Thank you Linda Teather, Marian Beaman and so many of you for joining us today during Emma Cox’s live presentation. Your generous ❤️s, restacks, and shares have helped turn this publication into the supportive community we all want to see. As a bonus, it’s also great fun.

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Today’s episode was a fun romp through one incredible family line. Emma’s thoughtful examination of roots and shoots of the line yield unexpected connections that take us from a dashing young Formula 1 driver to the Queen Mother. Emma's generously provided the slides to her talk including even richer resources than are linked below.

The slides include a dazzling array of links anyone can use. I pull out the most significant ones you can follow along with the video:

Resources

* Wikipedia. Emma gave the example of the page for Sir. John Mosley, but in our discussion we talked about

* How anyone can actually create or edit a wikipedia page once they’ve created an account.

* How valuable it can be to explore the resources listed on any Wikipedia page.

* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_John_Mosley,_1st_Baronet

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolleston_Hall

* History of Parliament. A useful resource if you know or think you have someone with a role in the British parliament.

* historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/wigram-robert-i-1744-1830

* Historic Shipping. For family members who might have had interests in shipping or to explore transport history.

* historic-shipping.co.uk/robwigram/The%20Wigram%20Family.html

* After a sidebar on the Queen Mother we discovered connections to Formula 1 drivers, Wedgwood, Charles Darwin, the rise of fascism in Germany and with respect to tools, the Internet Archive

* archive.org/details/registerofwigram00wigr/page/n13/mode/2up?view=theater&q=Ely

And Belper Derbyshire Genealogy for background into the Arkwright family who invented the spinning jenny:

* Awkwright Family Descendants report (pdf.)

Many of you will already know Emma for her Journeys into Genealogy podcast, where she interviews guests worldwide. As Substack publishers and readers, you can explore her full catalog and get previews of different episodes by subscribing to her publication:

I know Emma - Journeys into Genealogy joins me in hoping you can make it for our program and the Substack live preview next month. You can see all upcoming episodes at Projectkin.org/events. See you then. 👋

Thank you David Shaw, Bill Moore, Kathy Stone, Linda Teather, Karen Harrison and so many others for joining us today during Emma Cox’s live presentation. Your generous ❤️s, restacks, and shares have helped turn this publication into the supportive community we all want to see. Truly, thank you!

Learn more at Projectkin.org/about.

You won’t want to miss today’s episode, as Emma explains how to sort through and interpret wills, the role of probate, and sources in the UK. Our discussion also includes American and Canadian perspectives.

Resources:

These resources are listed in Emma’s slides, which makes it handy to scroll through them. In the recording, you’ll hear Emma’s guidance on each resource.

Tip: You can use the “Transcript” button above to search the transcript and get to the specific spot in the video where she talks about each resource.

National Archives (UK)

* www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/wills-or-administrations-before-1858

* www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/famous-wills-1552-1854

Ancestry

* National Probate Calendar www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/1904/?redirectFor=db.aspx

* Ancestry Wills and Probate www.ancestry.co.uk/search/categories/clp_wills/?srsltid=AfmBOophk9gljgUYCPfnhxr6m3azo1qOF0Sf4fhiaBphC6oGeA7Setri

* Court, Land, Wills & Financial

www.ancestry.co.uk/search/categories/36/?srsltid=AfmBOoohGBmRmLIf9W4WWD8fprcOcd0fYYKib33JkfqLh3oJHq_HHo2e

* UK, Extracted Probate Records, 1269-1975

www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/1610

FindMyPast

* Where to find family wills – Find My Past

www.findmypast.co.uk/discover/birth-marriage-death-and-parish-records/wills-and-probate

Probate Search (UK)

* Find family wills: General Register Office

probatesearch.service.gov.uk

Transcription Tips

* Transcript Freeware: www.jacobboerema.nl/en/Freeware.htm (Windows application download.)

