Beginning Family Tree Research – The Nosey Genealogist's: Help Me With My Family Tree

17/12/202416/12/2024

My Christmas Gift to you!

Thank you for being a reader of my blog!

I really appreciate it and so, as we count down to Christmas, I have a special gift for you. A chance to get your hands on a family history Kindle e-book completely free!

You see, on Tuesday 17th December 2024 I am launching my new book:

Bigamists, Bastards and Baffling Brick Walls: Beginning English Family History Research and Discovering Scandals in the Family Tree.

And I have arranged for the Kindle e-book to be FREE to download from 8am GMT Tuesday but only until Thursday evening (normal price £3.99).

At the same time, the paperback edition will be at cost price (so I don’t make a single penny on it) should you decide to order it from Amazon!

cost price on Amazon — Cost price on Amazon! Book will go up to full price after this promotion period.

But please hurry as this Christmas offer is only available from Tuesday 17th (8AM GMT) to Thursday 19th December (19:59 GMT).

I do so hope you like it.

In return, could I ask you to do me a great favour? I would really appreciate it if you could post a review on Amazon. It doesn’t have to be a long review, but it so helps other readers if they can see what other buyers have liked about the book.

Thank you so much and a very Merry Christmas to you and yours!

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14/06/2023

The Family History Show, York is on June 24th, 2023

NEWS: This Press Release was written by The Family History Show organisers

The Family History Show logo

Join us for a captivating day of genealogy exploration. Watch free talks, ask the experts, and browse exhibitors, family history societies and genealogy companies from across the United Kingdom. With free talks, convenient parking, and refreshments available, this event is a must for all Family history enthusiasts. Uncover more about your heritage and unravel the mysteries of your past. Get your tickets now and save on our two for the price of one offer.

Get your tickets now, it’s just 10 days till The Family History Show – York. June 24th, 2023

Visitors to The Family History Show - York

Make a Day of it

Book an expert session and watch a talk in the morning, then have lunch in our restaurant before finishing the day with a bit of retail therapy, chat with societies and catch another talk before you go.

The Family History Show – York features:

- - Free talks held throughout the day in two large lecture areas
  - Book a free personal 1-2-1 session with an expert
  - Free goody bag on entry worth over £10.
  - Free Parking and Local Train Station
  - All Day Refreshments
  - Wheelchair Friendly Venue

Early-bird Ticket Offer

Get your tickets now and save, Two tickets for £10 (£10 each on the day) and you’ll also get a goody bag on entry worth over £10.

Save 50% by getting two tickets for £10 for the York show here: https://thefamilyhistoryshow.com/york/tickets/

Talks you can look forward to at the York show include:

Photo of the experts giving the talks

10:30 The Genetic Detective – tips and tricks to solving unknown DNA matches

Donna Rutherford – DNA Expert

Delve into genetic genealogy and explore effective strategies to unravel unidentified DNA connections. How to discover identifying information on key matches that will further your research and help you solve brick-walls. This talk will enhance your genetic genealogy journey and help you become a skilled genetic detective.

11:30 Pinpointing Your Ancestors

Mark Bayley – Online Genealogy Expert

Unleash the power of historical records and maps to reveal the art of pinpointing your ancestors. Join us for an illuminating talk that brings your family’s past to life through geographic connections.

12:30

Tracing The Ancestral Home

Nick Barratt – Historian, Author and Professional Genealogist

A talk exploring the sources that enable you to research the history of the houses where your ancestors lived.

13:30

Breaking Down Brick Walls

Mark Bayley – Online Genealogy Expert

Uncover the secrets to overcoming stumbling blocks in your family history research! Discover new and innovative search strategies to locate those elusive relatives. Explore unique record collections that can tell you more about your ancestors’ lives.

14:30

Tips & Tricks for Online Research

Keith Gregson – Professional Researcher & Social Historian

Keith shares top tips & techniques for finding elusive ancestors, illustrated by some fascinating case studies. He is both a popular and academic historian with a range of publications stretching over the past 40 years.

Talk times may be subject to change, please check the timetable at the venue on the day of the show for any changes.

Early-bird Ticket Offer

Get two tickets for £10 for the York show here: https://thefamilyhistoryshow.com/york/tickets/

Check out Family History TV on YouTube with their free short videos. These how-to-guides are by leading experts covering a variety of topics. Their speakers specialise in subjects from the world of British Genealogy, Military History, DNA, House History and Social History and many of them are past and present speakers from The Family History Show. Watch a short video now at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMnBEpCg-QwVzkq-zU4GDGg

Find Out More at: https://thefamilyhistoryshow.com/

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06/05/2023

TheGenealogist adds new War Memorial records and property records for Hitchen

Disclosure: Please note this post contains affiliate links.*

NEWS: Press Release from TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist has added 56,924 new individuals to their War Memorial collection, bringing the total number of fully searchable War Memorial Records on TheGenealogist to over 665,000.

