Newsletter
- 23 November 2013
Christmas
arrives early - thanks to findmypast EXCLUSIVE
Personal
accounts of World War 1 to be digitised
A story
of sacrifices and coincidences
Health
records for London from 1848-1973 online
3.7m
photographs of the UK online
Will
Richard III get a mediæval reburial?
DNA
tests reduced for Christmas
Scottish
records on view in Kilmarnock
Time to
give your verdict on the 2021 Census
The LostCousins newsletter is
usually published fortnightly. To access the previous newsletter (dated 10 November
2013) click here, for an index to articles
from 2009-10 click here, for
a list of articles from 2011 click here and for a
list of articles from 2012-13 click here.
Whenever possible links are
included to the websites or articles mentioned in the newsletter (they are
highlighted in blue or purple and underlined,
so you can't miss them).For your convenience, when you click on a link a new
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To go to the main LostCousins
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there's a new edition of this newsletter available!
Christmas arrives early
- thanks to findmypast EXCLUSIVE
Everyone has their favourite site, but it's
becoming increasingly difficult to research one's family without having access
to BOTH of the major subscription sites. I find that I'm constantly switching
from one site to another looking for clues in the record sets that are only
available at one site or the other, such as parish registers - however, in
these tough times finding the money to pay for one subscription, let alone two,
can be really tough.
So you'll be pleased to hear that I was
not only able to persuade findmypast to offer an exclusive discount for all readers
of my newsletter, but also to convince them to offer a larger discount than
usual "since it's Christmas".
Between now and Twelfth Night (6th
January) you can SAVE 15% on any
subscription to findmypast.co.uk when you use the exclusive Christmas discount
code, and there's a bonus from me of a free LostCousins subscription worth up
to £12.50!
To make sure you qualify for your
bonus, and a total saving of up to £36.49 follow these simple steps (but please
note the small print at the bottom - it could well apply to you):
(1) Click here to go the findmypast website (it will
open in a new tab or browser window), then either register or log-in. If you
are already logged-in when you arrive at the website (perhaps because you've
been checking out the latest data releases before subscribing) log-out, then
start again by clicking the link at the beginning of this paragraph.
If you aren't taken to the Subscribe page
automatically, click Subscribe in the top right hand corner.
Note: if the Promotional Code box isn't shown it's because you haven't
logged in yet (there are two screens that look very similar).
(2) Enter the exclusive offer
code XMASLC in the
Promotional Code box, and click Apply
to display the discounted offer prices:
(3) Choose the subscription that's best
for you, bearing in mind that 12 month subscriptions offer by far the best
value (because the second 6 months is virtually half price).
The World subscription includes Ireland, Australia & New
Zealand, and the USA plus a few records from other
countries (click on the country name to see precisely which records are
included).
If you're only interested in British
records (England, Scotland, and Wales) the Full subscription is by far the best
choice - the Foundation subscription offers only basic records and as is really
for beginners (as a LostCousins member you shouldn't even consider it!). Believe
me, the wealth of additional datasets you get with a Full subscription are well
worth the small additional cost, especially when you consider that a
subscription to just one of them - the British Newspaper collection - would
cost nearly £80 if purchased separately.
If at any stage during the process you are logged out (this often
happens to me while I'm looking for my credit card), or if your credit card
isn't accepted for any reason, please start again at step (1) to ensure that
you qualify for your free LostCousins subscription.
(4) Before entering your credit card
details make sure that the price shown is
the discounted price!
(5) When you receive your email receipt
from findmypast forward a copy to me so that I can verify your entitlement (you
won't find my email address on the website, but it is in the email I sent
telling you about this newsletter). Your free LostCousins subscription will run
for 6 or 12 months and can include your spouse or partner as well - just make
sure that the two accounts are linked together before you
write to me (all you need to do is enter the other person's membership number,
shown on their My Summary page, on
your My Details page). If you already have a LostCousins
subscription I'll extend it.
