Newsletter
- 24th October 2013
Your
chance to win a FREE Ancestry Premium membership
Electoral Register changes cause confusion EXCLUSIVE
Searching
the electoral register
View
Scottish BMD registers free - in London!
Place-Names
of Wales project launches
Was
King Charles I really buried in Hertfordshire?
Calendar conundrums continue to confuse
South
African records back online soon
1921
Canada census "nearly indexed"
Older
fathers project: have you joined yet?
Deceased Online adds records from disused cemeteries
Marriage licences, allegations, and bonds
"This
is your captain speaking....."
Interview:
Stephen Molyneux EXCLUSIVE
Genealogy in the Sunshine: latest
The LostCousins newsletter is usually
published fortnightly. To access the previous newsletter (dated 11 October
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.
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Your chance to win a
FREE Ancestry Premium membership
With winter approaching and the nights drawing in it's an excellent time to get back to
your family history research - so wouldn't it be great to have access to well
over 1 billion British and Irish records at Ancestry.co.uk?
Every relative you add to your My Ancestors page at the LostCousins
site between now and 5th November will give you a chance of winning an Annual Ancestry
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This means that the more relatives you add, the more chances you'll have to win! Use the links
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(you only have to pay if you want to see the handwritten census schedule).
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- it's a great, timesaver especially if you're just starting at LostCousins.
Tip:
even if you don't win an Ancestry subscription you could find some new cousins
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Electoral
Register changes cause confusion
If you live in the UK you'll be familiar
with the right - introduced about 10 years ago - for voters to be excluded from
the version of the register that is sold to commercial organisations. About
half of the voting population have opted to keep their names and addresses
private, and if you're one of them it's particularly important that you read
on....
The Electoral Register is updated
annually, and each year I receive a form to fill in which shows the data from
the previous year. However, when the form arrived this year it didn't reflect
my wish to be excluded from the commercial version of the register (they refer
to it as the 'edited version'). At first I assumed this was an error, but then
I turned the form over and read the notes:
Note the last paragraph: they are no
longer allowed to pre-print a tick on the form, which means that not only do
voters have to remember to tick the box each year, they have to return the form
by post, rather than over the Internet, by telephone, or text message.
Furthermore, whist there's currently only one form to complete per household,
from 2014 there will be a form for each individual of voting age. (No wonder
Royal Mail shares soared when they were listed on the London Stock Exchange
earlier this month!)
However, when I did some online research
into this matter I discovered a document
circulated by the Electoral Commission
in April 2012 which points out that under Section 11 of the Data Protection Act
1998 individuals have the right to opt
out permanently, and that where they have done so a tick should be pre-printed on the form.
If you want to be excluded from the
commercial register permanently (or until further notice) all you need to do is
write this on the form, and sign it. Other members of the household will need
to do the same, as only the individual concerned can make a request under the
Data Protection Act.
If you've already submitted your form,
but think you may have forgotten to place a tick in the appropriate column I
suggest you telephone the Electoral Registration Officer at your local council
and ask for advice.
Searching the
Electoral Register
Although as a youngster I'd casually
glanced through the pages of the Electoral Register in Seven Kings library, I
first began searching seriously in 2001 - the year made famous not only by Arthur
C Clarke, but also by Julie Pankhurst and her husband Steve, whose Friends Reunited site increased
its membership from a mere 3,000 at the end of 2000 to an incredible 2.5
million a year later.
The interest that had been created by
Friends Reunited was boosted by the launch of the 192.com website, the first to
provide online access to the UK Electoral Register - and that Christmas they
offered free access, so you can imagine what fun I had trying to track down
work colleagues and other old acquaintances (though it wasn't until the release
of the 1901 Census the following month that I decided to start researching my
family tree). Until fairly recently it was quite expensive to search the
Electoral Register on an impromptu basis - although there are many sites
offering access, there is usually a minimum charge of £10 or more which makes
it expensive if there's only one person you're looking for. This is compounded
by the fact that around 40% of electors choose to be excluded from the
published register - for example, the published figures
for Lewes, Sussex show that 42.5% of electors have opted out.
Earlier this year findmypast.co.uk added
searches of the UK
Electoral Registers 2002-13 to their Britain
Full and World subscriptions,
which was very good news for subscribers. The 2002 register is particularly
significant, because it's the last unedited register to be made available - and
since people no longer move home as frequently as they once did, there's a fair
chance of finding people at the same address.
