Newsletter
- 12th December 2014
Family
Historian version 6 JUST RELEASED
Win a Findmypast
World subscription! EXCLUSIVE
LostCousins
Christmas Competition
Do you
know your A.R.S. from your L.O.? Army abbreviations revealed
The
Five Mile Act of 1665 - non-conformists in the late 17th century
South
African parish registers
Jamaica
birth registrations at Ancestry
Findmypast
add 31 million marriages from FamilySearch
How
do you read this newsletter?
Save
20% on photo restoration EXCLUSIVE OFFER
Fascinating
photos taken by first lady press photographer
Fatal
road accident on Friday 13th becomes picture postcard
World's
fattest man dies at 44
Scottish
Valuation Rolls for 1925
Irish
Petty Sessions records now complete
Do you live
in the European Union?
Kindle
books may go up in price on 1st January
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published fortnightly.
To access the previous newsletter (dated 5th December) 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. Or use a Google search prefixed by 'site:lostcousins.com'
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). If one of
the links doesn't work this normally indicates that you're using adblocking software - try disabling it temporarily (or else
use a different browser, such as Chrome).
To go to the main LostCousins website click the
logo at the top of this newsletter. If you're not already a member, do join -
it's FREE, and you'll get an email to alert you whenever there's a new edition
of this newsletter available!
Family
Historian version 6 JUST
RELEASED
The latest version of Family Historian,
perhaps the most powerful family tree program in the world, was released yesterday - and whilst I'm not
currently in a position to review the program because (for purely historical
reasons) I don't use Family Historian for my own tree, you can take a look at
it yourself by downloading the trial
version, which gives you 30 days to find out whether it's what you're
looking for.
If you do decide to buy Family Historian
after trying it out you can purchase a licence from the Family Historian
website, and you'll see that there are discounts when you buy multiple licences.
Alternatively, for just a little more you can buy a boxed version on CD ROM
from Amazon.co.uk
(using that link will support LostCousins), or My
History. Note that because the program has only just been released, neither
had copies in stock at the time of writing.
Family Historian is a particularly good
choice if you have British ancestry because it's one of the few family tree
programs written here in Britain. I met Simon Orde,
the creator of this powerful program, on the day the LostCousins website opened
in 2004 - my only regret is that I didn't meet him 2 years earlier, when I was
looking for some family tree software!
Tip:
you can also win a copy of Family Historian in my Christmas Competition - see
below.
Win a Findmypast World
subscription! EXCLUSIVE
What gift would you most like in your
stocking on Christmas morning?
I bet that for a lot of you a
subscription to Findmypast would be high on the list - so I'm delighted to
announce that Findmypast.co.uk have generously donated a World subscription
(worth almost £130) as the main prize in this year's LostCousins Christmas
Competition - see the next article for full details. This will allow you 12
months unlimited access to billions of records and newspaper articles from
England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Canada.
Note:
if you're already a Findmypast subscriber you can delay the start of the prize
subscription until your existing subscription runs out.
LostCousins Christmas
Competition
There are some excellent prizes in this
year's competition, and the great thing about it is that to win, you only have
to do what comes naturally - search for your 'lost cousins'.
Every direct ancestor or blood relative
you enter on your My Ancestors page
between now and midnight (London time) on Christmas Eve represents an entry in
the competition. Shortly after midnight I'll pick a relative at random from all
those entered during the period of the competition, and the lucky member will
win this year's First Prize, a World subscription generously donated by
Findmypast.
I'll then pick a second relative at
random - another lucky member will win the Second Prize, a copy of Family
Historian version 6, the newest and best family tree program, generously
donated by Simon Orde, the creator of Family
Historian.
Finally, I'll pick 10 more relatives at
random - and 10 lucky members will get a free LostCousins subscription worth up
to £12.50
Warning:
you'll only qualify for the prize if your entry is correct, including the
census references; make sure you click the button
alongside the head of each household - it takes only a second or two to verify
the census references for relatives living in England, Wales, or Ireland.
Even if you don't win one of these
prizes, there's a far greater reward at stake - you could find a 'lost cousin'.
Every single relative you enter is a potential link to another researcher who
shares your ancestry - and whenever you click the Search button the LostCousins computer will compare every single
entry you've made against the millions of entries made by other members!
The more relatives you enter on your My Ancestors page between now and
Christmas, the better your chance of winning one of the fantastic prizes on
offer. But what if you've already entered all your relatives?
My advice is to think again - because,
if you have mostly British ancestry, thousands of your relatives would have
been recorded on the 1881 Census, and there are only a handful of LostCousins
members who have entered more than a thousand (from that census alone). If
you're reading this then you probably aren't one of them.
Who are all these missing relatives?
