Newsletter – 19th December 2025
Annual Competition: thousands of prizes to be won FREE TO ENTER
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue (dated 21st November) 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):
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Looking at the LostCousins database statistics I can see that over 91% of the people recorded on the 1881 England & Wales census have yet to be claimed by anyone. For the Scotland 1881 census it’s nearly 96%!
When I set up LostCousins 21 years ago I had two primary objectives – one was to connect family historians researching the same ancestors, so that they could collaborate. The other, which I call ‘Project 1881’ was to link the people recorded on the 1881 Census with living relatives, so that all researchers – including social historians and local historians – could carry out studies that would otherwise be practically impossible.
As we all know, tracing back from 2025 to 1881 is fairly easy, but tracing forwards from 1881 to 2025 can be extremely difficult. Mapping an entire population over centuries isn’t a new idea: this article about Iceland will give you some idea of what England, Wales, Scotland, and Canada might be able to achieve – with your help.
Please take a moment to identify ALL of your relatives on the 1881 censuses, and add them to your My Ancestors page. If it turns out that another member has already entered the same relative you can exchange information and collaborate, but if you’re the first to claim that person you’ll be establishing an important link from the past to the present.
At a time when there are so many terrible things going on in the world, let’s show that we can work together for the common good!
Annual Competition: thousands of prizes to be won FREE TO ENTER
Last year I had the pleasure of awarding almost 4000 prizes to LostCousins members who took part in my Annual Competition – and I’m hoping to give away thousands more over the next six weeks (this year’s competition ends on 31st January 2026). As usual here are some fantastic prizes donated by big genealogy companies, but it’s not just about monetary value of the prizes – many of them are unique in one way or another.
But first of all, let me say A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who has generously donated a prize for this year’s competition – without you it wouldn’t be so special.
More prizes will be announced as the competition progresses – watch this space!
STAR PRIZE – 12 MONTH EVERYTHING SUBSCRIPTION TO FINDMYPAST WORTH £169.99
With an Everything subscription the world is your oyster – you can log into any of Findmypast’s sites worldwide and access ANY of the billions of records and historical newspaper articles in their collection. Though Findmypast are best-known for their British records, thanks to their close relationships with The National Archives and the British Library, they have a massive collections of Irish and Australian records, and unique access to Catholic records.
You might think, I don’t have any Irish, Australian, or Catholic ancestors – well, that’s what I used to think. But thanks to Findmypast’s Catholic baptism records (and some clues from my DNA matches at other sites) I was able to break down one of my oldest ‘brick walls’, proving that my great-great grandmother was of Irish Catholic stock, even though she married in the parish church and all of her children were baptised in the Church of England. In the process I also discovered an Australian branch that I’d previously known nothing about.
STAR PRIZE – 12 MONTH DIAMOND SUBSCRIPTION TO THEGENEALOGIST WORTH £169.95
If you’re looking for records that the other big sites have missed, mis-transcribed, or ignored, TheGenealogist is a great choice: they have the most complete collection of tithe records and tithe maps that you’ll find anywhere online, and many of the tithe maps are in colour, which makes them easier to interpret. Map Explorer now includes all of the England & Wales censuses from 1841-1911, as well as the 1939 Register, tithe maps, and the 1910 Land Valuation – which is exclusive to The Genealogist (the coverage is fast-expanding, but is currently focused mainly on London and the south).
Looking for someone with an unusual occupation who is proving elusive in the censuses? The keyword search at The Genealogist is one that I’ve used time and time again.
SPECIAL PRIZE – ANCESTRY DNA TEST (UK ONLY)
If
you’ve yet to take a DNA test, or tested with a different company – as I did
back in 2012, long before Ancestry began selling their test in the UK – this is
a chance to discover just how much difference it can make. Whether your aim is
to knock down ‘brick walls’, or simply to verify your records-based
research using evidence that cannot be falsified, you will be amazed by the
results – provided, of course, you follow the advice in my DNA
Masterclass.
Or perhaps you’ve taken the test yourself, but would like to enlist the help of one of your cousins. With DNA the real challenge is figuring out which of your matches share each of your ‘brick walls’, and comparing your matches with those of a cousin who shares a particular ‘brick wall’ helps enormously. But don’t make it a close cousin as they share too many of your ancestral lines – 3rd and 4th cousins are ideal (and they’re the cousins you’re most likely to find through LostCousins).
