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Text of the page (random words):
es and history found in these letters rachel co who s who a brief ish run down of the most frequent characters appearing in the letters hoping to expand this soon to include more people names a guide to historically accurate regency era names a selection of some a names i ve come across in regency era newspapers over the years my annual gloyd roberson memorial list of actual human children who wrote letters to santa in 1920s 30s oklahoma a brief explanation of the origin of some common nicknames research tips and tricks how do you find old newspapers online how do you read old handwriting portraying a time period authentically in historical fiction new york herald personal ads a selection of strange cryptic dramatic scandalous personal ads posted in the new york herald during the second half of the 19th century breaking a 175 year old code i found in the personal ads the san quentin women s ward mugshots and profiles of a few of the nearly 1000 women who served time in san quentin state prison between 1852 and 1933 dear santa my ongoing collection of 150 years worth of children s letters to santa clause that i post every december upcoming ongoing posts and projects including this so my followers can peer pressure me into actually posting the things i do research an exciting rachel co update i hope you guys like dogs and spreadsheets cause hoooo boy did i go down a rabbit hole with this one pinned post blog keeping 603 notes aug 30th 2025 open in app facebook tweet reddit mail embed permalink 1500 regency era last names a few people have expressed interest so here is a random selection of 1500 surnames taken from the same sample as the names from my regency first name survey these names are taken from marriage records in westminster london a very wealthy area between 1800 and 1820 as these names are taken from real people some of them have cultural irish scottish welsh etc or social e g fitzroy originally being used for the illegitimate children of royalty connotations or associations with extant noble families so be sure to do a quick google before attaching them to any characters etc keep reading names history regency regency era long post writing resources surnames writing reference regency england character names regency romance 311 notes mar 7th 2026 open in app facebook tweet reddit mail embed permalink tinytimdyke asked hi hi just wanted to pop in to say your guide to regency names is a godsend as an amateur regency historian and hopeful romance writer the tier system is perfect and it s made me feel better about all the characters i slap the name mary onto did you ever get around to doing some work on nicknames and or accurate surnames i d love to hear of any primary sources you have for those two topics i m so glad you find it useful it s honestly kind of my magnum opus as far as getting an idea researching it and actually presenting it in a format people seem to understand in a timely matter that last one is my downfall as i am not good at finishing things i worked on the nickname followup for about four months after i did the regency guide but was and still am at a loss with how to both measure and present my findings the problem with nicknames is there is hardly any quantifiable data with the first name survey i used two pre existing databases for my info so my workload was pretty much just making a spreadsheet eliminating any duplicate records and counting how many times each name occurred i was also working in only one very specific area 7 parishes in london so i didn t have to worry about regional variations due to the strict formally of the regency era nicknames do no not often appear in legal records and were usually only used privately among families and very close friends when they were used publicly it was often only with members of the lower classes and i don t mean that in the modern economic sense but rather referring to people who were seen as lesser in social status this included children unmarried women servants both free and enslaved and the poor nicknames do sometimes appear in vital birth marriage death records but even then it s often impossible to tell what the nickname is actually short for e g is patty short for martha or patience is this person listed as eliza because it was their given name or was it short for elizabeth nicknames also vary heavily by region to the point that some are specific to only a handful of counties i considered focusing on only nicknames used in london but honestly the regional variation is one of the most interesting features of nicknames to me all these facts mean that my research process was exceedingly more complicated than with the first name survey with a lack of quantifiable data i approached the project with three basic questions was this nickname in use during the regency era was it common was it regional i then had to determine this individually for every single possible nickname used with common regency names do you know how many possible nicknames there are for catherine for elizabeth many there are so so many you guys on top of having to research each nickname individually i also didn t have a single source of information like in my previous project and ended up using everything from period literature to newspapers to court testimony as i keep finding new sources my info keeps changing and so far all my attempts to do a decent write up have failed but here s a bit of what i ve found so far nicknames for common regency names mary polly mally northern england scotland molly lancashire pally yorkshire elizabeth eliza bets e y betty lizzy bess not beth ann nancy nanny northern england annie scotland sarah sally jane jenny jessy jessie scotland hannah but likely the same as ann susannah susan sukey susy suckey southern us margaret peggy maggy meggy moggy madge scotland catherine kitty kate cat e y us catty ireland katie scotland martha patty matty northern england scotland ireland us patsy southern us eleanor nelly nell frances fanny franny john jack y johnny jock ey scotland william bill y will y thomas tom my james jem my jamie scotland not jim george georgey geordie northern england scotland joseph joe y richard dick y robert bob by robb y ie scotland robin charles charley charlie scotland henry harry edward ned dy ted dy ireland a general rule y not ie endings unless you are scottish lizzy not lizzie sophy not sophie charley not charlie ie endings were still associated with french names as for last names one of my personal favorite sources is cemeteries findagrave com lets you browse cemeteries by location so if your story takes place in a certain area you can go through local cemeteries and see what common names in the area were or just choose a random location and see if anything strikes your fancy if there s any interest i could very easily throw together a list of 1000 or so regency surnames if people want an easy reference i really wish i could code more and make a statistically accurate name generator i have literally dozens of projects i ve put months of my life into and never written up my findings i am a researcher not a writer names onamastics history regency regency era nicknames long post asks 525 notes mar 6th 2026 open in app facebook tweet reddit mail embed permalink alt alt alt some of my favorite pictures from rachel s photo albums are these views of her room taken circa 1902 the pictures are incredibly detailed and show how a wealthy