Newsletter – 11th December 2020
New Year
Competition starts now! GREAT PRIZES
When is an
ancestor not an ancestor?
'Transcription
Tuesday' – 2021 date announced
Who should be
first in the queue?
1776 and all
that – a wonderful discovery
Guest article: 'The
magic of Dickens'
Review:
Charles I's Executioners
Review: A
History of the Medicines We Take
Review: The
Real Beatrix Potter
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a
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articles use the customised Google search between this paragraph and the next
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New Year
Competition starts now! GREAT PRIZES
I've decided to start this year's competition earlier
than normal because, to be frank, this isn’t a normal year. But one thing hasn't
changed – there is an amazing collection of prizes to be won, and to have a
chance of winning you only have to do what should come naturally to any
LostCousins member: search for your 'lost cousins'.
(For those of you who've yet to begin searching
for cousins, this is a very good time to put your excuses to one side and make
a start, even if you can only spare 15 minutes - that's all it took for a
previous winner of my annual competition!)
Every direct ancestor or blood relative you enter on your My Ancestors page between Thursday 10th
December 2020 and midnight (London time) on Sunday 31st January 2021 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 - many people just call them ancestors; a 'blood
relative' is a cousin, ie someone who shares your ancestry.
Shortly after the competition closes I'll start
picking relatives at random from all those correctly entered during the period
of the competition, and the lucky members who entered those relatives will be
able to choose a prize from the list below (the first person out of the hat
gets to choose first, the second person has next choice, and so on).
Note: I can’t wait forever for winners to make up
their minds, because this prevents me offering prizes to other winners - so if
you don’t respond within 24 hours I'll pick a prize on your behalf.
This year I'm once again going to keep up the excitement
and the suspense by telling you about the prizes you can win one by one, in
successive newsletters, starting with:
I'm delighted to announce that Findmypast, Britain's
leading family history company, have generously agreed to donate a 12 month Pro
subscription - providing virtually unlimited access to every one of the
billions of historical records, modern records, and newspaper articles in
Findmypast's enormous collection.
If you already have a
Findmypast subscription don’t panic – if you’re lucky enough to win this
valuable prize you can activate your Pro subscription when your existing
subscription runs out.
Not sure who to enter? It's all in
the next article....
When is an ancestor not an
ancestor?
The most important
page at the LostCousins is the My Ancestors page. But don't be
fooled by the name – it's not just for direct ancestors, and here's why……
If you're my age or
older the chances are that some or all of your grandparents were born before
1881. Naturally you'll enter them if they were on the census, but what's the chance
of those entries leading to 'lost cousins'? Pretty small as it happens, because
anyone descended from your grandparents is a 1st cousin of yours, and you
probably know all of your 1st cousins already.
What about your
great-grandparents? Their descendants are your 2nd cousins – so you'll probably
know some of them, but not others. However they're not all going to be family
historians like you, and the chances are that the ones who are researching
their ancestry have already been in touch. So not much chance of finding 'lost
cousins' there, either.
Now, I'm not saying you
shouldn't enter your direct ancestors – of course you should. But they're just
a stepping stone on the journey – not the final destination. The key relatives
to enter are the ancestors of your 'lost cousins' – which means entering the
relatives from the branches of your tree, because ALL of your living cousins
are descended from the branches.
If I look at my own My Ancestors page there are 25 'direct ancestors' who
I've been able to enter from the 1881 Census (several of them died shortly after
the census, so I'm possibly a little luckier than most). But of course, it’s not
the number of my ancestors that
determines how many new cousins I'm going to find, it's how many of their ancestors that I've entered – and the best
guide to that is the number of 'blood relatives' that I've found in 1881 and
entered. That figure is much higher, at 692, and whilst some of them won’t have
any living descendants, any one of them could potentially provide a connection
to a 'lost cousin'.
The important thing to
remember is that even if all of my 'direct ancestors' had emigrated before the
census, most of those 'blood relatives' would have stayed in Britain, and they
and/or their descendants would have been recorded on the 1881 Census. In other words,
it’s not where your ancestors were in 1881 that matters, but where their
cousins were.
