The fifth child born to Thomas and Mary Ann Holt (nee Edwards), Elizabeth Maud Holt came into the world on 13 July 1862 in Easenhall in Warwickshire, England. Her father, Thomas, worked as an agricultural labourer while her mother (in her youth) was a ribbon weaver. The family tended to live in small towns surrounding the …
This blog post is entirely a work of fiction; inspired by one of my own family history stories but created using my imagination. The story I was told as a little girl was that I was born in the darkness of night amidst a great and powerful storm. Rain fell down in sheets, thunder growled …
Last year I wrote a post in which I pondered, who was Jemima Barratt? Listed as an assisted passenger with Mary Ann, Elizabeth, James and Emma Barratt, she was an anomaly within the Barratt family history. Was her listing a mistake or, was there more to the story? The answer remained absent until I took a …
Messages in bottles have long been considered fascinating to many people. Stories of people finding them on the beach regularly pop up on news websites (often with the letters returned to their original owners) so it’s of no surprise to find that newspapers of the past similarly reported on such discoveries in much the same way. In 1869 …
It is inevitable that bound with the stories of our lives is also the story of food. Most of us eat three times a day. When we visit people, we eat. When we celebrate, we eat. Family recipes are treasured and passed down through generations. Even ordinary, mundane moments involving food in our lives, for whatever reason, …
Finding Family 