Every Family has a story to tell……….Welcome to mine
Can you really truly know who you are, if you don't know where you came from? It's a simple enough question and one that I am sure that many family historians and probably many psychologists will have considered at some point. Even to the point of analysing why some people are so passionate and so … Continue reading Do You Know Who You Are?
A few years ago I was fortunate enough to visit the National Arboretum in Staffordshire, which holds over 300 memorials to those lives that have sadly been lost in conflict and civilian life. The Arboretum stands as a place which honours the fallen and recognises their service and their sacrifice for their country. It was first … Continue reading My Visit to The National Memorial Arboretum
Updated and Revised Version (April 2026) In many ways, being a family history researcher can feel like being a ‘detective’, hunting for clues to solve the latest ‘mystery’. You may have a few uncorroborated facts that you have pieced together, but it is that one piece of ‘critical evidence’ that is missing which prevents you … Continue reading How To Become A Family History Detective Using My ABC Guide
All families have secrets, and it’s almost inevitable that when we undertake genealogical research, that family secrets will emerge. Discovering family secrets might be wonderful, but they can often be distressing, upsetting and even confusing, for those involved. We might even find ourselves having to stop our research and reflect on what we have discovered … Continue reading Ethical Dilemmas and How To Approach Them
For those of you that enjoy a good genealogy podcast series, then why not have a listen to The Journeys Into Genealogy Podcast by the delightful Emma Cox. This week Emma interviewed me on all things genealogy related. We discussed how I became interested in genealogy myself, how I became the writer of the Dear … Continue reading Journeys Into Genealogy Podcast
It's a simple enough question, you have found your family in all the census returns and you have captured every birth, death and marriage for your ancestors, but have you discovered everything there is to find out about them? The census returns only give you a quick snapshot of what the family were doing; in … Continue reading What Did Our Ancestors Do Between The Census Years?
Every once in a while you stumble across a story, almost by accident and you wonder how on earth have I missed that! Well recently I did just that, whilst doing some random searches on the newspaper archives section of the FindMyPast website. It was while I was revisiting some old searches, that I found … Continue reading Was She Pushed? Did She Jump? Or Did She Fall?
Over the last few years, I’ve been steadily working my way through writing the biographies of my eight great-grandparents and my sixteen 2× great-grandparents. It’s been a hugely rewarding process, but as anyone who blogs about family history will know, there comes a point where you pause, look up from the research, and think: what next? … Continue reading When All You Need is a Little ‘Prompt’
My good friend Kelly Wheaton recently wrote a really thought provoking blog about how she first became interested in researching her family history and the reasons why she started on her family history journey, the link to Kelly's blog can be found here; What Got You Started in Genealogy Kelly also asked her friends to … Continue reading How It Started, How It’s Going……….
It feels somewhat strange setting these goals for 2022, whilst we are living with so much uncertainty in our day to day lives, but all I/we can do, is try and maintain a sense of normality, whatever normality is and try to maintain some kind of perspective with life. With that in mind I have … Continue reading New Year, New Goals
The Chiddicks Family Tree 