Natalie Pithers, Genealogy Stories
genealogystoriesuk.bsky.social
Natalie Pithers, Genealogy Stories
@genealogystoriesuk.bsky.social
🖊️ Write your family history. Founder of http://curiousdescendants.co.uk
🌳 Genealogy articles, hints & tips at http://genealogystories.co.uk
Pinned
Today’s #GenealogyStories prompt is: Shipping
Instead of the usual words, I’ll leave you with this poster from my local railway station!
#Genealogy #Writing
Today’s #GenealogyStories prompt is: Shipping
Instead of the usual words, I’ll leave you with this poster from my local railway station!
#Genealogy #Writing
June 17, 2025 at 7:05 AM
Reposted by Natalie Pithers, Genealogy Stories
I never met my grandmother's sisters as they died before I was born. However, I was named after her eldest sister, 'Betty' - and there are strange parallels between my life and hers.

I also wrote a bit about Betty in this blog, if anyone's interested: 👇 elizabethjbond.wordpress.com/2025/04/27/h...
June 10, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Reposted by Natalie Pithers, Genealogy Stories
My first Curious Descendants piece included a picture of my sisters & that was also my first blog piece, reusing content to practice using Wordpress jenniferirvinghart.wordpress.com/2021/09/02/s...
And I started 52 ancestors one year with sisters jenniferirvinghart.wordpress.com/2022/01/10/f...
June 10, 2025 at 8:29 AM
Today’s #GenealogyStories prompt is: Sisters
✍️ A family with many sisters
✍️ Loving sisters
✍️ Sisters that took the same / opposite path in life
✍️ Sisters that fell out
✍️ Non biological sisters, adoptees, steps or friends
✍️ The Sisterhood
#Genealogy #Writing
June 10, 2025 at 6:51 AM
Today’s #GenealogyStories prompt is: Tall
✍️ Tall tales, proved true or false?
✍️ Tall ancestors, is it in your genes?
✍️ Height restricted professions
✍️ Standing tall with pride
#Genealogy #Writing
June 9, 2025 at 7:32 AM
Reposted by Natalie Pithers, Genealogy Stories
"So many people have taken these DNA tests that the age of genetic anonymity is over". Quote from @jennykleeman.bsky.social on radio 4 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... on podcasting family histories. I skipped back to make sure I got it right as it is exactly my thinking. #FamilyHistory #Genealogy
BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Podcasting difficult histories
Matthew Sweet discusses difficult histories with 3 BBC podcast hosts at the Hay Festival.
www.bbc.co.uk
June 6, 2025 at 8:29 PM
What a fantastic idea. If you only read one thing #Genealogy today, let it be this!! 👇👇
Announcing the Ancestors Lost By Suicide Commemoration Project! Over the next year I'm releasing 1 biography a month for each of my ancestors who died by suicide. My goal is to celebrate their lives & contributions to their loved ones & communities. genealcymru.com/albsc-project/ #Genealogy
The Ancestors Lost by Suicide Commemoration Project
Welcome to the Ancestors Lost by Suicide Commemoration Project. This is a limited blog series in the form of short biographies recounting the lives of all of my ancestors who died by suicide, all o…
genealcymru.com
June 7, 2025 at 11:09 AM
Latest #GenealogyStories word is: Plumbing
✍️ Evolution of the “bathroom”
✍️ Sewers, aquaducts, cesspits, septic tanks, natural water filters, water sources, rivers, lakes, wells…
✍️ Plumbing ancestors
✍️ Pipeline lines, blockages and clogs in your genealogy research
#Genealogy #FamilyHistory
May 27, 2025 at 6:30 AM
Reposted by Natalie Pithers, Genealogy Stories
Here are my great grandparents Dennis and Mary Lenihan and my great uncle John in the 1920 census. John died before his third birthday because there was no vaccine for pertussis (whooping cough).
May 23, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Reposted by Natalie Pithers, Genealogy Stories
If you are very lucky local archives might have vaccination records. A government report published in 1880 has names of defaulters prosecuted in E & W courts & penalties imposed. Nothing similar in Scotland or Ireland
May 23, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Reposted by Natalie Pithers, Genealogy Stories
Here's an interesting census entry. Listed here is a 64 year old gardener, named James Phipps - the same person who was inoculated with cowpox as a child by Edward Jenner, thereby paving the way for vaccinations and the eventual eradication of smallpox. #history #genealogy #vaccination
May 23, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Reposted by Natalie Pithers, Genealogy Stories
Absolutely! It’s why I chose to name my recent episode for @familyhistpod.bsky.social ‘The Invisible’. My GGM pretty much disappeared off the radar when she was admitted to a mental hospital. My research added 30 years to her life that was previously unknown.
