Ancestors in the Attic

Fab news! My advance copy of my new book - Ancestors in the Attic -  has arrived!
It's great to see it in the 'flesh' and it really makes all the hard work worthwhile. It's also great to have all the research in one place and when I hit brick walls in my family history hunting, it will inspire me to try other avenues to try and add new facts and stories to my family tree.

From letters and diaries, military and wartime collectables to sporting, motoring and childhood memorabilia, the clues our ancestors have left behind for us to follow are endless. In this book, I hope to encourage you to dig out all those long forgotten items which have been tucked in drawers, hidden in the attic or abandoned in old suitcases, and dust them off to look at them again with fresh eyes.

Perhaps you are sceptical about the amount of information you can actually glean from your ancestor’s possessions and are purely interested in documental resources – if so, it has to be said that you could be missing out on vital clues that could open up a whole new line of enquiry for you to follow that you had previously not thought about, anticipated, or even overlooked. As genealogists we are always told to revisit our documentation, notes and the records we’ve collected at a later date to see if there is something we may have missed, or if new findings help us to make sense of early problems – so why not do the same with your ancestor’s possessions?

Whilst some items could reveal more than others such as the factual details contained in letters and diaries, there are those that can help confirm facts that you already have and strengthen your knowledge. Dates on hand stitched samplers, details on travel documents or relationships on greetings cards could fall into this category.

Now that you’ve established that there is more than one way to research the lives of your

 ancestors, use the simple tried and tested formula's in this book to get the most from both 

personal and historical items of importance.