Small print: these offers cannot be
combined with ANY other offers or discounts or backdated; if you are a current
findmypast subscriber you will receive a Loyalty Discount when your
subscription is renewed automatically, so you won't qualify for either offer.
However if you upgrade your findmypast subscription (eg from a Full subscription to
a World subscription, or from a Foundation subscription to a Full or World subscription) before the renewal date you
should qualify for a free LostCousins subscription (provided you follow the
instructions above). Free LostCousins subscriptions are funded by the
commission we receive from findmypast, and that's why it's important you follow
the instructions to the letter - if you have any questions ask me before you
complete your purchase, because it will be too late afterwards!
An entry on the Genes Reunited blog
describes how soldiers in the trenches became pen-pals with girls stranded in
England who they had never met - in some cases becoming engaged without first
meeting.
Apparently "in 1915 the Hull Daily Mail reported that through a
local scheme, a housemaid named Mary was able to win the heart of a lonely
soldier through sending cigarettes and a bottle of whisky concealed in a cake.
The young soldier was so thrilled by her gesture that when on leave he paid
Mary a visit and the pair got engaged within 72 hours of first meeting."
Clearly it was either a rather large cake or a rather small bottle of whisky -
but full marks to the young lady for her initiative!
It reminded me of Henry VIII and Anne of
Cleves. After Jane Seymour died, Henry commissioned Hans Holbein to paint
portraits of Anne and her younger sister Amalia, both
of whom he was considering for his fourth wife, and they married just 5 days
after their first meeting. It wasn't the happiest of marriages - lasting just 6
months - but at least Anne kept her head, eventually outliving Henry by 10
years.
Personal accounts of World
War 1 to be digitised
In Herefordshire a grant from the
Lottery Fund is enabling personal letters, diaries ,and
photographs from the Great War to be digitised and place online. For a sneak
preview see this page
on the BBC website, where the opening sentence of a letter reads "Dear
Mother, Thank Goodness at last some 'fags' have arrived for me....".
A story of sacrifices and
coincidences
As the centenary of the 1914-18 War
approaches there are many other projects, and one of our Canadian members,
Vickie Beamish, has written a wonderful article that I wanted to share with
you:
I imagine that most of us who have been
interested in genealogy for many years have had some surprises, and I would
like to tell you about one of mine.
Although my mother, Violet May Morley,
was very close to her three sisters and most of their children, she seldom
mentioned her brothers. Mother had four
brothers, Henry James Morley, Albert Edward Morley, Leonard Arthur Morley and
Frederick Charles Morley. Uncle Fred is
the only one I can remember meeting, and that was when I accompanied my mother
when she went to say goodbye to him when he was on his death bed. I knew little or nothing about the existence
of the others, until checking out Census returns, BMD's etc. in recent
years. I found some further information
here and there about these uncles, but their names are not uncommon so things
were a bit difficult. I did find (from
Parish records) that Uncle Henry signed as Witness to my parent’s
marriage. My Dad, Percy Clifford Slogrove, born in South Africa, had told me that when he was in the
Royal Navy he had met my mother’s brother Henry. Henry had taken Dad home and introduced him
to his sister when they were on leave in England. So the story begins…………
Three things happened in quick succession
over a period of about four weeks. Firstly, my sister Jane sent me a packet of
family photographs found amongst my late mother’s effects,
all identified except one of a very tall soldier and a very short regimental
drummer boy. Jane did not know who these soldiers were, but thought I might
like to have the photo. On the back is
written "The Long and the Short of the York and Lancaster Rgt. taken April 10th 1911. 6'3" and
3'9". I liked the picture
but could not ID the soldiers. We did not know why mother had never shown us
this photograph or even why she had the picture at all.
