Your questions answered

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

Q My maternal great great grandfather was called John Budd. The family story is that he was abandoned in an orphanage as a baby and was given his name there. Aged 11, he was said to have been turned o

Nine-year-old future star of the silent screen Charlie Chaplin, his mother Hannah, and older half-brother Sydney entered the Lambeth workhouse, south London, in July 1898. The boys were soon transferr

In this age of algorithms and ‘artificial intelligence’, when the major commercial genealogical websites are all trying to persuade us that the best way to trace our family trees is to follow their hi

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

In 1939, at the start of the Second World War, the government planned to evacuate 1.5 million civilians, mostly school children, mothers and other vulnerable people, from cities at risk of bombing to