Of course, as family historians we're
also interested in older registers: at Ancestry.co.uk you can search the London
Electoral Registers from 1832-1965, and similar records for the Midlands
(Birmingham and part of North Warwickshire)and Dorset.
Bear in mind that in the 19th century many people weren't able to vote -
especially if they were female - but there are also unexpected bonuses as a
result of people who were in business having extra votes. My grandparents were
able to vote in local elections in Westminster because my grandfather's office
was in the West End; the registers also gave their home address, which was
outside the London area, so I was able to see for the first time when they
moved home in the mid-1930s (my father had been unable to remember the date).
View Scottish BMD
registers free - in London!
Those of us with English or Welsh
ancestry have long envied the opportunity that researchers with Scottish
ancestry can obtain uncertified copies of birth, marriage, and death registers
entries at a very low cost - typically under £2 - through the government-owned ScotlandsPeople website. It's
even possible to go to the ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh and spend a day
looking at registers and censuses for a fee of just £15 (you'll find full
details here).
But did you also know that between 1952
and 1962 the LDS Church microfilmed the General Register Office for Scotlands birth, marriage, and
death registers for the years 1855-75, 1881, and 1891? This virtually complete
collection, on around 4000 reels of microfilm, can be viewed at the London Family History Centre (currently
based at the National Archives in Kew).
A certificate is only a copy of a
register entry - so if you can view the registers themselves, you probably
won't need to buy any certificates (or uncertified copies) for the 1855-75
period. The London FHC also has microfilm copies of the indexes to the
registers, and they cover a much longer period.
Tip:
the London Family History Centre also has copies of some 19th century birth,
marriage, and death registers for Ireland.
Place-Names of
Wales project launches
If you've researched in Wales, as I
have, you'll know that it can be very difficult to identify places. It's not
because of the fact that most of the names are in Welsh (although that can be a
problem) but because not only do the spellings vary considerably, different
names are often used for the same location - and some of these names have
disappeared over time.
The Cymru1900Wales website aims to
collect all of the wording shown on Ordnance Surveys maps of Wales published
around the turn of the century. Volunteers who take part can add additional
information based on their own knowledge, such as alternative spellings or even
memories of the location.
Was King Charles I
really buried in Hertfordshire?
The answer is no - but his death is,
nevertheless, recorded in a 17th century Hertfordshire burial register. I
thought at first that the transcribers hadn't indexed
the entry, but you'll find him if you follow this link
and search for a burial in 1648 with the surname King and no forename.
Hang on, wasn't
King Charles beheaded in 1649, not 1648? Another calendar conundrum,
perhaps.....
Calendar
conundrums continue to confuse
In the last issue I posed two questions
relating to the English calendar:
(1) Which was the shortest year of the
18th century, and why?
(2) Why does the tax year begin on 6th
April?
At one point I didn't think anyone was
going to get both questions right! It probably didn't help that some of the
apparently authoritative information on the Internet is wrong (but then you
already knew that, didn't you?).
The most common answer to the first
question was 1752, on the basis that there were only 19 days in September - but
in fact the shortest year was 1751, which officially began on March 25th but
ended on 31st December.
The most common answer to the second
question was that 11 days were added on to the tax year to allow for the
missing days in September - but if you actually count the days you'll find that
on that basis the tax year ought to start on 5th April (there are 12 days, not
11, between 25th March and 6th April).
What happened in practice was that
initially the tax year did indeed begin on 5th April. However, in 1800 the
Inland Revenue decided that they would have a 366-day tax year, even though
under the Gregorian calendar it was not a leap year (though it would have been
under the Julian calendar). In consequence the tax year 1800/01 began on 6th
April, as it has done ever since (though only because the Inland Revenue
decided to be sensible in 1900).
Prior to 1752 it was common to show both
the legal year and the calendar year when writing dates between 1st January and
24th March - for example, King Charles I was executed on 30th January 1648/49.
He wasn't buried in Hertfordshire, but
at St George's Chapel, Windsor - where many other royal personages were buried,
including Elizabeth Woodville - wife of Edward IV, mother of the princes in the
Tower, and mother-in-law of Henry VII (but perhaps better known these days as The
White Queen). Interestingly, Elizabeth Woodville once owned the
Stansted Hall estate, in the same village where LostCousins is based - a fact I
didn't discover until a month ago.
Understanding the vagaries of the
calendar in the country or countries where you are researching is essential -
for example, whilst George Washington was born on 11th February 1731, by the
time he came to office his birthdate had changed to 22nd February 1732. In the
US Washington's birthday has, since 1971, been marked by a holiday on the third
Monday in February - which means that it can fall anywhere between 15th and
21st of February, so it never falls on his actual birthdate.