They're the brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, and cousins of your direct
ancestors - in other words, the very people from whom most of your 'lost
cousins' are descended. To track down your ancestors' 1st cousins you'll need
to go back two generations, to their grandparents, then work forwards; to track
down their 2nd cousins you'll need to go back a generation further, to their
great-grandparents.
Do you know your A.R.S.
from your L.O.? Army abbreviations revealed
If you've ever puzzled over the notation
in your relatives' army files you'll be delighted to heard that the excellent
Long, Long Trail website, which offers
a wealth of information about the British Army in WW1, also has a very useful guide to common
military abbreviations which you'll find
here.
In case you're wondering, ARS stands for 'Advanced Regulating Station', whilst 'LO' means
'Liaison Officer'.
The Five Mile Act of
1665 - non-conformists in the late 17th century
When I was reading Charles
Spencer's Killers
of the King, on the English Civil War and its aftermath, it became
apparent that the Civil War wasn't just about Roundheads and Cavaliers, nor
were there just two sides to the argument - there all sorts of religious
disagreements that complicated matters.
After the restoration of the monarchy in
1660 Parliament passed several acts designed to discourage non-conformist
ministers and their congregations, and in so doing prevent further
conflict. One of which was the
strangely-named Five Mile Act, which was designed to hinder the growth of
non-conformity by preventing dissenting ministers from coming within five miles
of any incorporated borough that returned members of parliament, or any parish
where they had been the minister or had preached since 1660. Offenders could be
fined £40 - an immense sum in those days - or imprisoned for 6 months.
Other acts passed around this time
included the Conventicle Acts of 1664 and 1669, which outlawed religious
assemblies of more than 5 people unless they were under the auspices of the
Church of England, and imposed a fine of 5s for a first offence and 10s for a
second offence (the preacher involved was subject to fines of 20s and 40s).
Even after the Glorious Revolution in
1688, which brought William of Orange to the throne and resulted in the passing
of the Toleration Act of 1689, there were still some restrictions - for example
it was difficult for dissenting ministers to become teachers, even if they set
up their own schools, and after the Schism Act of 1714 it became illegal for
them to teach. Whilst this act was repealed in 1719, it wasn't until 1812 that
the Five Mile Act and the Conventicle Acts were repealed.
The Dr William's Centre for Dissenting Studies
has more information about the legislation here,
and also provides a very useful guide
to the different denominations.
In the circumstances it's not surprising
that few records exist of the dissenting congregations from the later 17th and
early 18th centuries. For example, some of my Essex ancestors were baptised at
the Congregational Chapel at Coggeshall, but whilst
the chapel was opened in 1672, the earliest surviving baptism entries are from
the mid-18th century.
Sometimes you'll find mentions of
dissenters in the parish registers - for example, the excellent Friends of
Devon's Archives website mentions
that the registers for Stokenham include a record of
some of the baptisms and burials at the dissenting chapel at Ford (which was
just over the boundary in the next parish).
At the University of Witwatersrand in
South Africa there's a project to make available online the parish registers of
the Diocese
of St Helena, which not only includes the island of St Helena, but also
Tristan da Cunha and Ascension Island.
Included amongst the entries already
digitised is the burial of Napoleon Bonaparte, which is on page 6 of the register
you'll find here.
The registers cover the period 1680-1986
- so far about half of the records have been digitised. (Many
thanks to Chris for this tip.)
South African parish
registers
On the same website I found a list
of parish registers for the Anglican Church of Southern Africa covering the
period 1850-2004 which are available on DVD, but also viewable free here,
on the FamilySearch website. This got me wondering what other South African
records are available at Family Search - and it turns out that there are quite
a few collections, listed here.
Note:
the Anglican Church of Southern Africa registers are listed there as 'Church of
the Province of South Africa, Parish Registers, 1801-2004'.
There was a guide to researching in
South Africa on the Ancestry24 site before it closed down - fortunately there
is an archived copy that you can access if you follow the link on the Help & Advice page at the
LostCousins site. There is no sign of the Ancestry24 collections appearing on
the Ancestry site as was once mooted.
Jamaica birth
registrations at Ancestry
Last week Ancestry
added over 4.5 million civil birth registrations for Jamaica covering the
period 1878-1930. You can search these new records here.
Over 1.6 million cemetery records
previously only available on microfiche or in printed form have been released
by Ancestry
- you can search them here.
According to Ancestry they cover the period 1800-2007, but I found a few
entries from 2008. (Thanks to Colyn in Australia for
this news.)
Tip:
some apparently later entries have been mistranscribed - where only a death
date and age at death is given the death date has sometimes been treated as the
date birth. For example, Daphne Merle Marks, who passed away on her 44th
birthday in 1970, is shown as having been born in 1970 and having died in 2014.
