Newsletter
- 8 February 2013
Coming
soon.... the LostCousins forum!
Ancestry
add Manchester registers
Scotland
Valuation Rolls for 1905 now online
Millions
more Irish court records online
Hertfordshire
register delays frustrate researchers
Not
going to the Who Do You Think You Are
show?
Was
that marriage illegal, criminal, or both?
Facebook
spoof highlights concerns
Undercover
cops "used identities of dead children"
DNA
chip could help detectives
King
Richard III - what does the discovery mean for you and me?
Could
graveyard destruction be a good thing?
Giant
genes sought in Northern Ireland
I've
danced with a man, who's danced with a girl...
Deceased
Online add East London records
Birthday
Book challenge still unsolved
Last
chance to download guide to South African research
100
year-old man is still working
Trying
to find an article? Now it's easy....
The LostCousins newsletter is
usually published fortnightly. To access the previous newsletter (dated 25
January 2013) click here, for an index to articles
from 2009-10 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
browser window or tab will open (so that you don’t lose your place in the
newsletter) - if nothing seems to happen then you need to enable pop-ups in
your browser.
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!
Coming soon.... the
LostCousins forum!
Over the years I've had numerous pleas
from members who would like there to be a LostCousins forum - and after 9 years
I'm at last in the process of setting one up.
The forum will be separate from the
LostCousins site, and separate registration will be required, but users will nevertheless
be expected to conform to the high standards that I expect of LostCousins
members.
On your My Details page at the LostCousins site there's a button you can
click to indicate your interest in the forum - if you click this button you'll be
one of the first to be invited to join (you'll find the button near the bottom
of the page, under Privacy Settings).
Whilst on your My Details page please review the other information there and make
sure it is as complete and up to date as possible.
Ancestry add
Manchester registers
Over 6 million records from baptism,
marriage and burial registers for Manchester
and the surrounding area are now available online at Ancestry.co.uk,
complementing their existing collection of Lancashire
parish registers. I've at last been able to see the baptism and marriage
entries for a branch of my family who moved to Oldham in the second half of the
19th century - confusingly these records can be found under Manchester, not
Lancashire (the same applies to Rochdale, which is even further away from
Manchester).
Tip:
you can save from 25% to 55% on an Ancestry subscription if you follow my
advice. If you live in Europe see my tips column in this issue; if you live in
the US, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand click here.
A further complicating factor for
researchers with ancestors from the Manchester
area is that some of the records - including workhouse registers, prison
registers, and school admission registers - are online at findmypast.
Findmypast also have the parish registers for Cheshire
(the county boundary is just south of Manchester).
Scotland
Valuation Rolls for 1905 now online
Scotlandspeople have recently added the
1905 Valuation rolls, which are a very useful source - for full details and
examples follow this link.
Millions more Irish court records online
Findmypast have added a further 2.1
million records from the Irish Petty Sessions
order books from 1850-1912, covering 25 new courts and adding to the existing
data for more than 50 others. By my calculation about half of the 16 million
records are now online, so it's a massive resource for a country whose
population was only about 4 million in the second half the 19th century.
The Petty Sessions were the lowest level
courts, dealing with civil cases as well as criminal ones, and most of the
people who appeared weren't hardened criminals but ordinary people who were
charged with minor offences or had got into a dispute. You can find out more
about the records and see a list of which courts are included here.
Tip:
you can access these records at findmypast.co.uk
if you have a World subscription.
Hertfordshire register delays frustrate researchers
At Who Do You Think You Are? Live last year findmypast announced that
they would be digitizing the parish registers for Hertfordshire - between 3.5
million and 4 million records - and would be aiming to put them online before
the end of 2012. You can see my article from a year ago here.
Since then I've heard absolutely nothing
about these records, and even Hertfordshire Archives don't know when they'll be
available - so as one of the many LostCousins members with relatives from
Hertfordshire I'm hoping that there will be some further news at this year's
show.
