Find My Past host a series of events live on their Facebook page every week

The week beginning 8th June 2020 have the following events:- 

Tues 9th  - Census Records with Myko Clelland

Wed 10th - Ontario Sources with Jen Baldwin & Steve Fulton 

Thur 11th - Regimnetal Numbers with Paul Nixon

Fri 12th   -  Fridays Live with Alex Cox

Follow Find My Past on Facebook - at 

where the events will be broadcast, also scroll down the page to catch up on previous live events  

Did you watch Epiosde One of A House Through Time and wonder about a couple of the databases that were used on the programme  - well wonder no longer

Apart from the usual Find My Past, Ancestry, The National Archives and The British Newspaper Archives David also used - The Slave Voyages - which can be found at https://www.slavevoyages.org/ and referred to the tokens left at the Foundling Museum - there is a great blog on the work of historian John Styles’ in this exhibition https://foundlingmuseum.org.uk/events/threads-of-feeling/

If you fancy tracing the history of your own house and not sure where to start they pop along to http://www.tracemyhouse.com/ where you can find tips and hints galore 

British History Online has extended its free online content offer until 30th September 

British History Online was founded by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust in 2003. Our collection currently contains over 1,270 volumes and is always growing.

To 30 September 2020 we're making all transcribed BHO content freely available for individual users. This adds 200 volumes of primary materials. As a result, BHO's full complement of 1280 volumes is now available for research.

For the full list and more details see - https://blog.history.ac.uk/2020/03/british-history-online-makes-all-research-content-free-to-individual-users/    BUT here is a small flavour of some really interesting documents that you can now access for free - 

The extra 200 volumes now available are predominantly made up of two important series:

• the Calendar of Close Rolls, covering the reigns of Henry III to Henry VII (1244 to 1509),
• the Calendar of State Papers Domestic, covering the reigns of Edward VI to Anne, 1547 to 1704)

Close Rolls record ‘Letters close’ which were issued by the Chancery in the name of the Crown. These letters were ‘usually of an executive nature conveying orders and instructions, and, therefore of a private and personal nature’ (The National Archives, 2020). Because of their nature, letters were ‘issued folded and “closed” by the application of the great seal’ (TNA).

The Close Rolls are records of these letters, initiated by Chancery to create a master version of the letters sent. BHO’s collection covers closed letters issued between 1244 and 1509 in a total of 61 volumes.

The State Papers Domestic are the accumulated papers of the secretaries of state relating to national home (domestic) affairs. They contain information on every facet of early modern government. State Papers took many formats: ‘including private and official letters, musters, reports, commissions and instructions, council orders and correspondence, proclamations, memoranda and draft parliamentary bills’ (TNA, 2020).

BHO’s collection covers State Papers Domestic for the period 1547 to 1704 in a total of 92 volumes.

In both cases, British History Online offers the Calendar of the original records, not the original records. These Calendars were created in the late Victorian period. They provide researchers with a full summary of the contents of the original document. For nearly all purposes these summaries are wholly sufficient for research.

The remainder of the now free BHO content comprises the following eight series:

• Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, covering the period 1586-1606, in 13 volumes
• Calendar of State Papers, Scotland, covering the period 1547-1588, in 11 volumes
• Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, in 1 volume
• Calendar of Home Office Papers, George III, covering the period 1760-1775, in 4 volumes
• Calendar of Border Papers, covering the period 1560-1603, in 2 volumes
• Calendar of the Committee for the Advance of Money, covering the period 1642-55, in 4 volumes
• Calendar of the Committee for Compounding, covering the period 1643-60, in 5 volumes

A final series is the Calendar of Patent Rolls, covering the reigns of Henry III, Edward I and Edward II (1216 to 1307), which appear in 10 volumes. The Patent Rolls are closely linked to the Close Rolls, being the records of Letters patent (or ‘open’).

Letters patent were unsealed letters expressing the sovereign’s will on a variety of matters of public interest. BHO’s 10 volumes are the first output in a new project to digitise and publish the Calendar of Patent Rolls up to and including the reign of Henry VII (1509); this project is ongoing.

For more on the Patent (and Close) Rolls, and their usefulness for medieval historians, see this earlier IHR blog post from Dr Adam Chapman of the IHR.

Heads up everyone

Series 3 of A House Through Time, of which there are 4 episodes will begin on Tuesday 26 May 2020 at 9pm on BBC Two.

Presented by David Olusaga, the latest series focuses on 10 Guinea Street, a narrow yet elegantly proportioned four-storey property that’s tucked away on a street close to the docks in Bristol, Olusoga’s adopted home city.

It was built in 1718, commissioned by Captain Edmund Saunders, a man who made his fortune from slavery. This is hardly surprising, as it was an era when Bristol was an important port in the so-called ‘Guinea trade’ – and indeed Guinea Street’s name is a reference to the Guinea Coast, from where so many Africans were taken to the New World.

Saunders himself never lived in the house. Instead, he rented it to another sailor, Captain Joseph Smith, a man whose nautical adventures included a fateful encounter with pirates. Other 18th-century residents included a political polemicist notorious enough to have been immortalised by William Hogarth in an engraving showing the voting in a corrupt borough.

If the stories of the influential public figures who lived at the house are relatively easy to uncover, the first episode also reminds us that all too many people have no power and leave little trace in the records, but their lives deserve no less to be marked. This idea is embodied in the haunting stories of a foundling, Martha, and a black servant, Thomas, who decided to escape his master’s house. The documentary also reveals Guinea Street’s central place in the history of Wesleyan Methodism.

Over four episodes, Olusoga explores stories that encompass a scandal, a city mayor, rioting, the Battle of Passchendaele, bombing by the Luftwaffe, and – closer to the present – a property falling into disrepair yet saved by a series of owners. It’s the best series of A House Through Time to date.

The North West Film Archive needs YOU!   

The North West Archive is asking for YOUR help – we want to create as wide-ranging a picture as possible of what life was really like in the North West of England during the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic, so we’re looking for your perspectives on these unprecedented and worrying times.

We’re living through a unique period in our lifetimes – social distancing, lockdown life, friends and loved ones far from reach – and the North West Film Archive wants to preserve your experiences of this time for future generations.

So, whoever and wherever you are in the North West, if you have any video showing life at home or at work – the empty streets, the experiences of key workers, the Zoom parties, the weekly applause for the NHS on your street, etc, etc – we’d love to hear from you.

You can send your videos straight to us here, or via a file transfer service such as WeTransfer or DropBox to , and one of our team will be in touch.*  Please ensure that these are your own video clips (not owned by third parties) and that you are entitled to deposit them with us.

Film and video have a unique ability to bring the past to life – you can see the smiles, ‘smell’ the sea air, and ‘taste’ the candy floss of the holiday makers on the beach.  You can hear the noise of the cotton weaving looms and ‘feel’ the floor rumbling underfoot.  For over forty years, the North West Film Archive has been collecting and preserving these moving images depicting the lives and experiences of North West people from the late Victorian era right up to the present day for everybody to learn from and enjoy.

Through our collections, we’re able to show what life was like for the people of the North West of England during significant periods in our history – the home-front during the First and Second World Wars, the strikes and political demonstrations of the 1980s, the ‘Swinging 60s’, the rise and fall of the North West’s cotton and textile industries.  But we also look after the memories of the everyday too – daily working and school life; the high days and holidays; the weddings, babies and birthday parties; as well as the ‘ordinary’ domestic lives of the region’s people.

And now it’s your turn – we look forward to hearing from you.

* If you are having difficulties, or want to use an alternative method to get the files to us, please contact us at  for assistance.