Illegitimacy on the record: stigma, concealment & the law

All family historians hit brick walls, and this is the story of the techniques (and luck) that enabled me to overcome a tough challenge. My 3x great grandfather Thomas Hoskin lived on the beautiful Go

In March 1457, a short, slight widow left Pembroke Castle to embark on a 100-mile journey across territories stalked by civil war and pestilence. Her husband had died only four months earlier, carried

Reins in hands, three young sisters ride the coils of an enormous blue snake. Waving a rattle and smiling happily, the fourth, a baby, is held around her plump middle by its tail. Passers-by dive out

“One might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” goes the old proverb. The meaning is simple: if you are going to be punished for a small crime, you may as well commit the bigger one. In the early

Thanks to the old Sherlock Holmes films that we used to watch on TV every week after the children’s programme Crackerjack had finished, I have known about my family’s “Hollywood relative” since my chi

Two baby boys born out of wedlock four months apart. One grew up to be Thomas Tonge, my 2x great-grandfather. The other, William Smith, sadly didn’t fare so well. Last month, when I came across the ba