Newsletter
- 13 March 2013
Is DNA
testing of any value to genealogists?
Search
for living relatives at findmypast
Reserved
occupations in World War 2
Era editor was
member's ancestor
Do you
have ancestors from Kent?
2
million more Westminster records online now
Finding
your London ancestors in workhouse records
Did
your ancestors own slaves?
Problems with Ancestry's New Search
Email
scams hit family historians
The LostCousins newsletter is usually
published fortnightly. To access the previous newsletter (dated 3 March 2013)
click here, for an index to articles
from 2009-10 click here, and
for a list of articles from 2012-13 click here.
For now I suggest you use Google to search for articles from 2011.
Whenever possible links are
included to the websites or articles mentioned in the newsletter (they are
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Is DNA testing of any
value to genealogists?
If this title seems familiar, it's
because I used it in November 2007, when I wrote in this very newsletter:
Once there were companies offering to sell us books
or coats of arms for our family name - now we're being offered DNA tests (even
Ancestry.com is doing it). But are they of any value to serious genealogists?
A recent article in the US journal Science
questions the value of what it describes as "recreational genetics"
or "vanity tests", and there's a follow-up article at the (unrelated)
LiveScience website.
If you imagine your family tree, it's in the shape
of an inverted Christmas tree, with you at the bottom, and rows of direct
ancestors that get ever wider as you go back through the generations.
The left-hand edge of the tree is your paternal
line; at the far right is your maternal line. Most genealogical DNA tests
analyse the Y-chromosome, which passes down the paternal line, or mitochondrial
DNA, which passes down the maternal line.
Go back 10 generations and (ignoring cousin
marriages) you've got 1024 direct ancestors. Even if you spend hundreds of
pounds (or dollars) and take both tests, they are only telling you about 2 of
those ancestors, who have provided less than 1% of your DNA!
So is there a place for DNA testing in genealogy? I
believe that there is, provided you're using the information to test a specific
hypothesis.
Of course, in those far off days the
LostCousins newsletter didn't have such a large readership, so my comments
weren't picked up by the wider media. But earlier this month, the report Sense
About Genetic Ancestry Testing from the
charitable trust Sense About Science was headline news in national newspapers
including the Daily Mail¸ and the Daily Telegraph - it even merited an article on
the BBC News website.
The BBC article led with the statement
"Scientists have described some services provided by companies tracing
ancestry using DNA as akin to astrology". I couldn't have put it better
myself!
But remember - you read it here first!
DNA tests are not a substitute for
genealogical research - at best they will confirm what you think you know, or
provide leads when there are gaps in certain parts of your tree. But whilst
there are plenty of companies that will take money from people who have more
money than sense, I wouldn't want any LostCousins member to waste their money
on a test that can't possibly tell them anything meaningful.
Last year I ran a series of articles in
my newsletter about DNA, and how it can and can't be used (you can find them
easily by going to the web page which lists the articles from all last year's
newsletters - see the link at the beginning of this issue).
Of course, if you've never seriously
considered DNA testing before then reading the articles once probably won't be
enough. Indeed, it might not be until you apply what you've learned to an
example in your own family tree that you'll truly understand how it all works.
But whilst I've had many emails since those articles were published asking me
questions about DNA tests, I don't recall a single one where the answer wasn't
in those articles (so do please re-read those articles before getting in touch!).
However, you needn't rely on my
interpretation - the report mentioned in the previous article also provides an
excellent explanation, though sadly it isn't illustrated with diagrams, so you
may find it a little more difficult to follow. And there are plenty of other
guides on the Internet if you really want to know more, but they'll probably
take you into detail that - quite frankly - you don't need to know about.
The best thing you can do is apply the
simple principles in my articles to your own tree. Why not colour it in the
same way as the diagrams in my articles, so that you can trace in your own tree
the path that the Y-DNA or mtDNA of your ancestor
takes? Some people will try to blind you with science, but believe me there's
nothing you can't figure out yourself with a printout of your family tree and a
couple of coloured pencils.
When should you use DNA tests? Only when
you understand (and I mean, really
understand) what they can and can't do for you. Only then will you know which
test to use and - even more importantly - who needs to provide the sample (because
most of the time it won't be you!).
