Book Review: What's in a Surname by David McKie

This book starts with a look at 6 different Broughton villages in England. It looks at the common and very different surnames and how they have fared through time. It was a very interesting idea, but I nearly didn't make it past this chapter. However, I'm very glad I did.

Each chapter seemed even better than the previous, delving into ideas about surnames I'd not considered, but each enhancing the journey. From simple ideas, such as the reason for the spread of surnames (normally necessity), to learning that there weren't only warring clans - but actual warring surnames (such as the Tweedies vs, the Flemings). Eponyms provided an interesting discussion and was one aspect of surnames that I hadn't thought about - and yet is so deeply ingrained in society and the products we use; perhaps the reason it hadn't come to mind? A more sinister theme was the fad of changing your name to that of your political opponent as a way to confuse voters and perhaps increase the voting in your favour. This seemed to peak with a Hanoman and a Stansfeld becoming a Thatcher and a Regan.

The book taught me much in the way of terminology too, from daughtering out of surnames, to surgers, sliders, and stayers. Each phrase allowing me to better understand the basics of the world of onomastics - yet another new term for me.

All in all, this was a brilliant book that provided interesting and illuminating reading. The book left me with a greater sense of the importance of surnames, not just in general, but specifically. It also allowed an insight to what is actually in a surname - and that this is often not the obvious answer!

Book Review: Writing Your Family History by Deborah Cass

I'm glad that I read this book because it gave me some dedicated time to contemplate about writing my won family history.

However, the book is very basic, relies heavily on examples and extracts, and feels like a first draft due to the many spelling mistakes.

The book considers primary sources, further sources, personal sources, making the most of limited materials, constructing and writing family history, and producing your story. As you can see the chapter headings are really great, but unfortunately all of this material is basic and a quick search online would reveal deeper information on each topic.

Including the index, the book is 121 pages in length, so this contributes to the brief nature of the book. I'd say that it's ideal for people just coming into family history research as it will give them a good idea of what sources are available and what information they may contain. However, if you've been researching for a while, then this book might not be the book to help you write down the lives of your loved ones and ancestors.

Book Review: Devizes by Lorna Haycock

Devizes is a history and guide book that provides a good grounding in the buildings, people and events from prehistory to around 1952.

The second edition is much improved (although the first edition was also good) and includes more instructive maps as well as a collection of colour plates in the middle of the book. The majority of the text remains the same, which is great because the book is highly readable. The book covers a wide history of the town and its development from being a satellite of the castle (which is where it got its name from: castle at the boundaries - castrum ad divisa) to being a popular market, and at times, industrial town. There are excellent photographs throughout, including an aerial view of Devizes on page 20.

Devizes is a town that I've always enjoyed visiting, so much so that I got married there in 2014 at the registry office located in Snuff Street. But, I've never really taken the time to learn about all the wonderful buildings there. The guide really came up trumps for this. Not being very mobile due to illness meant that I followed the guide via Google Street View with only a slight detour. The walking instructions are clear and the mix of text and photographs really help to appreciate this wonderful town.

This is a fantastic book to read and at 128 pages won't bog you down if you just want a primer (as I did). The guide is a great way to make the history of the town much more interactive. Definitely one to read whether you live in Wiltshire or are planning to visit.

Book Review: Wiltshire Through Time by Steve Wallis

The idea of this 'Through Time' series of books is to have an old photo that is the compared to a new photo of the same subject. Often the time between photos is at least 100 years.

The author has tried to take an identical photo as the historical image, but of course, this isn't always possible - but he's done a great job.

The book first looks at Wiltshire's only city, Salisbury, before heading North through towns and then back down South visiting the villages. These chapters are followed by photographs displaying Life in Wiltshire and finally Countryside and Historic Features. In between each set of photos there is a brief description of where in the county the place is, as well as anything of historical interest.

I really enjoyed this book, but it made me realise three things, firstly the format of the book is too small - meaning descriptions and photograph size are limited. Secondly, there are some places in Wiltshire that have barely changed in over a hundred years (which I find amazing). Thirdly, I want more! With the book being 93 pages, there may only be 1 historic photo of each place, although sometimes 2-3 for major settlements. So, the next in the series I'll be reading is Devizes. I hope it's just as good as this one.

Book Review: A History of Ancient Britain by Neil Oliver

I've been enjoying Neil Oliver documentaries for many years now, and felt it was time I gave one of his books a go.

