Posted in the Past – the man who helped prepare Kitchener’s last meal and other true stories.

A young pupil writing to a teacher, a courting couple that might get married, a 10-year-old servant working for a laundress in 19th-century Bath, a maid who worked for Edward VII's doctor – all are connected by messages sent using the first real social media phenomenon of the 20th century.

Using a genealogist’s toolbox, Posted in the Past reveals the stories behind postcards sent more than a hundred years ago.

The safe arrival of a precious grandchild, a train delayed by the first national rail strike, bad weather, good luck – messages that go beyond ‘wish you were here?’ and open the door to the past. Weavers, button makers, butlers, motor bus drivers, a fitter of sanitary appliances and even the owner of a steamship – industrious employment from mills to the sea and all revealed in Posted in the Past.

Have you ever watched Who Do You Think You Are? and A House Through Time and thought about researching your own family’s history? Perhaps you’ve started a family tree and soon become stumped? Posted in the Past is sure to ignite your enthusiasm to learn more about your own history. As well as revealing the stories behind the postcards, Posted in the Past also shares how some of the research was completed, providing tips for the beginner genealogist.

The book is illustrated with black and white images of both sides of the postcards and can be viewed in colour on a blog that accompanies the book.

The man who helped keep the doors to London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital open for more than 30 years, and other true stories

This new collection of postcards tells the true stories of the people who received and sent them. Posted during the early years of the 20th century to addresses on both sides of the Atlantic, they reveal the stories of our ancestors.

Includes the Whitford family of silversmiths, actor Lionel Millard (who appeared in the first play televised by the BBC), Phil Goatcher (the artist who created some of the most memorable theatre backdrops in London’s West End, America and Australia), the man who made the coffin for the Unknown Warrior, the Armistead family in Colonial Williamsburg, and many more true stories.

Postcards sent in America connect to the War of Independence and Civil War, and some illustrate the story of the Mayflower and beyond.

Have you ever watched Who Do You Think You Are? and A House Through Time and thought about researching your own family’s history? Perhaps you’ve started a family tree and soon become stumped? Posted in the Past – Second Delivery is sure to ignite your enthusiasm to learn more about your own history. As well as revealing the stories behind the postcards, this book also shares how some of the research was completed, providing tips for the beginner genealogist.

These postcards are more than handwritten messages – they are our past.

The book is illustrated with black and white images of both sides of the postcards and can be viewed in colour on a blog that accompanies the book.

The teenager lashed to the side of Robert Stephenson’s yacht in a storm as she sailed with him to Egypt, and other true stories.

Georgina Ballantine, who landed a record-breaking salmon that was almost as long as she was tall… A family who ran a hotel in Southampton’s ‘Titanic Street’… Cornwall’s engineering genius who invented the Banbury Mixer – still a milestone in America’s tyre industry… Archer Baldwin, the British MP born in a cabin in Tennessee… The Thompson sisters who worked on the first Oxford English Dictionary… Poor Lizzie, who was almost swept overboard sailing to the Isle of Man… all are connected by postcards, sent more than a hundred years ago.

If you have researched your own family’s history or enjoyed watching programmes that explore our ancestry through genealogy and DNA, you’ll know how thrilling it is to discover an ancestor with a story. Using genealogy resources, this new collection of true stories begins with postcards sent by our ancestors as they travelled the world – some finding happiness, others only tragedy.

Telling the story of a young woman's tours around Europe before WWI and the postcards she sent home to Douglas, the man she eventually married.
All royalties donated to Parkinson's UK.