Family history, tracing ancestors Books

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Book SynopsisThe author of The Ruin of All Witches returns with a gripping, vividly told journey of rediscovery, uncovering his uncle's past as a soldier, prisoner, fugitive and partisan in World War Two Italy Malcolm Gaskill knew two things about his great-uncle Ralph's wartime adventures: he'd been a prisoner in Italy, and he'd cut his way out of a train with a knife and fork. Apart from that, he'd faded into family folklore, lost to view. Until, one hot afternoon in an English country garden, a chance conversation set Gaskill on his uncle's trailWhat Ralph really did in the war was, he discovers, even more extraordinary than the exaggerations of family myth. From last-ditch fighting in the Libyan desert and incarceration in a Puglian prisoner-of-war camp, to desperate, dramatic escapes and the assuming of an entirely new identity among the peasants and partisans of the Italian alps, Gaskill traces a life transformed by conflict, while lifting the curtain on a long-forgotten episode of the Second World War.Yet The Glass Mountain is about more than war: it's a haunting exploration of what it means to encounter the past, and how we remember, forget and recover it. As he follows his uncle's path through dusty archives and the landscapes, towns and villages of present-day Italy, Gaskill finds himself confronted by questions that go to the heart of how we think about the people who came before us: Why do stories matter? How much of the past can ever be true?

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Book SynopsisFROM THE WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTIONTWICE WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONTHE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR''Unforgettable'' CosmopolitanKingsolver blends a fierce and abiding moral vision with benevolent concise humour.'' New York Times Book ReviewWhen six-year-old Turtle Greer witnesses a freak accident at the Hoover Dam, her insistence on what she has seen, and her mother''s belief in her, lead to a man''s dramatic rescue.But Turtle''s moment of celebrity draws her into a conflict of historic proportions. The crisis quickly envelops not only Turtle and her mother, Taylor, but everyone else who touches their lives in a complex web connecting their future with their past.Pigs in Heaven travels the roads from rural Kentucky and the urban Southwest to Heaven, Oklahoma, and the Cherokee Nation, testing the boundaries of family and the many separate truths about the ties th

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Book SynopsisSometimes, secrets don't stay buried forever. Sometimes, they need to be set freeTwelve-year-old Edie and her younger brother Pip are spending half term at Fortune Farm, high in the Irish mountains, with their grandmother Lolly. They haven't visited Fortune Farm for YEARS and Edie has been dreading it for MONTHS. They spent all their holidays there when Dad was alive. And Edie doesn''t like thinking about Dad even the happy memories haunt her too much. When Edie uncovers a clue that could lead her to long-lost Viking treasure, it''s just the adventure she needs to take her mind off Dad. But the adventure soon takes an unnerving and dangerous turn, and Edie discovers that Fortune Farm has more secrets, mysteries and ghosts than she had ever dared to dream. A spine-tingling adventure about the power of memories and the restless spirits that whisper on the wind An emotional and spine-tingling adventure perfect for fans of The House with Chicke

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Book Synopsis**THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER** **WINNER OF THE 2010 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD** 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them bigger than a matchbox: Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in his great uncle Iggie's Tokyo apartment.Trade Review[A] wonderful book -- Dame Felicity Lott * Waitrose Weekend *In a decade where memoir became the dominant genre, this immensely evocative family history told via the journey through the generations of some Japanese miniature figures stood out -- Andrew Holgate * Sunday Times, *Books of the Decade* *An evocative narrative of art, inheritance and loss * Homes & Antiques *From a hard and vast archival mass...Mr de Waal has fashioned, stroke by minuscule stroke, a book as fresh with detail as if it had been written from life, and as full of beauty and whimsy as a netsuke from the hands of a master carver. * The Economist *This remarkable book... a meditation on touch, exile, space and the responsibility of inheritance... like the netsuke themselves, this book is impossible to put down. you have in your hands a masterpiece. -- Frances Wilson * The Sunday Times *

