‘i found several ancestors who were all local heroes’

Dear Simon, The history of Pitman shorthand told by Angeline Wilcox in the July edition of Best of British (Write on Time) evoked so many memories. I was amazed to learn that Isaac Pitman actually cre

When I was aged 10, the farmers used to come round the schools to pick volunteers to work on the farms during the summer holidays, mainly to help bring in the harvest. The country was still building u

I am writing in connection with Sarah Williams’ article “What’s in a Name” in the July issue of the magazine. My great great grandmother, Ann Rogers Wardleworth née Bell, was widowed in 1860 at the ag

Q Is it possible to have a death in a workhouse with no subsequent death certificate in 1885? I have the record from Ancestry of the death. Mary Ann Arnold born 1854, death May 1885 (maybe Mar 1885),

Last time (FT460:28-35), we explored something of the historical background behind the idea of spontaneous human combustion and how the orthodoxy of forensics and fire experts has largely damned the p

FT has covered these a number of times, with one of the earliest and most disastrous examples taking place in Hammersmith in 1804 (see FT296:42-45, 310:30-35, 452:16-18). Then a semi-rural village on