Newsletter
- 29th October 2014
Get
a £50 John Lewis voucher with a World subscription ENDS
MONDAY
The
history of the John Lewis Partnership
Online
wills from 1858 onwards?
Home
Office comes in for more criticism
What are
piece numbers and folio numbers?
British
Newspapers Archive reaches 9 million mark
£1
for 1 month at the British Newspaper Archive ENDS
FRIDAY
The
Improbable Life & Times of Eliza Fairchild
Save
20% on photo restoration/repair
Review:
Dickens's Victorian London
Stop
Press UPDATED
The LostCousins newsletter is
usually published fortnightly. To access the previous newsletter (dated 16th
October) 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).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 may need to enable pop-ups in
your browser or change the settings in your security software, but first try a
different browser (such as the free Chrome browser which I use) .
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!
Get a £50 John Lewis
voucher with a World subscription ENDS MONDAY
Findmypast.co.uk have come up with a
great offer - buy a 12 month World subscription for £129.50 and get a free £50
voucher to use online at JohnLewis.com (think of it as an early Christmas
present)!
Note:
see Stop Press for details of another
Findmypast offer which covers ALL of their subscriptions and ALL of their
websites.
With a World subscription you'll not
only have access to Findmypast's British records and newspaper articles, you'll
also have access to their collections from Ireland (including Northern
Ireland), Australia, New Zealand, and the USA.
As recently as February you could have
paid £159.95 for a Findmypast World subscription, so even without the voucher the
current price represents a big reduction - and if you take into account the
value of the voucher, the net cost is HALF what you might have paid earlier
this year! It's also less than you'd currently pay for a Britain subscription.
To
take advantage of this offer, which ends on Monday 3rd November, just follow
this link
to the LostCousins offer page at the Findmypast.co.uk website (please make sure
you read the terms and conditions).
Over the past year Findmypast have added
scores of new datasets and extended others. For example, we've seen the Shropshire
Collection with over 2 million parish records, and the first phases of the Devon,
Staffordshire
and Yorkshire
Collections, each with millions of parish register entries, and the first part
of a massive new collection, the National
School Admission Registers and Log-books 1870-1914. New military records
include almost 450,000 Royal
Air Force & Royal Flying Corps service records, most of which are
online for the very first time, numerous
army records, including the PALS
battalions, the Honourable
Artillery Company, and the most complete collection of WW1
service records (over 4.2m entries have been indexed, including nearly
600,000 new names).
Australian records added during 2014
include Victoria
Passenger Lists (there are now over 24 million records in the Australia
& New Zealand travel and migration collections alone), US records include New
England Naturalizations 1791-1906, and in Ireland the Petty
Sessions Court Registers have expanded to 21 million records.
Other news from Findmypast included the announcement
of a joint project with the National Archives to put the 1939 National Register
online - since the 1931 Census was destroyed, and the war prevented the taking
of a census in 1941, this is the closest thing to a census that exists for the
30-year period between 1921 and 1951. Also big news was the takeover of Origins.net,
whose records - including the National Will Index - are in the process of being
added to Findmypast's existing database of 1.8 BILLION records.
Note:
if you find that the links in this article don't work, please disable any adblocking software and try again (or use a different
browser - I use Chrome).
The history of the John
Lewis Partnership
It was John Spedan
Lewis, the eldest son of John Lewis, who turned his father's retailing business
into a partnership, owned by the people who worked in the business. Over the
past half century every employee has received an annual bonus averaging 8
weeks' pay - money that would have gone to shareholders in a more conventional
business. But the John Lewis Partnership don't just
look after their employees - they also treat their suppliers fairly, something
that other big retailers are often accused of failing to do.
LostCousins member Peter Cox worked for
the John Lewis Partnership for 35 years. After retiring he researched and wrote
Spedan's Partnership, which tells how a tiny Oxford
Street fabrics shop grew to become the most successful employee-owned business
in Britain. In March this year those of us who were fortunate enough to be in
Portugal for Genealogy in the Sunshine
heard Peter talk about how we too could become published authors!
