This is a book for those thousands of family historians who have already made some progress in tracing their family tree and have become interested in the places where their ancestors lived, worked and raised children. It emphasises the diversity and extraordinary complexity of the rural and urban communities in provincial England even before the great changes associated with the Industrial Revolution.

Aiming to avoid technical terminology, Richard McKinley provides an introduction to the history of hereditary surnames in Britain from their first appearance to the present day. Devoting a chapter to each of the main categories of name, he enables readers to set the facts they discover about their own ancestry, family history and surnames into the context of general surname development. The author deals with those names that originate in England, Wales and Scotland; and since these tend to have their own distinct histories, he discusses developments in each of the three countries separately, wherever appropriate. The book uses the study of surnames to illuminate social history and draws attention to the complex patterns of population mobility that have always characterized British Society. It also describes regional and class differences in surnames, some features of which survive to our own time.

It is difficult to envision the Middle Ages without heraldry; knights and ladies are routinely depicted with elaborate arms gracing their shields and clothing. The herald himself is also pervasive in the popular imagination, as he announces the arrival of some grandee. Edited here for the first time are some of the texts which detail the relationship between heraldic design and working heralds. That relationship changed dramatically over the fifteenth century as heralds claimed the right to design, interpret and grant arms according to an elaborate interpretive system. These texts, the work of clerics, heralds and even a future pope, describe the rules of heraldic design and the meaning of colours and charges. They also focus on the role of the herald himself, whether he is serving as a political or personal confidant, or organizing a trial by combat. Finally, they outline an imagined history of the office of arms, claiming that the herald's authority could be traced to Julius Caesar, the Trojan hero Hector, or even the god Dionysus. These texts, little known in contemporary scholarship, provide valuable insight into the intellectual and visual culture of fifteenth-century chivalric society.

First published in 1999, the ideas and practices involved in early medieval royal family politics are the central theme of this collection of papers by Janet L. Nelson. She first examines King Alfred of Wessex (871-99) in the context of Anglo-Saxon conditions and in comparison with his Carolingian contemporaries. When tension and conflict within the royal family are highlighted, she argues that Alfred's talents and political thought emerge the more impressively. A second group of papers deals with the reign of Charles the Bald (840-77): his patronage of learning and his interest in Spanish martyrs are set in political context, while contemporary historiography is considered as a form of counsel and critique. The third section reflects Nelson's growing interest in the political importance and gendered roles of royal women. Consecration rites are analysed as ritual expressions and factors in the shaping of the queenship, while two final papers also examine the making and unmaking of Frankish kings and princes.

Stevenson and her collaborators have opened new vistas for the historian of the heralds, pointing the way forward to an internationally focused approach to the significance of the part which heralds played in noble society and in the courtly politics of the late medieval age, and one which promises to enlarge our perception of its aristocratic culture. - ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW First full-length assessment of the role of the herald in medieval Europe. The officers of arms [kings of arms, heralds and pursuivants] have often been overlooked by scholars of late medieval elite society. Yet as officers of the crown, ducal courts or noble families, they played important parts in a number of areas. They were crucial to foreign and domestic relations, and chivalric culture; and, of course, they were to become the powerbrokers of heraldic symbols and genealogy. However, despite the high levels at which they operated, their roles in these areas remain largely unexplored, with scholarship tending to focus on the science of heraldry rather than the heralds themselves. This collection aims to remedy that neglect. The contributions cover a range of European regions [particularly Florence, Scandinavia, Poland, the German Empire, the Burgundian Low Countries, Brittany, Scotland and England] and discuss the diverse roles and experiences of heralds in the late Middle Ages. Contributors: JACKSON W. ARMSTRONG, ADRIAN AILES, KATIE STEVENSON, MICHAEL JONES, FRANCK VILTART, HENRI SIMMONEAU, WIM VAN ANROOIJ, BOGDAN WOJCIECH BRZUSTOWICZ, ALEXIA GROSJEAN, LAURA CIRRI