* Courses:

* www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/reading-old-documents

* webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20230801144244/

* https:/www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/

* Society of Genealogists Presentations

* Palaeography Part 1: How to Create Abstracts from Old Documents: www.sog.org.uk/education/learning-hub/guides-tips/palaeography-part-1

* Secretary Hand: www.sog.org.uk/education/learning-hub/guides-tips/palaeography-part-2

* Family Tree Magazine

* 6 Tips from Family Tree Magazine: www.family-tree.co.uk/how-to-guides/read-old-handwriting-paleography

* AI:

* www.transkribus.org

Recommended Reading

* “The Wills of Our Ancestors” – A Guide for Family & Local Historians by Stuart A Raymond.

Kindle edition: amzn.to/3GIW99a

* “Probate Jurisdictions: Where to Look for Wills” by Jeremy Gibson and Stuart Raymond

Familyhistorybooksonline.com/probate-jurisdictions-where-to-look-for-wills-by-jeremy-gibson-stuart-raymond-170

* “Examples of handwriting 1550-1650” by W.S.B. Buck

www.goodreads.com/book/show/20997444-examples-of-handwriting-1550-1650

* “Wills before 1858” by Eve McLaughlin

goodreads.com/book/show/3867060-wills-before-1858

* “Reading old handwriting” by Eve McLaughlin

goodreads.com/book/show/161233332-reading-old-handwriting

* “Wills and Other Probate Records” by Karen Granum and Nigel Taylor

Published by the UK National Archives. May need to view in a library.

* “Words from Wills and Other Probate Records” by Stuart A Raymond

goodreads.com/book/show/21290046-words-from-wills-and-other-probate-records-1500-1800

Many of you will already know Emma for her Journeys into Genealogy podcast, where she interviews guests worldwide. As Substack publishers and readers, you can explore her full catalog and get previews of different episodes by subscribing to her publication:

I know Emma - Journeys into Genealogy joins me in hoping you can join us for our program and the Substack live preview next month. You can see all upcoming episodes and when they are scheduled in our events calendar listing. See you then. 👋

As with each of her Emma Explores programs, professional genealogist Emma Cox regaled us today with stories from her family tree. This time, she focused on the Upcott family and their involvement in the Wool industry in Devon.

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As in each of these episodes, Emma - Journeys into Genealogy generously shares her slides, notes, and tips. In fact, among the resources she used to collect the material for today’s program was a book she picked up in a Devon museum while on holiday, “Tiverton Cloth – The Story of the Town’s Woollen Trade 1475-1815” by Peter Maunder. Delightfully, many of her ancestors are mentioned in the book, which reminds all of us of the benefits of a tight focus in research. These are the slides from her talk:

Included among the tools Emma mentioned was this remarkable map in the collection of the US Library of Congress. You can explore the full map here or in the link below.

These were some of the other tools Emma mentioned:

* Port Books – show what was traded in and out of a particular location.

* Nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/merchant-trade-records-port-books-1565-1799

* Nehemiah Upcott's family tree.

* Devon Family History Society — devonfhs.org.uk, and a reminder to consider joining the FHS of any UK region you’re interested in.

* Historic Cullompton — historiccullompton.co.uk/the-cloth-trade.

* Heritage Gateway (Hobhorse mill) — heritagegateway.org.uk/gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MDV21346&resourceID=104.

* GENUKI — genuki.org.uk/big/eng/DEV/Probate/DevonWills/Wills1661.

A sidebar here to reference Emma’s delightful interview with Brian Randell of GENUKI for her Journeys into Genealogy podcast.

* TNA 1661 Will discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D895785.

* South West Heritage Trust devon-cat.swheritage.org.uk.

You’ll know Emma for her two Substack publications: My Family History, where she shares stories from her tree, and the acclaimed podcast:

Have you just discovered the Projectkin Community Forum and this wonderful genealogy community on Substack? Welcome, it’s a delight to have you. I look forward to seeing you at future free Projectkin events. You’ll find many more programs like these in our events calendar:

We’re delighted to welcome Emma - Journeys into Genealogy back to Projectkin for this monthly series. You’ll know Emma for her two Substack publications, one, named My Family History where she shares stories from her tree, and the other is the acclaimed podcast:

For Projectkin, Emma dove into two particular names in her family tree, Rosalinda and Gylby. They are both unusual names, yet they criss-cross her tree, revealing pedigree collapse and unexpected connections. I hope you enjoy her story.

