Vanessa WoodOld records are no match to vermin. Apparently the English government let their records sit in dank basements for years while the rats and mice feasted on the decaying documents. The story of the rats in the archives is told in the 22 October 2021 episode of Gone Medieval podcast.1 Highly recommend listening if you have any interest in English history, and for genealogists who live with the constant worry that records are disappearing before they can get to them!
Sir Henry Cole’s Rat2
Of course there’s a soft toy version of the rat available in the UK National Archives gift shop. https://shop.nationalarchives.gov.uk/collections/exclusive-to-tna/products/soft-toy-tna-rat-5577
Once I got hooked on family research, and later genealogy, it was hard to stomach disappearing records. I wrote about an episode of the Antiques Roadshow where a woman brought in the will she had rescued from destruction. It was the will of Benjamin Milam who died in 1835 while fighting for Texas independence about six months before the battle at the Alamo. https://tennesseepryors.com/did-you-catch-the-pryor-name-on-antiques-roadshow-tonight/