Book Review: Tracing Your Ancestors Using the Census by Emma Jolly

This is by far, the best genealogy book I've read so far. Balancing historical context with practical,
hands on advice and analysis, this was a joy to read.

Book Review: Research Your Surname by Dr. Graeme Davis

This book is short and focused ad because of this, it was the perfect first book to learn about surnames. Each chapter is sub-divided so that there is a paragraph or two on each single topic, for instance, surname drift or Norman England.

This is such an accessible book that has made me feel much more confident with my surname studies and given me clear directions on what I should be looking for and where my research should be headed. While I had already realised that I needed to go back as far as possible to get as close as possible to the origin of surnames in my family, I can also use distribution maps when I find that my family lived in certain areas. I also need to spend time looking for place names, occupations, or topographical features in those areas that may have originally provided the origin of individual surnames. The author teaches us to be sceptical of convenient surname definitions, for instance is it likely in a country where brown hair is very common that the surname Brown would be given due to hair colour?

I have some very common surnames, such as Brown, which this book helpfully describes and tells me that the research on this surname doesn't provide a clear definition. I also have surnames that aren't English and aren't common worldwide, never mind in Britain, so there is no definition I'm aware of, only the research I've been conducting - but this book is helpful for that too - as I've written about in the paragraph above.

There are some excellent chapters on surnames of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. A reasonable amount of history described means that the reader can get a real sense of the events of the period that surnames were formed - and why certain surnames occur in certain areas.

If you'd like to begin surname research, or just get a better grasp of what a surname is - then read this book. It's short, so won't take up too much time; but full of very useful information. An added bonus is how readable it is. Give it a go!

Book Review: Wiltshire Folk Tales by Kirsty Hartsiotis

This book is a collection of retold folk tales from my adopted county of Wiltshire. While I only moved here in 2007, my wife grew up in this county and her father's side of the family have lived in Wiltshire for generations. I'd heard of the folk tale entitled 'Moonrakers' before, but thought that now my child(ren - ever hopeful!) will grow up in Wiltshire; it was time I learned a few more of these stories and the history behind them.

This book contains 30 stories and where the stories mention specific places, these can be found on the map before the introduction. I like the fact that the author has visited the various sources for the stories and has retold them. This means that all of the folk tales in the book have the same feel and narrative to them - which I feel makes for an easier read.

Not only are relevant line drawings present for each of the tales, but after each tale a box explains the documented history of the tale. The author also explains when she has merged two tales or where she's made choices to follow a certain narrative after being confronted with sources detailing different versions. Understanding the history of the tales, such as for the Amesbury Archer, ensures that the reader can build a deeper connection to this ancient county.

I can't wait to retell these tales to my son when he arrives in the (very) near future. I think it's a book that anyone that lives in Wiltshire or has any connection to it should read. My favorites are Moonrakers and Stone Soup as they show the spirit and intelligence of the Wiltshire people.

This series seems to have a book for most (if not all) counties - what can yours tell you? Perhaps your relatives have folk tales that have been passed down to them? If so, now is a good time to ask and get them recorded, either via microphone or on paper.

Book Review: Advanced Genealogy Research Techniques by George G Morgan and Drew Smith

I was planning on reading this book a while ago, but then decided I should read How to do Everything Genealogy Second Edition by George G. Morgan to ensure I had the prerequisite knowledge and understanding for advanced techniques.

However, I needn't have worried because the contents of this book are fairly basic, although it's still worth a read for beginners, such as myself.

The book follows the 'brick wall' analogy that anyone who's spent time researching ancestors will come across. Using this analogy we're given a method for examining each brick wall in detail, including creating timelines. The rest of the book looks at different ways of advancing past the brick wall using the following terms: Brute force, go around the wall, talk to a friend, use crowdsourcing, technological solutions, hire a demolition expert, and rest up and attack the brick wall another time. The book closes with a chapter on putting these techniques to work and ensuring your keep a research log to avoid re-researching the same things and sources multiple times.

While this book is good for beginners, it's unlikely to introduce new ideas to people who have been researching for a while. Where the book excels, is the use of 3 or 4 examples of using each technique from the personal experiences of the authors. It's great to read these examples and see situations where the techniques have worked and where they might work in the readers brick walls.

The book is very readable and terms are defined well. This is a short book, which would have been much shorter if not for the many screenshots of website homepages - while this may be handy for the next year or two, websites change, so this book is likely to age quickly. There are, however, a good range of resources discussed, with sources at the end of each chapter.

