David Barton · Genealogist & Historical Researcher

15/06/2026

30/05/2026

One of its saviours was a diver… 🤿

30/05/2026

Well, off it goes, the final assignment for the Pharos Tutors Advanced Certificate course. To quote Susan Moore, Court of Chancery records are a ‘lucky dip’! 😂 Just a small matter of the final project, but 3.5 years after starting the Intermediate Certificate course, it almost feels like the home straight! 🙌

29/05/2026

One of my most-used genealogy books - it has had much use for both the IHGS: The School of Family History and Pharos Tutors courses!

If your handwriting is bad it’s still probably a lot easier to read than writing from centuries ago. If you struggle to decipher old documents, we have books to help in our library. Like this one by Hilary Marshall with examples from the 1400s to the 1700s.

29/05/2026

Exciting news from Family Tree Magazine for 2027!

21/05/2026

As a complete non-scientist, I really enjoyed doing this Pharos Tutors course couple of years ago!

Demystifying DNA for Family Historians. Genetic genealogy is becoming an increasingly popular addition to "traditional" family history research and has the potential to solve mysteries and brick walls, where other records do not survive. https://www.pharostutors.com/demystifying-dna-for-family-historians

15/05/2026

I passed the Pharos Tutors Intermediate Certificate two years ago today - it comes highly recommended!

Looking for a good foundation in genealogy? Check out our Intermediate Certificate. https://www.pharostutors.com/family-history-certificates

30/04/2026

A poetic ode to archives for this year (with thanks to O'Shaughnessy).

24/04/2026

Below are some baptism entries for a church in the City of London, taken from Ancestry’s online database:

23 Oct 1691 - Charles Hill
10 Feb 1692/3 - Stephen Hill
12 Feb 1692/3 - Susanna Hill
23 Mar 1692/3 - Joseph Hill
29 Aug 1694 - Robert Hill
8 Sep 1694 - Mary Hill
18 Oct 1694 - Nathaniel Hill

It might seem on first glance, that all these children belong to families bearing the surname HILL, but all is not as it seems.

These are the same entries transcribed from the images of the printed register:

1691. Charles Hill a Foundling. Octob. 23.
1693. Stephen Hill a Founding. Feb. 10.
1693. Susanna Hill a Foundling. Feb. 12.
1693. Joseph Hill a Foundling. Mar. 23.
1694. Robert Hill a Foundling baptized Aug. 29.
1694. Mary Hill a Foundling baptized Sep. 8.
1694. Nathaniel Hill a Foundling Octob : 10th

The church was St Mary-at-Hill.

Because no official Foundling Hospital existed until 1739, babies were often left on church steps and in streets. It is estimated that in the late-17th century, over 1,000 babies a year were being abandoned on London’s streets.

St Mary-at-Hill, a few yards from the River Thames, may have offered a last refuge for mothers to leave their children, in the hope that they would be taken care of.

An online database, useful as it is, offers only a fraction of the story.

23/04/2026

I spent an interesting few hours at The London Archives yesterday examining 17th and 18th century records related to the London Parish of St Mary-at-Hill.

As I came away, I thought about some of the reminders this sort of research offers us:

📝 Not all research yields earth-shattering results, but even a single mention of an individual can increase the amount we know about them.

📝 Sometimes we have to order up documents on speculation, because it’s not always clear in the catalogue what they contain - you never know what you might find.

📝 Every document is a piece in a much bigger jigsaw puzzle - we rarely answer a research question with a single piece, but the pieces add up, and help us to understand the bigger picture.

📝 Sometimes, knowing that an individual was listed in certain a place on a particular date can be the missing piece in the puzzle.

📝 Occasionally we come away and wish we’d forked out the £7 for the photography licence!

📝 It’s easy to get distracted by all the dates and information on either side of our search range.

📝 I will never cease to be awed by the idea that an ancestor whose DNA is part of me, took pen to paper hundreds of years ago, and signed their name. True connection.

I wonder if some of these resonate with you?