Newsletter - 13th April 2019
Common law marriage - not as common as you might think
New human species found in Philippines
Win an Ancestry test for yourself or your British cousin EXCLUSIVE
Will
you be at Family Tree Live?
Guest article: DNA Testing for Adoptees
Fragile! Why DNA discoveries must be handled with care
Review: The Changing Legal
Regulation of Cohabitation
Review: Ghost Swifts, Blue
Poppies and the Red Star
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Common law marriage
- not as common as you might think
The term 'common law marriage'
is one that most of us are familiar with, and the name implies that it has been
around for hundreds of years - so it might surprise you to know that it has come
into common parlance during our lifetimes.
When the term was used in England
in the 19th century - which wasn't very often - it generally referred to
marriages that had taken place overseas, and which weren't recognised under
English law.
For example, I recently
discovered that my great-great-great-great grandparents - who were born in Germany,
but came to England to start a family - married in 1806, the year after their youngest
child was born, and 13 years after the birth of the eldest child I know about
(my great-great-great grandmother). My guess is that they had married before
leaving Germany, but only realised belatedly that their marriage wasn't
recognised under English law.
The term 'common law wife' was
used occasionally to refer to foreigners, but in the early 1960s, it was used
when referring to West Indian immigrants, and gradually became used more
generally.
Nowadays around 90% of
couples cohabit before marriage, but there are also many who cohabit without
ever tying the knot. Times have certainly changed!
In this issue I review two
landmark books about cohabitation, both of which I found very interesting -
though for quite different reasons. The first book was written at a time when
there were very few parish registers online, making it difficult to confirm
whether a couple were legally married, or cohabiting - the second was published
only a few years later, but the author was able to determine the number of
couples cohabiting much more accurately.
New human
species found in Philippines
This week we learned about
another branch of the human family tree - an extinct species that lived in the
Philippines around 60,000 years ago. If you missed the story you can find out
more in the BBC article.
In the last issue I reported
that half of LostCousins members have tested their DNA, which is an amazing statistic
- but what I didn’t reveal is the breakdown by country.
As you would probably have expected,
given that DNA tests have been on sale there for longer, the members most likely
to have tested are the ones who live in the US - around 70% of those who completed
the question have tested. But members from Canada, New Zealand, and Australia
are not far behind, at 60%, 59%, and 57% respectively.
The real shock is that, even
though we're the nation that invented DNA testing, British members are trailing
a long way behind at just 45%. It's no wonder that most of the cousins I've
discovered through DNA live overseas!
Remember, this isn’t a survey
of the entire population, or of family historians as a whole,
it's confined to LostCousins members - who are some of the smartest,
most enthusiastic, and experienced family historians on the planet. Are we
Brits afraid that when we test our DNA it might reveal that we've been
researching the wrong line all these years? Or are we simply over-cautious?
Whatever the reason, I'm going
to my best to redress the balance, starting with a competition to win a DNA
test.
Win an Ancestry
test for yourself or your British cousin EXCLUSIVE
Wednesday 1st May will be the
15th Birthday of LostCousins, and to celebrate this achievement I'm giving away
an Ancestry DNA test. I purchased it from Ancestry.co.uk, so it can only be
used by someone in the UK - but since every LostCousins member either lives in
the UK, or has cousins here, I hope you'll all take part in my competition.
To keep things really simple I'm going to run the competition on much the
same lines as my New Year Competition.
Every direct ancestor or blood relative you
enter on your My Ancestors page between 13th April and
midnight (London time) on Tuesday 30th April 2019 represents an entry in the
competition, and for each one you enter from the 1881 Census you'll get a bonus
entry.
Tip:
a 'direct ancestor' is someone from whom you are descended, such as a
great-great grandparent - most people just call them ancestors; a 'blood
relative' is a cousin, ie someone who
shares your ancestry.
If the winner lives outside
the UK they'll be invited to nominate a relative in
the UK to receive the prize - and even if you live in the UK you can do the
same (if you have already tested). Arranging for a cousin to test is a great
way to maximise the value of your own DNA test - see this article
in the last issue for an explanation.
Will you be at Family Tree Live?