Tip:
Family Tree DNA,
the only testing firm I can recommend based on my personal experience, are
currently reviewing their prices, and they are likely to drop dramatically - so
my advice is to hold off ordering a test until I give you the go-ahead through
this newsletter. The only exception is the $39 12-marker Y-DNA test, since the
special offer could end any day.
Search for living
relatives at findmypast
For many years it has been possible to
search the current UK Electoral Register at findmypast - but only if you used
credits - because this feature was not included in any of the subscription packages.
Great news! It's now possible to search
the 2002-2013 Electoral Registers completely free if you've got a Full or World
subscription - click here
for more details.
Does this mean that LostCousins becomes
redundant, and I can ride off into the sunset (or, preferably, the sunshine)?
Unfortunately not - for three very good reasons: one is that it's unlikely that
you know the names of more than a small percentage of your living cousins; the
second is that nearly half the population have opted out, so won't be found in
the published register; and the third is that if your relative's name is a
common one, you could have great difficulty figuring out which of the thousands
of John Smiths he is.
There's another good reason why you
might choose to continue looking in the conventional way: when you find a
living relative through LostCousins you know that they too are researching
their family tree - which means that not only will they be pleased to hear from
you, they'll have information to share. By contrast, when you pick somebody out
of the Electoral Register or the phone book (free online at BT.com), there's no
way of knowing what sort of reception you'll get, nor whether it will be worth
the effort.
Tip:
if you write to someone who you think may be a relative, always include a
stamped addressed envelope - it's a basic courtesy that will considerably
increase your chances of getting a response. And if your reason for contacting
your cousin is to ask them to provide a DNA sample - can I suggest you keep
that detail under your hat until you've got to know them a little better?
This year the WRVS, originally founded
in 1938 as the Women’s Voluntary Services for Air Raid Precautions, will be
celebrating its 75th anniversary - which means that anyone who served in those
early years must be getting on a bit.
Saga
Magazine is inviting people who have
memories of volunteering with the WRVS to write to them with their thoughts (in
no more than 200 words), for possible inclusion in the magazine. Send them to editor@saga.co.uk
Coincidentally I've just found out that
the WRVS archives have launched an online catalogue. There are
many photographs, although sadly the ones I found were all obscured by rather
too prominent copyright notices.
Reserved occupations in
World War 2
Many of my relatives on my mother's side
of the family were boilermakers, a job that was essential to the war effort -
they helped to build the craft for D-Day.
Sadly they're not around to ask - but if
you have a living relative who was in a reserved occupation during World War 2
the University of Strathclyde's Oral History Centre would be very interested in
interviewing him (email linsey.robb@strath.ac.uk
for more details).
Talking of hats, in my last newsletter I mentioned
that LostCousins member Anthony had spotted a man taking pictures at Who Do You Think You Are? Live who he
thought might possibly have been me.
From the description he gave me I could
tell that it wasn't me, but I was curious to know who the distinctively-dressed
individual was. I received a number of suggestions, but eventually the suspect was
forced to own up - and it was Grant Millar.
He works for the British
Newspaper Archive, which is publishing an enormous collection of
newspapers from the British Library collection (if you haven't already
registered you can get 15 free credits by registering here).
Grant even sent me photo of himself in costume, taken on the British Newspaper
Archive stand.
I suppose I should be flattered - as you
can see from the photo, Grant looks less than half my age, even dressed as a
19th century newspaper seller! But to think that I'd wear a scarf that made me
look like Rupert Bear? Now, Anthony, that IS a bit
worrying!
Mind you, there was some good that came
out of this embarrassing episode - I managed to persuade Mr Millar to let me
use a clipping from the archive in this next article....
Era editor was member's ancestor
Last month I mentioned that members who
had entertainers in their tree would do well to search The Era, one of the many newspapers that is online at the British
Newspaper Archive (and can also be viewed at findmypast
if you have a Full or World subscription).
No sooner had the ink dried on my
newsletter than an email came in from Jenny in Australia, who told me that her
great-great grandfather Frederick Bond had been the founding editor of The Era, and held that position from
September 1838, when it was first published, until his death in 1844.
As you know, I always like to check
information I'm given, so I went online and looked at some of the early copies.