For our reference, Emma has kindly shared the slides from her talk:

As tools, Emma referenced not only Getty Images and a private tree on Ancestry, but also:

* The ad-supported site, Free BMD (for Births, Marriages, and Deaths for the UK from 1836 to 1999) at FreeBMD.org.uk

* Newspapers.com

* British Newspapers Archive at BritishNewspaperArchive.co.uk

* UnitHistories.com for military information about Gylby’s nephew

If you enjoyed this program, please take a moment to thank Emma with a ❤️ and share this post with friends.

If you’ve just discovered the Projectkin Community Forum and this wonderful genealogy community on Substack, welcome! It’s a delight to have you. I look forward to seeing you at future free Projectkin events. You’ll find many more programs like these in our events calendar:

Are you thinking about genealogy and family history? Join us at Projectkin.org/about. We’re hooked on stories.

What fun to welcome our special guest, Emma - Journeys into Genealogy , back to Projectkin’s Emma Explores series. In today’s program, the extended family of James Blatch Cox of Falmouth, England, provided a framework for storytelling about the home life, business enterprises, and historical context of 19th-century Britain, Canada, and the United States.

We learned about James Blatch Cox’s varied career and how he and his wife, Harriet Newberry, went on to have nine children and a breathtaking 85 grandchildren!

In the slides, you’ll see a number of references Emma shared as sources for her research, including:

* Grace’s Guide: gracesguide.co.uk/Cox_and_Co

* British Newspaper Archive: britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

* Info from distant cousins who compiled Ancestry trees

* Local newspaper falmouthpacket.co.uk

* Wikitree for stories wikitree.com/wiki/Cox-34433

In our conversation, we also talked about tools for such things as exploring maps in various forms. Among the sites we mentioned were:

* Two interviews of Emma’s for her Journeys into Genealogy podcast:

* “Maps, the Ordnance Survey, digitisation and more” Emma’s interview with Chris Fleet from the National Library of Scotland: Chris Fleet

* “Londonist with Matt Brown,” Emma’s interview with Matt Brown the explorer behind the Londonist publication.

* The interface from OldMapsOnline.com (This came up in regard to time sliding between maps.)

* Using Google Maps with layers to capture places where your ancestors might have lived (and the caution to be sure to clean place names to their analogs on modern maps.)

If you enjoyed this program, please take a moment to thank Emma with a ❤️ below and subscribe to her podcast, Journeys into Genealogy. You can also explore Emma’s personal publication, My Family History, which features more stories about Emma’s family.

If you’ve just discovered the Projectkin Community Forum and this wonderful genealogy community on Substack, welcome! It’s a delight to have you. I hope to see you at future events. You’ll find many more programs like these in our events calendar:

If you're curious about genealogy and family history, there’s much more to explore. Learn more and join us at Projectkin.org/about.

Emma Cox’s story today explored her 2nd great-grandaunt, Florence Gertrude Sparagnapane (1864–1949), and her place in the social history of the UK in the early 20th century.

Florence was an actress who went by the name of Florence Kingsley. She married fellow actor Robert de Fonblanque. In the fall of 1912, at age 43, she leveraged her reputation and standing to organize and lead the March, Edinburgh to London for Women’s Suffrage.

You can explore the slides and links referenced in Emma’s presentation below:

The party of as many as 300 women (local groups joined and left the group along the way) made the nearly 400-mile trek in just over a month, traveling an average of 15 to 30 miles per day. For those outside Britain, here’s a modern Google Maps preview of the trail as it followed along today’s A1 highway.

Resources

For further context and details, you can explore some of these links:

* Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Gertrude_de_Fonblanque

* Women’s Library Collections, LSE Library (London School of Economics) lse.ac.uk/library/collection-highlights/the-womens-library

* Book: “The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928” by Elizabeth Crawford

* Mapping Women’s Suffrage map.mappingwomenssuffrage.org.uk/neatline/fullscreen/all map.mappingwomenssuffrage.org.uk/items/show/312

* Google Arts & Culture artsandculture.google.com/story/women-s-suffrage-pilgrimage-lse-library/8wWBZ7Ey--82Jw?hl=en

* Suffrage Resources suffrageresources.org.uk (site for school kids)

* Oxford Dictionary of National Biography oxforddnb.com (access via a library)

* British Newspaper Archive britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

* Patent Office: gov.uk/search-for-patent

Note: Though this is generally a monthly series, we will NOT have a program at the regular time next month in celebration of Easter Week. Good Friday, 18 April is a Bank Holiday in the UK.

