Europe

Leaders of the Enlightenment, in a nutshell

Leaders of enlightenment

Who were the central thinkers and leaders of the period of the enlightenment…who together changed the way we and our societies and families that made those societies thought and organised our world. There would be backward steps but the genie of enlightenment was out of the box…

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Act of Settlement 1700-1701

Act of Settlement 1701document

The Act of Settlement in 1701, enshrined the exclusion of Catholics from the line of succession in England. It ensured the continuation of the House of Hanover.

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Phrenology- a Victorian obsession?

In 1824, George Combe’s ‘Elements of Phrenology’ was published. Phrenology was the identification of an individual’s faculties by feeling the shape of the skull. It was argued by Franz Joseph Gall, an Austrian physician, along with Johann Spurzheim that mind and brain were connected, in a way that, different characteristics of mind, would give different…

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Durham Mining Maps

Many of us have miners in our family trees but with so many mining areas closing down it is not always easy to find out exactly where the mines were. A project called Miner Mapping, undertaken in Durham has listed place names in County Durham and by clicking on a place name you can search…

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Herefordshire Wills

If you have any family history links with Hereford then this will interest you. It’s a great site, put together by volunteers and contributions from others with Herefordshire wills to share. Wills can prove such a little goldmine, offering up new connections between hitherto unknown clusters of family, establishing family relationships, as well as adding…

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Tailors and Family History

A plethora of tailors and dressmakers in our own family trees made us stop and think about the role of the tailor in the community and how they went about their everyday work and we will get to that but first Many in our families were tailors in Hampshire between Portsmouth and Hambledon. It just…

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