Newsletter – 11th April 2025
HALF-PRICE ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS TO FINDMYPAST SPECIAL OFFER
Masterclass: How to get the most from Findmypast
Find out more about Secrets and Lies EXCLUSIVE OPPORTUNITY
Hear – and see – what family history societies have to offer! FREE ONLINE TALKS
Findmypast open up the 1939 Register for England & Wales FREE ACCESS
Comprehensive guide to the 1939 Register
Marriages at sea – another myth?
Changes of name by Royal licence
DNA presentation (for Friends only)
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue (dated 29th March) click here; to find earlier articles use the customised Google search between this paragraph and the next (it searches ALL of the newsletters since February 2009, so you don't need to keep copies):
To go to the main LostCousins website click the logo at the top of this newsletter. If you're not already a member, do join - it's FREE, and you'll get an email to alert you whenever there's a new edition of this newsletter available!
HALF-PRICE ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS TO FINDMYPAST SPECIAL OFFER
I’m often asked which of the major subscription sites is best, but it all comes down to where your ancestors lived and what period you are researching. For me, with ancestors from 10 English counties (as well as Ireland and Germany), there is no one site that meets all of my needs – and I’m willing to bet that it’s the same for most people reading this newsletter.
But with the top subscriptions costing around £200 a year it can be tough to find the money for more than one – so when a half-price offer comes along it really does make things easier!
According to my records the last time I announced a half-price offer on 12 month Findmypast subscriptions was precisely 10 years ago. Of course, the price of subscriptions has gone up since then, but only by the same percentage as the increase in the Retail Price Index (RPI). However that’s comparing apples and pears (or apples and oranges, depending on your local idiom), because a pint of milk or a dozen eggs is essentially the same as it was in 2015, whereas what you get for your money at Findmypast in 2025 is very different from what you would have got in 2015.
For example, back in 2015 neither the 1939 Register nor the 1921 Census had been released, and Findmypast had yet to announce their ground-breaking partnership with the Catholic church, which has led to tens of millions of records going online, many of them for the first time.
In April 2015 the number of newspaper pages in the British Newspaper Archive had only just passed 10 million mark – today there are over 91 million pages in the archive. And in 2015 none of the 58 million entries in the GRO birth index from 1837-1911 included the mother’s maiden name – now most of them do, which makes life a lot easier for researchers.
This offer is NOT exclusive to LostCousins but you’ll ONLY be helping LostCousins when you use the relevant link below (and turn off your adblocking software and VPN, if any ). The offer is not available to existing Findmypast subscribers except, possibly, if you are upgrading from a lesser subscription that is no longer on sale (eg Plus).
Note: there are smaller discounts on shorter subscriptions, but as the discount only applies to the first payment it’s not nearly such a good deal. For example, if you took out a monthly subscription, by the beginning of month 5 you would have spent more than if you’d bought a 12 month subscription through this offer, and if you bought a quarterly subscription you’d have paid more by the beginning of month 4.
Masterclass: How to get the most from Findmypast
If you’re more used to searching at other genealogy websites you’ll struggle to get the results you were hoping for from Findmypast – because the best strategy for searching at Findmypast isn’t immediately obvious. Fortunately that’s easily rectified in my Masterclass How to get the most from Findmypast – you’ll find it here!
Note: the Masterclass was last revised in 2023, so there will be some minor differences in what you see on screen – however the principle is unchanged.
Find out more about Secrets and Lies EXCLUSIVE OPPORTUNITY
Every family has its secrets: have you found yours? Join contributing speakers and experts from The Halsted Trust’s forthcoming conference Secrets & Lies: More Hidden Voices of Our Ancestors to discover tantalising glimpses into the mysteries, hardships, and resilience that shaped British history-uncovering the forgotten voices of our ancestors.
This exclusive preview for LostCousins members takes place on Tuesday 22nd April – you can attend live, at 7pm London time, or you can watch the recording. Either way, please register your interest on the My Events page at the LostCousins site (and do feel free to submit a question in advance, whether it’s about the speakers, the content, or the arrangements for the conference).
