Newsletter - 8 October 2011
Another cemetery scandal
Ancestry.co.uk offer free searches
Irish Genealogy adds more free records
First Scottish censuses at findmypast
The importance of collateral lines
Tracing collateral lines
Volunteers sought by the National
Archives
Do you have German ancestors?
Pauper Lives in Georgian London
Free lectures on London history
Berkshire parish records online
Life expectancy in earlier centuries
Australian Navy Lists
Historical connections
Looking for help?
A cautionary tale
Talk about coincidences!
Peter's Tips
Stop Press
About
this newsletter
The LostCousins newsletter is
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previous newsletter (dated 24 September 2011) please click here. Each newsletter links to
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Another cemetery scandal
I couldn't believe it when Nick pointed
out an article on a local Greenwich website - a cemetery that had been
'trashed', not by vandals but by people who were supposed to be helping!
Journalist Rob Powell reported that local
historian, Horatio Blood, was left appalled by the scene of broken headstones:
"The smashing to smithereens of
these historic tombstones is wanton destruction and a terrible tragedy. All
that remains are a few sorry stumps, like broken teeth, and the ghost
impressions left behind on the brick wall. The Friends of St Alfege Park appear to have succeeded where the rioters
failed."
You'll find the full article and more
pictures here
- it is appalling that something like this could have happened in a supposedly
civilised country. The Chairman of the Friends has now apologised,
but it's too little too late so far as I'm concerned, and judging by the
comments of others on the website he's not going to be allowed to forget what
he has done.
Ancestry.co.uk offer free searches
During the first half of October you can
search 15 Ancestry datasets completely free, starting from the dates shown
below and continuing until midnight (London time) on 15th October. Even if you
have an Ancestry subscription many of them are normally only available to Worldwide subscribers, so most members can benefit from
Ancestry's generosity.
Just click on a link below to go
straight to the relevant database:
October 1st - US
Social Security Death Index
October 2nd - Ireland,
Griffith’s Valuation, 1848-1864
October 3rd - California
Marriage Index, 1960-1985
October 4th - Bavaria,
Germany, WWI Personnel Rosters, 1914-1918
October 5th - 1920
US Federal Census
October 6th - Australian
Electoral Rolls, 1903-1954
October 7th - Texas
Birth Index, 1903-1997
October 8th - Sweden,
Births from the Swedish Death Index, 1947-2006
October 9th - US
WW I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918
October 10th - England
& Wales, Birth Index, 1916-2005
October 11th - Historical
Newspapers, Birth, Marriage & Death Announcements, 1851-2003
October 12th - Quebec
Vital and Church Records, 1621-1967
October 13th - 1930
US Federal Census
October 14th - 1901
England Census
October 15th - US
Obituary Collection
Please remember that the records aren't
available until the date shown above, but can then be accessed free until 15th
October.
Irish Genealogy adds more free records
The addition of Roman Catholic baptism,
marriage and burial records for County Cork and Dublin City brings the total
number of records at the free Irish
Genealogy site to almost 3 million.
Tip:
you can enter relatives from the 1911 Ireland census on your
My Ancestors page
First Scottish censuses at findmypast
Good news for those with Scottish
ancestry - findmypast have at last begun
to add transcriptions of the Scotland censuses to their site, starting with 1841 and 1851.
As expected the General Register Office for Scotland hasn't allowed the use of
the census images, so the quality of the transcriptions is absolutely crucial -
and so far they look very good (although as I've been writing this newsletter since
they arrived on the site 3 days ago my opportunities for testing have
necessarily been limited). Findmypast claim accuracy of "well over
98%" and I've got no reason to doubt that figure.
Findmypast haven't given a date when the
1861-1901 censuses will go online, but I think we'll see them in the next few
weeks - and this will make it far easier for LostCousins members to trace not
only their Scottish ancestors, but also their collateral lines.
Tip:
whilst it's important to enter your direct ancestors and their households on
your My Ancestors page, in practice it's the brothers, sisters, and cousins who
had families of their own in 1881 who are most likely to lead to your 'lost cousins'.
Why? Because most of your living relatives are descended through
those collateral lines.
