TheGenealogist has added more than 500 further editions of the weekly publication The Illustrated London News to its Newspaper and Magazine collection. The latest collection is of newspapers which were published in the 1890s and offers a fascinating insight into your ancestors lives.

The Illustrated London News is one of a number of newspapers and magazines that are fully searchable by name or keywords by Diamond subscribers of TheGenealogist. Not only can this extensive resource add context to your ancestors’ lives and times, these newspapers can be used to find out more about people who were mentioned in reports from the time. As well as notices for baptisms, marriages and deaths, there are also wills, crimes and court cases, plus the political stories of the time.

Queen Victoria had been on the throne for more than 50 years by the dawning of the 1890s. Britain’s Prime Minister would be Lord Salisbury for a good part of the decade, only being out of office between 1892 and 1895. Mauve became a popular colour for silks and our ancestors’ clothes in the 1890s.

In 1894 international terrorism came to Britain for the first time when, at Greenwich, an anarchist bomb attack was made at the Royal Observatory. An article in The Illustrated London News for 24 February tells us that a 26-year-old Frenchman, who had earned a living as a tailor in America before joining his brother at the trade in London, accidentally blew himself up in the park. The motive for his failed attack was not clear and the bomber was the only person to die.

In The Illustrated London News for 8 November 1890 we can also read about an addition to the public transport system in the city, when the first electric underground railway was opened by the Prince of Wales. An underground railway hauled by steam engines had opened in London during 1863, as the Metropolitan Railway. It was not, however, until 1890 that the first electrified line opened in November when the City & South London Railway ran a line from Stockwell to King William Street in the City.

It is, however, not just the great and the good that we can read about in the pages of these new releases on TheGenealogist. There are many articles dealing with a wide range of stories, and you can fully search the Newspapers & Magazines collection by name and keywords. If your ancestor was involved in a newsworthy event then it is worth searching the collection to see if they got a mention in the paper. As well as baptisms there were death notices, wills, marriages, crimes and court cases, plus the political stories of the time.

There are also feature articles which can give you an insight into all sorts of your ancestors’ occupations. As an example we can read about the regimental sports taking place in India, or find out about London Cabs and the cabmen who drove the iconic two-wheel horse drawn taxis perched high above and behind the passengers.

At the back of The Illustrated London News you can find all types of advertisements – some of the brands we would still recognise today such as Hovis Bread and Cuticura soap, while other products and companies have not survived the test of time.