Newsletter
- 6th February 2015
GOOD NEWS:
law change means BMD certificate breakthrough
FREE
access to all UK records at Ancestry ENDS SUNDAY
LostCousins
is completely FREE this weekend ENDS TUESDAY
MASTERCLASS:
finding birth certificates
Did
you win the New Year Competition?
Photo
detective comes up trumps
Canada's
"cancelled" census costs cities
Prisoner
of war interview reports 1914-1918
WW1
Soldiers' Effects - records now online
Ancestry's
death records - the mystery solved
Three
parent families to go ahead
1215
lucky people see all surviving copies of the Magna Carta
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published
fortnightly. To access the previous newsletter (dated 22nd January) 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 the customised Google search
below:
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
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an exception (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!
GOOD NEWS: law change means BMD
certificate breakthrough
The Society of Genealogists today
reported that the Government has accepted an amendment to the Deregulation Bill
currently going before the House of Lords that allows for the publication of
information from Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates in England and Wales to
be issued otherwise than in the form of a certified copy. You can read the SoG announcement and see the
proposed clauses here.
This is something that family historians
have been seeking for many years: first recommended by a Royal Commission
almost a century ago, legislation was put forward in 1983 by Lord Teviot, but
failed to be implemented because the Government chose to call a General
Election. We must hope that this year's General Election - it takes place on
Thursday 7th May - does not once again scupper these plans.
I would like to thank all of the
LostCousins members who have written to their local MP, and the MPs who have
taken up this matter with the Home Office and/or the General Register Office -
without a doubt this will have helped to sway the Government's decision in
favour of Baroness Scott's proposal, which was first reported in my
Christmas newsletter.
May
I suggest that those of you who did write to your MP send them an appreciative
letter? I don't suppose they get very many - they're probably as rare as hens'
teeth and Ryanair refunds - so I'm sure they would welcome the gesture.
FREE access to all
UK records at Ancestry ENDS
SUNDAY
No subscription? Don't worry, because
this weekend Ancestry.co.uk
are offering free access to all their UK records! It's
a great opportunity to extend your tree by researching your collateral lines -
the descendants of your ancestors' brothers and sisters.
You've got three days to plunder
Ancestry's UK records - the offer ends at midnight (London time) on Sunday 8th
February. You may need to log-in or register in order to view the records, but
you shouldn't be asked to provide credit card details or make any commitment.
Tip:
make sure you save the records to your own computer - if you save them to your
Ancestry tree, or to your 'shoebox', you'll need a subscription to look at them
after the weekend. For many years I've used the free Irfanview program to view,
edit, and print the images I've downloaded from Ancestry and other sites - you
can download your copy here. Irfanview
has saved me a fortune in ink - the LostCousins member who recommended it to me
all those years ago deserves a medal!
LostCousins is
completely FREE this weekend ENDS TUESDAY
LostCousins is also free this weekend,
and the good news is that you've got an extra 48 hours, because my offer
doesn't end until midnight on Tuesday 10th February.
As you find relatives on the 1841, 1881,
and 1911 censuses it make sense to enter them on your My Ancestors page straightaway, so that I can link you with the
other members - your 'lost cousins' - who have already entered them. Simply click
the Search button and the LostCousins
computer will automatically check every entry you've made against the millions
of entries made by other members.
Tip:
it doesn't matter if your new-found cousins don't reply before midnight on
Tuesday - as long as you have initiated contact during the offer period (by clicking
'Make contact' on your My Cousins page), you'll be OK.
Of course, you won't always get an
instant match - somebody has to be the first person to enter a particular
relative - but once you've entered your relatives your cousins will be able to
find you (and you only have to click the Search
button to look for matches all over again).
Tip:
the 1881 census is the one that's most likely to link you to your 'lost
cousins', and you'll get most matches when you enter the members of your
ancestors' extended families - their brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and
cousins.
MASTERCLASS: finding
birth certificates
It's very frustrating when you can't
find an ancestor's birth certificate - but often the 'brick wall' only exists
in our imagination. Let's look at some of the key reasons why a certificate
can't be found....
· The forename you know your ancestor by may not be the
one on the birth certificate: sometimes the name(s) given at the time of baptism would differ from the
name(s) given to the registrar of births; sometimes a middle name was
preferred, perhaps to avoid confusion with another family member, often the
father. Although it was possible to amend a birth registry entry to reflect a
change of name at baptism, most people seem not to have bothered. But there
can be all sorts of reasons why a different forename is used - one of my
ancestors appears on some censuses as 'Ebenezer' and on others as 'John' (which
I imagine was the name he was generally known by). In another family the
children (and there were lots of them) were all known by their middle names.
