A chip off the old block

Family history research can, as we know, take us down many paths with surprising outcomes but I would never in my wildest dreams have thought that it would result in my cousin and I standing on a foot

A Tarot reading with a medium was to reveal my true identity…

Unusually, my story begins at the end with the perplexing death certificate of my great grandfather William Taylor. William died aged 71 in May 1938, in Gosport, Hampshire, and the death was registere

An old man lives at the bottom of my garden. His name is Robert Barkus, or Bakehouse, or Bagust. Nobody is quite sure. But I often sense him around when I’m gardening, and I’ve found out a fair bit ab

Sitting on the sofa next to my dad as he tapped away on Ancestry, I was instantly drawn to the mass of names, dates and places. The colourful graphics caught my eye and I couldn’t possibly resist. I a

Many, many years ago – nearly 60, to be exact – I began to research my family tree. These were the olden days, long before the internet was even a twinkle in a scientist’s eye. My grandfather was able