Not going to the Who Do You Think You Are show?
This year's Who Do You Think You Are? Live show is
taking place at London's Olympia from Friday 22nd February to Sunday 24th
February.
Although it is reckoned to be the
world's biggest genealogy event, with nearly 12,800 visitors last year - and
hundreds of exhibitors - it's inevitable that only a very small percentage of
LostCousins members will be there. Even if all the attendees were LostCousins
members it would still be only a fraction of our total
membership, which has just passed the 92,000 mark!
So, like last year, I shall be going
round the show on the first day making a note of anything that I feel is of
interest to members and reporting on it in my next newsletter, which I'll be
circulating over the weekend of the show. I'm also planning to take photographs
so that those of you who can't be there with me can get a sense of how big and
how exciting it is.
Note:
the main reason I don't have a stand at the Show is because, if I did, I
wouldn't be able to go round visiting the stands of other exhibitors asking the
sort of questions you might ask if you were there. If it was only one day I
might be able to persuade my wife to help out - but not for three days!
Was that marriage
illegal, criminal, or both?
My great-grandfather married two sisters
- and the second marriage took place ten years before it became legal to marry
your dead wife's sister (in 1907). I was therefore interested to note that in Birth.
Marriage & Death Records, which I reviewed
last time the authors suggested (on p63) that such an illegal marriage might
lead to prosecution. However, this seemed to me intuitively wrong, so I went
off looking for confirmation.
I couldn't find a definitive answer, not
even in Professor Rebecca Probert's masterly work Marriage
Law for Genealogists - the definitive guide, which I would commend to
all serious family historians, so it was fortunate that I was able to persuade
Professor Probert to write a short article on this
topic especially for LostCousins members!
INVALID, CRIMINAL, OR BOTH?
What does it mean to say that a marriage is ‘illegal’? It might suggest
that the couples were committing a crime by marrying, but it might simply mean
that the union was one that the law did not allow and was therefore invalid.
Some marriages were both invalid and criminal. Bigamous marriages, for
example, were both – although given the range of defences to bigamy a second
marriage might be invalid without being bigamous (if, for example, a spouse remarried
after the other had been absent for seven years).
Others were invalid without being criminal as such. Marriages within
the prohibited degrees – voidable until 1835, void thereafter – fell into this
category. So while it was illegal – in the sense of not being permitted – to
marry one’s deceased wife’s sister, there was never any question of a criminal prosecution.
In earlier centuries the ecclesiastical courts might have directed the parties
to separate and do penance but by the early nineteenth century this had become
a rare occurrence.
Even after 1908, when legislation first made it a crime for certain
blood relations to engage in a sexual relationship, marriage between such persons did not by itself count as a criminal
offence (although they would of course be committing a crime if they went on to
consummate the marriage). Throughout the twentieth century the circle of
relatives with whom marriage was prohibited remained more extensive than the
list of those with whom a sexual relationship would be a crime: the uncle/niece
relationship is a good example.
While a marriage within the prohibited degrees would be void regardless
of whether the parties knew that they were related, there was a further
potential criminal offence – that of perjury – which depended on knowingly
making a false statement. Some marriages that were valid might still involve a
criminal offence if one of the parties committed perjury by lying about their
age or name in order to obtain a licence or superintendent registrar’s
certificate. In a case from 1917, where a young man had given a false name, the
court held that the consequence of giving a false notice to the registrar was
‘not to invalidate the marriage, but to expose the parties to penalties of
perjury.’
In short, rather than using the often imprecise term ‘illegal’, we need to ask whether the marriage was invalid, criminal, or both.
© Copyright Rebecca Probert 2013
Facebook spoof
highlights concerns
I recently saw a spoof news report produced
by The Onion, a satirical newspaper,
which detailed how the CIA was using Facebook to monitor the public - you can view
the video here.
