An epidemic in Brightlingsea, 1803
I’m finishing off the transcription of Brightlingsea‘s burials, in a register covering 1765-1812. It’s not a very interesting register, and is...
Category: Essex
Updates – Lawford
I’ve finished transcribing the earlier parish register (1558-1764) for Lawford in north-east Essex. It’s right by the Suffolk border, so you might f...
The Fingringhoe skeleton
Have you heard “The Reclusive Skeleton of Fingringhoe” episode of Punt PI? In this Radio 4 series, comedian Steve Punt puzzles his way around cases ...
Guest blog: A Titanic survivor on the 1939 Register
A guest blog for Findmypast. My great-grandma’s cousin survived the Titanic – did he find peace afterwards, or was his life full of drama?
Guest blog: Multiple wives and a missing daughter: Scandalous family secrets in the 1939 Register
A guest blog for Findmypast. What happened to my grandma’s uncle, Ernest Baden Powell Field? And why did his marriages not quite match up with what I foun...
More unfortunate ways to die in parish registers
A while ago I compiled all the unfortunate causes of death to be found in the parish registers for Beaumont-cum-Moze – perhaps the most unfortunate was Wi...
Part 2: knock down brick walls with the 1939 Register
Part two of my 1939 Register guest blog for Find My Past: An intrepid cocoa-buyer, and Uncle Bill’s fate.
At sea & in the air: Wivenhoe’s Green boys
I’ve mentioned Grandma’s photo album before, when it turned out that the unnamed WW1 soldier posing in a Brighton studio was in fact her Uncle Bill....
Mistley and the Witchfinder
I knew I would come across the burial of Matthew Hopkins, “witchfinder general”, when I came to transcribe Mistley‘s earliest parish register....
Georgian “Cluedo” in Manningtree’s parish register
Well this is a very odd thing… a plan for the ground floor of a house, from Manningtree‘s register covering 1695-1775. It looks bizarrely like a boa...