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Book SynopsisThe slave, Saidiya Hartman observes, is a stranger torn from family, home, and country. To lose your mother is to be severed from your kin, to forget your past, and to inhabit the world as an outsider. In Lose Your Mother, Hartman traces the history of the Atlantic slave trade by recounting a journey she took along a slave route in Ghana. There are no known survivors of Hartman's lineage, no relatives to find. She is a stranger in search of strangers, and this fact leads her into intimate engagements with the people she encounters along the way, and with figures from the past, vividly dramatising the effects of slavery on three centuries of African and American history.Trade ReviewAn original, thought-provoking meditation on the corrosive legacy of slavery ... driven by this writer's prodigious narrative gifts. -- Elizabeth Schmidt * The New York Times *One of our most brilliant contemporary thinkers ... She's a theorist and writer who actually changes what's possible in my thought patterns -- Claudia RankineThis is a memoir about loss, alienation, and estrangement, but also, ultimately, about the power of art to remember ... A magnificent achievement. -- Henry Louis Gates JrBy addressing gaps and omissions in accounts of trans-Atlantic slavery ... Hartman has influenced an entire generation of scholars and afforded readers a proximity to the past that would otherwise be foreclosed. -- MacArthur statement[Hartman writes] with striking intimacy, evoking the feelings and the conditions of Black life -- Alexis Okeowo * New Yorker *Praise for Saidiya Hartman: "She was so smart that I thought the windows were gonna blow out, the quickness of her mind and the sharpness of her critique were breathtaking." -- Judith Butler * on meeting Hartman *She's not an 'angry Black woman. She's not Assata Shakur. But what they don't know is that, where Assata Shakur will blow your head off, Saidiya has just put a stiletto between your ribs. -- Frank B. Wilderson III, Chair of the Department of African-American stucies, UC Irivine

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Book SynopsisMichael Palin has written and starred in numerous TV programmes and films, from Monty Python and Ripping Yarns to The Missionary and The Death of Stalin. He has also made several much-acclaimed travel documentaries. His books include accounts of his journeys, novels (Hemingway's Chair and The Truth) and several volumes of diaries. He received a BAFTA fellowship in 2013, and a knighthood in the 2019 New Year Honours list.

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Book Synopsis'A brilliant, authoritative, surprising, captivating introduction to human genetics. You'll be spellbound' Brian CoxThis is a story about you. It is the history of who you are and how you came to be. It is unique to you, as it is to each of the 100 billion modern humans who have ever drawn breath. But it is also our collective story, because in every one of our genomes we each carry the history of our species - births, deaths, disease, war, famine, migration and a lot of sex. In this captivating journey through the expanding landscape of genetics, Adam Rutherford reveals what our genes now tell us about human history, and what history can now tell us about our genes. From Neanderthals to murder, from redheads to race, dead kings to plague, evolution to epigenetics, this is a demystifying and illuminating new portrait of who we are and how we came to be.***'A thoroughly entertaining history of Homo sapiens and its DNA in a manner that displays popular science writing at its best' Observer 'Magisterial, informative and delightful' Peter Frankopan'An extraordinary adventure...From the Neanderthals to the Vikings, from the Queen of Sheba to Richard III, Rutherford goes in search of our ancestors, tracing the genetic clues deep into the past' Alice RobertsTrade ReviewI very much enjoyed and admired . . . A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived -- Bill Bryson * OBSERVER Books of the Year 2016 *An effervescent work, brimming with tales and confounding ideas carried in the "epic poem in our cells". The myriad storylines will leave you swooning . . . Rutherford, a trained geneticist, is an enthusiastic guide -- Colin Grant * GUARDIAN *A thoroughly entertaining history of Homo sapiens and its DNA in a manner that displays popular science writing at its best -- Robin McKie * OBSERVER *A brilliant, authoritative, surprising, captivating introduction to human genetics. If you know little about the human story, you will be spellbound. If you know a lot about the human story, you'll be spellbound. It's that good -- Brian CoxAdam Rutherford's book is well-written, stimulating and entertaining. What's more important, he consistently gets it right -- Richard DawkinsIf you are ethnically British, one thing is certain: your ancestors definitely had sex with Neanderthals. On the other hand, they probably didn't have sex with Vikings, who, it turns out, did a fair bit more pillaging than raping. And, depending on the flakiness of your earwax, it is just conceivable that your relatives' unattractiveness to hairy and horned invaders was related to their body odour. DNA is fragile, confusing and contains a lot of pointless data. But unlike other accounts of human history it doesn't lie. Adam Rutherford's soaring book is an exposition of what this new science really tells us about who we are -- Tom Whipple * THE TIMES *One of the most extraordinary things about this book is its sheer breadth. Rutherford, a writer and geneticist, weaves from our genes a fascinating tapestry of human history from its most primitive origins to its sophisticated present, and beyond ... The writing is concise and often funny, and Rutherford never takes himself or his subject too seriously ... It is one of those rare books that you'll finish thinking you haven't wasted a single second -- Brad Davies * INDEPENDENT *Magisterial, informative and delightful -- Peter FrankopanRutherford takes off on an extraordinary adventure, following the wandering trail of DNA across the globe and back in time. And on the way, he reveals what DNA can - and can't - tell us about ourselves, our history and our deep evolutionary heritage. From the Neanderthals to the Vikings, from the Queen of Sheba to Richard III, Rutherford goes in search of our ancestors, tracing the genetic clues deep into the past . . . Wide-ranging, witty, full of surprises and studded with sparkling insights - Rutherford uncovers the epic history of the human species, written in DNA -- Alice RobertsA captivating delight. With witty, authoritative and profound prose, Adam Rutherford tackles the biggest of issues - where we came from, and what makes us who we are. He does more than any author to cut through the confusion around genetics, and to reveal what modern genetics has to say about our identity, history and future -- Ed YongGenetics is opening up the past as never before - Adam Rutherford puts the genes in genealogy brilliantly -- Matt Ridley