May 21, 2025 at 9:04 AM
Huge yes to this! #FamilyHistory #Genealogy
I guess that's one good reason for doing our family history - to give some of our female ancestors their identity back. What do you think? #AncestryHour
May 21, 2025 at 8:19 AM
Reposted by Natalie Pithers, Genealogy Stories
Oh, very definitely. They are my main focus. "Wid Swinden", my 7xG Grandmother had just three works "Wid Swinden Buried", but then the wonderful @genealogystoriesuk.bsky.social wrote a whole poem natashahouseman.co.uk/wid-swinden-... #AncestryHour, creating a whole new set of stories.
May 20, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Today’s #GenealogyStories prompt is: Vaccination (inspired by shared post).
✍️ Early vaccinated ancestors, advocates and protestors
✍️ Ancestors that died from conditions now vaccinated against
✍️ Pioneers in immunology
✍️ Vaccination records
#Genealogy #Writing
Edward Jenner, physician & father of immunology, who saved lives worldwide; administered first smallpox vaccination #OTD 1796.
National Portrait Gallery London
May 14, 2025 at 8:24 AM
Reposted by Natalie Pithers, Genealogy Stories
I tried out a couple of different tools on my phone & iPad for this prompt. Quite a few train tracks in my favourites 😀 several of my ancestors were active in delegations to parliament to get the train to their town in rural NSW. Success coming many years after they had moved elsewhere
May 13, 2025 at 9:56 AM
Today’s #GenealogyStories prompt is: Tracks
✍️ Wrong side of the tracks
✍️ On track!
✍️ Train tracks (rail or braces!)
✍️ Tracking back
✍️ Tracking source citations!
✍️ Off the beaten track
#Genealogy #Writing
May 13, 2025 at 6:23 AM
Today’s #GenealogyStories prompt is: Prison
✍️ What is a crime? Now and then.
✍️ Local prison
✍️ Incarcerated ancestors
✍️ Prisons of the mind
✍️ Rehabilitation
✍️ Prison and Art
✍️ Punishment and reward
Inspired by Shepton Mallet prison day trip (highly recommended!) #Genealogy #Writing
May 7, 2025 at 8:15 AM
Reposted by Natalie Pithers, Genealogy Stories
I spent #OnePlaceWednesday researching local beech trees blue bells and spires today
April 30, 2025 at 5:18 PM
#GenealogyStories prompt: Sunshine
✍️ A ray of sunshine
✍️ Make hay when the sun shines
✍️ Everything under the sun
✍️ A place in the sun
✍️ Summer holidays
✍️ A sunny disposition
✍️ Suncream and tanning
✍️ An Indian summer
#Writing #Genealogy
April 30, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Reposted by Natalie Pithers, Genealogy Stories
I thought you should see this, Natalie. 😊 @genealogystoriesuk.bsky.social
In the past I have found evidence of PITHER being used to mean 'to bother' and PITHERING to mean wandering about aimlessly, also I have seen where PITHERED meant being cramped up with cold. Here is another example from a 1950s newspaper of the use of PITHER, here meaning 'to crumble away'.
April 23, 2025 at 5:16 PM
Reposted by Natalie Pithers, Genealogy Stories
There is much I could say on the subject of rabbits, from seeing them prepared by my mum (the smell!) to talk of "breeding like.." in the village as I was one of 12 children. Currently, I am tickled pink to have received a book of my uncle's memories inc. Grandad ferreting and selling 🐰🐰🐰 widely.
April 23, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Reposted by Natalie Pithers, Genealogy Stories
Here is a photo of my grandad, Ray (on the right) with some of the Fuller family’s Dutch rabbits. The rabbits were bred for showing but money was tight, so any that didn’t make the grade went in the pot!

Ray’s brother, Tim, wrote about his impoverished childhood: www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:M...
April 23, 2025 at 8:34 AM
Reposted by Natalie Pithers, Genealogy Stories
#AtoZChallenge2025 My blog post challenge yesterday was the letter S and so I wrote a snippet about early schooling in Cuckfield. #OnePlaceATOZ cuckfieldcompendium.blogspot.com/2025/04/a-z-...
A-Z Challenge 2025: April 22nd: S for Schooling
Early Schooling in Cuckfield. The founder of the first school in Cuckfield, a Free Grammar School, was Edmund Flower.   In his will of 1521 ...
cuckfieldcompendium.blogspot.com
April 23, 2025 at 9:53 AM