Author Archives: dgm

When I was researching my great-great-great grandfather’s marriage the notice of his banns was simply an entry in the Airlie Kirk Session minute book for 1805. When I downloaded the record, actually what I got was a copy of page … Continue reading →

I was going to leave Madeleine alone for a bit, but while I was researching the marriage of my great-great-great grandfather several things about Madeleine and Emile’s relationship clicked into place. In her letters to Emile, Madeleine signed herself as … Continue reading →

One of the things that I like about family history is that you learn things about how a society worked. For example I was researching the marriage of my great-great-great grandfather who I knew was named James Moncur. I also … Continue reading →

While I still had some credit left on my account with Scotland’s People, the Scottish Government’s genealogy service, I thought I’d try and find the birth record for my great-great grandfather, who was rather unimaginatively named James Moncur. I already … Continue reading →

One thing that has puzzled me in recent years is why there are quite a few people in the Bahamas whose surname is Moncur. Given that Moncur is a relatively unusual name, and the Bahamians with that surname are the … Continue reading →

A few years ago, we took advantage of a free day on Ancestry to research Judi’s grandfather. And then, having confirmed his record at Gallipoli and on the Western Front, we left it there. However, I’ve just bought myself a … Continue reading →

Increasingly, when researching the past, we make use of digitised records, and increasingly, for the nineteenth century at least, there are a slew of  newly digitised diaries and journals. But there’s a problem: Most of the people who wrote and … Continue reading →

Some time ago I wrote about Mary Shelley and Frankenstein. At the time I hadn’t actually read the book (tsk, tsk), but it was an interesting little exercise teasing out some of the linkages. I am by no means a … Continue reading →

This year’s festive tweet was a little different, I’d come across the poem while researching something entirely different. I’ve been working my way through Juliet Barker’s magisterial history of the Brontës, more as a way of understanding life in late … Continue reading →

T Today, we often talk about the precariat. However, there’s also a subtle shift underway in meaning – rather than simply gig workers such as Uber drivers and Deliveroo riders – increasingly the term precariat is applied to people in … Continue reading →