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Book SynopsisLike Lorna Sage''s Bad Blood A masterpiece' RACHEL CUSKGiving up the Ghost' is award-winning novelist Hilary Mantel''s uniquely unusual five-part autobiography.Opening in 1995 with ''A Second Home'', Mantel describes the death of her stepfather which leaves her deeply troubled by the unresolved events of her childhood. In ''Now Geoffrey Don''t Torment Her'' Mantel takes the reader into the muffled consciousness of her early childhood, culminating in the birth of a younger brother and the strange candlelight ceremony of her mother''s ''churching''. In ''Smile'', an account of teenage perplexity, Mantel describes a household where the keeping of secrets has become a way of life. Finally, at the memoir''s conclusion, Mantel explains how through a series of medical misunderstandings and neglect she came to be childless and how the ghosts of the unborn like chances missed or pages unturned, have come to haunt her life as a writer.Trade Review'She is by turns facetious, matter-of-fact, visionary and comical but always totally riveting.' Daily Telegraph 'Simply astonishing - clear and true.' Guardian 'An extraordinary story, sometimes comic, often grim, but most importantly it is a story of survival.' Spectator 'A masterpiece of wit…[the] past, so thoroughly vanished, is made to live again here.' Rachel Cusk ‘What a remarkable writer she is. She is piercingly, even laceratingly observant … a very startling and daring memoir; the more I read it the more unsettling it becomes.’ Helen Dunmore ‘I was riveted. It’s raw, it’s distressing and it’s full of piercing insights into a first-rate novelist’s mind.’ Margaret Forster ‘A stunning evocation of an ill-fitting childhood and a womanhood blighted by medical ineptitude. Hilary Mantel’s frank and beautiful memoir is impossible to put down and impossible to forget.’ Clare Boylan

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Book SynopsisIn this, the fully updated second edition of his bestselling guide to researching Irish history using the internet, Chris Paton shows the extraordinary variety of sources that can now be accessed online. Although Ireland has lost many records that would have been of great interest to family historians, he demonstrates that a great deal of information survived and is now easily available to the researcher. Thanks to the pioneering efforts of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, the National Archives of Ireland, organizations such as FindmyPast Ireland, Ancestry.co.uk and RootsIreland and the volunteer genealogical community, an ever-increasing range of Ireland's historical resources are accessible from afar. As well as exploring the various categories of records that the family historian can turn to, Chris Paton illustrates their use with fascinating case studies. He fully explores the online records available from both the north and the south from the earliest times to the present day. Many overseas collections are also included, and he looks at social networking in an Irish context where many exciting projects are currently underway. His book is an essential introduction and source of reference for anyone who is keen to trace their Irish roots.