Secondly, a cousin in Worcestershire
scanned me a group picture of my parent’s wedding she had found tucked away. We
had lost virtually all personal papers when we were bombed out during the war,
and I have no memory of ever seeing any pictures of my parent’s wedding. I was so excited as this is the only picture I have of who I
believe to be my grandparents, and great grandparents. They all died long
before I was born. And, of course, there was Uncle Henry, who had introduced my
Dad to his sister, splendid in his naval uniform.
Thirdly a genealogist, Melvyn Pack,
emailed me from England to ask for my help. He told me of a terrible battle
early in WW1 in Beaucamp-Ligny, France in which British
casualties had been heavy. He wrote:
"In November 2009 some building
works were being undertaken in the small village of Beaucamps
Ligny in northern France (just a few kilometres west of
Lille) and 15 sets of remains of British WW1 soldiers were uncovered. The
artefacts and location confirmed that they were soldiers of the 2nd Battalion
of the Yorks and Lancs Regiment.
"There were a total of 58 soldiers
killed with the Battalion between 18-23 October 1914
who have no known graves and whose names are commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial - the 15 are drawn from this 58.
"The project of the Ministry of
Defence is to identify as many of the 15 men as possible so that they may have
named graves, and they are to be reburied with full military honours in October
2014, exactly 100 years after their deaths as part of the commemoration of the
WW1 centenary. My task has been to trace as many DNA compatible relatives for
the soldiers as possible so that comparisons can be made for identification purposes.
I have attached an explanatory note on DNA testing and the categories of
relatives that are compatible (it is not simply a matter of being a blood
relative).
"The good news is that you are an
ideal candidate if you would like to help - your mitochondrial DNA is identical
to that of your maternal grandmother who passed it to all of her children
including Leonard and your mum who passed it to you. All we will need then is a
male Morley from the family line because they will have the Y chromosome that
is passed down an unbroken male line. Any help in that direction would be
marvellous.
"One of the missing soldiers was
Leonard Arthur Morley whose records show that he served in the York and
Lancaster Regiment,
and was exceptionally tall for his generation. He was barely 15
when he enlisted in the Yorks & Lancs on 27 April 1907. He over-declared his age by a full
three years. Even at that age, Leonard's
height was 5 feet 9 and 7/8 inches and after 6 months with the army his height
had increased to 5 feet 10 and 3/4 inches.
The pathologist stated that one of the bodies was of a soldier 6'2"
to 6'3" tall."
Mel was working on the family trees of
all fifty eight soldiers killed during that battle whose bodies were not
recovered, and came across my name when working on Leonard Arthur Morley’s
family tree. I was able to confirm that I was indeed the Vickie Slogrove he was looking for and that my mother was
Leonard’s sister, whereupon I was requested to provide a DNA sample and also to
find a suitable male relative to provide male DNA. I was also able to contact
the grandson of my uncle Henry, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Morley, Royal Signals;
we have both now provided DNA samples.
As a matter of interest I scanned Mel the
picture of the tall soldier and drummer boy, and also a picture of Uncle Henry
extracted from my parent’s wedding photograph. Mel submitted these photographs
to experts who were able to confirm that the uniform worn by the tall soldier
was the correct one for that Regiment at that time, and also that the facial
features of Uncle Henry and those of the tall soldier show a strong family
resemblance. Apparently the picture of
the soldier with the drummer boy caused quite a stir. Mel wrote "Leonard
would have been 18 by the date of the photograph so the height of well over six
feet tall is absolutely consistent with his physiology and age - I think that
you have identified a family treasure!"
We await the DNA results, which could
take months. The Yorks and Lancs
Regimental Association is defraying the cost of any certificates needed by Mel
for his research, and a department within the Ministry of Defence is paying for
the DNA testing, but nothing else. Mel has
researched all 58 families on a voluntary basis - clearly a labour of love. There
is to be a ceremony in October 2014, and I am glad that the sacrifice made by
these young men will be honoured - at last! I am so grateful to Melvyn Pack for
his exceptional dedication in undertaking this research.
