One of my favourite musicals as a child was Calamity Jane. Little did I know that although most of the events in the film are fictional, Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok were real people. Martha Jane Cannary, frontierswoman, sharpshooter and tall-story teller was born on 1st May 1852 and died on 1st August, 1903. According to Calamity she was “the…
The greatest female sailors are casting off in their dinghies from the shores of Ekoshima in the Olympic Games. Over the last forty years, women’s sailing has hit new heights. Naomi James was the first woman to sail single-handed around the world via Cape Horn. Tracey Edwards captained the first all-female crew to circumnavigate the globe, while Ellen MacArthur broke…
I am sure many of you have heard the names and stories of Anastasia Romanov and Anna Anderson. Like many, I have found the story of the last days of Russian Romanov Imperial Family in 1918 fascinating – a tragic story of a gruesome family massacre. In the early 1920s, all the world knew with any certainty was that the…
I often spend research trips buried deep in archives reading documents caked in dust. Every now and then I emerge into the light of an art gallery to learn about people and places from paintings. One of my favourite artists is Sir Joshua Reynolds. On a trip to Yale University, I had been at work in the Boswell office, studying…
For each of us, our date of birth defines us. The date determines when we can start school, marry and retire. It even decides when we have the mental and physical capacity to commit a crime. For astrologers the date of birth opens a window into someone’s personality. For family historians, D.O.B is a key fact in a detective investigation…
