This week’s theme is ‘Translation’. I have a mysterious Great great grandfather named Thomas Darchy who was born in Augsburg, Bavaria in 1820 but lived the first eleven or so years of his life with a Prussian-born guardian in Neuchatel, Switzlerland. When he was aged 10 the guardian received a letter from someone apparently connected… Read more

The theme for this week is Gone Too Soon. My maternal grandmother Lily Hunt was the tenth and last child of school teachers Edwin Hunt and Margaret Morgan who married in Reading, Berkshire in 1862. The seventh and ninth children, unfortunately, did not survive early childhood. The ninth only survived a few months, but the… Read more

The theme for this week is “I can identify…” Or rather, I can’t. So frustrating! Trying to identify all the family members in several photos of my father in law’s funeral in August 1953. Squadron Leader Wiliam Frederick Hoffmann AFC (“Bill”) remained in the British Air Force after WW2, and was on holiday at Penzance… Read more

Topic: Outcast. I have chosen a broad interpretation – “someone different from the others” but without the usual connotations of being cast out as a pariah. My Great Uncle George Johnston (1855-1885) certainly fits this bill. With 12 close uncles and aunts and almost 40 first cousins in Scotland, he was the first seaman in… Read more

Topic; Social media The advent of the Internet was one of the most significant events in my life, coming at the same time as my interest in genealogy was awakened. Early Rootsweb discussion lists (In the days before Ancestry) were rich sources of information, assistance and camaderie on a scale I had never experienced with… Read more

the subject for this week is Oops. I had finished a family history book and published it with Blurb. Luckily I only ordered one copy. A cousin, proof reader par excellence, noticed a discrepancy in the Preview on Blurb and also asked if I could include a little more information which had arrived too late… Read more