Newsletter – 26th July 2025
Suffolk registers will be online in August NEW
Will the real William Woods please stand up?
Family history books at bargain prices ENDS SOON
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue (dated 23rd July) 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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Suffolk registers will be online in August NEW
I have more ancestors from Suffolk than any other county – around a fifth of my ancestral lines originated in Suffolk – and I’ve got 30 Suffolk ‘brick walls’ in the 1600s and 1700s which I’m hoping to knock down when the registers finally go online.
Back in 2018 I reported that Suffolk Record Office were planning to digitize their registers using high quality colour scans, but that the indications were that they were planning to adopt the same approach as Essex, and sell subscriptions themselves, rather than join forces with one of the major genealogy websites. Fortunately they had a rethink, and in March 2023 signed a deal with Ancestry.
As you can imagine, I’ve been anxiously awaiting the release, and finally we have a date: last week Suffolk Archives posted a short announcement giving the release date as Thursday 14th August.
So, by the end of August I hope to have knocked down some of my 30 Suffolk ‘brick walls – the only problem is, whenever you knock down a ‘brick wall’ there are at least two more on the other side!
Will the real William Woods please stand up?
We’re always being warned about identity theft, but reading the amazing story of William Woods really brought home the dangers – in much the same way as watching the movie Pacific Heights put me off the idea of ever renting out my home.
It’s well worth registering with The Economist to get a free account, allowing you access to handful of articles each month, so that you can read their beautifully-crafted version of the story – you’ll find it here (don’t choose the free trial, instead create a free account). If you really, really don’t want to register there is a much shorter article at the Guardian website, but it doesn’t tell the story of the two ‘William Woods’ nearly as well.
Earlier this month I included this birth entry in my newsletter and commented that it was the first time I’d seen a name change following baptism recorded in the GRO register:
I was wrong – not about it being the first example I’d seen, but about it referring to a name change on baptism (many thanks to the LostCousins member who is also a retired Registrar for pointing this out). The heading on historic birth certificates from the 19th century specifically refers to baptism and, whilst modern copies of those historic entries refer to ‘Name change after registration’, I’d assumed that the change was more recent than 1922. If you see the wording ‘on certificate of naming’ it doesn’t necessarily mean that the child wasn’t baptised, but it’s certainly a possibility.
I would describe my mistake as ‘human error’ but, ironically, Google’s Gemini AI also got it wrong as you can see below:
Certificates of naming, as formal legal documents, were not introduced in England. The term "certificate of naming" is not used in official records related to birth registration. Births, marriages, and deaths were first officially registered in England and Wales starting on July 1, 1837. While birth registration became compulsory in 1875, the concept of a "certificate of naming" is not part of the established system of civil registration.
So I still don’t know when the law in England changed to allow changes of forename other than on baptism. Maybe one of you can help by referring to the birth certificates in your collection, to see when the heading changed? All of the historic birth certificates I have from the early 20th century are short certificates or proofs of registration (the two are difficult to tell apart). Please bear in mind that it’s the date the certificate was issued that’s relevant for the purpose of my enquiry, and not the date of the birth or the date it was registered.
A LostCousins member recently contacted me because he and his wife had the same person in their DNA match list – and he wanted to know how unusual it is for a husband and wife to share the same ancestor.
I get a lot of queries about DNA, and very often the questions need to be unpacked before I can answer them. In this there is an implicit assumption that because they are both matched to the same person, the husband and wife must share an ancestor. Well, that’s not necessarily the case…..
Of course, go back far enough and we’re all related to everyone, but the chance of very distant relationships being identified by DNA testing is minuscule. So the first thing I’d want to know is, “What is the chance of two unrelated people having the same DNA match in their list?”
Most people who have tested with Ancestry have at least 10,000 matches – so I used that figure in my question to Claude.ai (I’ve edited the answer down to remove the mathematics):
Peter: If there are (say) 25 million people who have taken a DNA test, how likely is it that two unrelated people with (say) 10 thousand matches each will - purely by chance - have a match with the same person?
