Featured Stories
May Day
May Day, or 1 May, has been celebrated as a traditional festival across Europe for hundreds of years. The day was significant as an ancient celebration (a Celtic cross-quarter day) of the halfway point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. May Day has also long been associated with the struggles for justice at work and the improvement of the lives of working people. For some activists and artists, this was emphasised in the form of eco-socialism and campaigns for land reform.
Local and Community History Month
May is Local and Community History Month. The month exists to increase awareness of local history, promote general history to local communities, and to encourage members of communities to be involved. Local history focuses on a specific geographical place, and often includes the study of the community in the location. Genealogists often find that studying local and community history complements our studies. As family historians, we need to explore the places and communities in which our ancestors resided, worked, and socialised.
National Share-a-Story Month
National Share-a-Story Month takes place every month to celebrate the power of storytelling. Share-a-Story Month is one of many initiatives of the Federation of Children’s Book Groups. However, it is not just children who relish stories. It is human nature to appreciate the drama, emotion, and narrative of personal and social events. This is certainly true of genealogists: family history is all about telling the stories of our ancestors. In a sense, every month is share-a story month for genealogists.
Upcoming talks and events
Tracing Your Female Ancestors
Family historians are often accused of interesting themselves only in the male lines of their ancestry, following the history of the surname. Older pedigree compilations often ignore the daughters of a family leaving it difficult to establish the distaff line.
In this 5-week course you will find out about the sources that you can use to throw more light into the lives of your ancestresses and hear their voices. Every Saturday afternoon 2-3pm from 6 August to 3 September 2022 on Zoom.
What to do with your Family History
Researching a family history generates a plethora of documents, photographs, stories and information. What should you do with it all? Learn How to organise, store, conserve and preserve your family tree sources.
This 7-week course on Wednesday evenings looks at how to store and share your family history, how to preserve the documents both physical and digital and how to write the stories which have been uncovered.
Are You Related to Royalty? with Caroline Gurney
Your documented ancestry may only include the humblest classes but you are almost certainly descended from royalty. This talk explains why, taking a light-hearted look at the evidence from genealogy and other disciplines, and introducing you to your cousins - royal, famous, and infamous.
About the speaker: Caroline Gurney is a Qualified Genealogist, house historian and historical researcher, based in Portishead, near Bristol. She is studying for a PhD at Bristol University.
Were your Ancestors Gypsies?
Beverley Walker discusses the migration of Gypsies from India and describes their history in Britain. She introduces us to sources you can use to research Romany and other Traveller families, including Fairground, Circus and Canal People.
Beverley gives us a look at their lifestyle, including tents, caravans, travel and language. She offers examples of typical names and tells us about the occupations they frequently undertook.
Explore our collections
Court Records
Our ancestors appeared in many different types of courts – criminal, civil and equity – either as plaintiffs or defendants, criminals or victims.
Parish registers
First introduced in 1538 the Parish registers of the Church of England record baptisms, marriages and burials.
Poor Law Records
Many of our ancestors lived precarious lives and if they grew old and inform could not work or fell ill or bore illegitimate children they may have become a burden on the community.
Apprenticeships
Evidence of apprenticeship is more likely in 18th century than at any other time from town freemen records, London guilds, parish pauper apprenticeships and the tax levied on apprentice indentures.
Find out more
About us
We all want to know where we’re from; to solve the mysteries of our past; to connect with people whose lives lead to ours; to feel as they felt; to wonder what we would have done in their place.
Our mission and vision
Our vision is a world in which everyone has convenient, affordable access to records, finding aids, knowledge and skills necessary to conduct authoritative research into family history.
We are moving!
We have now officially given notice to our landlords here at Charterhouse Buildings and are very excited for our next chapter and a place which will better suit your needs and ours.
Join today and become a member
As member you can make the most of our resources, access our experts and find a welcoming community of people interested in family history and genealogy.
We all have roots. Let’s find them together.
