Benny on February 26th, 2010

Mixed race, mulattos, coloureds, multiracial and a multiple number of more derogatory terms have been used to describe those of us who are of mixed origin.  In Southern Africa, where I hail from, the term used is Coloured and the biggest and oldest of the community is the Cape Coloured.  During the pre-production of  ‘I’m [...]

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Benny on February 7th, 2010

All birth, marriage and death records from the National Archives collection of Non-Parochial, Foreign and Maritime Registers can now be found online at BMDRegisters.co.uk
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Benny on February 2nd, 2010

A special London edition of Ancestors, the family history magazine from The National Archives, is out now. It investigates what you can find at the London Metropolitan Archives through the lives of one Hackney family, study the history of the 18th century coffee house and learn about London's lure for migrants.
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Benny on January 9th, 2010

The records of seamen who joined the Royal Navy between 1853 and 1923 can now be searched and downloaded from DocumentsOnline, The National Archives' digital records service.
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Next year there will be 12,000 people aged 100 or over in the UK.  In 10 years time this will have nearly doubled to 22,000. Read Full Story here

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Benny on January 2nd, 2010

The National Archives is the UK governments official archive. Our main duties are to preserve government records and to set standards in information management and re-use.
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Benny on December 26th, 2009

DyNAstyBlog wishes everyone a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year.

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Two-for-one ticket offer – save £20. The National Archives is delighted to offer you the chance to buy two adult tickets for the price of one for Who Do You Think You Are? Live.
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Benny on December 16th, 2009

Ancestry.com claim that President Barack Obama and billionaire financial investor Warren Buffett are actually related. The claim to have determined that the men are 7th cousins three times removed related through a 17th-century Frenchman.
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Benny on December 6th, 2009

I finally got round to reading Professor Bryan Sykes’ book “The Seven Daughters of Eve”.  Professor Sykes is a leading world authority on DNA and human evolution.   If you have an interest in DNA and how genetics affects family history you must read this book. In my opinion, it has, by far, the best [...]

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Benny on November 29th, 2009

Former UK Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is moved to tears when he is given evidence his three times great-grandfather fathered children with his own daughter. This fact is revealed as part of the BBC Wales program 'Coming Home' when he returns to Chirk, in the county of Wrexham, to research his Welsh roots.
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Benny on November 29th, 2009

The earliest date for Scotland's next census is Sunday 27 March 2011 and the the Scottish Parliament has been asked to consider the draft Census (Scotland) Order.
The census will ask 14 household questions and up to 35 questions for each individual, which helps to decide how billions of pounds worth of future public services are [...]

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Benny on November 29th, 2009

GenealogyBank.com, a leading online provider of digitized newspapers for family history research, announced today the addition of over 100 million fully searchable news articles.
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Benny on November 26th, 2009

Thousands of marriages between 1795 to 1895 carried out in Gretna Green (Scotland) are set to be published online by Ancestry.co.uk.  This will help some genealogists in finding records of marriages that may have seemed lost forever.  Gretna Green became the eloping capital of British Isles after Marriage Act of 1754 and was not immune to some [...]

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Benny on November 26th, 2009

Mr Etchells, the Wakefield man behind the early release of the 1911 census for England and Wales, is appealing to the Information Commissioner under the Freedom of Information Act to unlock details from the 1939 National Registration of the UK – an emergency, census-like survey of the country at the beginning of the war. [...]

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Benny on November 22nd, 2009

The death of the “last Tommy”, Harry Patch, in July 2009 put an end to first-hand memories of the World War I trenches. But if Armistice Day pricks your curiosity about what your ancestors did in the world wars, there are many avenues of archives to explore.Read The Full Story

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Benny on December 23rd, 2005

With Christmas upon us yet again, we could do well not to forget the family with us now. If you are anyhting like me, new projects and hobbies can get in the way of ‘quality time’. Whilst the holidays give us some time to do those little things we’ve been planning to do in our research/projects, we must appreciate those who will be with us at this time of the year.

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Benny on November 29th, 2005

Welcome to the dynastyBlog. I will be covering Genealogical issues in this blog including genetic genealogy and the development of dynastyDB, a ‘Single Name yDNA’ study database application. I am not averse to discussing history as it relates to both general human development and family history. I hope to keep this blog quite busy and [...]

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