There are other coincidences. One is that
Beaucamp-Ligny is only 53 km away from Haveluy where my brother, Pilot Officer Edward Arthur Slogrove, RAF, is buried. He was a bomber pilot in
WW2 and his Lancaster was shot down there. The local nurse, and member of the
Resistance, Madam Marie Thurette-Monez, secretly provided space in her family
burial plot for the remains of my brother and his crew of six just after the
crash. At first she and her husband, Gabby, kept the remains in their house and
when the Germans came to search for the
bodies she told them they could come in of course, but that she was
nursing someone with a contagious disease.
So they went away instead. After
the war the War Graves Commission took over the graves and kindly erected the
official crosses in the wrong order.
I live on Vancouver Island. Another family living on the Island has also been
asked to provide DNA to enable the identification of an ancestor of theirs. Two
possible identifications in such close proximity struck me as quite a
coincidence.
© Vickie Beamish 2013
Note:
over 600,000 men and women enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force between 1914-18, including 4 of my Calver
cousins. The service records are held by Library & Archives Canada,
and digitised images of the Attestation Forms are available free online.
125 years of London
health reports online
The Wellcome
Library has made available online
a collection of more than 5000 fully-searchable reports prepared annually by
Medical Officers of Health in the London boroughs. Covering the years 1848-1972
the reports don't name individuals, but they do create a picture of what things
were like for our ancestors who lived in London.
Whilst individuals may not be named, you
will occasionally find that addresses are mentioned - for example, in his report for 1898, the Medical
Officer for East Ham reported:
Later in the report he lists streets in
which there were fatal cases of diphtheria and typhoid - and whilst he doesn't
give the numbers of the houses, he gives the ages of the victims - which might
well make it possible to identify them. There's also a table which summarises
the number of occurrences of each of 7 infectious diseases by street, and this
sort of information can be very revealing - for example, in one street with
only 12 houses there were 20 cases of scarlet fever and 2 of diphtheria.
In 1936 my father's elder brother, his
only sibling, died of tuberculosis in a sanitorium at
the age of 25 - I now know, thanks to the report of Ilford's Medical Officer,
that he was just one of 82 Ilford residents to die of TB that year. Moving
forward to 1956, I can see that I was just one of 139 Ilford schoolchildren to
contract Scarlet Fever - though thankfully that year none of us died (pneumonia
and TB were responsible for all 115 of the fatalities caused by infectious
diseases).
If you or your ancestors lived in London
it's well worth taking a look to see what you can find
out about the health of the community I which they lived - and if you manage to
identify one of your relatives from the details recorded do let me know!
3.7m photographs of the British
Isles online
There's an amazing project that I
wouldn't know about were it not for LostCousins member June - the geograph
website aims to collect photographs for every square kilometre of Great Britain
and Ireland. When I last checked there were 3,736,243 photographs - which makes it a very useful complement to Google Street View.
The Scottish Association of Family
History Societies has produced a list of 3,500 burial
grounds in Scotland ordered by county and parish - if you're trying to figure
out where your Scottish ancestors were buried it's a great place to start,
although there's not a lot of information about the individual burial grounds
(and no names).
Tip:
there are hundreds of thousands of Scottish burial entries at DeceasedOnline, which has millions of
British records, more than any other site apart from findmypast, which hosts
the National
Burial Index.
Will Richard III get
a mediæval reburial?
On Friday a BBC News article revealed that an
Oxford academic has tracked down evidence relating to mediæval
reburial services - and is proposing that the reburial of Richard III should
take place according to those ancient rites.
It won't be the first time that Richard
has been reburied, nor will it be the first time in the past century that
royalty have been reburied - in 1928 the remains of 8 individuals of royal or
noble birth were reinterred at the Royal Burial Ground at Frogmore, near
Windsor (you'll find a list of them here).