On Friday 26th April I'll be visiting
the Family Tree Live show at London's
Alexandra Palace - meeting old friends, making new contacts, and listening to presentations
including Eric Probert's talk on 'Adoption in England and Wales' (which
unfortunately clashes with Janet Few's talk on 'Early
20th century family history', one of the first to be fully booked).
If you book a show ticket now
- they’re only £12 - you can reserve free places at the lectures of most
interest to you. There's a separate track for DNA, so you can overdose on it,
or avoid it altogether - your choice. I'm planning to attend the panel
discussion entitled 'The ethics of DNA testing', which should be interesting - even
those who advocate DNA testing have widely differing views on some aspects.
Guest
article: DNA Testing for Adoptees
One of the presenters at Family Tree Live will be
Laura House, who I heard speak at the Register of Qualified Genealogists
conference in York last year. On this occasion she'll be talking about 'DNA for
Beginners', but her specialist subject is adoption, and after hearing her speak
on this subject in October I invited her to contribute an article for this newsletter
so that readers who are adoptees, or have friends or relatives who were adopted,
can gain a better understanding of what it's possible to achieve:
DNA Testing for Adoptees – A New Hope
All over the world, there are
people with unknown parentage who feel certain that they will never know the
truth about their heritage. Perhaps their adoption records have been falsified,
or maybe the information they offer is too limited. Perhaps there are no
adoption records at all.
For many people, the identity
of their father is unknown. They have been told several different stories about
their paternity – or they have been told nothing at all. For these people,
fifty percent of the family tree is missing and the cold, empty space on the
page is a constant reminder that half of the story may never be told.
Why are some people denied
information about their parents? Often it is to protect the parents themselves.
In some cases, vulnerable young women who adopt-out their children may wish to
conceal their identity for their own safety, or because they feel a sense of
shame. They may withhold the father’s name to protect him from accountability
or because he is refusing to support the child. They may themselves be
uncertain of the father’s identity. The decision to withhold, fabricate, or
share this information rests with the parents themselves, and whether it is
right or wrong, we may never understand the circumstances which lead a person
to decide that a child should not know the identity of one or both of their
parents.
However, the adoptee has been
left with something – a record of their heritage and the heritage of their
parents which cannot be falsified, withheld or retracted. This record is in
their DNA, and using the techniques developed by genetic genealogists, we are able to access, interpret and extract information about
an adoptee’s heritage without having to rely on the openness and goodwill of
other people.
When two people create a
child, they leave fifty percent of their DNA with that child. That child is
then the owner of that genetic information. It is the substance which forms
every fibre of their being and it belongs to them, and them alone. It is the
binding contract between parent and child that no legal process can dissolve.
The contract states, “I created you. You now exist, and I have left half of
myself with you. This is the gift of your heritage, and no-one can take that
away.”
Direct-to-consumer DNA
testing is the tool which allows us to read the information in our genes. The
process is simple – you purchase a testing kit, you wait for it to arrive in
the post, you spit in the tube or swab your cheek, and then you post it back to
the lab for analysis. Your DNA is then extracted from your sample, interpreted
using the testing company’s algorithms, and most importantly, compared with the
DNA data of every other test-taker in the company’s DNA databases. You then
access the results via the company’s website using a secure login.
If you are an adoptee, the
day that you are presented with your list of relatives may be the first time
that you have ever seen a biological relative. Most of these relatives will be
very distant cousins. Perhaps all of them are distant. But they are people with
whom you share ancestors. This is not a rumour, or a document of dubious
origin, or an unreliable account of your parentage. This is truth. When we
begin the search for the identity of your parents, we begin here, with this
truth.
If you are searching for your
biological parents, then you do not necessarily need to enlist the help of a
professional. You can learn the techniques used by genetic genealogists to
solve unknown parentage cases, and in some situations, it is possible to
identify an individual’s parents without ever contacting another person, which
is important for those who are afraid of rejection. The extended process of
tracing an individual’s parentage is too complex to describe in one article,
but to reduce it down to its basics, the fundamental principles are as follows:
- If you have a half-sibling in the DNA database, then you share a
parent with that person. The mother or father of that person is also your
mother or your father. The next step is to discover which of their parents
is also your parent.
- If you have a first-cousin in the DNA database, then you share a
set of grandparents with that person. The next step is to discover which
of their two pairs of grandparents are also your grandparents.