As the authors recognise, there is no dividing line between research techniques that are basic ad advanced. I feel that any technique can be utilised to gather the bare minimum or a wealth of information. All in all, a good read and may introduce newbies to new avenues of research.

Book Review: How to do Everything Genealogy Second Edition by George G. Morgan

This comprehensive book; covering resources for UK, US, and Canadian genealogists, is organised into two parts.

The first is: Begin Your Family History Odyssey, which includes information on topics such as, balancing traditional and electronic research, organising and creating your family tree, placing your ancestors into context and how to locate vital records, as well as extending your research with advanced record types

The second part, Research Methods and Strategies, includes information on  resources such as indexes, as well as locating repositories on the internet, using a research log, online map resources, and how to plan a successful genealogical research trip.

Book Review: Your Family Tree Online by Graeme Davis

This is the second book I've read by Graeme Davis and have to admit that the other book was of much better quality. I would say that this particular book is purely for novice genealogists as most of the chapters are very brief introductions to a topic, for instance the chapters on newspaper and directories. However, there are more detailed chapters on topics such as DNA and working with names. In some ways, I wished I'd have known about this book when I first started with family history research - as I know I'd have appreciated this book at that point.

There are very few internet resources listed in this book, but those that are included are of good quality. They are often associated with the activities that are included throughout the book for the reader to find out more about their family. One such activity is to understand your ancestor's job and two links are provided that should help the reader find out more.

As with the previous book of Davis' that I reviewed, this book is very readable and accessible. If you've read other genealogy books, then this book isn't likely to help you progress your research. However, if you're new to this field of study or if you've ever read a genealogy book - then this is a great place to start.

Book Review: Seven Ages of Britain by David Dimbleby

I like to take the long view with genealogy and think about the lives my ancestors would have lived. While I'll probably never be able to find ancestors even 500 years back, the fact that I'm here, writing this, means that I do have ancestors not just 500 years but all the way back to the origins of Homo sapiens.

While this book doesn't go that far back, starting proper at the invasion of the Romans who gave us the name Britain, it goes far enough back to set the mind wandering.

The focus of this book, and the television series it accompanies, is the past 2000 years of history of Britain through its artefacts and art.

I'm not a big fan of art; I'm the sort of person who likes what he likes and rarely ventures further. We have artwork on our walls, but I couldn't tell you the style - apart from the Monet of course, which is impressionism and is a topic I covered for my GCSE Art. This probably gives you a good impression of the art I like! However, the book and television series were insightful and helped me understand the impact of art on the people of Britain through the ages.

The television series relies on the sense of humour and the impact of the art upon David Dimbleby, but the book wasn't written by his, so how did it fare? I was very impressed with the book, each chapter covers an age and is written by an expert.

About a third of the art in the book is different to that shown in the television series and the book delves deeper. This provides a better understanding not only of the artists, or subjects of the art, but of the people of the age. Some of the artwork is unlikely to have been seen by our ancestors, but a lot of the art is about them - just ordinary people living through history, being impacted by it whether they liked it or not; whether they understood it or not.

Of course, being a fairly short book and being restricted to art, large chunks of history are missing. But there are plenty of books that deal with continuous history of Britain.

While you're unlikely to find your ancestors referenced in the book, the last four chapters are from the 1600s onwards and therefore in the realm of many people's family tree. It's nice to get this view of their world, especially seeing the art of satirists such as James Gillray in the 18 century. To him, everyone was fair game - so it's nice to wonder if our ancestors were becoming less restricted in their thoughts, after centuries of restrictions via religion and feudalism - possibly having a giggle at Gillray's creations and eagerly awaiting the next one. 

I enjoyed reading this book and advise anyone interested in family history, or just history in general, to have a read - I expect there will be few libraries that don't have a copy as the television series was quite a success.

Book Review: The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being by Alice Roberts

This is a book on biology, so it may be surprising that I'm writing a review of it on a blog about family trees. However, it is a book about our biology, the biology of humans, and how we adapted and evolved into what we recognise as a human body.

It's an interesting read that covers every major body part and function. What makes it special is that focuses on the development of the embryo before reaching out into the past to see how each body part became adapted for new uses and evolved.

