Finding marriages can be both tedious and hard work but it doesn't have to be when you have access to the largest and most diverse collection of marriages online. These include GRO marriages 1837-2005, parish records, non-conformist records, overseas BMDs, banns, licenses, and more.

We look at some unique tools that can directly find marriages without long winded searching.

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On the 15th of April 2012, we mark 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. This is a story of what happened to three very different people and how they found the odds stacked against them and the very different ways they dealt with the tragedy.

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The life of Catherine Cookson could easily have been lifted from the pages of one of her best-selling novels, an illegitimate child raised in the North East in the early 1900’s, who dreamed of a better life, married a school master and eventually became one of Britain’s wealthiest women. We take a look at the amazing story of the girl from South Shields who became the most widely read novelist in the UK with sales reaching over 100 million.

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On the 7th of February 2012, we marked two hundred years since the birth of the author Charles Dickens.  Celebrations of his life will take place around the country, including a wreath laying ceremony at his grave in Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey and at his birth place in Portsmouth.  Attending the ceremony at Westminster is the largest ever gathering of his descendants, including his Great Great Grandson Mark Dickens who gave a reading to the congregation.

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Included in the 1911 census is the famous actor Cary Grant, aged 7 and living with his parents in Bristol.  The British born actor was ranked 2nd in 1999 of the 100 greatest film stars of all time, nominated five times for a Golden Globe and twice for an Academy Award.  The ‘Grant’ family tree provides a true rags to riches story from poverty stricken origins in a Bristol workhouse to the glamour and wealth of Hollywood.

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Your occupation defines who you are, particularly when descendants are trying to create a profile of your life.  Knowing what your ancestor did for a living allows you to take a real glimpse of what their life would have been like on a day to day basis. TheGenealogist offers a wealth of information to help you find out what your ancestors did for a living.

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Born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller, she was the youngest daughter of New Yorker Frederick Alvah Miller and Clarissa Boehmer, daughter of a British Army Officer. We look at her troubled ancestry and her life which takes you to the dramatic settings used in her books.

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TreeView, our free online tree building program, has now launched some great and unique new features and 5 additional brand new “views”. For the first time ever online, TreeView has made it possible to draw your own custom family tree...

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TheGenealogist.co.uk has now completed 1911 census transcripts for Cambridgeshire, Wiltshire, Bedfordshire, Shropshire and Suffolk, bringing the total to over 22 million records.  Included in the transcripts for Cambridgeshire is Sir Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft.

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The 1911 census transcripts for Herefordshire are now available on TheGenealogist.co.uk and include the founders of H. P Bulmer, which owns a number of famous brands such as Bulmer’s Cider. Read the story of the Bulmer family from the son of a Yorkshire farmer to a multi-million cider empire.

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The Oxfordshire 1911 census is now available on TheGenealogist and includes James Bond author, Ian Fleming. As the focus around the country turns to our brave ancestors who fought in the First World War and we pay our respects to those who sacrificed everything, they are never far from a family historian's mind, as discovering the role our ancestors played in key events of the past is always an important part of our research. .

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As we remember those who fought and fell in the Great War, TheGenealogist is adding millions of new military records to help you discover the role your ancestor played in the conflict. Records include- World War 1 Casualty Lists, Army, Navy and Air Force Lists and new Rolls of Honour for our Gold and Diamond subscribers.

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With Halloween upon us again, and the next instalment of the Vampire themed Twilight saga due to be released in November, we’ll looking at the family history of an iconic figure, Bram Stoker, creator of the infamous Count Dracula.  Bram Stoker introduced Victorian society to a world of vampires and started an obsession with the undead that would continue for nearly two hundred years.

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The famous engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, played a key role in Britain’s industrial revolution, designing and constructing railway lines, bridges, tunnels and docks around the country, as well as providing massive advances in naval architecture.

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Tracey was brought up in Margate with her twin brother Paul. Her father owned the Hotel International in Margate. He was not married to her mother but was married to another woman with whom he had a separate family and he split his time between the two.

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George Bernard Shaw’s personal life spanned the different classes. With his own rise from working class origins to a middle class gentleman, and marriage to a wealthy Irish heiress, he had a rare view of the different layers of society and actively campaigned for an equal society.

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This episode of the ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ series is well timed as it features Strictly Come Dancing head judge, Len Goodman. Len was born Leonard Gordon Goodman in 1944, at the end of the Second World War, and his birth was registered in Bromley, although he spent his early years in Bethnal Green.

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Richard attended Coopers Company School but rather than go to university Richard began his career in media through local newspapers. At the age of 19 he moved to BBC radio, before moving into television.

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Robin Gibb, from the Australian group ‘the Bee Gees’, was raised in Australia, although he was originally born in the Isle of Man to British parents Hugh Gibb and Barbara Pass. They have an older brother Barry, as well as an older sister Lesley and younger brother Andrew.

