Dear Karen

BARKING UP THE RIGHT TREE

Writing this while looking out of my window at an ominously grey and gloomy sky, I’m rather in need of cheering up. Thankfully reader Amanda West has come to the rescue with a glorious find she made in the General Register Office marriage indexes that put a big smile back on my face. Amanda, from Sunbury on Thames, wrote in after spotting in the September quarter for 1855 that Henry Wooff had married Ann Barker! Not only did that give me paws for thought (whoops, a slip of the tongue/keyboard there!), but Amanda tells me the newlyweds lived in Berkshire (pronounced Barkshire, of course, for any non-Brits reading this). It really wouldn’t have surprised me if they’d come from Barking though!

‘Must have been a noisy household,’ observes our eagle-eyed correspondent (or should that be beagle-eyed? Sorry, I’ll get me coat). Has anyone else chanced upon animal- or other themed names in their researches that made them grin like an, erm, Cheshire cat?

BURIAL BONANZA

Talking of Barking in Essex, we’ve had a fantastic response from across the world to the challenge thrown down by Vic Grimes in December 2019 . Vic wanted to know if anyone could beat the number of ancestors/relatives he has buried in Barking’s Ripple Road cemetery: the figure to beat is 28 (you can refresh).