· Middle names come and go: at the beginning of the 19th century it was
rare to have a middle name, but by the beginning of the 20th century it was
unusual not to have one. Some people invented middle names, some people dropped
middle names they didn't like, and sometimes people simply forgot what was on
the birth certificate. For example, one of my relatives was registered
as Fred, but in 1911 his father - my great-grandfather - gave his name as
Frederick.
· The surname on the certificate may not be the one you
expect: if the parents weren't married at
the time of the birth then usually (but not always) the birth will be recorded
under the mother's maiden name (the exception is where the mother was using the
father's surname and failed to disclose to the registrar that they weren't
married). Also bear in mind the
possibility that the surname you know your ancestor by was
his stepfather's name - this could apply whether nor not the child was born
outside marriage.
· You're looking for the wrong father: often the best clue you have to the identity
of your ancestor's father is the information on his or her marriage
certificate. Unfortunately marriage certificates are often incorrect - the
father's name and/or occupation may well be wrong. This is particularly likely
if your ancestor never knew his or her father, whether as a result of early
death or illegitimacy. Not many people admit to being illegitimate on their
wedding day - and in Victorian Britain illegitimacy was frowned upon, so single
mothers often made up stories to tell their children (as well as the
neighbours). Whether or not the birth was legitimate young children
often took the name of the man their mother later married, so always bear in
mind the possibility that the father whose name is shown on the marriage
certificate is actually a step-father.
· You may be looking in the wrong place: a child's birthplace is likely to be shown
correctly when he or she is living at home (few mothers are going to forget
where they were when they gave birth!), but could well be incorrect after
leaving home. Many people simply didn't know where they were born, and assumed
it was the place they remembered growing up. The most accurate
birthplace is the one given by the father or (especially) the mother of the
person whose birth you're trying to track down; the least accurate is likely to
be the one in the first census after they leave home.
· You may be looking in the wrong period: ages on censuses are often wrong, as are the
ages shown on marriage certificates - especially if there is an age gap between
the parties, or one or both is below the age of consent (21). Sometimes people
didn't know how old they were, or knew which year they were born, but bungled
the subtraction; ages on death certificates can be little more than guesses, or
may be based on an incorrect age shown on the deceased's marriage certificate.
Remember too that births could be registered up to 42 days afterwards without
penalty, so many will be recorded in the following quarter - and they could be
registered up to 365 days afterwards on payment of a fine. In my
experience, where the marriage certificate shows 'of full age' it's often an
indication that in reality they were under 21!
· The birth was not registered at all: this is the least likely situation, but it
did happen occasionally - most often in the first few years of registration,
though it wasn't until 1875 that there was a penalty for failing to register a
birth.
· The GRO indexes are wrong: this is also quite rare, but did happen
occasionally despite the checks that were carried out.
How can you overcome these problems?
First and foremost keep an open mind - be prepared to accept that any or all of
the information you already have may be wrong. This is particularly likely if
you have been unable to find your relative at home with their parents on any of
the censuses.
Obtain all the information that you can
from censuses, certificates, baptism entries and other sources (such as Army
records). Sometimes it will be worth buying certificates for all of the
children - one member told me recently that she only found her ancestor's real
surname on one of the birth certificates for his eight children - but start
with their baptisms, as this is a much cheaper option (though, of course, the
information won't necessarily be the same).
The less information you can find, the
more likely it is that the little you already have is incorrect or misleading
in some way. For example, if you can't find your ancestor on ANY censuses prior
to his marriage, you can be pretty certain that the information on the marriage
certificate and later censuses is wrong in some material way.
Don't assume that just because
something appears in an official document, it must be right. Around half of the
19th century marriage certificates I've seen included at least one error, and
as many as half of all census entries are also wrong in some respect (I'm not
talking about transcription errors, by the way). Army records are particularly unreliable - one of my relatives added 2
years to his age when he joined the British Army in 1880, and knocked 7 years
off when he signed up for the Canadian Expeditionary Force in 1914.
Some people
really were named Tom, Dick, or Harry but over-eager record-keepers might
assume that they were actually Thomas, Richard and Henry. My grandfather was
Harry, but according to his army records he was Henry (just as well he had two
other forenames, which were recorded correctly).
