Newsletter
- 6 April 2012
Ancestry offer free access to US records
Westminster records fill London gap
Scotlandspeople adds
1915 Valuation
Summer was dangerous in Tudor times
New maritime BMD records at findmypast
Are you researching your spouse's ancestors?
BMD certificates - the saga continues
Half of my ancestors were women
Oral History Society offers introductory
course
Where are the Canterbury Cathedral records?
The LostCousins newsletter is usually
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website click the logo at the top of this newsletter. If you're not already a
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there's a new edition of this newsletter available!
Ancestry offer free access to US records
Until
midnight (London time) on 10th April you can access 750 million US records free
at the Ancestry.co.uk site when you follow this link. The
datasets in this offer include the entire 1930 US Census, World War 2 Draft
Registrations (in which I found three of my 2nd cousins twice removed),
numerous birth, marriage, and death indexes, plus migration and other indexes.
On
some previous occasions Ancestry have only allowed access to the
transcriptions, and not to the images - I'm glad to say that this time you can
see both.
Tip: if you're thinking of taking out (or
renewing) an Ancestry Worldwide subscription check out my tips column first -
you might make some BIG savings!
Westminster records fill London gap
We
think of London as a single city, but in fact the City of Westminster has been
in existence since 1540, when Henry VIII turned Westminster Abbey into a
cathedral.
Until
now it has been frustrating for researchers whose ancestors were born, married,
or died in Westminster because most of the registers are missing from the London
Metropolitan Archives collection at Ancestry.
It's therefore good news that findmypast
have launched the Westminster Collection,
comprising over 1.3 million records taken from the registers of over 50
churches. More records - covering additional parishes but also including cemetery
registers, wills, rate books, settlement examinations, workhouse admission and
discharge books, bastardy, orphan and apprentice records, charity documents,
and militia and watch records - will be going online in the next few months.
There
is some duplication with the records online at Ancestry, because copies of some
registers are held by both archives - but many of the records have never been online
before. Even where there is duplication it's good to have a second
transcription - early parish registers are notoriously difficult to decipher.
Scotlandspeople adds 1915
Valuation
Last
week Scotlandspeople added the 1915 Valuation Rolls, which
were compiled by local assessors in the autumn and winter of 1914. You can find
out more here, and
there are also links to images of sample records.
Summer was dangerous in Tudor times
Research
at the National Archives by Oxford University historian Steven Gunn has found
that from 1558-1560 nearly three-quarters of accidental deaths in England occurred
between April and September (it seems reasonable to assume that there was a
similar pattern in other years).
Many
of the accidents involved cutting or moving wood - or falling out of trees -
but animals, mainly horses, were another dangerous hazard for the first
Elizabethans. You'll find further details in this article on
the Oxford University website, and you might also be interested in this article on the BBC site which reported some of Dr Gunn's
earlier findings.
It's
important to bear in mind that Dr Gunn's research focused on accidents - deaths
from illness, malnutrition, or starvation would have been much higher during
the winter.
New maritime BMD records at findmypast
The
timing of this new release is clearly designed with the centenary of the
Titanic disaster in mind, as you'll see from the announcement on the findmypast website, but it's much more
significant than that.
Findmypast
have long had the most comprehensive set of birth, marriage, and death indexes
- but now they have gone one better by including full colour scans of original
entries taken from maritime records held at the National Archives. There are 30
different types of record, from 10 different record series, with over one
million entries in all, and while most relate to deaths at sea (including the
passengers and crew of the Titanic), there are nearly 39,000 births and a
similar number of marriages, many of which took place near naval bases, rather
than at sea.
Because
the records come from a wide range of sources some of them - especially the
birth and marriage entries - appear in more than one index. However you will
often learn more information than you would from a single entry: for example,
the GRO marriage indexes record the marriage of Thomas James C Pearson to
Kathleen Charlotte M Smith in the 3rd quarter of 1906 in Eastry
registration district, but the register held at TNA gives not only the precise
date, but also the name of the church.
The
Maritime BMD records are not yet accessible through the standard menu system at
findmypast, but you can get to them via the link above, or by clicking births, marriages,
or deaths.
At
the same time findmypast released a new dataset comprising over 1,000 service
records for White Star Line officers and commanders,
including all of the officers who served on the Titanic (you can search them here). The story behind these personnel records is typical
- they were rescued by a now-retired employee when the company threw them out. (Well
done, Ron!)
