Newsletter - 11th April 2018
Take part in
the LostCousins project
Child burial fees to be waived in England
Finding post-1858 wills online
Guest article: Who's the mother?
Review: A Forest
With No Trees
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published
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Take part in
the LostCousins project
In the last newsletter I mentioned
that members who aren't taking part in the LostCousins
project might not receive all of my newsletters in future - and this prompted
some anxious questions, most of them along the lines of "What IS the LostCousins project, and what do I need to do in order to
take part?".
Very simply, the LostCousins project is the reason the LostCousins
website and this newsletter exist. In 2003 I realised that there was a need for
an efficient, accurate, and confidential means of connecting researchers around
the world who share the same ancestors, and after a year of planning and
preparations LostCousins opened on 1st May 2004 (so
we're just coming up to our 14th Birthday).
I spent 6 months looking for
a way of matching cousins automatically and, having considered carefully the
reasons why other sites couldn't provide accurate matches, I eventually
realised the solution was to pick a record set to which everyone had free
access - the 1881 England & Wales census. Since those early beginnings
censuses from other countries and other years have been added, but that first
census still provides about 90% of all the matches that are made between
cousins.
Even after all this
time there is no other site that can offer accurate automated matching, and
still provide the high level of privacy that many researchers require. It's
somewhat ironic that as I was creating LostCousins, a
young fellow on the other side of the pond called Mark Zuckerberg was working
on a similar project which took the opposite view about privacy. That's
probably why he's a billionaire many times over at the age of 33 and I'm still
working at the age of 67.
It costs nothing to take part
in the LostCousins project - all you need to do is
add some relatives, ideally from the 1881 Census, to your My Ancestors page. I designed it to be simple and it is - just 2
days ago I received this compliment:
"I finally got
around to entering all my relatives and I must say I was impressed by the
usability of the process. Apart from the
helpful instructions on each page it assisted the work flow by providing
obvious defaults wherever possible. I worked for IBM for 40 years
so I've seen many good and bad examples and yours is one of the best."
Should you need any help
entering relatives there's an illustrated Getting
Started guide on the Help & Advice page
that will show you what to do, whether your preferred census website is
Ancestry, Findmypast, or FamilySearch. But once
you've entered the first household - which will only take a couple of minutes -
I doubt you'll need to refer to the guide again.
Child burial fees
to be waived in England
A century ago even the poorest
families would usually contribute a few pence a week to a burial club to ensure
that if any of their children died (as, sadly, many did) they would get a
proper funeral rather than being buried in an unmarked mass grave (if you
haven't read Round About a Pound a Week
then you certainly should - but look for a cheap used copy at Amazon or eBay).
Earlier this year I read that
Ipswich Borough Council had decided to waive their charges for child burials but,
before I had a chance to write about it, the good news came through that
they are going to be waived across the whole of England (they were abolished in
Wales in November after a lengthy campaign).
Finding post-1858
wills online
It's over 3 years since the
Probate Service launched their online will index and
ordering system, but I notice it is still shown as a 'beta' site. When it
launched in the autumn of 2014 the indexes only covered the period from 1996
onwards, now they go right back to 1858.
Note: finding wills before 1858 is more difficult - there
were over 250 ecclesiastical courts that could have been involved, and most of
the records have yet to make it online.
In the last issue I speculated
that the 1819 newspaper story about a 59 year-old mother was 'fake news', but so
far it has proved impossible to prove one way or the other. One newspaper that
printed the story gave the age as a more believable 50, rather than 59, but
that rather undermined the secondary claim (which implied she had not had any
other children during 35 years of marriage).
But it did prompt LostCousins member Liz to write in with an example from her
own tree:
"My great-grandmother
gave birth to her 8th child (5 with her first husband and 3 with my great-grandfather)
on 7 October 1893. Her date of birth, for which I have her birth
certificate, was 17 October 1843, so I make it that she was 49 years, 11 months
and 21 days old when her last child was born. So
ignoring the [probably] spurious account of a 59 year old woman giving birth in
1819, my great-grandmother was certainly older than the one reported in the letter
in the BMJ in 1917.
"The irony is that my great-grandfather
was about 15 years younger than her (his birth is a mystery) and for all her
time with him she reduced her age so that it would have appeared that in 1893
she was only 44, which was just possible given the age of her eldest daughter
and would have meant that daughter was born when she was 16. However,
when she died her husband, who was the informant, gave her correct age so it
would appear she hadn't fooled him."
