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Welcome to the new Genes Reunited blog!

  • We regularly add blogs covering a variety of topics. You can add your own comments at the bottom.
  • The Genes Reunited Team will be writing blogs and keeping you up to date with changes happening on the site.
  • In the future we hope to have guest bloggers that will be able to give you tips and advice as to how to trace your family history.
  • The blogs will have various privacy settings, so that you can choose who you share your blog with.

The British Newspaper Archive

British Newspaper Archive

Read about historical events at the time they were happening. Perhaps you'll discover your ancestor in their local newspaper?

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New message boards for the Genes Community


Published in Genes News on 19 Aug 2013 10:44 : 20 comments : 12526 views

Hi everyone today we have launched two new message boards. 


Chicken Tikka Masala - recipe


Published in Genes Reunited Blog on 19 Aug 2013 10:26 : 1 comment : 2151 views

Chicken Tikka Masala recipe - serves 4 


Family Likeness - by guest blogger Caitlin Davies


Published in Genes Reunited Blog on 15 Aug 2013 09:14 : 3 comments : 8024 views

During World War Two thousands of children in the UK were born to American GI fathers. As those children became adults, many have only one thing on their mind, how to find their unknown dads.


Sinister history of popular sayings revealed in old newspapers


Published in Genes News on 12 Aug 2013 09:18 : 2 comments : 19630 views

The origins of some of the every-day phrases we use are more sinister than you would imagine, according to the family history website Genes Reunited. Researchers have shed some light on the dark history behind some of the nation’s favourite sayings, proving that their origins are rooted in the lives of our ancestors.


My family history - by guest blogger Gerald Dickens


Published in Genes Reunited Blog on 31 Jul 2013 16:33 : 6 comments : 3417 views

I had a great great grandfather, who died 143 years ago. There’s nothing unusual in that, of course. Everybody had great great grandfathers. However, my great great grandfather was Charles Dickens and therefore I am able to find out all there is to know about him with a few clicks on a computer keyboard, and I feel so fortunate to be able to build a complete picture of who he was, where he lived, how he was received and perceived. Whilst learning about Charles Dickens I can see traces of him throughout the current Dickens clan, many of whom are involved in the world of communication. We have writers, actors, journalists, musicians, marketing experts and restaurant owners among our numbers.


Game of Thrones star Kit Harington's noble blood


Published in Genes Reunited Blog on 26 Jul 2013 14:41 : tv : 0 comments : 17013 views

Game of Thrones star Kit Harington's family tree bears a great resemblance to the life of his on-screen character Jon Snow. It is littered with heroes, royals and military greats! Like his fictional counterpart, Kit has noble blood, as his paternal great-grandfather sir Richard Harington was 12th baronet and High Sheriff of Herefordshire and served as a judge in Bengal, while his great-uncle Kenneth Harington married the queen's cousin, Cecilia Bowes-Lyon.


We can't believe that it was the start of the tenth series of Who Do You Think You Are? Last night. Ten series, and still each episode is individual and interesting. The series began with the story of Una Stubbs and her family. A popular actress and entertainer, like many of us starting out in family history she knew nothing of one side of her family.


The Great Female Pilgrimage of 1913


Published in Genes News on 26 Jul 2013 09:46 : suffragette : 4 comments : 15830 views

Women trekked for weeks across the country to get the vote. A hundred years ago today, tens of thousands of women from all levels of society walked hundreds of miles along carefully planned routes to converge in London's Hyde Park to campaign for votes for women.


North-South death divide has been around for 150 years


Published in Genes News on 25 Jul 2013 15:27 : 3 comments : 10556 views

To coincide with the ONS report released today on life expectancy at birth, Genes Reunited searched the death records from 1866 and 1911 and found that the north-south divide was the same 150 years ago with people in the north dying earlier than those in the south.


Long Lost Family series 3 - epsiode 5


Published in Genes Reunited Blog on 19 Jul 2013 08:41 : 0 comments : 4040 views

It’s been a brilliant series so far and episode 5 of Long Lost Family was no exception. This week we saw the stories of twins Gail and Juliet looking for their twin brothers. We also saw Robert who was looking for the mother who disappeared from his life when he was just a toddler.