If you enjoyed this program, please take a moment to thank Emma with a ❤️ below and subscribe to her podcast, Journeys into Genealogy or My Family History, which features more stories about Emma’s family. 

Do you have Suffragettes in your family tree? Tell their stories. As always, you’re welcome to share today’s program with your friends and family.

If you’ve just discovered the Projectkin Community Forum and this wonderful Genealogy community on Substack, welcome! It’s a delight to have you.

You’ll find many more programs like these in our events calendar:

Was this post forwarded to you? Curious about genealogy and family history, there’s much more to share.

As Emma - Journeys into Genealogy shares in her presentation, her third great-grandfather, Andrew Handyside, 1805-1887, was born in Scotland. He benefited from learning his trade by working for his uncle’s engineering works in St. Petersburg, Russia, before coming to Derby, England. In Derby, he first acquired an interest in an iron foundry before turning it into Andrew Handyside & Company, Limited, and growing it internationally.

Today, installations include massive architectural iron construction like St. Pancras Station in London to collectible cast iron fountains, urns, and postal boxes. As Emma asks, have you found any artifacts built by the company in your area? Drop her a note!

Emma graciously included the slides from her talk today. You’ll find it loaded with valuable tips and linked references.

Andrew Handyside Resources:

For further context and details, you can explore some of these links:

* Wikipedia

* Science Museum

* National Gallery of Scotland

* Derby Photos (list of lots of his constructions)

* Vintagemachinery.org

* Pro Quest (may require institutional login)

* Google Searches brought up lots of auction items

* Grace’s Guide

* Derbyshire Archaeological Society

* Derby Museum and Art Gallery

* Friends of Friar Gate Bridge

* Derbyphotos.co.uk

If you enjoyed this program, take a moment to thank Emma with a ❤️ below and subscribe to her substack for Journeys into Genealogy. Feel free to share the program with your friends and family.

If you’ve just discovered the Projectkin Community Forum, and this wonderful Family History community on Substack, welcome. It’s a delight to have you. You’ll find many more programs like these at

Was this post forwarded to you? Curious about genealogy and family history there’s much more to share.

When you’re ready, subscribe to receive all of our event recordings in your inbox for free. More Projectkin.org/about

Names seem to be one of the first ways family members learn about their history. Sometime after settling on grandparents' pet names, they ask questions about surnames and relationships soon after.

Today’s episode focuses very specifically on the names in Emma’s family tree as a thread to pull us through some incredible resources you might never have known about. She’s kindly offered her slides here as a reference.

As with each episode, Emma thoughtfully included several unexpected tips. Among them were:

* Learn about some traditional naming patterns for middle names and how to use them in your research:

* family-tree.co.uk/how-to-guides/how-to-use-naming-patterns-to-find-your-ancestors

* familytreemagazine.com/names/researching-ancestors-middle-names

* Exploring clusters of names and how to use physical maps to find pairings using examples of Sweetapple and Blatch in Wiltshire:

* forebears.io/surnames/sweetapple

* namecensus.com/last-names/blatch-surname-popularity

Examples of individuals & their stories:

* George Alan Rodney Wright-Nooth, Emma’s 3rd cousin, twice removed, who was captured as a Japanese POW during WWII:

* His obituary: Telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1404415/George-Wright-Nooth.html

* Awards and medals www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80008215 (not visible in all locations)

* George Wright-Nooth’s brother Peter’s remembrance: www.cnac.org/emilscott/wrightnooth01.htm

* A book George Wright-Nooth wrote about his experiences as a prisoner of War, now on Google Books, UK: Prisoner of the Turnip Heads: The Fall of Hong Kong and the Imprisonment by the Japanese

* Europeans in East Africa, a database of people of European origin who lived and worked in East Africa referencing him. europeansineastafrica.co.uk/_site/custom/database/?a=viewIndividual&pid=2&person=2982

* Major William Reginald James Alston-Roberts-West who was killed in action in 1940. The father-in-law of Emma’s fourth cousin.