Being naturally suspicious, and given the gap in age between the supposed
father and mother, I queried whether there was any possibility that the mother
was in fact one of the older daughters - but Liz feels that unlikely based on
the stories that have been passed down within the family. But an email I
received from another member, Susan, presented a rather different situation…..
"My great-aunt, Edith
Hora, was born 8th January, 1861, and had five children
with her first husband, John Page Hentsch. After his death in 1898 she married, in 1903,
a Prussian-German named Ernst Lebrecht Ackert (later also known as Ernest Harcourt) - she was a
42- year-old widow and he was a 27-year-old bachelor. On 18th December,
1910, when she was aged 49 years, 11 months, and 10 days, Edith apparently gave
birth to a daughter, Kathleen Edith Anna Ackert
(always known as Anna).
"I was surprised,
especially as Edith and Ernest had been married for nearly eight years by then,
but felt I had to accept it, and I later obtained Ernest's application papers
for naturalisation from TNA, in which he stated that he had a British wife and
a British-born daughter, and he enclosed copies of the relevant marriage and
birth certificates with his application, which was granted.
"Later, for some reason,
I studied Anna's birth certificate more closely and realised that although the
family lived in New Malden, Surrey, Anna was born about 14 miles away in
Islington - why? I also thought about her full name - Edith for obvious
reasons, Anna was the name of Ernest's mother, but why Kathleen? Edith already had a living daughter Kathleen
with her first husband, so why give the same first name to this daughter? No doubt you're way ahead of me - I am
convinced that Anna was really the child of Ernest Ackert,
aged 34, and his step-daughter, Kathleen Hentsch,
aged 21. Ernest registered the birth, giving the name of his wife Edith as the
mother.
"When the 1911 census
was made available I found Ernest and Edith living in New Malden, married 8
years (correct) but NO CHILDREN of the marriage! Living with them were three of
Ernest's step-children, William, Kathleen and Gertrude Hentsch,
and Anna Ackert, aged 3 months (correct), but listed as Ernest's
NIECE, born in GERMANY! Why, when he had
Anna's birth certificate stating that he and Edith were her parents, did he come
clean on the census and admit they had no children, and have
to make up a niece relationship to explain Anna's existence?
"It's not impossible, of
course, for a 50-year-old woman to have a baby, but all the evidence leads me
to believe that Anna was actually Edith's granddaughter rather than her
daughter, and that birth certificates - like any other document - can lie."
Guest article: Who's
the mother?
This is a true story. At the request of the survivors,
the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been
told exactly as it occurred.
Was Albert Reuben Mason, my
grandfather, the child of Ann Emma Mason and Albert Reynolds and not the
youngest son of William and Mary Ann Mason my great grandparents?
I first considered the possibility
after reading an article by Nick Barratt, the genealogist. In an article in the
Daily Telegraph he warned of possible shocks in store when we research our
family trees: “In the mid to late Victorian period there was a huge stigma
attached to illegitimate children so people went to
great lengths to keep such births secret. There was a lot of unofficial
adoption within families, where the baby’s grandparents would raise a child as
their own”. “One of the signs to look for is an unusual age gap in census
records; for example three teenage children registered
and then a newborn baby”. “If you have suspicions, my
tip is to look closely at names - the middle name may reflect the surname or
Christian name of its real father”.
So how does Albert Reuben’s story
relate to the above indicators? His mother, Mary Anne Mason, was 48 when he was
registered in 1875. The birth is written up in my father’s family history as
follows:
”She (Mary Ann) said that she did not know until the event
was imminent and had to borrow baby clothes from her older married
children”.
By 1875 Mary had given birth
to 10 children, so is it credible that she had no idea she was pregnant until
the birth? His closest sibling was John Richard Mason, born 1869, who died
before the 1871 census. In 1870 his mother’s father, John Rogers wrote asking
if she had recovered from her “sad illness and once more become a woman”.
Albert’s birth was registered by Mary Ann’s daughter Ann Emma Mason, aged 17, who
was "present at the birth”. Ann Emma married Albert Reynolds, a mariner,
later the same year.
From one of his letters it is clear that Albert Reuben’s closest attachment was to
his sister Rose, who was 7 years older. She married Charles Harris and
relocated along with the Masons when Yarrow shipbuilders who employed Albert
and Charles Harris relocated to Glasgow from London. However, Albert spent his
honeymoon in Freshwater, Isle of Wight, with his much older sister Ann Emma and
her husband Albert Reynolds. In fact the Mason family
spent every other annual summer holiday with the Reynolds family even after
moving to Glasgow – an arduous trek especially with a young family. Albert even
spent his final months there before dying of TB in 1918.