So remember, the page
might be called My Ancestors, but it’s really a
page where you enter your cousins' ancestors – or your ancestors' cousins (it’s
the same thing, of course).
Tip: a good strategy is to start with everyone you know about in 1841
(whether or not you've found them on that census), then track each branch and
twig through to 1881, making use of the ten-yearly censuses and the new GRO birth
indexes which show the mother's maiden name from 1837.
'Transcription Tuesday' –
2021 date announced
Next year's
'Transcription Tuesday' will take place on 2nd February – follow this link
for more details.
A year ago I wrote
that the release of version 7 of Family Historian
was imminent – I'm relieved that is finally out, and I know that there will be
many users who are absolutely delighted.
You can download a
30-day free trial version here.
Who should be first in the queue?
Many of you will have
bought Ancestry DNA kits during the recent sale (and you can still save 25% or more if
you follow the links here
because another sale has started). But what's the best way of using those kits –
whose DNA is most likely to lead you to the answers you're seeking?
When it comes to
vaccines we don't have much choice – the priority is decided by scientists and
clinicians – but when it comes to DNA tests it's largely down to us to choose
who we ask to test.
As with the vaccines
not everyone will say yes, but it would be a mistake to design your testing
strategy based around your expectations of who will agree to take part – not least
because if you have a good reason why person A should test rather than person B,
it'll make it much easier to persuade person A to participate.
As the nearly 70,000
recipients of this newsletter are all family historians I'm going to assume
that you're looking to DNA to solve mysteries in your family tree – knock down
'brick walls', in other words. We do this by examining the clues provided by
the thousands of DNA matches we get and making deductions about how we are related
to our genetic cousins – or as many of them as possible. Figuring out how we connect to our matches is the tricky
bit.
It's extremely rare to
be able to tell from the amount of matched DNA precisely how closely-related
two people are – and whilst Ancestry (or any other company) will give you a
rough estimate of what the relationship is, you shouldn’t read too much into
this. It's a guess – an informed guess, perhaps, but still a guess.
But even if you knew
how closely-related to someone you were, that wouldn't tell you precisely how
you were related, ie which ancestral lines you share with them.
Tip: If you’re an Ancestry subscriber and have uploaded your tree then
in a few cases, perhaps 200 to 300 out of 10000, you'll be told that you have
'Common Ancestors'. Similarly, when you follow the strategies in my DNA
Masterclass you'll identify trees which include the same surnames and/or the
same locations, further clues that might help you knock down 'brick walls'. But
these matches will be the minority.
Most of the time you won't
know either how closely-related you are to a match, or which ancestral lines
you share with them. Fortunately there's help at hand – and as so often
happens, this help comes from your cousins. But first let's consider who should
be first to test.
Test members of the older
generation first
Your own DNA might be
irrelevant – sorry, but if your parents are still alive there's little point taking
a DNA test yourself. You've only inherited half of your parents' DNA, so they
should be the ones to test (assuming there's nobody from your grandparents'
generation still living).
Even if one or both of
your parents have passed away you might not still not be the best person to test
– as an example, your mother's brother won’t have inherited the same DNA as she
did, but it's just as likely to provide the answers you're looking for: both of
them will have inherited precisely half of their parents' (your grandparents') autosomal
DNA.
Should you ask a
sibling to test?
If there's nobody
still around from your parents generation and you've taken a DNA test yourself,
you might be considering asking your sibling(s) to test. But first consider
this: your brothers and sisters share all of your ancestors – so knowing
that you share a match with them isn't going to help you figure out where the
match fits on your tree. The time to invite siblings and other close relatives
to test is later on, when several distant cousins have already tested – that's because,
provided you manage their test, you'll be able to spot matches that your close
relatives share with your distant cousins.
Mistakes beginners
make
What you certainly
cannot do is assume that the cousins who share the most DNA with you are also
the most closely-related – there is a rough correlation, but once you get beyond
2nd cousins it's pretty meaningless. For example, you share DNA with many 6th,
7th, 8th and more distant cousins, but
you don’t share DNA with all of your 4th and 5th cousins. You may not even
share DNA with all of your 3rd cousins. So working your way down the list of
matches on the assumption that the ones higher up the list are the most useful
is a pretty poor strategy, one that will almost inevitably lead to frustration,
wasted effort, and disappointment.
