Great grandfather was a rolling stone and in his life he is said to have gone to Oz for gold mining; been the private jockey to Lord Methuen; fought in the 2nd Bechuanaland wars; been the 'Chief of Police' in Ghana - all supposed to have take
...
Read More >>

My mother told me that her mother's grandfather was a captain in the British Army, who married a Spaniard and was killed by a lightning strike, dying with a fork in his hand.

When I was finally able to research the family, I found that Michael Ahe

My husband was told, about 10 years ago, that his great grandfather John, on his male line, came down from Scotland to Maidenhead in Berkshire to build Brunel's famous Sounding Arch bridge over the River Thames, which carries the once Great Weste

My great aunt always maintained that we were related to Lord Baden-Powell. The closest I have got is my great great grandfather who married an Elizabeth Rebecca Powell in Ireland in 1841. However, this is not my great aunt's family line but my gr

My father was born in 1910 in Lowestoft, a town dominated by the fishing industry until the middle of the last century. Christmases were always “feast or famine” when he was a child. A few good catches and the children had far more than a

Sometimes we look at information on official documents, the censuses for instance, trust it to be true and it turns out not to be so. At other times the information gives us only half the story but we feel instinctively that it is correct. In my ques

Having gone back to 1521 in the usual ways, with my direct line, I started looking for the flesh on the bones. Amongst much else I found, in my local Public Records Office, some Sun Fire office records and discovered that my great 4x grandfather, sho

Well, Grandma Waterfield was the stuff of whispered family legend.

She was a tough old bird who didn’t take any nonsense; even her grandchildren had to ask for permission to breathe. Grandma Waterfield was religious, always having to find a new

Cyclone Tracy devastated Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia on the night of Christmas Eve 1974. On the day of the cyclone, most residents of Darwin believed that the cyclone would not cause any damage to the city as Cyclone ...
Read More >>

Christmas is an annual holiday, which celebrates the birth of Christ, the word being derived from ‘Christ’s Mass’. The festivities also incorporate pagan winter festivals, which were included to encourage conversion to Christianity

At the beginning of WW2 my mum Joyce was just 13 years old and her brother Colin was 15. They were a musical family, mum was a singer and her brother a talented pianist. As soon as he was able, Colin joined the Merchant Navy and travelled all over th

This crossword, compiled by Muggins in Sussex, is the first in an occasional series of puzzles. The solution will appear in the next issue.