A newspaper report on ideas for celebrating the Diamond Jubilee, as proposed by ‘Gracchus’ We loved this article about the refusenik who proposed that the Diamond Jubilee should be celebrated by the abolition of the top hat. Um, that’s the Diamond Jubilee of 1897, just in case you’re wondering. The newspaper columnist called ‘Gracchus’, was not a cheerleader for the festivities. Indeed, he wrote some devastating critiques of the celebrations (under the protective cloak of anonymity, admittedly). If you’d like …

A newspaper story reporting on the problems encountered by Charles Booth while making his colour-coded map of  London’s social classes, from 1886 to 1903 As we’ve really enjoyed watching the BBC2 TV programme, ‘The Secret History of Our Streets’, we thought we’d post a story about the work of Charles Booth. As this report of a court case demonstrates, making his social class map of London was certainly no easy task! One can imagine that many of the London estate …

On 10 July 1925, the famous ‘Monkey Trial’ started in Dayton, Tennessee, as science teacher, John Thomas Scopes, went on trial accused of teaching the theory of evolution in high school. The trial was one of the legal sensations of the 20th Century, and attracted national and global attention. Indeed, even Hollywood was interested, with the trial acting as a muse for the film, ‘Inherit the Wind’. The verdict was returned on 21 July 1925. We won’t spoil the story …

National Family History Week takes place in Australia from 27 July to 5 August 2012. Organised by the AFFHO (Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations), there are lots of interesting events taking place all over Australia as part of the festival. We’ve had a wee peek at some of the events, and it looks like it’ll be a grand week for genealogists of all ages! – http://www.familyhistoryweek.org.au/

The Anglo-Scottish Family History Society is holding a meeting in Manchester on Saturday 21 July, from 2pm to 3.30pm. At the meeting, people will share their knowledge about which websites they find most useful for their family history research. The meeting will be held in the Research Room at Clayton House at 59 Piccadilly, Manchester. All are welcome and attendance is free. – http://mlfhs.org.uk/

We’ve been reading some of the stories about the Olympic Games in the Archive, and have been fascinated by many of the stories. We noticed that the first political defection at an Olympics took place at the 1948 Games in London, when Marie Provaznikova of Czechoslovakia decided not to return home. As it’s a report that, as well as highlighting a very moving personal story, also captures the start of ‘the Cold War’ era, we thought we’d post the article …

We love the stories you tell us about the BNA – especially when the website has helped you overcome a major obstacle in your family history research. So when Kathy Smith of Annapolis, Maryland, tweeted about how the BNA had helped her to solve a family history mystery which had been puzzling her on-and-off for 23 years(!), we were very keen to hear her story. And when Kathy told us that she’d almost forgotten all about the BNA until stumbling …

We do love reading quirky stories about the London Games of 1948 – and other Olympiads, too. The 1948 Games, known as ‘the Austerity Games, have a very pleasing ‘make do and mend’ and Corinthian spirit to them – understandably, as the world was still recovering from World War II. From the newspaper reports below, we love the story about the lost luggage of the French team, and their fears that they might have to parade before the King in …