Baptisms for Shelley, Suffolk, now online!
Nearly a century of baptisms for Shelley, Suffolk, from 1813 to 1901 now at Essex & Suffolk Surnames! Many thanks to Anthony Tricker for sending me these tr...
Tag: 19th century
More Boxted records!
Over 1,000 more records added for Boxted, Essex, from 1760 to 1813 – 775 baptisms and 630 burials.
Talk: Wivenhoe’s epidemics
Just a quick note – I’m giving a talk for the Wivenhoe History Group at the William Loveless Hall in Wivenhoe on Wednesday 8th July at 7.30pm. All a...
The Cigarmaker’s Gift
My great-great-grandfather, James Thomas Ashworth (1849-1890) was a cigarmaker, who lived in Bermondsey. There’s no surviving photos of him, as far as I k...
Video: The Secret of the Edwardian Brooch
This might look like a fairly ordinary photograph brooch, but it has a secret…. Audio transcript (PDF – 40KB)
Interview with Janice Preston, historical romance author
The first book by Janice Preston, historical romance novelist, was published this summer. Mary and the Marquis tells the tale of a widow, who finds an injured m...
The Taylor family album
In July, I went to Somerset to visit my dad, and we ended up in the Smuggler’s Cave in Watchet. There’s all sorts of treasures to be found here R...
Inspector Whicher, Sergeant Cuff, Mr. Holmes, Monsieur Poirot
Yesterday[1]I started to write this on Christie’s birthday, but this behemoth could not be completed in one day. was Agatha Christie’s 124th birthda...
Things you’ll see in “Ripper Street” series 3. Honest.
Filming has finished on the third series of late-Victorian, plaid-encrusted crime-drama Ripper Street. Huzzah! Herewith, illustrated in 19th century engravings,...
Jack the Ripper DNA test proves… not very much, really
My friend Anna asked me what I think about the DNA testing which apparently “proves” that Aaron Kosminski was the infamous Jack the Ripper. I posted...