* Memorial in a church in Preston on Stour:

iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/19356

* As a Grenadier Guard, his photo is available for purchase on their site: images.grengds.com/1945-officer-memorial-album-1/maj-w-r-j-alston-roberts-west-14750835.html

Useful References

Emma’s assortment of helpful sites for this kind of research:

* Find a grave

* Family Tree Maker (or other desktop family history software) for reports

* The London Gazette (or other local newspaper)

* Old family wills

* Europeans in West Africa

* Newspaper obituaries

* Imperial War Museum oral histories (UK)

* Grenadier Guards & Photographs of individuals (example above)

* Companies House for living people associated with companies in the UK. (In the US, such details are called annual information statements and are available from the Secretary of State for each state. A great many corporations are in Delaware.)

* Useful free Windows software called “Transcript” for transcribing wills

* To find the distribution of surnames and learn about their origins (ad-supported):

* Forebears.io

* Namecensus.com (works with familiar names in English)

If you enjoyed this program, take a moment to thank Emma with a ❤️ below. Feel free to share the program with your friends and family.

If you’ve just discovered this program and want to learn more, visit us at Projectkin.org. You can see our full calendar of free events at

Was this post forwarded to you? Get our free recordings delivered to your inbox as soon as they’re available by subscribing 👇.

In today’s episode, Emma Cox dove into her family legacy to explore stories woven through our shared Anglophone history.

Stories associated with The Most Reverand William Markham, archbishop of York, took us from Westminster Abbey plaques to tombs without bones. As with these programs, Emma’s insights help us all learn how to separate fact from fiction and use her stories to help us in our research.

Emma’s graciously shared her slides as PDF files. Note the many underlined text references on each slide. These are active links to external resources such as the Church of England Database, the History of Parliament Online, and the Napoleon Series for its military database and other useful resources.

In her discussion, Emma also mentioned a recent Journeys Into Genealogy podcast episode, “The Prize Papers with Anne Ramon,” which discussed English naval ships and the privateers they battled in the Atlantic. 

For more tips, view all past episodes of Emma Explores here. Then, join us for our first program of the new calendar year, Emma Explores, on January 16th.

All of Projectkin's programs are listed on the Projectkin Events Calendar.

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This month, Emma kicked off the program with her discoveries at the West Surrey Family History Society Fair. There, she spoke with several of the specialists in their “help desk” stalls, including Graham Bandy, who helped her identify a long-cherished photo.

You can read more about that in her recent post for Emma’s Substack “A Genealogy Fair and a Mystery Solved.” What a terrific reminder of the extraordinary resources available to you among local historical societies, antiquarians, and collectors.

Today’s episode focused on a theme Emma has wanted to explore to discover the actors and other thespians in her family tree. She’s kindly offered her slides here as a reference.

As with each episode, Emma thoughtfully included several unexpected tips. Among them were:

* Keep an eye out for stage names that are distinct from birth names. Regulations may require the connection to be printed in a newspaper.

* Wikipedia.org: Most series (such as movies or television) will have Wikipedia pages listing who was in each episode. If such a series page doesn’t exist, you can create one yourself.

* eBay: Anyone who was an actor or in theatre may have advertising or newspaper writeups treasured by collectors. Don’t overlook collectors’ sites like eBay. Search by title, topic, author — even address.

* Hathi Trust: A tremendous resource for digitized books, pamphlets, and documents.

* Abebooks.com or abebooks.co.uk, a reseller of out-of-print, rare books, fine art, and collectibles.

* Google searches (use “” around groups of words, “-” or “+” for exclusions or inclusions, for example.) And while searching, look for…

1) Theaters, production companies, and more

2) Photos – search from photos using images.google.com or lens

* Use Google alerts for search terms you are always on the hunt for.

For more tips, view all past episodes of Emma Explores here, and join us for our Emma Explores program on December 19th. That will be the last program of the calendar year.

All of Projectkin's programs are listed on the Projectkin Events Calendar.

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