In 1977 Frederick Sanger and his team developed
"Sanger sequencing", a technique for sequencing DNA that is still in
use today, and in 1980 it won him his second Nobel prize
for chemistry (he was the only Briton to win two Nobel prizes, and the only
person ever to win two chemistry prizes). You can read more about Frederick
Sanger in this BBC article,
which was published after his death this week.
The Sanger Institute near Cambridge, named
after Frederick Sanger, is one of the world's leading genome research bodies. Budding
DNA experts might be interested in this online
training course in next-generation sequencing (which includes a video
presented by my stepbrother John, who leads one of the projects at the Sanger
Institute).
DNA tests reduced for
Christmas
There are some big reductions in the
cost of tests at Family
Tree DNA, the company I chose to analyse my DNA. If you're coming to Genealogy in the Sunshine in March it's
a great opportunity to get your DNA tested so that you can have a personal
consultation with Debbie Kennett, one of the UK's leading experts in the use of
genealogical DNA tests.
If you're still not sure how DNA tests
might help you to untangle the knots in your family tree, take another look at
the articles I published last year - there were five articles in September,
and then in October
I explained why you might not be the best person in your family to take the
test (and how you could use LostCousins to find the cousin who can provide the
ideal sample).
One of the dangers of taking a DNA test
is that you might discover something completely unexpected. For example, we
tend to assume that birth certificates tell the truth - but what if the father
shown on the certificate was cuckolded (tricked into bringing up another man's
child)?
And what about those very late children,
the supposed sons and daughters who arrived when the mother was over 50 years
of age? Even as recently as the late 1990s only one child in 20,000 born in the
United States had a mother who was 50 or more at the time of the birth, so the
chances that one of your female ancestors gave birth at a similar advanced age
is pretty small, no matter what the paper records might indicate. Could the
real mother be one of the unmarried daughters?
It wasn't just a matter of morality, but
also practicality - a young woman who gave birth to an illegitimate child would
find it far more difficult to marry, though my great-great-great-great
grandmother was very lucky - her husband married her even though he knew that
she had previously given birth to my great-great-great grandfather. Thanks
goodness that he did - otherwise I might not be here to relate the tale!
The Family Tree Analyzer
program - free to all LostCousins members - will identify mothers who gave
birth at the age of 50 or more, allowing you to take a closer look at the
circumstances. Of course, it will do much, much more besides - it's one of the
most useful programs around, so why not download it today!
Note:
Family Tree Analyzer has special additional features
exclusively designed for LostCousins members; it runs under Windows, so
apologies to Mac users.
In
the Blood was the title of Steve
Robinson's debut novel, the first genealogical mystery featuring Jefferson Tayte - so it seemed a strange coincidence to discover from
an article in last week's New Scientist
that our blood can reveal so much more about us than a straightforward DNA
analysis.
It's all to do with epigenetics. The code that
is contained in our DNA sequence is only part of the story - nature adds
post-it notes to inactivate certain genes (the technical word is methylation).
Most of our genes are labelled before we are born, but labels are added
afterwards, in response to stresses and other lifestyle factors - such as
smoking or childhood traumas - although it's not just negative experiences that
change our epigenome, positive events can be just as
important a factor. Because of this, analysing our methylation profiles can potentially
reveal a lot about our lives, although it is still early days.
It's likely that the first widespread use
of epigenetic tests will be to help track down criminals - but then that was
also true of DNA testing.
Note:
talking of genealogical novels, I've lost count of the number of thank you
notes I've had from members who read The
Marriage Certificate, Stephen Molyneux's debut novel
following my recommendation. Graham in Melbourne professed never to have read a
novel before - he normally prefers non-fiction - but even he was captivated,
and is now planning to give copies as Christmas presents!
I find that I read more and more these days
- not because I have more time (I don't) but because there are so many books
and magazines that I really want to read. So much for the Internet killing off
books!
I save genealogical mysteries for times
when I'm travelling, or sitting in some waiting room - because those are occasions
when I want to be transported into another world, when I want time to fly by.
