A WELSH town is rooting for John Kerry in the forthcoming US presidential election - because they believe he’s a local boy.

A US genealogy site says the Democratic contender from Colorado can trace his ancestry back to a Pembrokeshire couple, William and Elizabeth Jenkins, who emigrated from Tenby in the mid-17th century.

If it is true, it will mean Pembrokeshire has strong links with at least two modern American political families because Hillary Clinton, wife of former President Bill, is also reputed to have ancestors from the county.

icWales, the national website of Wales

Nicolas Shakespeare is a writer of intellect and grace.

This new non-fiction book sees him holed-up in Tasmania, his chosen home, where he discovers other Shakespeares: not at their keyboards, but wiring houses, fixing leaks and laying bricks. He makes it his business to call them up, to become acquainted.

The other N Shakespeare - Nevin - rides a Suzuki GSXF. His father Gavin admits that English was a subject he failed at school. Neither he nor Nevin has taken much interest in genealogy. “Once they go,” says Nevin, “it’s just a heap of old photos. It’s just history.” Nicholas Shakespeare thinks otherwise.

scotsman.com

Extraordinary census data to be revealed for the first time.

Today’s grandparents have probably lived through more change than any other generation in history: the Second World War, the Cold War, great advances in medical science and the mass communication revolution. But despite these momentous shifts, patterns of population, employment, poverty, health and education have remained strikingly familiar.

Remarkable maps of the social and economic make-up of Britain are revealed this week on a website which, for the first time, makes public millions of pieces of information about places all over the country.

Guardian Unlimited, UK

The Internet has been a boon to genealogists, enabling them to read queries, cemetery information and family lore that would have been inaccessible just a decade or so ago.

But amid all the hoopla about the cyber age, one inescapable fact remains: Huge quantities of data have never been put online. A complete job of research, therefore, still involves sitting down with a book and reading it, just as our ancestors would have done.

Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre, PA