Dr Perry Gauci shares his expertise on English merchants, trade and banking from the 1660s to 1850s. We discuss what information is available and where to find it including trade directories, the London Gazette, bankruptcy records, wills, insurance records, the role of the town councils, London, Great Yarmouth, herrings, Norwich, Newcastle, Bristol, English ports, river transport, shipping, banking archives, court records and much more. 

There is an accompanying blog post with links to suggested resources here: https://emmacox.co.uk/trade-banking-and-merchants-in-17-19th-centuries. 

Do you have German ancestors? Claudia Strachan talks about some of the letters, memoirs and other documents she has translated and shares stories about migration from Germany to the USA, South America and Australia. Bringing to life 18th, 19th and early 20th century lives in Germany and describing what it would have been like to migrate to another country and how letters were exchanged. We discuss literacy and education, spelling, the migration process and more. 

Mike Trenchard is an expert in researching ancestors in British India. We discuss the East India Company and how it helped shape India, where to find records online and in archives, whether to use a local researcher (or not!), the Families in British India Society (FIBIS), the British Library, the India Office, civil servants, ships, how India has changed and which countries it has been split into and much more. 

Sandra Robinson shares her expertise on the history of the Walloons of the Low Countries in Europe in the 16th and 17th century. From origins in Belgium and France and including journeys across Europe to escape perscution from Philip II of Spain. They were the original Protestant refugees and their descendants can be found in England and across the world.

Award winning librarian, Peter McCracken, noticed a gap in available information about where to find details about historical ships online. This led him to setup ShipIndex to bring together all the places he could find, or has been told about, to help anyone looking for information about ships. This includes ships used for migration across the world and crew listings for people searching for their ancestors. 

Peter has written a guest blog post which explains more about ShipIndex. It is available here: https://emmacox.co.uk/guest-blog-shipindex

Jonny Perl talks about how he setup DNA Painter and how it can help anyone researching their DNA including people with pedigree collapse and complicated family trees. We discuss chromosomes, tree completeness, what are the odds, the DNA testing companies and much more. 

Jules shares the story of her ancestor Jean BonDurant in her book "The Muse of Freedom" and his imagined life as a Huguenot in the Languedoc with the trials and tribulations of 17th century France. 

While investigating him, Jules researched late 17th century Languedoc customs, politics, and spiritual traditions specific to the little known Cévennes mountains of south-central France, culminating in a rich repository to feed future novels about the Cévenol people and culture.

We also discuss some of the help she received and the sources and resources used including the Hathi Trust, JSTOR, Google Books, Gallica, Huguenot Museums and regional libraries.

The "A Few Forgotten Women" project comemorates women who might otherwise never be known. In this panel interview with Janet Few, Mandy Geary, Margaret Roberts and Ann Simcock we discuss some of the women they have researched and the issues they faced such as alcoholism, poverty, criminality, illegitimacy, mental health problems and more. There is also a blog post with lots of the resources suggested for anyone who wants to find out more about women such as these in their family. The blog post is available at https://emmacox.co.uk/a-few-forgotten-women

The "Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes" is a 200 year old album filled with wonderful fabric pieces. It was created by a Victorian mill owner's daughter who became a merchant's wife and tracks her life over the next 20+ years. Kate Strasdin has researched Anne and the other people mentioned within the album, tracing her life and the places she lived and visited enhanced by snippets of the culture, events and fashions of the time.