Making use of shared matches
Let's suppose that you
and one of your documented cousins both have a DNA match with person Q. This
strongly indicates that the connection with Q is in the part of your tree that
you share with your documented cousin. But if you’re trying to knock down a
specific 'brick wall' you can turn the process around, and invite cousins who share
that particular 'brick wall' with you to test.
The more distant the
cousins, the easier it is to target the 'brick wall' that you're trying to knock
down. Ideally you'd choose cousins who share only that one line with you – but
you'll generally have to make do with cousins who share two lines.
Siblings and close
cousins
The closer the cousin
who tests, the more ancestral lines you share with them – for example, we share
half our tree with 1st cousins, a quarter with 2nd cousins, and so on. When
close cousins test there are more shared matches, but you learn less about each
one – and bearing in mind how difficult it is to knock down longstanding 'brick
walls' my advice is to make use of your distant cousins. The tighter your focus
on the 'brick wall', the more likely it is that you'll knock it down using the
clues that DNA provides.
Finding distant
cousins who can help
A great way to find
distant cousins is to complete your My Ancestors page, and that's why it’s
the first step in the DNA
Masterclass. The advantages of finding 'lost cousins' include:
- You already know how you're related to them
- They're family historians like you, so they'll
be keen to help
- You won't need to explain to them how DNA
works – they also get this newsletter
- Around half of active LostCousins members have
already tested their DNA, so you won't have to pay for them to test, or
wait for the results
- There's a chance that they've already knocked
down the 'brick wall' you’re up against
Choosing who should
take a DNA test is an important decision: get it right and it will make an
enormous difference to your chances of knocking down your most frustrating
'brick walls'. Get it wrong and you're wasting time and money. Your time, your
money – your decision!
1776 and all that – a
wonderful discovery
I've written in the past
about family heirlooms discovered on eBay and elsewhere, but this story sent in
by Richard is one of the most wonderful tales that I've come across:
I have a watch on various sale websites (ebay, saleroom.com, invaluable
etc) on various family names. Except of course for Jones, Evans, Davies of
which we have many from our Welsh ancestry!
As I have Estlin ancestors I was very interested when an alert came up
on a sale in Salisbury in January for this ring:
"A George III gold
mourning ring, with gold and enamel urn beneath inscribed the words T:Estlin
M:Bowles, in glazed with mourning inscription to the reverse dated 1776, size
L."
I contacted the auctioneer to find out what the exact inscription read:
Ob: 31 Aug
1776 cc:53
Ob: 29 Mar
1771(?) - 1777 (?)
(In case your Latin is rusty, 'ob' is short for 'obiit', meaning 'she or
he died'.)
Looking at my family tree, I could see that my great-great-great-great
grandfather Thomas Estlin was
buried on the 3rd September 1776 at St Mary's, Hinckley, Leicestershire.
I next looked at Find A Grave, and discovered from the memorial inscription
that his date of death matched exactly, as did his age:
"To the memory of Thomas Estlin who died August 31, 1776
aged 54. Elizabeth his wife who died May 5, 1789 aged 65. Thomas son of Rev.
John Prior Estlin of Bristol and grandson of the said Thomas and Elizabeth
Estlin died November 4, 1778 aged 2 years"
Very excited, my sister and I drove to Salisbury for the auction, and
managed to bid successfully.
The ring – probably sized
for a woman - might have been made for Thomas's wife, Elizabeth née Prior,
although it could possibly have been for his son John's wife. Thomas &
Elizabeth were married on 25 Mar 1745 at Swithland, Leicestershire
Thomas Estlin was a hosier, so I looked to see if his will
was in the National Archives. It was! (And the download fee is very reasonable
compared to that required for BMD certificates!)
"Thomas
Estlin of Hinckley in the county of Leicestershire, Hosier, being of sound mind
…….. but in consideration of the great expense I have been at in my son John
Prior Estlin's education I only give him out 5 guineas to buy him a mourning
ring."
Very interesting to find a mourning ring specifically
mentioned in his will - even if I could not understand why it read "buy him a mourning ring."