The conference is in Peterborough in September, and takes place over three days. Will there be an online option? That’s something I’m hoping will be answered during the preview.
Hear – and see – what family history societies have to offer! FREE ONLINE TALKS
Four family history societies have already talked to LostCousins members over Zoom, and answered questions – but all of the talks were recorded, so you can find out what Hertfordshire, Suffolk, Huddersfield & District, and Calderdale have to offer by going to your My Events page and clicking the relevant YouTube link. Please note that these talks are in a private area of YouTube, so you mustn’t share the links with anyone else – if someone you know is interested, why not suggest that they sign up for a free LostCousins account?
Still to come this month are talks from the Family History Society of Cheshire, on Thursday 17th April, and from London Westminster & Middlesex Family History Society on Monday 28th April. All talks are at 10am (London time) to accommodate members in Australia and New Zealand, but you can watch the recording at any time on any day (whilst it remains available). Please REGISTER on the My Events page whether you intend to attend the live event or watch the recording.
Image: IWM (Art.IWM PST 15093) Image: IWM (Art.IWM PST 13902) Image: IWM (Art.IWM PST 3108)
Findmypast open up the 1939 Register for England & Wales FREE ACCESS
I’ve used those wonderful wartime posters from the collection of the Imperial War Museum to draw your attention to the fact that Findmypast are offering totally free access to the 1939 Register until 9th May, the day after VE-Day.
1939 Register at Findmypast.co.uk FREE UNTIL 9TH MAY
This year marks 80 years since World War 2 ended, first in Europe and then in the Pacific, and Findmypast are encouraging us to find out more about the contributions our ancestors made during the conflict. It’s not just about the armed services: the men and women who served on the Home Front – many of them unpaid volunteers – also performed crucial roles.
As most of you will know, the right-hand page of the 1939 Register includes key information about those roles and responsibilities. For example, you can see from the extract below that my late father – who ran a one-man printing business – also had a voluntary role as an ‘ARP Stretcher bearer’:
© Crown Copyright Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England and Findmypast
What the 1939 Register doesn’t show is that from 1940 onwards my father was in the army, serving in North Africa and Italy, and returning to England in 1946 – so don’t assume that the ‘Civilian role’ (as Findmypast describes it) continued throughout the war. Most British people who served in the armed forces during World War 2 volunteered, or were conscripted, after the Register was compiled. Conscription began in May 1939, long before war was declared, but this initial legislation only applied to males aged 20 and 21 years, who were required to train for 6 months. Emergency legislation passed on the day war was declared extended conscription to all males aged at least 18, but no more than than 41 years old: younger men were called up first, starting with those over 18 but no more than 23 years old – however they were not required to required to register until 21st October 1939, more than 3 weeks after the 1939 Register was compiled.
Every time I look at a page from the 1939 Register I spot something new, and as I was writing this article I noticed that Doris Russell, the lady living next door, was a ‘Journalist, Daily Newspaper’ – at a time when the occupation of most married women would have been recorded as ‘Household duties’, like my grandmother, or ‘Unpaid domestic duties’. (She was also an ARP Warden, which must have provided a few stories over the years!)
Although my father continued his one-man printing business after he was demobbed, he closed it down around the time I started school and became a proofreader – eventually working for a national daily newspaper from the early 1960s until his retirement in 1980. It’s probably just a coincidence, but you never know….
Comprehensive guide to the 1939 Register
Although the 1939 Register is the closest we will ever have to a census for England & Wales between 1921 and 1951, there are some important differences. One of the most confusing differences results from the way that the 1939 Register continued to be updated with name changes, not just until the abolition of identity cards in 1952, but into the 1980s.
Last November I updated Inside the 1939 Register, my guide to this important source for family historians – you’ll find it here.
Marriages at sea – another myth?
