Tall Tales from the Trees

I have precious little to brag about in my family tree when it comes to sporting achievement. But, clutching at straws, I can claim a great...

I’m constantly delighted by how much information is now available online for historical research. There are those who claim that the inter...

Russell Manners was a brother-in-law of my cartoonist cousin Charles de Noé . Although a great many of my ancestors made their mark, good or...

It’s my 100 th post here! I try to be eclectic in my choices of subjects – family name, period, occupation, home – and not to be too jud...

I don’t know how I am related to Charles de Noé, only that I must be! His mother Frances Caroline Halliday is, somehow, at the heart of the ...

It doesn’t take long to build up a detailed picture of the prominent Tipperary families of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I have d...

Sometimes it seems to me to have been an absolute rule: the eldest daughter was saddled with the role of housekeeper or nursemaid to her eld...

I n 1800 the Acts of Union abolished the Irish parliament in favour of direct rule from London. 26 new peerages, the so-called Union peerage...

The Verralls of Lewes in Sussex, cousins of mine by marriage, were prominent local auctioneers for five generations , selling everything fr...

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