Tracing descent from common ancestors was extremely important in imperial China. Members of such lineage communities sacrificed to ancestors in periodic ceremonies, maintained written genealogies to demonstrate their descent, and held some properties in common. This book, based on extensive original research, provides evidence that the practice originated much earlier than previously understood. It shows that in the eleventh century, in southern China under the Song dynasty, the method of compiling a genealogy in the form a table, that is, to say a family tree, replaced its statement as a textual paragraph and that this allowed the tracking of multi-line descent in ways that had previously been impossible. The book also reveals that the practice of recording and presenting genealogical information was not originally unique to communities of common surnames, but that the Southern Song government, keen to encourage loyalty to the state and cohesion within communities, favoured the building of common surname lineages, a practice which then had far-reaching consequences for the nature of Chinese society over a very long period.

**Winner of Best Sports Entertainment book at the British Sports Book Awards 2022** 'Hard-hitting and hilarious' - James Acaster 'Funny, moving and compelling' - Mike Costello A heart-warming, hilarious true story about fighting and family, based on the acclaimed stage show. For fans of books by Dave Gorman, James Acaster and Danny Wallace, along with boxing tales from the likes of Tyson Fury and Ricky Hatton. THE CHAMP Terry Downes - the charismatic cockney known as 'The Paddington Express' - was a world champion boxer, US Marine, gangsters' favourite and later a film star and businessman. THE CHUMP James McNicholas' PE teacher once told him he was so unfit he'd be dead by the time he was 23. James has spent his life pursuing a career in acting and comedy. In reality, that has meant stints as a car park caretaker and river cruise salesperson. After Terry's death, James finds himself in reflective mood, comparing his story of underachievement against that of his world champ grandad. What follows is an increasingly colourful journey through post-war Paddington to the blood-soaked canvases of Baltimore and Shoreditch, via Mayfair parties with the Krays. Along the way, James begins to dig into his own story, confronting the dysfunctional elements of his childhood, describing his often hilarious efforts to make it in the world of showbiz, and attempting to recreate Terry's trials by enlisting in a brutal military boot camp and boxing gym. When James is diagnosed with a frightening and mysterious neurological condition, the two tales of the fighter and the writer suddenly collide, and what began as a nostalgic journey takes on a far more important significance altogether. 'A wonderfully funny and heartfelt story of what family and lineage means. Even made me like boxing' - Josh Widdicombe 'An extraordinary family history, told with warmth and wit. Two remarkable underdog stories - come for the cockney scrapper who conquered the world, stay for the grandson and the fight of his life' - Greg Jenner 'If you like comedy and boxing this is the perfect book. James McNicholas is a very funny man and a brilliant writer' - Rob Beckett

Every family has its own story and an increasing number of us are taking the time to search out these histories and record them for this and future generations. My Family Tree is a beautifully designed book to record your unique family story, with space for family and individual records, census records, ancestry charts, family traditions and achievements, events and photographs. It offers helpful tips and advice, useful sections to guide your ancestral research, and allows you to gather all the information from both sides of your family in one place.

