Featured Articles

Read about our newest Record Set releases and how they could help further your research, get inspired by our historical articles which show how famous ancestors such as Florence Nightingale, the Brontë sisters or Charles Darwin can be traced online, or enjoy fascinating discoveries about well-known celebrities in our Who Do You Think You Are section.

Who Do You Think You Are?

Every year the popular BBC series Who Do You Think You Are? brings us a host of new and exciting stories. We have taken a look at each celebrity as they journey into their family history, and you can read about their discoveries in our articles.

Series 20 (2023)

Series 19 (2022)

Series 18 (2021)

Series 17 (2020)

Series 16 (2019)

Series 15 (2018)

Series 14 (2017)

Series 13 (2016)

Series 12 (2015)

Series 11 (2014)

Series 10 (2013)

Series 9 (2012)

Series 8 (2011)

Series 7 (2010)

Latest Articles

Bernard Shaw’s house and an explorer’s family pile in Hertfordshire

In this dive into the Hertfordshire IR58 land tax records we have been able to find two very different properties, just a short walk from each other. Their records demonstrate the treasure trove of information that can be revealed as a result of the visit made by the land tax surveyor from the 1910s.

Searching for ancestors in the Laois parish records

Laois takes its name from Loígis, a medieval kingdom once ruled by a tribe of this name. In its past it has also been known as County Leix and as Queen's County from 1556 to 1922. As the Irish diaspora has spread out across the globe, especially during the Great Famine of 1845–49 which devastated the county, many people will be able to trace their roots back to this part of Ireland.

An Ancestor Bar None

Helena Bonham Carter is an award-winning actress of film and TV fame who belongs to a prominent British family. Her paternal grandparents were Sir Maurice Bonham Carter, a Liberal MP and Violet, Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury, a life peer in her own right and the daughter of H.H Asquith the Prime Minister. Her paternal great-grandfather, Henry Bonham Carter, was a cousin of Florence Nightingale, as we discover in this article.

The cycling champion who built a car empire

The City of Oxford is primarily associated in most minds with its university. To those of us old enough to remember when British marques dominated motoring in this country, it was also inextricably linked to a make of car in a similar way that Ford was to Dagenham and Vauxhall was to Luton.