Today we had an interment service for my mum at St Dunstan’s, Monks Risborough, where she was married, did local history research (when registers were still in the parish chest), taught Sunday School & baptised her firstborn (me). It was a perfect spot — peaceful, historical and buzzing with nature.

1934 Jeanie Dicks undertook 1st permanent electrification of Winchester Cathedral. Electrifying nave meant removing & reburying coffins except Jane Austen’s (moved gently to side). Press called her the "girl engineer" - she was 40! b. #OTD 25 Sept 1893 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanie_...

I've added a little countdown clock to the 1926 census release on my website. cbgenealogy.ie #IrishGenealogy #AncestryHour #GenHour

🎟️ Tickets for our next concert are now on sale! 💘 Love’s Philosophy 🍂 Saturday 18 October 🕢 7:30 pm 😇 All Saints Church, Headington www.ticketsoxford.com/events/loves... #Headington #Oxford #Choral

BBC News - Citizenship: How ancestry DNA tests can lead to a new passport - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The story of the restoration of St. James's Church, Llangua, Monmouthshire. The church which started as a small stone monastic cell dates back to 1150 & became a parish church in the 15th century. 👇 BBC News - How human hair helped to save a crumbling medieval church www.bbc.com/news/article...

A while ago I wrote a blog about an ancestor who lived in a ‘gypsy caravan’. I was recently contacted by someone who could not only add more details to my research but sent me pictures of a Romani caravan that is still in storage just around the corner from her house! #GenHour

I'm finding the updates about this archaeological project very poignant, especially as last week at the RBA I read 3 police reports about fatal air training accidents that happened near my home in 1942. www.facebook.com/CotswoldArch...

‘The church… is not distinguished for any architectural details of importance’. This is what Samuel Lewis wrote about St Mary’s, Penllech in 1833. 1/6

Really interesting, especially with the links the research has found to literacy

This memorial in Trinity College Chapel may look medieval at a glance but it was made in 1868 for Rev. William John Beaumont. A chaplain to the Forces Hospital in Sebastopol, he died suddenly aged just 40. The #ArtsAndCrafts brass is beautiful but the name has been misspelled as BEAMONT.

A detail from the 25" Ordnance Survey Map of Cerne Abbas, published in 1888. Is it just me or have they missed out an important detail...?

16 September 1936 | A French Jewish girl, Suzanne Mol, was born in Paris. She arrived at #Auschwitz on 21 Aug 1942 in a group of 1,000 Jews deported from Drancy. She was among 817 murdered in gas chambers after the selection. --- Children at Auschwitz: https://lekcja.auschwitz.org/dzieci_EN/

Join us this Saturday 20th for our annual #heritageopenday this year celebrating all things architectural from our #archives & #localstudies collections. Meet the experts on #househistory & #familyhistory and why not drop in for a cuppa at our pop-up Heritage Café. See poster for more details.👇

Ascott Estate in Bedfordshire, just before the rain poured down

Today I visited @berksarchives.bsky.social for the first time, to do some house history research. While wading through 18th-century indentures I chortled when I came across one of the most bombastic names ever: *Lady Mary Appolonia Scholastica, Countess de Rohan Chabot*

UK Disability History Month is 14 November to 20 December this year. The theme is 'disability, livelihood and employment'. Do you know where I might submit a piece to highlight forgotten family members, please? #GenHour #DisabilityHistory #AncestryHour #FamilyHistory #Genealogy #Disability

I'm having a lovely time researching the occupants of my house in 1921. One of them was Reginald Brewer, born in my village in 1905. In the 1911 census he is described as a 'LOVE-CHILD'! He was counted in the children of that marriage but born 1 yr before. I assume Frederick wasn't his bio father.

Opportunity to help support a really lovely local museum — a hub for the local community and for the rich history of Wantage and the Vale of White Horse #heritagejobs #freelancejobs

Thinking of you, Clare. 😊 @digupyourancestors.bsky.social

Love this idea! What #FamilyHistory AI fails can you find?

'As 1891 was more than a century before 1987' 'To access the 1910 census for the UK, you should search the National Archives ...' #familyhistory #AIFail

Wantage marked the 80th anniversary of the end of WW2 today with a small gathering in the market place, heralded by the town crier. While the trumpet played the Last Post and silence was observed, the hush that fell over everyone, even in cafes on the square, was very moving.

Fertile fizzogs I've met along the road - so much diverse variety in our material culture. 🎭

This 12th-century 2-story tower in the old cemetery of Sarlat-la-Canéda is known as a Lanterne des Morts (lantern of the dead) but there are many legends about its origins. Was it built to record a visit by St Bernard in 1147? Or lit to warn citizens of the Plague? Or simply a light for lost souls?

#OTD 1892 • 112 men and boys were killed in an explosion at Parc Slip Colliery near Tondu. The disaster left 60 women widowed and 153 children without fathers. nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/ac... #Wales #History

Agnes, daughter of Stephen, was accidentally killed when she was struck by the sail of a windmill in Herringswell, Suffolk, sometime around the year 1240. Accidents such as these (death by the arm of the windmill) are not common in the records I use in my research🧵1/3...