I wonder when he actually celebrated his
own birthday after the calendar change - might it have been on the date he
remembered as his birthday from his childhood? What
would you have done in his position?
South African
records back online soon
Earlier this year I warned members that the
South African website Ancestry24 was closing down, but expressed my hope that
the records would become available to search at some other genealogy site in
the future.
It has taken quite a while, but on
Tuesday there was an announcement
that Ancestry.com has purchased over 4 million records from Ancestry24, and
will be making them available to subscribers in the near future.
Tip:
although the Ancestry24 site is closed, it is still possible to view their
Beginners Guide (to South African research) if you follow the link on the Help & Advice page at
LostCousins. I recommend you save a copy of the PDF document to your own
computer since it's unlikely to be available for much longer.
1921 Canada census
"nearly indexed"
According to Ron, who posted a message on
the LostCousins forum, an index to the 1921 Canada census will be available at Ancestry.ca in
about a week's time. I shall certainly be interested to follow up on my
Canadian branches.
Older fathers project: have you joined yet?
If you can spare a few minutes then you
can contribute towards a groundbreaking project.
Following the publication of research that the ratio of sons to daughters
amongst children born to fathers over the age of 55 may differ from the norm,
I've been collecting data from LostCousins members to find out whether the
facts support the theory.
It's very easy to take part in the
project, because the free Family Tree Analyzer
program - written by a LostCousins member - will extract the information
automatically from your family tree (and do much, much more). You can download
this incredibly useful program here
(it is for Windows only).
To analyse your tree save it as a Gedcom file (all family tree programs
can Export their data in Gedcom format), select Open from FTAnalyzer's File
menu, and browse until you find the Gedcom file just as you would if you were
using any other Windows program.
Don't worry if FTAnalyzer
reports errors as it loads in the file - it would be a miracle if there weren't
some errors - indeed, it's the error-detecting powers of this program are one
of the reasons why it's so useful. Once the file has loaded go to the Reports menu and select Parent Age Report - two windows will pop
up, one giving a visual representation and the other providing statistics. It's
the latter that I need for the project, but before sending the statistics to
me, please make sure there aren't any mothers shown as giving birth at the age
of 50 or more, because this is likely to indicate an error in your tree (for
example, a late baptism that has been recorded as a birthdate) which might also
affect the statistics for fathers.
To make it easy to identify the possible
error FTAnalyzer has a second report in the Reports menu, the Older Parents report. This will show mothers and fathers who were
older than a given age at the time one or more of their children was born - so
if you set the threshold to 50 (which is the default) it's easy to spot who the
mothers were - simply click the Gender
heading in the top section of the report to sort the mothers to the top of the
list.
Of course, the Family Tree Analyzer can do a great deal more, as you'll see from the
website when you download it - but please submit your data for the Older
Fathers project first!
Tip:
there's an extensive discussion area for FTAnalyzer
on the LostCousins forum, so if you're one of the lucky few to have been
invited to join prior to the official launch, make sure you take advantage of
the opportunity.
Deceased
Online adds records from disused cemeteries
DeceasedOnline has added over 100,000 records
relating to the removal of graves and headstones from disused and closed burial
grounds and cemeteries. You'll find some information on the TNA
website under RG37, but there's a lot more detail at DeceasedOnline.
Marriage
licences, allegations, and bonds
If you've ever wondered why some people
chose to marry by licence you'll find this article
on the FamilySearch site invaluable - it also indicates what records may have
survived and where you might find them.
Thanks must go to Caroline Gurney, LostCousins member
and professional genealogist, for highlighting this article during a discussion
on the Society of Genealogists mailing list.
"This is your captain
speaking....."
Nowadays even budget airline Ryanair has
a PA system which allows the pilot to talk to passengers, but the scan you can
see above suggests that things were a little different in 1956, certainly for
this BKS Air Transport flight to Corsica. (BKS later came under the control of
BEA, and was eventually absorbed into British Airways.)
Dakota G-ANAF was built in 1944 for the
US Air Force, but was handed over to the RAF the following year. She flew
missions during the Berlin Airlift in 1948-49 and BKS acquired her in 1950. The
really amazing thing, however, is that she is still registered
with the Civil Aviation Authority, which suggests that she's continuing to fly,
even though she's older than I am (you can see some recent photographs of her here
and here).