Amazon can only offer used copies of Spedan's Partnership, at around £20 each before
shipping - but the author has a few new copies which he has kindly offered to
LostCousins members for just £10 (plus £2.80 postage within the UK). He might
even sign them for you, if you ask nicely! You'll find his website here - please be sure to
mention that you are a LostCousins member.
Note:
you can hear John Spedan Lewis speaking on the
wireless in 1957 if you follow this link.
At the beginning of October
Findmypast.co.uk announced their new Findmypast
First programme, which offers a wide range of benefits to subscribers with
12 month subscriptions - you can read more about them here.
Currently there is no equivalent
programme for other Findmypast sites - Findmypast First is exclusive to
Findmypast.co.uk; please also note that some of the benefits may not be
available to subscribers who live outside the UK.
Note:
if you take out a World subscription under the offer above you'll automatically
qualify for Findmypast First privileges.
Online wills from 1858
onwards?
It's rumoured that once the beta test of
the Probate Service website
offering online ordering of wills from 1996-2014 is complete, the project will
be extended to cover all England & Wales wills from 1858 onwards.
If there's any truth in the rumour then it's
particularly important to submit comments using the Feedback link on the
Probate Service website - it will be a lot easier to get them to iron out
problems now, especially since there's an outside contractor involved (Iron
Mountain).
Army wills were the first modern wills
to be made available online - the collection now includes 278,000 wills, and
covers WW2 as well as WW1. You might find this Guardian article
interesting.
Note:
you can already search the National
Probate Calendar 1858-1966 at Ancestry - this will tell you whether or not
your ancestor's estate went to probate, and if so, whether there was a will.
Home Office comes in
for more criticism
In the last newsletter I mentioned that
the problems of the Passport Agency, which includes the General Register
Office. Today the Public Accounts Committee roundly condemned the failure to
deal effectively with asylum cases - some 29,000 applications in progress data
back to 2007 or even earlier!
You can read more about this latest
debacle in an article
on the BBC website.
Most DNA companies can only match your
results with those of other people who have tested with the same company - but Family
Tree DNA allows people who have tested with other DNA companies to submit
their results (provided the tests are compatible). Currently they have a special offer for
those who have tested their autosomal DNA with Ancestry.com or 23and Me - you can transfer your test results free, and you'll
also see your top 20 matches free of charge.
You can then unlock ALL of your matches
for free by recruiting 4 other relatives or friends to transfer their results
using a special link - or else you can pay $39 for instant access.
Since it costs nothing to transfer for
your test results and see the first 20 matches there doesn't seem to be anything
to lose. And, of course, those of us who chose Family Tree DNA's Family
Finder test in the first place will gain from having an even larger pool to
compare against.
It's not only DNA tests that become more
useful when there's a larger pool to compare against - the same applies to
matches at LostCousins. The more members there are, the more cousins of yours
(and mine) there will be among the membership.
All of us who have been researching for
a few years (or a few decades!) will be in touch with cousins who are also
researching their family tree - so why not invite them to join LostCousins?
After all it's free to join and search - and, because there are several free
weekends every year, nobody has to pay a subscription (though I'm very grateful
to those who do, as it helps to keep the site going).
What are piece numbers and
folio numbers?
A lot of members who have yet to
complete their My Ancestors page tell
me it's because they're confused about the census references. Since I was also
rather befuddled by talk of piece numbers and folio numbers when I first
started my research I thought it might be a good idea to explain them for the
benefit of anyone else in the same position.
The National Archives has a long article
explaining how to 'cite' documents, which explains that a "piece is not a
single piece of paper; it may be a box, volume, file, roll and so on".
However, all you really need to know is that, in the case of the censuses, a piece is a bundle of enumeration books.
Piece numbers aren't shown on the
documents themselves, but when the 1841-1901 censuses were microfilmed a slip
of paper showing the record series (eg RG11 for 1881)
and the piece number was placed alongside the pages, so it appears in the
image.
