Features

Guides, tutorials, interviews, research and opinion pieces on family and social history

800px-004635024_00042_Devon_Baptism,_1647

Transcription Tuesday 2022: FamilySearch

Canadian family history - view of Busy Bon Secours Market

Canadian family history: The best websites

14th October 1932: Members of a children's games club for under-sevens playing 'blind man's bluff' in Hyde Park, London. DNA testing can be used to find your distant relatives

How to use a DNA test to find your distant relatives

'The Environs of London from Greenwich', c1620-1630, 17th century. Artist: Anon

17th century history: What was life like in the 17th century?

Children sit in front of their bombed-out house in London's East End during the Blitz

What was the Blitz, when did it start and how long did it last?

Black and white photograph of 1st Padiham (St Leonard's) Boy Scout troop in the 1930s

When did the Boy Scouts start?

First World War nurses, Christmas Day 1914

Discover your past

How to find First World War nurses’ records

An Empire Flag Day fundraiser for hospitals in London to provide healthcare before the NHS

What was healthcare like before the NHS?

Scottish criminal records. Four thieves and pickpockets in police custody in Glasgow, circa 1865. From left to right, James Martin Lindsay, James Brown Cummings, Peter Hasson and John McRae.

Scottish ancestry: How to find Scottish criminal records

19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon is an example of surnames in Essex family history

Essex family history: The top 10 Essex surnames

The defeat of the British army at Tweebosch, on 7 March 1902, in the Second Boer War

How to find Boer War service records

22nd October 1937: Merchant Navy Cadets learning how to use a sextant at University College, Southampton. How to find Merchant Navy records

How to find Merchant Navy records

Royal Navy service records Sepia photograph of 16 Royal Navy ship's officers posed for a photograph on board ship in 1890, with the ship's cat

How to find Royal Navy service records

Manorial records. A farm worker ties bundles of wheat reaped by his colleague operating a harvester in Sussex, June 1887

Discover your past

What are manorial records?

Victorian family 1893 Victorian photographs

How to date Victorian and Edwardian photographs