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Book Synopsis ''A fine and deeply affecting work of history and memoir'' Philippe SandsDecades ago, the historian Bernard Wasserstein set out to uncover the hidden past of the town forty miles west of Lviv where his family originated: Krakowiec (Krah-KOV-yets). In this book he recounts its dramatic and traumatic history. ''I want to observe and understand how some of the great forces that determined the shape of our times affected ordinary people.'' The result is an exceptional, often moving book.Wasserstein traces the arc of history across centuries of religious and political conflict, as armies of Cossacks, Turks, Swedes and Muscovites rampaged through the region. In the Age of Enlightenment, the Polish magnate Ignacy Cetner built his palace at Krakowiec and, with his vivacious daughter, Princess Anna, created an arcadia of refinement and serenity. Under the Habsburg emperors after 1772, Krakowiec developed into a typical shtetl, with a jostling populationTrade ReviewA fine and deeply affecting work of history and memoir -- Philippe SandsThis poignant journey of discovery provides some profound insights into how hatred can be incited and manipulated to destroy communities, and is all too relevant to what is happening in the region today. -- Adam Zamoyskiextraordinarily moving ... Though he has been thinking about the story and researching it for decades, the writing feels immediate. The book is part memoir, part history lesson about 'old Europe' as a battleground between four empires, and part lament for the lost world of European Jewry. Perhaps the most valuable thing about it for British readers is its reminder of how lucky we are to have welcomed refugees to our shores and not to have exported them. Wasserstein has a deep understanding of places where borders have violently changed every couple of generations and whole populations have been massacred as a result of ideology, religion or whim. -- Victor Sebestyen * Spectator *This formidable book takes pride of place among the growing corpus of literature coming out of the swampy bloodlands. If you want to understand why hate has been unleashed again in Europe, this is the indispensable guide -- Roger Boyes * The Times *Using the lens of his own family's betrayal, Bernard Wasserstein's A Small Town in Ukraine revisits one of the country's darkest moments ... revelatory and dramatic ... [a] noble, nicely detailed enterprise of historical and familial recovery -- Julian Evans * The Telegraph *he employs a microscope to portray the fates of many through an account of very few. Near the scene of his grandparents' murder, he found a memorial to Ukrainian nationalists executed by the Russians after the Second World War more prominent than a plaque commemorating the vastly larger number of dead Jews, "as if to assert that Ukrainians, not Jews, were the true victims of this history and would have the last word". His anger is just, his book a finer monument than any plaque. -- Max Hastings * Sunday Times *This is a deeply moving book, beautifully written, all the sadder now that refugees are again trudging those same roads. -- Lucy Beckett * The Tablet *a compelling history, which pays tribute to his ancestors while raising issues that remain tragically relevant today ... alongside this touching personal material, Wasserstein's book vividly traces how what was once a Polish town became 'a predominantly Jewish one' by around 1800 and is 'now almost entirely Ukrainian'. ... among its many other virtues, this book is a sharp reminder of the dangers of turning history into a simplistic morality tale -- Matthew Reisz * Observer *The personal thread of his own family's experiences lends warmth and tragedy to the facts that he meticulously documents. ... succeed[s] in putting a human face to the suffering of ordinary people trapped in the turmoil of physical conflict and political ideologies ... steadfastly refuse[s] to airbrush the past -- Rebecca Abrams * Financial Times *We believe that we think with our minds. But a part of us - a deep and important part - thinks with the blood. Our sense of self is deeply entwined with the places we came from and the people who formed us. ... For the historian Bernard Wasserstein, that origin story includes the violence, injustice and trauma suffered by his family at the hands of the Nazis. But A Small Town in Ukraine is more than just a family biography. It is Wasserstein's attempt not just to chronicle the suffering experienced by his parents and grandparents but also to understand it. His method is to examine, in minute and forensic detail, the history of the place from which they came, the small town of Krakowiec - 'a little place, you won't have heard of it', as his father used to say. ... Wasserstein offers an evocative and detailed portrait of the world that formed his grandfather's and ancestors' lives. ... his book is a moving chronicle of a lost world, written with eloquence and emotional intelligence but without bitterness -- Owen Matthews * Literary Review *

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Book SynopsisWINNER OF THE COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018WINNER OF THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE 2018A SUNDAY TIMES PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR 2019''A masterpiece of history and memoir'' Evening Standard''Superb. This is a necessary book - painful, harrowing, tragic, but also uplifting'' The Times__________________________________________________Little Lien wasn''t taken from her Jewish parents in the Hague - she was given away in the hope that she might be saved. Hidden and raised by a foster family in the provinces during the Nazi occupation, she survived the war only to find that her real parents had not. Much later, she fell out with her foster family, and Bart van Es - the grandson of Lien''s foster parents - knew he needed to find out why.His account of tracing Lien and telling her story is a searing exploration of two lives and two families. It is a story about loTrade ReviewAstonishing. Van Es has created a masterpiece of history and memoir, concluding on a note of reconciliation, hope and great love * Evening Standard *An extraordinary, harrowing story of loss, survival and love * Guardian *Deeply moving, this is a remarkable memoir * Sunday Times *Powerful . . . extraordinary * Irish Times *Brought to life with family photographs and diary entries that add further impact to Lien's harrowing memories and testimony - this deeply affecting and fascinating story is guaranteed to haunt you * Sunday Mirror *Remarkable - the story of one traumatic childhood, deeply moving, and told with great dexterity, allowing the wisdoms of today to run parallel with the absorbing narrative of wartime events * Penelope Lively *Compassionate and thoughtfully rendered, the book is both a memorable portrait of a remarkable woman and a testament to the healing power of understanding. A complex and uplifting tale * Kirkus *A nuanced, moving, and unusual "hidden child" account * Publishers Weekly *Superb. This is a necessary book - painful, harrowing, tragic, but also uplifting * The Times Book of the Week *Fascinating, beautifully written. Van Es carefully salvages Lien's story and creates a deeply moving and complex book about war, atrocity and human suffering * The Oldie *Sensational and gripping . . . shedding light on some of the most urgent issues of our time * Judges of the Costa Book of the Year Prize 2018 *Luminous, elegant, haunting - I read it straight through * Philippe Sands, Author of East West Street *Deeply moving. Writes with an almost Sebaldian simplicity and understatement * Guardian *Harrowing and beautiful * Bookseller *An awe-inspiring account of the tragedies and triumphs within the world of the Holocaust's "hide-away" children, and of the families who sheltered them * Georgia Hunter, author of We Were the Lucky Ones *The Cut Out Girl is a reminder of the extraordinary richness of archives and the treasures released by scholarly research * TLS *An extraordinary story, harrowing, deeply affecting. This fascinating story is guaranteed to haunt you * People *A moving story of personal and family history, with a scholar's objective eye for the bigger picture. * Irish Times *Harrowing . . . profoundly moving * Daily Express *

