Regency Relatives

When I published The Curious Domestic Arrangements of John Hardwicke, readers were introduced to a man who sits at the centre of one of my current family history investigations. By the time I finished writing, I felt I had untangled enough of the evidence to tell a coherent story while being honest about the questions that remained unanswered. Like all historical writing, however, the article represented only a carefully selected part of the investigation. Behind every paragraph sat many more records, observations and abandoned theories than ever appeared on the page. That is simply the nature of historical storytelling. Readers deserve a narrative, not a guided tour through every page of a research notebook.

When I recently shared my Evidence Matrix template, it seemed only natural to use John’s research as a worked example. Rather than reproducing my original notes, I recreated the investigation within the matrix format that I now use for substantial research projects. My intention was simply to demonstrate how the template could be used in practice. What I hadn’t anticipated was that the exercise would encourage me to revisit familiar evidence with fresh eyes and remind me that even investigations we know well can still surprise us.

Looking back through the completed matrix, I realised it was recording something rather different from the published article. The article tells John’s story as I understood it at that point in the investigation. The matrix records my thinking. Every row captures a decision: why one source appeared more reliable than another, where the evidence felt uncertain, which conclusions seemed well supported, and what question I intended to pursue next. Reading it several months later was almost like having a conversation with my earlier self. I could follow the gradual development of the investigation, seeing not only what I had discovered, but how each new record subtly shaped my understanding.

Perhaps more interestingly, it reminded me just how much never reaches publication. Historical writing is always selective. There are countless details that help a researcher reach a conclusion but contribute very little to the narrative itself. They remain quietly behind the scenes, supporting the story without becoming part of it. Revisiting John’s research through the matrix brought several of those details back into view and reminded me that evidence often has more to tell us when we return to it with different questions.

One example involved John’s marriage to Honor Harris. In The Curious Domestic Arrangements, I simply recorded the marriage because the mechanics of how it had been indexed added little to the story I was telling. Recording each source individually within the matrix reminded me that the marriage appears in indexed records relating to both Wiltshire and Hampshire. That detail ultimately proved to have a perfectly reasonable explanation, but it reinforced an important lesson. Apparently conflicting evidence is often worth exploring rather than dismissing, even when it does not fundamentally alter the narrative.

For me, that is where an Evidence Matrix proves its greatest value. It is not simply somewhere to store information; it is somewhere to organise thought. Recording evidence one piece at a time encourages me to separate observation from interpretation and to ask whether I have genuinely explained why I believe something to be true. More often than not, the process reveals either a small inconsistency that deserves another look or, more importantly, a new question that had not occurred to me before. I have come to realise that good historical research advances less through dramatic discoveries than through asking slightly better questions each time we return to the evidence.

Looking back now, I think that is one of the most valuable lessons family history has taught me. We often talk about “finishing” an ancestor, but investigations rarely end quite so neatly. Instead, we reach a point where we know enough to tell one chapter of a story before moving on to the next. As our understanding develops, we revisit familiar records, notice details that previously seemed insignificant, and occasionally discover that evidence we thought we fully understood deserves another look. The records themselves have not changed; we have.

That is one reason I now rely so heavily on an Evidence Matrix. It provides a clear record not only of the evidence itself, but also of my own reasoning at the time. If I return to an investigation months or even years later, I can quickly understand why I reached a particular conclusion, what uncertainties remained and where the next sensible question was waiting. For long-running projects, I have found that almost as valuable as the records themselves.

John Hardwicke, meanwhile, appears to have no intention of allowing this investigation to come to a graceful conclusion. Since writing The Curious Domestic Arrangements, I have uncovered considerably more about John, the people around him and, perhaps most intriguingly, his career as an exciseman. Whether all of those discoveries ultimately prove relevant to the wider investigation remains to be seen, but they have already led me into Treasury records, Excise minute books and some wonderfully obscure corners of The National Archives. Every discovery seems to answer one question while quietly introducing several more.

By the time you read this, I will almost certainly have returned to Kew once again in search of the next piece of the puzzle. Experience suggests that I shall come home with a notebook full of fresh discoveries, a handful of entirely new mysteries and, despite promising myself otherwise, at least one rabbit hole I had absolutely no intention of following. John has developed an unfortunate habit of doing that.

So, if you’ve enjoyed following this investigation so far, I suspect there is plenty more still to come. Future articles will continue to explore not only what I discover about John and the world in which he lived, but also the research process itself—how evidence evolves, why seemingly insignificant records can transform an investigation and why the best discoveries often begin with nothing more than one sensible question.