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The entrance to The National Archives

Discover your past

How to make the most of FREE online family history records from The National Archives

Ivan Watson's great great aunt Mary Sangster McDonald, photographed c.1892 with her first husband Peter Watson

Family hero My Scottish ancestor was Queen Mary’s private nurse

Huguenot Quentin Coquard's 1764 marriage record

Eureka moment I traced my French ancestry in seconds with this website

Descendants of the Alicandro, Anginotti, Canetti, Carboni, Pellegrina, Pelligrino (Julie Fawcett, far right), Persighetti and Saccomando families in the former church of St Vincent, Sheffield

Reader story I reunited the descendants of Sheffield's Little Italy community

Private R.A.S. Pagani aged 19

Family hero Dad escaped Dunkirk and the Death Railway

This old family photograph from 1909 shows William Williams, seated left, at the wedding of his daughter Harriet

Eureka moment I found my mystery ancestor through DNA links

Amanda Webb

Family hero My ancestor owned the land where Richard III was buried

Mrs Maybrick on trial, 1889

Did Florence Maybrick murder her husband?

Peter Ameglio with his father Giacomo (Jack), stepmother Antonietta and half-sister Rita

Eureka moment A scribbled address helped us find my GI grandfather

Bertrand Clark tennis player

Family hero I'm related to the first black tennis player to play at Wimbledon

Cissy Lecky First World War nurse

Family hero My great aunt kept her WW1 nursing a secret

An operation in a lecture theatre at University College Hospital Medical School, London, in 1898

How to find doctors and nurses in your family tree

John Wedderburn, seated

Military What do these photographs reveal about my grandfather's service in WW1?

William Southway marriage, 1829

Brick wall Are these two William Southways the same person?

Volante ice cream seller

Italian ancestors How do I research my Italian great grandmother?