Isn't it strange what we discover when
we start investigating the bits of paper that flutter into our lives? Until
today I've never had a reason to look up the CAA's website - why would I? But
I've only written an article, not a book - unlike Stephen Molyneux,
who penned an incredible debut novel after stumbling across a marriage
certificate on an antiques stall.....
Interview:
Stephen Molyneux EXCLUSIVE
Hundreds of LostCousins members have
bought 'The
Marriage Certificate' after reading my reviews, and I've lost count of
the number of people who have written to thank me for introducing them to the
book (I'm also incredibly grateful to Michael who told me about the book in the
first place).
However, the author - Stephen Molyneux - was a bit of a mystery and at one point I
wondered whether it was a nom de plume,
so I'm absolutely delighted that he agreed to come out of the shadows to be
interviewed.
Peter: I really
enjoyed 'The Marriage Certificate', and once I started reading the book I found
it hard to put it down. Was it as much fun to write?
Stephen: I
did enjoy writing The Marriage Certificate and as it progressed I couldn’t wait
to get down to writing. The editing was more laborious, but on the whole it was
a very satisfying experience.
Peter: The book has
several threads that
are cleverly woven together - are we reading the book in the order in which it
was written?
Stephen: Not
entirely: I had an overall plan in mind when I started but I soon found that it
was easier to write the threads separately. I then had to weave them together
in an order which fitted chronologically and at the same time gave nothing
away. My wife and I had many discussions about this over supper.
Peter: Who are the
other authors that you most admire, and how have they affected the way you
write?
Stephen: Among
well-known authors, I like to read books by Robert Harris, John Grisham,
Frederick Forsyth and Sebastian Faulks. I often go to
a local second-hand book fair and have discovered some excellent lesser known
authors (lesser known to me anyway) such as Kate
Grenville, Hilary
Jordan, Nelson
de Mille and David
Guterson. I’m sure they’ve all influenced me in
some subtle way.
Peter: The hero of
'The Marriage Certificate', is Peter Sefton, an amateur family historian. Did you base the
character on yourself?
Stephen: No,
but family and friends who have read the book recognise me immediately! Many of
the names I chose for the characters are the names of people I know. They seem
quite flattered and amused at this. Like Peter [Sefton],
I am a pain when it comes to parking the car!
Peter: How much
research have you done into your own family tree?
Stephen: I
think I first started in about 2002. There was a family story about our
connection with an aristocratic family, but it now seems that most of our
ancestors were coal miners. Instead of a being a Viscount I am still plain
‘mister’. However, with the resources of LostCousins I intend to get back on
the trail.
Peter: Interesting -
I also started researching in 2002. What would Peter Sefton's
advice be to someone researching their family tree who
is up against a 'brick wall'?
Stephen: Think
laterally!
Peter: Is there
another Stephen Molyneux book on the way, and if so
when are we likely to be able to buy it (and will it have a similar theme)?
Will there be a series of Peter Sefton genealogical
mysteries?
Stephen: Initially
the answer would have been ‘no’ but the positive feedback I have received has
motivated me to think about a second Peter Sefton
novel. Supper discussions have started.
Peter: Finally, in
case any readers are thinking of publishing their own electronic book, how
difficult was it to put your book into Kindle format, and what was it like as a
lone author dealing with an enormous company like Amazon?
Stephen: Dealing
with Amazon was not too difficult and without them I am sure my manuscript
would still be sitting on a shelf in my office. As far as the actual publishing
was concerned, for Kindle I had help from my excellent copy editor with
uploading, for the paperback I was able to sort that out myself.
Prior to self-publishing,
I went down the conventional route of contacting a few literary agents.
Although polite and sometimes complimentary, each one rejected The Marriage
Certificate, telling me that it was either not for them or that there was no
market for such a novel.
I think I
should mention that before I entertained the idea of publishing, I gave my
manuscript to several family members and close friends. Their feedback was most
valuable and greatly appreciated.
I have found
it quite difficult to answer some of these questions – much easier to write a
novel!! I hope I’ve given you enough
information.
I would like
to thank all those members of LostCousins who have bought my book.
Peter: Thank you, Stephen - and I hope you'll come and talk
to us again when your next book is published!
'The
Marriage Certificate' is available as
a paperback,
or in Kindle
format (remember, you don't need a Kindle - there is free Kindle software
available for PCs and Macs as well Apple and Android tablets and smartphones).
If you live in the UK please use the links above, but if you live outside the
UK I suggest you follow this link.
