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The Poignancy of Parish Registers
Parish registers provide a fascinating window into everyday life in England from the 16th century onwards.
The Northamptonshire Earthquake of 1750
English Parish registers sometimes contain contemporary descriptions of momentous events such as earthquakes.
Old Occupations: Glossaries for Ancestry Research
One of the chief interests in researching your ancestors is finding out what they did for a living. But many occupations have changed over the years, and so has the vocabulary. So what exactly was a Sagger Bottom Knocker? a Throstle Doffer? Here, in no...
Unexpectedly Royal Ancestors
Family legends are fascinating, and many contain at least a grain of truth. Have you heard the one about the humble labourer who married high above his station? Or the apparently ordinary family who had noble or even royal ancestors? This is the story of a...
Tracing Your Ancestors (in England): Top Tips
Here at Debrett Ancestry Research we have researched more than 7,500 families over the years. Tracing your ancestors is a fascinating and absorbing occupation and we all learn endlessly from what we do. But here are a few pointers for those just starting out. Tip 1:...
Season of Misrule
The ancient traditions of Misrule drove festivities through to a riotous Twelfth Night.
Prince Harry, Baron Kilkeel
The town of Kilkeel, in County Down, Northern Ireland, is an ancient settlement famous for its granite, its fishing fleet, the natural beauty of its mountains of Mourne that ‘sweep down to the sea’, and as from the 19th May 2018, its royal connection, as Prince Harry...
The new Earl of Dumbarton
In bestowing upon Prince Harry the subsidiary title of Earl of Dumbarton, the Crown has made an unusual choice. The earldom, which has been extinct for nearly 270 years, was held for two generations by a junior branch of the aristocratic Scottish family of Douglas...
Spotting Fake Genealogy
In a world where fake news has become as significant as the real thing, it’s time to shine a light into another dark corner: fake genealogy. Why fake it? From ancient times, genealogy has been a powerful tool in reinforcing identity, whether personal or political....
Maidenhead spoons in old wills and inventories
One of the most fascinating genealogical tasks is reading old wills and inventories. For a start, there is the humbling recognition that the goods and chattels of even a well-to-do householder, right up to the eighteenth centuryy, could be listed on a single page....
Colwell Wood and Colwell Wood Cottage
In a clearing in the heart of Colwell Wood, in the parish of Offwell, near Honiton in Devon, stands a seemingly insignificant cottage known as Colwell Wood Cottage. This property, and the land around it, was the subject of one of our first ventures into house history...
Surname origins online
In Britain, the surname lies at the heart of genealogy; most of us carry round with us a medieval name-tag which might have arisen from where an ancestor lived, what they looked like or their occupation. In 1986 Debrett Ancestry Research acquired Frank Leeson’s...
Creating a Family Biography
We have recently relaunched a service that we first introduced in the 1980s (as our Family Heritage Programme). We had a number of clients whose ancestry we had already traced, and who were now looking to obtain a lasting summary of their family history in a coherent...
The Brewer’s Drayman
This photograph, found in a junk shop many miles from where it was taken, apparently portrays the draymen of McEwan’s Fountain Brewery, which was founded in 1856 by the brewer-politician William McEwan, donor of Edinburgh University’s magnificently grandiose McEwan...
DNA and the descent of hereditary titles
Later this month the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council will make an important judgement as to whether DNA evidence can be used to decide how hereditary titles should descend. The case in point relates to the baronetcy that was granted to the Pringle family of...
An eighteenth century choir loft
In 1729 eighteen singing men of the parish clubbed together to build a choir gallery in the parish church of St Lawrence, Gnosall, Staffordshire. The gallery or loft was situated next to the pulpit, rather than at the rear of the church. Tucked away in the parish...
Old Photos: an Intriguing Trio
From a box of old photos in a junk shop: a photo of three young nurses in the 1940s. On the back of an off duty photo of the three young women is inscribed: 18 March 1948 Porthos: L. A. Everett Aramis: Rikki [?] Hughes Athos: B. Darbyshire 'Rikki' might have...
Letter from the Crimean War
One of the great fascinations of genealogy is the way that personal stories sometimes leap off the page of what might – were it not for microfilm and digitisation – have been a dry and dusty pile of official documents. Wills – particularly the older ones – can...
George Dean-Pitt: from plumber to Major-General
The latest volume of the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research includes as its opening article an account of the meteoric career of Major-General George Dean-Pitt by genealogist Gervase Belfield of Debrett Ancestry Research. The research, and the...
Some Do’s and Don’ts in Genealogy
We have been researching British ancestry since the 1970s. Our starting point is often the research already carried out by the family. From the thousands of cases we have worked on, here are a few hints for those just starting out... DO Talk to your relatives Your...
Samuel Lewis’s Topographical Dictionaries
In a previous blog (June 2013) we wrote of our affection for the Victorian encyclopedia Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates. Another well-worn favourite on the Debrett bookshelves (although it is now available online) is Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of England (5th...
Recollections: Telling the family story
'I remember, I remember...' A frequent lament we hear from clients is that they never asked their relatives enough about the unique story of their lives. Everyone has a story to tell, but many stories go untold. And even with today’s multiple means of communicating,...
Sir William Betham, ‘great Irish genealogist’
The adjective ‘great’ is not one frequently applied to genealogists, but a notable exception is Sir William Betham (1779–1853), often described as a ‘great Irish genealogist’. Sir William was not however Irish by birth, and probably would not have described himself...
Bishop Shute Barrington and the English Parish Register
We have previously hailed Thomas Cromwell, father of the English parish register, and the 18th century priest and antiquary, William Dade (1741-1790), who strove to make the register a more detailed genealogical record. Contemporary with Dade, and more widely known,...
William Dade and the English Parish Register
In a previous blog (July 2013) we lauded Thomas Cromwell, the formidable father of the English parish register. We turn now to a lesser known pioneer, the 18th century priest and antiquary, William Dade. Before Rose’s Act of 1812, there was no standardised form in...
The Victorian spinster: celebrating the non-celebrity
Putting flesh on the bones of history – and of our genealogies – is something of a modern quest: in former times most ancestor-seekers were more concerned with clocking up generations, and if you could collect the odd title or historical celebrity along the way, so...
English Parish Registers
The recording of what the Americans call ‘vital statistics’ – the bare events of birth, marriage and death or, in the case of parish registers, baptism, marriage and burial – is something we now take for granted. We fret if our ancestors – through negligence,...
Female Ancestry: Following the Maternal Path
The vast majority of our clients want us to concentrate on their paternal ancestry, which is understandable as this is the traditional way in which we view our family history in Britain. Looking from the child to its father, and then to its father’s father, is deeply...
In praise of books
Like many other areas of life, genealogy has become heavily internet-dependent, which on the whole has been a welcome boost for both the professional and the amateur genealogist. Here at Debrett we are still nevertheless surrounded by walls full of books, many of...
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