Consider how and why the information
you have might be wrong by working your way through the list above - then come
up with a strategy to deal with each possibility. Sometimes it's as easy as
ordering the birth certificate for a sibling to find out the mother's maiden
name; often discovering when the parents married is a vital clue.
If you can't find your ancestor on the
census with his or her parents then you should be particularly suspicious of
the information you have - it's very likely that some element is wrong, and it
is quite conceivable that it is ALL wrong.
Middle names that could also be
surnames often indicate illegitimacy - it was usually the only way to get the
father's name on the birth certificate. Unusual middle names can
provide clues - I remember helping one member find an ancestor whose birth was
under a completely different surname by taking advantage of the fact that his
middle name was Ptolemy!
Make use of local BMD indexes (start
at UKBMD),
and don't forget to look for your ancestor's baptism - sometimes we forget that
parents continued to have their children baptised after Civil Registration
began. Consider the possibility that one or both of the parents died when your
ancestor was young - perhaps there will be evidence in workhouse records. Have
you looked for wills?
Could the witnesses to your ancestor's
marriage be relatives? When my
great-great-great grandfather Joseph Harrison married, one of the witnesses was
a Sarah Salter - who I later discovered (after many years of fruitless
searching) was his mother. Her maiden name wasn't Salter, by the way - nor was
it Harrison - and it was only because the Salter name stuck in my mind that I
managed to knock down the 'brick wall'. Another marriage witness with a surname
I didn't recognise proved invaluable when I was struggling with my Smith line -
he turned up as a lodger in the census, helping to prove that I was looking at
the same family on two successive censuses, even though the names and ages of
the children didn't tally, and the father had morphed from a carpenter to a rag
merchant.
Finally, remember that you're probably
not the only one researching this particular ancestor - and one of your cousins
may already have the answers you're seeking. So make sure that you have entered
ALL your relatives from 1881 on your My Ancestors page, as
this is the census that is most likely to link you to your 'lost cousins'.
Did you win the New
Year Competition?
Many congratulations to Stephen, who won
himself a 12 month subscription to Deceased
Online, the leading source of burial and cremation records covering the
last 150 years (thanks to Deceased Online I finally found the graves of the
grandmother I never met, her parents, and many other family members). Stephen
referred Frances using the Refer a
Relative option on his My Referrals
page, which meant that there were scores of relatives listed on Frances' My Ancestors page when she first logged
in.
Frances did her bit too - she added
another 37 relatives before Tuesday's midnight deadline, earning herself and Stephen
a bonus of £37 each.
A further 10 new members will each receive
a free 12 month LostCousins subscription and a FREE digital photo
repair/restoration worth up to £8.99 generously donated by Repixl, who have already
produced stunning results for hundreds of LostCousins members. And the 9
members who referred them will each receive the same runners-up prizes (one
canny member referred two of the winners and so will get a double helping). I
was delighted to see that Alexander, who helps me run the LostCousins Forum (but
is better known as author of the popular free utility Family Tree Analyzer)
was amongst the winners.
Check your My Summary page over the next few days to find out whether you're
one of the runners-up - I'll be updating the winners' accounts shortly.
Photo detective comes up
trumps
Jacqueline, who I met for the first time
at the inaugural Genealogy in the
Sunshine last year (I'm glad to say that she and her husband Ken will be
back next month), wrote to tell me how delighted she was with the service from Jayne Shrimpton,
who is able to date and analyse old photographs just by looking at scans of
them.
If you're puzzling over a photograph
that you've inherited it's an option you might want to consider.
Canada's
"cancelled" census costs cities
In 2010 Canada decided to abandon the mandatory long-form census in favour of a
voluntary survey - now planners are finding that they can't do their job
properly, as this recent article
from The Globe and Mail reports.
It's a reminder for those of us in
Britain that whilst the 2021 Census has been saved, it's unlikely that there
will be a traditional census in 2031.
Prisoner of war
interview reports 1914-1918
If one of your relatives was a PoW in WW1 it's possible that they
were one of more than 3000 to be interviewed by the Committee on the Treatment
of British Prisoners of War before the Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918.
You'll find more information here
on the National Archives website.
WW1 Soldiers' Effects
- records now online
Ancestry have added a collection of 872,395 records from WW1 which
I hadn't come across before - they relate to monies owed to soldiers who were
killed (though there are a small number of soldiers who were discharged because
of insanity). You can search the records here.
For example, I discovered that my great
uncle Herbert was due £2 6s 2d when he was killed in action in January 1916, a
sum which was paid to his widow nearly three months later. A further amount of
£3 was sent to her in 1919, as a War Gratuity.
