Dear paul

My maiden name was Shenton, and for as long as I can remember I’ve had a fascination for names. I grew up in the Hanley area of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, in a community that was deeply rooted in

These days, we associate autograph books with celebrities. But they originated in 16th-century Germany, where university students used to collect signatures from their classmates, and functioned as an

Dear Simon, I was particularly interested in Sylvia Lee’s item on Cope’s Pools in Yesterday Remembered (Pools Party, December). I worked at the company’s offices in Edmonton, north London in 1966-67.

Whenever we start our family history research we can be quite excited at the speed of our initial discoveries, as they come at us thick and fast. Across time, as we push further back, challenges incre

MILLICENT BRADFORD dithered about going down to Portsmouth on the train. It was cold, that January of 1942, and obviously there was a war on. Travelling about was frowned upon, unless one really had t

Q My ancestor, a pilot in Poole, had a son taken up by the press, and I’d like to know whether the son was let off, or whether he sailed away and never came back. I asked Dorset Archives some years ag