These fully searchable records have been transcribed and their location plotted to allow subscribers to find the names of ancestors that paid the ultimate sacrifice.

War Memorials come in various types. Photos ⓒ Mark Herber

These War Memorials, from the UK and abroad, can provide us with useful details about our ancestors revealing organisations and places that they had belonged to.

- War Memorials can divulge links to a community, village, town etc
- Workplace memorials can tell us where they had worked before the conflict
- Organisation monuments and plaques honour past members that fell
- Former pupils and staff of a school or university are remembered at the institution
- Names in a church, or other places of worship, tell us about religious affiliation

This release includes images from war memorials of a variety of shapes and sizes and have been fully transcribed. Covering the war dead from various conflicts including the Boer War, the First World War and World War II an ancestor’s inclusion on a memorial can be profoundly moving to find, especially as so many of the war dead will have no actual grave for us to visit.

Hertfordshire Records and Maps

Also released this week are over 33,000 Lloyd George Domesday Survey records for the Hitchen area of Hertfordshire where we find the occupation and ownership records of people from across the social strata. These link through to highly detailed contemporary maps to show exactly where your ancestor lived. You can then see how the area changed over time with TheGenealogist’s powerful MapExplorer.

These newly released records include the childhood home of the King’s beloved grandmother.

Discover More

To find out more about both of these releases, you can read TheGenealogist’s Featured Article: The Queen Mother’s childhood home and the Australian Hero killed on the streets before her coronation.

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2023/the-queen-mothers-childhood-home-and-the-australian-hero-killed-on-the-streets-before-her-coronation-1695/

About TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist is an award-winning online family history website, who put a wealth of information at the fingertips of family historians. Their approach is to bring hard to use physical records to life online with easy to use interfaces such as their Tithe and newly released Lloyd George Domesday collections.

TheGenealogist’s innovative SmartSearch technology links records together to help you find your ancestors more easily. TheGenealogist is one of the leading providers of online family history records. Along with the standard Birth, Marriage, Death and Census records, they also have significant collections of Parish and Nonconformist records, PCC Will Records, Irish Records, Military records, Occupations, Newspaper record collections amongst many others.

TheGenealogist uses the latest technology to help you bring your family history to life. Use TheGenealogist to find your ancestors today!

*Disclosure: Please note this post contains affiliate links. This does not mean that you pay more just that I make a percentage on the sales from my links. The payments help me pay for the cost of running the site. You may like to read this explanation here:

http://paidforadvertising.co.uk/

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21/04/2023

See the census in greater detail than ever before

Disclosure: Please note this post contains affiliate links.*

NEWS: Press Release from TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist launches 3.4 Million brand new enhanced census images

Researchers using TheGenealogist will now have access to the highest resolution and quality 1851, 1861 & 1871 census images for England and Wales ever seen online with vastly improved readability revealing even faint writing in pencil.

Building on the success of their previously upgraded 1891 census image release, TheGenealogist has now significantly improved the image quality of all its 1851,1861 and 1871 census images as well.

Clearer Images of the 1861 census finds Charles Dickens and family

TheGenealogist’s new images can really make a difference - Comparison of Old and New — TheGenealogist’s new images can really make a difference – Comparison of Old and New

Replacing the old bitonal images with high-resolution greyscale census images reveals the details in the census columns or margins and where previously faint writing, shadows or pencil marks could render an image unreadable.

Mark Bayley, Head of Development at TheGenealogist said:
“We’re extremely proud to announce this tremendous leap forward in clarity and readability. Thanks to the latest technology and many years of hard work, we now have the best possible images for the 1851, 1861, 1871 and 1891 census for England and Wales. It’s remarkable just how much extra detail you can see in these images.”

TheGenealogist’s “Deep Zoom” images have over 5 times the resolution of previous images and yet are still fast to view, thanks to the technology used in their image interface. Writing appears sharper on the new images and allows you to zoom in to reveal what would otherwise be illegible words on other sites. In addition TheGenealogist has the benefit of searchable occupations and addresses on their census transcripts, making them quicker and easier to find.

Read TheGenealogist’s article: Murder in the margin! https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2023/murder-in-the-margin-1688/

About TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist uses the latest technology to help you bring your family history to life. Use TheGenealogist to find your ancestors today!

http://paidforadvertising.co.uk/

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11/01/2022

The Family History Show ONLINE is back next month!

After the extremely successful virtual events held online last year, The Family History Show, Online is returning in February so that once more you can enjoy all the features of a physical family history show, but from the comfort of your own home.

The Family History Show, Online is gearing up for its return on Saturday 19th February 2022.

You’ll have the opportunity to put your research questions to an expert, watch professionally produced talks and to speak to family history societies, archives and genealogical suppliers by text, audio, video chat or email from the comfort of your own home.

You will also be able to submit your questions to the Ask the Experts panel before the show and you have a choice to either book a free 1-to-1 session or to watch the question panel at 15:30 where our experts answer your questions!

Save the date in your diary and snap up an early bird ticket now for only £7! You’ll also get a downloadable goody bag worth over £10.

Featuring All New Talks

From Cradle to Grave – Jackie Depelle – Family History Tutor and Speaker

Jackie’s talk shows you how to follow the life of an ancestor, using key family history sources, plus more from maps to house history

Solving Genealogy Brickwalls: A Case Study – Amelia Bennett – Expert Researcher, Census Detective with the SOG

This talk uses an example from Amelia’s own family history where she progressed a brickwall using DNA alongside traditional genealogy research. The path to solving this brickwall had a number of surprises along the way with forgeries, quick marriages, criminal ancestors and often more questions than answers. In telling the story, methods and tools for using DNA to break down brickwalls are provided.

The Joy of Surnames – Debbie Kennett – DNA & Surname Expert and Writer

Each surname has its own story to tell. This lecture provides an overview of the history and distribution of surnames with a focus on surnames originating in the British Isles. The one-name study approach can provide breakthroughs that would not be possible by restricting research to your own family tree.

Family history and the media: behind the scenes of Who Do You Think You Are? – Nick Barratt – Historian, Author and Professional Genealogist

Exploring the impact of Who Do You Think You Are? on the way we research our family stories, with an explanation of how the show was first conceived and produced.

Ask the Experts Live Q&A Panel with Mark Bayley, Debbie Kennett, Jackie Depelle and Nick Barratt.

Submit your questions to our panel of experts before the show. Either book a free 1-to-1 session or watch the live stream question panel at 15:30 where you can ask your questions live!

Societies, Archives and Companies

Visit exhibitors, societies, archives and companies in our virtual exhibition hall. Here there will be the opportunity to talk to some of the stallholders by text, audio or video from the comfort of your own home.

Show Partners

SoG, AGRA, TheGenealogist, GenFair, S&N Genealogy

Early Bird Ticket Offer

Buy your tickets in advance and save – tickets to attend The Family History Show Online are available from the website at just £7.00 each. You will also get a FREE virtual goody bag on the day worth over £10. https://thefamilyhistoryshow.com/online/tickets/

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26/11/2021

Save over £100 with TheGenealogist’s 2021 Black Friday Offer

Disclosure: Please note this post contains affiliate links.*

Unique Search Tools to Break Down Your Brick Walls

TheGenealogist is the only website that has keyword search, family forename search, address search and Map Explorer search tools to help you pinpoint your ancestors.

They’re constantly adding new records, at no extra cost!

This year TheGenealogist have released millions of new records covering England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. They have increased their coverage of a broad variety of records that are essential resources for family history researchers.

The top three record collections added in the last year total over 72 Million records:

- The Scottish Census (1841-1901) – 24 Million Records
- The 1939 Register – 34 Million records
- The Complete Anglican Parish Records for Wales – 14 Million Records

Other new records this year include:

- Norfolk Parish Records – 1,445,523 records
- Irish Parish Records – 1,327,300 records
- RAF Records – 1,550,000 records
- Suffolk Parish Records – 322,894 records
- Land & House Records – 430,000 records
- Military Records – 150,000 records
- New Headstone Records – 55,000 records
- Who’s Who Records – 100,000 records
- Irish Wills – 100,000 records
- British and Irish Directories
- 1086 Domesday Records

Click here to get this offer now!

About TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist is an award-winning online family history website, that puts a wealth of information at the fingertips of family historians. Their approach is to bring hard to use physical records to life online with easy to use interfaces such as their Tithe and newly released Lloyd George Domesday collections.

TheGenealogist uses the latest technology to help you bring your family history to life. Use TheGenealogist to find your ancestors today!

http://paidforadvertising.co.uk

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08/08/2021

Discover Your Ancestors reaches its 100th edition!

The 100th issue of Discover Your Ancestors Periodical has just been released!

