Tall Tales from the Trees

The death of Catherine Castle, young daughter of my 4x great uncle Michael, triggered an aggrieved, gossipy letter from her cousin Charles...

My 3x great grandfather Thomas Castle was a partner with his brother Michael in the Bristol Distillery of which I wrote earlier . Along wit...

Call me romantic or call me nosey, I often find myself wondering how my ancestral couples met – how any two strands of my family tree bumped...

I was writing here a while back about George Vernon the actor , born George Verrall, and made some poor jokes about the profusion, and confu...

The last edition of the current series of Word of Mouth (BBC Radio 4’s programme about aspects of the English language) was broadcast ea...

I am writing during a week in which Elizabeth II has made a historic and controversial state visit to the Republic of Ireland, the first by...

Apologies if you’ve come here in search of Jameson Moss the young actor and musician! What are the chances of you finding instead my cousin ...

An odd series of coincidences led me here. First of all I was writing an article on the history of dyes for a book about inventions. Quite s...

I wrote about my cousin Austin Cooper once before. He was Canadian, but served with the Black Watch Regiment during the First World War. Wi...

In 1584, my poor old 12x great uncle Ralph Sadleir was hauled out of statesmanlike semi-retirement by Queen Elizabeth I to fill the post of...