Claude: This is essentially asking: if we randomly select 10,000 people from a pool of 25 million, then randomly select another 10,000 people from the same pool, what's the probability of overlap? [….] it's actually extremely likely (over 98%) that two unrelated people with 10,000 matches each would share at least one match purely by chance. In fact, they'd likely share multiple matches. This demonstrates why shared DNA matches alone aren't strong evidence of a close family connection - the overlap could easily be coincidental given the large numbers involved.
Put it another way, it would be more surprising if a husband and wife didn’t have any shared matches. And if the number of matches exceeds 10,000 then shared matches are even more likely. What IS unusual is to actually spot a shared match.
I have some interesting DNA matches. For example, one of my 2nd cousins on my mother’s side (and, coincidentally, on his mother’s side) turned out to be a 5th cousin once removed, and a 7th cousin once removed on my father’s side (and, again coincidentally, his father’s side).
We probably don’t share any DNA on our fathers’ sides (Ancestry think it’s all on our mothers’ sides), but that’s not what matters: what does matter is that it was only because we were collaborating on DNA that I spotted a familiar name in my cousin’s tree. He and I have never met, or even spoken on the phone, though our mothers – who were 1st cousins – certainly would have done.
Collaborating with cousins…. now there’s a good idea!
Family history books at bargain prices ENDS SOON
In the last issue I revealed that Amazon in the UK had slashed the Kindle version of The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland to £0.00 – an enormous saving for a Kindle book that used to sell for £260 (the hardback version, which is not currently available, was even more expensive at £400 on release in 2016). When I checked just now over 1000 LostCousins members in the UK had taken advantage of the offer – saving more than a quarter of a million pounds compared to the former price.
Tip: just a reminder that you don’t need a Kindle device to read Kindle books – you can download the Kindle app for whichever device you already have, whether it is a phone, a tablet, or a computer.
Sadly this bargain is only available from the UK site – in Australia it still costs about $870, in Canada it’s over $600, and in the US the price is nearly $500.
If you’re in the UK don’t miss out on this bargain – and make sure you look up the surnames of interest to you as soon as possible just in case it turns that Amazon have made a mistake (since they could, in theory, wipe it from your Kindle library). I certainly hope that they haven’t made a mistake, and that this bargain offer is going to be extended to other territories – because more a third of LostCousins members with British or Irish ancestors live in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, or the US.
To take advantage of the offer while it lasts just click the link below:
It’s not the only family history bargain at Amazon UK right now – Kindle versions of lots of the books in the Pen & Sword Tracing Your Ancestors series (and not just the ones pictured above) have been slashed to just 99p for a limited time. In all the cases I’ve checked the RRP for the paperback is shown as either £12.99 or £14.99, but I’ve also given the current lowest price on Amazon, as that’s a better guide to how much you are saving when you buy the Kindle version.
