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All About Ancestors

Professional Genealogist, Writer & Presenter. English Family History, DNA, Titanic & Maritime. Former BBC journo

16/04/2026

Spending the week diving into military history for a lovely client! 🪖 While some British Army records feel like they’re written in code, this latest find was a lot easier. It’s such a privilege to help families reconnect with their past.

If your family’s military story is still a mystery, let’s see if we can solve it together. ☕✨

14/04/2026

There is something wonderful about Manorial Records - I've spent the week looking at those from Hampshire 300 years ago. 🏛️🕰️ It’s amazing how much clearer the handwriting becomes the more you do this - what used to look like a mystery is now something I can read almost at first glance! ✍️

Of course, there’s always a few tricky words from the 1700s that make me pause, but that’s all part of the fun. These records are the key to finding ancestors before the days of standard Victorian censuses.

Have you ever tried to read 18th-century handwriting? It’s definitely a skill that takes a bit of 'eye-training'! 👁️📜

******er

12/04/2026

I am really appreciating the new 'Workspaces' feature on FindMyPast 🙌

I've been using it a lot recently and it really has become part of my everyday research workflow. If you haven't explored it yet, it's essentially a way of collecting and organising records as you go, so nothing gets lost in the chaos of a busy research session.

Here are a few reasons I'm loving it:

📰 Newspaper clippings and virtual records in one place. Instead of saving things in a dozen different folders or scribbling references on bits of paper, you can pull records together into a single workspace. Brilliant for newspaper searches using their collaboration with the British Newspaper Archive.

🔍 Easy to find again. We've all been there, spending 20 minutes trying to relocate a record you found last week. Workspaces seems to solve all that for me.

📁 Move items between workspaces with ease. As your research grows and branches off, you can reorganise and shift records into new workspaces to keep everything logical and tidy.

It's one of those features that sounds simple but makes a real difference in practice. Well doneFindmypast - this was a great idea! 👏

Have you tried Workspaces yet? Let me know what you think in the comments!

09/04/2026

DNA detective work on my desk this week! 🧬

I'm using DNA evidence to try to prove or disprove a long-standing family rumour once and for all. These cases are some of my favourites, though I'll be honest, the science can get seriously complex when endogamy is at play too, as it is here.

Watch this space! 🔍

07/04/2026

I’ve spent some time recently lost in the incredible collections at the Society of Genealogists in London. 📚✨

One of the highlights has been the stunning examples of heraldry in the older volumes. It’s like a secret code to the past! While I have to laugh at some of the 19th-century genealogists who tried to link families back to ancient monarchs (or even to God!), the artistry of the heraldic shields they created is just beautiful. 🛡️

I first properly fell in love with this 'code' during my Master’s in Genealogical, Palaeographic & Heraldic Studies at the University of Strathclyde - it was easily one of my favourite parts of the course.

Are you looking for help deciphering a family crest or understanding the heraldry in your own tree? Drop me a line! Even if I can’t solve the puzzle myself, I likely know the exact person who can. 🔍

05/04/2026

A fun week this week, diving deep into the Death Duty registers! 📜

These are one of those record sets that genealogists don't always think to reach for, but they really can be goldmines. Running from 1796 to 1903, the registers were created because inheritance tax was payable on certain bequests, and the taxman kept very detailed notes. Lucky for us!

At their best, they can give you the name, address and occupation of the deceased, details of the executor, information about beneficiaries, and sometimes a full list of the testator's children, including married daughters whose surnames you might never have found otherwise. That last point alone makes them worth seeking out.

The indexes are on FindMyPast, and from there you can track down the original registers held at The National Archives in series IR 26. This particular example is from 1852 in Leicestershire. 😍

If you haven't explored Death Duty records yet, add them to your list - although they're tricky, they can be very rewarding!

02/04/2026

On the trail of some ancestors this week for a client whose grandparents served in the Royal Army Pay Corps. 💂

It's been a real pleasure getting to know more about this unit and the incredible work they did behind the scenes, keeping everything running smoothly in the era around WW2. They don't always get the recognition they deserve, but without the Pay Corps, the wheels would have come off pretty quickly.

