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Extract from 'Who do you think you are?' magazine issue 151, May 2019.

The history of newspapers in Britain is fascinating. They didn't appear until 150 years after William Caxton introduced the printing press to England in 1476. Prior to this, the town crier served as the source of news for a population that was mostly illiterate. The oldest newspaper, the Corante, appeared weekly in 1621 and was published by London printer Nathaniel Butter. The format was the Dutch style of newspaper of the time, containing densely packed articles printed on one or two pages. It contained news from European countries but not England, due to the censorship laws in effect.

 The right to print was strictly controlled from the beginning of the 17th century by a series of edicts from the Star Chamber court that regulated the number of presses throughout the kingdom and prohibited negative reporting about the statutes and laws of the realm. The Government enforced these edicts by searching premises, confiscating equipment and imprisoning the lawbreakers.

After the Star Chamber was abolished in 1641, restrictions on printing were lifted and a variety of newspapers appeared such as the London Gazette, the official newspaper of the Crown, in 1665. Berrow's Worcester Journal claims to be the world's oldest surviving newspaper, founded in 1690 and published weekly from 1709. And on 11 March 1702 the Daily Courant was launched.This was Britain's first daily newspaper and consisted of a single page with news on the front and advertisements on the back.

 The Government placed a tax on page count in newspapers in 1712, hence the rise of the broadsheet. With the advent of the freedom of the press in early 18th century, more newspapers appeared across Britain: Leeds Mercury (1718) and The Times (1788), followed by the Observer (1791) - the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.

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Pre Norman Conquest 

All the time from the Roman invasion in BC 55 to before the Norman Conquest in 1066. A long period but probably not a lot of links about people and families.

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Coronations

Data from List of English Monarchs

William II was crowned on 26 September 1087.
Henry I was crowned on 5 August 1100.
Stephen was crowned on 22 December 1135.
Henry II was crowned on 19 December 1154 with his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Richard I was crowned on 3 September 1189.
John was crowned on 27 May 1199.
Henry III was crowned on 28 October 1216.
Edward I was crowned on 19 August 1274 with Queen Eleanor.
Edward II was crowned on 25 February 1308 with Queen Isabella.
Edward III was crowned on 1 February 1327.
Richard II was crowned on 16 July 1377.
Henry IV was crowned on 13 October 1399.
Henry V was crowned on 9 April 1413.
Henry VI was crowned on 6 November 1429.
Edward IV was crowned on 28 June 1461.
Richard III was crowned on 6 July 1483 with Queen Anne.
Henry VII was crowned on 30 October 1485.
Henry VIII was crowned on 24 June 1509 with Queen Catherine.
Edward VI was crowned on 20 February 1547.
Mary I was crowned on 1 October 1553.
Elizabeth I was crowned on 15 January 1559.
James I was crowned on 25 July 1603 with Queen Anne.
Charles I was crowned on 2 February 1626.
Charles II was crowned on 23 April 1661 but had been recognised by Royalists in 1649.
James II was crowned on 23 April 1685 with Mary of Modena.
Mary II and William III were crowned on 11 April 1689.
Anne was crowned on 23 April 1702.

House of Normandy

Duration 68 years, 11 months, 7 days including the end date.

In 1066, several rival claimants to the English throne emerged. Among them were Harold Godwinson (recognised as king by the Witenagemot after the death of Edward the Confessor), Harald Hardrada (King of Norway who claimed to be the rightful heir of Harthacnut) and Duke William II of Normandy (vassal to the King of France, and first cousin once-removed of Edward the Confessor). Harald and William both invaded separately in 1066. Godwinson successfully repelled the invasion by Hardrada, but ultimately lost the throne of England in the Norman conquest of England.

After the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, William the Conqueror made permanent the recent removal of the capital from Winchester to London. Following the death of Harold Godwinson at Hastings, the Anglo-Saxon Witenagemot elected as king Edgar Ætheling, the son of Edward the Exile and grandson of Edmund Ironside. The young monarch was unable to resist the invaders and was never crowned. William was crowned King William I of England on Christmas Day 1066, in Westminster Abbey, and is today known as William the Conqueror, William the Bastard or William I.

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House of Blois

Gap of 22 days.

Duration 18 years, 10 months, 4 days including the end date

Henry I left no legitimate male heirs, his son William Adelin having died in the White Ship disaster of 1120. This ended the direct Norman line of kings in England. Henry named his eldest daughter, Matilda (Countess of Anjou by her second marriage to Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, as well as widow of her first husband, Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor), as his heir. Before naming Matilda as heir, he had been in negotiations to name his nephew Stephen of Blois as his heir. When Henry died, Stephen invaded England, and in a coup d'etat had himself crowned instead of Matilda. The period which followed is known as The Anarchy, as parties supporting each side fought in open warfare both in Britain and on the continent for the better part of two decades.

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House of Anjou/Plantagenet - Angevin Empire

Gap 56 days

Duration 61 years, 11 months, 25 days including the end date.

