Silent stories

The economy of Suffolk traditionally relied on agriculture and fishing, but much of its prosperity in the Middle Ages resulted from the cloth and wool trade. In fact Bury St Edmunds, Clare, Hadleigh,

As every family historian knows only too well, researching your ancestry becomes significantly more difficult the further back you get. There are fewer records available before the 19th century, and f

“You can’t live here. There are no shops,” my friend Jen stated. We were sitting in the van belonging to the pub I lived in, the Golden Cross, Slough, waiting for my parents who had an interview for t

Q My ancestor, a pilot in Poole, had a son taken up by the press, and I’d like to know whether the son was let off, or whether he sailed away and never came back. I asked Dorset Archives some years ag

These days, we associate autograph books with celebrities. But they originated in 16th-century Germany, where university students used to collect signatures from their classmates, and functioned as an

This is one in a series of articles; the intention of which is to provide an overview of useful family and local history records in existence, covering the period 1066-1485. Each article can be enjoye