Presumably the second date inscribed on the ring is for M
Bowles, but I have been unable to trace him or her. If the inscription has been
interpreted correctly, the age of 5 or 6 at death suggests a grandchild, so I
looked for marriages of daughters to a Bowles, but nothing came up, and there
are no Bowles burials at the right time at St Mary's, Hinckley.
What a wonderful
discovery – a once in a lifetime opportunity! Richard is so lucky to have found
the ring, but it wasn't all down to good fortune – he had taken the precaution
of expressing his interest in the Estlin surname, which meant that he was automatically
notified when the ring was put up for auction.
Regular readers will
recall the story
of the 180 year-old sampler that I bought at auction, and how I tracked down
descendants of the girl's family. Sadly there won’t always be someone like me
prepared to give up their time and risk their money – so follow Richard's
example, and do what you can to track down your own heirlooms!
Note: if you can't resist trying to identify the mysterious M Bowles,
you'll find that Findmypast has Leicestershire
parish registers. But please don’t write to me – post any discoveries,
clues, or comments on the LostCousins Forum. If you've been invited to join
there will be a link and a code on your My Summary page, and if you haven't
been invited yet, it's because you haven't added sufficient entries to your My
Ancestors page – the forum is reserved for members who are doing everything they
can to support the LostCousins project to connect cousins around the world.
Guest article: 'The magic of
Dickens'
I'm grateful to MJ Lee, author of the Jayne
Sinclair series of genealogical mysteries for introducing me to a new Dickens
character – Charles Dickens, the magician! I was so fascinated to discover
something completely new about one of the world's most famous authors that I
invited MJ Lee to write an article that I could share with you…..
We all know
Charles Dickens was a magician with words. His novels such as 'David
Copperfield', 'A Tale of Two Cities' and 'Oliver Twist' are famous throughout
the world. But it was only when I was researching his most famous novel, 'A
Christmas Carol', for my own genealogical mystery story that I realised he was
also a conjurer, a trickster, and an unparalleled magician.
Dickens discovered his love of magic around the same time he was
writing his best-known Christmas book, even going so far as to purchase the
stock-in-trade of a renowned magician and using it to perform his tricks at a
Christmas party in 1843 (the same year 'A Christmas Carol' was published).
According to
Jayne Carlyle, Thomas Carlyle’s wife, who attended the Christmas party, Dickens
was a remarkably good performer. She wrote to her cousin:
“Dickens and
Forster above all exerted themselves till the perspiration was pouring down and
they seemed drunk with their efforts! Only think of that excellent Dickens
playing the conjuror for one whole hour — the best conjuror I ever saw — (and I
have paid money to see several) — and Forster acting as his servant! This part
of the entertainment concluded with a plum pudding made out of raw flour, raw
eggs — all the raw usual ingredients — boiled in a gentleman’s hat — and
tumbled out reeking — all in one minute before the eyes of the astonished
children, and astonished grown people! That trick — and his other of changing
ladies’ pocket handkerchiefs into comfits — and a box full of bran into a box
full of — a live-guinea-pig! would enable him to make a handsome subsistence
lest the book-seller trade go as it please!”
Fortunately for
us, the bookseller trade for Dickens went from strength to strength in the
1840s, but he continued to perform throughout as a magician. He even went on
stage, adopting the name Rhia Rhama Rhoos, “The Unparalleled Necromance”, and
claimed to have been “educated cabalistically in the Orange Groves of Salamanca”.
He was proud of
his magic, “…if you could see me conjuring the company’s watches into
impossible tea caddies, and causing pieces of money to fly, and burning pocket
handkerchiefs without hurting ‘em…you would never forget it as long as you
live.”
Magic, although
of a more supernatural variety, played an important part in 'A Christmas Carol'.
The main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, is magically transported by the Ghosts of
Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come to see his life and a possible, rather
unhappy future. He comes to the realisation that the single-minded pursuit of
money is a thankless and unrewarding endeavour. Only through kindness and
charity to others can he make the world a better place and see a better future
for himself. A philosophy which chimed with Dickens’ own views on life.