Widows of soldiers who were killed in
WW1 could be granted a pension of 13s 9d a week, but in the event of
re-marriage this would stop - so it isn't surprising that whilst my great
uncle's widow bore two more children after his death she didn't marry the
father.
You can find out more about war pensions
in this 1918 book which is available free online. Click here
for a text version, or here
for a PDF file (which could be slow to load - it was for me).
Ancestry's death
records - the mystery solved
In the last issue I was speculating
where Ancestry had sourced their Scotland
and Northern Ireland death index 1989-2013. Subsequently Ancestry added
this information to their web page - apparently it comes from a company in West
Yorkshire called Wilmington Millennium, and is from their 'Grey Power Deceased
Data' collection.
A similar index for England
& Wales 2007-13 was also launched around the same time - it comes from
the same source. Neither index is complete - Ancestry suggest that they include
45% and 55% respectively of the deaths that occurred - and the England &
Wales index is likely to have a significant overlap with the free probate index at
the will ordering site (see below).
If you've been holding back from
ordering wills since reading about the problems in my last newsletter, I do
have some clarification about the folio number issue - apparently only wills
proved in London between 1858-1930 have folio numbers, so if your relative's will
was proved after 1930, or at one of the provincial registries you don't need to
supply a folio number. Many thanks to member Peter for
pointing this out to me.
We all have 'brick walls' that we want
to knock down, but often it takes someone looking over our shoulder to spot the
obvious. But how much better it would be if we could learn some techniques that
will help us to knock down the 'brick walls' ourselves, rather than bang our
heads against them!
You might think that you couldn't learn
anything much from a genealogy book that was only 64 pages long, but as I read Nuts and Bolts: Family History Problem
Solving through Family Reconstitution Techniques by Andrew Todd I was
continually nodding my head in agreement, because there were so many invaluable
tips - many of which I'd used in my own research but never thought to write
down at the time so that I could share them with you.
For example, on page 26 the author
points out that even when the birthplace shown on the census is wrong, it can
still be useful information - because it provides a clue to the whereabouts of
the family at the time that person was growing up. In other words, it might not
help us directly with our ancestry, but it does tell us something about our
family history - as the author says, "Birthplaces may be factually wrong, but they are rarely irrelevant."
Family reconstitution is all about
looking beyond our direct line ancestors to their siblings, cousins, and
perhaps also to people who might siblings or cousins if only we can find the
connection. It helps us to make sense of the (all too common) situation where
there is more than one candidate, but it can also lead to so much more. Naturally
it ties in very well to what we should be doing anyway if we want to connect up
with our 'lost cousins' - remember, they're all descended from collateral lines,
so the more research we do into our collateral lines the more cousins we'll
find, and the more we'll ultimately learn about our direct line ancestors.
Nuts
and Bolts may be only 64 pages, but
it is crammed with useful advice that we can all benefit from, no matter how
much experience we have. I recommend it without reservation, but perhaps the
highest praise comes from the Amazon
reviewer who bought a second copy, having lent out his first! Available for
£3.50 plus postage & packing from The
Family History Partnership it's worth every penny (but I gather their
stocks are running low, so don't delay).
Three parent
families to go ahead
Earlier this week the House of Commons
voted by a majority of 3 to 1 to allow women whose mitochondrial DNA has
serious defects to give birth to healthy children. The procedure involves the
donation of an egg by a woman with healthy mtDNA (as
you can see from the diagrams in this BBC article).
Only a very small proportion of the
child's genome will come from the donor - less than 0.1% - and the number of genetically-modified
children born each year will be small (about 150), but the procedure is
nevertheless controversial in some circles.
The donors will not have any parental
rights, nor will they be recorded on the birth certificates of the children -
nor is it likely that they could be identified with a DNA test because so many
people have identical mtDNA.
Genomics England, which is 100%
owned by the Department of Health has begun to sequence 100,000 human genomes, starting with those of
people who have rare diseases and cancers. The number of people involved in the
project will be less than the headline figure because those with cancer will
provide two samples, one from the tumour, and one from the patient's healthy
cells.
The hope is that it will be possible to
identify genetic causes of the illnesses so that diagnosis and treatment can be
improved, but there are also likely to be other unanticipated benefits from a
major project like this. It could also help to drive down the cost of whole
genome sequencing, so could ultimately help family historians who have been
forced to resort to DNA testing in order to break down 'brick walls'.
