Dear paul

Q My ancestor, Charles Hayes, was born on 6 October 1700 in Harrow on the Hill to Charles Hayes and Ann Ewster. He attended University College Cambridge and, described as “one of the Gentlemen of the

What would we do without census returns? How could we even begin to research our 19th and early 20th-century English and Welsh and indeed Scottish ancestry without access to that remarkable resource?

As regular readers of this column will know, unusual anomalies in birth, marriage, and death records are far from uncommon. What they do offer, however, is the opportunity to dig a little deeper into

Dear Simon, Once again, the December 2025 issue had lots of memories to write about. Starting from the front, Gertcha! – I did love Chas and Dave, as did my husband. Of course, the family always watch

Local parish records are the backbone of family history, detailing the baptisms, marriages and burials that reveal key events in our ancestors’ lives. While many of these records are now online, other

I was very interested to read Nicola Johnson’s article exploring the world of stokers in your January 2026 issue. My great grandfather, John Thomas Gray, was a stoker on the HMS Indomitable during the