At the time of reading I was expecting my first child (who recently arrived), and being interested in science, this book was an obvious choice. It just so happens that I'd been waiting for the book to be published - and then for one to be available at the library - before we even had our little meeple developing in my wife's womb. It's amazing to read about the history of evolutionary science and how looking at fossils and DNA provides answers to how different bones, etc moved positions in different species and adapted to either new or more specialised uses. One example being the swim bladder in fish that acts as a way for the fish to exchange gases and diffuse them throughout the body - blowing air out of its mouth when too much gas is inside it, and coming to the surface when the water is de-oxygenated to get more oxygen. I've kept fish on and off for years and had observed both actions many times, but I've never read about their biology. Anyway, it just show happens that we can observe via different species alive today; this swim bladder becoming lungs. So evolution didn't need to magic lungs out of thin air for organisms to live on land - as we're increasingly discovering if just adapted an existing body part and made it a bit more specialised.

It's interesting to see the family trees that the author has drawn in the book, showing how we're related to different species, not just apes, but organisms such as the lancelet.

I'd recommend this book to anyone making new members of their family tree and for anyone who finds the long view of family trees and family history interesting.

Book Review: Solving Genealogy Problems by Dr Graeme Davis

Within the space of a couple of hundred pages, Dr. Davis provides a book that is not only a brilliant read, but also utterly insightful.

This book deals with specific brickwalls and potential solutions, for instance, how to find BMD marriages and different census solutions. This also includes finding, using, and what to expect from parish records and newspaper archives, along with other resources.

Book Review: The History of England, Volume 1, Foundation by Peter Ackroyd

This is by far the most interesting book I've read about this period of English history. While the main text follows the lives and deaths of the rulers of our fair land, this is only part of the book.

Some of the most interesting chapters, and certainly the most important for me, are those that follow the lives of normal people, those that may not have made history, but certainly had to deal with what seems like near constant war, taxes, and change. These smaller chapters deal with certain topics at certain periods, such as children's toys and education, the house, and birth and death. Other chapters look at the country and how we evolved as a nation, how other nations saw us as a people (not positively for the main), and our climate over time.

Book Review: Seven Ages of Britain by Justin Pollard

This is an important book for me because it's the first history book I read because I chose to. I was never interested in history, I wasn't keen on the way it was presented in school and didn't choose it as a GCSE subject. I think what changed for me was that I became interested in history the year I met my wife, Lucy. I lived in North Lincolnshire where not a lot has happened, but Lucy lived in Wiltshire, where things have been happening that are nationally and internationally important for thousands of years.

So, when I saw the television series featured a fair bit of history around Wiltshire, I started watching it. Since then, I've been interested in history and pre-history and because this book focuses on 'ordinary' people; I think it was a precursor to my initial interest in family history.

Book Review: Tracing Your Family History On The Internet by Chris Paton

Many books about Internet resources don't hold well over time. I've read other books that were published around the same time as this one (2011) and have found that many of the resources they point the reader to have vanished.

However, Chris Paton has compiled a book of resources and the vast majority of them are still online today. This shows me that it wasn't random searches that led to the inclusion of the websites in the book, but a good personal knowledge of the online genealogical landscape.

The book begins with a chapter on Gateways and Institutions - sites that cover national and local archives, as well as vendors such as Ancestry and Findmypast.

We then move on to Genealogical Essentials - the websites that are fundamental to anyone researching their family tree. From buying and sharing BMD certificates to gazetteers and heritage websites. Personally, I found the bulk of most helpful sites in this chapter.

The third chapter is entitled Occupational Records and includes things like Workers' rights, The Church, The Law and Business. I'll probably revisit this chapter when I delve more into the English side of my family.

The we move on to chapters with resources specific to each country the book deals with. Chapters on England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland also drill down to the country level. Before advancing to resources about Crown Dependencies and Empire and Migration.

The book closes with a short chapter on Social Networking - which I think is an important subject to cover. I find a lot of information whether general to genealogy or by specifically asking questions in Facebook groups and Twitter!

The book is written well and therefore easy to read, with web links emboldened and therefore easy to pick out from the descriptive text. There are a few screenshots scattered around to break up the text, but just be aware that over time the designs of the websites are likely to change - which is probably why only a few are provided and they tend to show the types of information that can be gleaned from the site shown.

This is a really interesting and well designed book. I found few new resources to add to my favourites list and where I found resources I already had; it made me feel more confident that I'm on the right track. The book also (inadvertently) prompted me to tidy up my bookmarks - something I've been meaning to do for some time!

Book Review: Essential Maps for Family Historians by Charles Masters

The author skilfully weaves his way through a miscellany of maps, from County Maps and Town Maps to Enclosure Maps and National Farm Surveys, making the undertaking of map reading interesting and accessible.