Tracing Your Family History with the Whole Family

Dr Robin McConnell • £14.99
pen-and-sword.co.uk

This book is innovative. A plethora of genealogy books primarily assume that family history research is by adults, for adults, marking family history as an ‘adults only’ sphere of life. This book establishes a new dimension in family history research. It is written in the belief that engaging in family history is a venture for all of the present-day family, regardless of age and, sometimes, because of age. To assist those of all ages who venture into this wider domain of family history the book is laden with practical examples.

It leads children and adults into factual and creative portrayals of their present lives which will be handed on to future generations as informative elements of past and present family history.

Female Innovators Who Changed Our World

Emma Shimizu • £20
pen-and-sword.co.uk

We are not all born with equal opportunities. Yet there have been countless of women who have overcome a range of barriers such as prejudice, illness, and personal tragedy to advance our understanding of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). They used their knowledge to change the world, and their stories are fascinating. This book offers a concise introduction of the lives of 46 women, taking you into the cultural and social context of the world they lived in. Through their intelligence, courage, and resilience, they used STEM to defy expectations and inspire generations to follow in their footsteps. Some of them invented items we use day-to-day and discovered causes and treatments for epidemics that ostracised whole sections of society, whilst others campaigned for the reproductive rights of women and harnessed mathematics to send people into space and break ciphers. These women are proof that females can and did have a hugely significant role in shaping the world we live in today.

A 1930s Childhood

Colin G. Maggs • £9.99
thehistorypress.co.uk

Do you remember collecting birds’ eggs and cigarette cards? Or the first appearances of wrapped sweets like Mars and Milky Way?

The 1930s was a time of great progress, as engines took over from horses, and electric light from gas and oil. In the background, change was everywhere, with the Mallard speed record, the abdication of the King, and the increasing spectre of the impending Second World War. It was a time of home cooking, and day-trip holidays, when families kept chickens and children played with bows and arrows.

This delightfully nostalgic book will take you right back to a different age, recalling what life was like for those growing up in the 1930s.

The Thomas Rackett Papers, 18th-19th Centuries

Ed. H S L Dewar, revised by Ann Smith • £14.95
hobnobpress.co.uk

From his quiet country parish at Spetisbury in Dorset, the Rev. Thomas Rackett corresponded with a wide-ranging variety of friends and contacts between 1786 and 1840. Fellow members of the Royal Institute wrote about experiments in physics, chemistry, engineering and the emerging science of electricity, Sir Richard Hoare wrote to him about archaeological exploration, and friends from abroad sent news from afar as South Africa, Canada and Russia. Rackett’s interests included botany, engineering, heraldry, pre-historic and Roman antiquities, geology, shells and conchology, barrow-digging, Greek and Roman coins, and methods of engraving. The Thomas Rackett Papers was first published by Dorset Record Society in 1965 and this new edition includes correspondence with Mary Anning who was a friend of Rackett’s daughter.