“London is the place for me London this lovely city You can go to France or America, India, Asia or Australia But you must come back to London city”.“Well believe me I am speaking broadmindedly I am glad to know my Mother Country I have been travelling to countries years ago But this is the place I wanted to know London that is the place for me”.This catchy calypso tune was sung on the spot by Trinidad’s own…
In 1995 I bought a 1934 suburban, semi-detached house in Wolvercote, North Oxford that was like a time capsule. In this article, I describe how I discovered not only the history of my house but who lived in my house, using the 1939 Register and other family records. From my deeds and searches in birth and death records, I found that the people who lived in my house before me were Vernon Victor Collett (1900-1960), his wife Cecilia (nee Wells, 1897-1995) and their sons Basil…
Findmypast member, Joanne Murphy, found much more than she bargained for when she delved into her family history. Here’s how her amazing discoveries unfolded, in her own words.When I began tracing my family tree, it intrigued me to find my 4x great-grandfather, George Rose, was a Methodist minister in Scotland. I knew his children were born in Gibraltar and I wondered if he could have been there to 'spread the word of God', so to speak. What I found…
For family historians, the 1939 Register is a veritable goldmine of information on ancestors who were in England and Wales at the outbreak of the Second World War. But what makes it one of the most exciting sources for tracing your family's records? It fills a 30-year census gap: First and foremost, the 1939 Register is the closest record set we're going to get to a census for a while. The next census due to be released is the 1921 census and we…