The importance of collateral lines
What are collateral lines, and why are
they important? Whilst the primary goal for most of us is to trace our ancestry,
ie our direct line of descent, to ignore other
relatives risks missing out on vital clues and sources of information. Since
the average age of LostCousins members is just over 60, many of us don't have any direct ancestors who are still alive
- which means that the only people we
can ask are collateral relatives: brothers, sisters, cousins, perhaps uncles or
aunts.
Think back to when you started to
research your family tree - you probably started the same way I did, by asking
your living relatives what they knew. Eventually we run out of people to ask -
and that's when we realise that there must be thousands of other relatives who
share our ancestry, thousands of 'lost cousins' who we haven't met and who (in
most cases) we can't even name.
On the one hand, the more closely
related our cousins are the more ancestors we'll share (usually we share half
our ancestors with our 1st cousins, a quarter with our 2nd cousins, an eighth
with our 3rd cousins, and so on). On the other hand, the more distant our
cousins are, the more likely it is that they'll have information that we don't
already have within our branch of the family. It doesn't matter to me how
distant my 'lost cousins' are - they can ALL tell me things about my family
tree that I don't already know - so it shouldn't matter to you either!
For example, one of my 'lost cousins' is
a half 4th cousin - we have the same great-great-great grandfather (but are
descended from different wives). You might think that because we only share
1/32nd of our ancestors we don't have much to talk about, but in fact we've
exchanged over 1600 emails since we discovered each other's existence!
Our common ancestor died in 1835, so he
doesn't appear on ANY of the censuses. You might think that it's impossible to
find a cousin like that through LostCousins, a site that depends entirely on
census information - but you'd be wrong. That's because the LostCousins
matching system doesn't just look at direct ancestors when deciding which
members are cousins, but also at blood relatives - otherwise known as
collateral relatives.
The more blood relatives you enter on
your My Ancestors page, especially
from the 1881 Census, the more cousins you'll find - not just today or next
week, but throughout your membership. Think of it this way - the LostCousins
matching system looks for overlaps between the trees of different members, so
the more branches, twigs, and leaves on your My Ancestors page, the greater the chance that your entries will
match with those of your cousins.
Note:
if you remain unconvinced about the value of collateral lines and 'lost
cousins', see this article
from the LDS genealogy blogs site.
Tracing collateral lines
Now that you realise how important your
collateral lines are, how should you go about tracing them?
Censuses are the most useful resource,
because usually you'll find whole families living together. I've traced some of
my collateral lines starting from baptism records in the late 1700s and early
1800s, but it's far easier from 1841 onwards. Of course, it's a little harder
to track down female relatives, because they generally adopt their husband's surname
when they marry - but it's usually fairly straightforward to identify the right
marriage unless the surname is a very common one.
How can you tell which is the right
marriage? By finding the couple together on the next census, and verifying that
the birthplace and age of the wife fits without what you know about your relative.
Whereas we work backwards through the
censuses to track our direct ancestors, we work forwards through the censuses
to track collateral lines. My aim is to find every relative in every census,
and whilst that's not always possible, it's usually surprisingly easy (and I
feel I'm getting really good value from the subscriptions I have!).
Of course, I find it most exciting when
I discover some new relatives on the 1881 Census, because I know that when I
enter them on my My Ancestors page I've got a sporting
chance of finding a new living relative - which, after all, is what LostCousins
is all about. Much as I enjoy writing these newsletters, nothing can compare
with the thrill of hearing from a member that they've just found a new branch
of their family on the other side of the world!
Volunteers sought by the National
Archives
The National Archives are looking for
volunteers who are prepared to give up a few hours of their time to help sort
the WO 95 series of Great War diaries before they are digitised and published
online. Training will be given, so you don't need to be familiar with these records,
and they will pay your travelling expenses. Click here to find out more.
Do you have German ancestors?
Had you asked me that question 10 years
ago I'd have told you not to be so silly; I imagine my mother and her father
would have said the same. Yet my German-born great-great-great grandfather died
only 14 years before my grandfather was born!
If you have discovered German ancestors
in your tree the Anglo German Family History
Society is a good place to learn more. One of the sites that the AGFHS link
to is run by Brian Mawer,
who specialises in sugar bakers, many of whom arrived in England during the Napoleonic
Wars and settled in London's East End, but he also has many links to other
interesting sites.