Genealogy in
the Sunshine: latest
If you're interested in joining us on this half-course,
half-holiday stay on Portugal's Algarve coast in March 2014 please let me know
right away and I'll send you the latest information. I've just confirmed that Chris Paton,
the Irish-born but Scottish-based professional family historian, author and
tutor will be speaking - details of other speakers will follow soon.
Of the 40 places available on the course,
36 have been provisionally reserved - and that was before I managed to negotiate
a further 20% discount on the cost of accommodation at the beautiful Rocha
Brava resort (almost enough to pay for an extra 2 days of holiday). Whilst I obviously
can't guarantee the weather, the Algarve in March has an average of 7 to 8
hours of sunshine per day, which is as much as we get in England in June!
Note:
there's no limit to the number of people who can stay at the resort - the
restriction is on the number of delegates that we can accommodate on the
course.
Peter's
Tips
Did you know that British citizens who
were over 15 at the end of World War 2 are entitled to a free 10-year passport
(a saving of over £70)? Furthermore, anyone who qualifies but has inadvertently
paid for a passport since the concession was introduced in 2004 can claim a
refund.
Unlike some people who write newsletters
I "eat my own cooking" - and I'm not just talking about the delicious
Wild Plum jam I've been making. After penning the last newsletter, in which I
recommended using the Which? Switch website to find a cheaper energy supplier,
I went and did precisely that.
Like many of you I was faced with a 10%
increase, but I was delighted to find an electricity supplier offering fixed
prices for the next year which are lower than my existing supplier's old prices, let alone the new ones.
There's no point asking me who I've switched to, because prices vary from region
to region - and in any case Which? Switch is completely free, so give them a chance
to do what they're good at. (They didn't make any money out of me - because the
cheapest supplier was one that doesn't pay them commission - so the least I can
do is give them another mention now.)
Going back to cooking, there are still
loads of wild plums in the hedge and we've also got more apples than we can
eat, so I'm going to experiment with the recipe for Plum & Russet Mincemeat
in Pam Corbin's Preserves
book (it's in the River Cottage series). It sounds absolutely delicious - I'm a
great fan of mince pies - and I'll certainly let you know how it works out,
though I probably won't get to taste it properly until Christmas.
I don't know whether you followed my
advice in the last newsletter to look for historical film footage on YouTube,
but I certainly made some interesting discoveries. The first was a short clip
of Julie
Andrews at the age of 13 singing "God Save the King" in front of
King George VI at the Royal Command Performance in 1948 - and I know precisely
when she was born because I have a copy of her birth certificate (at birth her
surname was Wells, which was my mother's maiden name, so I thought it was worth
checking if there might be a connection). I also discovered a clip of KingGeorge VI struggling to give a speech in 1938 -
it's said that when Colin Firth (who played him in The
King's Speech) saw this footage he was moved to tears.
Even more poignant, though, is the only
video footage in existence of Anne
Frank - just a brief shot of her looking out of the window at neighbours
who were getting married. There must be millions of amateur films in which
there are glimpses of people who can otherwise only be seen in still
photographs - yet before long there may be nobody alive who can recognise them.
Talking of photographs, Sarah wrote to
say how delighted she was with the calendar she ordered from Francis
Frith after receiving the last newsletter. That particular offer has ended,
but if you follow this link
you'll see that until the end of October you can save 20% on other items that
are suitable for Christmas presents, such as historic Ordnance Survey maps -
there's one on the wall behind me right now which shows our village as it was
in 1896 (it was a very welcome present from my wife a few Christmases ago).
Finally, you may recall that in August I
wrote about the late great Sir Stanley Matthews, one of England's greatest
footballers. After the article appeared I had an interesting email from Emma
Jolly, the well-known genealogist and writer, who told me that her
grandfather's cousin was Joe Smith, the manager of Blackpool at the time of
their FA Cup win in 1953 ("the Matthews final" as it is generally
known). You can read more about it on her blog.
Emma also wrote Tracing
Your Ancestors Using the Census, which came out last month, and I
suspect that one of her other books - Tracing
Your British Indian Ancestors - will be in demand when findmypast
eventually start publishing the British Library's collection, hopefully later
this year.
This where any late
updates will be posted, so it's worth checking back after a few days.
In my next newsletter I hope to have an interview
with Michael Sharpe, author of Family
Matters - a History of Genealogy, which is a book that I'm going to be
referring to for years to come - it's crammed with fascinating fact.
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2013 Peter Calver
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