When I got to issue 3, published on 14th October 1838, I struck gold - here was
incontrovertible proof that Frederick Bond had indeed been the publisher:
Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH
LIBRARY BOARD. Image reproduced with kind permission of The British Newspaper
Archive
I just love it when looking at images of
documents reveals extra little pieces of information that might otherwise have
been incredibly difficult to find!
I mentioned a while back that the
National Library of Wales was planning to put an enormous collection of Welsh
newspapers online - and I was delighted to discover this week that the site has
gone live, although it's still in the beta-testing stage.
With over 250,000 pages and 2.5 million
articles it's an amazing resource for anyone who has Welsh ancestry - but the
big question is, how easy will it be to find the right person when so many people have the same common surnames?
If you'd like to try the site prior to
the official launch you can find it here.
Do you have ancestors from
Kent?
When I wrote in my last newsletter about
the registers for north-eastern Kent that have been online at findmypast
since last summer, but only recently indexed, I hadn't had much chance to test
them. So at the weekend I sat down to see how far I could get on one of my
lines where I was stuck in 1764.
I had a great afternoon: in the space of
three hours I managed to go back not one, not two, not three but FOUR
generations, to a couple who married in 1663. Some people wonder why I'm so
keen for ALL the parish registers to be online and indexed - it's because on a
good day with a following wind you can make some amazing progress.
In truth I need to spend a little more
time satisfying myself that the entries I've found ARE the right ones, because
it's easy to overlook a second baptism in an adjoining parish that has been
wrongly transcribed - but the whole process is so much quicker than searching through microfilm, particularly once
you reach the 1600s when the handwriting gets harder and harder to interpret.
You'll find a list of nearly 200 parishes included in the Canterbury Collection
here.
But there's more good news for those of
you with ancestors from Kent - the Kent Messenger Group are putting thousands
of pages from their newspaper archive online this month, and they're going to
be free to search for everyone in the UK. The archive will include issues of
the South Eastern Gazette (forerunner
of the Kent Messenger) from
1852-1912; you can find out more here.
3 million
Westminster records online now
Findmypast have more than doubled their
collection of parish register entries for Westminster so that it now comprises
around 3 million baptisms, marriages, and burials from 50 London churches -
you'll find full details here.
These records fill a big gap in the map
of London - it has truly been a great few weeks for family historians, and the
amazing thing is, there are still more important collections to come during
2013!
Finding your London
ancestors in workhouse records
It's not easy to find records relating
to your ancestors in the London Poor Law
records at Ancestry because they haven't been indexed - but it might not be
quite as difficult as I implied in my last newsletter.
Sheila wrote in with a very handy tip -
one that could make all the difference. She pointed out that the Creed
Registers are broadly alphabetical within a given year, so if you suspect that
your relative might have been in the workhouse, and know roughly when he might
have been admitted, you can quickly look through the Creed Registers.
Once you've found an entry in the Creed
Registers it's then a relatively simple task to find the corresponding entry in
the Admissions Register. Of course, this strategy depends on both registers being available for the
relevant period - so it isn't a perfect solution.
Did your ancestors own
slaves?
In the last newsletter I mentioned the Legacies of British Slave-ownership website which catalogues the payments made to British owners of slaves, and suggested that it wasn't the sort of list where you'd want to find your ancestors mentioned. However, the situation wasn't as black and white as I made it appear, as Tim Clarke pointed out:
I found the UCL website ‘Legacies of British Slave
Ownership’ extremely interesting and informative. At the time that compensation
was paid to slave owners the website and indeed my own research into my family
show that there were a large number of both men and women who claimed for only
a very few slaves and who themselves were not wealthy.
At the end of the 18th and
beginning of the 19th centuries the argument about slavery was raging and it is
quite surprising to see who was or was not supporting it. For example the
Anglican Church did NOT support the abolition and in Jamaica a rector of a
parish often owned slaves.
Historians have noted that where
white proprietors lived on the estate their slaves were usually well looked
after and often respected members of the household. It was with absentee
planters whose estates were run by coloured overseers where the worst cruelty took
place.
In my case my family went in
three generations from medium sized planters with a large number of slaves to
abolitionists who went in fear of their lives from angry planters who held them
and their church responsible for a slave rebellion.