- If you have a second-cousin in the DNA database, then you share a
set of great-grandparents with that person. The next step is to discover
which of their four pairs of great-grandparents are also your
great-grandparents.
- And so on....
In theory, this formula can
be extrapolated to any genetic relative, no matter how distant. As you can see,
however, the number of potential shared ancestors increases with the distance
of the genetic relationship. If you are faced with hundreds of distant cousins
and very few close relatives, you might need to turn to a professional, who can
help you to progress with your search using your existing data.
In many of my unknown
parentage cases, my clients tell me that they are wary of testing their DNA
because they do not want to upset their biological relatives by appearing
unexpectedly in the databases. To this, I have two responses:
- You have as much right to test your DNA as any other person. You
are no less entitled to learn about your heritage and to enjoy genetic
genealogy just because you are an adoptee or a person with unknown
paternity. You are allowed to exist.
- Anyone in the databases with whom you share DNA has made the
conscious decision to take a DNA test and to make themselves identifiable
and contactable by their genetic relatives. You are one of their genetic
relatives. There is no need to feel guilty for sharing DNA with another
person.
Before the advent of DNA
testing, there were laws protecting the privacy of parents who wished to remain
anonymous, whether they were sperm or egg donors or parents adopting-out their
children. The paradigm has now shifted, and the power to uncover the truth now
rests with the children. The laws of nature dictate that every person can
potentially identify their parents using their own DNA data.
As with most things, there
are no guarantees with genetic genealogy, but there is always the potential for
a positive outcome. In some cases, it might be possible to identify your
parents on the day that your DNA results are made available to you. In other
cases, the process might be long and arduous. Sometimes you might need to wait
for more relatives to test before you can progress with your investigation. But
the situation is never hopeless, and as long as your
DNA is present in the databases, at the very least you are making yourself
traceable, even if you are not yourself actively searching for your relatives.
You are entitled to the truth
about your identity and your heritage. Use the gift your ancestors gave you,
and never give up hope.
Important links:
https://www.ancestrydna.co.uk/
https://www.myheritage.com/dna
https://www.familytreedna.com/
https://www.23andme.com/en-gb/
https://isogg.org/
Laura House is a genetic genealogist studying towards
an MSc degree in genealogical studies at the University of Strathclyde. Her research
focuses on the resolution of unknown parentage cases.
Website: http://www.HouseOfGenealogy.com
RQG Profile: https://www.qualifiedgenealogists.org/profiles/house-laura
Twitter: @HouseGenealogy
Email: Laura@HouseOfGenealogy.com
Fragile! Why DNA discoveries must
be handled with care
The information in our DNA is
a precious gift, but unless we use it carefully there's a risk that the discoveries we make can cause real harm. Although what I'm
going to say applies particularly to adoptees (and the relatives of adoptees), anyone
who makes an unexpected discovery as a result of DNA testing needs to take the emotions
and circumstances of others into account.
Since 1975 adoptees in
England & Wales have been able to obtain a copy of their original birth
certificate on reaching the age of 18. Those who were adopted before 12th
November 1975 are required by law to undergo counselling before being allowed to
access information that might lead them to their birth families - this is
because their birth parents may have been under the impression that their
adopted child would never be able to find out who they were. But counselling is
also recommended for more recent adoptees, because it's important to appreciate
that there is a wide range of possible outcomes, some positive, but others disappointing
or even distressing.
Consumer DNA testing cuts
across the legal boundaries, allowing adoptees to search for their birth
families without going through any of the safeguarding processes. But its reach
is much wider - it can uncover all sorts of unexpected discoveries, from hidden
adoptions to fertility treatment to illicit liaisons.
When something unexpected
crops up it’s rarely obvious what has happened - there are usually multiple
explanations which are compatible with the DNA results, and the simplest explanation
isn't necessarily the right one.
As more and more family
historians have added DNA testing to their toolbox
I've been contacted by dozens of LostCousins members who are struggling to get
to grips with their discoveries, both practically and emotionally. I'm not a
trained counsellor, but I know enough to identify those situations where the
input of a suitably-qualified professional is advisable or even essential. It's
understandable that you might be confused, shocked, or hurt by what you find, and
it may well be that you can’t discuss it with your nearest and dearest - but that
doesn't mean that you have to deal with it on your own.
All sorts of claims have been
made for DNA testing, but perhaps the most misleading are those which imply that
by testing our autosomal DNA we can find out about our ancient ancestors.
An article
posted earlier this week on the Forbes
website caught my attention because it's written by Jennifer Raff, who is an anthropological
geneticist with a PhD in genetics and anthropology. In the article she focuses
on a particular test (offered by a company I'd never
heard of), but they're not the only test providers to make claims about ancient
ancestry.
It's very easy to follow even
if you don’t know anything about DNA, so I'm not going to attempt to summarise
it - instead, I'd urge you to click on the link above and read it yourself (you
don’t need to register at the Forbes
site).
When I was researching Dr
Raff's background I came across a presentation she gave a few years ago on The Misuse of Genetics in Pseudoscience
- you'll find it on YouTube,
and although it’s an hour long it's well worth watching. And for a humorous
look at DNA testing, check out the spoof site DNA
Friend.
Living DNA have just launched
their National DNA Day offers, with discounts of between 30% and 40% on the usual
price of their tests. Living DNA is popular with researchers who have already
tested with Ancestry, but are seeking a more detailed
breakdown of the British ethnicity. All prices exclude shipping - the offers
run until 27th April:
Living
DNA UK - reduced from £99 to £59
Living
DNA US - reduced from $99 to $59
Living
DNA Canada - reduced from $149 to $99
Living
DNA Australia - reduced from $169 to $119
Living
DNA New Zealand - reduced from $169 to $119
Living DNA currently don't
offer matching with cousins, but it is something they have long planned.
In my view Ancestry is the
best test provider for those with British ancestors who are seeking to knock down
their 'brick walls' by connecting with cousins, but if you have ancestors from continental
Europe you might also consider MyHeritage, who currently have an Easter offer
(prices exclude shipping, but shipping is free when you order 2 or more kits):
MyHeritage
UK - reduced from £75 to £69
MyHeritage
US - reduced from $79 to $69
Another alternative is to
transfer results from Ancestry to MyHeritage - I believe there is a one-time
fee of $29.
It's inevitable that when we have difficulty finding
the marriage of our 19th century relatives the thought crosses our mind that
perhaps they didn't marry at all - so understanding how common cohabitation was,
and the reasons behind it, are important. Living
in Sin: cohabiting as husband and wife in nineteenth century England by
Ginger S Frost, Professor of History at Samford University in Alabama, was the
first book length study of this important topic when it was published in 2008.
Inevitably the main sources
of information are legal records, law reports, and newspaper articles. It was
only around the time of the book's publication that the parish registers for
London and Essex became available online - the former at Ancestry, the latter
at the Essex Record Office's own site.
But whilst the author
over-estimates the extent of cohabitation, the reasons for couples living in
sin are all too familiar - either they were barred from marrying because they
were related, or else one or both were already married to other people. Before
1857 divorce required an Act of Parliament, putting it beyond the reach of all
but a small minority, and even after that date the cost was prohibitive for many
- and the grounds for divorce were limited, especially for women.
For me the best part of the
book are the real life cases that reached the courts for one reason or another.
Living in sin was not nearly as common as the author would lead us to think,
but that doesn't invalidate the examples. The book is well annotated, with
notes at the end of each chapter, and an extensive bibliography at the back -
should you want to follow up on a particular case
you'll have no trouble doing so (though even now few of the records referred to
are available online).
We all have illegitimacies in
our tree, and most of us also have examples of marriages which were either bigamous,
or within the prohibited degrees (there are three examples in my mother's tree
of widowers who married their dead wife's sister between 1834 when it was made
illegal, and 1907 when it was legalised). Everyone will gain insight into their
family's history from reading this book.
I bought the paperback -
although there is a Kindle version, it's only slightly cheaper. As usual you
can support LostCousins by using one of the links below to make your purchase
(even if you end up buying something completely different):
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca The
Book Depository
Review: The Changing Legal Regulation of
Cohabitation
Professor Rebecca Probert is
no stranger to readers of this newsletter, but The Changing Legal Regulation of Cohabitation:From
Fornicators to Family, 1600-2010 was not written primarily for genealogists
- it’s one of many titles in the 'Law in Context' series from Cambridge
University Press.
