Rev is awesome! Gets better every episode. If you have access to BBC you've got to watch it.

I love that British men wear proper shoes.

I found a new part of London that I love. Hampstead Heath and Highgate Hill. I guess that's two. You're high up looking down over the city. The houses are grand and graceful. You can go swimming in the lake on the Heath. Well not the big lake because apparently the fish will eat you. But there's a bathing lake. One for boys and one for girls. They're very modest up there on the hill. I like driving up hills, I have amazing clutch control. I could definitely live there. Does anyone have 5 million quid they wouldn't mind lending me?

Michael is 25 today! Happy birthday, my dear.

My friends in England remember you and ask how you are. Can you believe it's been three years since we were here.

World Cup update

Me and Dave are supporting the Netherlands. We dig the orange!

This is funny

New crush

I have a new crush. Move over Dan Snow, you couldn't make me happy like this little beauty:

I pass her on my near daily pilgrimage to the National Archives. She sits there on Burlington Avenue, taunting me with her perfect proportions. And that colour! Some girls dream of a knight in shining armour to come carry them off. I dream of a smart little audi, and I'll drive myself thank you very much.

My babies are growing like crazy. This was Jacob just seven weeks ago. Andrew likes being big brother but he's going to be mighty unhappy when Jacob - the beef - overtakes him and suddenly he's the little brother. I see it happening. And in the not too distant future.

First day of work at my new little desk today. Oh good grief, the guy upstairs is listing to "The Final Countdown". Looks like the crack in my bedroom wall also leads to a rift in time.

This just in: we're descended from Richard and Judy!

Today I found my first Elizabethan ancestor. I was messing around with PCC wills at the National Archives and I used the middle name of Plummer given to my 6x great-grandfather's second son (Charles Plumer Baron) to try and find his maternal grandfather. Charles Baron Snr was a tanner and landowner in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, married to Sarah, whose own will was proved in the PCC in 1822 (he was 100!). I searched for a will for a Plummer in Hitchin and found John Plumer, Tanner of Hitchin proved 14 Dec 1752. He leaves the bulk of his estate to his daughter Sarah and son-in-law Charles Baron of Hitchin. RESULT!

So Mrs Sarah Baron started out as Sarah Plummer. Working with parish registers for the Hitchin/Baldock area here's how far I got:

- Sarah Plumer daughter of John and Martha Plummer, Tanner baptised at Hitchin St Mary 12 Jul 1724
- John Plumer married Margret Weeb at Thundridge 15 Nov 1722
- John Plummer son of Richard and Martha Plummer baptised at Willian 11 May 1701
- Richard Plommer married Martha Dodson in Willian 28 Oct 1697
- Richard Plommer son of Richard and Judye Plomer baptised at 5 Feb 1671 (it's Richard and Judy!!)
- Richard Plummer married Judith Luke at Sandon 20 Apr 1663

There are two Richard Plomers baptised six years apart in the 1640's. I don't know which one is mine, but both fathers are the sons of Henry Plomer and Catherine Corke who married in Norton, Herts in 1605. There are no baptisms before 1597, so I may not be able to follow the Plumers any further back, but in Henry and Catherine we have ourselves here a pair of bona fide Elizabethans. I'm feeling very satisfied right now.

Do you ever have that sinking feeling? You know you've misplaced something ...

"Thought to be missing for four days, the Rev. Aaron Slavinsky, aged 82 was found dead in a rarely used room of his home in Finsbury Park, London on Monday. Why he had gone to the room - used for keeping lumber - remains a mystery to his wife, who found him by chance."

What??!!! So he's missing for several days, she apparently doesn't search the house (well why would you look there), and then she finally has a wander round the house, decides to pop her head round the door of the lumber room and "oh there you are darling, what are you doing in here, oh you're dead, nevermind then." This is my brother-in-law's great-grandparents. Lucy and I laughed and laughed over this and came to the conclusion that the two of the must have been completely doolally.

Today's discovery

My 6x great-grandparents George Phelps and Mary Bean were married in this cute little church in 1783.

Yeah, not so little. In fact it's a bloody cathedral! Does this mean I've uncovered some wealthy, aristocratic roots? Of course not. It turns out that St Albans Cathedral and Abbey Church, perhaps uniquely, is also a parish church, so not just the great and the good but the grungy and ordinary also got hatched, matched and dispatched in this amazing building that awed and inspired me as a child. We used to visit every summer with my grandparents. Who on earth would have thought it my own family had been married and baptised here. I can't wait to go visit again.

This is great - iPlayer The Beauty of Maps

After several days in London, I needed to escape to somewhere rural. I retreated to my trio of beloved villages on the Dunstable Downs - Kensworth, Whipsnade and Studham. The bus took me through the first two and I hopped and went for a wander around Studham which I've never explored on foot. Here is the modest little church - my 5x great-grandparents William Woodcroft and Charlotte Walker were married here 206 years and 7 days ago. At the rear of the churchyard I joined a footpath that crosses a field and then heads into woodland. With no map, and not wanting to become a cautionary tale, I decided to turn back. But then I changed my mind and carried on anyway into the trees. I love being alone in the woods - I don't understand why people find it scary. I finally got a signal on my phone and discovered I was headed west. Whipsnade it turns out is north, so not wishing to end up in Bristol, I backtracked to Studham, enjoyed a delicious packet of crisps at the Red Lion pub, and hopped back on the bus. I really missed crisps while in America, in fact that's why I came back to England. There it is, the truth is finally out.