Technically a folio is a sheet of paper, but for our purposes it refers to a
single leaf of an enumeration book (ie two pages).
Enumeration books had pre-printed page numbers, which are small and can be hard
to read, but the folio numbers were added later using a handstamp
- they're much larger, and can be found in the top right-hand corner.
Whereas every page bears a page number,
only the front side of each leaf is stamped with the folio number (usually in
the top right-hand corner). However the ink often shows through to the other
side of the paper, and if so it will appear as a reversed image.
If you're looking at pages from the 1881
Census only half will show a folio number - the odd-numbered pages. To find out
the folio number for an even numbered page view the image of
the previous page, or else refer to the transcription. Here's an excerpt
from the transcription for my great-great-grandfather's household, taken from
Findmypast:
Both Ancestry and Findmypast set out the
1881 references neatly, and in the same order as you would enter them on your My Ancestors page - it really is
difficult to go wrong with the 1881 Census, especially since you should be
taking all the data you enter from the transcription.
My AncestorsBETA
Every relative entered on your My Ancestors page is a potential link to
a 'lost cousin' - but the LostCousins system can only match your entry with
your cousin's entry if you've both entered the same data. Computers are pretty
smart, but they can't read minds (at least, not yet).
I get a lot of emails from members
asking me whether they've entered the correct census references when completing
the My Ancestors page - and 99% of
the time they have. However, because it takes me a long time to check their
entries (even if they've got them all right), I decided that it would be better
if members could easily check the entries themselves.
On your My Ancestors page you'll see in front of the
census references for each of the relatives you've entered from the England
& Wales censuses (1841, 1881, 1911). When you
click the symbol it will automatically search the relevant census using the
census references listed - and show you (in a new browser tab) who is entered
on that page of the census.
Tip:
this search uses the Findmypast.co.uk website, but you don't need to be a
subscriber to view the search results.
If you get 0 results this almost
certainly means that you've entered the wrong references - if you get any
results at all then you've probably entered the correct references (but just to
be sure, check that the head of the household is amongst the search results).
Tip:
most errors are simple typing mistakes - but it's also possible that you didn't
notice the advice on the Add Ancestor form; in this case click your relative's
name to display the Edit Ancestor form - the same advice will be shown there.
British Newspapers Archive
reaches 9 million mark
The British Newspaper Archive now
includes over 9 million newspaper pages from British and Irish newspapers in
the British Library collection (the 10-year project will eventually include an
incredible 40 million pages).
All of these articles are also available
at Findmypast, but at the British Newspaper Archive - which caters for a
different audience - the search options are more varied and more powerful.
£1 for 1 month at the
British Newspaper Archive ENDS
FRIDAY
Until the end of October you can
purchase a monthly subscription to the British Newspaper Archive which will
cost just £1 for the first month - it's a great opportunity to search more than
100 million articles (my estimate) and find out things about your ancestors
that you'll never learn from the censuses.
For example, I discovered that one of my
relatives had been fined for driving at the breakneck speed of 30 mph - and
that one of my direct ancestors had been sentenced to one year's hard labour for
breaking into a shop and stealing tobacco. Just as well he wasn't transported
(or worse), otherwise I wouldn't be here today!
Even if you've got a Findmypast
subscription it's worth spending £1 to try out the different searches that the
BNA site offers - I find that being able to exclude
certain keywords is particularly useful.
To take advantage of this offer, click here and use
the offer code OCTDEAL
Please bear in mind that your subscription
will renew automatically at the end of the month at the full price of £9.95
unless you change the settings in the My Account section of the website - but
it's easy to do and no phone calls are necessary. When you go to My
Account click on Personal Details (or choose Edit Details from the dropdown
menu) - you'll see "Auto-renew my subscription" right down the
bottom.
The Improbable Life &
Times of Eliza Fairchild
A few years ago LostCousins member Tony
Martin came to me with a story so improbable that it had to be true - and I
thought you'd be interested in the second instalment.....
