Blog - family history and ancestor stories.
July 10, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has made us realise just how important health is to all of us, both our own health and the health of the nation and indeed the world. People ask “How can tracing our ancestors and family history and genealogy help us with this?” The answer is that it can. As well as genealogy, George English has worked for the National Health Service […]
July 3, 2020
Many of you exploring your family’s past will have relatives who went abroad; or live overseas, in this case, in Australia or New Zealand, but with ancestors from England, Scotland, Wales or Ireland. Among the pleasures of ancestry search services are that it gives us a better understanding of the history of the times when our ancestors lived. It also makes the world a smaller […]
June 26, 2020
This is for those of you who have ancestors from the green and pleasant land of England. To give you an idea of what may be involved in bringing your English ancestors to life with family history research, England has had a long and fascinating history stretching back to Alfred the Great and before. In more recent times, the 1700s saw the Georgian age and […]
June 19, 2020
“I’ve finally found this old record for my ancestor – but I can’t read it!” It’s a common complaint! Much of family search genealogy is about the expertise to know where to look to find records. There are 3 key questions: 1) did your ancestor do something that was recorded?; 2) has it survived?; and 3) can it be found? And with old records, fewer […]
June 12, 2020
What I want to talk about, as opposed to researching your ancestors and where they came from, is researching the house that you live in. People come and say, “I live in this interesting old house. I wonder who lived here beforehand?” So, this video is about Researching Your House Through Time. We’ll give you some examples of where we’ve done this for people who […]
June 2, 2020
BACK TO THE FAMILY FUTURE continues with Joseph Lough, Eliza Dobson, Edward Dobson and Lucy Lough bringing the ancestors to life. Act 3: 1856 The sound quality in the video is poor so it is suggested that you watch the video along with this blog script. Eliza Dobson talks about the historic events that have happened in her lifetime, including the French Revolution, Ireland joining […]
June 2, 2020
This Family Reunion was held in St Leonard’s Church in Shoreditch in the East End of London where the Lough and Dobson families worshipped in the 19th century. BBC2’s Bafta-winning comedy ‘Rev‘, starring Tom Hollander and Olivia Colman. was filmed in St Leonard’s Church. The sound quality in the video is poor so it is suggested that you watch the video along with this blog […]
May 29, 2020
We are the chosen, called to find our ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again. To tell the family story and to feel that somehow those who went before know and approve. We are the storytellers of the tribe. We’re living in totally unprecedented times with this pandemic of COVID-19. And people ask me “Well, how can family history help […]
May 21, 2020
“What do Taylor Swift and I have in common?” I asked my grandchildren as I put them to bed. “Not a lot” came the reply. “What about Richard Gere and me?” “Certainly not his looks.” “But I love music and I’ve seen Pretty Woman many times” I protested. It was no good, I wasn’t getting anywhere. Then I got their attention. I said “But we’re […]
May 16, 2020
400 years ago, 102 passengers set sail from England to the New World on a ship called the Mayflower. Among the passengers was Richard Warren, one of George English’s ancestors This 5 part video has been made about the events during the Reformation leading up to “most influential journey in western history”; the voyage itself, and the enormous impact the Mayflower’s voyage has had ever […]
May 11, 2020
We’ve made this video for those of you who had ancestors who emigrated from Britain to USA or Canada. Migration’s fascinating, why does someone leave one place and go somewhere else? There’s many motivations that may be behind a person leaving one country and going to another. It may be what we call ‘push’ – things like war, famine, persecution or other causing them to […]
May 3, 2020
In Part 2, the example is of Philippe de Lannoy who went over to New England in 1621, where his name was soon changed to Philip Delano. The de Lannoys came from a place called Tourcoing in Flanders, where the Lords were the noble de Lannoy family, descended from royalty. In 1899, a claim was published that Philippe’s ancestors were from the noble de Lannoy […]