Tracing Your Ancestors Using the UK Historical Timeline: A Guide for Family Historians

Talk to any family history enthusiast and it won’t be long before the conversation turns to how much more the family history is than simply names and dates – and quite right too. Authors Angela Smith and Neil Bertram have come to the aid of anyone wishing to understand more about the times in which their ancestors lived and so fill out their family story. Neatly broken down into 10 chapters, a chapter per century, from the 1000s up to current times, the material in the book is arranged in 3 orderly columns. Arranged chronologically, column 1 contains a brief summary of a notable date (which may be anything from details a shipwreck, to the establishment of a set of records of use to family researchers). The second column provides some ‘socio-cultural’ context, and the third column – ‘Monarchy, State and Church’ covers dates and names of key battles, monarchs, and topics of political importance (from plots, to revolutions, wars, certain Acts of Parliament and more).

The authors have aimed the book at people new to genealogy or who are ‘shaky’ on their dates; it would be a fun and useful book for most of us, however, and be sure to spark ideas about records to research, and events to investigate, which would have once been the newsworthy items of the day, and would very often have had a direct and dramatic impact on our ancestors’ lives.

• Published by Pen & Sword (paperback) £12.99. ISBN: 9781399003322. HT