I've
written before about the tendency to create myths around dramatic events such
as the sinking of the Titanic, so I was interested to see a BBC News article about myths that
have been created or reinforced by films about the great liner.
Myths
can be harmful, especially if they are allowed to perpetuate - I recently had
an email from Sandra, complaining that someone had stolen her great-great
uncle!
John
C Mabey was a 3rd Class steward on the liner who
perished along with so many other crew, so Sandra was
annoyed to discover an article giving his name as John Howard Mabey. After
considerable research Sandra discovered that a John Howard Mabey
had indeed voyaged to the US in 1912 - but on a ship bound for New Orleans. You
can follow Sandra's quest to put matters right on the Titanic
forum.
Going
back to Titanic movies, Wenda told me of an
interesting coincidence in her tree: on her father's side she is related to
William Mintram, a stoker on the Titanic - and on her
mother's side she's related to Kate Winslet, star of
the 1997 blockbuster!
And
if you still aren't satiated by all the Titanic coverage, there's a one-hour
lecture by Nick Barratt - probably Britain's most famous genealogist - at the Society of Genealogists on the
afternoon of Wednesday 18th April. The subject is "An exploration of the
Titanic and look at the impact on those who escaped the disaster,
and what became of them in the ensuing years".
I
was fascinated by an entry on the
findmypast blog which featured the 1911 Census schedule for The Great
Lafayette, a famous illusionist who tragically died on stage in a fire just a
few weeks later. Although describing himself as single
he lists a 16 year-old daughter named Beauty on the census form - but it turns
out that Beauty was not a love-child, but a dog (who had been given to him by
the renowned escapologist Harry Houdini). This isn't the only discrepancy on
the form - he claimed to have been born in Los Angeles, but he was actually born
in Munich, and his parents didn't bring him to the US until 1890.
The
entry seems to be have been written in pencil, perhaps because he expected to
be told by the enumerator to change it, and in the 'Infirmity' column he wrote
"too good" - at least, that's what I think it says, although some of
the contributors to the blog believe otherwise!
The
Great Lafayette was quite a character and his death was almost as mysterious as
his life. Click on the photograph to go to the website of modern day
illusionist Dean Carnegie where you'll find more photographs and much more
besides.
Are you researching your spouse's ancestors?
Including
your spouse's relatives on your My
Ancestors page is not only confusing for all concerned, it will prevent you
getting the best results.
Opening
a second account is easy - just click Register - and you can even use the same
email address, just so long as the passwords are different. Using the same
email address has a side benefit - when I'm sending out emails I usually won't
send more than one to the same address. To switch from one account to the other,
simply click Log-out, then log-in using the log-in
details for the other account.
Of
course, you can't be logged in to both accounts at the same time.... or can you? In fact there are two ways to achieve this: one
is to have a second computer, but there's a far better solution that won't cost
you a penny. All you need is a second browser, such as Firefox or Chrome,
either of which can be downloaded free of charge (I'm assuming that you already
have Internet Explorer).
Tip: if you've already entered your
spouse's relatives on your own My Ancestors page you can copy them to a new
account using Refer a Relative (one of the options on your My Referrals page).
This
morning I got a phone call from someone who claimed to represent the 'Crime
Protection Initiative'. As the caller's number was withheld I was wary even
before I picked the phone up, so I casually asked 'Lewis' (almost certainly not
his real name) whether his organisation was acting on behalf of the police.
His
reply was a classic: "We're not, but the police are aware of us". I
bet they are!
I
don't know what the scam was in this case, but judging from Google searches
they seem to be operating in many parts of the UK - so you could be next. Never
divulge information to someone who calls you, no matter who they claim to be,
or what they ask about - answering even the most innocuous question can give
them the clues they need to progress to the next stage of the fraud.
Whilst
we're on the subject of scams, any
email you receive that asks you to forward it to everyone you know is a scam of
some sort - it's a modern version of a 'chain letter'. Sometimes there's an
apparent link to a charity or other worthy cause, but I'd certainly never
support a charity that engaged in such tactics, and I suspect very few are
aware of how their name is used.
Just
because there's no money involved doesn't make an email
innocuous - for a start, there might be a virus attached.
Politically-motivated
emails can be just as dangerous - extremists strike at the heart of our democratic
society by propagating false rumours (Google 'Uncle Remus scam' to see some of
the milder examples), so whatever your personal views
don't help them succeed. Bear in mind that one of the main reasons people who forward
such scurrilous emails do so without first checking the facts is because the content
reinforces their prejudices - so anyone who forwards them risks appearing not
only foolish but bigoted.