The true story of a foundling. 'Extraordinary ... A fascinating, moving book: part history of the Foundling Hospital and the development of child psychology, part Cowan's own story, and part that of Cowan's mother' LUCY SCHOLES, TELEGRAPH Growing up in a wealthy enclave outside San Francisco, Justine Cowan's life seems idyllic. But her mother's unpredictable temper drives Justine from home the moment she is old enough to escape. It is only after her mother dies that she finds herself pulling at the threads of a story half-told - her mother's upbringing in London's Foundling Hospital. Haunted by this secret history, Justine travels across the sea and deep into the past to discover the girl her mother once was. Here, with the vividness of a true storyteller, she pieces together her mother's childhood alongside the history of the Foundling Hospital: from its idealistic beginnings in the eighteenth century, how it influenced some of England's greatest creative minds - from Handel to Dickens, its shocking approach to childcare and how it survived the Blitz only to close after the Second World War. This was the environment that shaped a young girl then known as Dorothy Soames, who was left behind by a mother forced by stigma and shame to give up her child; who withstood years of physical and emotional abuse, dreaming of escape as German bombers circled the skies, unaware all along that her own mother was fighting to get her back. The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames is a gripping memoir and revelatory investigation into the history of the Foundling Hospital and one girl who grew up in its care - the author's own mother. Praise for The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames: 'As a social history of the Foundling Hospital, this is a fascinating read' SUNDAY TIMES 'Page-turning and profoundly moving' VIRGINIA NICHOLSON 'Part-memoir, part-detective story, The Secret Life Of Dorothy Soames will break your heart then piece it back together again ... Simultaneously exploring her mother's story of escape and the history of the Foundling Hospital, this is an unforgettable read' STYLIST 'A gripping true story' CHRISTINA BAKER KLINE, bestselling author of ORPHAN TRAIN 'Breathtaking' ADRIENNE BRODEUR, bestselling author of WILD GAME

Taking recent German debates of diversity terminology as a case example for scrutinizing enactments of genealogy that assume a linear image of progressive generation, this book engages with performative effects of genealogical stories in academic texts that negotiate conceptual belonging. While supporters of the developing Diversity Studies in Germany cherish diversity's potential for multi-category investigations, Gender and Women's Studies critics reject the term for its neoliberal, managerial rationale, allegedly holding profit above social justice. Genealogies and Conceptual Belonging intervenes in this oppositional debate by turning one's attention to narrations of the origins of "gender" and "diversity" that suggest their proper place in the present. Presenting a story about dis/continuous genealogies and highlighting complicated interferences between gender and diversity, Marten forges novel future connections between questions of gender, sexual difference, and diversity. This pioneering volume will be of particular interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and postdoctoral researchers interested in the fields of genealogy, Gender Studies, feminist theory, feminist science studies and critical race / diversity / intersectionality studies.

Study of one of the most influential aristocratic families of medieval England. The Bigods were one of the most powerful and important families in thirteenth-century England. They are chiefly remembered for their dramatic interventions in high politics. Roger III Bigod (c. 1209-70) famously led the march on Westminster Hall in 1258 against Henry III, while Roger IV Bigod (1245-1306) confronted Edward I in 1297 in similar fashion. This book is the first full-scale study of these two earls, and explores in depth the reasons thatled each of them to take the extreme step of confronting his king. It is only in part, however, a political study. In seeking to understand the motives that lay behind their public actions, the book scrutinizes the earls' privateaffairs. It establishes for the first time the precise extent of their landed estate, the size of their incomes, and the membership and quality of their affinities. It also examines their relationships with friends and relatives,their building works, and even their personalities. Extensive use is made throughout of unpublished manuscript sources: in particular, the hundreds of ministers' accounts that have survived from the administration of Roger IV Bigod, and the charters given by both earls, which are calendared and translated in an appendix.

No family better represents the overlapping roles of administrator and scientist in the British empire than the Roths. Descended from a Hungarian emigrant to Australia, two generations of Roths served the empire on four continents and, at the same time, produced ethnographic, archaeological, and linguistic studies that form the basis for much modern research. This volume assesses the often-conflicting roles and contributions of the Roths as government servants and anthropologists. Most of the volume deals with Walter E. Roth, who developed foundational studies of both the Australian Aborigines-considered to be among the first systematic ethnographies anywhere-and South American tribes while serving as Chief Protector of Aborigines in Queensland and later medical officer, magistrate, museum curator and indigenous relations officer in British Guyana. Henry Ling Roth's contributions to the anthropology of Tasmania, Benin, Sarawak, and New Zealand are also enumerated, as are the publications and administrative activities of the succeeding generation of Roths. This volume serves the reader as a family biography, a slice of the English colonial history, and an important introduction to the history of anthropology.

