Death and taxesusing the death duty registers

This is one in a series of articles; the intention of which is to provide an overview of useful family and local history records in existence, covering the period 1066-1485. Each article can be enjoye

Q My great great grandfather, Enoch Coates, was wounded in the Crimean War at Sebastopol. His death notice in the Lichfield Mercury, on Friday 9 December 1910, describes him as a “Crimean Veteran” and

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

As every family historian knows only too well, researching your ancestry becomes significantly more difficult the further back you get. There are fewer records available before the 19th century, and f

The economy of Suffolk traditionally relied on agriculture and fishing, but much of its prosperity in the Middle Ages resulted from the cloth and wool trade. In fact Bury St Edmunds, Clare, Hadleigh,

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