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...