In 2011 I wrote an article for LostCousins
about the improbable life of barmaid Eliza Dinah Fairchild, born in Southampton
in 1856, who in 1877 she married Henry Digby
Sheffield, the brother of the 5th Baronet Sheffield. This wasn't her
only romantic connection to the aristocracy: in 1905 she sued the Marquess Townshend for breach of promise.
This story of
social-climbing subsequently won the Federation of family History Society’s
2011 competition and was published in Your
Family History magazine. The transformation of barmaid Eliza into society
lady Evelyn pre-dates George Bernard Shaw’s 1912 play Pygmalion (which, after Shaw died in 1950 became the musical My
Fair Lady) so it's quite
possible that Eliza Fairchild was the original inspiration for Eliza
Doolittle.
With family history there is
always more to be discovered. In the case of Eliza, or "Evelyn" (the
persona she so successfully adopted), the research reveals an even more bizarre
and improbable story. After the article was published I connected with Evelyn’s
great-great nephew, Ian Fairchild, through Lost Cousins and together with distant
cousin Kate Parker (who originally found Eliza’s story), we continued to trawl
all sources.
The most productive source
for Evelyn’s life after the death of her husband in 1888 was the News of The World report on the 1905 law
suit against the Marquess. In the article it
mentioned Sir John Sebright, someone she looked on as
her guardian. Later in the piece it says "she was regarded as a wealthy
woman: she lived in a good house, well-furnished, and had good pictures around
her".
The source of her pictures
is probably explained by the will of Sir John who died in 1890. He went
bankrupt in 1887 with debts of more than £140,000, a colossal sum for the time.
In his will Evelyn was left £500 and his photographs, pictures and albums. Sir John’s widow was not left destitute,
however, because it was reported that his life was insured for £140,000. Sir
John’s grandfather, the 7th baronet, bred the highly decorative Sebright
Bantam.
Another gentleman mentioned
in the News of The World was a Mr Tallerman, with whom Evelyn was apparently "very
friendly ". I found nothing more on Mr Tallerman
until I chanced upon an 1894 patent application in the name Tallerman
and Sheffield which had been filed in Victoria, Australia. The patent covered
medical equipment: given Evelyn’s society background I thought this bizarre,
but once again truth was stranger than fiction.
Lewis Abraham Tellerman had been born in London in 1845, and had been in
business with his older brother Daniel, trading as S D & LA Tallerman Colonial & Export Merchants until 1881, when
Lewis took full control. Daniel was in Australia between
1853-68 and developed a method for preserving and transporting meat in
cold storage; when he returned to London he introduced cheap restaurants and
penny dinners to popularise Australian meat. Lewis also spent part of the 1870s
in Australia, and on his return about 1880 he developed and patented the Tallerman-Sheffield Hot Air Treatment of Disease for
treating rheumatic-gout type conditions with super-heated air. The Tallerman-Sheffield
Dry Air bath was tested successfully in 1894 at St Bartholomew's Hospital and
then taken up by that and other London hospitals (an article in The Lancet in 1895 described its use in
the North-West London Hospital),eventually spreading to Paris, Berlin, Baden Baden and Philadelphia. He also ensured that the treatment
was available for free for the treatment of the sick and disabled poor.
Evelyn’s contribution to the invention is unknown, but her name is definitely
there in the patent.
Lewis Tallerman
seems to have been quite a character. He was a Director of the Gaiety Theatre
in London, but in 1903 died suddenly at the conclusion of a dinner party he had
hosted for friends at the Langham Hotel. By the time of the 1911 Census Evelyn
was living in Bromley - her occupation was listed as 'medical'. It would be
nice to think that she was a private practitioner of the Tallerman-Sheffield
Hot Air treatment but sadly there is no confirmation available at present.
Evelyn’s main benefactor
mentioned in the News of The World was
John Lewis Garden, a Suffolk landowner.