I suspect that some of the earlier entries suffer from the same problem, but as
yet I haven't had time to check.
Findmypast add 31 million
marriages from FamilySearch
Today Findmypast
have added over 31 million England
& Wales
marriage register entries which were transcribed by volunteers on behalf
FamilySearch. Even though these records have been available at FamilySearch for
some years, it's inevitable that researchers will discover records they've
previously missed.
Unfortunately there is no list that I
can find at either Findmypast or FamilySearch showing which parishes are
included, or the periods of coverage for individual parishes. However if you
type the name of the parish into the Place
box on the search form you'll soon find out whether there are any records.
None of the records I looked at gave the
name of the parish church, however some parishes may
appear under more than one name. For example, Great Barton in Suffolk is
recorded as 'Great Barton', 'Great Barton Parish' and 'Parish of Great Barton',
which no doubt reflects the fact that these records were collected at different
times by different volunteers. Fortunately the matching algorithm that works as
you type should pick up all of the variations, and you can choose to search for
any or all of them.
Tip:
if you're searching for marriages in a particular parish you're less likely to
be disappointed at Findmypast than at FamilySearch because you'll know before
you click the Search button if there are no records from that parish in the
collection. For example, if you search the equivalent collection at
FamilySearch for marriages at Salcombe, Devon you'll
get over 700,000 results, but none of them relate to Salcombe.
There is one circumstance in which
searching at FamilySearch may work out better - if you're looking for an
ancestor who didn't marry in their own parish you can search using a
birthplace, something that isn't currently an option at Findmypast.
Note:
even though someone may be described as 'of St James Bury St Edmunds' in a
marriage record it doesn't necessarily mean that they were born/baptised there.
There aren't very many Welsh marriages
in this new collection - Findmypast quote just 131,000. Fortunately, for those
of you who want to "keep up with the Jones's", Findmypast already has
a massive collection of parish records: the Wales
Collection includes millions of baptisms, marriages, and burials from most
parts of the principality, and they're not just transcriptions - you can also
view the register page.
How do you read this
newsletter?
My aim in writing this newsletter is to
create something that family historians will want to read all the way
through - because I know that a lot of
the discoveries I make in my research turn up in the most unexpected places.
If you look down the list of contents
and only read the articles that seem to be of interest you could miss some
hidden gems - I don't give every piece of news an article of its own because
then the contents list would be even longer than it already is!
Tip:
If you do need to find something in a past newsletter use a Google search
prefixed by 'site:lostcousins.com' - it's what I do
when someone asks me to find an article, so why not cut out the middle man?
Save 20% on photo
restoration EXCLUSIVE OFFER
Although I've written about this offer
in my last two newsletters it has become apparent that quite a few of you
missed it, because it wasn't in the contents list (see previous article).
Fortunately for you, because it's Christmas I'm going to give you another
chance!
Until Christmas Day you can save 20% on
professional photo editing at Repixl using the
exclusive offer I've arranged - just follow this link. And if you're
in the UK they'll produce high-quality photographic prints at a very reasonable
price - just £1.49 (plus postage) for a massive 10" by 8" print on Fujicolor Crystal Archive Paper.
Tip:
if you're thinking of giving prints of restored photos to your relatives for
Christmas get your orders for restoration in right away!
Fascinating photos taken by
first lady press photographer
Next year there will be an exhibition at
the Museum
of London of the work of Christina Broom, widely considered to be the UK’s
first female press photographer. You can see some examples of her work here.
Fatal road accident on
Friday 13th becomes picture postcard
I spotted this postcard on eBay recently
- it shows the scene of a road accident which occurred in Hook, Hampshire in
1914:
It seemed so strange for a road accident
to be commemorated by a picture postcard that I decided to find out whether
there were any newspaper reports of the accident. Searching at the British
Newspaper Archive I couldn't find anything in the Hampshire or London
papers - but eventually I turned up this article in the Aberdeen Journal of
Saturday 14th February 1914:
Image © D.C.Thomson
& Co. Ltd. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD
I'm still struggling to understand why a
photograph of a fatal road accident would be turned into a postcard - have you
ever come across anything like this in your researches?
World's fattest man dies at 44
Perhaps we have a morbid fascination
with death - soon after I discovered that postcard my wife pointed out this
news article
about the death last week of the fattest man in the world.
Coincidentally, on the same day that the
Daily Telegraph reported the death of
Keith Martin, the BBC News website reported that being obese
can cut up to 8 years of your life, and lead to decades of ill health. That
settles it - as soon as I finish writing this newsletter I'm going to do my
exercises!
Do you know how to work out what your
relationship is to your cousins? Whilst there are charts available, and some
family tree programs will do the calculation for you, I believe every family
historian can benefit from doing what I do, and simply counting the
generations.