The Angevins (from the French term meaning "from Anjou") ruled over the Angevin Empire during the 12th and 13th centuries, an area stretching from the Pyrenees to Ireland. They did not regard England as their primary home until most of their continental domains were lost by King John. The direct, eldest male line from Henry II includes monarchs commonly grouped together as the House of Plantagenet, which was the name given to the dynasty after the loss of most of their continental possessions, while cadet branches of this line became known as the House of Lancaster and the House of York during the War of the Roses.

 The future Louis VIII of France briefly won two-thirds of England over to his side from May 1216 to September 1217 at the conclusion of the First Barons' War against King John. The then-Prince Louis landed on the Isle of Thanet, off the north Kent coast, on 21 May 1216, and marched more or less unopposed to London, where the streets were lined with cheering crowds. At a grand ceremony in St. Paul's Cathedral, on 2 June 1216, in the presence of numerous English clergy and nobles, the Mayor of London and Alexander II of Scotland, Prince Louis was proclaimed King Louis I of England (though not crowned). In less than a month, "King Louis I" controlled more than half of the country and enjoyed the support of two-thirds of the barons. However he suffered military defeat at the hands of the English fleet. By signing the Treaty of Lambeth in September 1217, Louis gained 10,000 marks and agreed he had never been the legitimate king of England. "King Louis I of England" remains one of the least known kings to have ruled over a substantial part of England.

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House of Plantagenet

 Gap 10 days

Duration 268 years, 9 months, 26 days including the end date.

The House of Plantagenet takes its name from Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, husband of the Empress Matilda and father of Henry II. The name Plantagenet itself was unknown as a family name per se until Richard of York adopted it as his family name in the 15th century. It has since been retroactively applied to English monarchs from Henry II onward. It is common among modern historians to refer to Henry II and his sons as the "Angevins" due to their vast continental Empire, and most of the Angevin kings before John spent more time in their continental possessions than in England.

It is from the time of Henry III, after the loss of most of the family's continental possessions, that the Plantagenet kings became more English in nature. The Houses of Lancaster and York are cadet branches of the House of Plantagenet.

House of Lancaster
This house descended from Edward III's third surviving son, John of Gaunt. Henry IV seized power from Richard II (and also displaced the next in line to the throne, Edmund Mortimer (then aged 7), a descendant of Edward III's second son, Lionel of Antwerp).

The House of York
The House of York claimed the right to the throne through Edward III's second surviving son, Lionel of Antwerp, but it inherited its name from Edward's fourth surviving son, Edmund of Langley, first Duke of York.

The Wars of the Roses (1455–1485) saw the throne pass back and forth between the rival houses of Lancaster and York.

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House of Tudor

 Duration 117 years, 7 months, 3 days including the end date.

The Tudors descended in the female line from John Beaufort, one of the illegitimate children of John of Gaunt (third surviving son of Edward III), by Gaunt's long-term mistress Katherine Swynford. Those descended from English monarchs only through an illegitimate child would normally have no claim on the throne, but the situation was complicated when Gaunt and Swynford eventually married in 1396 (25 years after John Beaufort's birth). In view of the marriage, the church retroactively declared the Beauforts legitimate via a papal bull the same year. Parliament did the same in an Act in 1397. A subsequent proclamation by John of Gaunt's legitimate son, King Henry IV, also recognised the Beauforts' legitimacy, but declared them ineligible ever to inherit the throne. Nevertheless, the Beauforts remained closely allied with Gaunt's other descendants, the Royal House of Lancaster.

John Beaufort's granddaughter Lady Margaret Beaufort was married to Edmund Tudor. Tudor was the son of Welsh courtier Owain Tudur (anglicised to Owen Tudor) and Catherine of Valois, the widow of the Lancastrian King Henry V. Edmund Tudor and his siblings were either illegitimate, or the product of a secret marriage, and owed their fortunes to the goodwill of their legitimate half-brother King Henry VI. When the House of Lancaster fell from power, the Tudors followed.

By the late 15th century, the Tudors were the last hope for the Lancaster supporters. Edmund Tudor's son became king as Henry VII after defeating Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, winning the Wars of the Roses. King Henry married Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, thereby uniting the Lancastrian and York lineages.

With Henry VIII's break from the Roman Catholic Church, the monarch became the Supreme Head of the Church of England and of the Church of Ireland. Elizabeth I's title became the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

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House of Stuart

Duration 45 years, 10 months, 7 days including the end date.

Following the death of Elizabeth I in 1603 without issue, her first cousin twice removed, King James VI of Scotland, succeeded to the English throne as James I in the Union of the Crowns. James was descended from the Tudors through his great-grandmother, Margaret Tudor, the eldest daughter of Henry VII and wife of James IV of Scotland. In 1604, he adopted the title King of Great Britain. However, the two parliaments remained separate until the Acts of Union 1707.

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Commonwealth of England and Interregnum (1649–1660)

 Duration 10 years, 3 months, 8 days including the end date.

