Watching Pixie Lott on Who Do You Think You Are, gave me the impetus to push on with my family tree on Ancestry. Since discovering Sir Anthony Standen, I had hoped that we were related. Imagine my delight when I discovered that he was my 11th great uncle. It gave me a bit of a dilemma though, because there are scenes in my forthcoming book, The Spy who Sank the Armada, in which Sir Anthony meets his brother Edmund’s wife and plays with his nephews. I didn’t know their names, so made them up. Now, however, they are real family members who deserve my respect. My dilemma was that Edmund’s wife’s name was not Ann, but Dennis. Apparently Dennis was quite a popular woman’s name in the 16th century. I believe in accuracy, but calling my 11th great aunt Dennis, for a modern audience, would be unacceptable. I might as well call her Brian! So I have made her Dennise. It’s just a little e. I recently read a review of a historical book on Amazon in which the reviewer said, “I’m pretty sure they didn’t speak like that in those days.” My thought was, if it was written as they spoke in those days, you would neither want to read it, nor be able to.