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Alan Carr explores the mysterious circumstances surrounding a change of name on the maternal line of his tree. Several members of Alan’s paternal line can be traced back through the census years...

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The fifth celebrity taking part in this year’s ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ series, Emilia Fox is best known for her role as Dr Nikki Alexander in the BBC series ‘Silent Witness’. Born in Hammersmith 31st July 1974 to parents Edward Fox and Joanna David (Joanne Hacking), Emilia is descended from a well known theatrical line.

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It was in Africa where many of his ideas for the Boy Scouts were born. On the advice of King Edward VII he retired from the army, as he believed he should focus all his energies on the Scouting movement. His colourful career with the Army included working as a secret agent. You can read the full article to find out how he hid military plans which would avoid detection if captured.

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Lillie Langtry was originally born Emilie Charlotte Le Breton on 13th October 1853 in St. Saviour’s Jersey, and was given the nickname Lillie during her early teens. It was used frequently by the press during her rise to celebrity status, often referring to her as the ‘Jersey Lily’, and was later adopted as her official stage name. After catching the eye of the Prince of Wales, Albert Edward, son of Queen Victoria, Lillie became his semi-official mistress. He had a private house built for them in 1877 in Bournemouth, which Lillie designed herself and named ‘The Red House’.

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Larry is well known for his television role on 'Eastenders' and 'Gavin and Stacey'. The programme will look into Larry’s colourful ancestors and his mother’s biological line after she was adopted.

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Sebastian Coe, former athlete and politician, is the latest to take part in the WDYTYA? TV series for 2011. Coached by his father Peter, Seb went on to win a number of medals at the Olympics.

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Harry Potter author J K Rowling was born on 31st July 1965, in Yate, Gloucestershire, to Peter James Rowling and his wife Anne Volant. Joanne’s mother Anne, who passed away in 1990, was the grand-daughter of Louis Volant, born in France in 1878.  The ‘Who Do you Think You Are?’ episode will be looking in depth at Rowling’s French ancestry.

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June Brown featured in this year’s BBC series ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ is best known for her role as ‘Dot Cotton’ in the British soap EastEnders. June, one of five children to Harry and Louisa Brown was evacuated during World War II to Pontyates in Wales and was later to become a Wren.

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The latest series of BBC’s ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ begins on 10th August with more famous faces exploring their ancestry.  Past episodes have been emotional, heart warming and at times shocking, and it looks as though the new series will be just as gripping.

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The exploits of Captain Jack Sparrow and his crew in the films ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ are based on real life characters who terrorised the seas. Some of us may well be related to ancestors that were involved in piracy and privateering. Privateering was the legal form of piracy, this was actively supported by the Government during times of warfare to disrupt enemy trade routes. They could be become uncontrollable in times of peace and refuse to give up this way of life and targeting all ships including the Royal Navy. The most notorious pirate of all time is Blackbeard, featured in the fourth instalment ‘On Stranger Tides’ and recorded in Johnson’s contemporary account ‘A General History of the Pirates’.

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Some Officer POW's in Germany were allowed to take walks out of the camp and shop in local villages, if they provided their word in writing that they wouldn't escape. POW's in Germany could be sent to neutral Switzerland or Holland if they were suffering from physical or mental illness in the final years of the war. They were also permitted to live in hotels, could bring their wives to join them, and were allowed visits from sweethearts and relatives.

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Sir Thomas Fairfax had twin sons named Nicholas and William.  As the eldest, Nicholas inherited his father’s estate, including Gilling Castle in Yorkshire, and is an ancestor of Lady Diana Spencer and her son Prince William.  The younger twin William Fairfax is the direct ancestor of William’s bride-to-be Kate Middleton.

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Easter is a time for family but also a time to indulge guilt free with your favourite chocolate.  ‘Terry’s Chocolate Orange’ is a popular choice at Easter for many, and is a well-known brand within the UK and around the world.  The original chocolate orange was created in 1931 by Joseph Terry and Sons Ltd.

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With this year’s Royal Wedding coming up, using our Illustrated London News you can look back at the historical Royal Wedding newspaper coverage, such as the marriage of Princess Alice and Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse.

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Christmas is the time of year when we put the trials of daily life behind us to spend time with our family. The past traditions of gathering around the piano or reading stories and poems have moved onto the modern tradition of gathering around the television, with Austen’s period dramas often a family favourite. It’s not hard to see where Jane Austin found her inspiration for her novels, with a life of heartbreak, tragedy and financial hardship but with strong family ties till the end.

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Christmas typically brings to mind a period of festivities, indulgence, family gatherings and generosity, but it hasn’t always been.  The Puritan authorities of the Seventeenth Century repressed many Christmas traditions due to their pagan origins, and Christmas remained largely a Church based celebration through the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The writer Charles Dickens contributed greatly to the Victorian re-construction of Christmas with his novel ‘A Christmas Carol’, which historians have said redefined the spirit and importance of Christmas.

