Newsletter - 29th March 2018
Ancestry.co.uk is free for Easter ENDS
MONDAY
And so is LostCousins! ENDS TUESDAY
Save on subscriptions to Family
Tree magazine ENDS 7TH APRIL
Swedish records now free online
Dutch records may be going offline
The oldest vaccination certificate I've seen
Fake news about birth registrations?
What makes the 1911 Census special
More unusual 1939 Register entries
Mum's tough love lesson proves controversial
The baby found under a blackberry bush
Do you want to receive these newsletters? IMPORTANT
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click here; to find earlier articles use the
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Ancestry.co.uk
is free for Easter ENDS
MONDAY
From Good Friday (30th March)
until Easter Monday (2nd April) Ancestry.co.uk
are offering free access to their British, Irish, and British Commonwealth
records. This is an excellent opportunity to fill in some of the gaps in your
family tree, especially if you have ancestors who were baptised, married, or
buried in Birmingham,
Derbyshire,
Dorset,
Gloucestershire,
Lancashire,
Liverpool,
most of London,
Manchester
Cathedral, Norfolk,
Northamptonshire, Somerset,
Warwickshire, West
Yorkshire, Wigan or Wiltshire, all parts of England for which Ancestry has
exclusive rights to the parish registers.
Please bear in mind that this
offer ONLY applies at Ancestry's UK site (but I don’t think you need to be in
the UK). You won’t need to provide credit card or bank details, but you will be
required to log-in or register (if you haven't used Ancestry before). To see a
list of all the record sets that are included click here.
And so is
LostCousins! ENDS TUESDAY
As announced in the last
issue LostCousins will be free from Good Friday until Tuesday 3rd April,
offering you the chance to connect with researchers who share your ancestors
wherever they are in the world (a third of all the matches made are between
cousins in different countries, and usually on different continents).
With free access to many of
Ancestry's records (see above) it’s a great opportunity to trace your
collateral lines, so that you can add more relatives from 1881 on your My Ancestors page? Connecting with
documented cousins can not only offer the opportunity of knocking down 'brick
walls', but also provide information about branches of your tree that were
previously unknown to you - it can even help you analyse your DNA matches.
Note: the saying "a stitch in time saves nine has
never been more true" - completing your My Ancestors might take you an
hour or two, but it could save you weeks, months, or even years of research.
Save on
subscriptions to Family Tree magazine
For more than 30 years, more
than twice as long as LostCousins has been in existence, Family Tree magazine has been supporting family historians from
beginner to expert. I wouldn't describe myself as an expert, but I was
certainly a beginner when I first picked up a copy!
Each issue includes practical
ways to research your family tree that you'll find interesting and fun, but my
favourite feature is the recently launched Family Tree Academy, which allows
you to test your knowledge and acquire useful learning tools to improve your
skills. Although still available as a paper magazine the digital edition
includes bonus content and an interactive tablet version - and until 7th April,
you can enjoy special discounts on all digital back issues and 20% off an
Annual digital subscription! Follow this link
to claim either of those offers, or if you would prefer a subscription to the
paper edition click here.
Swedish
records now free online
Since 1st February digitised
records at the Swedish National Archives have been free online - you can find
out more and search the records here.
Note: I don’t have any Swedish ancestry, so I haven’t used
the records myself.
Dutch records
may be going offline
I don't have any Dutch
ancestors either (unless you count my Walloon ancestor, who by the mid-16th
century had made his way to Kent), but if I was researching in the Netherlands the
Dutch Genealogy website run
by professional genealogist Yvette Hoitink would be one to keep an eye on. For example, in February
she had some good news in her blog regarding new online records, but also some
bad news - the forthcoming GDPR legislation is leading archives and councils to
take family cards (gezinskaarten) for the period 1921-40 offline.
A key source for Dutch
records is the WieWasWie ("who was
who") website which is a collaboration between 22 archives - but if you
don't speak Dutch you might find it easier to search the indexes at Ancestry:
Netherlands,
Birth Index, 1787-1915
Netherlands,
Baptism Index, 1569-1879
Netherlands,
Marriage Index, 1570-1938
Netherlands,
Civil Marriage Index, 1795-1950
Netherlands,
Death Index, 1795-1965
Netherlands,
Burial Index, 1546-1821
The
oldest vaccination certificate I've seen
Following my article about
vaccination certificates in the last issue Beryl in Australia sent me this scan
of a certificate from 1863, the oldest I've ever seen:
Tip: if you didn't follow the link to my 2014 article
about vaccination registers it's worth reminding yourself what is available.
Fake news about
birth registrations?
I was recently contacted by a
LostCousins member who had made an amazing discovery on a forum - apparently
the original legislation provided only 15 days for registration of a birth, and
not the 42 days everyone assumed. I couldn't believe it - and yet there was a link
to the legislation, which seemed to prove it (see section 22).
