Heritage Hunter A piece of one of the enormous sarsen stones at Stonehenge has been returned to the ancient monument, English Heritage has announced. The prehistoric stone ‘core’ was removed during archaeological excavations in 1958 and its existence remained largely unknown for the next 60 years. The core will now join English Heritage’s collection of more than … Read more
New release from Findmypast: Scotland, Wigtownshire & Minnigaff Parish Lists 1684. Search for your Scottish ancestors in parish lists containing over 53,000 names. First published in 1916 by the Scottish records society, the lists consist of “nominal Rolls of all persons, male or female, over the age of 12 years, resident within their respective parishes – … Read more
Do you find TNA’s online resources sometimes complex to use? Simon Fowler offers reassurance and guidance on where to find the records you need. If you are going to use the records held by The National Archives (TNA) – and this is almost inevitable if your ancestor are English and Welsh, and quite possible if … Read more
Nell Darby looks at the maritime and inland history of Dylan Thomas’s ‘ugly, lovely town’. Swansea has often had to fight off negative comparisons to its big brother, Cardiff, which benefits from its status as the Welsh capital city. Even its most famous son, poet and playwright Dylan Thomas, had mixed emotions about his birthplace, describing … Read more
Tickets are now available for one of the largest history-related events of the calendar, the Chalke Valley History Festival held near Salisbury in Wiltshire from 24-30 June this year. Those taking part in the Festival for the first time include Turtle Bunbury on Around the World in 1847, the best-selling crime novelist Minette Walters who will be discussing the … Read more
Angela Buckley shares how to find out if your rural ancestors took part in the Swing Riots. Life was tough at the turn of the 19th century and many working families struggled to survive, especially in the countryside. Most of us have ‘ag labs’ in our family tree and in 1830, their increasingly difficult living … Read more
The Gittins family were well established in Mostyn, north Wales, where they mined coal. But what would they do when their mine closed? By Rick Kitson. Mining in Mostyn has taken place since 1261, and it has always been a dangerous occupation. As well as the risk of the underground workings collapsing, throughout the last … Read more
Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod has received a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant of £19,900 for a new heritage project, Archiving the Past. Made possible by money raised by National Lottery players, the project will be the first step in collating and digitalising the wealth of archive material relating to Llangollen Eisteddfod, so that it can … Read more