Historic graffiti is a common yet often overlooked feature of medieval churches. On 13th September, join us at St Helen’s, Skeffling in Yorkshire for a graffiti recording workshop to learn how to investigate, record, and analyse these fascinating etchings and symbols. 1/5

Another outstanding documentary available on iPlayer: *Hunt for the Oldest DNA* The story-telling through a combination of interviews and animation is really effective. #DNA #AncientDNA #paleontology oldestdna.ca

William Wilberforce was born in Hull, OTD in 1759. The Yorkshire School for the Blind was founded in 1833 (closed 1950s) in memory of the abolitionist and Yorkshire MP and two years later moved to King's Manor, York which was originally the Abbot of St Mary's house, and later

Repairs are commencing at Old St Matthew's, Lightcliffe, West Yorkshire. In this short video, our Director, Rachel Morley, provides a brief history of Old St Matthew's and an overview of the repairs.

PLEASE REPOST 🥺🙏 The Canadian Letters & Images Project is an online digital archive of Canadians’ experience during wartime at home & in battle. It contains thousands of personal letters & photos that reveal people’s experience through their own words & eyes. www.canadianletters.ca/content/abou...

I’ve just watched this on BBC iPlayer. I had never heard of these mega-structures before and found it really fascinating. The people who made them were truly ingenious. #archaeology www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

I’m having a hard time packing for my holiday. My long-awaited week in the sun is now forecast to be 20 degrees and rainy. ☹️ And I’m completely baffled by @ryanairofficial.bsky.social baggage sizes. Each checked bag can be 120 x 120 x 80cm, which is HUGE, but it can only weigh 10kg. 🤷‍♀️

Raymonde de Laroche #French aviator & engineer. Probably 1st woman to fly plane. 1910 world's 1st licensed female pilot, awarded 36th ever aeroplane pilot's licence by Aeroclub de France. Flew in Egypt, Saint Petersburg, Budapest & Rouen. #OTD 22 Aug 1882 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond...

Here’s my favourite epitaph at Dorchester Abbey. It’s a wonderfully Austenesque call to the ‘Reader!’ to remember Mrs Sarah Fletcher, who died in 1799 aged 28. Her ‘Nerves were too delicately spun to meet the rude Shakes and Jostlings’ of this world and she died a ‘Martyr to Excessive Sensibility’.

So interesting - DNA studies of Anglo-Saxon burials find two with a West African grandparent. ‘The genetic evidence adds to a growing understanding that long-distance movement was common in the past.’ “We’ve always been able to see movement in objects, but we haven’t been able to see it in people,”

Suckling Spendlove, twice mayor of Beverley. And presumably a descendant of Suckling Spendlove, a grocer and Merchant Adventurer of York, who died in 1690. His inventory in the Borthwick Inst. has been studied and reveals he sold gunpowder and arsenic among his wares.

I'll say it a thousand times -- any account of the past that only celebrates the good parts of a nation without reckoning with the bad is not what we call "history" It is propaganda, pure and simple.

Today I was able to pay a visit to the Guards Chapel and was moved to see that the page with Edna Mary Shooter’s name was open in the book of remembrance for victims of the bombing of 18 June 1944. Edna was a close friend of my ancestor Mabel Maultby. Both were nurses and both lost their lives.

Just spotted on the FreeBMD website: support sought for a new project, FreeProbate (or FreePRO). Initial pledges of £100 or more via theBigGive are sought (deadline 29 Aug 2025) to unlock match funding during the Christmas Challenge in December. More info on the FreeUKGenealogy website.

St Lawrence is the patron saint of archivists and librarians and, rather fittingly, one of our trustees recently discovered a watercolour of St Lawrence’s, Gumfreston that was painted 161 years ago, on 15th August 1864.

The mystery carving at 14th century St. Andrew's Church, Alfriston, East Sussex causing much debate. 👇 BBC News - A mystery carving in a Sussex church which could depict chastity - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

For #InternationalCatDay I present a photo of my husband’s great grandfather Jack Mortimer and other crew of the SS Devanha in 1919, with a tabby cat. Jack served on the Devanha — a troopship — as a cook in 1917 and 1918-1919. In between those posts he served on the Pekin, a minesweeper. #ShipsCat

An experience of temporary blindness and the shame of his own profane language are said to have prompted Cuthbert Wigham, the founder of Coanwood Meeting House, to convert to Quakerism. 1/8

NEWS: The long awaited SUFFOLK PARISH REGISTERS (with images), are coming to Ancestry on 14th August 😊. www.suffolkarchives.co.uk/latest-news-... #FamilyHistory #Genealogy HT various SM sites, thanks to Trevor Rix for finding the source of the announcement.

My town!

I loved Each Peach Pear Plum, Funny Bones and The Jolly Postman. Completely charming, witty and absolutely formative books.