‘marriage records solved the mystery’

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

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

Reality is far stranger than fiction, and this is certainly true of my family history. I am one of seven American children born to Hungarian physicians Clara and Julian Ambrus who grew up in Budapest

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

What began as a simple attempt to trace my paternal grandfather online has unfolded into a web of lost marriages, mysterious deaths and unexpected headlines,” says Mike Medland. Born in 1949 in India

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