Of course, many a true word is spoken in
jest. In June last year the US State Department was seeking software to analyse
information on social networks; the FBI were already in the process of
acquiring such software, and the Department of Homeland Security had been using
it for some time.
When family historians publish
information online they tend to assume that it's going to be read by people
just like themselves - but in reality you don't know who will see it, or what
they will do with the information, so be very careful what you post online.
Undercover cops "used
identities of dead children"
It has been alleged that as many as 80 undercover
policemen stole the identities of dead children (see this BBC article for full details); many
of you will, I'm sure, recall how a similar technique was used by the hitman in Frederick Forsyth's Day
of the Jackal.
Horrifying as it must be for the
families concerned, it's hard to imagine how else one might construct a false
identity that will stand up to scrutiny. What do you think?
DNA chip could help
detectives
A recent article
in New Scientist describes how the Identitas v1 Forensic Chip can be used to deduce some of
the physical characteristics of a suspect from small amounts of DNA.
I wonder whether one day we'll be able
to find out what our ancestors looked like by analysing their DNA?
King Richard III -
what does the discovery mean for you and me?
Just a few days ago it was confirmed
that the skeleton found beneath a Leicester car park is indeed that of King
Richard III of England, a monarch who was on the throne for only two years, and
was demonised by Shakespeare. Perhaps the most heinous crime attributed to him
was murdering the Princes
in the Tower, his young nephews Edward V and Richard, Duke of York.
Although the skeletons of two children
were found during renovations of the Tower of London in 1674, their grave in
Westminster Abbey has not been opened since 1933 - so no DNA analysis has ever
been carried out. Following the successful use of DNA to confirm the identity
of King Richard, there must be an excellent chance that a similar test could
verify that the bodies found were indeed those of the princes.
But surely what genealogists all over
the world REALLY want to know is "What does this discovery mean for us?". Is it feasible to dig up our ancestors (assuming we
could get permission) then use DNA tests to reveal more about our ancestry?
The first problem is finding our
ancestors' resting places. Most of them will have been buried in unmarked
graves, in mass graves, in graves that have been disturbed -
whether to make room for other bodies, a supermarket, or a car park - or in
graves which have lost their headstones, or where the inscriptions are not longer legible.
But even if we do manage to get a viable
DNA sample, what are we going to compare it against? In isolation DNA tells us
very little that is of genealogical interest - it's usually only when we
compare it against other samples that we can learn anything useful about our
family tree. Comparing our ancestor's DNA with our own may enable us to confirm
that we've exhumed the right body (and that the research we've carried out
using records hasn't been confounded by a hitherto unanticipated 'non-paternity
event'), but it's unlikely to tell us anything about earlier generations. Only
if tens of thousands of exhumed bodies are tested will there be much chance of
discovering something new, but surely that isn't going to happen.
Or is it? Is there a chain of
circumstances that might lead to large amounts of historical DNA samples
becoming available?
Could graveyard
destruction be a good thing?
The new HS2 rail line is likely to run
through several cemeteries, and if you look back at my article
from last year you'll see that as many as 50,000 graves could be affected. But
there are always graveyards and cemeteries under threat from development,
especially those that are in or near cities.
I've long felt that the procedure for handling
such developments is severely lacking: typically an advertisement is placed in
the local paper before permission is given, but how many of us live close to
where our ancestors did? In 2011 I came up with the idea that long before work
commences, all the information about the people who are buried should be placed
online at a site that is freely accessible to anyone.
But why not go a stage further, and take
DNA samples? If the bones of our ancestors are going to be disturbed - and
sadly this will often happen whether we want it to or not - shouldn't we at
least have the opportunity to take samples that might tell us more about them?
After all, in many cases those DNA samples will be the ONLY way of possibly
identifying who was buried in an unmarked grave.
What I'm suggesting may seem
controversial, but surely if society deems it essential that the remains of our
ancestors should be moved, doesn't it make sense to learn something from it?
