Sunshine, Joy, and Energy

Spring is finally popping here in the urban wilds of eastern Pennsylvania. After days of cold rain, yesterday bloomed bright, sunny, and warm. Leaves are just coming out on many trees, but the early flowering trees have blossomed. When we moved here I expected a concrete jungle, it being a very urban environment. Our township, […]

Drunken Georgians

…that the late Georgians were notoriously heavy drinkers? But the upper classes inclined more toward wine than distilled spirits. In 1838, by one estimate, consumption of distilled spirits in England was a mere .53 gallon per capita annually. Contrast that with Scotland at 2.46 and Australia at 5.02. While gentlemen might start their day with […]

Slow But Steady

The morning after a storm pounded the south and east, and the urban wilds of Eastern Pennsylvania (and New Jersey) awoke to steady rain that has washed away last evenings snow. Alas snow flurries have returned but they don’t amount to much. I’ll take it! Progress was made on The Upright Son last week, but […]

Naming the Enslaved

Did you know that: Slave registers were kept for the former British Colonial Dependencies between 1813-1834 The practice began as a result of the 1807 Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. That law outlawed trafficking in enslaved people between Africa and British colonies but considered those already in place to be “lawfully enslaved.” […]

Consanguinity

The list of those a man may not marry begins with Mother, Daughter, Father’s mother…Son’s daughter, etc. and continues down a long list that includes such unlikely situations as marriage to one’s Daughter’s son’s wife The entries pertinent to my research were:Father’s daughterMother’s daughter Why did it matter? The hero of The Forgotten Daughter is […]

Murder Most Foul

Highlighting Historical Romance with Elf Ahearn on grisly murders in the Regency era. The grisly Ratcliffe Highway murders caused panic in London in 1811, yet there were no police to arrest the perpetrator(s), no detectives to hunt them down, and no officials to cordon off the locations. In fact, the public lined up to view […]