Only one problem - that wasn't
the Act, it was the Bill. When the Bill came before the House of Lords all
sorts of changes were proposed, and if you follow this link
you will see that by the time the legislation was enacted the time limit for
the registration of a birth had been set (in section XIX) at 42 days, as researchers
have always believed.
My advice is to stick to the
LostCousins forum, where information posted is carefully vetted and mistakes
are corrected. Not everyone can join - you need to be taking part in the
LostCousins project to connect cousins around the world and to have achieved a
modest level of success. Hundreds of new invitations were issued recently, so
why not check your My Summary page at
the main LostCousins site to see whether you've been invited to join?
What makes the
1911 Census special
The great thing about the
1911 Census for England & Wales is being able to see the householder
schedules, the census forms that the heads of household filled in. This means
that we also get to see things that the householder wrote on the form which shouldn’t
have been there at all. Sometimes these are amusing comments, sometimes they
are political statements, such as those made by supporters of the campaign for
women's suffrage.
The author Charles Reginald
Haines clearly had a bee in his bonnet:
He wrote "I wish to
record my protest against the Omission of Religion. Due to the pusillanimous
subservience of the Government to the Nonconformist Minority in this country.
Other countries include Religion in their census, and it is the most important
datum of all to discover. It is also included in the Irish Census where the
Anglican religion is in minority. (signed) C R Haines a member of the Anglican
Church Catholic"
Interestingly when a religious
census had been carried out in England & Wales in
1851, it was found that Anglicans were in the minority (based on
both the number of attendees and the number of places of worship - you can see
the statistics here).
No doubt many of those who didn't attend church at all would have been
classified as CofE, in some quarters but that's just the way things were done..
Who knows what was written on
census schedules in earlier years? Sadly we will never know....
More
unusual 1939 Register entries
From time to time people are
recorded more than once in the same census, so it’s not surprising that the
same thing sometimes happened when the 1939 Register was being compiled. But
the instances that LostCousins member Jon discovered were particularly unusual
in that neither entry was cancelled, suggesting that two ID cards and two
ration books were issued in respect of Agnes Hucker, although whether she
actually used both we can never be sure. Indeed she might not even have known
that her daughter-in-law applied for an ID card in her name - it's certainly
more likely that the second ration book was used in London, since if Agnes had
tried to use two sets of coupons in Abertillery it's very likely that the
duplication would have been noticed:
© Crown Copyright Images
reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England and used with
the permission of Findmypast
In the first example Agnes P
Hucker is shown as staying with her daughter-in-law in London; in the second
she's recorded with her husband in Abertillery. But even more unusual is
something that Jon didn't spot - the Abertillery register is a photocopy.
Note: you might have wondered why didn’t Jon realise that
the Abertillery register is a photocopy - it’s because he's completely blind.
And by the way Agnes P Hucker isn't even one of his relatives, she is the
relative of a friend who Jon is helping with his tree. It certainly gives the
time-worn saying "the blind leading the blind" a new and more
positive meaning, don't you think?
Looking more closely at that
register I spotted that there were some amendments in coloured ink, so clearly
the photocopied register was actually used - and examining the dates of the
various entries I concluded that the photocopy must have been substituted for
the original register at some point between 1978 and 1984. I subsequently found
a second Abertillery district with a photocopied register, so I decided to consult
the world's leading 1939 Register expert - Audrey Collins at the National
Archives - to enquire about the circumstances in which registers were replaced
with photocopies.
It seems that after 30 or 40
years of constant use some of the registers were becoming tattered and torn -
so they were photocopied before they deteriorated further, and the copies used
from that point onwards. What happened to the originals? Nobody knows.
The crossed-out entry below
is also interesting - it's not a duplicated entry, it’s an entry for a woman
who simply didn't exist!
Mabel Brown was one of 5
false entries made by John Segal, who made use of all 5 ration books until he
was eventually caught. Sadly there were many who callously exploited the war
for their own ends, one man claiming to have lost his home 19 times in a three
month period and receiving at least £500 on each occasion until he was
eventually caught. You can read more about some of the spivs, fraudsters, and
looters in this 2016 article
from the BBC News website.
I'd always thought that allotments were a legacy of
the Great War, at least in Britain, but I recently came across the
Smallholdings and Allotments Act, 1908 which required councils to provide allotments where
sufficient suitable land was not already available as a result of private
provision (you can read the full text of the original Act here).
A valuable source of food during both World Wars - a plot of 10 poles (about
250 square metres) is said to be enough land to feed a family of four for a
year - allotments remain part of the landscape. Indeed, in my village the
parish council has negotiated for new allotments as part of the quid pro quo for
a housing development.