Another relevant fact is that
Ann & Albert’s oldest son was named Albert William, yet when he joined the
Navy in 1905 he dropped the name Albert and was known as William Reynolds. In a
letter written by Albert’s wife to her mother in 1915 she comments “grandmother
(Mary Ann Mason) sends her best wishes”. Were Albert and the Reynolds children
made aware of his true parentage when Albert Reuben married? Did that result in
a new bond with the Reynolds family and was that the reason Albert William
Reynolds junior dropped the Christian name Albert. A photo of another brother,
Joe Reynolds, shows a striking resemblance to Albert Reuben’s second son
Frank. There are many reasons for
speculation, and we will never know for sure if Ann Emma was Albert’s real
mother, but it does make sense of the facts presented above.
© 2018 Tony Mason
LostCousins member Nicola spotted another interesting newspaper
article, this time from 1929. In the Sheffield
Daily Telegraph of 3rd September it was reported
that:
Mr. William Robinson, of 33, Truman
Street, Alfred Street Central, Nottingham, registered the birth of his 30th
child in the city yesterday, and was informed by the officials that it possibly
created a record.
Mr. Robinson, who is 61 years of age, was
formerly a builder’s labourer, but since 1919 had not done any work. When the war broke out, Mr. Robinson, who was
then 47, had had 26 children, and he served with the R.A.S.C. for 18 months,
being gassed in 1917 and discharged. He had two sons in the war and one of them
was in the Sherwood Foresters throughout the war.
Mr. Robinson has been married twice having
24 children by his first wife and about 15 of them are alive. His first child
was born in 1890.
In his early days, Mr Robinson played
professional football with Nottingham Forest, but never got into the first
team.
Image © Johnston Press plc. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.
Used by permission of Findmypast.
I knew at once that, even if
true, this was unlikely to be a record - but I was intrigued to discover
whether the news report was in fact true. What do you think?
The first step was to look
for other contemporary newspaper reports - there's a more detailed report in
the Nottingham Evening Post of 2nd
September which gives the name of the last child (David), and reports that the
first child was born in 1890. It also states that the father was born in John
Street, suggesting that he lived in Nottingham all his life.
Using this information
I was able to find his second marriage, to Martha Shaw, in 1914 - as was
Nicola. She also found his first marriage, to Maria Ann Faulkner in 1887 - whilst
I'd looked at the transcription of their 1911 Census entry I discounted it
because William was shown as a fishmonger and greengrocer, a somewhat different
occupation from the builder's labourer of the newspaper reports!
© Crown Copyright Image
reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England and used by
permission of Findmypast
The census schedule shows
that Maria had given birth to 20 children of whom just 7 had survived, yet
Nicola was only able to find 13 births:
ROBINSON, GERTRUDE GWENDOLINE FAULKNER
GRO Reference: 1889 D Quarter in NOTTINGHAM Volume 07B Page 347
ROBINSON, MARY FAULKNER
GRO Reference: 1891 J Quarter in NOTTINGHAM Volume 07B Page 392
ROBINSON, ELIZABETH FAULKNER
GRO Reference: 1896 M Quarter in NOTTINGHAM Volume 07B Page 308
ROBINSON, WILLIAM FAULKNER
GRO Reference: 1897 S Quarter in NOTTINGHAM Volume 07B Page 317
ROBINSON, THOMAS FAULKNER
GRO Reference: 1899 S Quarter in NOTTINGHAM Volume 07B Page 315
ROBINSON, ALBERT FAULKNER
GRO Reference: 1901 D Quarter in NOTTINGHAM Volume 07B Page 326
ROBINSON, RACHEL FAULKNER
GRO Reference: 1902 D Quarter in NOTTINGHAM Volume 07B Page 379
ROBINSON, HERBERT FAULKNER
GRO Reference: 1903 D Quarter in NOTTINGHAM Volume 07B Page 397
ROBINSON, JOHN HENRY FAULKNER
GRO Reference: 1903 D Quarter in NOTTINGHAM Volume 07B Page 397
ROBINSON, JOHN FAULKNER
GRO Reference: 1905 M Quarter in NOTTINGHAM Volume 07B Page 384
ROBINSON, MARIA FAULKNER
GRO Reference: 1906 S Quarter in NOTTINGHAM Volume 07B Page 386
ROBINSON, ALBERT FAULKNER
GRO Reference: 1907 D Quarter in NOTTINGHAM Volume 07B Page 378
ROBINSON, FRANCIS FAULKNER
GRO Reference: 1910 S Quarter in NOTTINGHAM Volume 07B
Page 439
Of course, without the GRO's
new online birth indexes (which now give the mother's maiden name from
inception in 1837) it simply wouldn't have been possible to carry out this
research - at least, not within the budget that most of us allow for our family
history!
