To begin her family history quest Lulu starts by getting together with her brother Billy and her son Jordon to review what they already know of their family history. She is keen to research her mother Elizabeth's background and crucially try to discover why her mother - the middle child of seven - was the one who seemed to have been singled out to be given up by her parents and raised by another family.
Amongst the notable Nottinghamshire people are the infamous Lord Byron and his brilliant mathematician daughter Ada, Countess of Lovelace. Both are buried in the parish of Hucknal Torkard. As well as nobility, in this collection we also come across the baptism of Amos Hind. He was famous for playing First Class Cricket for the neighbouring county of Derbyshire between 1876 and 1877. Amos died aged 82 in 1931.
If you love your family history, why not get more involved in your hobby by volunteering for a project that helps you and fellow family historians by preserving the information before it crumbles away. There are a variety of projects that will be of interest for those of us who like to get out and about to photograph in the fresh air; and there are others that will appeal to people who enjoy transcribing historical details from home.
Emma's quest to find her roots confirmed that she has a longstanding link to her home city of Birmingham. What surprised her was that she also had Irish roots, some of whom she was happy to celebrate - while one she was extremely uncomfortable with.
In his edition of the well loved genealogy TV series Who Do You Think You Are?, Adil is keen to find out more about his mixed Asian and African heritage. He already knows that his maternal grandparents were married in British East Africa and he wants to find out more about their lives and how they got there.
Finding where our ancestors lived in the years after the 1911 census can be a challenge. It requires us to turn to alternative records, and some of the best for this purpose are the Trade, Residential and Telephone Directories. Using TheGenealogist's Master Search to look for householders in these directories returns us many names from that time - some of whom are still famous today.
Clare Victoria Balding OBE was born on 29 January 1971 to the internationally respected horse trainer Ian Balding and his wife Emma Hastings-Bass. Clare's maternal family comes from a well-documented aristocratic lineage, being descended from the Earls of Derby, and horse training is heavily represented in her genes from both sides of her family.
Craig Revel Horwood discovers that his roots trace back to England from Australia in the second episode of the latest Who Do You Think You Are? Like many Australians he finds that he has convict ancestry; but he also discovers other forebears who migrated from the U.K. to seek their fortune in Australia.
Born as Walter Charles Dance to Walter Dance and Eleanor Perks in the Bromsgrove district of Worcestershire in 1946, his father was to die just three years later. Charles has always believed that his dad had been in his early fifties when he died - but now that has been called into question.
The BBC has announced the return of its ever popular genealogy television series Who Do You Think You Are? which traces the family history of celebrities - and the great news is that we don’t have long to wait! The well loved family history programme will return to BBC1 on Thursday 6th July at 9pm and then air in two five-episode blocks.
To coincide with the York Family History Fair in June, TheGenealogist has added the colour tithe maps that encompass the City of York to its National Tithe Records collection and detailed directories covering both early and later records.
Records that chart our ancestors' international journeys can be really useful for building the stories of their lives. The documents can help explain where an ancestor has gone when we can’t find them in the records at home, and it is certainly not just the top echelons of society that appear in passenger lists. In the past all sorts of people booked passages on ships for a variety of reasons. Perhaps they were emigrating for a better life or travelling abroad on business?
Nick Thorne uses the Newspaper and Magazines collection to better understand conditions in World War I
As democracy swings into action again in June, it is worth considering how not many of our ancestors would ever have been given the chance to elect a government of their own choice
The British left their mark on the Indian subcontinent in all sorts of ways - not the least of which are the graves of those who never made it back to Britain and are buried in its cemeteries, or are commemorated on war memorials and can still be found there to this day.
Green fingers run in the family for the presenter of the Chelsea Flower Show
The latest release of Police Letter Books for Hampshire is an eclectic mix of details of promotions and removals of officers (postings from one place to another), as well as recording such things as additional pay and a number of disciplinary matters that were handed out to the policemen of the Hampshire County Constabulary.
Sunetra is now keen to research further into the Indian heritage that she had overlooked until recently. Her mother, Bisakha, had often told Sunetra anecdotes about one of their relatives, the respected lawyer and novelist, Dr Naresh Sengupta – or, as he was known to Sunetra's family: Dadu.
Frederick Durban, his maternal great great grandfather, worked for the General Post Office in Kent and a search of census records and marriage certificates reveals some curious entries that raise various questions for trying to draw up Warwick's family tree.
We are all aware that parish records will give us those all important dates and names for our ancestors - but in some cases they can also reveal interesting stories as well.
Greg is able to establish that there's a mystery surrounding the identity of his paternal grandmother Edith's father. Research discovers that her father was not the man that Edith's mother, Elizabeth, had actually married...
Famous British actor Sir Ian Murray McKellen was born in Burnley, Lancashire on the 25 May, 1939. He has a mixture of Northern Irish and Scottish forbears on his father's side while his mother, Margery, is of English ancestry.
The Genealogist is adding a fascinating and copiously illustrated resource to its Newspapers and Magazine collections that will give researchers the ability to search for names of possible ancestors mentioned in articles, plus a huge amount of terrific background reports on everyday life in the Royal Navy and Army.
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