Genealogy has become a widely popular pursuit, as millions of people now research their family history, trace their forebears, attend family reunions and travel to ancestral home sites. Geographers have much to contribute to the serious study of the family history phenomenon. Land records, maps and even GIS are increasingly used by genealogical investigators. As a cultural practice, it encompasses peoples' emotional attachments to ancestral places and is widely manifest on the ground as personal heritage travel. Family history research also has significant potential to challenge accepted geographical views of migration, ethnicity, socio-economic class and place-based identities. This volume is possibly the first ever book to address the geographical and scholarly aspects of this increasingly popular social phenomenon. It highlights tools and information sources used by geographers and their application to family history research. Furthermore, it examines family history as a socio-cultural practice, including the activities of tourism, archival research and DNA testing.

"Phillip Hamilton has written a concise, gripping study that depicts how the American Revolution affected an elite southern family, largely for the worse." -- "Journal of Southern History "

"This excellent study is both eminently readable and educational, and it is an important contribution to understanding the dynamics of leadership and of family life in Virginia following the American Revolution." -- "Virginia Libraries "

"Much more than a family history, this volume adds to our knowledge of the social, economic, and political landscapes of the Old Dominion from the late colonial era through the antebellum period. This book is recommended for those interested in the history of Virginia, the early republic, the South, and family history." -- "North Carolina Historical Review "

In 1814, John Randolph of Roanoke brooded over his family's decline since the American Revolution. The once-sumptuous world of the Virginia gentry was vanishing, its kinship ties crumbling along with its mansions. Looking back in an effort to grasp the changes around him, Randolph fixated on his stepfather and one-time guardian, the jurist St. George Tucker. Although Tucker had fought during the Revolution, he grasped the significant changes the war had brought to the Old Dominion. Thus he sold his plantations and urged his children to pursue careers in learned professions. Tucker's stepson John Randolph bitterly disagreed, precipitating a painful break between the two men.

Drawing upon an extraordinary archive of manuscript materials, Phillip Hamilton illustrates how two generations of a colorful and influential family adapted to social upheaval. He finds that the Tuckers eventually rejected widerfamily connections and turned instead to nuclear kin. They also abandoned the liberal principles and enlightened rationalism of the Revolution for a romanticism girded by deep social conservatism. "The Making and Unmaking of a Revolutionary Family "reveals the complex process by which the world of Washington and Jefferson evolved into the antebellum society of Edmund Ruffin and Thomas Dew.

Phillip Hamilton is Associate Professor of History at Christopher Newport University.

Jeffersonian America

For decades Jamaicans - and West Indians more broadly - have migrated, at first to Britain and then to North America. Jamaican Hands Across The Atlantic outlines the pain and pleasure of migration showing how members of the same families migrated to different continents yet succeeded in maintaining a network of contact and mutual supporting including those left behind or who chose not to migrate. Based on in-depth interviews, the book provides vivid accounts of the struggles of Jamaican migrants after arrival in Britain or North America at work, in housing and education, the racism encountered, and highlights the key role of women as organizers in the migration effort. These interviews, carried out among migrant and non-migrant Jamaicans, are often marked by humour and colourful Jamaican vernacular, revealing a range of issues at eh heart of the migratory experience. What appears initially to be cause for laughter, later unravels into stories of prejudice, disappointment, underachievement and alienation. At the same time, the migrant life stories offer a precious glimpse of the now disappearing world of Jamaican rural communities, of the fluid networks of extended families, and the role of religion and education in generating ambition and eventual migration. It is particularly interesting to see how Jamaican migrants were able to maintain some of the cultural attitudes which they brought with them, such as child shifting within the extended family, and racial mixing. The book also reveals the experience of those few, in this case mainly Britain, who were able to retire to Jamaica, only to find that after years of absence, both they and the island have so much change that they are now regarded as English. Jamaican Hands Across The Atlantic is a unique account of a type of transnational family, which may become increasingly typical in the new era of globalized world economy and communication. It attests to the resilience and adaptability of a people who refuse to be defined in terms of their geographical birthplace making the book a delightful and inspiring read.

