Brothers Harold and Neville Underwood fought in WW1. One received a gallantry medal; the other was a POW. Only one of them came home.
Category Archives: Social History
Five reasons why ancestors used surnames as middle names
Why did our ancestors sometimes give their children surnames as middle names? Here are five reasons I’ve found in my family tree.
My strangest (and spookiest) heirloom
I don’t have any valuable heirlooms but I have a very unusual one: a set of psychic portraits that belonged to my great grand aunt Marjorie.
Polly Smith & ‘the Gosling’ (Servants & Employers Part 1)
My great grandmother Polly Smith worked as a domestic servant for Nicholas Gosselin aka ‘The Gosling’ — head of the Irish Special Branch.
Millicent Gifford & D’Arcy de Ferrars (Servants & Employers Part 2)
Millicent Gifford left a mining family in the Forest of Dean to work as a cook for a singer, composer and organiser of grand Elizabethan style pageants.
‘Peculiar’ & ‘Unnatural’ Crimes (Part 1)
‘Wilfully murdered by his mother’: In 1851 Fanny Talmer was accused of murdering her nine week old son Henry in Amersham workhouse.
‘Peculiar’ & ‘Unnatural’ Crimes (Part 2)
In 1867 Richard Talmer was charged with an ‘unnatural crime’ along with fellow workhouse inmate William Jennings.
Blazing Dresses (Part 1)
A look at the dangers that fire presented to 19th century women, such as my ancestor Anne Benwell, whose dress caught fire in 1818.
Blazing Dresses (Part 2)
In the 19th century, numerous women were injured and killed when their dresses caught fire, like my ancestor Eliza Maultby.
My Bucks Posse
The 1798 Buckinghamshire posse comitatus gave me a valuable window into my deep Bucks ancestry.
Dig Up Your Ancestors 