Crime and punishment

Most of us have unfortunate brick walls in our family trees – those frustrating relations who seem to have appeared into the world as if from nowhere. Perhaps a person does not feature in the baptism

This World Mental Health Day (10 October), take a moment to reflect on the experiences of our ancestors who were mentally ill. How were they looked after, and where? Before the mid-18th century, the U

KATHERINE COBB is a member of AGRA based in Somerset REBECCA PROBERT is professor of law at the University of Exeter STEVE THOMAS is a genealogist with over 20 years’ experience PHIL TOMASELLI is a mi

The former historic counties of Cumberland and Westmorland became Cumbria in 1974, at the same time taking bites out of West Riding of Yorkshire and Lancashire. Today the county’s archive service, Cum

Family history website Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) has added a major new collection of 49,105,506 electoral register records from Birmingham, dating from 1833–1972 and featuring notable residents, from

Essex: A county bounded by water, flat, marshy and called by some the “graveyard of witches”. Between 1500 and 1800 over 1,000 men, women and children were executed for the crime of witchcraft in the