The final chapter begins with
a very interesting statement, one that puts the book into context, and
underlines the differences between it, and Professor Frost's work, which was
published just 4 years earlier:
"When I began this book, many years
ago now, it was with the intention of simply charting the shift from the law treating
cohabitors as fornicators to recognising them as
'family'. I had expected that the story would be on of the law gradually recognising
cohabiting couples, being under the impression that cohabitation was common in
earlier centuries. What I found was something quite different. Evidence of
cohabitation in a particular place at a particular
time had been relied on as proof that it must therefore have occurred elsewhere
and in other periods. Limited anecdotal evidence had been endlessly recycled
without any attempt to consider its reliability ... Every time that I
investigated claims that were made about the prevalence of cohabitation. The evidence
simply faded away ... The idea that a significant proportion of couples
cohabited outside marriage before the late twentieth century turned out to be a
complete fiction."
Family historians tend to focus
on exceptions - the handful of relatives who got into trouble with the law, the
few who contracted illegal marriages, or the ones who bore children out of
wedlock. We rarely sit down to calculate what percentage of all the individuals
on our family tree they represent, so it's hardly surprising that we can form
an impression that they’re more numerous than they really are.
So this book will not only leave you better-informed, it
serves as a salutary lesson in how to compile meaningful statistics about the
world our ancestors lived in.
But even if cohabitation
before (or instead of) marriage was rare in earlier centuries, most or all of
us will have examples in our tree - the numbers may have been exaggerated by
previous writers, but we cannot ignore them altogether.
Only the first half of the
book is about 'history' - the second half covers the 20th century and the first
decade of the 21st century, examining in detail the reasons why an increasing
number of couples chose not to marry in the 1970s and 1980s, including the tax
advantages. The author also considers how the myth of 'common law marriage' led
many couples to assume that they had protections that, in
reality, didn’t exist. (Yes, there was 'fake news' even before the
Internet!)
I learned a great deal from reading
this book - my copy has dozens of tabs marking passages of particular
interest - and because it covers a period of more than 400 years there's
enormous variety in the content. It's not an easy read, because it’s crammed
with detail, and it’s not cheap - but I suspect that, like me, you'll find it
enormously rewarding.
I read the paperback version
- it is available for Kindle, but the e-book is only slightly cheaper. When I
checked Amazon today there were some used copies at around half the price of a
new book - if you can find one in reasonable condition, snap it up!
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca The
Book Depository
Review: Ghost Swifts, Blue Poppies and the Red Star
A new book from Nathan Dylan Goodwin is always a pleasant
surprise, and this one is no exception - even though it isn’t another instalment
in the Forensic Genealogist series
featuring Morton Farrier.
The unlikely heroine of Ghost Swifts, Blue Poppies and the Red Star
is Harriet Agnes McDougall, a recently-widowed 65 year-old who has lost two of
her three sons in the Great War. She's determined to find out what happened to
Malcolm, the middle son, and when her only surviving son returns from the war she persuades him to help her in the quest.
Should you need convincing
that a respectable lady of mature years would defy authority in her dogged determination
to find out the truth, let me remind you that she was only a little older than
her near-contemporary Emmeline Pankhurst - and there are plenty of LostCousins
members today who would fit the same description.
The fact that Mrs McDougall
consults a medium is somewhat at odds with her generally practical approach,
but the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was a believer in spiritualism
even before his son died in 1918, so it's in tune with the times. That apart I
thoroughly enjoyed the book, and if it turns that - as the sub-title implies -
it's the first in a series, I shall certainly look forward to Mrs McDougall's next
adventure.
Ghost Swifts, Blue Poppies and the Red Star - a Mrs
McDougall Investigation is available
as a paperback or as a Kindle e-book that you can also read on a smartphone,
tablet, or laptop.
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca The
Book Depository
Although many family
historians are only just getting up to speed with DNA, dog owners have been
using it for quite a time. I doubt that DNA can link your pooch to his or her
doggie cousins, but I thought I'd pass on the news that you can save £5 on a
DNA test for your dog when you follow this link
and use the code SPRING2019
If you take advantage of the
offer, do let me know what you find out!
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......
Finally, a reminder that if
you have tested your DNA you won't get the best results unless you follow the advice in
my Masterclass. Simply working down your list of matches is a very poor substitute for a
properly structured approach!
Peter Calver
Founder,
LostCousins
© Copyright 2019
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?