There are many excellent resources out there for the genealogists studying their English heritage. We all know about sites such as Ancestry.com, FindMyPast.com and the the like. However, the English county record offices and other county-level governmental bodies are slowly but surely digitizing a great deal of old records. It is interesting that many of [...]

With the holiday season in full-swing, I thought it would be fun to use various holiday words and phrases and see if I could find people in historical records that carried these words and phrases as actual names. Here are a few that I found:
1. Mary Christmas
There are many instances of this name appearing, but [...]

I was researching a South African family the other day who did some traveling back and forth between South Africa and England. While examining a 1912 passenger arrival manifest at Southampton, UK, I noted a gentleman listed on the same manifest as the ancestral family whose occupation caught my attention. Check it out:
In case you [...]

The other day I was researching in the parish registers of St. Cuthbert’s, an Anglican church in Darlington, County Durham, England. As I was studying these registers, I came across a curious baptismal entry that was recorded in the early eighteenth century. Which of the entries do you think it is?
Look at the entry that reads “A [...]

Studying our ancestors often throws up surprises. Many of us begin the study of our genealogy with a few stories (usually of the fantastic variety) and perhaps we initially feel a little let down when we reality dawns. However, I feel that reality is often so much more interesting.
A case in point is a family [...]

ProGenealogists features a diverse group of genealogists specializing in European research – from Ireland to Germany, Italy and Russia - among many other countries. Yet, ProGenealogists is based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Sometimes I speak with people who wonder how we can be such experienced experts in European research if we live in the American [...]

A great new resource has recently become available for those of us with London ancestors. London is pretty much one of the most difficult places to research in England. This is particularly true for those whose only access to London records is the Internet. Well, at long last, there now exists a substantial database for [...]

I recently came across the following item which may be of interest to anyone currently pursuing their English heritage. Glance over the following two documents and note the discrepancy in the marriage data for Thomas Bracegirdle and Jane Hatton. The first is a civil copy of the marriage, dated 1843, while the second is the [...]