Quite by chance I came across an article
on Brian Mawer's site that isn’t in the site map, an
article by Panikos Panayi
entitled The Settlement of Germans in
Britain during the Nineteenth Century which provides an excellent
overview of migration in the 19th century (the introduction also discusses
earlier migrants). If you want to save a copy on your computer - and this might
be wise - I'd recommend the site I mentioned
earlier this year that converts web pages to PDF files (and much more besides -
all free of charge!).
Pauper Lives in Georgian London
I often make unexpected discoveries when
I'm researching articles for this newsletter. Another of these was Pauper Lives in Georgian London,
a research project at Newcastle University, which includes some fascinating PowerPoint
presentations and working papers. You'll also find potted biographies of two
paupers, based primarily on workhouse register entries which record their
numerous admissions and discharges - all in all it's a wonderful site which,
though not apparently intended for public consumption, brilliantly supplements
Peter Higginbotham's excellent workhouses
site.
Tip:
if you don't have PowerPoint you can download a free viewer
from the Microsoft website.
Free lectures on London history
Gresham College, founded in 1597, offers
a range of free lectures at different venues in London - some at lunchtime,
some in the early evening. Most of them are about London, and all of them look
interesting - so I'm not even going to attempt to pick any out. You'll find a schedule
here, and there are
also transcripts and recordings of past lectures on the website.
PS Thanks to my lovely wife for telling
me about these lectures.
Berkshire parish records online
Findmypast have recently added nearly
three-quarters of a million Berkshire parish records
to their website; most are burials, but there are some marriages.
Life expectancy in earlier centuries
A recent article in Significance,
the magazine of the Royal Statistical Society, highlights the difference
between life expectancy at birth and the age to which adults could reasonably
hope to live.
In 1911 life expectancy at birth in
England was a mere 52 years for men, and 55 years for women - but the primary reason
these figures are so low (by modern standards) was the high rate of infant
mortality. As the article points out, a man who reached the age of 40 could
expect to live to 68, whilst a woman of the same age might live to 70. Going
back to 1841, the year of the first census, a man of 40 could expect to live to
67 and a woman of 40 to 68 - yet life expectancy at birth was only 40 years for
boys and 42 years for girls.
These and many more figures can be found
in a spreadsheet
that you can download from the website of the Office of National Statistics,
and which covers the period from 1841-2002 at roughly 10 year intervals. I
should stress that these were projections prepared at the time and based on
past experience, so it's likely that people actually lived even longer than
predicted.
Australian Navy Lists
Jonathan wrote from Australia to let me
know that Navy Lists
from 1905-79 are available free online at the Navy's own website. Though they
are all in PDF format, earlier editions seem not be searchable - certainly the
1905 edition isn't.
Tip:
I mentioned over free Australian military records in my newsletter
dated 27th August.
Historical connections
In the last newsletter I mentioned that
a cousin of mine married Chief Inspector
Frederick Abberline, one of the key figures in the search for Jack the Ripper in the late
1880s (although I didn't mention him by name). In the 1988 television film Abberline was played by none other than Michael Caine!
A few other members wrote in to tell me
about their connections, and I was particularly interested to hear from John, whose
cousin - also a police officer - gave evidence at the inquest for one of the Ripper's
victims. Why was I so interested? Because John told me that Abberline
and his wife (my cousin) had witnessed the will of his cousin - and they seem
to have been friends as well as colleagues.
It reminded me how important such small
pieces of evidence can be, yet how difficult they are to piece together - had I
not written that article John and I might never have known how we are connected!
Looking for help?
The two most important pages at
LostCousins are My Ancestors and My Cousins, and because of this they
each have Help information that explains how the page is used (this means you
don't have to go to the FAQs page, then come back again). So that these two key
pages aren't cluttered with information that you might need only occasionally
the Help information can be hidden, and on your My Ancestors page it is hidden by default after you've made your
first entry.
To display the Help information for the My Ancestors page click How to use this page, which
is near the top right of the page.
Most other information about the site is
found on the FAQs
page, where you'll find dozens of common questions organised into categories.
However, there's also a page for new members (or for anyone who has joined such
a long time ago that they've forgotten how LostCousins works) and you can get
to this page by clicking Read this first
in the website menu.