You may recall that in debunking the myth about baptisms and marriages at sea being recorded in the parish registers of St Dunstan’s, Stepney I included a quote from The National Archives which stated:
“Marriages on British registered ships were not legally valid”
This may be true in the sense that they were not legally valid at the time they were contracted, but in 1879 Parliament passed an Act which retrospectively legalised many of the marriages that had taken place on board ship:
It just goes to show how complex historical marriage law is – thank goodness we have Professor Probert to guide us. Her books for genealogists are rarely on my bookshelves because I refer to them so frequently that they’re usually on my desk! Turning to pp154-55 in Marriage Law for Genealogists (1st edition, 2012) I discovered that the 1879 Act is not the only legislation to have a bearing on the validity of shipboard marriages, but I’m not going to attempt to summarise what Professor Probert has written – I suggest you read those pages yourself if you want to know the full story.
Tip: the marriages on board ship which are held by The National Archives can be searched at The Genealogist.
Changes of name by Royal licence
The National Archives has a research guide for Changes of Name (you’ll find it here) which explains, amongst other things, the circumstances in which names might have been changed by Royal licence, rather than by deed poll:
Royal licences for a change of name were common in the 18th and 19th centuries, but in later years would more commonly be issued only when:
- an inheritance depended on someone taking the deceased’s name
- marriage settlement required a husband to adopt his wife’s name
- a change of name also required a change to a coat of arms
The guide also suggests that a good source of information about changes of name up to 1901 is An Index to Changes of Name for UK and Ireland 1760-1901 by W P Phillimore and Edward Alex Fry. The name Phillimore is a familiar one to genealogists since the publishing company which William Phillimore founded in 1897 specialised in publishing records, but interestingly Phillimore wasn’t his birth surname – he was actually William Phillimore Watts Stiff on his birth certificate:
However in April 1873 his father changed the family name to Phillimore, his great-grandmother’s maiden name, and the Royal proclamation (published in the London Gazette of 29th April 1873) commanded that it be registered at the College of Arms.
Note: the Index compiled by Phillimore and Fry is online at The Genealogist, although the London Gazette is usually the best place to start your search for name changes which were announced (rather than surreptitious, as many were). You can save £50 on a subscription to The Genealogist, and get £70 worth of extras, if you follow this link.
Until Monday 14th April you can save 40% on a subscription to Newspapers.com, part of the Ancestry family. Although Newspapers.com has fewer pages British newspapers than the British Newspaper Archive, there are over a billion pages from newspapers around the world – and some of the British newspapers in the collection aren’t in the British Newspaper Archive.
Newspapers.com – SAVE 40%
Note: prices shown do not include tax, not even VAT (where applicable); nevertheless, you’re still saving 40% compared to the full price.
DNA presentation (for Friends only)
On Monday 14th April I will be giving a talk about DNA for those who have already tested – it’ll be similar to the talk I gave in February to members who entered the Annual Competition, but this time it is open to all Friends (the members who generously support my work by paying a small annual subscription). If you’re a Friend you’ll find this talk is on your My Events page – please register whether you intend to watch the live presentation, or view the recording later.
Note: watching this talk is NOT a substitute for following the steps in my DNA Masterclass – in fact, there is NO substitute, and I’ll be explaining why this is in the talk!
When I launched the Edge browser on my computer yesterday there was a reminder that this month is the 50th anniversary of the founding of Microsoft, on 4th April 1975. Then I opened up an email from eBay which revealed that I joined their site 25 years ago, on 10th April 2000. Wow!
I also have a couple of anniversaries coming up – on 1st May it will be the 47th anniversary of the founding of Supersoft, the first software company I started (I don't suppose many people remember the Commodore PET and its massive 8k memory), and it’ll also be the 21st anniversary of the day that the LostCousins website opened to the public in 2004.
Note: my main browser is Chrome (I have 91 tabs open in Chrome as I write!), but I also use Edge occasionally.
Ancestry.co.uk are offering their lowest ever DNA price, but only until Tuesday 15th April. Click here to take advantage of this 60% reduction.
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2025 Peter Calver
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