Newsletter
- 17th July 2013
World War
1 flying records to be digitised
2
million more Hertfordshire records online
Irish
'certificates' now available over email
West
Yorkshire burials and cremations online
New Zealand
Family History Fair
Want
to know what's new at Ancestry?
Errors
in online trees: continued
12
months for the price of 6 at Genes Reunited EXCLUSIVE
Does
researching your tree make you happier?
Book
Sale at the National Archives - save up to 70%
Where are all the 90 year-olds?
The LostCousins newsletter is
usually published fortnightly. To access the previous newsletter (dated 1 July
2013) click here, for an index to articles
from 2009-10 click here, for
a list of articles from 2011 click here and for a
list of articles from 2012-13 click here.
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 or change the settings In your security software.
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!
I'm glad to say that in my report last
issue I was wrong about one thing - it seems there have been a couple of
meetings between the Office of National Statistics and representatives of
various genealogical organisations, although I've so far been unable to find
out what was said at those meetings.
This isn't one of those cases where
behind the scenes negotiations in smoke-filled rooms are the only way to deal
with the issue - there needs to be more openness, not just from the ONS, but
also from the organisations that have been meeting with them on behalf of you
and me. (About 5 years ago there were similar meetings with the GRO - and look
where that has got us!)
Note:
the presentations from the conference I attended are now available online if you're
interested in looking through them.
World War 1 flying records
to be digitised
Findmypast and the National Archives
have today announced a major project to digitise over 300,000 service records
for members of the Royal Air Force and Royal Flying Corps - the earliest
records date from 1912.
The contract relates to AIR 79. The
records of officers are in AIR 76, and are already available
online from the National Archives (it costs £3.36 to download each record).
2 million more
Hertfordshire records online
I was busy researching my Hertfordshire
ancestors earlier this month after findmypast
announced that they had added 2 million records to their existing extensive
collection of Hertfordshire parish records. As usual, each 'brick wall' I
knocked down led to two more - but isn't that what it's all about?
For a list of the parishes and dates see
the announcement.
Irish 'certificates' now
available over email
There's great news for anyone with
relatives who lived in Ireland after the commencement of civil registration in
1864, especially if you live far from the Emerald Isle. The General Register
Office in Roscommon is now prepared to email 'research copies' of BMD
certificates instead of sending photocopies through the post - and the cost is
still only 4€, not much more than it costs to access a register entry online at
Scotlandspeople, and a small fraction of what it would cost to order a
certificate from the General Register Office for England & Wales.
You can read more about this improvement
to the service on Claire Santry's blog,
which is an excellent source of information about Irish family history.
West Yorkshire burials
and cremations online
DeceasedOnline
have added nearly 230,000 burial and cremation records for the Wakefield
Metropolitan District Council area, which includes not only Wakefield, but also
towns such as Castleford, Pontefract, Featherstone
and Knottingley. The earliest records date from 1857.
Most parish registers for the West
Yorkshire are online at Ancestry;
however from the mid-19th century onwards fewer and fewer people were buried in
churchyards, particularly those in towns.
New Zealand Family History
Fair
The 2013 New Zealand Family History Fair
will be held in Auckland between 2nd and 4th of August, and I was delighted to
see that as usual several of the speakers are LostCousins members. For more
details visit the website.
Want to know what's new
at Ancestry?
So do I. But
there's currently a bug at Ancestry that prevents me listing their new UK
collections - selecting United Kingdom
from the dropdown menu displays records from around the world. The only way I
was able to limit the list in some sensible fashion was to choose Wales from the menu (England isn't an
option).
Ancestry aren't the only ones who need to "pull their socks
up". I long for the day when I can search parish baptisms at findmypast
using the names of one or both parents - it would make it far easier to find my
ancestors' siblings. And I'm prepared to bet I'm not the only one who would
appreciate being able to specify the names of both spouses when searching for a
marriage.
Errors in online trees:
continued
Not surprisingly my article
in the last newsletter describing Simon's distressing experience attracted a
wealth of correspondence, almost all of it from readers whose research had also
been misused or misrepresented by others.
I'm afraid it's a very common problem - the
stories I report in my newsletter are just the tip of the iceberg, and for
every sad tale that I publish there are many others that don't make it into
print simply because I can't devote the whole of the newsletter to one topic,
albeit one that is both important and controversial.
