See Your Past, a Leeds based company are offering ‘tailored to suit’ guided tours – taking you in the footsteps of your family.

Guides with local knowledge take you on a trip into your families past – all you do is give an outline of where your family were from, worked, were educated or now finally rest and your guide will do the rest, suggesting an itinerary for you to approve.

David of See Your Past tells me that he is always willing to hear from people with a family and local history background who are interested in sharing their knowledge and will often go that one step further to make a day special.  Also, if you are thinking of  visiting the UK – why not visit their website at the link below and See Your Past!

See Your Past can be found by clicking on this link

Sorry, this is only for those whose families lived in London.

You know their address, may even have a picture of their home or even been to visit, but did you know how much it was annually  valued at in 1910 and what the rateable value was  – well you can now!

Ancestry.co.uk recently added the London Land Tax Valueations for 1910 to their vast and ever growing collection of family and local history resources.

So, what do these books tell us :-  Who owned the property, who rented the property, where the property and what type of property it was i.e. shop, house etc.

Ancestry have recently added the National Probate Calender Index of Wills and Administrations for the hears 1861 – 1941, and a fascinating collection of material it is.

For example – my great uncle  was KIA in 1918.  He served in the 1/4 KOYLI, being injured in one of battles that took place near Ypres.  He was shot in the neck, taken to a dressing station at Kemmel but died shortly after.  It never dawned on me that he would leave money – he did have a good job, lived with his parents but money – who knew.

A check of the Probate Index for a general search  brought up my g. uncle and the fact that he left money to his mother. While his cousin Lieut. Joe Siddle left over £171 to Joe Siddle.

National Probate Calendar at Ancestry.co.uk

Were any of your relatives awarded the DCM during WWI.  If they were, you can find their Medal Card and the citation for the award on Ancestry.co.uk

e.g. 315253 L/Cpl P Farquharson, 13tn, R Highrs.  For fine leadership and good work. During the advance the company became very much scattered owing to the mist and heavy fire….He was instrumental in enabling the company to advance succesfully and reach its objective.

We may not always agree with the ‘closure’ rule but the Government are about to reduce the 30 year closure for many documents to 20 years.

Some of you may not like this reduction as it will allow records to become more available about the living, but on the other hand, family historians and thoset wishing to do nothing more than learn what their family members did, were like and how they lived their lives.

Like with anything there are always two sides who have to be kept happy or if not happy content with how  information is held and viewed.

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Those of you will Android ‘phones can now take advantage of the new App from The National Archives – to read more follow me here

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