🚨 New on Substack: my post on the post-war history of Wolverhampton's Low Hill Estate: ‘a popular place to live’ municipaldreams.substack.com/p/the-low-hi...

Fresh October newsletter out now. claires-newsletter-3b3509.beehiiv.com/p/time-to-ha... #GenHour #AncestryHour #IrishGenealogy

www.ancestry.co.uk/c/dna/offer?... AncestryDNA kits on Ancestry UK are £39! #Genealogy

That thing where you’re looking at parish maps in an actual book of The Phillimore Atlas & Index of Parish Registers… and try to use 2 fingers to zoom in on the area of interest. Ah well, I’ll take an actual pic then to zoom in on. 🙈😂

Looking forward to this.

I have a talk this Saturday with the Irish Genealogical Society International - Irish Migrations to Canada! It's a topic near and dear to my heart, given that all of my Irish ancestors who came to North America settled in Canada! If you're interested: www.irishgenealogical.org/eventListing...

As every family knows, life gets busy after the arrival of a newborn. Top tip from the mid 19th century - have your baby baptised before it's born! Not a straightforward transcription howler. Columns in original register not consistently used for birth or bap dates. #Genealogy #FamilyHistory

A good example of why we should always view all available copies of a record. Here we have two versions of the same marriage record; on the left is the Bishops' Transcript, on the right the original from the parish register of All Saints, Wigan. Check out the witnesses...

"Using DNA for Family History Research: A Beginner's Guide" will take place online on Sat 20 Sept at 7pm UK time, admission £10. (A recording will be made available for a week after.) To register, please visit us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi... I'll hopefully see you there! #genealogy #FamilyHistory

Teachers’ Windrush Workshop. Free online event Sunday, 7 September 2025, 7 pm to 9 pm BST. The event isn't exclusive to teachers, but is also open to anyone who would like to learn how to share the truth about Windrush with others. #Windrush […] [Original post on mastodon.green]

I might have discovered this joy….

I went to the Andy Goldsworthy exhibition in Edinburgh today and it was rather fabulous. But no surprise that I was mesmerised by the installation called ‘Gravestones’

Just 6 weeks left until the Halsted Trust’s #Genealogy & #FamilyHistory conference. Apparently only a few residential places remain. I’m so looking forward to catching up with genealogy friends in person. Who’s going to be there? secretsandlies.org.uk

When you love books, maps and 19th century social history, Kris Butler’s book involving all 3 is VERY difficult to resist. #FamilyHistory #Genealogy #SocialHistory

It really helps to understand a set of records if you can work out how the clerks used them went about their job. In the indexes to the Stock Ledgers held at the Bank England Archives. The surnames are arranged by: 1 initial letter 2 first consonant after the initial letter 3 first vowel Genius!

For the second time recently, I registered twins with the exact same first name. I advised against it and it probably will cause issues… but the parent was insistent 🤦🏻‍♀️

Here is our poster for our Family History Fair and plus celebrating the Society's 45th Anniversary. I hope as many people will come and see us. #familyhistory #genealogy #cornexchangedoncaster

Happisburgh, #Norfolk, considers how to save a 15th C graveyard from coastal erosion. www.bbc.com/news/article...

A bookshop is my happy place. I love them all but the bookshop at The National Archives in Kew might just have captured a special place in my heart. Not only a whole section on social history, but a whole wall dedicated to Family History. Which other bookshops have good #familyhistory #genealogy?

In London for a couple of days & while walking between Euston & King’s X I walked past this lovely example of interwar social housing. So of course I had to go and find out all about it. Interesting history & renovation/restoration of Levita House c20society.org.uk/building-of-...

@nifhs.bsky.social recently had an mtDNA offer & I grabbed the opportunity. Then life got busy & I’ve just remembered the test is still sitting in my office. Would love to hear from anyone who’s taken an mtDNA test and what you did or didn’t discover. #genealogy #FamilyHistory

For #FathersDay I thought I would reshare my blog about the most prolific father I have researched — William Wilson of Whitehaven, reputed father of 33 children!

24 HOURS TO GO! The new Railway Work, Life & Death project dataset arrives tomorrow afternoon. We're launching it at The National Archives of the UK @nationalarchives.gov.uk.web.brid.gy at 2pm! Get ready ... c.70,000 railway worker accident cases, covering England & Wales, 1855-1929 #Railway200

@gwsfhs.org.uk is my fav FHS. Excellent help to people from all around the world who contact them online. But I esp love the warm welcome & great help they give all visitors, from down the road or the other side of the world, to their research room in Glasgow. Open on Tues, Thurs & Sat 1-4.

Very timely. Over the past week or so, I've visited Sommerville Drive in Mount Florida a few times , one of the very streets that run alongside Hampden, and I had wondered about the origins of the name.

Explain your username. MarpleCat predates my genie business. Always a detective, uncovering what was going on with all sorts of issues. An old boss dubbed me Miss Marple after the Agatha C detective, 30 odd years ago, and then a friend labelled me Detective Cat. MarpleCat was born from them both.

It would be remiss of me not to give this one a little #GenHour plug this evening. I'm so grateful to @familytreeuk.bsky.social for giving me the opportunity to talk about mental health, and for Kathryn's help in understanding more about Maud.

