Genes News

Touching tributes written by families for their loved ones killed during WW1 have revealed the devastating impact the war had on family life in Britain and the importance of religion for people.

The loneliness felt amongst the men on the front line and the women left behind during WW1 encouraged relationships to start via letters, with many couples getting engaged despite never meeting face to face. 

“Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;

At Genes Reunited we know searching for missing family members is one of the most emotional journeys a person will ever take. If you’re on this site reading this the chances are you’ve been on a rollercoaster ride of research. This is all done in the hopes that your future will include this newfound relative. Then you do and there’s a sense of triumph for finding them coupled with the feeling of fear; because finding them is only part of the journey. 

With their men away fighting on the front line women of Britain enjoyed a new found freedom during WW1 and filled public houses, causing moral outrage and calls for the Government to keep them at home, researchers have found. 

With the much anticipated fourth series of Downton Abbey starting last night, we’ve delved into the family history of Dame Maggie Smith who plays the Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham and discovered it wasn’t just the Countess who had servants in her household.

Hi everyone today we have launched two new message boards. 

The origins of some of the every-day phrases we use are more sinister than you would imagine, according to the family history website Genes Reunited. Researchers have shed some light on the dark history behind some of the nation’s favourite sayings, proving that their origins are rooted in the lives of our ancestors.

Women trekked for weeks across the country to get the vote. A hundred years ago today, tens of thousands of women from all levels of society walked hundreds of miles along carefully planned routes to converge in London's Hyde Park to campaign for votes for women.

To coincide with the ONS report released today on life expectancy at birth, Genes Reunited searched the death records from 1866 and 1911 and found that the north-south divide was the same 150 years ago with people in the north dying earlier than those in the south.