What surprised me even more
was the discovery that during World War 1 the public were apparently told that
rhubarb leaves could be used a substitute for spinach or cabbage. Even I, a
non-gardener - know that despite their beautiful shiny green appearance rhubarb
leaves are potentially deadly poisonous, on account of the high level of oxalic
acid (the stems also contain some oxalic acid, but the amount is too small to
be harmful).
The article on the right,
taken from the Jarrow Express of 18th
May 1917, but published in many other local newspapers, refers to the death of
a man, and the serious illness of his family, following the consumption of
rhubarb leaves. Indeed the article avers that "modern medical opinion is
fast coming to the conclusion that the stalks of the leaves are equally to be
condemned."
Fortunately the
rhubard-hating (or, perhaps, simply cautious) doctors didn't get their way, and
looking out through the window I can see our rhubarb patch, which delivered a
disappointingly meagre crop last year, but hopefully will do much better this
spring and summer following the splitting of the half-dozen large crowns into
20 smaller plants.
© Newspaper article used by
kind permission of Findmypast; the owner of the rights is not known
Mum's tough
love lesson proves controversial
I suppose it's inevitable
that being from the older generation (to put it politely) I often feel that
youngsters have it easy these days, so I have some sympathy with the Georgia,
US mother who decided to teach her 13 year-old son a lesson, as reported in
this BBC News article.
(In case you’re wondering after reading the article, the age of consent in
Georgia was raised from 14 to 16 in 1995, having been only 10 until 1918.)
I certainly never felt
spoiled by my parents when I was growing up, though I don’t suppose any child
does - and working class families in the 1950s certainly didn't have a lot of
money. In fact, in those days almost all families were well below today's
poverty line - we had no washing machine, no fridge, no central heating, and
I'm not sure that microwaves and tumble dryers had even been invented.
Certainly there were no home computers, and no mobile phones - though we did
have a home phone (on a party line), an inside toilet and a bathroom, so
were more fortunate than many.
The nursery rhyme Old
Mother Hubbard was first printed in 1805 but it is thought to have an older
origin - it sprang to mind when I encountered a letter in the British Medical Journal of 5th May 1917 which referred to a woman who was
aged 49 years, 7 months, and 9 days when giving birth to her youngest child -
as the letter was headed "The Oldest Age of Parturition" I think it's
reasonable to assume that the journal considered it to be the oldest proven
example.
However, the birth
announcements on the right, which are from the Royal Cornwall Gazette of 2nd January 1819 include one relating to
the birth of twins to a Mrs Saunders, who was in her 59th year, and had borne
no children for 35 years. (Although the print is unclear it is definitely a '9'
not a '0'.)
Personally I'm rather
sceptical about the tale of Mrs Saunders - can anyone come up with something
approaching proof that the newspaper report is, or isn't, correct? As Ancestry
have most of the London parish registers online and they're free this weekend
I'd suggest that as the best place to start.
Image
© THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - used by permission of
Findmypast
The baby found
under a blackberry bush
Many of you will have already
read this story on the
BBC site, but if not I thoroughly recommend it.
Do you
want to receive these newsletters? IMPORTANT
With new data protection
regulations coming into force in May I have been reviewing the emails that I
send to members.
At the moment I send an email
announcing each issue of the newsletter to every member who has both asked to
receive them and logged into their LostCousins account in the past three
years. Those who last logged-in more than three years ago (which will include
many of those reading this article) receive emails about some of the newsletters,
but not all of them.
In the near future I will be
making further cutbacks. Those members who are not taking part in my
project to connect cousins across the world will not receive all of the
newsletter emails - they'll receive some and not others. The only exception
will be those who have a LostCousins subscription - though why anyone would buy
a subscription but not search for their cousins beats me!
Tip: you don’t need to pay a subscription to take part
in the LostCousins project - you only need to be a LostCousins member, and as
this newsletter only goes out to LostCousins members EVERYONE on the mailing
list is already a member.
Anyone who doesn't want to
receive these newsletters should amend their My Details page (look for the Privacy
Settings section, near the bottom of the page).
UK postage rates have gone up
yet again, and whilst the increase is only just over 3% that's a lot more than
the interest on savings accounts. It's too late now to buy 1st and 2nd class
stamps at the old price, but you can still save money by buying stamps on eBay
- just make sure that you're buying genuine unused stamps, not forgeries or
stamps that have been through the post before.
I tend to buy mixed lots of
old commemorative stamps, partly because the discount is higher, and partly
because using a large number of brightly-coloured stamps increases the chance
that my letters are going to be opened immediately, rather than put on one side
or thrown into the recycling bin. For example, this lot
is being sold at a 27% discount, with free standard shipping (here's a larger lot
from the same seller). But here's an example of a lot
that I wouldn't touch with a bargepole!
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 hope you find
lots of new cousins this weekend - it’s a great opportunity.
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?