Is it possible that by publishing our
own well-researched trees online we'll persuade other less diligent researchers
will realise that they've made a mistake and correct their errors? It's possible
- but sadly experience shows that it's very unlikely. People who are more
interested in quantity than quality aren't likely to experience a Damascene
conversion, and most of them simply ignore something that didn't fit their own
misguided view of the facts. Even if you try to contact them directly you're
likely to be ignored, or greeted with abuse.
One member - John - came up with a great
idea: if sites that host family trees would allow other users to rate them,
then at last we might begin to get the message home! However there's still the
danger that the views of the 9 people who copied the incorrect data will
overwhelm those of the 1 person who actually did the research and found the
right answers.
A common misconception is that if you have a private
Ancestry tree, others who share your ancestors
won't be able to find you - and it's a misconception that Ancestry themselves
help to perpetuate by limiting the options in their Search menu, which lists Public
Member Trees but omits any mention of private trees.
Of course, as many of you will know, if
you use Search All Records it
provides results from both private and public trees, and that applies whether
you use the Old Search that most
readers of this newsletter prefer, or the New
Search.
Note:
I wouldn't normally recommend using Search All Records - you'll usually get far
better results by searching different types of data separately - but this is
one instance where it is absolutely essential.
There's a real benefit to having a
private tree at Ancestry - to get access to your data your cousins have to do
what they'd be forced to do at sites like Genes Reunited and LostCousins - get
in touch!
12 months for the price
of 6 at Genes Reunited EXCLUSIVE
Although the average Genes Reunited
member isn't nearly as experienced as the typical LostCousins member, there are
an awful lot of them - so if you're trying to find a connection in a specific
branch it's a site that's well worth considering.
I've arranged an exclusive offer for
LostCousins members - until the end of July you'll save £5 on a 12 month
Standard subscription to Genes Reunited.co.uk when
you click here and use the offer code LCGENES, which brings the price down to
just £14.95, the same as you'd pay for a 6 month subscription!
There are two main ways to use Genes
Reunited - you can search for specific relatives, or you can upload your tree
as a Gedcom file (almost all family tree programs can
export your tree in this format). It's also possible to build a tree on Genes
Reunited, but I wouldn't recommend relying on ANY online tree as your main
repository of data.
A word of warning: when you try to
contact another member with whom a match has been made the default wording asks
if you can view their tree. However, since you wouldn't (I hope) let them see your tree until you're sure that there
really is a connection, it would be rather discourteous to ask to see theirs, don't you think? I simply change
the text of the email to ask how the other member is connected to the relative
that we share - it only takes a few moments.
On the whole I don't recommend that you
share your entire tree with anyone, because - apart from your brothers,
sisters, children and grandchildren - nobody else shares more than half of your
tree, and most of the connections you make will be with people who share no more
than one-eighth of your ancestors. Whether you find your cousins at Ancestry,
Genes Reunited, or even LostCousins - it's best to share information on a
"need to know" basis.
Does researching your
tree make you happier?
According to studies from all over the
world collected by the World Happiness Database in Rotterdam, people involved
in activities are more likely to be happy. Professor Veenhoven
of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam also reported that people get happier as
they get older - because they get better at dealing with life (and since none
of us are getting any younger, that's definitely good news!).
A finding that some of you might find
surprising is that people with goals seem to be slightly less happy - though
having observed thousands of family historians over the years I'd already
noticed that the ones who follow the research wherever it leads seem to be more
fulfilled than those who spend decades trying to solve a particular mystery.
If you want to find out more, start with
this BBC News article,
then continue to the World
Happiness Database.
In the last newsletter I wrote
about an Essex parish where there were more baptisms in the last 6 days of June
1837 than in the first 6 months of 1836 - and speculated that there may have
been some confusion relating to the introduction of civil registration on 1st
July 1837.
Subsequently another LostCousins member,
Pete, wrote to tell me that on 30th June 1837 the Vicar of Saffron Walden, also
in Essex, baptised an amazing 157 children!
But it wasn't just an Essex thing - I
understand from Yvonne that at St Leonard's in Shoreditch, a more populous
parish, there were over 400 children baptised on 30th June!
Over the years I've had a number of
queries from members whose Internet telephone software (probably Skype) was
incorrectly identifying census references on their My Ancestors page as telephone numbers!
