Category: Real Family History Stories
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The Truth? Posted on 18 November 2025 by Gary Skerritt – Meet Your Past Let’s be honest: when most people start a family-tree project, they’re hoping to find a war hero, a King, a wealthy Victorian landowner, or at the very least, someone who lived in a nice street in West Bridgford. Sometimes, though, the…
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Received Seven Years in Prison for larceny. He Was My 2× Great-Grandfather. William Goddard, aged 25 – Millbank Prison, 5th February 1880This Photo is 145 years old to the month (February 1880 – February 2025). TNA ref PCOM 9/79 (Portraits of Convicts, 1879) photos were taken of any “habitual criminal” under the Prevention of Crimes Act 1871. William’s multiple priors…
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Few things are as fascinating as discovering that your own body carries a historical record. Long before census returns, parish registers, or wills, your DNA was already quietly recording where your family had been and how they survived. Tracing your ancestry today sits at the meeting point of biology and history these days. For anyone…