Did William get confused when
filling out the census schedule (perhaps adding 7 to 13 rather than subtracting
7 from 13)? Or was he including still-births (which weren’t recorded until
1927), and/or miscarriages? Even if the figure on the census schedule was in
some sense correct, how could the total number of children born to his first
wife increase from 20 to 24 in the less than 3 years between the 1911 Census
and Maria's death, which was registered in the last quarter of 1913? There are
no births recorded in the indexes for this period.
I later came across this
entry in the 1881 Census - a William Robinson of the right age, in Nottingham
workhouse:
© Crown Copyright Image
reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England and used by
permission of Findmypast
Note that he is described in
the infirmity column as being of "weak mind" - if this is indeed him,
perhaps his infirmity might account for his inability to add up (though
goodness knows how a fishmonger and greengrocer could manage without a head for
figures)? Mind you, the information on the census schedule should regarded
sceptically - notice that he also appears to be shown as a 'widower', a rather
strange marital status for a 12 year-old, don't you
think?
The moral is that you can’t
believe everything you read in the newspapers - even the newspapers of nearly
90 years ago. It would have been virtually impossible for the reporter who
wrote the story to carry out the checks that Nicola and I carried out, and with
a deadline to meet and - I would imagine - other demands on his time I suspect
he didn't even try.
In this instance it was easy
to confirm that the story was exaggerated, but this won't always be the case.
Next time it might be an obituary for a "much-loved husband and
father", when in reality he was a drunkard who
beat his wife and abused his children. In other words even
what was written down at the time not have been the 'gospel truth' (indeed,
even the gospels conflict with each other in some respects!).
Everyone knows the classic
1988 movie starring Bob Hoskins. But did you know that more than a century
earlier there was a real-life Roger Rabbit who ended up in court?
Findmypast's Irish collection includes an amazing range of records
to help you trace your Irish ancestors, and amongst them I discovered a 13 year-old from Galway by the name of Roger Rabbit who in
1878 was charged, alongside two alleged accomplices, with "wilful and
corrupt perjury and conspiracy".
Copyright of IIMI Inc and brightsolid online publishing (Ireland) Ltd. All rights
reserved. Images and Index Data owned by IIMI Inc and brightsolid
online publishing Ireland Ltd, used by permission of Findmypast
Held in custody for 9 days in
Galway Prison he was eventually tried before the Chief Justice and sentenced to
one month's hard labour (a relatively light sentence compared to his
co-defendants).
Findmypast have twice as many Irish records as any other
website, so if you have Irish ancestry it's well worth giving them a try; they
also claim to have the most comprehensive collection of British parish records
available online, many of them accompanied by images of the register pages from
which the entries have been transcribed.
Tip: if you live in the US or Canada you should have
received an email from me last week with an exclusive offer (check your spam
folder if you haven't seen it).
The Society of Genealogists
have just circulated a list of courses, workshops, and other events that will
take place in May, and there were three weekend events that caught my eye. The
first, on 12th May is an all-day (10.30 to 17.00) workshop with John Hanson
entitled Family Historian Software for
Beginners and Refreshers - John gave a shorter version at Genealogy in the Sunshine in 2015 which,
as an occasional user of the program I found very useful. You can find out more
about the workshop here
(warning - there were only 3 places remaining when I checked this morning).
On 19th May Simon Fowler, a
professional genealogist and author (who is also an occasional contributor to
this newsletter), will be giving a half-day (10.30 to 13.00) workshop on Using The National
Archives Website. The catalogues of most archives are a nightmare for mere
mortals, and whilst the National Archives site is better than most, I still
find myself going round in circles on occasion. Since
the National Archives have by far the largest collection of archive material in
Britain, and only a small fraction of it is online, understanding how to find
out what they have in the collection is essential for any family historian who
wants to go beyond the basic censuses and military records with which we are
all familiar. To find out more, follow this link.
Last but, by no means least,
on 26th May Debbie Kennett - familiar to most of you as a DNA expert - will be
co-presenting a half-day (10.30 to 13.00) course entitled What’s in a Name? A Closer Look at Surnames and Forenames. The
course is divided into two sessions - the first will be led by Debbie, and
based on her book The Surnames Handbook
(you can read my review here);
the second will be presented by Sue Swalwell, and
looks at forenames, considering how they can be used to help trace our tree.
