Newsletter – 10th
February 2021
What will the 1921 Census reveal?
Should the 2021 Census ignore the pandemic?
EXCLUSIVE
Oldest person in Europe survives coronavirus
Did you enter my competition? URGENT ACTION REQUIRED
Public Health in Wales: 1800-2000
Adoption matters: Caroline's story
Fake news and conspiracy theories
Why I might not need to worry about the
South African variant
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What will the 1921 Census reveal?
One
of the things that made the release of the 1911 Census so exciting was the inclusion
of information that had never been recorded in a British census before, such as
the number of years that a couple had been married, and the number of children
born to that marriage.
Neither
of those questions were asked in 1921, but those who were married or widowed were
asked to state the total number of living children and step-children below the age of 16, and indicate how old each
one was last birthday. The form is quite complex, so I wouldn't
be surprised if some householders made mistakes in answering these new questions
– after all, there were quite a few mistakes in 1911 (though ironically some of
the inadvertent errors turned out to be helpful to family historians).
What
else is different? Each person is asked to give their age in years and
months, an enhancement that might enable some of us to finally track down
missing birth certificates. Birthplaces of those born outside the UK were to be
given as country and state, province, or district – in 1911 this extra
detail was only required for those born in the British Empire.
But
perhaps most intriguing of all is the requirement for children to state whether
their parents are still alive – where children were living with their parents
at the time of the census it's unlikely to reveal
anything unexpected, but it might throw up some surprises for those who were in
an orphanage or other institution, at boarding school, or living with other
relatives.
Finally,
a reminder that although the 1921 Census was planned for Sunday 24th April,
industrial unrest resulted in it being postponed until Sunday 19th June, even
later in the year than the 1841 Census, which took place on 6th June.
Should the 2021 Census ignore the pandemic? EXCLUSIVE
The
England & Wales census is due to go ahead as scheduled on 21st March (as is
the Northern Ireland census, although the planned censuses for Scotland and the
Republic of Ireland have been postponed until 2022).
But
if we’re going to hold a census during the pandemic, doesn't
it at least make sense to collect some information related to the pandemic?
Wouldn't it be good to know who is furloughed, who is working from home, who is
studying remotely, who has recovered from COVID-19, and who has been vaccinated?
Even if the government don’t want this information, I
bet that future generations would like to know – and I reckon that the family historians
of the future would also like to know which households are shielding and which
households are bubbling (and with whom).
Thankfully
once in a century events only happen around once a century – but isn’t that all the more reason to collect data that could inform policymaking
in the future? One thing you can be sure of – this won't
be the last pandemic, though hopefully it'll be the last in our lifetimes.
Oldest person in Europe survives coronavirus
At
nearly 117, a French nun has become the oldest person in the world to survive COVID-19.
You can find out more in this BBC News article.
Closer
to home – and closer to my age – Stanley and Mavis, a couple in Bolton who are
in their 80s have reunited for the first time in a year after being kept apart
by the pandemic. Stanley has dementia, so it must have been really difficult for
both of them - there's a short video clip of the reunion in this Guardian
article.
Much of the language we use in connection with the current
pandemic is war-like, for example, we talk about 'fighting' the virus as well as
describing doctors and nurses as being 'on the frontline'; in Britain we've even involved the army in the distribution of vaccines
and test kits.
So it is salutary to note that in the week before Christmas the UK death
toll from COVID-19 passed the number of British civilians who died in the
Second World War.
Seven leather-bound volumes in a display case just outside
St George's Chapel at Westminster Abbey record the names and addresses of
66,375 British civilians who died as a result of enemy
action in World War 2. Two smaller books which were added in 2017 include
several hundred more whose deaths were discovered through more recent research.
For more information see this page
on the Westminster Abbey website.
Nearly 60,000 of the records can be found at
Ancestry:
UK,
World War II Civilian Deaths, 1939-1945
You can also search at the Commonwealth War Graves
Commission website, although it's rather more difficult to negotiate. I found a free
index for Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire on the GENUKI
website – there may be other similar indexes elsewhere (if so please post the information
in the relevant county section of the LostCousins Forum).
Did you enter my competition? URGENT
ACTION REQUIRED
Nearly 2000 people entered my New Year Competition,
but I'm going to delay the announcement of the prizewinners
for a few more days to give all entrants an opportunity to check their entries –
sadly three of the winning entries have incorrect information (ie it doesn’t match the census), so
those entries will be disqualified if they're not corrected.
Remember, at LostCousins we don’t
have family trees, we have census entries – and matching entries input by
cousins who have never met depends on both entering the same information. It's not difficult – all you need to do is follow the
instructions on the Add Ancestor form – so there's really no excuse for getting it wrong.
Of course, in the real world
people do still make mistakes – so I make it as easy as possible for members to
check their entries against the census. For all censuses (other than the US
censuses) I provide an arrow you can click to carry out an automatic search of
the census.
Tip: if you don’t get any
results, or the head of household is missing from the search results this
usually indicates that the census references are incorrect; click your relative's
name and check the advice on the Edit Ancestor form, and if you still can't see
where you have gone wrong check the FAQs.
The
most common mistakes relate to forenames: typically middle
names are included where the census shows none, or full names are given where
the census shows only an initial or an abbreviation (eg
Wm or Willm). Always follow the advice on the Add
ancestor/Edit ancestor form because, even though you might feel uncomfortable
entering information you know (from other sources) to be wrong, your objective is
to match your cousins' entries.
Tip:
the optional part of the form allows you to enter corrections and additional
information; none of this is used in the matching process, and where it is
shown on your My Ancestors page it appears in italics, as a reminder that the
underlying entry differs.
Why
have I not contacted the three potential prize-winners directly? Because it is
very unlikely that they're the only ones to have slipped up – in these particular
instances the discrepancies are sufficiently small that a match with a cousin wouldn’t
be completely missed (possible near matches are indicated on your My
Ancestors page by a ! symbol), but that won’t
always be the case – especially if the age or census references are wrong – so it's
well worth taking a few minutes to check your entries if you haven’t done so
previously.
Tip: bear in mind
that for some censuses we use the information transcribed by FamilySearch,
whereas for others it’s the information handwritten on
the census form that matters. But you don’t need to
remember which is which – just follow the advice on the Add ancestor/Edit
ancestor form.
By
the way, if any of those three entries remains uncorrected all
of the other prize-winners will move up one, and I'll draw an extra
entry – so the number of prizes handed out will remain the same.
Researchers
with ancestors from Wiltshire are particularly well catered for – not only are the
parish registers from 1538-1916 online at Ancestry, Findmypast have well over 6
million transcribed entries from parish registers.
Key
record sets at Ancestry include:
Wiltshire,
England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812
Wiltshire,
England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1916
Wiltshire,
England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1916
Wiltshire,
England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1916
Wiltshire,
England, Non-Conformist Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1810-1987
Wiltshire,
England, Wills and Probate, 1530-1858
Transcribed
entries at Findmypast include:
Wiltshire
Baptisms Index 1530-1917
Wiltshire
Marriages Index 1538-1933
Wiltshire
Banns Index 1538-1933
Wiltshire
Burials Index 1538-1990
Wiltshire
Wills and Probate Index 1530-1881
As you can see, the Findmypast transcripts include more entries
from the 20th century. However the coverage varies enormously depending on the
parish – this list
shows the coverage by parish and by event. Many, but not all
of the Findmypast transcripts have been provided by Wiltshire Family
History Society.
The Wiltshire
Record Society is an interesting source of information; members receive the
society's publications, usually one each year. New members can purchase copies
of earlier publications – subject to availability – but many are out of stock,
sadly including the 2010 book Gleanings from Wiltshire Parish
Registers which was
mentioned recently in an article by Alan Crosby in Who Do you Think You Are? magazine. I don’t
have any ancestors from Wiltshire – to the best of my knowledge – but no family
historian can cease to be fascinated by the minutiae of parish registers.
Wiltshire Record Society
publications from 1939 to 2002 can be downloaded free in PDF format, and even
if you don’t have a connection with the county you might
still find some of them useful. For example, the insights into taxation records in the
extensive introduction to Two Sixteenth-Century Taxation
Lists, 1545 and 1576 could
well inspire you to seek out similar records for other counties.
Public Health in Wales: 1800-2000
If
you have British ancestry, and especially if some of those ancestors came from
Wales, you'll find this history
of health care in Wales over the past two centuries very interesting (note: it
is in PDF format).
Adoption matters: Caroline's story
Not
every adopted person wants to connect with their birth mother and siblings. Here's what Caroline told me:
"I have researched my birth mother's
ancestors a little but my heart was not in it somehow,
I was so happy with my adopted parents and family it didn't seem right.
"I had discovered my identity some years
ago, I was adopted during rationing and my mother was given my ration book
which had my birth mother's name and address on it.
"She was 18 and unmarried, lived in the
next town to us, very near to my adopted grandmother, and I have discovered
that when she married she lived in the road parallel
to our road. I may have passed her in the street or in the local shops, she had
3 children so I have siblings! She would be 90 now.
"I wonder about my father. All I know
(from my parents) is that he and my birth mother had an affair, he was her boss
- much older and a married man. When she did marry, age 22, it was to a man 15
years older than she. On their marriage certificate he is a bachelor, but I do
wonder if it was my father and they married once she was over 21?"
So
far Caroline hasn’t been tempted to use DNA to confirm
her father's identity – it's very unlikely that he's still alive, but she could
also have siblings on that side of her tree (she'll certainly have cousins, of
course).
Did
you know that wine glasses have increased in size pretty
consistently since 1700? This PDF chart
from the British Medical Journal reveals all.
Carry on camping
The
games known as soccer (or association football) and rugby derive from ball
games that have been played throughout much of recorded history, though the
rules were only set down in the mid-19th century. Less well-known is 'camping',
which was played in England (especially East Anglia) until the early 19th
century.
There
is a long description of the game in an 1823 book entitled Suffolk words and
phrases; or, An attempt to collect the lingual localisms of that county (the
book is available free at the Internet
Archive – the entry begins on page 63). What I found particularly intriguing
was the mention of a snotch which was awarded for carrying the ball to
the opposing goal – it reminded me of the snitch in Quidditch (Harry
Potter fans will know what I'm talking about).
According
to Wikipedia camping was originally played in the middle of a town, the
objective being to carry the ball to the other side, but later it was played in
the country – this entry
on the Norfolk Heritage Explorer website describes a site near Swaffham. Apparently the game could be quite rough, resulting in serious
injuries or death, so perhaps it's not surprising that it seems to have died out.
There
is an article about camping in the January 2021 issue of The Local Historian
(the journal of the British Association for Local History) – I'm
looking forward to reading it.
Fake news and conspiracy theories
Last
week a woman
was banned from hospitals in Hampshire and Sussex after repeatedly filming
empty corridors and posting them on the Internet as 'evidence' that there is no
pandemic, whilst a man was arrested
for distributing leaflets that compared the vaccine roll-out to the Auschwitz
concentration camp, where hundreds of thousands were gassed in the WW2.
I'm not a psychiatrist, so can't give an opinion
on the mental state of those two individuals, but I don’t think it's possible
to explain away this sort of behaviour simply by calling it delusional. There
was an interesting article in the Financial Times recently by Tim Harford, whose name some of you will recognise – normally FT
articles are behind a paywall, but I was able to read it, so try following this
link
and see what happens.
If
you’re faced with a friend or relative who believes in
one or more conspiracy theories, how should you deal with them? This BBC article has some
useful suggestions – though since some conspiracy theorists believe the BBC is
run by far-right extremists, and others reckon it’s controlled by communists, perhaps
you shouldn't let on where you found the advice!
Why I might not need to worry about the South
African variant
On
Saturday I had my first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneva
vaccine. Then, over the weekend, I read articles suggesting that it might not
be effective against the South African variant, which has already made its way
to the UK - although the numbers are very small
compared to the UK, or Kent, variant (which is currently the dominant variant
across most of Britain, responsible for over 90% of positive tests).
The
good news is that whilst the South African variant seems to be more
transmissible than the original strain, the evidence so far is that it doesn't have a transmissibility advantage compared to the Kent
variant. This means that the measures which are currently reducing the level of
infection in the UK – see table below – should have a similar effect on both
strains.
|
Daily cases numbers: 7-day average |
|||
|
Week to |
Cases |
Change |
|
|
11 January 2021 |
57851 |
||
|
18 January 2021 |
44997 |
-22% |
|
|
25 January 2021 |
33738 |
-25% |
|
|
01 February 2021 |
23732 |
-30% |
|
|
08 February 2021 |
17714 |
-25% |
|
Source:
https://worldometers.info.coronavirus
The
one measure which won’t be as effective against the
South African strain is the vaccination programme, but this won’t have
contributed much to the reductions so far, since it takes up to 21 days from
the first dose for the protection to become active.
Looking
at the weekly changes it seems reasonable to assume that so long as we stay in
lockdown the incidence of the South African variant should reduce by about 20%
per week. So whilst it's likely that the total number
of cases in the UK to date far exceeds the 147 that had been detected by
genomic sequencing at the time of writing, even if there are currently 100
cases a day we could expect that to fall to around 80, then 64, then 51 and so
on in successive weeks.
Even
if a few people arriving in the UK are infected with the South African variant
it wouldn’t make much difference to the trend – this isn't
a situation where one person could start a new wave of infection. I'm confident that as long as we stay in lockdown both the Kent
variant and the South African variant will continue to decline – so anyone in
the UK who is offered a vaccine should take up the offer, since the current scientific
thinking is that none of the known variants are likely to cause serious illness
in someone who has been vaccinated.
Note:
wherever you live in the world, having a dose of one of the approved vaccines
makes sense – there is no evidence that having one vaccine now will prevent you
having a different one later, and booster jabs to cope with emerging variants
are already being developed.
One
of the few delights of the pandemic has been sitting down at 5 o'clock to watch
the Coronavirus Updates from Downing Street, certainly when either Matt Hancock
(the Health Secretary) or Boris Johnson is at the podium.
Of
course, it’s the experts that I really want to hear
from, especially Professor Jonathan Van Tam. JVT (as everyone calls him) is our
equivalent of Dr Anthony Fauci, and if – like me –
you greatly respect the clear way that he answers questions you'll love this
Channel 4 programme
broadcast on 27th January (I suspect the link might only work in the UK, but
try it anyway).
Not
everyone loves JVT – if you watch the Channel 4 programme to the end you'll notice that even though the answers he gives are
clear, logical, and make perfect sense, the members of the public who asked the
questions are all dissatisfied. Why? Because they didn't
get the answers they wanted.
Life's
like that sometimes - and so is family history. LostCousins members who come to
me with their problems don’t always get the answer they
want – I don’t have a magic wand, so the best I can do is give them the correct
answer, which invariably involves more effort than the magic wand solution they
wanted. There are times when you can cut corners, but when corner-cutting doesn't work, the only answer is to do things by the book,
tedious as that might be for the Facebook generation.
Which
reminds me, my wife has just started researching her own family tree: I think she'll do well because as a gardener she's used to planning
ahead, as a keen tapestry stitcher she knows that patience is a virtue, and as
someone who has multiple postgraduate qualifications she clearly knows how to
research!
Note:
I've just realised that I've yet to watch the 8 disk
DVD set which includes all 37 surviving episodes of Hancock's Half Hour – you can
get your own copy here.
One
of the less healthy benefits of watching the Health Secretary at 5pm is the opportunity
to partake of a small snack, something to sustain me when I get back to work
answering emails or writing newsletters.
During
the early part of January the snack usually consisted
of a cup of tea and a homemade mince pie, and I've missed them so much that I
made another batch of fat-free mincemeat last weekend, and have taken a pack of
filo pastry out of the freezer with a view to making mince pies in time for this
afternoon's press conference (that didn’t work out). With snow on the ground I've also gone back to wearing Christmas jumpers – in
this topsy-turvy world we can get away with all sorts of sartorial transgressions!
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......
There's a big weekend ahead – on Friday
morning I'll be in the virtual audience for Gardeners' Question Time, on
Sunday it's our Wedding Anniversary, then on Monday it’s the 50th Anniversary
of Decimalisation in the UK. But keep sending the emails – I'll
answer them as soon as I can.
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2021 Peter Calver
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