"Heritage Interpretation" is an essential guide to present practice and policy concerning issues in Heritage Management. The UK has an international reputation for the excellence of its heritage interpretation. During the 1980's and 1990's the UK developed innovative public presentation of heritage sites in the increasingly competitive cultural tourism market. UK heritage organizations developed ideas pioneered by the US National Park Service in the 1960's and applied these to cultural heritage sites.
This volume draws on this accumulated expertise to describe and analyze best practice in heritage interpretation with the UK. The contributors are all responsible for developing best practice in a range of heritage organizations, such as English Heritage, National Trust Historic Scotland, Cadw and National Parks. Looking at subjects from Public Art to 20th Century military remains and from Cathedrals to Urban Heritage, the contributors discuss the bewildering range of interpretive optionsavailable to them and how these can be sensitively and appropriately tailored to specific places and specific audiences.

"Heritage Interpretation" is an essential guide to present practice and policy concerning issues in Heritage Management. The UK has an international reputation for the excellence of its heritage interpretation. During the 1980's and 1990's the UK developed innovative public presentation of heritage sites in the increasingly competitive cultural tourism market. UK heritage organizations developed ideas pioneered by the US National Park Service in the 1960's and applied these to cultural heritage sites.
This volume draws on this accumulated expertise to describe and analyze best practice in heritage interpretation with the UK. The contributors are all responsible for developing best practice in a range of heritage organizations, such as English Heritage, National Trust Historic Scotland, Cadw and National Parks. Looking at subjects from Public Art to 20th Century military remains and from Cathedrals to Urban Heritage, the contributors discuss the bewildering range of interpretive optionsavailable to them and how these can be sensitively and appropriately tailored to specific places and specific audiences.

This is the very first 'teach yourself' book on palaeography, covering all the skills that the genealogist needs to read any document that might be found at any date in English archives. Using a series of graded exercises in transcription, Teach Yourself Palaeography works backwards in time in easy stages from the modern handwriting of the nineteenth century to the court hands of the medieval period, focusing on records that are of particular interest to family and local historians. The book provides a unique, self-contained reference guide to palaeography, and to all the different letter forms, symbols and abbreviations that have ever been used in English records.

1999 marked the eleven-hundredth anniversary of the death of Alfred the Great, and to mark this event, two international conferences were held to re-evaluate and contextualise Alfred's achievements and the developments of his reign. This volume includes papers given at both events and provides substantial assessments, by leading scholars, of issues of source-criticism, of the large corpus of Old English literature associated with Alfred and of developments in government and society in late ninth-century England. It also explores how Alfred and his kingdom related to the wider geo-political and cultural situation in the British isles and continental Europe, and closes with a substantial survey of the uses and shifts in Alfred's reputation in the centuries following his death. This substantial and wide ranging volume will become a standard reference work for anyone interested in Old English literature or Anglo-Saxon history, and will set the pattern of future scholarly debate.

The last of the Ptolemaic monarchs who ruled Egypt for 300 years, Cleopatra is the most famous of the Ptolemaic queens. But what of her predecessors? The "Last Queens of Egypt "examines the roles played by the Ptolemaic royal women and explores their part in religion, politics and court intrigue. Explaining their propensity for incest, murder and power, Sally Ann Ashton shows the extent of the power they enjoyed, the price they paid, and how they shaped Cleopatra's reign.

The Earliest English Kings is a fascinating survey of Anglo-Saxon History from the sixth century to the eighth century and the death of King Alfred. It explains and explores the 'Heptarchy' or the seven kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, as well as the various peoples within them, wars, religion, King Offa and the coming of the Vikings. With maps and family trees, this book reveals the complex, distant and tumultuous events of Anglo-Saxon politics.