This month I had an email from a member
who was worried because the Rapport software on her computer was telling her
that LostCousins is a 'high risk' website. Although I've never used Rapport, it
is offered by my bank - so I'm glad I've resisted the temptation to install it.
Why might Rapport identify LostCousins
as high risk? Because the census references look - to a computer - a bit like
credit card or bank account numbers, which should only be entered on secure web
pages, ie where the URL begins with https://
Very few websites use secure pages
except for the payments process. At LostCousins we don't use them at all -
because when you pay online the page you see is hosted by WorldPay,
as you can see here:
I chose WorldPay
for LostCousins because it was the site that the GRO used to handle their card
payments (it probably still is, but it's some time since I ordered a
certificate from them - I'm sure you can guess why).
Anyway, to cut a long story short - if
the software on your computer gets fooled by the census references on your My Ancestors page, just ignore it.
Remember that you're smarter than it is!
Book Sale at the
National Archives - save up to 70%
The National Archives have cut the price
of dozens of books, some as much as 70% - click here
to see what's available.
However, before you make your purchase
I'd recommend checking Amazon,
not just because they might be selling the book even more cheaply (especially
when the cost of delivery is taken into account), but also so that you can read
the reviews written by previous purchasers. After all, some of the books are
likely to be in the sale because they didn't sell very well.
Where are all the 90
year-olds?
Earlier this month the BBC reported that the 2011
Census had found significantly fewer 90 year-olds than
expected. It seems that there were 15% fewer men in their 90s and 5% fewer
women - and as the article explains, this can only be because they died earlier
than predicted.
Last November I wrote of my
concern about the Liverpool Care Pathway, and mentioned that an independent
review had been commissioned by the Care and Support Minister, Norman Lamb.
This week the report was published, and it concluded that the pathway, which
can involve the withdrawal of food and treatment, was being
"misused". You can read a summary on the BBC website here.
I don't know whether my father was on
the LCP when he died 3 weeks before the 2011 Census, but this month I finally
received from the hospital the medical records that I requested in March. I was
amazed to read on the very first page that the doctor who assessed him on his
admission had written "Not for resuscitation", a decision that was
neither conveyed to nor discussed with me or with other members of my family
(nor, according to the file, with my father). And yet, when I went to visit my
father on the day after his admission the doctor who was in charge of the ward
told me how well he was doing!
Less than a week later I arrived in the
ward to discover that my father seemed to have suffered a stroke. One side of
his face had dropped right down, something I'd never seen in him before, yet
the nursing staff claimed not to have noticed (although the Daily Patient
Progress Report shows that the day before their assessment of his communication
and speech had changed from "Speech normal, can communicate clearly"
to "Has speech difficulties, limited verbal communication").
Even though Dad was in a hospital ward
it took nearly an hour and a half to get a doctor to examine him - was that long
delay influenced by the fatal decision made on his admission, I wonder? My
father died in the early hours of the following morning - he was just a few
weeks short of his 95th birthday.
Perhaps if Dad had been asked he would
probably have agreed with the doctor's decision - but it’s wrong that nobody
was asked or even told about it. Perhaps by recounting this tale some of you
will be better prepared than me when faced with similar circumstances?
Last night I watched the first episode
of Family Tree, the new BBC2 comedy series
- it was amusing, but I'll reserve judgement until I've seen more. What did you
make of it?
I couldn't help smiling when I read on
the BBC website
that the 1970 film The
Railway Children had prompted its first complaint after 42 years - on
the grounds that it might encourage children to play on railway tracks.
Times have certainly changed - in
today's over-protective society it seems that it's no longer acceptable for
children to walk to school as we all did in my day. At the age of 10 I walked
(or, more likely, ran) half a mile to the railway station, travelled 5 stops on
the train, then walked nearly a mile and a half at the other end (much of it up
a steep hill). Nowadays it's probably the parked cars clustered around the
school gates that present the greatest danger to schoolchildren!
The English summer has arrived at last -
2 years late! Last year my wife's vegetable patch was devastated by slugs -
this year it's a different story, because she discovered nematodes
(and no, I hadn't heard of them either). Do you have a gardening tip to pass on
to other members?
This where any late
updates will be posted, so it's worth checking back after a few days.
I'll be sending out more invitations to
join the LostCousins forum shortly - if you're fortunate enough to receive one
I look forward to seeing you there!
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2013 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 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.