A cautionary tale
I've written on many occasions about the
dangers of posting information online, and when Rosemary wrote to me recently
about her experiences I asked if she would put together an article to warn
other members:
"About a month ago, I began to put
my tree online at Ancestry as a private tree, not indexed. It seemed to be the
best way I could share it with my children and grandchildren, as they live far
away. But in doing so, I got a shock when I followed up a ‘hint’ - I found my
mother’s detailed information in the public tree of someone I didn’t know, who
lives in Australia. In that same tree were all my immediate ancestors, who
don’t appear anywhere online, as they were born in one country and died
somewhere else.
"Then I realized that her name
sounded a bit familiar. It was someone who had written to me on Genes Reunited
more than a year previously, saying she thought we were related through a
specific person quite far back in my Scottish ancestry. When I shared my tree
so she could see if we were related, she had apparently downloaded my entire
tree into hers. She had not written to me to tell me she had done so or even
how she thought we might be related; in fact, I have only ever had that one
message from her.
"After the initial shock, I wrote
to her via the Ancestry message service and told her that my mother’s
information was not available anywhere else online and asked her politely to
remove it. I didn’t get a reply, but the next day she made her Ancestry tree
private, instead of public - with my mother’s information still included.
"I wrote to both Ancestry and Genes
Reunited. Genes Reunited said they could only ask a person to remove living
people from their tree; they wouldn’t ask a person to remove people who were no
longer living. So I searched to see if my name appeared in her Genes Reunited
tree, and then discovered that someone else on Genes Reunited had also copied
my tree, including my own details! She also had found my brother and sister,
who are not in my GR tree, apparently as a result of the information in my
tree. Like the lady in Australia, she had not bothered to tell me she had done
so or to send a message saying how she thought we might be related. I sat,
completely shocked, in front of my computer for quite some time. I was angry
and upset, and I didn’t know what to do.
"Eventually, I sent a polite message
to both of them through the Genes Reunited message service. I explained that I
had always enjoyed researching my tree and thus finding cousins, as I had grown
up far away from relatives, as well as helping others when I could. I had
allowed them to see my tree to help with their research, not to let them
download it in its entirety, and in fact, this was a violation of my copyright.
I said that as a result of this experience, I had removed access to my tree
from everyone except those I knew to be cousins and would not share my tree
again.
"I didn’t get replies from either
of them but Genes Reunited advised me, a day later, that the Australian lady
had removed her tree entirely, which removed all the entries. When I checked
again, the other woman also had removed me, my brother and sister and my mother
and grandparents from her tree.
"Eventually, after some
correspondence with two branches of Ancestry, I learned that Ancestry had a
‘take down’ policy (it is, in fact, outlined on their site). I prepared the
detailed document they required, and sent it to the email address they
provided, copyright@ancestry.com. I didn’t get any acknowledgement. Five days
later, I wrote to ask them to confirm that they had received my original
document; no reply. I sent another message, five days after that, asking them
to confirm receipt. No reply. This time I also copied the message to the
Ancestry customer support address; I didn’t hear from them either. I have come
to the conclusion, sadly, that although Ancestry says it has a ‘take down’
policy, either this office doesn’t really exist or doesn’t actually deal with
complaints it receives.
"So this is a cautionary tale.
Don’t share your tree with anyone unless you know them to be a cousin or other
relative. If you really do want to share, share only the relevant parts of your
tree, not the whole tree (as sharing is Genes Reunited’s
default, you will have to untick the box that says
‘share my tree’ when you reply to messages.) Don’t give anyone information that
you wouldn’t want to see shared publicly - you can’t control what they do with
it once they have access to it.
"I have met many wonderful people
through my research, including many cousins. I have been helped by strangers
who went out of their way to aid my research, and in turn, I have tried to help
others when I can. But there are some people out there who will take advantage
of your generosity - and will have neither the courtesy to tell you what they
have done, or to reply to your messages.
"It is rather as if you had invited
them to tea, and they said thanks for the tea - and by the way, I really like
your grandmother’s tea cups and I will take them with me. In real life, no one
would behave that way - but in an online world, they can do the equivalent, and
you will have no practical recourse."
Talk about coincidences!