In this August 2021 edition are the following great articles including my piece on finding Ian Fleming’s homes:

- - Stocks and Bond: Nick Thorne (writer of The Nosey Genealogist blog) addresses the records for where the stockbroker who created 007 once lived
  - The tormenting verdict of ‘not proven’: Stephen Wade looks into the Ardlamont mystery and talks to the alleged killer’s great-grandson, David Potter
  - The Irristum Remedy Company: Nell Darby investigates a company run by a married couple, aimed at curing female ills – but they had their own problems
  - A tale of two cousins: Denise Bates digs into a family mystery and discovers one of her forebears played an important role in fraud investigations
  - Queen of Hearts: Caroline Roope marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Caroline of Brunswick, wife of George IV
  - History in the details: Materials – wool (part 7)

Discover Your Ancestors Periodical 100th edition — August 2021 edition of Discover Your Ancestors online periodical

- 12 monthly issues of the Periodical
- Access to 500,000,000 birth, marriage and death records
- Free data: Titanic passenger list
- Free ebook: Huntingdonshire 1906 Kelly’s Directory

See more here: https://discoveryourancestors.co.uk/

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07/02/2021

Finding Ancestors’ addresses – new article in Discover Your Ancestors

I was commissioned to write an article for the February edition of Discover Your Ancestors Magazine by their main sponsor TheGenealogist on various records that could be useful when looking for an ancestor’s address over time.

The piece used for its example the well known politician, Sir Robert Peel who was twice PM of the UK, founded the Metropolitan Police and on his estate in Tamworth created a breed of pigs! I find his addresses in a number of resources including his Staffordshire estate in the Tithe records, his leased London House in the same record set, his Kent property in the poll and electoral books, his official residence in the Newspapers & Magazines and then there are the other sets that can help you to track down your ancestor such as entries in educational records, residential and trade directories and so on.

The Discover Your Ancestors online magazine is out now for February 2021 and you may find some of this months other articles equally educating!

Discover Your Ancestors Periodical February 2021

The Discover Your Ancestors monthly periodical has just been released for February 2021 and it has some really fascinating articles this month. From Buffalo Bill’s visit to England to some interesting crime stories from the past and more in between! Here is what to expect inside the pages of this online magazine:

- Victoria’s transatlantic treat: Caroline Roope tells the story of when Buffalo Bill amused the queen
- Kindness everywhere: Keith Gregson discovers that concern for birds is not something new, as he tells the story of the hugely successful Dicky Bird Society
- PM, pig breeder and police pioneer: Nick Thorne traces residential records for the two times prime minister of the United Kingdom. Sir Robert Peel
- The strange case of Lucy Strange: In the midst of WW1, one woman lost both her life and her public reputation: so why didn’t Lucy Mary Strange’s family get justice? By Nell Darby
- The untold story of ‘Doctor Dick’: Will Hazell investigates the chequered career of a man who scandalised Cornwall in the late 19th century
- History in the details: Materials – wool (part 1)

Discover Your Ancestors is available now online:

https://discoveryourancestors.co.uk/current-issue/

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28/06/202028/06/2020

Tracing Your Scottish Family History On the Internet

Disclosure: Please note this post contains affiliate links.*

NEW BOOK:

I have just received a copy of Chris Paton’s latest guide for family historians and it is an extremely useful work of reference for any of us that have Scottish ancestors or are researching people from Scotland.

Tracing Your Scottish Family History On The Internet published by Pen & Sword (ISBN 9781526768384) is packed with information about where to find records to help you research ancestors who came from this beautiful land. Covering many types of records and resources, both national as well as local.

The author has also very comprehensively covered the offerings from national institutions, commercial sites and those family history societies, etc that have online presences. There are chapters on Gateways and institutions, the important website of ScotlandsPeople and what can be found on it, other sources for researching Scots forbears, occupations of ancestors, county by county records and Scotland’s Diaspora. Chris Paton explains how these sources can be used by a family history researcher, as well as looking at many unique collections for this country that may help in your quest to find out more about your Scottish Ancestors.

I particularly liked being able to turn to chapters dealing with those online resources for each Scottish county. In my own case most of my Scots ancestors were from the Lothians as well as Fife and Perthshire and so I could consult those pages to get some important leads on where to go online.

Tracing Your Scottish Family History On the Internet by Chris Paton is a valuable addition to my bookshelf and will no doubt be regularly consulted when trying to find out more about my own Scots ancestors.

https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Tracing-Your-Scottish-Family-History-on-the-Internet/p/17717

http://paidforadvertising.co.uk/

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02/05/2020

Scottish Civil Registration Research – Here is a useful video tutorial

If you have Scottish ancestors then I am sure that you will find this YouTube video by Chris Paton really useful. The video gives us a great overview of the historic civil registration system in Scotland in a clear way. If you are researching your Scots ancestors then you will learn a lot from this as it covers Births, Marriages, Deaths, the Registers of Corrected Entries (some readers may not even know about these!), Still births, Adoption and Divorce. I was particularly interested in the Book of Scottish Connections that is for people who live overseas but who have a Scottish connection that they can verify – I had not heard of this before I watched this video!

Chris is a professional genealogist who specialises in Scottish and Irish research and is the author of a number of books that I have no hesitation in recommending including Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church & State Records and for those of you with Irish ancestors Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet.

https://youtu.be/boU7BRlVGp8

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Category: Beginning Family Tree Research

My Christmas Gift to you!

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The Family History Show, York is on June 24th, 2023