The intriguing characters in these real family history mysteries include an agricultural laborer who left secrets behind in Somerset when he migrated to Manchester, a working-class woman who bafflingly lost ten of her fourteen children in infancy, a miner who purportedly went to ‘live with the Red Indians’ and a merchant prince of the Empire who was rumored to have two wives.

This book shows how a variety of sources including birth, marriage and death certificates, censuses, newspaper reports, passports, recipe books, trade directories, diaries and passenger lists were all used to uncover more, and how much can be detected by setting the characters from your family tree in their proper historical backgrounds.

"Overall, this is a book that can help the researcher think a bit more about how to utilize newspapers in their research, and the most effective ways of doing so."

"Ruth's book gets to the glorious core of what family history research is all about, so sit down and enjoy the read for pleasure or pick out nuggets of wisdom to provide a framework for pursuing your own family discoveries."

“The stories are well-illustrated with examples of records and also photographs of Symes’s ancestors (or others in similar situations) showing work or living conditions… This book is easy to read and designed to get you thinking about your own ancestors—I thought of my ancestors in many similar situations and sources.”