BMD certificates - the saga continues
It's
great that both the current government and the previous one have allowed
citizens to post online petitions - but it isn't always the answer.
For
example, over the past 6 months I've had dozens of emails directing me to a
petition that suggests that the General Register Office would be able to offer
far low prices if they offered plain paper copies of register entries rather
than certificates. Several family history societies have told their members about
the petition, and it was even reported in the latest Ezine
from the Federation of Family History Societies.
However,
anyone who reads the LostCousins newsletter regularly will know that most of
the costs of providing certificates are accounted for by wages, IT and property
costs, and other overheads - which won't change depending on the type of paper
used. Indeed, if you look back at my May 2010 newsletter
you'll see that "buying the special paper and printing the certificates
costs just 16p per certificate".
Knocking
10p or 15p off the cost of producing certificates clearly isn't going to make
much difference to the GRO's costs, so any reduction in the price would be
minimal. Is it really worth collecting 100,000 signatures and taking up
valuable Parliamentary time simply to secure a reduction in price from £9.25 to
£9.10? If only the petitioner had been a LostCousins member he might have put
forward a more practical solution.
A
much better alternative is proposed by another petition. Scanning
historic BMD registers and making them available online is something I've been
suggesting for many years - after all, it would only bring England & Wales
in line with Scotland. If you're going to sign any petition, this is the one
that makes most sense.
Personally
I feel that petitions should be a last resort, not a first resort. By asking
the right questions and talking to the right people there's an awful lot that
we can achieve without resorting to mob rule.
For
example, after my article on the GRO was published in Family History Monthly 2 months ago the Registrar General herself
was forced to defend her position in an article in the current issue of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine. Admittedly it was a case of "same old
GRO" (to borrow a well-worn phrase from the Leader of the Opposition), but
at least she's now arguing her case in a more public arena.
What
we really need is for the GRO to focus on what might be done, rather than what
can't be done. Surely in the 21st century government departments should be able
to offer valuable new services to the public without having to go back to parliament
every time - just so long as the new services don't harm anyone?
Is
there even one person who has been harmed by the placing of digitised BMD
registers on the Scotlandspeople site? I very much
doubt it (although I've no doubt there were some objections from busybodies
when the proposal was put forward).
Why
can't England & Wales follow the example of Scotland? The Registrar General
says that it would require changes in legislation - but if it does, then
"the law is an ass" (to quote Charles Dickens). The Law Commission
has recently called for redundant legislation to be scrapped (see this BBC News
article). Perhaps when the
government abolishes the 1696 Act to fund the rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral
and the numerous Acts relating to Indian railways they could also spruce up the
1836 Acts that created the General Register Office?
Half of my ancestors were women
I stumbled across this T-shirt
and matching mug
quite by accident when I was searching at Amazon for My Ancestors Were Londoners, a book by Cliff Webb which is the Society of Genealogists Book of the Month for
April.
I
know it's a truism - genetically half our ancestors must have been women - but
you don't always get that impression when you look at family trees, because so
often it's the male lines that have been researched the most.
Of
course, in the days before personal computers and the Internet it was scarcely
practical to research every line: following one or two surnames was all that
some researchers could manage. But nowadays there's little reason to give so
much emphasis to our male ancestors.
Oral History Society offers introductory course
Until
recently I didn't know of the existence of the Oral History Society, which promotes
the collection, preservation and use of recorded memories of the past. However
it's an issue that's clearly of enormous interest to family historians, so I
thought you might be interested in an introductory course
that they are running. The next presentation is in Sheffield on 2nd May, but
I'm sure there will be others in different locations.
It's
not unusual for individuals to be recorded more than once in the same census,
whether as a result of confusion or a last minute change of plans - but how
often do we look for such occurrences? We normally stop searching when we've
found the person we're looking for, so the instances we know about could be
just the tip of the iceberg.
Alison
wrote to tell me that she has three instances in her tree, and that's just in
the 1880/81 censuses! In 1881 Mary Miles and her son Alick
are recorded not only with Mary's husband in Metfield,
Suffolk but also with her father, Stephen Hipkin, in Honingham, Norfolk. On the same census David Pegg and his lodger William West were recorded on their
boat 'Olive Branch' in the harbour at Clee, Norfolk
but also at home with the rest of their families.