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With Halloween upon us, we are shifting our focus from skeletons in the ancestral closet to monsters and ghouls.  Frankenstein’s monster is a popular choice for Halloween costumes, and the story originates around a log fire by Lake Geneva, on a rainy night in 1816, as a group of friends were telling each other German ghost stories.

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Alan is a well known writer, producer, director and actor with roles in X2: X-Men United and the Spy Kids trilogy and was awarded an OBE for his services to the arts, theatre & film and activism for LGBT rights. The show will follow Alan’s maternal grandfather T Darling who served during WW2 and Malayan Emergency. Will his journey to Malaysia unravel the mystery surrounding his grandfathers death aged just 35?

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Arthur Wesley joined the army in 1787, and proposed to Catherine Sarah Dorothea Pakenham in 1793. His marriage proposal was rejected by the Pakenham family who felt that his prospects were poor. Arthur then threw himself into his military career fighting against the French in Flanders, and joined his brother Richard in India in 1796...

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This week's episode of Who Do You Think You Are will follow Dervla Kirwan, the Irish Actress best known for her appearances in Ballykissangel and Goodnight Sweetheart. Her great grandmother Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll was the sister of Irish revolutionary leader Michael Collins. Michael was MP for Cork South & Director of Intelligence for the IRA and later President of the IRB...

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We are now into week 4 of the BBC series of ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ and will be following the story of Monty Don. Monty is best known for presenting ‘Gardeners World’ on the BBC and was brought up in a small Hampshire village in a house designed by his maternal great grandfather Matthew Wyatt. Through his mother Janet, Monty is descended from the well know Wyatt dynasty of Architects, which spans across the 18th and 19th centuries....

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Two weeks ago we discovered Dervla’s story and this week the focus is on her husband Rupert’s ancestry, which includes visits to Italy and India. It seems there could be truth in the family belief of ‘Indian Blood in the family’ as Rupert’s mother was born in Karachi, India in 1939 to Bill (William Herbert Alfred) Thorne and his wife Sylvia...

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Alexander Henry Fenwick Armstrong was born in Rothbury, Northumberland in 1970 to Dr Henry Angus Armstrong and Emma Thompson-McCausland. On his mother’s side, Alexander is descended from one of the wealthiest families in Britain.  The Irish McCausland family has aristocratic roots and is well documented in historical records...

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The 7th Episode of this years Who Do You Think You Are follows Jason Donovan’s Australian and English roots. Jason discovered that the show business line goes much deeper on his maternal side with his great grandmother, Eileen Dawson, who started her showbiz career aged 17 and made appearances at the Sydney Opera House. Eileen’s grandfather (Jason’s 3x Great grandfather), Joseph Lyons was born in London and married to Rosetta. On 23/08/1841 Joseph was found guilty for ‘receiving stolen goods’ and sent to Australia for 10 years.

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Hugh was born on the 22nd December 1954 in Accra, Ghana, and emigrated to England with his family when he was 3 years old. They departed from Lagos, Nigeria on board the ‘Aureol’, part of the Elder Dempster Lines Ltd fleet, which was 537ft long and could carry 253 First class passengers, 76 Cabin class and 145 crew. His search into his ancestry uncovers a distinguished European line and also a chieftaincy in Ghana...

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Who Do You Think You Are? kicks off series 8 with family favourite Bruce Forsyth. Brucie was born in Edmonton North London in 1928, to John Thomas Forsyth Johnson and Florence Ada Pocknell. Bruce’s 4x great grandfather William Forsyth was famously a co-founder of the Royal Horticultural Society and the Forsythia plant was named in his honour.

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The latest celebrity to feature on the on the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are? is British actor Rupert Everett. His family tree shows a broad heritage with ancestors in the south and north of England, Wales and Scotland.

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Marks & Spencer is one of the largest clothing retailers in the UK and in 2008 was recorded as the 43rd largest retailer in the world with 895 stores worldwide. The company is a long standing British heritage with its roots firmly in Yorkshire.

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Although the Scottish tennis ace Andy Murray has made comments on supporting “anyone but England” his maternal grandmother Eileen Shirley Edney was born to English parents John Marsom Edney and Joyce Mary Anderson.

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TheGenealogist.co.uk now has marriage transcripts for England and Wales from 1948 to 1983, containing a total of 28 million records.  Amongst these are many famous film stars and celebrities from the 1950’s and 1960’s who became as famous for their private lives and multiple marriages as their careers, such as 19 year old Elizabeth Taylor, married to her first husband Michael Wilding in 1952 and Diana Dors, who married her first husband Dennis Gittins in 1951 only 5 weeks after they had first met.