Given the improbable connections discovered concerning Evelyn’s other
benefactors I decided to check him out in detail. I was not disappointed. Research showed that
Mr Garden was the estranged husband of Princess Caroline Murat, the great
granddaughter of Joachim Murat, King of Naples and the husband of Napoleon’s
sister Caroline. The Garden marriage was not a happy one and the couple lived
apart. According to the court report when he died in 1892, Mr Garden left
property to Mrs Sheffield valued at £7000 - at a time when many families were
living on £1 a week that was a huge sum!
The 1861 census shows John
Garden staying at Fentons Hotel in St James’s Street,
London. According to The News of the World report, which blends
facts with Evelyn’s invented origins, she met her
husband Henry Digby Sheffield when he lived in St
James’s. All the main men in her life appear to have known each other and
shared a similar life style. It is entirely plausible that Eliza was employed
in an establishment such as Fentons Hotel which has
several barmaids listed in the census returns. It will be interesting to see
what further research reveals - I am sure she will not disappoint us!
© Tony Martin 2014
Note:
if you have access to the British Newspaper Archive, either directly or via
Findmypast, you'll find over 20 articles about Evelyn Sheffield between 1905-6. You'll also find an 1896 article which
describes how a well-known singer benefited from the Tallerman-Sheffield
hot air bath.
Save 20% on photo
restoration/repair
I've only ever had positive feedback
from members who have tried the Repixl
photo restoration site, so I'm delighted to have once again been able to
arrange an exclusive discount for readers of my newsletter.
A 20% discount on all photo
editing (but not prints) means that their amazing restoration service will cost
just £7.19 rather than £8.99 (which, when you look here
at what they can achieve, is an absolute bargain). Alternatively if you've got
photos that, whilst not damaged, aren't quite as good as you'd like there's a
range of other options starting from just £1.99 (and that's before the
discount).
The best important thing about the
Repixl service is that you don't need to send them your valuable photographs -
simply scan them in (ideally at the highest resolution your scanner allows) and
upload the image files to the Repixl website. You can upload as many photos as
you want - simply uploading them doesn't commit you to anything.
This offer runs until Christmas Day, so
if you place an order now and like what you see (as I'm sure you will) you'll
have plenty of time to place further orders. When you go to your online
shopping basket type the code LOSTCOUSINSXMAS14 into the box - the prices will
adjust to show the discount (and, provided you use one of the links above,
LostCousins will also benefit).
Note:
you can, of course, also send more recent photos for the Repixl treatment - and
if your photos were taken with a digital camera there's obviously no need to
scan them in.
Once we get back beyond the start of
parish registers it can be extremely difficult to find any evidence that our
ancestors existed - unless they were rich or titled. But reading an article by
Alan Crosby in the latest issue of Who Do
You Think You Are? magazine reminded me that
there's a database of over a quarter of a million ordinary soldiers from the
1369-1453 period that you can search
free online.
In March 2011 I wrote about Mapping our ANZACS, a website which offered
free access to 375,000 Australian service records from World War 1. Although
the link I provided then still works, the original website is closing - the new
website is Discovering ANZACs.
Records at Discovering Anzacs include:
Review: Dickens's Victorian London
There are over 200 amazing photographs
from the Museum of London's collections in Dickens's
Victorian London, many of which had never previously been published. The pictures which
show the construction of the Metropolitan District Railway in 1866-67 present
an amazing contrast with the current-day Crossrail
project.
There are
photographs of shops, houses, people at work - the 1877 photograph of a second-hand
furniture dealer is amazingly lifelike, and almost three-dimensional. I bought
my copy of this beautiful hardback book from Amazon
- at about half the cover price - and if, like me, you have ancestors who lived
in London during the reign of Queen Victoria it’s well worth buying it for
yourself as an early Christmas present!
Links:
Amazon.co.uk
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.ca
(by using these links you'll be supporting LostCousins)
Religious extremism, treachery,
kidnapping, torture, beheadings - this isn't the boring history I was supposed
to learn (but didn't) when I was at school. Charles Spencer's Killers
of the King may not be a genealogy book, but if you've succeeded in
researching back as far as the 17th century on some of your lines it will help
to put things into perspective. And if you think that the Civil War was just
about Roundheads and Cavaliers, Parliament vs the Monarchy, you'll discover
that the reality was much more complex.