Giant genes sought in
Northern Ireland
Researchers at Queen's University,
Belfast, are looking for people who may share the gene that resulted in Charles
Byrne grow to over seven and a half feet in the 18th century. If you were born
in the south of County Londonderry, or the east of County Tyrone, you can take
part in the project by going to the Tesco car park at Cookstown
tomorrow (Saturday 9th) or at Dungannon on March 1st
or 2nd.
I should mention than in two-thirds of
cases people who have the mutation don't show any symptoms, so wouldn't be aware
of it. See this BBC News article for
more information.
I've danced with a
man, who's danced with a girl...
As you probably remember, the song goes
on "...who's danced with the Prince of Wales". It's perhaps the first
example of the "six degrees of separation" concept that has in some
ways inspired modern networking.
Last month I wrote
about the German Field Marshall who is believed to be the oldest person of whom
a voice recording exists (he was born in 1800). In the same edition of QI
Stephen Fry mentioned that he once sat next to Marconi's widow at a party - for
although Marconi himself died in 1937 at the age of just 63, his widow was born
in 1900 and lived until 1994.
Another fascinating fact on the same
programme was that when Stephen Fry shook hands with Alastair Cooke, he was
told that Cooke had one shaken hands with Bertrand Russell. This in itself
wasn't surprising, since Russell lived until 1970 - so most of us might have
encountered him - but Bertrand Russell's aunt had once danced with Napoleon,
which really is a link with the past.
When I was thinking about this a name
popped into my head - Larry Londin. Around 1986 I was
in Los Angeles promoting a digital sound sampler that my company was selling
when someone I'd never seen before walked up to the stand. My colleague - who actually
knew something about music - whispered "That's Larry Londin",
and explained that he was a famous session musician.
As I recall we arranged for Larry Londin to have a free sampler in return for his
endorsement, and that was that as far as I was concerned - until his name
popped into my head and I decided to Google him. Anyway, to cut a long story
short, I discovered that he spent 9 years recording and touring with Elvis
Presley - so, forget about dancing with the Prince, I've shaken hands with
someone who knew the King!
Deceased Online add
East London records
Over 100,000 burial records from Manor
Park Cemetery in East London have been added by Deceased Online. I don't always
report new additions to this site - there are so many - but I was so excited to
find not only the graves of my father's mother and brother, but also my
mother's grandmother, that this time I had to share it with you!
Searching is free, but to view a record (which
may be a transcription or a scan from the register) requires credits. Beware of
buying a map of the grave location - you may find, as I did, that it gives you
no more information than you already have (that was 25 credits down the drain)
- but otherwise it's a wonderful site, just so long as your ancestor's surname
wasn't too common (or you know when they died).
Tip:
Manor Park Cemetery have a free map on their website which shows the numbered blocks - so
once you have the grave number you don't need another map.
Birthday Book challenge
still unsolved
I still haven't received a convincing solution
to the Birthday Book challenge that has been running since Christmas - although
numerous members have succeeded in making connections between the people who
came from Wiltshire and most of those from Suffolk, it isn't clear who the
first owner was, or how the book came to be in the possession of Miss C
Coleman.
Some members have suggested that Loo and
Mollie were both pets. It's certainly possible, although if that were the case I'd
have expected their names to be written in the same handwriting (that of the
owner of the book).
Any more thoughts?
Last chance to download guide to South African
research
On the Help & Advice page at LostCousins you'll find a link to a PDF
guide that will prove invaluable for anyone who has family connections with
South Africa. As Ancestry24, the site that hosts the guide, will be closing at
the end of this month I strongly urge you to download a copy and save it on
your own computer - once Ancestry24 closes it won't be available at
LostCousins.
100 year-old man is
still working
My wife pointed this BBC News article about an
Essex man who is still working at the age of 100 (I think she must have taken a
look at my pension forecast).
Is there anyone in your family tree who was still working at the age of 100?
