Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2025 i Family Tree UK

The BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? returns to our screens with eight new celebrities exploring their family history. Among those delving into their past this season are Oscar-nominated actor Andrew Garfield, pop singer Will Young, and TV personality Ross Kemp. Their explorations will transport viewers from Napoleonic battlefields to the streets of wartime Europe, from Indian palaces to Hollywood’s golden age. Simon Young, BBC Head of History, said: “Every episode shows how personal stories and broader history are entwined. The tales unearthed this year – some heartwarming, others heartbreaking – capture the drama and diversity hidden in every family’s past.” Executive producer Colette Flight added: “Our latest line-up reveals how history ripples through generations. Whether it’s a daring escape, an unexpected royal connection, or a forgotten act of…

World War Genealogy, military family historian Graham Caldwell’s new paid research service, has been established to help to reconstruct, as far as possible, WWI soldiers’ lost service records. The predicament of lost records applies to approximately 65% of the soldiers who fought in the British Army in WW1, due to the destruction of 4 million such service records in 1940 by fire. Graham uses a wide range of secondary sources, and notably tactically researches the neighbouring service numbers of other soldiers, to glean clues about units, dates and locations for a soldier whose records are lost. For an example of how his tactics work in practice, see the Q&A pages this issue. Graham Caldwell says of his research service that it’s “aimed at descendants who have met a brick wall,…

There’s nothing I love more than a proper family history mystery to get my teeth into. And finding those old photocopied BMD certificates at Mum’s, full of unfamiliar names and faces, has whetted my appetite for some serious sleuthing. With any luck, the 1911 Census should provide some clues, so I search there for my great-grandfather John Tonge, born c. 1865. And here we are, back again at 45 Knowsley Street, Bury. Head of the household John Tonge, 46, is a life insurance superintendent for Royal London. Then comes his wife Mary, 51, followed by unmarried children Lily, 24, Lawrence (my grandfather), 23, a clerk at Hulton & Co’s newspaper office, and John, 19, a brushmakers’ apprentice for Mason & Co. So far, so good, so familiar. But then, aha!…

When tracing our ancestors we automatically think of tracing birth, marriage, death and census records. But widely available – and often overlooked – as sources of information are school records, many of which date back to Victorian times. A study of these records can reveal a great deal about education at this time and in particular the attitudes towards female education. Background In Victorian times many children were employed, their earnings being needed by the family. Many received no education other than through Sunday schools, which taught reading and religion. This changed with WE Forster’s 1870 Education Act (applicable only in England and Wales) which introduced the building of Board Schools for all children between five and twelve years of age in areas where there were insufficient church schools. Attendance…

I’m going to focus on my maternal side as my father is a half sibling to his sisters (although many of the things I’ll mention will also be relevant to this relationship). My mom, Pat, has an older brother Steve and a younger sister Janet and I’ve tested all three on Ancestry and uploaded their raw data (with permission) to MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch. The science bit I won’t go into the science a great deal – but if you need/want a recap my article in FT January 2025 did a deep dive. Suffice to say, every one of us is made up of DNA we inherited from our parents, and our DNA is divided into 50% from Dad and 50% from Mom. When our parents were passing on their…

Q I am trying to find out about Marie Pawlet’s parents and Jane Pawlet’s parents. Jane was born in 1570 and Marie in 1554. Marie married George Southcombe, in Satterleigh, Devon in 1574. They moved to Meshaw and had five children. She died in 1587. George then married Jane Pawlet in 1590 in Rose Ash. He died in 1595 from a fall. Jane went on to marry twice and died in 1610. I have looked in wills, land and property records and still cannot find any evidence of any Pawlets where Jane and Marie lived. I have since found out through family letters that Jane was illegitimate. My research has also revealed that one of the rectors had a tankard given to him and it had the Pawlet coat of…

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Five years ago, spring 2020, Family Tree turned the Family Tree Live experience – that had been due to be held at Alexandra Palace, into an online event. Since then Family Tree has continued to provide a range of informatiive and enjoyable online learning experiences, creating new print publications too. This spring sees the publication of DNA Discoveries (published 28 March) and the Military Family History Guide published 30 April). The latter accompanies a new 2-part masterclass tutored by Graham Bandy. Also this spring, customers can look forward to Michelle Leonard’s new DNA masterclass, ‘Smash your DNA Brickwalls’. Find out more at www.family-tree.co.uk…

Genealogy is one of those rare pursuits where you can talk openly about ‘killing people off ’ without attracting the attention of the local constabulary. I don’t want to make light of what is clearly a serious and highly emotional matter, but death and the records relating to death are important to family historians. Yet they were often, in the past, too quickly dismissed by researchers. The argument was that the record of someone’s death told you very little about them and that the only reason to search for such a record was to ‘kill them off’ so that you could place a full stop at the end of their lives. That was certainly the impression I got when, as a young researcher, I first dipped my toes into the…