young woman at the turn of the century chose to decorate her personal space they also offer some fascinating insight into rachel s life let s take a tour keep reading rachel co 1900s history photography rachel s photo albums old photographs edwardian interior design long post i think i have alt text for every image but if i missed one please let me know cw child death 756 notes feb 24th 2026 open in app facebook tweet reddit mail embed permalink anonymous asked yeoldenews 183041534872 wait whats the i wind who holds game and the in the divination game they were playing do you know what the other trinkets like the thimble meant i m not sure about all the items in the post but a few of them show up with explanations in other variations of the game according to the 1912 book games for halloween by mary e blain the author states that the thimble denotes a life of single blessedness and the penny wealth the pen point would likely foretell literary or academic success and i assume the skull would indicate the first to die but it could also have had a more a more abstract meaning like the death card in tarot i m not sure what objects the flame of life and hand of opportunity would have been but their meanings seem fairly straight forward two common items i ve seen in other variations of the game are a key indicating a long and happy journey and a button which i ve seen representing either lifelong bachelorhood or that your sweetheart is nearby this game was much more commonly played by baking the items into a cake or bread or putting them in a bowl of mashed potatoes peggy s game seems to have been a creative combination of the traditional fortune telling game and snap dragon another popular parlor game asks history 1900s halloween parlor games 38 notes feb 16th 2026 open in app facebook tweet reddit mail embed permalink yeoldenews yeoldenews a selection of atchison kansas most eligible bachelors of 1885 for the perusal of those of you who find yourself matrimonially minded alt alt alt alt source the atchison daily globe january 6 1885 yeoldenews archie wells is glad that leap year is over he is so tired source the atchison globe january 3 1889 tag your new husband and or beard six of these men never married three had a first marriage which ended in divorce one of them met oscar wilde irl ed small and archie wells were well known frenemies long post 525 notes feb 14th 2026 open in app facebook tweet reddit mail embed permalink yeoldenews yeoldenews i feel like this 1930s diary is a sadly accurate summation of the last five years of my life happy nothing special day 7 242 notes feb 12th 2026 open in app facebook tweet pinterest reddit mail embed permalink fullofnightnoises asked hi there love this blog and have followed it avidly for many years regarding rachel do you have any information about who she eventually ended up marrying i understand if you can t reveal that information if it would identify her living desendants but i was just wondering if he ever featured in any of the letters did she meet her husband while away at college for example thank you for all you do it s so interesting looking through these posts i have long admired rachel and her family such interesting snapshots into their full lives all best to you fullofnightnoises rachel married one of will s college roommates and will and jack both married rachel s roommates rachel and the future mr rachel in the summer of 1904 they didn t marry until 1910 according to rachel s granddaughter the two always knew they would end up together but neither was in a particular hurry to settle down so they both waited until their 30s to marry rachel the future mrs jack and the future mrs will at a class reunion circa 1903 i ve held back on using names because one of these marriages involves a love triangle and secret engagement that i do plan to write about eventually and i don t want to give away the ending quite yet apologies to anyone who sent me an ask recently i m about 3 months behind in answering them i m working on it rachel co asks 229 notes feb 9th 2026 open in app facebook tweet reddit mail embed permalink anonymous asked hi i love the santa letter series so much did you ever do that post on aurora and nature and their ten marriages sorry if this was posted somewhere and i haven t seen it i m so curious despite my best efforts i have not yet managed a write up on nature and aurora mostly because it s just such a complex story and every time i go to write it up i end up finding new information trying to piece 100 primary sources into a cohesive narrative is really hard you guys lol the basic story is that both of nature and aurora s parents were active spiritualists and i suspect due to the number of marriages both parents cycled through may also have been proponents of the closely linked free love movement mr and mrs fournier both images from the fort worth star telegram at least two of nature and aurora s older half siblings were child psychics mediums who held readings and seances as a teenager their older brother eugene was either murdered or hit by a train his body was found on the tracks and it seems unclear as to if it ended up there naturally or not source findagrave com their parents filed for divorce at least four separate times over a fifteen year period before actually going through with it in 1908 nature and aurora both took after their parents when it came to tumultuous romances racking up at least five marriages a piece aurora was a renowned beauty participated in beauty contests and worked as a model she made news in 1923 for a major spending spree she went on in los angeles source the los angeles evening express multiple of aurora s marriages divorces ended up making headlines namely husband 3 who was an alleged love pirate a conman who would marry or propose marriage to multiple women gain access to their bank accounts and then disappear and husband 4 from whom aurora was granted a divorce after she claimed he went 90 days without kissing her source the fort worth press source the philadelphia inquirer despite multiple marriages nature s life was somewhat calmer than aurora s though not entirely free of drama source the fort worth star telegram both nature and aurora seem to have settled down somewhat later in life aurora married a traffic cop in 1932 and the two were married for nearly 50 years until aurora s death in 1980 nature became a vocational nurse and received national recognition for her volunteer work during both world wars she died in 1984 dear santa history asks 200 notes dec 25th 2025 open in app facebook tweet reddit mail embed permalink yeoldenews yeoldenews a few of the more creative spellings of christmas i ve come across while looking for dear santa letters in old newspapers this year mrr crimes and hoppy holadaes everyone 255 817 notes dec 25th 2025 open in app facebook tweet reddit mail embed permalink lettheratsin asked i ve been going through your dear santa posts all day and i just love them so much my favourite thing about all of human history is this we ve always been the same i love hearing from the kids of different times and places because they re often the most honest and matter of fact about what they see in the world around them thanks for your whole blog in general it s made my entire day i m so glad you re enjoying them i find the letters from during major world events so eye opening as to what kids actually noticed and understood about the world they lived in happy holidays 49 notes dec 25t...