Together again
Posted in Case Histories, For Relatives
The story of Britain’s Home Children is a story of unintended consequences. For about 100 years – 1869 to 1970 – orphans, children born under the stigma of illegitimacy and those whose parents were judged as unable to keep them were shipped from the UK to new lives in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. Nowadays, reading what happened to some of these children can be terribly distressing. It can hardly be what the scheme’s instigator Annie MacPherson intended. Here Peter Turvey remembers one story that would probably warm Miss MacPherson’s heart.
Read moreFour mums in a boat: the story of Yorkshire Rows
Posted in For Relatives, For Solicitors
Last year Anglia Research sponsored Yorkshire Rows – four intrepid Yorkshire women who braved hurricanes, sharks, sea sickness and salt rash to row across the Atlantic, becoming the oldest all-female crew to do so. Now, Janette Benaddi, Helen Butters, Niki Doeg and Frances Davies recount their adventures in Four Mums in a Boat, published by HQ, and as one their sponsors we are delighted to report that Anglia Research will be attending the book launch.
Read moreTop fundraisers flip it for charity
Posted in For Relatives
A team from Anglia Research raised funds for the East Anglia Children’s Hospice (EACH), by entering the Flip It challenge at the Cornhill in Ipswich town centre. The team – dressed as pancakes and toppings – competed against other fundraisers in a series of pancake-flipping relay races.
Read moreSouth African's search for family completed in 24 hours
Posted in For Relatives
Anglia Research's Sam Watkin found a whole new family for Burnadine Potgieter from South Africa after she came across an article in the Southport Visiter in which Burnadine asked the residents of Merseyside for information about her grandfather Sylvester. It had been her mother’s dying wish to find him. In this article, Sam explains how, using Anglia Research's resources, she located Burnadine’s family within 24 hours.
Read moreShutting the workhouse door
Posted in Case Histories, For Relatives
It’s one thing to pick up Oliver Twist, written in the 1830s, and encounter a blistering description of a workhouse board: “eight or ten fat gentlemen” congratulating themselves on their own negligence. It’s quite another thing to stumble across a shocking dereliction of duty while leafing through workhouse records dating from the late 1920s. In this article, Dr Lisa Hill reports on a crime that no-one bothered to solve.
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