Yesterday I was faced with 2 or 3 hours in a hospital waiting room, so I made a
start on Hiding
the Past, by Nathan Dylan Goodwin - a book that was recommended to me by
a LostCousins member (as were In the
Blood and The Marriage Certificate)
- and I have to say it's good, very good.
However, I'm only a fifth of the way
through, so you should probably discount my opinion for now - although if the
reviews on Amazon
are anything to go by it seems I'm going to enjoy the rest of the book just as
much. The only question in my mind is whether I can wait to read the rest..... and I suspect you already know the answer!
Tip:
it's available as a paperback as well as in Kindle format, though of course the
Kindle version is cheaper (and more convenient for travellers). If you don't
live in the UK follow this link
to Amazon.com
Scottish records on
view in Kilmarnock
Thanks to Neil, I can now tell you of a
third location where it is possible to view unlimited Scotlandspeople records
for a fixed fee of £15 per day - the Burns Monument Centre in
Kilmarnock. Are there any other locations, I wonder?
Time to give your verdict
on the 2021 Census
You've got just 3 weeks to deliver your
verdict on the plans to change the 2021 and future censuses. Very simply, there
are two proposals - one is to continue the existing system, but to cut the cost
by encouraging more people to submit their returns online. The other is to
scrap the census as we know it, and produce statistics using a variety of
sources, such as records kept by government departments, local authorities,
utility companies, and supermarkets.
If the second option is adopted it will
mean that the census will no longer be of any significance to family or local
historians, because there won't be any information about individuals, just
numbers. It may seem a somewhat Kafka-esque solution,
but it’s currently the frontrunner - because on paper it's cheaper, and it appears to be the only way of providing
statistics that are always up to date.
However, there's no point arguing our
case simply on the basis of the needs of people like us. Censuses were never intended
to meet the needs of family or local historians - indeed, in many countries the
census forms were (and in some cases still are) destroyed once the data had
been collated. Instead we need to demonstrate that the existing system is not
only better, it would also be cheaper.
Though they claim to be open-minded, it
seems to me that the Office of National Statistics have fiddled the figures in
order to get the answer they want - which, inevitably, isn't the one that
family historians would like to see. Their estimate of the potential savings from
increasing online submissions if the present system is retained seems a gross
under-estimate (and, of course, the proportion of people submitting online
returns can surely only increase as time goes on - will there be anyone who
isn't connected to the Internet in 2031?).
They're also wrong when they suggest
that the only way that statistics can be kept up to date is to switch to a new
system based on 'administrative data'; after all, once you have a significant
proportion of the population submitting information online, it can't be that
difficult to ask them (by email, of course) to provide updated information at occasional
intervals in between the decennial censuses.
But perhaps the biggest error the ONS
has made is in under-estimating the likelihood of honest mistakes, deliberate fabrications,
and duplications in the alternative sources that they propose using. Think
about it for a moment - surely it's inevitable that the tax authorities simply
won't know about some people, and that the departments
that hand out benefits will have people on their books who simply don't exist?
For me it all comes back to the reason
why names, addresses, and other personal details are collected on the traditional
census - it's not for our benefit, but because it allows information to be
verified.
Please download the consultation
document, read it through (it's not very long), then fill in the online survey. You DON'T need to
be a UK resident to complete the survey, nor do you have to supply a telephone
number - an email address is sufficient. The questions to focus on are 1, 6, 7,
8 and 9 - the others are primarily aimed at professional users of statistics.
If you agree with the points I've made
above, aim to include as many as possible of them in your survey responses, but
using your own words. And please invite other family historians to contribute
to the survey - feel free to send them a link to this newsletter, even if they're
not LostCousins members.
This newsletter was a bit quicker to write
than the last one, because I have installed a modification on
my computer to disable the Caps Lock key - which I frequently hit by mistake
when I type the letter A. Because it involves a minor modification to the
Registry it's not for the faint-hearted, though provided you back up the
Registry first, the risk should be minimal.