A similar
realisation is also achieved by my genealogical investigator, Jayne Sinclair,
as she investigates the genealogy of a man mentioned in a hand-written
inscription on a first edition of 'A Christmas Carol'. Through the censuses,
rent books and letters of Victorian Manchester, she discovers his identity and
his present day family.
The inspiration
for my novel came when I purchased an old book published in the 1890s from a
second-hand bookstore. Inside was a bookplate indicating it had been given as a
prize at a Sunday School in 1893. Intrigued, I was able to discover this young
woman’s life story using genealogical research techniques (with a lot of help
from the Census and a well-known genealogy website!!).
Researching
family history can give us insight not only into the lives of our ancestors but
also of other people, even those whose sole claim to fame was to be awarded a
prize at Sunday School or to be included in an inscription.
I think that’s
the magic of genealogy; to discover the lives and loves of those forgotten by history,
but remembered as what they were to us — mums and dads, brothers and sisters,
aunts and uncles.
A magic that I’m
sure Charles Dickens would have loved as much as being a conjurer.
From the magic of Dickens to the magic of
genealogy. And I'm delighted to say that because it's Christmas MJ Lee is making
his latest book available in the UK for just 99p in Kindle format – though only until
15th December.
You'll find my review and links here.
Enjoy!
Review: Charles
I's Executioners
In January 1649 fifty-nine men signed the warrant that condemned King
Charles to die on the executioner's block,
and whilst nobody knows for sure who wielded the axe, there's no doubt about
the identity of the men whose signatures led to the killing of the King.
Six years ago I reviewed
Killers of the King by Charles Spencer, brother of Princess Diana, and uncle
to Prince William. At first I didn’t think I was going to find this new book as
interesting, but the more I read of Charles I's Executioners, by James
Hobson, the more compelling I found it.
Each chapter introduces us to a handful of regicides
who had something in common: we learn about their origins, some humble, many
less so; we learn about their religious beliefs, which were quite wide-ranging
and often incompatible with those of their fellow revolutionaries. We learn
about their prowess, or lack of it, on the battlefield: some were courageous, others
were cowards; some waged war in a gentlemanly fashion, others were cruel and
vicious, slaughtering prisoners and going against the rules of war. (The First
Civil War seems to have been a more civil war than the Second Civil War.)
We also learn what the regicides' fate was: some died
before the Restoration, some escaped to the Continent, some escaped but were
caught and brought back to England, some handed themselves in, hoping that this
would secure them or their families more favourable treatment (it usually
didn't).
For anyone who thinks the English Civil War was
Oliver Cromwell versus King Charles, this book will be an eye-opener. True,
Oliver Cromwell eventually took charge, but there were others whose contributions
were equally significant; Henry Ireton, who – unlike Cromwell - gets a whole chapter
all to himself, might well have been the name we remember had he not fallen ill
and died in November 1651.
Some readers will, I suspect, discover a previously
unknown connection to one of the regicides – most seem to have been married
with children, and 350 years on they must have tens or hundreds of thousands of
descendants.
If you'd like to know more about the people who fought
on the side of Parliament in the Civil War, and understand their motivations,
this book is well worth reading. (As usual you can support LostCousins by using
the relevant link below – even if you end up buying something completely
different!)
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
Review: A History of the
Medicines We Take
I doubt there has been any time in the history of
the world when there has been a greater focus on the safety and efficacy of
medications, so the release of this book, written by two retired pharmacists is
timely.
There's so much in this book – it may only be 300 or so pages, but
it's absolutely crammed with information about the potions and lotions, medicines
and medications from prehistory to the modern day. It's remarkable how many ancient
remedies are still used today, even though our ancestor's had a very poor
understanding of the workings of the human body, and an even worse conception
of how diseases were spread.
There are some details that were of less interest
to me than others – the distinction between pills and tablets isn't something
that I could get excited about, although it did lead to a number of patent disputes
in the later 19th century. Much more interesting, for me at least, was the history
behind modern medicines – antibiotics in particular. It was also fascinating to
discover that Donald Trump wasn't the first World leader to take a new drug –
in December 1943 Winston Churchill fell ill with pneumonia, and was treated
with sulfapyridine, one of the first antibiotics. Sulfapyridine, also known as
M&B 693, was produced by the British company May & Baker, whose
Dagenham premises I passed many times in my youth.