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Book Synopsis''Grimly funny and superbly written, with a twist on every page'' Hilary Mantel''Delightfully compulsive and unforgettably original'' Hadley Freeman''Wonderful, funny and wise'' Kate SummerscaleShortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize 2021A Sunday Times, TLS, Spectator and New Statesman Book of the Year Aunt Munca never told the truth about anything. Calling herself after the mouse in a Beatrix Potter story, she was already a figure of mystery during the childhood of her nephew Ferdinand Mount. Half a century later, a series of startling revelations sets him off on a tortuous quest to find out who this extraordinary millionairess really was. What he discovers is shocking and irretrievably sad, involving multiple deceptions, false identities and abandonments. The story leads us from the back streets of Sheffield at the end of the Victorian age to the highest echelons of English sTrade ReviewAunt Munca flees the streets of Sheffield for a suite at Claridges, getting younger by the year and leaving behind her a trail of brazen lies and shattered pieties. In his family memoir, Ferdinand Mount pursues her with wit and skill through a career in which crime pays, marriage is for a week, and children are lost like old gloves. Kiss Myself Goodbye is grimly funny and superbly written, with a twist on every page. -- Hilary Mantel, author of the Wolf Hall TrilogyDelightfully compulsive and unforgettably original. Mount unpeels the layers of this mysterious life with the tenacity of an experienced detective and the excitement of a fresh-eyed enthusiast. -- Hadley Freeman, author of House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish FamilyExtraordinary … shed[s] a brilliant light on the strangeness of people’s lives, the need for disguise and masquerade, the shame that drives people to act in the most peculiar ways, the ghosts that reside, unburied, within us. -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday *Wonderful, funny and wise -- Kate Summerscale, author of The Suspicions of Mr WhicherDelicious … As well as an ear for the cadences of a sentence, Mount has a remarkable ability to convey the feeling of place … Beneath the surface of this sparklingly wry book you sense all kinds of unexplored feelings of abandonment and loss. * The Oldie *Mount is one of our finest prose stylists and Kiss Myself Goodbye is a witty, moving and beautifully crafted account of one woman’s determination to live to the full. * Daily Telegraph *An extraordinary book * Tatler *Unique and immensely enjoyable. I only wish it were longer. * Spectator *Kiss Myself Goodbye is a work of beauty. The simple truthfulness of Ferdinand Mount’s storytelling is irresistible. * Literary Review *...A superbly written and jaw-dropping memoir. * Daily Telegraph *Veering giddily from grand guignol to poignant melancholy, this is an exquisitely wrought portrait of a wickedly fascinating woman. -- Jane Shilling * Daily Mail *...this book, which is partly a family history and partly a detective novel, with extraordinary revelations and an impressive cast of characters dotted through the narrative. -- Roland White * The Sunday Times (Culture) *Witty, moving and beautifully crafted, Kiss Myself Goodbye is a “masterclass” in bringing long-buried secrets to light. * The Week *[Mount ]… vividly captures bygone Britain. * Daily Record *It needs a writer of wit, imagination and empathy to carry me along from one layer of the tissue to the next. Mount is such a writer. * The Oldie *A wonderful memoir of the author’s aunt – deadpan, shrewd and very dryly funny. -- William Boyd, bestselling authorTable of Contents1 Angmering-on-Sea 2 Georgie 3 Buster 4 Charters 5 Brightside 6 Crawford Mansions 7 Eileen and Elizabeth 8 W. F. 9 Brightside Revisited 10 Seven Hills Postscripts Thanks Picture and Text Credits

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Book SynopsisOrganize your ancestry research while creating a beautiful keepsake to pass on to future generations with Our Family Tree. Find your way through your family history and record your results with this beautiful keepsake. Whether as a gift to a relative or for yourself, this modern family tree allows for multi-generations and their activities to be included. Customizable and inclusive, make this truly your own through: this charming guide to your ancestry includes: Ancestral charts for you, your partner, and your family members Records for citizenship and immigration Places to record your and your families' favorite things A place for chosen family, including pets Blank pages for pasting in photographs and mementos And more! An introduction from renowned genealogist and author of Finding your Family Tree Sharon Leslie Morgan helps guide you on your journey with helpful tips and a research checklist to set you on your course of discovery. No matter how thorny your family tree may be, discovering your ancestry can connect you to an essential part of your identity. Get this easy-to-use, beautifully illustrated keepsake to remember your family history and try your hand at genealogy.

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Book SynopsisDNA research is one of the most important and rapidly advancing areas in modern science and the practical use of DNA testing in genealogy is one of its most exciting applications. Yet there is no recent British publication in this field. That is why this accessible, wide-ranging introduction is so valuable. It offers a clear and practical way into the subject, explaining the scientific discoveries and techniques and illustrating with case studies how it can be used by genealogists to gain an insight into their ancestry. The subject is complex and perhaps difficult for traditional genealogists to understand but, with the aid of this book, novices who are keen to take advantage of it will be able to interpret test results and use them to help answer genealogical questions which cannot be answered by documentary evidence alone. It will also appeal to those with some experience in the field because it places the practical application of genetic genealogy within a wider context, highlighting its role as a genealogical tool and suggesting how it can be made more effective.

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Book SynopsisDisrupt family patterns and heal from inherited trauma with this powerful guide, so you can break the cycle of silence for generations to come. Filled with stories, research, practical tools, and exercises, the book helps readers understand how their family history impacts their lives and begin to open conversations that can heal.

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Anyone who wants to find out about the history of their house - of their home - needs to read this compact, practical handbook. Whether you live in a manor house or on a planned estate, in a labourer's cottage, a tied house, a Victorian terrace, a twentieth-century council house or a converted warehouse - this is the book for you. In a series of concise, information-filled chapters, Gill Blanchard shows you how to trace the history of your house or flat, how to gain an insight into the lives of the people who lived in it before you, and how to fit it into the wider history of your neighbourhood. A wealth of historical evidence is available in libraries, archives and record offices, in books and online, and this is the ideal introduction to it. Gill Blanchard explores these resources in depth, explains their significance and directs the researcher to the most relevant, and revealing, aspects of them. She makes the research process understandable, accessible and fun, and in the process she demystifies the sometimes obscure language and layout of the documents that researchers will come up against.

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Book SynopsisDNA research is one of the most important and rapidly advancing areas in modern science and the practical use of DNA testing in genealogy is one of its most exciting applications. This accessible, wide-ranging introduction, the first British publication in this field, has been revised in a completely new edition with new topics and illustrative case studies. It offers a clear and practical way into the subject, explaining the scientific discoveries and techniques and how it can be used by genealogists to gain an insight into their ancestry. The subject is complex and perhaps difficult for traditional genealogists to understand but, with the aid of this book, novices who are keen to take advantage of it will be able to interpret test results and use them to help answer genealogical questions which cannot be answered by documentary evidence alone. It will also appeal to those with some experience in the field because it places the practical application of genetic genealogy within a wid

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Book SynopsisIn Climbing Days, Dan Richards is on the trail of his great-great-aunt, Dorothy Pilley, a prominent and pioneering mountaineer of the early twentieth century. For years, Dorothy and her husband, I. A. Richards, remained a mystery to Dan, but the chance discovery of her 1935 memoir leads him on a journey. Perhaps, in the mountains, he can meet them halfway? Climbing Days is a beautiful portrait of a trailblazing woman, previously lost to history, but also a book about that eternal question: why do people climb mountains?

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Book SynopsisThomas Harding is a bestselling author whose books have been translated into more than 16 languages. He has written for the Sunday Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian, among other publications. He is the bestselling author of HANNS AND RUDOLF, which won the JQ-Wingate Prize for Non-Fiction; THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE, which was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award; BLOOD ON THE PAGE, which won the Crime Writers' Association "Golden Dagger Award for Non-Fiction" and FUTURE HISTORY, which was shortlisted for the German Children's Literature Award 2021. His next book, WHITE DEBT, was published in January 2022. You can follow Thomas on twitter @thomashardingTrade ReviewI was riveted: this is a fascinating social history. * Nigella Lawson *A magnificent book… what a story this is. Endlessly fascinating. * Jewish Chronicle *This story of the family behind the Lyons Corner Houses and many other ventures, its rise and its business demise, is endlessly fascinating and hard to put down. I read it all in one sitting, enjoying the colour and grandeur, whilst spitting with fury at how women were kept out of the financial loop. Full of character and characters, this is a tour de force.Enthralling... fascinating. Nearly half a century on, the Lyons name and Corner Houses have faded, quite forgotten. I dream of them still. * Observer *Five stars. History on a scale at once intimate and grand… extremely readable. * The Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisRecord and preserve your grandmother’s life story for future generations with this beautiful keepsake journal with over 100 prompts to guide her memories.Grandmothers are often the keepers of family stories. But chances are there’s a lot about your grandma you still don’t know. With A Grandmother’s Life, she can share her stories, both the main events and the lesser known chapters. Did you know your own grandparents? What were they like? How did you meet my grandfather? What was my parent like as a child? Did you have any important mentors? Who inspired you? These are just a few of the many prompts that together will reveal your grandmother’s unique story.Designed to let your grandmother choose the topics she wants to explore, thought-provoking prompts help you discover:  The world your grandmother was born into—from important events of the era to the common technology a

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Book SynopsisIn this fascinating follow-up to the highly successful Dear Francesca, Mary Contini writes to her other daughter, Olivia, to tell the story of her great-grandparents, the humble Italian shepherds who emigrated to Edinburgh and then helped to transform Britain's food culture. Sharing some of the recipes that they brought over, the tomatoes, the garlic, the sausage, the wine, this is a mouthwatering memoir of family and food. It is also a brilliant evocation of life between the wars, a triumphant story of survival against all the odds, that captures the sights and smells of Italian life and culture, at home and abroad.Trade ReviewA charming story . . . she unravels the family history like a precious thread. Contini's writing has a naturalness and honesty about it that brings a lump to the throat on occasion. * * Sunday Herald * *A happy blend of epistle, storytelling, memoir. * * The Times * *Refreshingly down to earth, the book is eminently readable. * * Evening Times * *Don't miss it. * * Daily Mail * *

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Book SynopsisThe perfect gift for any dad, this keepsake memory book is a special place to record special moments, stories, and advice that you want to pass down to your children one day. Dad’s Story is a guided journal thoughtfully designed to help dads of all ages write down memories that they want to preserve and share with their children and family. Designed by bestselling artist and author Korie Herold, this keepsake book provides dads with thoughtful writing prompts and plenty of journaling pages to record memories from their childhood, school years, early adulthood, and more. Show dad that you love him and want to hear more about his life with this timeless gift that’s ideal for Father's Day, birthdays, or any time of year. Sections and writing prompts include: Early Childhood: What was your house like growing up? What were your favourite toys or playtime activities? School Years: What did you think you wanted to be when you grew up? What were you like as a teenager? Work and Travel: What was your first job? What family holidays do you remember the most? Love and Family: What's your best relationship advice? How did you feel when you found out you were going to be a dad? Character and Values: What do you value most in life? What family values do you hope to pass down? Hypotheticals and Curiosities: What's something you wish you had done differently? What's the best advice you ever received? Words of Wisdom: Additional space to write letters to your family Special features include: Elegant linen with gold foil cover Acid-free and archival paper Layflat design allows you to easily write in the book Carefully developed designs and prompts allow to you reflect and remember

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Book SynopsisA beautiful book to record your family history, with space for family and individual records, ancestry charts, family traditions and achievements

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Book SynopsisDespite its Union with England and Wales in 1707, Scotland remained virtually independent from its partners in many ways, retaining its own legal system, its own state church, and its own education system. In Tracing Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records, genealogist Chris Paton examines the most common records used by family historians in Scotland, ranging from the vital records kept by the state and the various churches, the decennial censuses, tax records, registers of land ownership and inheritance, and records of law and order. Through precepts of clare constat and ultimus haeres records, feudalism and udal tenure, to irregular marriages, penny weddings and records of sequestration, Chris Paton expertly explores the unique concepts and language within many Scottish records that are simply not found elsewhere within the British Isles. He details their purpose and the information recorded, the legal basis by which they were created, and where to find them both online and within Scotland's many archives and institutions.

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Book SynopsisDiscover one family''s fascinating story in this beautiful, sweeping, multigenerational memoir, spanning 19th century south China to modern day Singapore''A captivating, compelling story of history, family loyalty, and personal sacrifice. A fascinating and richly textured multigenerational tale'' Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake''I would learn that when families tell stories, what they leave out re-defines what they keep in. With my family, these were not secrets intentionally withheld. Just truths too painful to confront . . .''________In the last years of her life, Teresa Lim''s mother, Violet Chang, had copies of a cherished family photograph made for those in the portrait who were still alive. On the back is the place and date: Hong Kong, 1935.Teresa would often look at this photograph, enticed by the fierceness and beauty of her great-aunt Fanny looking back at her. But Fanny never seemed to feature in the told and retold family stories. Why? she wondered.This photograph set Teresa on a journey to uncover her family''s remarkable history. Through detective work, serendipity, and the kindness of strangers, she was guided to the fascinating, extraordinary life of her great-aunt and her world of sworn spinsters, ghost husbands and the working-class feminists of 19th century south China.But to recover her great-aunt''s past, we first must get to know Fanny''s family, the times and circumstances in which they lived, and the momentous yet forgotten conflicts that would lead to war in Singapore and, ultimately, a long-buried family tragedy.________ The Interpreter''s Daughter is a beautifully moving record of an extraordinary family history. For fans of Wild Swans, The Hare With Amber Eyes, and Falling Leaves this is the next classic in the making.Trade ReviewA captivating, compelling story of history, family loyalty, and personal sacrifice... Teresa Lim's quest to uncover a hidden chapter in her family's history makes for a fascinating and richly textured, multigenerational tale * Charmaine Wilkerson, author of Black Cake *A captivating family history. Lim vividly recreates Singapore in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and lucidly explains historical matters and cultural traditions * Publisher's Weekly *Rich in the little-discussed history of Singaporean Chinese, this multigenerational memoir offers a timeless tale of the quest for identity, wholeness and truth. An eloquently enlightening family history * Kirkus Reviews *'A wonderful portrait of a family. One for lovers of Wild Swans. Hats off to Teresa Lim' -- Hope Adams

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Book SynopsisIreland is an extraordinarily beautiful island from which millions can claim their direct ancestry. But Ireland is also an island which has experienced some truly extraordinary moments of crisis which will have directly impacted our forebears, helping to shape us into the individuals that we are today. Whenever such crises happened, whether on a national scale or within the home, there was invariably somebody standing close to hand with a quill and parchment to document the misfortunes that befell so many. In this latest book, family historian Chris Paton takes a look at some of the darkest episodes of Irish history over the last four hundred years, as well as the everyday crises that affected everyone throughout their lives. He will discuss the impact of many major events on our ancestors, including colonisation, conquest and rebellion, as well as the various pressures endured from within the family, the church, and the state. Along the way Chris highlights the records that can he

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Book Synopsis_______________''A memoir to inspire'' - Aminatta Forna''I cannot recommend this book highly enough'' - Nassim Assefi, author of Aria''Fascinating insight on a topic much discussed but rarely understood from a human perspective. Recommended reading for anyone with an interest in the Middle East'' - Image Magazine_______________The story of three generations of Iranian women - Kamin, her mother and her grandmother - which portrays the history of twentieth century IranKamin Mohammadi was nine years old when her family fled Iran during the 1979 Revolution. Bewildered by the seismic changes in her homeland, she turned her back on the past and spent her teenage years trying to fit in with British attitudes to family, food and freedom. She was twenty-seven before she returned to Iran, drawn inexorably back by memories of her grandmother''s house in Abadan, with its traditional inner courtyard, its noisy gatherings and its very walls steTrade ReviewA memoir to inspire * Aminatta Forna *I cannot recommend this book highly enough * Nassim Assefi, author of Aria *Fascinating insight on a topic much discussed but rarely understood from a human perspective. Recommended reading for anyone with an interest in the Middle East * Image Magazine *Her descriptions are so incredibly lush you feel as much as read them – I could smell the cardamom in the chai, the camellias in the garden. Here is a portrait of a country completely at odds with the media’s portrayals: the sensuous, intellectual and social Iran that Mohammadi left behind. It was a particular joy to read this memoir in the wake of the recent presidential election, for in the author’s nostalgic depiction, one finds both a world that has passed away and one being born again. * Taiye Selasi, author of Ghana Must Go *

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Book SynopsisThe Dunbars of Ackergill and Hempriggs emerged in the late 1600s as one of the largest landowners in Caithness. As such they played a major part in the history of the county, a role revealed in the family papers with their wide variety of documents, including personal letters and legal missives. Readers will learn about the Dunbars selling Caithness grain in the Lowlands, coping with the effects of the last Jacobite rising, handling disputes with their neighbours, arranging elections, dealing with debt - and that is just in the 18th century. During the Napoleonic wars the Dunbars recruited a fencible regiment called the Caithness Legion that saw action in Ireland. At the same time the British Fisheries Society acquired land from the family and began to develop Pulteneytown as a major herring fishing port. An agricultural revolution swept over the estates, leading to the enclosing of fields, disputes over common land, evictions and refurbishment of farms. In the mid-19th century, when the family home at Ackergill Tower was refashioned by the architect David Bryce, the Dunbars adopted the lifestyle of the Victorian country gentry as well as finding careers in the Empire. With family trees, photographs, maps and documents, the book presents an absorbing, intriguing and, at times, amusing account of the social and economic life of the Dunbars over more than three hundred years, using unique messages from the past, never before made public. A fascinating insight into life in northern Scotland during centuries of change.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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