This week I returned to one of the 333 suspects in my book about Jack the Ripper, aiming to write a longer piece about him. This follows articles about Robert Hiron, John George Donkin, Jim Connell, William Onion which I expanded into an, as yet, unpublished biography and Thomas Cutbush. So many of the suspects […]
This week I made a mistake. I wrote a brilliant short story that absolutely met all the criteria for a competition except one. The organisers stipulated that it was only open to unpublished authors. This was clearly stated at the top of the rules, not buried in the small print, so I only have myself […]
In the final part of this series on using genealogical records for research, we’ll look at deaths. In the UK civil registration began in 1837. Prior to that you may be able to find records in parish and cemetery registers. As with births there is no guarantee that all deaths were notified to the authorities. […]
In the third part of this series on using genealogical records for research we’ll look at marriages. Before 1837 only marriages conducted by the Church of England, Jews and Quakers were legally recognised. Prior to that date you may find records from the place of worship. The 1836 Marriage Act allowed for the ceremony in […]
In the second part of this series on using genealogical records for research we’ll look at census returns. The first modern census in the United Kingdom was taken on 7 June 1841. An enumerator delivered a schedule which the household completed, with the enumerator helping those who were illiterate. Each person living at the address […]
For the next few weeks, I will be using this blog to give information that may help those of you who want to trace a family tree or conduct other research into historical individuals who lived in the UK. We’ll start with births and baptisms. The General Registry office contains a searchable index of registered […]
This week Amazon decided to retire the author beta rank. This won’t mean a lot to readers as you will continue to see items ranked in relevant categories. Authors used to have, in private, a number based on their total sales in relation to others. The figures were often meaningless, sometimes with extreme and inexplicable […]
This week I was privileged to be interviewed about Jack the Ripper, specially my suspect encyclopedia, by Michael Hawley on the House of Mystery Radio Show. Mike is an expert on Francis Tumblety, the only suspect who has a whole chapter to himself in the book. We talked about a range of issues in the […]
Allegedly Ernest Hemmingway wrote a story with six words. Augusto Monterroso definitely wrote one with eight. In the 1980s Science Fiction pioneered Drabble, where every story is exactly 100 words. Variants of this are known as micro-fiction or flash fiction, sitting below the 1000 word mark where short stories begin. A short story should be […]
