Yesterday I spent hours diligently taking our Christmas decorations down (so we wouldn’t get bad luck, obviously) only to arrive at the office this morning and find all this I’d forgotten about! 😱 So if anything disastrous befalls any client’s family history research this year, it’s all my fault!

I work nights during the school holidays AND my husband has a gluten allergy SO I get to take ALL our Christmas biscuit gifts to the office with me … all for me! 😋

We hope all our clients have had a wonderful Christmas Day! We had an extra special visitor 🎅 and still lots more celebrating to come 🥂🎄

I was working late tonight but returned home to find this taped to the hallway wall ❤️

Some of the lovely things about winter (apart from Christmas and my birthday!) are the pretty skies on my morning commute to work!

There’s a tree outside our office window that has beautiful red leaves in autumn. Each year I love trying to spot the final leaf to fall. We’re down to the final two contenders! Which will be the winner?? Left or right??

I’m working on a family tree involving a man from London who, in the 1910s, worked as a coke carman. This is all I’m picturing!!

Some lovely autumn colours on my way to the office this morning 🌅

We did a bit of skiving from the office today … as it’s our 15th wedding anniversary! ❤️

I think autumn has come round early this year! 🍁🍂🥮🎃 I’ve had to get my office blankets out!

While family trees are keeping the grown ups busy, our plum tree is giving our eight-year-old plenty to do in the kitchen! Here’s something she whipped up earlier 🥧👩‍🍳

It was Yorkshire Day yesterday! 🥳 Our team - Michael, Caroline and Liz - are all proudly Yorkshire. So naturally, we spent the day celebrating at historic Chatsworth, in … Derbyshire!!!??? 🤨😱 (That’s Liz in the red hoodie with her husband)

Currently working on a scandalous Victorian affair - in 1866 a young widower from rural Rutland eloped to London to marry his second wife. Nothing wrong with that, you may be thinking … but his bride was his stepdaughter!! 🤢

On my way to the office this evening, this little moth followed me down the street and kept bumping into my hand. Then a wood pigeon crashed into my window, narrowly missing the open bit!! I get the feeling nature is trying to tell me something!

We don’t live far from our office but I’m genuinely starting to worry how I’m going to get home for my tea a little later!!! 🌧️

We’re not the only busy bees in the office this afternoon! This little chap clearly mistook us for a bee-nealogy company 🤭🐝

Found an interesting occupation in a client’s family tree. I thought at first I’d found my first 21st century software engineer who’d time travelled back to 1860s Utah! But apparently adobe was also type of brick used to build ranches, somewhat disappointingly 😆🧱🏡

I found this lovely little snippet in an 1855 newspaper clipping: “Happiness can be made easier, and quite as well, of cheap materials as of dear ones.”

I do love finding quirkily-named ancestors in our family trees. I’ve just come across a Victorian child named Esther Vester!

It’s Michael’s birthday!! 🎁 To celebrate, he’s gone to the local library to look at some old books. (Of course!!)

Working on a delightful family tree where the 2 sides of the family came from opposite ends of 🇬🇧 - the paternal side from Cornwall & maternal side from the remotest part of the Scottish Highlands! What chance meeting brought the Cornish grandfather & Scottish grandmother together? 🤩🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

And talking of amazing reviews, this is what AI has to say about us 🤩😆

We have kindly been left another 5* review on Google!! 🥳🎉

The other day my little girl picked me some flowers for my desk. We now officially have an office one o’clock! 🌼🦁

We hope all our clients have had a lovely Easter weekend! 🐣

We’ve been embracing our Welsh roots in Wales over the school holidays. Back in the office now, catching up! 📝

Working on tonight’s family tree and I’m continually spotting celebrity names within it. So far this evening I’ve found an Elizabeth Hurley, a Henry Cavill and a Michael Caine! ⭐️

This week’s family history project is taking much longer than usual - I keep finding affairs, adoptions, “murderous assaults”, unexplained deaths, incestuous relationships and stashes of newspaper reports about the family’s criminal exploits! In other words, my favourite kind of family tree!! 🥳

Our dark green family history Storybooks looking very neat!

Decided to make a homework chart for the girls. Thought I’d save a bit of time and use AI in Photoshop. Here’s what happened when I asked it to produce six boxes 😂 (and it couldn’t even get the amount correct!!)

🚨🗞️ News just in! 📰🚨 Our genealogist Michael Rochford has been elected Honorary Secretary of the 100-year-old Wakefield Historical Society! 🏅 He’s ready to take the helm!

Writing up a report about the sudden death of an elderly man who was drinking in a pub in Bristol in the summer of 1860. The coroner heard how the gent had fallen from a seat, and “before medical assistance could be procured, life had fled.” 🕊️

We have a lovely new GREEN family history Storybook! 💚

Last World Book Day our eldest was at Buckingham Palace meeting Queen Camilla, having made it through to the final of the BBC’s 500 Words competition! This year our youngest has transformed into Queen Elizabeth II, complete with a corgi, and she is VERY much in character 😄👑

It’s amazing how transformative a set of library steps (handmade in a sustainable Indonesian forest) can be. Michael, who’s living his library dream, has gone from historian to Belle overnight! (All we’re missing now is a Beast and a castle … 🤞)

We’ve been hard at work in the British Library in London today! 🚂

Valentine’s roses 🌹 next to my Christmas poinsettia 🌺 We hope everyone has a lovely day! 💝

Morning, if you’re looking at our website please bear in mind we’re having a few technical issues and our contact form seems to have vanished! If you need to get in touch, please email [email protected] - thank you 😊

Found an intriguing name in the 1851 census - Tamer Barnfather! She was a 46-year-old widowed dressmaker from Cumberland

🚨 Heads up 🚨 Our waiting list is now nine months long. We have spaces available in mid October for new clients!

Just for fun! 😄

Popped to a cafe after the school run and it’s just dawned on me that as we’re child free I get to eat my little biscuit!!! 😱🤩

Found another lovely surname in a family tree: Potvine

I love finding quirky and unusual surnames in our family trees. Winterflood is my favourite of today! ❄️🌊💕

Before we begin any project, we send our clients a form to complete, telling us some details about their family to give us a starting point. This form has always been a paper form … until now! 🤩 It’s only taken us a couple of decades but now we’re fully digital! 😎🖥️ forms.gle/LoQYf3QTaHZF...