Trying to find an
article? Now it's easy....
In the last newsletter I explained how I
use Google to find an article from a past edition of my newsletter - it's
quick, it's easy, and it usually takes you to the right article in seconds.
However, I also realised that it would also
be very helpful for members if I created a web page which lists all of the
articles from 2012 (and 2013 so far), with links that will take you directly to
them. I've organised it in reverse chronological order, with the most recent
articles first, and you'll find it online here - I do
hope you find it useful.
Tip:
if you press Ctrl-F you can search for a word or phrase (this is a feature of
your browser that you can use on almost any web page).
Last month there was an exclusive
discount on offer to LostCousins members at findmypast. This time I'm going to
focus on the world's biggest genealogy company - Ancestry.
If you live in the UK by far the
cheapest way to get an Ancestry Premium subscription is to buy Family
Tree Maker 2011 Platinum through Amazon,
where it will currently cost you just £25.28 including postage. Since a 12
month subscription would normally cost £107.40, the free 6 month subscription
you'll get is worth £53.70 - so you're saving 53% even if you never use the
program (which I for one won't). You can also save on a World subscription,
though the percentage saving isn't as great - check here
for the latest price.
Those bargains aren't available outside
Europe, but if you live in the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand make sure
you read this
article from last October - everyone who has followed my advice has saved a
substantial sum on their Ancestry subscription.
Tip:
do your sums carefully before buying an upgrade of Family Tree Maker from the
publishers - although it's more expensive to buy the full 2012 version
elsewhere (click here
to see Amazon's price), the value of the free 6 month subscription, something you
don't get with the upgrade, more than makes up for the difference.
If you enjoyed the video tour
of the International Space Station that I recommended in December you're also
likely to enjoy this rather shorter video shot from the cockpit of
the first A380 to land at San Francisco airport.
Fancy studying for a degree? Alexander
wrote to tell me about a loophole in the student loans scheme that means mature
students may never have to repay the loans! You'll find full details in this Daily Telegraph article
- let me know if you decide to take advantage of this opportunity.
Do you ever buy DVDs? There are two
offers running at Tesco at the moment that can be combined - saving you a LOT
of money!
When you pre-order a new release, such
as Skyfall,
you can get an extra 150 Clubcard points (DVD) or 250
Clubcard points (Blu-ray) - click here
to see what's available. Although Clubcard points are
only worth 1p each when you spend them at the till, they can be worth anything
from 2p to 4p each when you exchange them for rewards tokens (and as there are
600 to choose from, there's almost certainly something you'll want). So 150
points are worth up to £6, and 250 points up to £10.
There's also a Pre-Order Price Promise -
if Tesco reduce the price prior to the release they'll refund the difference.
And did I mention that delivery is free?
But that's not all - if you spend over
£25 you can use the code TD-KFPW to
save £5 (this code expires on Sunday 10th February, so you'll have to act
quickly); I got two Blu-ray disks that would normally have cost £30.99 for just
£25.99, and I'll get 525 points worth up to £21. You can even use the code
again if you place a second order.
Last, but hopefully not least, if you
click here
or on one of the links above to go to the Tesco site then LostCousins will get
a small commission (about 30p) should you decide to place an order!
This where any late
updates will be posted, so it's worth checking back after a few days.
I hope you've found this newsletter
interesting and that you'll make full use of your membership of my site to link
with the cousins you don't yet know (your 'lost cousins').
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2013 Peter Calver
except as otherwise stated
You
MAY link to this newsletter or email a link to your friends and relatives
without asking for permission in advance. I have included bookmarks so you can
link to a specific article: right-click on the relevant entry in the table of
contents at the beginning of the newsletter to copy the link.
Please
DO NOT re-publish any part of this newsletter, other
than the list of contents at the beginning, without permission - either on your
own website, in an email, on paper, or in any other format. It is better for
all concerned to provide a link as suggested above, not least because articles
are often updated.