Note: If you live outside the UK please nominate a cousin in the UK – should you be lucky enough to win.
EXCLUSIVE ZOOM PRESENTATIONS
NICK SERPELL – SOLVING THE JIGSAW OF FAMILY HISTORY
Professional genealogist and former BBC journalist Nick Serpell explains why we need to employ lateral thinking when we hit a brick wall in our research.
For more than ten years Nick worked as the BBC's Obituary Editor, delving into the lives of some of the most famous people on the planet, and telling their stories. In his long career as a BBC journalist, he was always aware of the importance of rigorous research and careful checking of sources.
PROFESSOR
REBECCA PROBERT – FASCINATING BIGAMY CASE STUDIES
A great supporter of LostCousins, and the closest thing to a superstar in the academic world, Professor Probert first came to my notice when she published Marriage Law for Genealogists a book that should be on the bookshelves of every serious family historian (you can read my review here). Her next book will be on the subject of bigamy, so I’m delighted that she has agreed to recount some of the most fascinating cases in advance of publication.
If you’ve added relatives to your My Ancestors page since midnight on 31st January 2025, when the last competition ended, the chances are that you’ve already entered this year’s competition – every direct ancestor or blood relative added counts as an entry, and you’ll get double credit for relatives from the 1881 Census (because that‘s the census most likely to connect you to your ‘lost cousins’, so by using that census you’re doing them a favour).
Your My Summary page shows how many entries you have in the competition so far – it’s shown in red so you can’t miss it.
Of
course, I’m hoping that now you’ve seen some of the prizes on offer this year
you’ll be encouraged to enter even more relatives between now and the close of
the competition at midnight on 31st January 2026. Not because I’m
interested in your data – it’s of no value to me – but because I need that
information to identify the other members who are your ‘lost cousins’. The more
relatives you enter, especially from the 1881 Censuses, the more cousins you’ll
find.
Why would you want to find your ‘lost cousins’? Because you don’t have time to research all of your ancestors on your own – nobody does.
Perhaps the worst thing about researching on your own is that you are likely to be duplicating research that one of your cousins has already carried out already done – and if you’re short of time, you don’t want to waste it, do you?
The point I’m trying to make is that whilst it might take you a couple of hours to enter all of your relatives from 1881, it’s going to save you far more time in the future.
There’s only one thing worse than not winning a prize, and that’s winning a prize that you didn’t want. So this year we’ll once again be using the My Prizes page at the LostCousins site to allow you to tell me which prizes you’d most like to win – it’ll be active soon.
Here’s how it will work – you give each prize that interests you a rating, which can be anything from 1 (not very interested) to 10 (very interested indeed). Remember, these are ratings, not rankings, so you can give more than one prize the same rating. There’s no need to do anything for prizes that don’t interest you at all.
There’s also a space for comments. Often I’ll ask members who are invited to a presentation to submit questions in advance using the Comments box, but you’re welcome to leave other comments.
It’s all my fault… when I was designing the LostCousins site in late 2003 I wanted the pages to have short snappy names that are easy to remember, like My Cousins and My Ancestors. Unfortunately, the name My Ancestors can be misleading because some members infer that they can only enter their direct ancestors (the people they are directly descended from). It’s too late to change the name now, but what I can do is reprint this advice from one of my January newsletters:
Tip: ALL of your living cousins are descended from collateral lines, the lines that branch off from your direct lines, so the best way to find them is to enter the relatives from the branches. Start with your ancestors' siblings then continue with their cousins. A good approach is to start with everyone you know about in 1841 – whether or not you can find them on that census – then track each branch and twig through the censuses until you get to 1881.
Here’s one reason why entering only your direct ancestors won’t work: if you’re of my generation then most of the direct ancestors recorded in 1881 will be your grandparents or great-grandparents. Their descendants are your 1st and 2nd cousins, which means they’re so closely-related that it’s unlikely that you could both have been researching for years without either of you realising that the other shared your passion for family history.
By contrast, if you enter your direct ancestors’ 1st cousins, their descendants are your 3rd and 4th cousins – close enough that they share a good chunk of your tree, but sufficiently distant that you wouldn’t necessarily know that they’re also researching their ancestors.
Of course, everyone’s tree is different, but the same principle applies – the further you cast the net, the more ‘lost cousins’ you’ll find.
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......
That’s all for now – but look out for my next newsletter which will have some exclusive offers!
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2025 Peter Calver
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