Guest Blog: What’s in a name? MacAlister
Authored by Lynn McAlister. Lynn is a professional genealogist and has been a Macalister historian since 1997. She researches the Macalister name worldwide as part of the Guild of One-Name Studies and maintains the blog ‘Today in Macalister History’ (www.macalister-history.blogspot.com). The MacAlister surname is Gaelic in origin: mac Alasdair means ‘son of Alexander’. The name… Read more
New Migration & Travel records – full of emotion
Back at Who Do You Think You Are? Live last February, I saw a perfect example of how much someone’s family history can mean to them. A lady told me that she was struggling to find any record of her granddad before his marriage around 1930. I tried looking in the usual places – censuses,… Read more
Member Trees: Merge Duplicate People
A lot of people have asked over the years how to clean up duplicates in their Ancestry Member Tree. If you are one of the people who discovered that your mysterious distant cousin Mary was really the same person as Uncle George’s wife Mary, then you’ll be happy to learn that we have a solution that… Read more
Never Mind ‘Elizabeth’ – Royal Baby Could be a ‘Lancelot’, ‘Boniface’ or ‘Grissel’
If Prince William and Kate Middleton decide to take baby-name inspiration from their forebears, the royal baby could be born a ‘Grissel’, ‘Boniface’ or even ‘Lancelot’. New research from Ancestry.co.uk, the UK’s favourite family history website, reveals that while ‘Elizabeth’ and ‘John’ are the most common boys and girls names in both family trees, there… Read more
Guest Blog: What’s in a name? Pepler or Peplow?
Authored by Marie Byatt. Marie was born and raised in the Midwest, USA and has taught in Australia and England. She started her family research in the 1970s and became serious in 2002 when she started her One-Name Study and became a volunteer at a LDS family history center. She is a member of the Southern Indiana… Read more
Ancestry Advent Calendar
Forget your little candles or pieces of chocolate. If you’re interested in tracing your ancestors there’s only one way to count down to the festive season, and that’s by having some family history fun with the Ancestry Advent Calendar. Visit the Calendar every day until 24th December for a series of exciting treats. Each window… Read more
Guest Blog: What’s in a name? Cavers
Authored by Vivienne Dunstan. Vivienne is an independent academic historian, a long-time genealogist since the age of twelve too many decades ago, and a former computer scientist. She comes originally from Hawick, near where Cavers originates, and is a Cavers descendant. CAVERS Cavers is a surname that originates historically from Cavers parish near the town of Hawick in… Read more
Guest Blog: What’s in a Name? Hardisty: a persistent surname
Authored by Howard Mathieson. Howard is a member of the Guild of One-Name Studies and maintains the surnameorigins.ca mapping website. He can be reached at maps@surnameorigins.ca Hardisty: a persistent surname The Hardisty surname is derived from an English place name. From A Dictionary of Surnames (Hanks and Hodges), we learn that Hardisty “is a habitation name… Read more
FREE* ACCESS: WWI Records, 9th-12th November
For Remembrance Weekend, we feel that everyone should have the chance to discover the war heroes in their family. That’s why we’ve made our most popular military records free* for everyone to use, from 9th-12th November. The free* collections are our World War I Service, Pension and Medal Index Cards. These are especially useful for… Read more
5 new ways to trace your military ancestors
5 new ways to trace your military ancestors We’re giving you 5 new ways to trace your military ancestors this Remembrance Weekend. We’ve added thousands of new records covering both World Wars, and stretching right back into the 19th century. The largest new release is Commonwealth War Graves, 1914-1945. If you have relatives who fell… Read more
Don’t forget you can search records, build your family tree and discover more about your family history over on the main site.
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