Tag Archives: family history

So, what next?

Posted on September 20, 2020 by

Two weeks ago today, I sat down and composed a blog post entitled, Where Have All The Registers Gone? I referred to it as a ‘soapbox’ piece and my aim was to highlight what I saw as a serious problem … Continue reading →

Posted in Document Sources, research, Soapbox | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Blank spaces and circumstantial evidence

Posted on August 19, 2020 by

This is the fourth part of the three-part story of the life of my great, great, great grandmother, Mary Ann Port, which aims to explain why, despite the absence of evidence that she ever had any children, I believe her … Continue reading →

Posted in research, Stories | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

My friend Miss Mary Ann Port

Posted on August 15, 2020 by

This is the third and final part of the story of my great, great, great grandmother, Mary Ann Port. You can read the first part here and the second part here. The long, drawn-out Chancery Case, Port v. Hovil[1], had … Continue reading →

Posted in research, Stories | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Humbly complaining

Posted on August 2, 2020 by

This is the second part of the story of my great, great, great grandmother, Mary Ann Port. You can read the first part here. Humbly complaining shew unto your Lordship your Oratrixes and Orator Elizabeth Port of Samuel Street Saint … Continue reading →

Posted in Stories | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

All and every my child and children

Posted on July 18, 2020 by

Our efforts to reconstruct the lives of our pre-Victorian ancestors are all-too-often thwarted by the lack of available source material. In an era before the decennial censuses and the (virtually) comprehensive civil registration system, our reference points can be severely … Continue reading →

Posted in Document Sources, research, Stories | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

1813 And All That

Posted on July 4, 2020 by

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 →

Posted in Document Sources, research | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Don’t Believe The Hints

Posted on June 13, 2020 by

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 →

Posted in research | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The Joy of Signatures

Posted on May 30, 2020 by

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 →

Posted in Document Sources | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Handle with care

Posted on May 16, 2020 by

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 →

Posted in Surnames | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The story behind the stone

Posted on May 9, 2020 by

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 →

Posted in Local History, Stories | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment