My Blog

One of our many family mysteries involves a relative who was living with our Katz family in Hackney in 1911. The name on the census looked like Rose Peizov. She was single, came from Russia, and was working as an assistant. This week, while writing about the head of the household (my great-grandfather's brother Nathan Katz) for the family archive , I found some new records and a more likely name for her. How did I find these now, when I had not found them before? I started by

Collect material. Photos, letters, postcards, stories, invitations, maps, newspaper clippings and heirlooms will bring your archive to life. Find a website that allows you to link your material to a person in your family tree. I can recommend https://weare.xyz/ Add the material that you've found to each person or family. Tell their stories! Writing about each person in your tree encourages you to look for more documents, photos and sources. You notice where the gaps are, and

As I was adding Jethro Shaw to our family tree a few days ago, I came across this claim:   “Jethro SHAW of Oakerside Wensley farmer was a...

I wrote about Hinda, who was Ari and Eva's 4x great-grandmother, back in 2018. Recently, I was given a photo album belonging to Hinda's...

It’s always quite exciting to discover that your relatives had a role to play in sensational events of the day. Last week we visited...

In September of 1914, a highlight of the early autumn social season in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, was the wedding of Bertha Jason and John...

One of the highlights of 2023 has been removing Marie Krivitzky from my list of unsolved mysteries. I had always known that Marie was a...

Sometimes when you discover a discrepancy and realize that you’ve made a mistake in your tree, it’s instructive to look back and piece...

William Branson Strickson was Ari’s 5x great-grandfather, and was quite unusual in that he made the decision to move away from his...

The Daily News, Lebanon, Pennsylvania · Friday, March 17, 1933, p. 10. My aim in doing a one-name study of all the Feinsteins in the...

Kalisz. By Fallaner - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=109880483 I have been busy making great...

Overton Hall is a country house just outside Ashover in Derbyshire. It was described as “a pleasant old residence, embosomed in ancient...

I had a feeling yesterday that I might make another breakthrough this year. I’m not sure why, but it feels as though slowly and steadily...

I recently rediscovered this wonderful photograph of my grandfather Louis. It is a cabinet portrait taken in a photographic studio in...

One of the ways to organize your ancestors is to give them numbers, using the Ahnentafel system. My grandson Ari would be No. 1, his...

Ari’s 6x great-grandmother, Mary Flint, was born on 23 August 1791 in Middleton By Wirksworth, Derbyshire. Her parents were William Flint...

Today I discovered that the name of Ari’s Latvian 4x great-grandmother was Sophia. I knew that her husband was Josif or Jossel, and I...

Today we visited the grave of Flight Sergeant Frederick David Johnson at Botley Cemetery. He died in 1943, at the age of twenty-two, when...

William Stapleton was Ari’s 4x great-grandfather. He was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire, in 1799, the son of David Stapleton (a silk...

James Read was Ari’s 5x great-grandfather. He lost his life on 16 January 1841 in Fonthill Bishop, Wiltshire, after a rapid thaw caused...