendid photograph, but I can safely say it isn't Walter Brain. Everything points to a soldier in the First World War. I searched on Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk) and Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) for Walter having served earlier, and found nobody convincing. I see that he had several sons who would have been of age though. One, Walter James, served in the Army Service Corps in France while another, Edward, was killed on 9 May 1917 serving with the Royal West Kents in France, and was buried at Warlincourt Halte British Cemetery. Other sons probably served too, and…

When I was born I was given the middle name of Devonald, like my father Andrew, my grandfather Hugh and my great grandfather William. It's derived from the Old Welsh name Dumngual, which contains Celtic references meaning ‘world’ and ‘might rule’. My great grandfather William Devonald Williams was born in 1888 and worked as a signalman on the Great Western Railway in Carmarthenshire. He was the first ancestor I knew of to have that middle name. His parents were Henry Williams, who was also a signalman, and his wife Martha. NAME MYSTERY Devonald was obviously a name of significance to the Williams family, so naturally I wanted to know where it came from and why it was important. I began researching my family history hoping to solve the mystery. About…

PRACTICAL ADVICE Chloe O'Shea Pen & Sword, 216 pages, £15.99 Pen & Sword has become the leading publisher of family history handbooks, with a lengthy list of thematic and geographically focused guides. This latest volume, on Staffordshire, maintains the company's high standard of output. Inevitably, in the firm's county-based titles, there is a substantial proportion of general material that is repeated in each volume – explaining, for example, civil registration or census procedures. There is no escaping this necessity, and it is good to see that here such generalised coverage is well done and effective. There are some chapters specific to the county, covering Staffordshire surnames, occupations, parishes and museums. A commendably up-to-date section deals with the county's archives, which recently underwent a total restructuring, and it is good to see…

HELEN BAGGOTT, Stourcastle Books, 234 pages, £7.99 FICTION Here Helen Baggott, author of Posted in the Past (2019), builds on her experience of tracing family stories through correspondence to create an unusual novel. Memories From the Future tells a dual story: modern-day genealogist Hilary follows the route of an Edwardian Englishman touring Exmoor, using postcards he sent to family and friends. In the course of her travels, Hilary follows clues in Arthur Saville's writings that surprisingly parallel a modern-day pastime, and these lead her on a journey of discovery of the history in each area that she visits. Detailed descriptions of towns and villages along with their buildings, streets and harbours paint an intricate picture, potentially working as a guidebook for visitors to Exmoor. I enjoy reading fiction that incorporates…