The 99p books I’ve been able to find so far are:
Tracing Your Rural Ancestors by Jonathan Brown
(the paperback is not available new, but Amazon have a used copy for £13.53)
Tracing Your Railway Ancestors by Di Drummond
Tracing Your Criminal Ancestors by Stephen Wade (paperback
£11.70)
Tracing Your Legal Ancestors by Stephen Wade (paperback £13.02 new, but there are some used copies at bargain prices)
Tracing Your Ancestors' Parish Records by Stuart Raymond (the
paperback is not available new, but Amazon have used copies from £5)
Tracing Your East Anglian Ancestors by Gill Blanchard (paperback £12.99 new, but there are some used copies at bargain prices)
Tracing Your Manchester & Salford Ancestors by Sue Wilkes (paperback
£10.95)
Tracing Your Liverpool Ancestors by Mike Royden (paperback
£12.13)
Tracing Your Glasgow Ancestors by Ian Maxwell
(paperback £10.63)
Tracing Your Ancestors in County Records by Stuart Raymond (paperback £12.05)
Tracing Your Church of England Ancestors by Stuart Raymond (paperback £9.98)
Tracing Your Ancestors Through Death Records by Celia Heritage (paperback – very expensive when I checked)
Tracing Your Second World War Ancestors by Phil Tomaselli
(paperback £11.15)
Tracing Your Air Force Ancestors by Phil Tomaselli
(paperback £11.15)
Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land
Records
by Chris Paton (paperback £13.79)
Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet by Chris Paton (paperback £12.29)
Tracing Your House History by Gill Blanchard
(paperback £12.16, but there are much cheaper used copies)
These prices aren’t going to last for long – in fact while I was compiling the list some of them changed from 99p to £4.99 in front of my eyes, so I’ve removed them from the list, but there may be others that change between when I wrote this and when you read it. (31st July: I've drawn a line through the books that have reverted to their usual price, but the links will still work if you want to take a look. Some may be available free with a Kindle Unlimited trial)
Note: it’s possible that in some cases there are new editions but even if this is the case it’s surely still worth investing a measly 99p to make sure it’s what you’re looking for?
Finally, I can’t tell if any of the Kindle books in the Tracing Your Ancestors series are on offer in other countries, but you can quickly check yourself by using the relevant link below:
Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
Note: Amazon have a service called Kindle Unlimited which allows you to read certain Kindle books free if you pay a fixed monthly subscription. It wouldn’t suit me, but it might suit you – you can find out more here.
It’s hard to believe that in 21st century England there are still hospitals in use which were formerly workhouses. My late father spent many weeks in Whipps Cross Hospital, as did his late wife (my step-mother) before him – so when I saw a photo of St Peter’s Hospital in Maldon, Essex in this BBC News article I knew at once that the 151-year-old building was a former workhouse.
I usually leave plums
and gages in our orchard as long as possible, so that – if possible – they can
ripen on the tree, but this year I’m picking them early, because of the enormous
number of fruit wasps.
Greengages and damsons are my favourite stone fruit, but the yield is very low compared to last year’s bumper crops. I’ve made the most of what we have by salvaging greengages that have been half-eaten by insects and lightly poaching the good parts – we aim to have home-grown fruit for breakfast as often as we can, and manage it for much of the year (with the help of the freezer and preserving jars).
My wife is at the ballet today, so apologies if there are more typos than usual. One of the advantages of the newsletter being online is that it can be updated – however that’s not the only reason I’d prefer you to read it on-screen, rather than printing it out. And it’s not about cost or the environment, though I certainly take them into account when I decide whether something needs to be printed or not.
No, the main reason I want you to read this newsletter online is because I take a lot of time finding useful resources and interesting articles that I can link to – the article I write is often only a small part of the story. Take for example the William Woods story near the beginning of the newsletters – it’s a phenomenal story, and I wouldn’t want any of you to miss out.
Talking of missing out, remember that some of the greatest resources on the LostCousins site are the 10 Masterclasses, which are updated from time to time and cover almost all of the issues you’re likely to encounter during your research. They have ALL been published in the newsletter, so you can search for them using the search box near the top of any issue, but if you’re supporting LostCousins by paying a subscription you have instant access to the latest edition of every Masterclass from the Friends Only page.
Finally, and this isn’t medical advice, just the story of my own experience: I spend a lot of time in front of my computer, and around 15 years ago I began suffering from such frequent back pain that I began to think it would never go away. Fortunately someone (and it may have been a physiotherapist, but don’t quote me on that) suggested that I sleep with a small pillow between my knees. The results were amazing!
You can buy special knee pillows (there are several examples here), but the only one I tried didn’t work nearly as well for me as a 16in square regular pillow – so that’s what I use to this day (whether I am at home or away).
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......
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2025 Peter Calver
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