ANCESTRY

Researching & remembering our family heroes

V E Day 80 marks eight decades since

DNA testing company 23andMe files for bankruptcy

On 23 March 2025, DNA testing company 23andMe has filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States in a bid to sell the company. Matt Hill repor ts

Who Do You Think You Are? celebrities revealed for 2025

The celebrities for this year’s series of the popular genealogy TV show Who Do You Think You Are? have been revealed and include actor Andrew Garfield, comedian Diane Morgan, and singer Will Young. Matt Hill reports

New family history courses & guides

Publishers of Family Tree are proud to announce 2 new courses and 2 new publications this spring

DNA Club news

DNA Club news reporter Karen Evans shares news from the genealogy scene

New WW1 military family history research service

With the majority of WW1 soldiers’ records destroyed, many family historians find this an insurmountable research obstacle. Military family historian Graham Caldwell has launched a new research service to circumvent this problem. Helen Tovey reports

Finding our ancestors' DEATH RECORDS

This month, Family Tree Academy tutor David Annal guides us through the range of sources that may record an ancestor’s death, and finds that for the family historian, death can be the beginning of a new research journey

VICTORY IN EUROPE (VE)

BUT, NOT YET VICTORY OVER JAPAN (VJ)

FOUND & Lost

Still trying to piece together the mysterious Tonges, her mum’s dad’s side of the family, Gill Shaw makes discoveries that hint at more family tragedy

mtDNA ‘ugly duckling’ of DNA testing

mtDNA holds genetic clues about our direct maternal line back tens of thousands of years. Yet when it comes to the closer details that we require for a useful genealogical timeframe, it doesn’t have the clear benefits that autosomal and Y DNA testing can offer. What can we learn with an mtDNA test? John Cleary explains.

TRACING SCHOOLCHILDREN what the records can reveal

Genealogist Fiona Gray-Davies introduces us to the variety of old school records available, and demonstrates the wealth of detail they can give us about not just the children but our teacher ancestors, too, in the late 1800s and early 1900s

Unhappy beginnings ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN IN THE PARISH RECORDS

Researcher Wayne Shepheard looks at the tragic – and occasionally redemptive – stories of illegitimate and foundling children to be found in the parish registers

VE DAY 80 SPECIAL: Planning a WW2 battlefield research trip

Historian and genealogist Dr Dean Kirby shows how you can use military records to plan a research trip to Europe’s Second World War battlefields

DNA DO YOU REALLY NEED TO TEST A SIBLING?

Karen Evans considers herself very lucky when it comes to family DNA testing. Although all her grandparents were deceased before direct-to-consumer testing became a thing, both her parents were happy to join in with her DNA discoveries and so were all their siblings. And this creates an interesting question – do we really need to test a sibling? Karen’s going to show you why the answer is a big fat yes!

Photo corner

Costume historian and photo dating expert Jayne Shrimpton shares advice to help you date your unidentified pictures and so put names to the faces of the past

Book review

A Family History Manual

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Searching for clues in the 16th century: seeking Pawlets

Help! Detailed documentation about my grandfather’s WWI service is missing

Figure 1 Q I ’m an experienced

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Contact the Family Tree team

Matthew Hill Publisher Helen Tovey Editor

IMPRESSUM

EDITORIAL Editor - Helen Tovey helen.t@family-tree.co.uk Editorial

The value of verifying oral history

Diane Lindsay was very much alive at the first VE Day, 1945, but for her family it was a year that held many sadnesses. This issue she casts her mind back to that ‘After the war’ chapter of family history, dusts off her memories – and Googles to check out their accuracy

THE GAZETTE

www.thegazette.co.uk/veday80

ancestry

ancestry.co.uk

RESEARCH SKILLS STUDIO

https://bit.ly/res-skills

Family Tree plus

https://bit.ly/militarymasterclass

FAMILY-TREE

WWW.FAMILY-TREE.CO.UK

BIT

https://bit.ly/DNAbrickwall

Pharos Tutors

www.pharostutors.com

JAMIE BOOTH

jamie.booth@warnersgroup.co.uk

DNA DISCOVERIES

bit.ly/dna-course-ft

Society of Genealogists

www.sog.org.uk