Although most people think of penicillin as the
first antibiotic, it was preceded by Salvarsan, which had been developed in Germany
in the years before the Great War as a treatment for syphilis, though
unfortunately the disease soon developed resistant strains.
Reading the history of the drugs we use today it's remarkable how much
progress has been made in the past
century, and how little in the preceding millennia. I was also surprised to
learn that cholera arrived in Britain as recently as 1831 – just 23 years before
John Snow's analysis which demonstrated that cholera was transmitted by the
contamination of drinking water.
Some of the remedies seem rather quaint – the
Asthma Cigarettes advertised in the magazine article above are a case in point
(copyright image used by permission of the British
Newspaper Archive). First developed in India during the 18th century, by the
end of the 19th century several asthma remedies were available which used pipes
or cigarettes.
Another interesting anecdote revealed the origins
of Addis, familiar in my youth as manufacturers of plastic housewares, and
still around today. The business was founded by William Addis, who fashioned his
first toothbrush from a bone in 1780 when he was in prison – a detail that is
somehow omitted from the history on the company’s own website!
I doubt that anyone will read every single word
of this encyclopaedic volume – even I found some of the detail too abstruse for
my liking – but the authors clearly know their subject. I now understand why so
many of my antecedents died from illnesses that have long since been eradicated
or conquered – tuberculosis, smallpox, typhoid, polio, measles, and scarlet
fever are just a few that spring to mind. Let's hope that the family historians
of the future are able to say the same about COVID-19!
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
Review: The Real Beatrix
Potter
When Beatrix Potter came up with the name Peter for
her loveable scamp of a rabbit she clearly wasn't thinking of me, but perhaps
some of that rabbit rubbed off onto me - as a youngster I was so inquisitive
that nothing would have kept me out of Mr McGregor's garden.
Nadia Cohen's biography, The Real Beatrix
Potter, tells the story of a daughter who wasn't allowed to grow up – even
when she was a successful children's author her parents continued to control
her life, preventing her from going out on her own, and forbidding her from
marrying the love of her life. All that they wanted of her was to make a 'good'
marriage – all that she wanted was to explore nature, paint, and write stories about
animals.
Helen Beatrix Potter was named after her mother but, like her younger
brother Walter Bertram, always known by middle name. Although he was 5 years
younger, Bertram was one of her greatest supporters in her struggle to escape
the shackles of her parents.
Beatrix Potter never attended school – she had a
succession of governesses who taught her at home, in the top floor nursery. But
it wasn't long before she knew more than they did, at least in the subjects
that were of most interest.
Her first book was published privately after
every publisher turned it down – including Frederick Warnes and Co. Just 250
copies of The Tale of Peter Rabbit were printed, and quickly sold to
friends and relatives for the princely sum of 1s 2d each. A further 200 copies
were printed, and they too sold out – and just as she was considering a third
print run she was approached by Warnes, who having seen a copy of the published
book had revised their opinion.
For once her father supported her, using his
legal training to negotiate a good contract on Beatrix's behalf – though if he
had 
known what it would lead to, I suspect he would have thought twice. After
that nothing could hold back Beatrix's writing career, but her parents
continued to exert their well-meaning, but malign influence for the rest of their
lives.
Beatrix Potter wasn't just a children's author and
illustrator – she was also an early environmentalist, and a leading supporter
of the National Trust, which was co-founded by her friend Canon Hardwicke
Rawnsely.
Once she gained her financial independence she
bought farms and farmland in the Lake District and found friendship, and
perhaps love, finally marrying quietly at the age of 47 to the solicitor who acted
for her in one of those property purchases. (Newspaper report courtesy of British Newspaper Archive;
All Rights Reserved)
All three of the books I've reviewed in this newsletter
would make good Christmas presents for yourself, but this book in particular would
make a wonderful present for friends and relatives. I read the paperback, but there is
also a Kindle edition, though at £7.19 it's not that much cheaper (Amazon.co.uk sell the paperback at
£10.99).