Richard Cromwell lacked both the ability to rule and the confidence of the Army, and was forcibly removed by the English Committee of Safety under the leadership of Charles Fleetwood in May 1659. England again lacked any single head of state during several months of conflict between Fleetwood's party and that of George Monck. Monck took control of the country in December 1659, and after almost a year of anarchy, the monarchy was formally restored when Charles II returned from France to accept the throne following the Declaration of Breda and an invitation from the Convention Parliament of 1660.

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House of Stuart restored

Gap 1 year, 23 days including the end date.

Duration 54 years, 2 months, 4 days including the end date.

Acts of Union

The Acts of Union 1707 were a pair of Parliamentary Acts passed during 1706 and 1707 by the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland to put into effect the Treaty of Union agreed on 22 July 1706. The acts joined the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland (previously separate sovereign states, with separate legislatures but with the same monarch) into the Kingdom of Great Britain.

England, Scotland, and Ireland had shared a monarch for more than a hundred years, since the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when King James VI of Scotland inherited the English and Irish thrones from his first cousin twice removed, Queen Elizabeth I. Although described as a Union of Crowns, until 1707 there were in fact two separate crowns resting on the same head.

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Data from List of British Monarchs

Coronations

Queen Anne was crowned 23 April 1702 when she was monarch of the Kingdom of England, the Kingdom of Scotland, and the Kingdom of Ireland.
King George I was crowned 20 October 1714.
King George II was crowned 11 October 1727 O.S. with Queen Caroline.
King George III was crowned 22 September 1761 with Queen Charlotte.
King George IV was crowned 19 July 1821.
King William IV was crowned 8 September 1831 with Queen Adelaide.
Queen Victoria was crowned 28 June 1838.
King Edward VII was crowned 9 August 1902 with Queen Alexandra.
King George V was crowned 22 June 1911 with Queen Mary.
King Edward VIII was not crowned.
King George VI was crowned 12 May 1937 with Queen Elizabeth.
Queen Elizabeth II was crowned 2 June 1953.

 House of Hanover

 Duration 186 years, 5 months, 22 days including the end date

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House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

Saxe-Coburg and Gotha / Windsor

King George V changed the name of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the House of Windsor on 17 July 1917.

Duration 16 years, 5 months, 26 days including the end date.

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House of Windsor

 Duration 104 years, 6 months, 1 day including the end date at time of writing 

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House of xxxx

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Microsoft Excel

The first such tool is a spreadsheet, Microsoft Excel. I have been using spreadsheets since the early eighties, pre MS-DOS on the CP/M operating system. Originally using SuperCalc until after the release of the IBM PC, and eventually Microsoft Excel took prominence.

I now use Excel 365. There was a time when I would have resorted to a Database for the heavy data handling, but now Excel is very capable with its Data Model and other data handling tools such as Power Query and Power Pivot. This together with the extended availability of rows and columns, makes it easier to solve problems with large datasets.

I recall a time, many years ago, where there was so much number crunching to do that I commandeered three computers on site, one dealt with the site costs, another with the income, and the third printed out the answers. It took all day to combine the results of my six week review of the project and print out a full box of computer paper. (Computer Listing Paper, 1-Part, 11 inch x 370mm, 60gsm, Perforated, Ruled, White, Box (2000 Sheets)).

Some decades after that I constructed a cost model in the mid 2000's. It was considered a complex tool with a result of over £1bn. It was a modular build with each module spread over a number of workbooks. Each stage talking to the next, and then into the next module. Some twenty workbooks later and the result was given. All on one networked computer though, not three.

I suspect both of the above examples could be done in one Excel workbook on the same laptop as I am writing this.

The current Excel task is about DNA. From GEDMatch take the first fifty of my matches in one to many. Then take each of those matches and find their matches. That is over 50 worksheets. Combine it all in a data model and set the data relationships. Use Power Query to combine it all in a single table and then refine it to reveal the most recurring and significant names. Therefore helping select those most likely to be worth researching first. At the same time extracting data from FTDNA in a similar fashion, using a macro to build the Ancestral Surnames into a one to many relationship with the records. Once complete the information can be merged and compared to that of GEDMatch which could prove very powerful as they have different information to help find links to my tree. After that I will look at what additional data I can get from MyHeritage and Ancestry. Getting from a named person match to a tree and then onto my tree is the objective.

I like to think that I have a reasonable handle on the use of Excel but am happy to explore new functions which have the potential to make the data analysis more efficient. The list below has links to some of that exploration. Partly so I can use them again to remind me, and also to share with you.

Website Building and Host

Web building was a new adventure for me. This site is one of the results of the expansion of my skill base.

Starting with an object based system suitable for beginners. Moving on to a code based web building. Learning the real core of the process.

Progressing on again, into a Content Management System (CMS) where there is less code and more content. The code knowledge is still useful. CMS is very powerful for website building and is the basis for a lot of commercial websites.

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