Today is Winnie the Pooh’s 85th birthday and to commemorate his author AA Milne, we’ve been investigating Milne’s family history.

Educational ancestors

We discovered that Milne came from a family of school teachers. Our first stop was the census records on findmypast.co.uk where we found Milne in the 1891 census. He is recorded at Henley House School, Mortimer Road, Hampstead, aged nine. He is listed as a scholar with his father, John Milne, the schoolmaster. John was born in Jamaica and was married to Sarah Heginbotham. See the record here:

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Ten years later, the 1901 census tells us that Milne’s father had moved on from Henley House School and was the schoolmaster at Streete Court School, Westgate-on-Sea, Kent. Milne was living with his aunt and uncle as a Cambridge undergraduate at this time.

Milne’s uncle, Alexander Milne, was the principal of the Boys’ Private School, University School, Holmesdale Gardens, Hastings. Alexander is listed in the Teachers’ Registration Council Registers 1914-1948 on findmypast.co.uk. He registered on 1 July 1919 and his career in education spanned 1871 to 1932. View Alexander’s record here:

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Our research revealed further evidence of teaching in Milne’s family. Milne’s mother and maternal grandmother, both named Sarah Heginbotham, were school mistresses at Brooklyn House, Wellington, Shropshire at the time of the 1871 census.

Milne’s paternal grandfather, William Milne, was recorded as being an inspector of schools in the 1861 census, which made us wonder whether he was the catalyst for the family’s teaching tradition.

At the time of the 1911 census, Milne was living at Broadgates, Steeple Bumpstead in Essex with his parents. Milne was recorded as being a journalist, working on his ‘own account and Punch‘. By this time, his father was a retired schoolmaster.

Milne on the move

We were intrigued to find Milne 20 years later in the passenger lists on findmypast.co.uk travelling as a first class passenger to the USA with his wife, Dorothy.

The couple were aboard the Aquitania, which departed Southampton for New York on 21 October 1931. In the detailed log, Milne is described as an author and his address is recorded as being 13 Mallord Street SW3. View the record here:

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As Milne’s ancestry demonstrates, you can glean huge amounts of detail when you find your ancestors in the Teachers’ Registration Council Registers 1914-1948 on findmypast.co.uk. We are working in partnership with the Society of Genealogists to bring you these rich records.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the execution of Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen.

American homeopathic physician Crippen was hanged in Pentonville Prison, London, after being found guilty of murdering his wife Corrine.

We found Crippen and Corrine (’Cora’) in our census records - here you can see them in the 1901 census living at 34 Store Street, St Giles In The Fields and St George Bloomsbury:

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Cora ‘disappeared’ after a party at their home on 31 January 1910. Crippen first claimed she had returned to America, then changed his story to say that Cora had died and had been cremated in California. Following these suspicious claims, Chief Inspector Walter Dew interviewed Crippen and searched his house but found no evidence of anything unusual. Crippen wasn’t aware of this and fled to Brussels with his new lover Ethel ‘Le Neve’ Neave.

The next day they went to Antwerp and boarded the Canadian Pacific liner SS Montrose, bound for Canada. Unbeknown to Crippen, the captain of the ship, Henry George Kendall, recognised him and Neave (despite Neave disguising herself as a boy) and ordered a wireless telegram to be sent to the British authorities. Chief Inspector Dew, who had been investigating Crippen, then boarded the ship as it docked in Canada and arrested Crippen for murder. Crippen was the first ever criminal to be caught using wireless technology.

We found Chief Inspector Dew on the 1911 census, living with his wife and four children in Wandsworth, London:

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We also discovered Captain Kendall in our passenger lists. Crippen doesn’t appear on this record as he boarded the ship in Antwerp:

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Read more about Crippen’s fascinating and macabre story.

Our expert Stephen Rigden, pictured, answers your questions.

From Victoria Hopkins in Norwich:

‘I’m trying to discover what happened to my stepmum’s grandfather Vasco Agolini (born c.1882) and his wife Elena Agolini (nee Gawlowska, born c.1885). The only papertrace I can find of them in the UK is the births of their two children, one in Cardiff (Yolanda b.1913) and one in Southport (Elenora b.1914).