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Christmas and Easter wouldn’t be the same without Cadburys. The company is known worldwide for its chocolate and although they have recently been purchased by American giant Kraft, Cadbury’s will still remain a great British tradition. The history of the company dates back nearly 200 years ago with John Cadbury and his brother Benjamin and continued to be a family business until recently.

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It would seem a simple matter to then find John William's birth or baptism in Yorkshire, but for years, despite multiple attempts, I met with not the slightest degree of success. Then, when I was tracing a different family line, I did a chance search in the non-conformist records for John William Baker, as I believed the family were Methodists. Success! There he was, but in the Quaker records rather than the Methodist ones!

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As we enter a New Year and decade, many of us have been thinking of New Years resolutions, of new projects and new beginnings. 350 years ago Samuel Pepys was also thinking the same thing and began writing a diary on 1st January 1660.  He continued writing his diary on a daily basis for almost ten years, and this diary is now one of the most important documents of the period.

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Josiah Wedgwood was born on the 12th July, 1730 in Burslem Staffordshire into a family of potters. He was the youngest of 12 children to Mary Wedgwood and her husband Thomas and become the leader in ceramic manufacturers. As a child he suffered from small pox which resulted in a weakened knee which meant he was unable to work the foot pedal of the potter’s wheel. This led him to concentrate more on the design of the pottery rather than the manufacturing.

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They give detailed information which has been compiled from ships' official logs of births, deaths and marriages of passengers at sea by the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen (RGSS) and its predecessor.  The records range from 1854 to 1908 and include over 150,000 individuals. Included are 288 death records for the ‘Royal Charter’, which was traveling back from Australia in October 1859, when it became caught in a storm just miles from home off the coast of Anglesey.  The ship was carrying a great number of prospectors who had gone to Australia to find their fortune, so when the ship sank on October 26th it took over 67,000 ounces of gold with it.  Many inhabitants of nearby coast lines became rich overnight as the gold began to wash up on the shores.

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We all owe a debt of gratitude to those who died fighting for our country, and November 11th is the time when we remember those who died in the Great War of 1914 to 1918, the 'War to end all wars'.  It was the largest conflict in history and involved 70 million people from different countries, backgrounds, religions and race.  Just about every family was affected by this war, including the famous Charles Darwin, whose grandson Erasmus Darwin was killed in the second battle of Ypres.  Searching in the Roll of Honour on TheGenealogist.co.uk gives three results for Erasmus. 

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For several months I have been tracing the many branches of my wife’s family in Australia. During the mid to late 19th century there were many ways for people to gain a passage on ships arriving at the Australian Colonies. One family I was having a lot of problems with was Benjamin Bonney and his very large family from Sussex in England. After spending many hours searching through the various shipping records I was almost ready to give up. Then I saw the Family Forename Search on The Genealogist.

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Although the legacy of the Brontë family now lives on into its third century, the life of the sisters themselves was in fact very short-lived and all died before reaching the age of 30. Despite their short lives, it’s possible to trace this family in early records which are available online.

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Florence was raised in a life of luxury and comfort, but despite this felt suffocated by the society that surrounded her. She was often depressed and lonely, which perhaps was the root of her need to care for the sick and wounded.

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Sandra Adams has been researching her family history since the age of 10 and discovered on the IGI that her family were originally Quakers in the Bristol area.  Her first real break-through with her Quaker past came when The National Archives, in collaboration with heGenealogist.co.uk, released the original Quaker records as part of the non-conformist record set.

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The bulky envelope sits heavily in my hands. It just arrived in today’s mail from my Great Aunt Marion , my mother’s cousin. I had written to her, telling her of my wish to write our family memoirs. I rip open the packet. Inside are birth, marriage and death certificates - dozens of them- the numbers of people here surprise me. Are all these my ancestors?

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For generations a veil of secrecy had hidden the secret of my great, great, great grandmother's existence. A fabricated story suggested she came from a family of gypsies, but the truth was uncovered when I came across a list of prisoners from Somerset, England in 1844 which included the name of Jane (Pavey) Cuff of Combe St. Nicholas. The discovery moved me to follow Jane Cuff's life trail. A pilgrimage which took several years of planning and research and which eventually led to the Cascades Female Convicts Factory in Tasmania.

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Joan had often wondered why she had never been allowed to be evacuated. Also, her Mother, Dolly and her father, Thomas Abraham, were very secretive about their family. Joan had often said to them that she would have loved a brother or a sister but her words were met by stony silence.

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So what did I know about Aunt Anne? Verbal information from her brother (Grandfather):
“She was jilted and went a bit funny.” Sounded ashamed of her. Mental illness was something to be ashamed of in 1900; it was spoken of in whispers behind your hand.

Thinks: What mental hospitals were in existence around Mobberley, Cheshire, circa 1900? Anne was born in Mobberley in 1882.

Read more of Sylvia Kendrick's story...