1/ I'm looking forward to speaking at the Bristol Radical History Festival on 26 April on 'Housing the People: the Contested Role of the State from Pre-Industrial Times to the 1930s'. There's a great range of speakers and topics - see the next post: www.brh.org.uk/site/events/...

Today could be the last day to get hold of wills for £1.50 (England & Wales) before a price rise, which might be significant. See the lastest LostCousins newsletter for more info. I've just placed an order for 4 and the website was struggling... www.lostcousins.com/newsletters2...

Scottish Water Mills map on @natlibscot.bsky.social is a great resource. Not all mills are mapped,eg Burnside Mill in Rutherglen where I was recently researching mills for a client. From the high level map you can zoom in to more detail on each mill pinpointed. #genealogy maps.nls.uk/projects/mil...

Looking forward to the Halsted Trust’s family history conference in September and its theme of “black sheep” ancestors, and especially love the opportunity to meet up with fellow genealogists and family history enthusiasts, even more so after the Zoom only years. secretsandlies.org.uk #genealogy

Scotland's History Online (SHO) - 15% off until May 30th! Access the most comprehensive & prestigious digital library of Scottish historical research from Edinburgh University Press, Birlinn Ltd & TannerRitchie Publishing. Interested? Contact [email protected] today! #history #scotland

Looks like Irishgenealogy is loading on the new year of records. Indexes for the 3 new years are now up but the images aren't there yet. It surely won't be long now! (births for 1924, marriages for 1949 & 1974 deaths) #IrishGenealogy #GenHour #AncestryHour

On a very cold & overcast Sunday morning in Dundee I visited the ancient Howff cemetery. A lot of info & photos online far better than my snaps but visiting in person is more than worth it. A very special spot surrounded by tenements that must surely have contributed to the survival the headstones.

In Glasgow you’re not a real statue unless you’ve got a traffic cone on your head.

You know I can't help but remind you of Annie Moore on St. Patrick's Day! I hope you'll consider reading about the Irish teenager who was the first to arrive at Ellis Island and what it took to uncover her story. ☘️ 🗽 #StPatricksDay

☘️ Happy #StPatricksDay! ☘️ For the past five years I've loved being able to celebrate St Patrick's Day as an Irish citizen. It was a bit of genealogical challenge to achieve but I got there in the end. I wrote about in my often neglected blog. www.marplecat.com/post/from-ir...

The Victorian grandeur of Rothesay, a popular 19th century holiday destination on the Isle of Bute, has faded, but the gents “public conveniences” are fabulous relic of the past. #Genealogy

On a Saturday morning in February I could take photos of the Victorian train & ferry terminal at Wemyss Bay with not a soul about, but in its heyday it would’ve seen thousands passing through on their way to Rothesay, a popular Victorian holiday destination on the Isle of Bute. #Genealogy

We've added new maps, including the pictured 1974 Ordnance Survey map of Loch Sionascaig & Suilven, to our website 🗺️   In these OS maps, footpaths and bridleways were shown with green dashed lines, woodland shown as a green stipple, and buildings shown with a black stipple 💚🖤

Early 19c Scottish Catholic baptisms can be so useful for family reconstruction with relationships of named sponsors given for some & husbands' names for others. From pre-1830 baptisms, I could identify siblings, cousins & confirm parentage in the congregation rolls beyond a 🧱. #Genealogy

This week we began that difficult process of going through your parents’ things to empty your childhood home. Photos & docs were all packed away to be looked at later. Started tonight & what a joy to find my Pat GM’s original 1897 birth certificate plus a baby photo of me with a mat aunt. #Genealogy

Working on client’s NE Scotland early 19c family & made a sibling breakthrough. While hunting for clues on Ancestry I suddenly realised the found sibling was an ancestor of a client I’d previously worked with. There seems to be no connection between the clients. Anyone else had this? #Genealogy

Can’t find a child in the 1939 Register? Yes, they may be redacted but another possibility, particularly if the family home was in a town or city, is that they had been evacuated. You might find them miles from home living with strangers. #familyhistory #WW2 #genealogy

Free Online United States Naturalization Record Collections - Updated An underutilized source of outstanding #genealogy info is Naturalization Records. They are excellent to include in your research. There are 3,600 Online Collections for the region at https://buff.ly/4amh0ta

A brand new #Blog exploring how easy it is to accept an online hint at face value and the pitfalls of what happens if you do. Does your tree have solid roots? Have you built a tree that stands the test of time? #Genealogy #FamilyTree chiddicksfamilytree.com/2025/01/17/h...

For any one wondering about the strange price point for my Annie Moore of Ellis Island book, she arrived on 1 Jan 1892 - hence, $18.92. A little nod to history! #genealogy

Irvine Harbourside at dusk today. Once a Royal Burgh dating back to the 14thC. And then the 1960s arrived with its wrecking ball named “new town”. Thankfully the money ran out before the eye popping plans for harbourside could be executed. Today the town is reclaiming some of its past. #genealogy

My 5-week long Progressing Your Irish Research Online genealogy course, taught via @pharostutors.bsky.social, starts on February 17th! For further details on the course, and on how to register, please visit www.pharostutors.com/progressing-... - I hope to maybe see you there! #genealogy #Ireland

Schedule for this Saturday's free to access Scotttish Indexes #FamilyHistory conference scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2025/01/sche... #genealogy #Scotland