Spitalfields lies just to the north-east of the the financial centre of the City of London. In the map below, it’s the area outlined with the dotted red line: east of Liverpool Street Station…

A campaign to free our national press from foreign billionaires like Rupert Murdoch is gaining momentum and attracting big-name support

My last post was about the Genealogical Proof Standard. It focused on four of the five elements of the Standards: Reasonably exhaustive research; Analysis and correlation of the collected informati…

The Genealogical Proof Standard is an internationally accepted guide for establishing the reliability of a conclusion reached in genealogical research. It’s a vital concept for professional g…

For many, football means passion and pride, but for survivors, match days can bring fear. Explore how we can help change the score.

John Mann was born 26th December 1792 and baptised four days later at Norwich St Michael at Thorn. He is my 4x great uncle, but for years I knew nothing more about him. He seemed simply to have dis…

I first met John Wintrip when I applied to become an Associate of the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA). John was at that time Chair of the Board of Assessors. We met a…

This is the second video post in my Shackleton’s Fold One Place Study series. A One Place Study brings together aspects of family history, local history and even house history. They are often…

Ordnance Survey: Leeds Sheet 13: Surveyed: 1847. Published: 1850.Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland The last post I published in my ‘Ancestral Tourism’ s…

Getting your head around ‘Half’ relationships can be tricky. In regular life we probably wouldn’t make a distinction between a half cousin and a full cousin. Yet when we’re …

The military band (marching band) of the 1st Battalion of the Green Howards. Location and precise year not known. ‘X’ marks my Granddad. About three years ago I set myself the challenge…

Deadline 31 March 2026. Keynote speaker Waseem Ahmed (UCL) on The Civil Wars in 100 Objects. 10.00am – 4.00pm, Saturday, 6 June 2026.National Civil War Centre – Newark Museum, 14 Appleton Gate…

Over the last few years, I’ve been steadily working my way through writing the biographies of my eight great-grandparents and my sixteen 2× great-grandparents. It’s been a hugely rewarding process,…

Getting to Christmas always feels like a marathon. So much to do to get everything ready before the arrival of family to spend a few days with us. I put a lot of time into baking Christmas cakes, c…

This is part four in my ‘Ancestral Tourism’ series. It follows on from Part 1: Churches and Churchyards, Part 2: Municipal & other Public Cemeteries and Part 3: Graves and Gravestones. The focu…

The White House says the victim - whose name is redacted in the emails - is the late Virginia Giuffre.

YouTube video by The News Agents

From 17 November the fee for a copy of a will increases from £1.50 to £16. Read on for practical advice from Fraser & Fraser to help you plan and budget.

As we tell ghost stories to children, it is time to remember a true horror that stalked these lands

Today’s post is an interloper amongst my little ‘Ancestral Tourism’ series. It follows on from Part 1: Churches and Churchyards, Part 2: Municipal & other Public Cemeteries an…

They want us to join Russia and Belarus as the only European states not signed up to the ECHR

Ryde Cemetery, Isle of Wight. © Janice Heppenstall This is the third in my ‘Ancestral Tourism’ series, and follows on from posts about preparing for visiting Churches and Churchyards an…

They want us to join Russia and Belarus as the only European states not signed up to the ECHR