Some of the projects I was involved with as an Online Parish Clerk for four parishes in southwest Devon involved the transcription of all the baptism, burial and marriage registers and census records (with the help of many other volunteers, I would add). In compiling these lists, I learned a great deal about the families and the history of the region. That was in addition to finding my own ancestors who resided there for over 400 years that I can trace. One outcome of seeing all the records was finding information about a great many children who had been born and died under fateful circumstances. I set myself a task to try to uncover details of the lives of those children who were, in some cases, abandoned, to discover if…

Sara Drake asks: I inherited a large number of photos following the death of my great-uncle, whose mother came from a blended family. My 2x great-grandfather, George Rance, had seven children with his first wife, Emma, before she died. Then seven months later he married a widow, Charlotte Holder, who had six children of her own. I believe that these photos represent some of George’s own children, and some of his stepchildren. The design on the back of the photo of the young man (Photo 1) matches those on the back of Nos. 2, 3 and 4. The final photo (Photo 5) had a different back but was taken by the same photographer. I think these three young ladies could be the same ancestors as the three girls in No.…

Can I download my Ancestry family tree? Yes certainly. You may download a copy of your Ancestry family tree as a GEDCOM file. We use this type of file as it is a shareable file format, used in common with many other genealogy platforms. To download a copy of your tree: • Go to www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tree/tree/(ensure you are logged in to Ancestry). • Choose which of your trees (if you have more than 1 on Ancestry) that you would like to download, and select ‘Tree settings’ on the right-hand side; • Scroll down to ‘Manage your tree’ and click the link to ‘Export tree’. A GEDCOM file will immediately start being generated. The time the GEDCOM file takes to write will depend on the size of your tree. • When it’s…

Matt Hill, Helen Tovey & Karen Evans report on news from the world of genealogy. Do you have a story to share? Please email helen.t@family-tree.co.uk 23andMe have featured in the headlines in recent months, following a data breach in October 2023, and the $30 million pay-out to settle the subsequent lawsuits, when the privacy of the personal details of 7 million people via 14,000 23andMe customers was compromised. In October 2024, all seven independent members of the 23andMe board resigned en masse; a response to the terms under which CEO Anne Wojcicki’s planned to take 23andMe private. These issues raised concerns over the company’s future and now the company has filed for bankruptcy and CEO Anne Wojcicki has resigned. She will, however, continue to serve as a member of the…

When we think of VE Day, we immediately think of the end of the war and the service personnel returning home. Sadly this wasn’t the end though, nor was it yet time to return home. Taking nothing for granted… In spring 1945, as the war’s end began to crawl out of the abyss of six years fighting, the big question was whether the great link-up – between the forces of the west heading east in Germany and the forces of the Red Army advancing from the east – was to happen. Was there to be a general surrender from the German government? Weeks before the final surrender, various high-ranking individuals from the German side started sending roundabout intimations of capitulation. This was some time before the death of Hitler himself…

In some ways mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is the ugly duckling of DNA testing. It is easy to see how autosomal tests like the Ancestry, MyHeritage, 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA Family Finder tests can help solve genealogical problems, while FamilyTreeDNA’s Y DNA tests remain popular for surname lineage research. But surnames tend to change every generation up the all-maternal line and the slow rate of mutations makes applying mtDNA tests in genealogy research challenging. Many people have tested their mtDNA only to find their closest matches look unrecognisable, often coming from quite unexpected parts of the world. MtDNA: an introduction mtDNA forms a loop of DNA found in multiple copies in every cell in the body, separate from the familiar 23 pairs of chromosomes. (See Figure 1). It is involved in generating…

For those of us with a deep personal connection to the Second World War, planning a research trip to the European battlefields is a powerful way of connecting with our family stories. And now, 80 years after VE Day, the growing availability of military records makes it a perfect time to follow in our parents’ and grandparents’ footsteps. Documents including service records, casualty lists, unit diaries and maps can help us learn more about the courage and sacrifice of the “greatest generation”. And major commemorations such as the 80th anniversary of D-Day last year have spurred an increasing number of people to make pilgrimages to the battlefields. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission says visitor numbers at its Bayeux War Cemetery in Normandy saw more than 105,000 visitors last year. Gary…

Childhood memories of India I was born in 1942 in a railway colony in Delhi, India. My father Lionel Cecil Francis worked for the railway as a ticket collector. When I was four years old my parents moved to Old Delhi, India. My father wanted to be near his parents. My grandfather, Dominic, had bought a plot of land to build a 3-storey building. We lived there on one floor, tenants on another, and grandparents on the ground floor. He named the home he built 3 Francis Building, Nicholson Road, Old Delhi. My brother and I went to St Theresa’s High School, Delhi. To go to school we had to walk from our house out to Mori Gate and cross the bridge to the school bus. We were never taught…

It’s that month when, for me, an old sorrow rankles. If there are violinists among you, please play me a sad tune, for I was never chosen as my school’s Queen of the May. No one wanted the girl with the pointy face and skimpy pigtails. Golden ringlets and party frocks got the vote every time. Forgive the self-pity, but when planning my column, I always mull over notable events, public and personal before starting to write. It’s May 2025, so closely following my envy of the coveted tiara, comes the 80th anniversary of the ending of World War II, which I was actually alive to experience. I’m being facetious, but only partly so. There were no street parties that year for my family. Not quite two at the time,…