The ship’s manifest of the Demerera sailing from Liverpool in 1915 has Vasco’s name on it…but it is crossed through! Does that mean he didn’t board the ship? I thought maybe he was interned but I understand these records were lost in WW2 incendiary raids. I really don’t know where to turn next. ‘

Steve says:

‘Thanks for your question.

It is hard to know what to propose next, as I cannot tell from your email what else you know about Vasco and his wife Elena after WW1. There are so many options: Vasco may have remained in the UK but changed his name, or he may have emigrated, or he could have returned to his native Italy.

From your email, it seems likely that Vasco and Elena were very recent arrivals in England – particularly if you cannot find them on the 1911 census. It may also be the case that they were itinerant, which would add to the difficulty of tracking down documentary evidence of them.

The passenger list you refer to shows Vasco Agolini, aged 33, an Italian artist booked to travel 2nd class with a group of artists (presumably theatrical or music hall performers rather than fine art painters) on the SS Demerara from Liverpool to Buenos Aires in May 1915. He is on a page of the list for alien passengers, so had not naturalised at that time – he is still a subject of the Kingdom of Italy. The group were going on tour rather than intending to emigrate, as the last column of the list shows their ‘country of intended future permanent residence’ as England.

Other pages of the same passenger list show more artists, both alien and British, travelling to Buenos Aires, several of whom are struck out in pencil as is Vasco. I agree that this suggests that he did not sail – perhaps because he missed the boat accidentally, perhaps because of a deliberate change of heart given the conditions of wartime and the fact of his wife and young children.

An Italian such as Vasco would technically have been an enemy alien during WW1, irrespective of his personal politics, and, therefore, subject to internment. It is generally thought that very few records survive, although there are various series at The National Archives (which is always the first place to look for nationally significant records). See TNA’s helpful Research Guide on Internees for more details. Another online resource worth checking for the availability of records is Access To Archives, hosted by TNA - this enables you to check nationwide across the holdings of participating archives.

It might also be worth checking speculatively the local record offices and reference libraries in the Southport and general Merseyside region in case they hold anything on local enemy internees. The well-known internment camps on the Isle of Man would have been nearby but unfortunately there is very little individual name level information surviving - click here (PDF) for more information.

There are references to records held by the International Red Cross but I have no information as to whether these are searchable in practice. Finally, you should consider contacting the Anglo-Italian Family History Society in case they have any suggestions for you.’

If you’d like to send your question to Steve, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account.

This week it was actor Rupert Everett’s turn to trace his family history. The programme focused mainly on Rupert’s grandfather, Cyril Frederick Cunningham Everett.

Rupert Everett (copyright Vicki Neave)

Cyril was born on 12 June 1886 at 20 Porchester Terrace, Hyde Park, to Georgina Teague and Frederick William Cunningham Everett. Here we can see Cyril Everett, aged 4, living as an ‘inmate’ in The Home For Little Boys in Horton Kirby, Kent on the 1891 census:

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The 1901 census reveals that Cyril Frederick still lived in the Home For Little Boys in Kent.

In 1908 Cyril went to Nigeria, where he worked on Lagos port. He travelled to and from Nigeria many times in the following years - we counted 15 separate journeys from the UK to Nigeria in our passenger lists. Here you can see one of the many journeys Cyril made:

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This records Cyril as a Civil Servant and also informs us that his last address in the United Kingdom was Browning Avenue in Boscombe.

Our passenger lists show that Cyril’s wife, Marcella, visited him several times in Nigeria. The journey she made in 1923 is recorded here - she’s recorded as Mrs C F C Everett:

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Cyril’s mother (Rupert’s great-grandmother), Georgina Everett nee Teague, appears on the 1871 census with her parents, Rupert’s great-great-grandparents, George and Esther Teague. George was a Railway Porter, Esther a Housekeeper and the family was living in Marylebone:

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The 1881 census shows Georgina living with her widowed mother Esther. Georgina was a Dressmaker while her mother was a Housekeeper. They were living at a ‘home for old ladies’ in Marylebone:

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Georgina Teague is a bit of a mystery: she literally disappears after the 1881 census and her marriage to Frederick William Cunningham Everett in 1883. Can you find out what happened to her? If you have any luck, post your findings underneath this blog post.

Thanks to all of you who entered our World Cup competition. As the tournament is over, it’s time to let you know the correct answers to the questions and reveal our winner!

Question 1: What was the recorded occupation of William Matt, aged 36, living in Easthampstead, Berkshire in the 1911 census?

Answer: Snob! Lots of you correctly added that a snob was a bootmaker and repairer at the upper end of the trade.

Question 2: How many first names was Ann Pepper, born in West Derby in the Jan/Feb/Mar quarter of 1883, given?

Answer: A whopping 25 first names! Ann was given a first name for every letter of the alphabet except P: Ann, Bertha, Cecilia, Diana, Emily, Fanny, Gertrude, Hypatia, Inez, Jane, Kate, Louisa, Maud, Nora, Ophelia, Quince, Rebecca, Starkey, Teresa, Ulysis, Venus, Winifred, Xenophen, Yetty and Zeus. The mind boggles!

Question 3: Can you tell us what disability Chelsea Pensioner Bartholomew Murphy, born in Wexford in 1841, who served in the 36th Reg Of Foot, is reported to have?

Answer: Malformation of feet and overlapping toes. Poor chap!

Question 4: Which ship was Joseph Dugemin a passenger on?

Answer: The Titanic.

Our lucky winner is Rosemary Rowley from Macclesfield, Cheshire who wins a digital camera, vouchers for a year’s Full subscription to findmypast.co.uk, ‘Tracing Your Shipbuilding Ancestors’ a book by Anthony Burton, a family history starter pack, a 1911census.co.uk mouse mat and the all-important findmypast.co.uk pencil!

Congratulations Rosemary and thanks to all of you who entered. We hope we provided you with some amusement during the World Cup.

This afternoon England play Germany which means you can enjoy 90 minutes of free access to findmypast.co.uk between 9am Sunday and 9am Monday (UK time).

Here’s the fourth World Cup widows competition question we’d like you to answer:

Which ship was Joseph Dugemin a passenger on?

Our passenger lists hold the answer.

The prize: a digital camera, vouchers for a year’s Full subscription plus more family history prizes.

When England get knocked out of the tournament we’ll let you know how to enter the competition. Remember that you need to answer all the competition questions correctly to be in with a chance of winning - there’s one question for each England match. You have until 12 July to send us your answers and there can only be one winner. We’ll pick the winner at random from the entries that contain all of the correct answers - the judge’s decision is final.

We’ll publish the winner on our blog on 13 July along with the answers to all the questions. Good luck!

Thanks to all of you who sent us your experiences of researching your family tree. We’ve received lots of fascinating stories - read on for Irene Conway in Walmer, Kent’s story:

‘My maternal grandfather George Wilce travelled to Canada in 1903 and was supposed to have died on board the ship he was on but I could find no record of his death. I had looked for several years but drawn a blank each time until a helpful man at the Records Centre, when it was in Islington, found him for me via the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. I had been looking for an Englishman, who was in fact born in Aberdeen, and found that he had enlisted in Toronto in 1917 in the 48th Highlanders as a Canadian. That’s the background.

I had found a ‘G Wilce’ on findmypast.co.uk’s passenger lists shown as a plumber, single and aged 33 and ignored it as it didn’t fit with what I knew - as did another family history researcher. The man who found the CWGC death record told me to look up Canada collections and this I did. I also checked their passenger lists and it seems that when grandfather left Liverpool (a month after his marriage to my grandmother!) on the ‘Lake Champlain’ he was shown on the passenger list as detailed above; however, on arriving in Canada he was shown as a labourer, single and aged 21.

I sent to Canada for his military record and this was most definitely my grandfather, his record showing his mother as next-of-kin at her address in Woolwich, South-East London which tallied with the copy I have of my grandparents’ marriage certificate.

He didn’t see active service, however, as he died within a few months of landing in England and is buried at Bramshott cemetery in Hampshire - one of apparently 99 Canadian servicemen who died here in England.

When I was a member of a local family history group I was told that passenger lists should show the same information when leaving this country and when arriving at the final destination but obviously there are exceptions to the rule!’

If you have an experience you’d like to share with us and our readers, email casestudies@findmypast.co.uk with ‘My experience’ in the subject line. We look forward to reading your stories!

Our expert Stephen Rigden, pictured right, answers your questions.

From Dick Myhre in Blaine, Washington, USA:

‘My wife has hired at least 3 different researchers to try to find information on her family in England and Scotland - all without success. The facts:

Her great-grandfather was George Slater, born 23 February 1826 in White Lea (Whitley?), Northumberland Co., England, ‘on the border between England and Scotland’, per family lore. His parents’ names are unknown by us. The family story is that the father died, and his wife invested the family money with ‘friends’ and that the money was ‘lost’. George was the youngest (?) of the sons in the family; the other sons were college-educated - for the ministry, we’ve heard - but the father died before George could complete his college education. We believe that there was at least one sister, whose married name was ‘Mrs Potts’.

George Slater married Elizabeth (Margaret Elizabeth?) Metcalf in 1851 at an unknown location. From a death record, we know that Elizabeth’s father’s name was William, and that he was born in England. Elizabeth herself was born 8 August 1831 in Durham Co., England. The family lore there is that Elizabeth’s parents died and Elizabeth and a younger brother were raised by a ‘wealthy aunt and uncle’, the aunt being known as ‘Lady Metcalf’. Elizabeth is said to have attended Bishop Auckland School.

From a family Bible we have record that George and Elizabeth’s first child, daughter Ann or Annie, was born in Kilmarnock, Scotland, on 31 December 1851. This baby died at sea on 10 October 1853 on the trip from the British Isles - departure point unknown - to North America. Where the family intended to land is a matter of speculation, but they ended up in Chile, where 2 more children were born to them. One family history states that George and Elizabeth were headed for Eastern Canada, where George had brothers in the ministry. The story continues that the ship’s captain was steering a northerly course and began running into icebergs. After trying to convince the captain to turn south, which he refused to do, the crew mutinied, thus their arrival in Chile.

Two family histories exist, written by granddaughters of George and Elizabeth Slater. One states that the family was Church of England; the other states that they were non-conformist. If they were non-conformist, might that explain why no records of them have been found to date? We have enough information that it seems really strange not to have been able to find anything on this family - Slaters or Metcalfs - in Great Britain! We would very much appreciate your help in solving any of these mysteries.’

Steve says:

‘Thank you for submitting your very interesting question.

It is quite common to hear family legends and lore which have been passed down through the generations like heirlooms. However, the difference between a normal heirloom, such as a valued piece of jewellery or furniture, and a family legend is that the latter tends to be changed over time: to become more colourful, more elusive, less plausible. In many, if not most, family legends there will be a kernel of truth and it is the job of the family historian to work through the accumulated layers of elaboration and embroidery to uncover that truth.

This is of course easier said than done, especially when, as in this case, the family appears to have been transcontinental, travelling from the British Isles to South America to North America. This makes it all the more important, however, to follow the cardinal rule of genealogy, which is to work back as systematically as you can from proven and known facts towards the unproven and unknown. I cannot tell from your email whether you have exhausted all enquiries in North America and been working back methodically but, if not, and not least given the negative outcome of the investigations made upon your behalf by hired researchers, I would advise you to take stock and review all available information to ascertain what might be missing and what your next steps might be. You really need to ensure that you have accurate and reliable information before continuing.

As to the components of the family legend in your email, some of these are likely to have foundation in reality and some less so. The full combination of lost fortunes, a wealthy aunt, icebergs and mutiny aboard ship is unlikely to be wholly factual. Regarding the individual details in the story, I have taken a quick look at some of these but, not unexpectedly given the outcome of previous research, did not find obvious candidates for the Slater or Metcalf families in the 1841 or 1851 censuses, nor a birth or baptism for Annie in Kilmarnock in 1851/52.

There will probably be multiple places named ‘White Lea’: certainly, there is one in Northumberland near Alston (which is on the Cumberland side of the county boundary) and another near Billy Row, just north of Crook in Co Durham, and quite possibly others. Education of young women other than at home was not standard in 1840s and I would be surprised if there was a ‘Bishop Auckland School’ admitting girls that Elizabeth Metcalf attended, although of course there may be local researchers among findmypast customers who can correct me on this point.

As for Chile, there were many purposeful British settlers in South America, all around the Chilean coast from Pisagua and Iquique down to Punta Arenas (Sandy Point) and Tierra del Fuego, and a mutiny on a Canada-bound ship in the North Atlantic would be unlikely to lead to a subsequent rogue docking so very far away. If you search the 1890-1960 passenger lists on findmypast.co.uk, or search the same records on www.ancestorsonboard.com, using the combination of surname Slater and destination Chile, you will find a surprising number of records. Of course this is not the right period for your family history but it does show that Chile was not an unusual emigrant destination.

Perhaps some findmypast customers might want to comment on Dick’s question?’

If you’d like to send your question to Steve, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account.

A letter from a first class passenger aboard the Titanic to his wife fetched a reported £55,000 at auction on Saturday 17th April at Devizes, Wiltshire, and we’ve found the author in our passenger lists.

The letter was written by an Adolphe Saalfeld, a 47-year old German manufacturer of perfumes living in London and was dated 10th April 1912, the first day of the ill-fated trip. He described in detail a near collision with another liner at Southampton, the lunches and dinner he enjoyed, and the comfort on board. According to the auctioneers, it is the most detailed first person account of life aboard the Titanic in existence.

Mr Saalfeld’s passenger records, along with all those who travelled on the Titanic, can only be found on our site. Saalfeld’s passenger transcript states details of his port of departure at Southampton, and expected port of arrival, effectively verifying the letter. He did in fact arrive at his expected destination of New York, having boarded a lifeboat and been rescued when the ship hit the iceberg.

Here you can see the passenger list for the Titanic:

Titanic passenger list

Debra Chatfield

Debra Chatfield, our marketing manager, said: “When we heard about this amazing letter, we were keen to look up the original passenger record for Adolphe Saalfeld online at findmypast.co.uk. Passenger lists are so useful for finding out when people travelled and to where, for example when and where they emigrated or travelled on business. There are so many details you can see in the records, from who travelled with the passenger, to exactly when they left, their year of birth and their occupation. In this case it proved an important historic document as it meant the letter was hugely likely to be the genuine article.”

Search our 1890-1960 passenger lists today.

This week it’s the turn of the actress Kim Cattrall to take part in Who Do you Think You Are?. Though the actress is best known for her roles as Americans, she was actually born in Liverpool and raised in Canada.

The family’s journey to Canada can be found on findmypast.com’s Passenger Lists. Kim is seen at three months old travelling with her sister, Cherry, and her mother Shane (listed as Gladys on official documents) in November 1956.

Kim Cattrall on the Passenger Lists

Kim’s father Dennis had travelled several months earlier in April, when Shane was pregnant, so Kim was on her way to meet her father for the first time.

Kim Cattrall's father on the Passenger Lists

Kim’s family have remained close to their Liverpudlian roots and Kim has returned many times over the years. This time Kim is on a mission to solve the mystery surrounding her maternal grandfather George Baugh.

George married Kim’s Grandmother Marion Thomas in 1928. The event can be found in findmypast.com’s birth, marriage, and death indexes.

Kim Catrall's grandfather's marriage

However, George walked out on his wife and three daughters when Shane was eight – leaving the family in poverty – and was never heard from again. The only clues Kim has are a photograph and a newspaper article from the 1980s, which mentions her grandfather’s sister.

Shane and her sisters are desperate to know what happened to their father, but will they like what they find? Is Kim’s prediction that ‘I think it’s going to end in tears’ going to be right? Watch BBC One tonight at 9pm to find out.