Here's how it works:
(1) Identify your most recent common
ancestor by tracing backwards on the line which share;
(2) Count the number of generations from
yourself to the common ancestor, eg from you to your
great-grandfather is 3 generation;
(3) Count the number of generations from
your cousin to the common ancestor;
(4) Take the smaller of the two
numbers and subtract 1 - if the answer is 6 then you are 6th cousins;
(5) Calculate the difference between
the two numbers - this tells you how many times removed you are.
It's really, really easy - if you can
count then you can work it out. And it's so much more meaningful when you do it
yourself!
Scottish Valuation Rolls
for 1925
On Tuesday Scotlandspeople released the
Valuation Rolls for 1925 - you can find out more about Valuation Rolls here.
Irish Petty Sessions
records now complete
Findmypast have added 700,000 records to
their Irish
Petty Sessions collection, which is now complete - including all surviving
records, an amazing 22 million of them, from 1828-1914. You can read more about
the final release here.
Do you live in the European
Union?
From 1st January I'm either going to
have to stop selling subscriptions to members who live in Ireland or in any
other EU country (apart from the UK), or increase the cost by at least 20%.
Why? Because under new rules designed to
catch companies like Amazon which set up in countries with low VAT rates I'm
going to have to charge you VAT, even though the income that LostCousins
receives is far below the VAT threshold in the UK.
If you live anywhere in the EU other
than the UK, you might want to buy a LostCousins subscription now. If you want
to save even more, by buying a subscription that last 2 years use the code VATFREE
Kindle books may go up in
price on 1st January
The change I mentioned in the previous
paragraph is also going to affect the cost of ebooks.
Right now Amazon only charges 3% VAT on Kindle books, because that's the rate in
Luxembourg - in future the rate will be the one that applies in the country
where you live (20% in the case of the UK).
Even if Amazon don't increase their
prices, authors are going to lose out - either because their share of the
selling price goes down, or because less copies are sold because of the price
increase. This probably doesn't matter if your name is JK Rowling, but for
writers of genealogical mysteries such as Steve Robinson, Nathan Dylan Goodwin,
and Stephen Molyneux it could make a big difference.
It's also going to affect the Society of
Genealogists, whose My Ancestors Was....
series I wrote about at the end of last month (you'll find links to all the
books here),
and indeed if Amazon put the prices up it's going to affect every Kindle book
sold in the EU (unless you happen to live in Luxembourg).
Here are links to all the genealogical
mysteries written by the three authors I mentioned above - perhaps now would be
a good time to fill in any gaps in your collection?
I used to have an Amazon credit card
which gave me 1% back in Amazon vouchers on everything I spent (2% if I bought
from Amazon).
When this offer ended I went to the Which? website to see what other cards they recommended -
and, as I clear my credit card balance every month, the American Express
Platinum Cashback Card comes out on top. Although there's a fee of £25 a year,
the first year's fee can soon be recovered, because for the first three months
you get an amazing 5% cashback (on up to £2500 of purchases); after that it's
1.25%, which is still pretty generous.
I did, of course, take a look at the
Santander 1-2-3 card, but this also has an annual fee, and I don’t spend
anything in department stores, or very much on fuel or fares. I don't even
spend that much in supermarkets (too canny!).
One of the other bonuses of the Amex
card is the £25 bonus you can earn by recommending it to a friend (limit 5 per
calendar year). So if you think the American Express Platinum Cashback Card might
be the best choice for you, drop me a line so that I can 'refer' you!
The exclusive Genes Reunited offer that
I arranged expires today - but it was so successful that Genes Reunited have a
new offer, which runs until midnight (London time) on 24th December and gives a
50% discount on ALL subscriptions when you click here
and use the code 12DAYS
Note:
this offer isn't available to existing Genes Reunited subscribers; also your subscription
will renew automatically at the full price unless you change the settings on
the Subscription Details page. Please bear in mind that the Platinum
subscription offers only a subset of the records available at Findmypast - it
probably isn't suitable for an experienced researcher like you.
Finally, don't forget that the Family Tree
DNA discount offer finishes at the end of this month. Whilst you don't have
to return your sample(s) before the end of the month, you do need to place your
order and pay if you want to benefit from the discounts. And do please use the
link above if you want LostCousins to benefit!
Friday: as foreshadowed in previous newsletters, you can now search England & Wales wills from
1858 onwards online.
Tuesday: make triple-savings on wine for Christmas see my
forum post
(you don't need to be a member of the forum).
I'll be back in touch before the end of
the month - in the meantime, please do your very best to win the Christmas
Competition!
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2014 Peter Calver
You
MAY link to this newsletter or email a link to your friends and relatives
without asking for permission in advance - but why not invite them to join
instead?