I
found the third instance particularly interesting: Thomas Etherington
was a Mormon pioneer from England who in the 1880 US census is shown as living
in Weber, Utah with BOTH of his wives. Well done, Alison, for spotting all
these duplications!
Tip: if one of your relatives is
recorded more than once on the censuses we use at LostCousins, whether on the
same census or different ones, I recommend that you enter both on your My
Ancestors page - after all, your cousins might have only found one of the
entries. Remember that the My Ancestors page is really a list of census
entries, not a list of relatives - that's the big difference between
LostCousins and other sites that aim to link you with your cousins.
In
2006 I warned members that delays of 6 months were common when sending off for
copies of Army records, but recent reports suggest that the delays of around a
year can now be expected.
As
I said in my original article the delays aren't a reason to delay sending your
request - they're a reason to do it as soon as possible! You'll find all the
details here.
Where are the Canterbury Cathedral records?
Another
delay involves the Kent records held in the Canterbury Cathedral archives. These were expected to be online at
findmypast by now, but so far there is no sign of them - does anybody know why?
First,
a reminder for anyone in the US, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand who has a
Worldwide Ancestry subscription that it's currently significantly cheaper to
buy your subscription from Ancestry's UK
site.
It's
mostly a result of exchange rates and differing tax rates. UK subscribers pay
£155.40 but if you live in the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand you'll only
be charged £135.13, equivalent to US$215, C$213, A$208
or NZ$262 as I write. In each case it's a significant saving on the $299 or
more that you'll be charged by your local site (you could be paying as much as A$449!).
Tip: you'll only be quoted the lower
rate once you have provided your address - until then you'll be shown the
£155.40 rate.
With
a Worldwide subscription you can use any of Ancestry's sites - it doesn't
matter which one you buy your subscription from. Click here
to go straight to Ancestry.co.uk (otherwise Ancestry will try to redirect you
to your local site).
If
you live in the UK I hope you took my advice to buy 1st and 2nd Class stamps
before this month's price enormous increase - but if not you've still got a
little extra time. On 30th April the cost of a 2nd Class stamp will be going up
from 36p to 50p (+39%) and a 1st Class stamp from 46p 60p (+30%).
Talking
of postage stamps, I was reminded by a recent article
in Dick Eastman's blog
that it's possible to extract DNA from the gum of postage stamps affixed to
envelopes (it's only very recently that self-adhesive stamps have become
commonplace). Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to solve genealogical
mysteries by retrospectively testing our ancestors?
So
far as I know there aren't currently any commercial DNA testing laboratories
that offer this service, but I'm sure it is only a matter of time. I shall have
to drop an email to Family
Tree DNA, since they're the company that most family historians recommend!
Hiring
a car on holiday can be a lot more expensive than you expect, even when it's
out of season. By booking online in advance we got a bargain price - just £53
for 10 days' hire in the Algarve, but had to pay 89 Euros (about £75) for a
tank of fuel, even though we were only able to use half of it. Also in the
small print was a note that their fuel price was higher than in petrol
stations, so even the fuel we did use was expensive (though not as expensive as
the fuel we were unable to use). In effect the hire cost me almost twice what I
expected to pay.
Something
else they didn't tell me about was the new toll system on the motorway. I don't
mind paying tolls, but in this case there were no toll booths. At first I
wondered if the system hadn't come into effect yet, but I eventually discovered
that cars are tracked by cameras, and that locals have little gadgets called
transponders in their car (sounds like something out of Star Trek, doesn't
it?). Wouldn't it have been nice if the hire company had warned me, or provided
a transponder?
As
it was we spent our first weekend worrying whether we would be fined, for late
payment - though we eventually discovered that we could pay the toll charge in
the local post office (and fortunately the lady there spoke very good English).
By the way, don't let this experience put you off going to Portugal for your
holidays - the people are very friendly, and they desperately need more
tourists.
Finally
an Easter present for you - take out (or renew) a LostCousins subscription
between now and Tuesday and you'll get an extra month completely free when you
quote the offer code EASTEREGG
Tip: you can renew/extend your
subscription at any time - you don't have to wait for your existing subscription
to expire.
This where any last
minute amendments will be recorded or highlighted.
Please keep sending in your news and
tips - many of the articles in this newsletter result from suggestions from
readers like you!
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2012 Peter Calver
You
may link to this newsletter, and I have included bookmarks so you can - if you
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