The history of army pay in Britain is fascinating in itself. For centuries, the responsibility fell to individual regiments, with colonels essentially treating their regiment as a personal estate and engaging clerks and agents to handle the finances. The results were, as you might imagine, inconsistent.

It took until 1878 for a dedicated Pay Department to be established by the War Office, with officers specifically selected for their financial and clerical skills. It became the Army Pay Corps in 1893, and it wasn't until 1920 that it earned its 'Royal' prefix, in recognition of its service during the Great War.

Fascinating research and a lovely family to be working for. 😊

31/03/2026

I’ll admit it - I’m a total 'taphophile' (a lover of cemeteries and graveyards!). AKA 'tombstone tourist.' 🪦🖤

One of my absolute career highlights was researching at the famous Búðakirkja, the 'Black Church' in Iceland. The graveyard was absolutely fascinating and the stones seemed to stand resiliently against that rugged landscape. It felt like stepping into a different world entirely. A really atmospheric place - and one of my all-time favourite churches (and graveyards!) 🇮🇸

Do you have a favourite church, graveyard or historic site that stayed with you long after you left? I’d love to see your photos! 👇

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29/03/2026

When we think of the Titanic's crew, we think of the captain, the officers, the lookouts who spotted the infamous iceberg and the musicians who played as the ship sank below their feet. But what about those with the strangest job titles aboard - the scullions, the trimmers, the greasers, the glory hole stewards and the bugle steward? 📰

Almost half of those who perished when the Titanic sank in April 1912 were crew - nearly 700 men and women - many of them doing jobs whose very titles have now vanished from history. Without them, the ship could never have left port. Yet their stories are rarely told.

My eight-page feature in the April edition of Family Tree magazine, 'Inside the Titanic's Lost Workforce', shines a light on these forgotten roles and the real people behind them. Who were the trimmers, wheelbarrowing tonnes of coal through dust-filled bunkers? What did a glory hole steward actually do? Who was the bugle steward, and what tune did he play to announce dinner to first-class passengers?

Behind every one of these strange job titles is an extraordinary human story which I have strived to bring back to centre stage.

Pick up the April edition of Family Tree magazine to find out more 🙌

26/03/2026

This photograph from 1912 stopped me in my tracks. 📷

This is Agnes Kelly, pictured with her five children, shortly after being widowed for the second time. Her story is one of the most affecting I have come across in my research.

Agnes had already lost her first husband, in 1904. He was a railway shunter and was killed in a track accident. Agnes was 26 and had two very young children. She rebuilt her life, remarrying five years later.

Unfortunately, history was to repeat itself. Agnes' second husband, Frederick William Barrett, was one of around 700 crew members who perished when the Titanic sank on her infamous maiden voyage. Agnes's twin babies were just three weeks old.

Behind so many of the Titanic's crew were families like Agnes's - ordinary Southampton families who bore an extraordinary weight of grief.

If Agnes's story moves you, you can read much more about them in my five-page article in the April edition of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine, which is out now. I'd love you to read it.

Titanic

22/03/2026

The death of Thomas Courtney, merchant of Old Jewry, London, in 1836 - bringing to an end the life of the man I have been researching for a client. 📜

Thomas died at the remarkable age of 90. To put that into context, average male life expectancy at birth in England at the time was around 40 years - though it's worth noting that figure was heavily dragged down by high infant mortality. Even so, reaching 90 in 1836 was an extraordinary achievement by any measure.

In the course of his long life, Thomas outlived multiple children. One of the privileges of this work is following a life from beginning to end, piecing together the story of someone who walked the streets of Georgian and Regency London. Thomas Courtney certainly lived a long chapter. 🙌

19/03/2026

A gravestone that proved absolutely vital to my research recently - that of Catherine Henderson née Clark, whose memorial helped establish her husband, her children, and other key family connections that had been eluding my client. 🪶

Fellow family historians will know exactly the thrill of a find like this. There is something quite wonderful about a gravestone that simply hands you the information you've been working so hard to piece together from other records.

My non-genealogy friends, however, remain deeply concerned about my enthusiasm for wandering around graveyards. I've tried to explain. They remain unconvinced. 😄

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https://AllAboutAncestors.com/, https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicola-johnson-584257198/

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