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
Julian recently subscribed to the British
Newspaper Archive, but got more then he bargained for:
"Peter's
newsletter of 27 November offered a 25% saving on a British Newspaper Archive
subscription. I had reached the point where BMD and census records were no
longer revealing any surprises, so I took out a three-month subscription. Within
half an hour, I had discovered some fascinating facts about my father, and also
a mention of his father (my grandfather).
"My father,
Jack, was born in Belgium in 1904 and died in 1994. He first appears in British
records in 1919, when his family were admitted to a workhouse. I knew that he
never married my mother although they were together for over 50 years (yes, I
know what that makes me!). I suspected he was a bit of a ladies' man, but what
I found out next was a complete surprise.
"A
newspaper article from 1930 came up in the search. There was no doubt it was my
dad who was involved: he pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to a charge of
bigamy!
"Jack's
father spoke in his defence at the trial. The main thrust of the defence was
that Jack's wife had been certified insane, and was in a mental institution - therefore,
Jack was free to remarry. The Recorder conducting the trial took into account
that Jack was a foreigner, not acquainted with English law, and let him off
lightly.
"I already
knew of a marriage in 1927, but the couple had split up by 1931 when my
biological parents got together. Now, there is a new 'wife' I had never heard
of, and the possibility of half-siblings from that relationship. A whole new
area of research has opened up. I have since found a record of the illegal
'marriage', where a (deliberate?) misspelling of my dad's surname was used. I
will now spend many a happy hour searching through the newspaper archives for
mention of my other relatives, and following up on any interesting stories I
find."
I wrote recently about the couple who became Mr
& Mrs White-Christmas when they married, which inspired Susan to post a
message on the LostCousins forum about this couple:
© Reproduced courtesy of the Essex Record Office.
All Rights Reserved.
Frederick Kiss marrying Maria Death – you couldn't
make it up! Many thanks to Essex Record Office for allowing me to include the register
image (the marriage took place at St Martin's, in Colchester).
There haven't been many good news stories this
year, so to read about the generosity of 900 customers at a drive-thru ice
cream parlor in Minnesota was heart-warming
(you'll find the news report here).
It reminded me that when we add entries to our My
Ancestors page we know that that fewer than 1 in 10 of those entries will produce
an immediate match with a cousin. But we do it anyway, because we're 'paying it
forward', creating entries that our own cousins will match with in the future.
That's why I wanted my New Year Competition to
start before Christmas, a time when we are reminded that it is better to give
than to receive.
If you live in Britain there's a first class
opportunity to save money – on 1st January the cost of 1st Class stamps is
going up from 76p to 85p, a 12% increase. Just make sure that the stamps you
buy don't show their monetary value, for example:
That book of 12 stamps costs £9.12 this month,
but will cost £10.20 next month. 2nd Class stamps are also going up, but only
from 65p to 66p, a modest increase by comparison.
I'm still using stamps that I bought 10 years ago
at around half their current price – a return of 100% in a decade might not
impress financiers or chancers, but there aren’t many safe investments that pay
off so handsomely. Hopefully some of you followed my advice at the time.
Incidentally, if you can't read the date on a
postcard or letter you've inherited checking the amount paid in postage might
help – postage rates since the introduction of the Penny Black in 1840 can be
found here.
I notice that by the time I was born in 1950 the cost of sending a letter had
increased only from 1d to 2½d (about 1p in decimal currency) in those 110 years,
but in the 70 years since it has gone up to the equivalent of 13s (65p) for 2nd
Class letters, and it will soon be 17s (85p) for 1st Class!
Note: in the late 1950s my first paid 'job' was
delivering leaflets for the shop over the road – I was paid 9d for every 100 houses
I delivered to. Mind you, as my pocket money was only 6d a week (and 2d of that
went in the collection plate on Sunday), it seemed like a fortune!
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......
I'll be back very soon with more news
and stories from the world of genealogy – I've just run out of space (and out
of puff!). In the meantime, stay safe – and add as many relatives as you can to
your My Ancestors page!
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2020 Peter Calver
Please do NOT copy or republish any
part of this newsletter without permission - which is only granted in the most
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historians to join LostCousins instead, since standard membership (which
includes the newsletter), is FREE? To link to a specific article right-click on
the article name in the contents list at the top of the newsletter.