England

  • Christmas Traditions from Around the World – Part 2

    Dec 24

    The singing of Christmas carols began in England in the early 1400s. They were mostly ‘tall tales’ of the first Christmas in Bethlehem. During the Puritan reign in England of the 1600s the celebration of Christmas was stopped including the singing of carols. By the early 1800s the singing of carols began again with singers known as ’Waits’,...

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  • Zero in on an Ancestor

    Dec 20

    OK, you have worked on your family tree and have the pedigree chart in good shape with numerous names, dates and locations. The next step is to zero in on just one ancestor.  That person could be a grandmother, a great uncle, your father or a great-great-great grandmother; any one relative who intrigues you the most can be selected. Start by ke...

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  • Add Some Ethnic Christmas Customs

    Dec 15

    You have learned some of your family’s ethnic and cultural background, why not add a touch of your family’s ethnic traditional customs in celebrating Christmas with the family this year?  Traditional customs can vary tremulously and have also been modified over the decades.  This is where you can enhance this Christmas season with some specia...

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  • Understanding the Julian to Gregorian Calendar

    Nov 30

    Numerous times you will see where an ancestor’s birth, marriage or death date are written May 11, 1712/1713 and you are not sure which year the event actually occurred.  This is due to a change in the type of calendars used and when they were adopted. First, an explanation of each calendar. The Julian calendar was created by Julius Caesar bac...

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  • How to Search for Pilgrim Ancestors

    Nov 22

    You would think the place to start researching for any ancestral Pilgrims would be with each of the surviving Pilgrims and work toward the present time.  Only that is the very hard way since there can be so many descendants. If a Pilgrim couple had nine children and each of those children had five or more children the numbers very quickly add up. ...

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  • You Might Be a Descendant of the Original Pilgrims

    Nov 20

    This time of year near Thanksgiving one reflects on those brave souls on the Mayflower ship who came to a new land on November 11, 1620. Generally, everyone refers to all those individuals as ‘Pilgrims’ but in truth only 41 were Pilgrims.  Many others were indentured servants, paid servants and hired workers to assist the Pilgrims set and run ...

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  • Old U. K. Directories and What They Offer

    Oct 10

    Many family researchers find English ancestors in their lineage. Some immigrates were coming to America in the 1600s and others in the 1900s. My own father, his immediate and extended family came from Manchester, England arriving at different periods between 1893 and 1914. By tracing these family branches, using the U.K. censuses and vital records ...

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  • A Lesson from 9/11—Share and Help Where You Can

    Sep 11

    The following is an extra long blog for this 10th anniversary of Sept. 11th, but relates how genealogy can help heal even the deepest wounds. Above is a photo of Ralph Kershaw. Disbelief, just utter and total disbelief, was our reaction at what we were watching on the television that fateful September 11th morning.  The national news was repor...

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  • Unseen Views of Crime and Poverty in London – 1680-1820

    Aug 30

    It is amazing some of the documents that have survived over the centuries. England does have a long tradition of keeping records for all types of events, from the grand to the common and ordinary. Since many people have some English background in their ancestry, there is an extremely interesting online site that should be investigated, even if you ...

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  • English Ancestors in Workhouses

    May 10

    The Poor Law Union of Great Britain referred to special laws enacted about the 1530s for England and Wales to care for the citizens too poor to care of themselves. This system of assistance remained in England and Wales until 1948. Prior to 19th century the aid for the poor was provided by each parish in the form of local workhouses. There were som...

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