Talking of keys, a lot of people don't
know that pressing the Print Screen key on the keyboard copies the current
display to the clipboard; even I didn't realise until a member pointed it out
that if you hold down the ALT key while you press Print Screen it only copies
the current window.
Mind you, I didn't need to know that
because 7 or 8 years ago I installed the free Irfanview graphics editor, which runs on
all versions of Windows - I use it virtually every day. Irfanview it makes it
really easy to crop images such as censuses (nobody wants to waste ink by
printing the thick black borders), or entries from parish registers. You can
even change the brightness and contrast - I always do this before printing out
pages from the 1911 Census.
With Christmas in mind I've been looking
out for bargains that might interest LostCousins members, such as the set of 8 Forgotten
Voices books that are on offer from The
Book People for just £9.99 (not much more than you might have paid for just
one of them), or Mapping
the First World War which is only £7.99 from The Book People (but gets
a much better review at Amazon).
Of course, we don't just run up a big
bill for presents at Christmas, a lot of the money we spend goes on food and
drink - so I decided to take a close look at Tesco's Price Promise, which aims to
ensure that when you buy from Tesco you don't pay more than you would do at
their major competitors (Asda, Sainsbury's, and Morrisons).
They fulfil their promise by giving you a voucher for the difference if the
overall cost of your shopping is more than you would have paid at any one
of the other stores.
Where I live there isn't an Asda or Morrisons nearby, which means I don't have the option of
going there - so I was delighted to discover that I could buy groceries from
Tesco at Asda prices if Asda was cheaper. However, to make the most of this
opportunity requires a little forethought, because if one half of your trolley
is £5 cheaper at Asda, but the other half is £5 more expensive you won't
qualify for any refund. If you have a Tesco receipt handy I suggest you follow
this link and check how the
price comparison works in practice, because it's quite complicated to explain
without seeing an actual example.
However, it's possible to offer some general
tips. The first tip is to pay for items that have been reduced for quick sale
separately - because when the price comparison is made they'll be treated as if
they were standard stock; you might want to do with the same with items that
are on special offer (although it's worth checking that they're not even
cheaper in another store).
My second tip is to use the Internet to
check the prices at other stores while you're wandering around Tesco (they now
provide free WiFi in their larger stores, which makes
it really easier if you've got a smartphone). My final tip is to monitor the
prices of things that you buy regularly and spend a lot of money - not just in
Tesco but in the other three stores.
One thing to bear in mind is that the
maximum rebate coupon Tesco will hand out is £10, and that the Price Promise
doesn't apply unless you've bought at least 10 different items. However the Price Promise does apply to online
grocery purchases as well as purchases in store.
At Christmas those of us in the northern
hemisphere generally start to think about holidays in the sun. When I was researching
for the Genealogy in the Sunshine
course I discovered a car rental company that is far cheaper than any of those
I've used in the past. Too good to be true? I thought
so at first, but they were recommended by someone I trusted, so I tried them
out myself - and was highly delighted. For £45 a week
I got an almost new Opel Corsa with air-conditioning
which didn't have a scratch on it - and I'm glad to say it was still in
pristine condition when I handed it back. So don't book a car with anyone else
until you've followed this link
and checked the prices - I suspect you'll be as amazed as I was!
I was also recommended to a very useful
site, Skyscanner, which does an amazing job of finding flights
between any two airports - it's not just a timesaver, but a money saver too!
Incidentally, because of a cancellation
I still have two places available at Genealogy
in the Sunshine, which takes place between 15th-22nd
March at the beautiful Rocha Brava Village Resort on Portugal's Algarve coast.
Please get in touch right away if you're interested!
This is where I'll post any last minute
news, updates, or offers.
Thanks for taking the time to read my
newsletter - I hope you've enjoyed it!
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2013 Peter Calver
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