Subtitled "The Men Who Dared to
Execute Charles I", the book describes the events that led up to the
execution of King Charles in 1649, then demonstrates how Cromwell's own regal
ambitions created an atmosphere in which Charles II could regain the throne in
1660. Spencer's excellent account then focuses on the frantic manoeuvring by
those who had had some involvement in the King's death, and tracks their fate.
Some handed themselves in, expecting to be pardoned - or, at the least, to
escape with their lives. Others fled the kingdom, only to find that there were
few safe hiding places in Europe or the American Colonies.
I was particularly interested to see
what he had to say about Cornelius Holland, who is believed to have been one of
those involved in drawing up the charges against Charles I - because I have a
document which bear's Holland's signature (it dates from late 1645, as the
First Civil War was coming to a close). Incidentally, after I mentioned
Cornelius Holland in the last newsletter I had an email from Nancy in New
Zealand, who told me that he's a relative of hers - isn't it a small world!
Killers of the King is
available as a hardback book, or in Kindle format. On this occasion I bought
the hardback, even though it was twice as expensive - perhaps one day I'll bump
into the author again, and can persuade him to sign it!
Links:
Amazon.co.uk
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.ca
(by using these links you'll be supporting LostCousins)
When I hire a car abroad I always book
through Enjoy Car Hire,
based in Norfolk - because they offer amazing prices. For example, those of you
who are coming to Genealogy in the
Sunshine next March will have found that you can hire a car for less than
£5 a day and - uniquely amongst low-cost car hire websites - Enjoy has a
fair-fuel policy, which means you won't be charged for fuel that you don't use.
Just after the last newsletter was
published the Government launched a public consultation about peer-to-peer
lending and tax-free ISAs. Currently you can put your money into a risk-free Cash
ISA with an interest rate so low that the fact it's tax-free is pretty
meaningless - or you can buy a Stocks and Shares ISA, which might offer a
higher return but also involves a high degree of risk to your capital (which
reminds me - I read today that the Serious Fraud Office is carrying out a
criminal investigation into the accounting irregularities at Tesco).
But if, like me, you're earning 4%, 5%,
or even 6% on your savings through peer-to-peer lending it makes a big
difference whether or not that return is tax-free - although even after tax I'm
earning 2 to 3 times as much as I would in a Cash ISA. (See my article
in the last issue.)
So I'd encourage you to read the consultation
document and respond - although you might prefer to wait to see what
recommendations I make (the consultation is open until 13th December).
I had several emails from readers
following my article about the sinking of the Empress of Ireland - sadly several of you lost relatives in the
tragedy. I was hoping to include a follow-up article in this newsletter, but
I've run out of space (and time) and will have to defer it until the next issue
- so if there's anyone else who has connections to the ship please let me know.
In the meantime remember that The
Lost Empress, Steve Robinson's genealogical mystery novel is out now!
Finally, you might enjoy looking at
these rather unusual photos
of historic events - I did.
Just after this newsletter was published
Findmypast announced a Halloween offer - which isn't nearly as scary as it
sounds, because it offers 20% of ANY subscription at ANY of the four Findmypast
sites around the world, which means there's something for everyone. You've got
until Thursday 6th November to take advantage of this offer - just pick the appropriate
link from the list below:
BRITAIN: Findmypast.co.uk
IRELAND: Findmypast.ie
USA: Findmypast.com
AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND: Findmypast.com.au
Whilst this offers
also applies to the 1 month subscription, you'll only save on your first
month's subscription - after that you'll pay full price. So my advice is to go
for a 12 month subscription so that you lock in your savings for a full year!
Note: the terms and conditions on the offer page
state that the offer is for new and lapsed subscribers only. But if the link doesn't work
for you, see the note at the end of the first article.
Thanks for taking the time to read the
newsletter - I hope you find it useful. And if so, why not encourage the family
historians you're in touch with to join LostCousins?
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. 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 this 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.