Family History Articles
Articles from "Discover My Past"
New Military Records
Was your ancestor a war hero?
View thousands of brand new military records, including Chelsea Pensioner records, Military Nurses, Prisoners of war and much more.
Anthony Adolph helps you decipher “old writing”.
One of the greatest problems you will face in starting your family history is not so much being unable to find the right records, as being able to read what they say. The problem is not a new one, and alongside genealogy there has always been another discipline, called Palaeography: the study of “old writing”.
Rachel Bellerby helps you find out more about servants in a grand house or on one of England’s country estates.
Nowadays, only the wealthiest people in society employ servants, but as recently as 100 years ago, employing one or more servants was a mark of status, and was within the reach of those in the upper-middle classes. Whether working on the land, living in at a grand mansion, or toiling as a maid of all work, thousands of England’s servants have left traces of their existence in the country’s archives.
Having first come to the attention of the British public thanks to the BBC’s family history series Who Do You Think You Are?, Dr Nick Barratt is almost always referred to as “Nick Barratt – ancestral history expert” or “Nick Barratt – genealogy guru”. However, Nick modestly describes himself simply as a historian – and goes to great lengths to explain that he became involved in all things ancestral (and television) purely by chance.