Slavery is, of course, totally
abhorrent to us today but at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th
centuries it is very difficult to understand the thinking of some people who
were involved in it. For example in America Thomas Jefferson who wrote the pre-amble
to the Declaration of Independence which includes the words “We hold these
truths to be self evident, that all men are created
equal” also owned a large plantation with hundreds of slaves.
My 4g grandfather was a medium
sized planter in Jamaica owning several hundred acres of sugar and coffee and a
considerable number of slaves. He was quite well off as was his son who was a
land surveyor and owned about a dozen slaves. Now his grandson my 2g
grandfather who lived from 1801 to 1840 is the one who is most interesting from
the perspective of slavery.
He was very poor and was a member
of the local Baptist Church. In 1831 he was a ‘sworn measurer’ (someone
responsible for checking local shopkeeper’s weights and measures) with 9 slaves
and in 1833 he became ‘a licensed catechist’ (someone allowed to teach the
bible to slaves) and by 1839 he was a
schoolteacher on a sugar estate and a ‘poundkeeper’ (ie responsible for collecting stray animals). However, he
still owns slaves as in 1835/6 he and his sister claimed compensation for a
total of 24 slaves 9 of which were owned by his sister. Presumably as he had
campaigned against slavery his own slaves were valued members of the household
but if so it is difficult to understand why he had not freed them? This
situation seems to have been quite common from Thomas Jefferson down to my
ancestor!
They could, of course have stayed
on working for him if they wished, perhaps he simply held on to get the
compensation although initially he would not have known that this would happen.
Following emancipation freed slaves were known as apprentices but apprentices
in what? Being free? An older man who had say been a carpenter all his life
would not take kindly to being called an apprentice!
In a census of the “White and Brown inhabitants and other
Persons of Free Condition of the Parish of Hanover distinguishing their Sexes,
Colour, Ages and places of Residence. 1823” he is living with his wife, his
mother and his brother and sister on a small estate which is owned by a white
man who has 4 children of mixed race.
Now the Baptists were the leaders
in the movement against slavery and living as he did in Hanover Parish in
Jamaica he was caught up in the slave uprising of 1831/2 in that Parish. This
uprising was also known as ‘The Baptist War’ and the planters were incensed by
the help given to the slaves by the Baptists and afterwards went around the
area burning down Baptist Chapels including the one where my 2g grandfather was later to become the clerk. He
lost his baby son killed in the uprising in which only a few white people were
killed. The local courts later meted out horrendous punishment to hundreds of
slaves and also tried to bring Baptists to trial for their part in the revolt.
His son, my great grandfather went sea at 15 years old later becoming a master
mariner and lived in Liverpool.
The following paragraph from a
booklet I have written about my family perhaps gives some idea of the state of
affairs in Jamaica just before emancipation:-
This must have been a truly terrible period for everybody in the island.
The Anglican church continued to actively support
slavery and the Rev. George Wilson Bridges, rector of St Ann Parish emerged as
a chief propagandist for the Jamaican planters. The whites were furious with
the government in Britain and feared that abolition would eventually come,
ruining their livelihood.. They were extremely
suspicious of the missionaries whilst at the same time accepting that at times
their help was valuable. The missionaries were in a quandary and were receiving
mixed instructions from England, some still accepting slavery whilst others
were vehemently opposing it, in some cases being imprisoned for trying to
protect members of their church who were slaves. The slaves were becoming increasingly
political and literate and knew very well that the abolitionists in England
were gaining strength and the free coloured and black population who had no
rights were finding that their labour was increasingly needed to make up for
the reduction in slave numbers and they too were becoming increasingly
political and aware of their lack of rights.
Thanks, Tim - that really helps to put
things into perspective. Tim wasn't the only one to point out that I'd
over-simplified the situation, and I'm similarly grateful to Isla and the other
members who contacted me.
Isla also reminded me that Ancestry
has records of British slaves that you can search free of charge when you click
here
(you may need to register).
Problems with
Ancestry's New Search
Valerie reported a very strange problem
at Ancestry - when she searched in the 1901 England Census for the surname
Higginson, birth place Ireland, she got 8 results if she typed in the word
Ireland, but 29 results if she 'accepted' Ireland when it was suggested by the
website (even though there was no visual difference between the two entries).
