Author Archives: Lifelines Research

1813 And All That

Posted on July 4, 2020

A comment on Twitter this morning in response to a tweet of mine about George Rose’s Parish Register Act got me thinking. My original tweet suggested that the post-1813 printed burial registers introduced by Rose’s Act were “somewhat lacking in … Continue reading →

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Don’t Believe The Hints

Posted on June 13, 2020

We’ve all been there. We’re following a line back, we’ve got our ancestor in the census, and we’ve found her marriage. We know the four key pieces of information that we ideally need to formulate a search for her birth; … Continue reading →

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The Joy of Signatures

Posted on May 30, 2020

As family historians, we should never rely on transcripts. Access to original documents, or at least, to digital images of original documents is an essential part of the process of genealogical research. Even the most thorough and comprehensive transcripts are … Continue reading →

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Handle with care

Posted on May 16, 2020

There’s been a lot of publicity this week around the decision by Oxford Reference to make their Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland freely available online for a limited period. Now, I’m not going to deny for a … Continue reading →

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The story behind the stone

Posted on May 9, 2020

About 35 years ago, I was involved with a project to record the monumental inscriptions in Aldenham churchyard for the Hertfordshire Family History Society. The churchyard contains hundreds of gravestones but one in particular, recording the death of a woman … Continue reading →

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A mariner’s tale – with a twist

Posted on April 14, 2020

William Annal was born to the sea. His father, John, together with his uncle William, left their native Orkney, and worked as fishermen along the UK’s east coast, before eventually settling on the Thames Estuary in Gravesend, Kent, sometime around … Continue reading →

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The Joy of Chancery

Posted on March 29, 2020

This is the Court of Chancery … there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give—who does not often give—the warning, “Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!” Bleak House, Chapter … Continue reading →

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A very convincing theory

Posted on March 15, 2020

This is the third and final part of the story of how I broke down a 30-year old brick wall in my research. Read Part One and Part Two first… My search for the origins of my great great grandfather, … Continue reading →

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False dawns and first cousins

Posted on March 12, 2020

This is the second of a three-part blog, telling the story of how I broke down a 30-year old brick wall in my research. Read Part One here… The information that my grandma passed on to me had allowed me … Continue reading →

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Did you know that I knew my father?

Posted on March 9, 2020

This is the first of a three-part blog, telling the story of how I broke down a 30-year old brick wall in my research. “Did you know that I knew my father?” We were in Saughton Cemetery in Edinburgh sometime … Continue reading →

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