Andrew is systematically dismantling grandpa's house in Dallas. An 18-month old's idea of a dream vacation!

By the way, my new dream vacation is eastern Mali. So if you're interested in exploring west Africa's greatest treasures, and the threat of capture and execution by Al-qaeda in the Magreb doesn't phase you, let me know. Best time to go is early November.

Great-gt-gt grannie Mary Baron made the papers. The landlady found her at half past four on a Saturday afternoon, expiring at the bottom of the stairs leading to her first floor lodgings at 151 Wellington St. She apparently fell down the stairs bringing up coal for the fire and the concussion and shock killed her shortly after. Neighbours, the doctor and Mary's youngest son John (lodged in nearby Hastings St) were all summoned. She was carried up to her bed, where she briefly regained consciousness. John recounted to the Coroner that he asked his mother how she fell, to which she replied that she did not fall. She then promptly snuffed it. It's kinda odd, but the Coroner's Jury accepted the testimony of the doctor that Mary had died of concussion and shock to the system, and their only recommendation was that a handrail should be installed on the rickety stairs. And where did the Coroner's Jury meet? In the pub next door at number 152.

I had anticipated a more dramatic tale when I collected a copy of Mary Baron's death certificate last Wednesday and saw that the informant for the death wasn't a family member but Mark Whyley, Coroner for the County of Bedford. It stated there was an inquest, which led me to the report in the local newspaper, The Luton Reporter. Mary's son John was known to subsequent generations of the family as "Wicked Uncle John", so you can imagine the thoughts that initially went through my head. Alas, it seems his notoriety has some other origin. There's also tales within the family that Mary was psychic and foresaw her husband's death. I don't want to sound flippant, but, err, she didn't see this coming.

I want to go visit some little wooden churches in Russian forests.

We three

Lucy's boys. Proudest of proud big brothers Jonathan, Andrew grinning as always, little Jacob looking for lunch.

Day six

Today was a great day. Started with good run in the park. Then I finally convinced someone to cut my hair again the way Mike used to do it. After that on to London where I went to the Society of Genealogists library to work on some book stuff. Ok so that was productive but admittedly a little dull. I got fed up and went down to Bedfordshire parish registers (I love those things) were I found something that made me very happy. I'm trying to trace the origin of a peculiar name passed down through the Raynor family and I found a clue not only to it's origin but that also took me over one of those proverbial brick walls and back 3 more generations than we had on our chart (details below). It was hard not to shout with delight (I would imagine that's frowned on at the Society) so I just kind waved my arms around and woo-hooed on the inside. Followed that with an expense account dinner in SoHo and added my tummy to all the parts of me that were happy. We talked about history all through dinner, kinda of a quick catch up from the Tudors to VE Day. I should be a history professor, I love explaining all this stuff. By the way, I finally caved and joined Twitter. But...... only so I can follow Dan Snow. And I hereby swear I will only stalk other fellow history nerds.

My 3xgreat-grandmothers Mary Ann Raynor had a brother named James Marvel Raynor. English baptisms rarerly involve a middle name, and that one is of particular interest. It was passed down three more generations, and I have reason to think James Marvel and Mary Ann's father James Raynor also carried the name. Family surnames were passed on as given names, but it's not a surname in the region. So where did it come from? And was there some special connection with the name that made then pass it down so many generations. A link to someone illustrious? That would be a first for our family! So the next generation back is also a James Raynor, but we have no baptism for him from the Dunstable registers - the first mention of him is his marriage in 1804. So I went further back and there are no other Raynor baptisms for his generation or what would have been his parents generation. But when I got to 1751 I found three Raynor children all baptised on the same day, Frances, Elizabeth and Marvil (!). I was so excited to find this. The three children were all born previously and baptised together. Parents were James Raynor and Hannah. There must be a connection. Is this James Raynor my 8x great-grandfather? I don't know why they missed a couple generations in the Dunstable register. The wife of James Raynor who was married in 1804 was, according to the 1851 census, from St Albans, so I'm going to check the St Albans register to see if a branch of the Raynors were in St Albans for a couple generations before returning to Dunstable. Of course this doesn't give me the origin of the Marvel name. Perhaps it was Hannah's maiden name. There are no Marvels in the Dunstable register. So the mystery isn't solved quite yet.

Day four

Oh dear, the Conservatives are back in Number 10 tonight, but with a Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister. Weird?! I spent 3 hours on a bouncy bus today reading the classic "Genealogy as Pastime and Profession" and no resulting migraine, so that was nice. The bus ride was to Aylesbury (via lovely Chiltern villages Edlesborough, Eaton Bray and Ivinghoe which have family connections) to visit the Buckinghamshire county archives. I found details of poor relief paid out to my 5x great-grandfather Joseph Sired in the mid-1830s: the whole family fell ill with small pox in May 1835 for which they received several shillings in assistance. The catch of the day, however, was the marriage bond for Joseph's father-in-law William Ashwell who married Ann Fardell by license in Ivinghoe church on 6 Feb 1777 and I learned William was a sheep-dealer (awesome, I've always loved lamb!). My favourite moment: passing through Edlesborough I noticed a sign for Happy Valley Chinese Takeaway & Chips. Ah, it's great to be home!