In my last newsletter I mentioned the
man whose daughter and grandson who were born in the same hospital on the same
day - and pointed out that the chances of this happening were actually quite high
(and not a million to one as had been quoted). This prompted Steve to write to
me about a series of coincidences in his own tree:
Hi Peter, the
paragraph in your latest newsletter regarding statistics prompts me to list the
following people on my paternal side all born on 22nd March:
Myself, born
1947
My eldest son,
born 1977
My paternal
grandmother, born 1890
This indicates
a generation - my father's - where the sequence was broken. But when I
researched this line in detail by labouriously
ploughing through BMD records for the period when my grandmother could feasibly
have been of childbearing age, I found that my father had another brother [born
1924 at the family home, when my father was nine] who tragically died five
weeks after birth which, incredibly, was on 22nd March. How sad must have been
his mother's birthday each year.
What are the
statistical odds of a birthday on the same date in four successive generations?
The odd thing is, my father never referred to the death of this brother and my father's
two surviving siblings have no knowledge of the child whatsoever.
Keep up the
good work, best regards, Steve
I don't know what the odds are, but it's
certainly an amazing coincidence! But coincidences don't just happen to other
people - I discovered this week that I'm also a coincidence.
I was chatting to my latest 'lost
cousin' for the very first time when I found out that she was born in the same
hospital as I was - although that's not the coincidence that had me reeling. It
was when I discovered that Jenny's only brother was born on the same day as me:
same day, same year - amazing!
Peter's Tips
Last Saturday was not only the hottest
English October day on record, it was also my birthday. So I was especially
pleased when 2 days ago I received a little parcel containing the first entry
for my jam-making competition - and it's a very interesting combination of
fruits, one I've never tasted before.
Last week I made my third batch of Wild Plum jam (delicious, though I say it myself), and this weekend I'll be making my first batch of Tomato jam. I won't be entering the competition, of course, but you can - though you've only got until the end of October to submit your entry, either for the Open category or the Tomato category. All entrants will get a prize, so you really can't go wrong (unless you send marmalade, which I don't like), and the category winners will each get a jar of my special Wild Plum jam. See my July newsletter for more details, and get jam-making - it's a great way to take your mind off the recession!
Talking of recessions, something I realised recently is that if we all keep cutting back our expenditure we'll never get out of the recession. This realisation came about when I saw some official statistics which demonstrated that people are saving more money now than when the economy was booming! Spending less, I can understand - because incomes are lower, certainly in real terms - but saving more?
Now I don't know about you, but I was taught to save money when I could afford to so that I'd have a little extra to spend when times were hard - doing it the other way round is surely the road to ruin? I'm not saying you should spend money you don't have, only that now probably isn't the right time to be increasing your savings (especially since interest rates are so low). Does that make sense?
If you agree with me, then as far as possible buy things that are made in your own country, rather than imported, because that way your money will do more good; even better, spend it on goods and services that are produced locally so that you help the people around you. Best of all, use any spare cash to improve the value of your assets or save you money in the long-run (I'm focusing on the jobs around the house that I've been putting off for years).
That's the end of the economics class: now for some money-saving offers.... Tesco may be ending their Double Points promotion very soon, but they've come up with lots of other attractive offers. For example, if you order online groceries for the first time before 31st October you can get £15 off an order of £50 or more with the code XX3PKK (and if you click the Tesco advert in this newsletter on your way to the Tesco website, LostCousins will receive a small commission too!).
UPDATE: when I placed an order today (12th October) I was given 1000 extra points instead of a £15 discount. Since 1000 points are worth up to £30 in rewards I was delighted!
Amazon have further increased the price of Family
Tree Maker 2011 Platinum, so it now makes more sense to buy the 2012
edition. Both come with a free 6 month Premium subscription to
Ancestry.co.uk, and even if - like me - you don't use the software (I prefer Genopro because of
the control it gives over the look of my tree), you're still saving money
compared to a normal subscription.
Stop Press
There's a new family history series starting on the Yesterday channel on Thursday 20th October. Called "Find My Past", it is sponsored by BrightSolid, the company behind two of Britain's leading genealogy sites - findmypast and Genes Reunited.
I hope you've found my newsletter interesting, and that you'll keep writing in with tips of
your own - many of the best articles in my newsletters are inspired by members.
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins