Newsletter – 31st May
2021
Last chance to save 30% at the British Newspaper Archive ENDS MIDNIGHT
Seeing a long-dead grandfather
for the very first time
Impact of marriage
certificate changes
Probability and
family history (part 1)
Friends are 11th cousins
shock
The LostCousins newsletter
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Last chance to save 30% at the British Newspaper Archive ENDS MIDNIGHT
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unlimited access to over 300 million articles from millions of issues,
mentioning billions of names and places – the offer ends at 11.59pm (London
time) on Monday 31st May.
If you've subscribed in the past you'll know that one
of the best features is the ability to restrict your search to articles added
to the archive after a certain date, which means that if you're repeating a
search you don’t have to plough through hundreds of results that you've
previously viewed.
Unlike most of the websites that I use to research
my family history the British Newspaper Archive isn't aimed solely at
genealogists – it's an amazing resource for social historians and local
historians. Indeed, when I'm using the site I frequently get side-tracked by an
interesting article and find myself researching a topic that's completely
unrelated to my family.
This offer isn’t exclusive to LostCousins, but you
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BRITISH
NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE – SAVE 30% ON 3 & 12 MONTH SUBSCRIPTIONS (ends 31st
May)
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Seeing a long-dead grandfather for the very first time
![[IMG]](endmay21news_files/image002.jpg)
There was a lovely post
on the LostCousins forum this week about the discovery of a grainy photo in the
British Newspaper Archive – it had appeared
in the Northampton Chronicle for 7th June, 1915.
Reading the article I can imagine the sadness that reading
the report must have brought to those who knew this soldier, one of many Britons
who lost their lives in the Battle of Auvers Ridge. However it's
counterbalanced by the joy that the unexpected find has brought to his descendants
– because no other photographs have survived it’s the first time they've ever seen
him!
(Image © Johnston
Press plc. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.)
There is a wealth of information locked away in
archives, but as more and more become accessible online it's an opportunity for
us all to add to our knowledge of our family's history.
Tip: newspapers have
photo archives and these often contain unpublished images – as well as better-quality
versions of the photos that have appeared in print. I don't suppose that many
of these archives go back to the early 20th century, but if you find a
photograph that's really special to you it's certainly worth asking.
As of 4th May an impressive 97% of households in
England & Wales had submitted their census returns, but the Office for
National Statistics (ONS) continues to persuade and cajole non-responders to
fill in the forms (the opportunity to submit a return online ended on 17th
May). According to the ONS:
If people refuse to take
part, they could be taken to court and issued with a £1,000 fine and criminal
record. The census non-compliance operation will begin on May 25.
I'm
sure that no readers of this newsletter are in danger of being fined – nobody
cares more about the census than we do! Which brings me on to the contribution made
by LostCousins members who worked on the census: I have it on good authority
that the articles What
was it like to be a census enumerator in 2021? and Observations
of a Census Field Officer found their way to the ONS where the feedback
was much appreciated.
LostCousins
might be one of the smaller family history sites, but we punch above our
weight!
Impact of marriage certificate changes
The
implications of the recently implemented changes in marriage procedure are
gradually becoming apparent: it seems that – as I predicted last year – the
first casualty will be church marriage certificates. I received this email from
a LostCousins member who has direct experience:
I
have recently become the 'Appointed Person' to register marriages at our
Independent Evangelical church here in Wales. We were told earlier this month
to take all our documents to the Town Hall. They then proceeded to keep the
actual certificates book, and cross through the remaining spaces in the book
where we would normally keep our copy of a marriage and return that book to us.
I don't know if this is the same for the Church of England (or the Church in
Wales in our case) but it looks like we're not even going to be able to offer a
'ceremonial' certificate.
I'm
sure that some enterprising company will produce ceremonial certificates –
indeed they might have done so already. Do other members have direct experience
of the changes?
Note:
it was interesting to see that the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, waited
until after the introduction of the new system before marrying the mother of
his latest child. In so doing he was the first Prime Minister to marry during his
period of office for almost two centuries.
Probability and family history (part 1)
I've
always been fascinated by chance and probability, and whilst I know it isn't everyone's
cup of tea, family historians simply can’t ignore it. For example, we all know
that John Smith is a common name, so we'd be crazy to assume that the first baptism
or birth registration we find is the right one.
Even
if a name is rare across the country as a whole it might be fairly common in a particular
part of the country. The reason that some surnames are so common is because
they originated in multiple places at multiple times – occupational names like
Smith are a good example. But if you know roughly where your ancestor
originated what matters most is not how common the name is across the whole
country, but how common it is in the region you’re searching.
For
example, there are only 410 people with the surname Pallant in the 1881 Census,
but 280 of them were born in Suffolk. My own surname is so unusual that I spent
much of my youth telling people how to spell it - but in 1881 at least 809 of
the 1348 Calvers on the census had been born in either Suffolk or Norfolk.
An
experience nearly half a century ago underlines the difference: when I made a purchase
at an auction in Saxmundham in 1975 they didn’t ask me how to spell my surname,
as they always did at auctions in the London area; they asked me what my
initial was.
Forenames
aren’t evenly distributed around the country, either. On my mother's side of my
tree there are only 9 relatives called Roger who were born prior to the 20th
century, but 6 of them are from the Pepperell line – which originated in Devon,
where the forename is relatively common.
When
you're trying to assess how likely it is that a particular entry relates to
your ancestor, and not to someone with a similar name, it would be foolish not
to take into account how common the forename and surname are. It would be
equally foolish to assume that you've found all of the possible entries – even if
all of the parish registers for a particular county have been transcribed and
indexed there will be some entries that have been mistranscribed, some that
have been misrecorded, some that have been omitted from the register, and –
unfortunately – some registers that have been lost, or damaged.
In
the next article in this series I'll be looking at how we adjust our probability
estimates when we discover new information.
Friends are 11th cousins shock
I
couldn't help laughing when I read that research by a large genealogy company has
discovered that Friends stars Matthew Perry and Courtney Cox are 11th
cousins.
What
made it so amusing? The reality is that we all have hundreds of millions of
cousins who are 11th cousins or closer – probably more than the population of North
America. So it would have been more surprising if someone had managed to prove
that the two actors aren't related!
More
importantly do you know what an 11th cousin is? Or a 5th cousin twice removed?
If those sorts of questions normally have you stumped, the next article will
solve the problem once and for all.
In
the days before calculators were invented it was common for tradespeople to use
Ready Reckoners rather than work out by hand (or in their head) that a dozen items
at one shilling and fourpence halfpenny each cost 16/6d.
The
problem with using a Ready Reckoner – or, for that matter, a modern calculator –
is that you don't learn anything by using them. So when someone produces a
chart that gives the relationships between two relatives on a family tree my
immediate reaction is to suggest that the best diagram for working out
relationships – and explaining them to others – is a family tree.
Working
out how two cousins are related is not only really simple when you do it using
a family tree, it’s instructive. So how does it work?
Start
by identifying the two cousins and their common ancestor(s) – if you're
using a print-out of your tree you could mark them using a highlighter pen.
Now
count the number of generations from each cousin to the common ancestor(s). If the
cousins are of the same generation the result will be the same for both – for example,
for 1st cousins it’s 2 generations to their shared grandparents, for 2nd
cousins it's 3 generations to their shared great-grandparents, and so on.
The
simple rule is, deduct 1 from the number of generations – thus the mutual ancestors
of 7th cousins are 8 generations back.
It's
slightly more complicated when the cousins are from different generations – in this
case you deduct 1 from the lower of the numbers, whilst the difference in the
number of generations tells you how many times removed the cousins are. Thus
if you counted 3 and 4, you’d be looking at 2nd cousins once removed; if you
counted 2 and 5 they'd be 1st cousins three times removed.
I
haven't included a diagram because the only diagram that matters is your
tree. Try it out a few times using examples of cousins you know, until it's
second nature (as it is for me).
When
my wife offered to write an occasional article for the many gardeners amongst
the newsletter readership it seemed that Gardeners Corner would be a good name
for the column. It was only later that I remembered one of the key landmarks in
the days when I commuted to London was Gardiner's Corner in Aldgate – an
enormous roundabout on the edge of the City which was named after Gardiner's
department store (which was destroyed by fire as recently as 1972 – there's a photograph
on this site).
Anyway,
I hope you enjoy her first column – if so, it could be the first of many!
I
first planted peonies well over 20 years ago, at the beginning of our gardening
adventure on the southern fringes of a small ancient wood. The garden contained
only a handful of shrubs and was overrun with rabbits and muntjac deer. Having
read countless books and articles about plants that might be resistant to the
local wildlife, shrubby peonies (paeonia lactiflora) seemed a good bet for a
complete amateur - lactiflora in their name refers to the milky sap
which is an irritant to human hands and furry creatures. They are Himalayan in
origin, thriving in mountainous terrain; hardy, tough, reliable – and super
impressive when in flower.
This
week they are set to explode from tight bud balls into a riot of ruffled,
glamorous colour! There are dozens of plants now, the youngest bearing 5 or 6
and the oldest well over 20 flower buds. What began as an effort to plant
something that would not get eaten has become one of my rules: if there is room
for another peony, plant one. They have never been browsed, are low maintenance
and are close to foolproof. As a cut flower they have more perfume than most
roses and will open in the vase from bud into showstoppers. I tend to leave cut
stems in water for a couple of hours in a room where the earwigs can be
disposed of; better than them crawling up the walls in the sitting room!
Peonies
are rhizomes - like bulbs, they build much of their energy through leaf
photosynthesis after flowering. So cut back the flowering stems when they are
spent, but leave the foliage alone in summer until it starts to blacken. Then
cut down to just above soil level and rake in a little general fertiliser
(don’t overdo it) before winter. Peonies flourish in sun or lightly-dappled
shade – as soon as the days begin to lengthen you will see deep red foliage
nudging up, even when the nights are still below freezing. At this point, it’s
helpful to push some stakes or supports into the ground because the weight of
the flowers might otherwise cause them to droop. While single varieties like
“white wings” are more easily accessed by bees, double varieties like “Sara
Bernhardt” are longer lasting and more fragrant, and hence good for cutting. I
try to find room for both.
Plant
your peonies in ordinary garden soil with a little fresh compost. The golden
rule is not to plant them too deeply, and ensure reasonable drainage (to
prevent rot). Buds spring from the rhizomes and these need to surface quite
quickly. So just cover the rhizome with an inch or so of soil, firm in gently
and water well for the first year and in dry Spring months.
There
has been much written about never moving a peony – they are famously long-lived
and can become very big and settled after a long while, but I have moved smaller
peonies without difficulty. Do it when they are dormant; dig out the whole root
ball, and take the opportunity to cut off some of the rhizome to create new
plants before relocating. I plant ground covering hardy geraniums in shades of
pink or blue (such as “Roseanne”) between the peonies to provide summer
interest and suppress weeds; these enjoy similar growing conditions, blend well
with the residual peony foliage and can be cut back to encourage a second round
of flowering through to early autumn.
At
this time of year, if you lack peonies blooming in your garden you might think
that it’s a mere pipe dream until supplies appear for the autumn planting
season. However, now is the time for bargain hunting! Towards the end of
spring, suppliers tend to offload excess stock of peony rhizomes at heavily
discounted prices. One potted peony plant can cost £15-20, but buying 6
rhizomes for under £15 in late spring is somehow more attractive. Soak them in
cool water for a few hours, pot up in well-draining soil in large individual
containers – again, not too deeply. Place in a sunny spot and water the
emerging plants (they will take a few weeks to get going) throughout the
summer. By autumn they will start to die back, but you will then have six
garden-ready plants that will race ahead in the spring and beat the roses into
flower, year after glorious year. And that £20 potted version will probably
only be one season ahead of your six!
Finally
to tree peonies (suffriticosa) – these are the larger, exotic cousins often depicted
in classic chinoiserie prints. Though more expensive to buy they can grow to
sizeable specimens well over six feet tall, flowering in May and June. The
Chinese names reflect the sheer beauty of often striped, ruffled and bi-coloured
hybrids in a wider range of combinations than the lactifloras. The large leaves
are attractively fine and dissected. Tree peonies need similar growing and
planting conditions, but don’t cut them back at all. Leave them intact
to overwinter and shoot from the tips in spring. They can be fickle to move, so
find yours a nice permanent spot with good drainage and mid-afternoon shade.
One in the right spot in your garden will make a magnificent investment!
Here
are some links to current bargains (apologies if they're sold out by the time
you read this):
Packs
of 6 peonies for £11.99 (with further discounts for multiples)
Packs
of 3 tree peonies for £49.99
Wide
variety of discounted peonies
Do you know someone who deserves to win the first Findmypast Community
Award? Head over to their
blog to find out more.
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2021 Peter Calver
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