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Neal relations at Cuckoos Cup, The Wrekin

Category: family history

  • Historical news and records update

    Historical news online The big news this week on historical records newly appearing online is that of the British Newspaper Archives site going fully live. Thousands of publications dating back as far as 1750 have been scanned and turned into text using OCR software (not manual transcription). It starts with about 4 million pages, with thousands more to be added every day during 2012. The partnership between the British Library and brightsolid online publishing is set to digitise up to 40 million newspaper pages from the  » »

  • The London smog of 1952

    6th December 1952 – the day my paternal grandfather Sydney Charles Howes died after cycling from his teaching job in Nunhead to home in New Cross. Smog related death not long before he was due to retire and the reason I never met him. (6th December was the height of the smog.) Originally from a tweet by @ancestryuk 22nd Nov: “Amazing photos from London smog of 1952. Wrong weather + burning coal = big problem for London.” The photo page on Another Nickel in the Machine  » »

  • Second series of American WDYTYA kicks off

    Tonight, with hardly any publicity that I’ve seen, the second series for the American version of Who Do You Think You Are? kicks off on BBC1. The Guardian’s preview is positive for this episode. Only half an hour, but as it doesn’t start until 10.45pm I’ll try to catch it on iPlayer tomorrow. (It’s at 11.15pm in Wales and Northern Ireland) UPDATE: WDYTYA mag has a little more on the new series – five are half hour programmes, two 45 minutes. Names I recognise are Gwyneth  » »

  • The wider Osborne family in Tonypandy

    It’s about time to collate the branches of the Osborne family, stemming from Robert and Mary Ann in Merriott/Crewkerne/Misterton in the mid-19th century. In particular to show how many ended up in the Rhondda, and especially for Rhian and Gaynor, the newest living cousins to be located, from the Letherby/Osborne line. Note: (buried Trealaw) denotes that the person is listed in burial records for Trealaw Cemetery. Children of Robert Osborne and Mary Ann Dawe Mary Ann b 1845 Somerset. Marries 25 Dec 1868 Misterton to James  » »

  • Connecting with the neighbours

    Researching the family tree comes up with plenty of “is this why” and “what if” moments. Here’s one I did recently. The Neve family is one of the lines coming under closer examination after making contact with the Cullum cousins. With a few more dates and details to work from, it was possible to work backwards from 2 x great uncle William Cullum’s wife Sarah Ann Margaret Neve, find her parents Robert and Elizabeth in the census records in Norwich, and their likely marriage entry. Only  » »

  • Grappling with the new TreeSync

    The new 2012 UK version of Family Tree Maker (FTM) arrived on Saturday. The Platinum edition comes with 6 months access to Ancestry.co.uk Premium membership – parish records, occupations and all other UK records as well as the standard Births, Marriages, Deaths and Census (link to order FTM from Amazon). Here’s a piece on my experience and thoughts so far. Adding the Ancestry subscription The basic installation was as straightforward to do as it usually is, although it automatically added a program to the existing .net  » »