This is confusing enough, but having
verified what Valerie had told me, I decided to see what happened if I used
Ancestry's Old Search - which to my mind is infinitely better. This produced 36
results!
Of course, newer Ancestry users probably
wouldn't even be aware that there is an Old Search, let alone conceive of the
possibility that the Old Search might be better than the New Search - so it's
hardly surprising that so many public trees at the Ancestry site are riddled
with errors.
Tip:
to change back to the Old Search click here,
then look for the words 'Go to Old Search' in the top right hand corner of the
screen (you might need to scroll right to see the link). Click the link, then go back to the home page before continuing.
Email scams hit family historians
In my last newsletter
I warned that the number of email accounts being hijacked was on the increase,
and I'm sorry to say that matters are getting worse. Over the past week I've
spent an hour or more each day (including Saturday and Sunday) corresponding
with members whose accounts have been hijacked, resulting in emails being sent
to everyone in their address book.
I've no idea what the scams are - I don't
click on the links in the emails. But whereas most people would simply delete
the emails or put them in the spam folder I take the time to write to each
member explaining what has happened and offering advice. I don't like being the
bearer of bad tidings, but I know that if my friends and relatives were getting
fake emails from my email address I'd want to know about it! Of course, some of
the people I've contacted already did know - but a surprisingly large number
didn't.
Even if your friends and relatives don't
fall for the scams - and some inevitably will - they might well discover
something about YOU that you'd rather they didn't know. How are they going to
learn that from a spam email? Because each one goes out to
several addresses, all of which are visible to recipients.
You might not mind everyone knowing
which political party you support, your sexual orientation, or the fact that
you've been in contact with a pregnancy advisory service - but some people
might. And what if an old boyfriend or girlfriend was still listed in your
address book, and your present partner was copied in
on the same email?
In recent days almost all of the spam
emails I've received have been from members with Yahoo addresses (or BT, or
Rogers, but in both cases their mail is managed by Yahoo). If your email
address account is run by Yahoo and you don't want to close it altogether then
I suggest you choose a really tough password - one that includes not only upper
and lower case letters, but also numbers and symbols.
Tip:
although it might seem easier to use the same password for all your accounts,
remember that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The password you
choose for your LostCousins account certainly shouldn't be one that you use to
protect important information at other sites, because anyone who gets access to
your email can request a password reminder.
Although Yahoo is the main target,
Hotmail and AOL addresses also seem to be vulnerable. The best protection is to
change your password frequently - or else not to use webmail. If you do have to
be able to pickup your email online, Gmail is free
and seems very reliable.
A final thought - could these problems
for Yahoo users be in any way be connected to the recent ban on home-working
for Yahoo employees? It was certainly a most surprising decision for a
technology company to take.
Note:
whilst the spam emails I get are all from family historians, there is no
evidence that the hackers are specifically targeting researchers.
If - like me and thousands of other
LostCousins members - you're hooked on Steve Robinson's genealogical mysteries
but prefer a traditional paperback, you'll be delighted to hear that his third
book The
Last Queen of England is now available from Amazon. Of the 84 reviews
at Amazon, 66 have awarded 5 stars, and most of the rest give it 4 stars - so
whilst I haven't yet read it myself (I'm saving for a long trip!). Of course,
as with Steve's other books, the Kindle
version is a lot cheaper.
Given the horse meat scandal, still ongoing, I thought it bit weird when the news came through
that Tesco have bought a restaurant chain called Giraffe. Still, they don’t
tell me how to run LostCousins, so I really shouldn't tell them how to run
their business.
I'm delighted to report that, as of this
week, a significant number of the volunteers who are helping and advising on
the forthcoming LostCousins forum are people who've never used a forum before -
and so far their reaction has been very positive. I want all LostCousins
members to feel at home on the forum - and as one of the new volunteers said to
me today, they already feel as if they're among friends.
I'm not setting an opening date for the
forum, because what matters to me is getting it right. Right now I'd especially
like to hear from members who've never used a forum before (or tried one once
and didn't like it). What do I need to do to make you feel at home?
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'). After all, that's
what LostCousins is all about!
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.