According to this Daily Telegraph article,
one of the people who'll be tested is a 37 year-old space scientist who is under 4ft tall - even though his parents were both normal
height.
1215 lucky people see
all surviving copies of the Magna Carta
You probably wouldn't want to be one of
the tens of thousands in the 100,000 Genomes Project, because it would mean
that you, or someone close to you, was suffering. But
I bet you would have wanted to be one of the 1215 people who this
week have had the privilege of viewing all four surviving copies of this
momentous document (you can read more in this BBC article).
Last time I mentioned the Magna Carta I
was criticised for saying it was signed, whereas it was actually sealed. In my
view that's as petty as the General Register Office insisting that copy BMD certificates
must be provided on paper, and not digitally. Move with the times, guys!
It's not just British records that can
be accessed free at Ancestry this weekend - if you go to Ancestry.com.au
you can search New Zealand records free of charge (this marks Waitangi Day, which for
indigenous New Zealanders was when their 'Magna Carta' was signed). Check out
the recently-added collection of 1.6 million records from New Zealand
cemeteries.
I'm willing to bet that thousands of
people reading this have never used eBay. I started using eBay after I was made
redundant about 15 years ago - it soon become apparent that at my age I was
virtually unemployable (there was no age discrimination legislation in those
days), and so I raised money by selling many of the things I'd accumulated over
the previous 20 years. Ironically, one of the companies that turned me down on
the grounds of my age was eBay's UK subsidiary - but I don't hold it against
them because they were only doing the same as everyone else. (I'd argue now
that eBay's loss is LostCousins' gain!)
If you have never used eBay before, but
might be tempted to try by the offer of a £10 voucher, sign up using this link - and that way we could
both benefit. One of the bargains on offer when I looked today was Family Tree Maker 2014 World Edition,
which comes with a free 6 month Ancestry.co.uk World subscription (worth nearly
£90) - for just £62.99 including postage within the UK.
Last weekend it was the 22nd anniversary
of the day my wife and I met, so we decided to watch one of the films that we'd
been saving for a special occasion; we chose Philomena,
the true story of a mother whose illegitimate son was taken away in the mid-1950s.
Philomena was nominated for 4 Academy
Awards, including Best Actress for Judi Dench's wonderful portrayal of the
title character, and Best Picture. I don't know whether it was the champagne
that we were drinking, or the movie, but we both had tears in our eyes as we
watched - it was very moving, and made more so by the knowledge that it was
just one child and one mother out of thousands. We don't usually watch the
'extras', but it was great to hear the real Philomena Lee talk about the film
and her experiences.
This month's Saga magazine (February
2015, pages 50-53) has an article about unmarried mothers in which two mothers,
now aged 72 and 82 tell their stories. It coincides with the publication of In
the Family Way, a book by Jane Robinson which is subtitled "Illegitimacy
Between the Great War and the Swinging Sixties".
I haven't read it yet - it only came out yesterday - but I have a feeling that
many readers of this newsletter will be able to relate to the issues (at least three
of my 19th century direct ancestors were illegitimate, and I suspect that when
I eventually knock down my highest 'brick wall' another illegitimate birth will
be revealed).
Tesco are once again in the news for the wrong
reasons: the way they treat their suppliers is going to be investigated by the Groceries
Code Adjudicator. Investigations have previously been announced by the Serious
Fraud Office and the Financial Reporting Council.
It seems they can't even get simple things
right - if you look at these cooking instructions from a pack of kale I bought
recently you'll see that they are contradictory. Let's hope that the kale my
wife and I ate had been washed before
it was packed, because I only read the microwave instructions. Tesco also boobed when they gave me a voucher for a £1 saving when I
spend £4 or more on Valentine cards: however, the most expensive card I could
see in my local store cost £3.50 - so do they think I'm a bigamist?
Bigamy, by the way, is one of the topics
that we'll be hearing about from Professor Rebecca Probert next month at Genealogy in the Sunshine. I'll be
posting the full programme on the LostCousins Forum next week. Tomorrow I'll be
in Upminster speaking to the East of London Family History Society - I only
hope that the snow doesn't make my journey too difficult - roll
on March and Genealogy in the Sunshine!
Note:
there is still one, possibly two apartments available at the Rocha Brava resort
if you want to join us next month - but please get in touch with me right away!
This is where I'll post any last minute
additions.
Have you broken down any of your 'brick walls' using the Masterclass
articles in this newsletter or the previous two? Do let me know if you have!
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2015 Peter Calver
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MAY link to this newsletter or email a link to your friends and relatives
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