You can find out much more, and book, here.
Tip: if you are an SoG
member you are entitled to a 20% discount on the cost of any of these courses.
For details of other events organised by the SoG,
some of which are free, follow this link to the
Events section of the SoG website.
Review: A Forest With
No Trees
The first novel by LostCousins
member Peter Hey sat on my Kindle for 9 months before I eventually got around
to reading it: despite the excellent reviews at Amazon I was somewhat put-off by a vaguely supernatural
element of the story - dreams in which the main character relives key events in
the life of his grandfather, dreams which may or may not have been triggered by
the medication he was taking following his divorce and the loss of his job.
Then I read a New Scientist article which reported how
electrical brain stimulation can result in subjects reliving old dreams.
Perhaps the storyline wasn't as far-fetched as I'd thought….
Like me Tom Haworth was a
young boy when his paternal grandfather passed away; like me he never knew his
grandmother, who died before he was born - but there the similarities end (or
at least, the ones I'm going to admit to!). After his own life falls apart when
his drinking gets out of hand, he starts to have highly realistic dreams in
which he is transported back to the early 20th century, and these
prompt him to start researching his family tree, to find out whether the
people in the dreams ever existed and the events ever happened.
Contrary to my expectations I
really enjoyed the book - the story is well-thought out, and impeccably told.
Some readers may be offended by the graphic language of the rougher characters,
but there's nothing that you wouldn't hear on the BBC after the watershed, and
it isn’t used gratuitously. Whereas in most genealogical mysteries the hero (or
heroine) is the genealogist who solves a case for a client, in this book we see
everything from the perspective of the client. He gets some help from a friend,
but ultimately he's the one who comes up with the
answers - and in doing so, turns his life around.
I now know why 11 out of 12
reviewers at Amazon gave this book 5 stars - once you start reading, starting
with the thought-provoking prologue, it’s almost impossible to put the book
down (indeed, one reviewer with insomnia read it in a single session). And
unlike many self-published books it doesn't betray its origins with sloppy
editing and careless spelling mistakes - in fact, I don’t think I spotted even one
example.
The Kindle version costs just
£1.99, but there's also a paperback version, priced at £5.99 - the choice is
yours. As usual you can support LostCousins by using
the links below (even if you end up buying something completely different).
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca
![When Beggars Dye: A Jane Madden genealogical mystery by [Hey, Peter]](apr18news_files/image008.jpg)
The second
novel from Peter Hey introduces Jane Madden, an ex-police detective trying to
build a new life after illness and divorce who decides to become a genealogist, reasoning
that her investigative skills will compensate for her lack of training. Her
first client is a British-born businessman based in the US whose mother
stumbled across a mystery when researching her own tree - the only problem
being that nobody alive knows what the mystery is!
The one person who did know,
the client's grandmother, is long dead - the only clues to the nature of the
mystery are her comments on being presented with her daughter's research. But whatever
it was, the matter was so shameful that the grandmother clammed up, and it was
never spoken about again.
As this
beautifully-constructed mystery unwinds it exposes Jane's own insecurity, which
dates back to her childhood. But, with some help from
her slightly-autistic friend Tommy, she ploughs on exposing layer after layer
of intrigue before eventually uncovering what really happened during WW2.
In all the best genealogical
mystery stories there is more than one thread, and more than one outcome - and
this book is no exception (be prepared for some robust language from some of
the less savoury bit players). I very much look forward to reading about Jane
Madden's next case, and I suspect you will too - who would have thought there
could be so many talented writers of genealogical mysteries amongst the LostCousins membership!
Available as a Kindle book at
£1.99 or as a paperback priced at £5.99 (note: it may not have been released in
Canada yet). Please review the book on Amazon after reading it - there are no
reviews yet, and a book this good deserves to attract attention.
Note that you can read Peter Hey's first two novels in either order - I actually read When
Beggars Dye first. The title, by the way, is a quote from Shakespeare -
make sure you get the spelling right otherwise you could end up with a
different book by a different author!
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca
This is where any
major updates and corrections will be highlighted - if you think you've spotted
an error first reload the newsletter (press Ctrl-F5) then check again before writing to me, in case someone else has
beaten you to it......
Peter Calver
Founder,
LostCousins
© Copyright 2018
Peter Calver
Please do NOT copy or
republish any part of this newsletter without permission - which is only
granted in the most exceptional circumstances. However,
you MAY link to this newsletter or any article in it without asking for
permission - though why not invite other family historians to join LostCousins
instead, since standard membership (which includes the newsletter), is FREE?