Poole 1841

Over the weekend we visited the pretty coastal town of Poole in Dorset. On the night of the 1841 census my second great-grandfather was recorded as staying at the house of Edward Dugdale, a victualler, on the High Street. Alfred Young was 27 and his occupation was listed as Navy.

I have one photograph of him in his naval uniform, so I thought it would be fun to take it with me and try and find the location on the census. There are some beautiful old buildings around this end of the high street but unfortunately I couldn’t locate a specific building.

A triple wedding {July 27th 1813}

I have been making full use of free access to newspaper records which I told you about on Monday.

I’ve found some great newspaper clippings which have added another dimension to my family history research. I already knew about the marriage between William Mansel (son of William Mansel the 10th Baronet) and Harriet Oliver in 1813. I discovered that they were married along with two of her sisters on the same day at Brill in Buckinghamshire! How romantic.

Free access to Findmypast newspaper archive until 16th February

Findmypast, the home of British and Irish family history, is celebrating a monumental milestone this week: its ever‑growing digital historical newspaper collection reaches 100 million fully searchable pages, opening up countless new opportunities for family historians to uncover hidden stories, forgotten moments, and long‑lost ancestors.

Free access to Findmypast newspaper archive until 16th February

This milestone marks one of the world’s largest long-running digitisation projects to enable broader access to these significant historical records. To celebrate the occasion, Findmypast is offering free access to its entire newspaper archive until 16 February 2026, giving researchers a full week to dive into centuries of headlines and discover the unexpected.

Spanning 400 years and featuring more than 2,700 titles and 7 million issues, Findmypast’s newspaper archive is one of the richest sources for building a vivid picture of your ancestors’ lives. Whether you’re chasing down a great‑grandfather’s wartime escapades, tracking a long‑forgotten marriage announcement, or stumbling across a scandal that reshapes your family narrative, these pages offer a window into events as they happened.

Findmypast’s newspaper search tools are designed to help family historians uncover stories quickly and accurately. Researchers can draw on extracted details from birth, marriage, and death notices—instantly linkable to family trees—and refine broad searches with smart filtering to pinpoint the most relevant results. Clip and save articles to your tree, add them to your Workspace, or create a Collection around a family member or project.

The vast, continually growing archive includes newspapers from the UK, Ireland and beyond, digitised page-by-page on an ongoing basis by a team based in Boston Spa, Yorkshire.

Using the latest equipment, the pages are scanned to a high resolution, and the images processed using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. This extracts the text data, enabling Findmypast’s own machine learning technology to identify key terms powering a more detailed search, including information like names, dates, locations, and even phrases. Quality checks ensure that the pages are clean and readable before they are processed and added to the archive.

Explore the newspaper archive today at www.findmypast.co.uk

1901 Ireland census

One of my major brick walls is my great-grandmother, Catherine Carroll. I have very little information about her so I am always trying to search for other Macroom/Caroll ancestors.

Catherine Carroll born 1854 in Macroom, Cork.

I thought I would check the 1901 Irish census to see if she had any family still in the area. The Census returned Jeremiah Carroll aged 60, general labourer, Mountmassy Road, Macroom, so born 1841 – could he be an older brother of Catherine Carroll?

Dorset History Centre records relating to the Mansel family

More records of interest from the Dorset History Centre records relating to the Mansel family – hoping to visit one day and see these:

Records from the Trenchard estate 1665-1920: Records relating mainly to the Pleydel-Mansell family and their estates in Dorset. The collection consists mainly of family papers and correspondence with some deeds, estate papers and documents relating to public office

From her daughter Louisa Mansel written immediately after her marriage to John Mansel, and during her honeymoon, 1815. One later letter mentions her twin sons, born 1817 – only part of letter existing.. 1815-1817 {D-TRD/C/16}

From her daughter Margaretta, with one written partly by Louisa. Some from Wales during Louisa’s honeymoon, and others from Bath. 1815-1824 {D-TRD/C/17}

Louisa Mansel. c.1815-1858 {D-TRD/C/23-25}

From Douglas W Stuart and J C Mansel regarding probate of William Pleydell’s will, sale of furniture and effects and lease of Eagle House at Blandford, and property in Twickenham. 1840-1846 {D-TRD/C/28}

Correspondence with J C Mansel, Thomas Bond, Giles Daubeney (rector of Lydiard Tregoze, Wilts), Revd Hardwick-Shute (vicar of Great Milton), H C Cherrie (rector of Burghfield), G Graham and her niece Emma, all concerning genealogy of Clavell, Morton and Pleydell families. One of Bond’s mentions letters from widow of Sir John Morton (see D/TRD/C2) in his possession. Some written as part of preparation of pedigrees for 3rd edition Hutchins “History and Antiquities of Dorset”. 1851-1862 {D-TRD/C/29}

From J C Mansel when he was 86, a year before his death. 1862 {D-TRD/C/33}

Nepicar House

When I was searching the Kent Archives and Local History site for any mention of the Mansel family it returned hits for Nepicar House, Wrotham Heath. Was this the home of Eliza Mansel and then her son John Bell William Mansel?

The record for 1929 was titled Mansel Nepicar Estate, this was in the business papers and books of H.G. Henbrey, auctioneer and estate valuer.

When I searched online for anything relating to Nepicar House, London Road, I found the following:

Grade II listed:

House. Circa 1700 front added to earlier block at rear which was itself remodelled for the Reverend Sandford Bailey in circa 1856 by William Burges. Red and blue brick chequer on plinth of coursed stone blocks. Brick band. Heavy moulded modillion eaves cornice to steep hipped plain tiled roof with 2 small leaded hipped dormers. Two wide brick ridge stacks. Two storeys, basement and attic; symmetrical 5 window facade, glazing bar sashes, those on ground floor C19 with thin glazing bars. Blocked basement–window heads in plinth. Central panelled doubled doors with large rectangular overlight. Four steps up to entrance with ornamental cast-iron hand-rail. Projecting semi-circular hood over entrance with shell ornament and in centre plaster relief of bear. Carved foliated supporting console brackets. Rear of the block has 2 large gables. Gabled 2-storey brick wing behind with door to north topped by enriched armorial decoration. Interior. Panelled hall and passage behind off early C18 staircase with Salamonic balusters, probably moved. One pilastered panelled room to right of hall. This building in 1980 won an R.I.B.A. prize for conservation of historic buildings and has a long and low late 1970’s brick and smoked glass office wing attached on the south side.