Newsletter – 5th February 2025
It’s not too late to claim a prize…
Congratulations to our prize-winners!
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue (dated 23rd January) 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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In the last issue I wrote about the link between no fewer than 5 US presidents to the Somerset village of Barton St David, and commented that 4 years earlier I’d reported that Joe Biden’s great-great-great grandfather William Biden was incorrectly assumed by most people to have been born in Huntingdonshire, when in fact he was baptised at Westbourne, Sussex to James Biden and his wife Ann Silverlock.
Since the latest article appeared I’ve heard from Sheena, who has recently identified a connection to James Biden junior, one of William’s brothers. James married Anne Pitney, who was the sister of Sheena’s great-great-great-great grandfather.
As the connection is by marriage there’s no blood relationship between Sheena and President Biden, but the descendants of that marriage are cousins to both of them – and as James & Anne seem to have had a lot of children, I suspect there are a lot of descendants. Are you one of them?
“Down the Rabbit Hole” is the title of of Chapter 1 of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – and it describes perfectly what often happens to me when I’m researching, whether for my family tree or for this newsletter. Something catches my eye and sends me off on a voyage of discovery – I’m sure many of you know how exhilarating this can be.
This week I was reading an article by Kate Garner in The Oldie magazine, in which she described how the Cockney singing duo, Chas & Dave (which her father Chas Hodges founded with Dave Peacock in 1971), had begun their career at a pub called The Charcoal Burner in Ilford.
I was mystified: in those days I was very familiar with the pubs in the Ilford area, but I couldn’t think of one called The Charcoal Burner. Fortunately Google came to the rescue, revealing that The Charcoal Burner opened in 1968 in Collier Row, which is not in Ilford, but Romford.
Although coal had been mined in Britain in Roman times it was only in the 1600s, when supplies of wood dried up, that coal mining became a major industry. Charcoal burners were known as ‘wood colliers’, or simply ‘colliers’. Colliers Wood, in Surrey, acquired its name in the same way – though the wood itself is long gone.
In the process of researching these names I came across the Survey of English Place-Names, which is an ongoing project of the English Place-Name Society, but even after a century it covers only 30 English counties, about three-quarters of the total (though there are several others in progress).
I couldn’t find equivalent resources at the websites of the Scottish Place-Name Society and Welsh Place-Name Society but they’re worth a visit nonetheless. The Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland studies not only place-names but also personal names and other names – there is an interesting article which highlights some of the faults in surname dictionaries.
Much as I enjoy disappearing down rabbit holes I am careful not to allow these semi-random exercises to get in the way of more focused research!
In December I wrote that there are three ways to marry legally in England: by banns, by licence, and by Superintendent Registrar’s certificate. Normally one of these will suffice, but not in the case of one LostCousins member, who wrote to me on Christmas Eve.
The couple had arranged for banns to be read in two parishes: the parish where they lived, and the parish where they planned to marry. These days you can marry by banns in a parish with which one of the couple has a significant connection – at one time a licence would have been required if neither party had lived in the parish for the requisite time (although the residence requirements were not necessarily strictly observed).
And the banns were read or, at least, the congregations heard them being read. However in one parish the banns register had been temporarily mislaid, and so on the third week the vicar spoke the words from memory, in contravention of section 7 of the Marriage Act 1949. which explicitly states that:
'all banns shall be published from the said register book of banns by the officiating clergyman, and not from loose papers, and after each publication the entry in the register book shall be signed by the officiating clergyman, or by some person under his direction.’
With just a few days to go before the wedding there was only solution – the couple had to swiftly obtain a licence, and so whilst they have in their possession certificates showing that the banns were read three times, the marriage register records that they married ‘by licence’.
Another interesting email I received following that December article came from a LostCousins member who used to be Registrar: he told me that there several occasions during his career on which couples who wished to tie the knot in church married by certificate, rather than by banns.
In one instance the couple had been styling themselves as Mr & Mrs for some years, and didn’t want other people to know that they were only just getting married; in another case the certificate was a way of circumventing the policy on divorced persons marrying in church.
It’s not too late to claim a prize…
All of the subscriptions and one-off prizes have already been awarded to lucky members, all of whom have been informed. But you can still claim a prize if you’re quick…..
Since the pandemic began, and we were all forced to use Zoom and other video-networking software if we wanted to keep in touch with family, friends, and fellow family historians I’ve been able to give away hundreds more prizes than ever before by persuading experts to give exclusive presentations to prize-winners.
Not only are the presentations free, most of them have been crafted exclusively for the occasion: indeed, many of the experts aren’t regulars on the genealogy circuit, though they’re all used to public speaking. Take for example, Baroness Scott – who spoke to us 3 years ago, almost to the day, about her key part in promoting the phenomenal changes we’ve seen at the General Register Office since 2016.
This year we’ll be hearing from DJ Wiseman, an author whose Lydia Silverstream genealogical mysteries are beautifully-crafted, but sadly few and far between. And whilst Professor Rebecca Probert is a speaker many of you will have heard before, her presentations to LostCousins members are always a little bit special, not least because she adapts them to include answers to questions that have been submitted in advance.
Later this week I’ll be sending out well over 1000 invitations to members who have won the opportunity to attend one or more of this year’s talks. It’s not too late to change your mind: you can still update your My Prizes page, and here’s why you might want to do so……
There are lots of misconceptions about the Zoom presentations, some of them evident from the comments members have posted. For example:
· The talks are not taking place in London – they’re on the Internet, and some of the speakers aren’t even in Europe, let alone London. The starting time is given as ‘London time’ so that it’s easy for members around the world to figure out what time it will be in your time-zone.
· It doesn’t matter if it’s the middle of the night – all of this year’s Zoom events are being recorded, and will be available online afterwards (usually for a limited time). But only those prize-winners who were invited to the live presentation will be able to view the recording.
· It doesn’t matter if you’re hard of hearing – just click ‘Captions’ in the Zoom menu. If you’re watching the recording you’ll probably find that the captions appear automatically. In my experience the real-time captions are amazingly good and, in any case, you can always go back and listen/read again when you’re watching a recording.
· You don’t need a camera – nobody is interested in seeing you (or me, for that matter). The audience is only interested in seeing the speaker and any slides they put up.
· You can ask questions in advance – each year some of the most interesting questions come from members who are unable to attend on the day. Whether you plan to attend live, or watch the recording later, you can submit a short question using the Comment section on your My Prizes page.
If you need to update any of the ratings on your My Prizes page please do it now – if you have given a very low rating, or none at all, you definitely won’t be invited and won’t even be able to watch the recording.
Congratulations to our prize-winners!
There were 9 special prizes, including 3 subscriptions, 2 audio books, a signed book, a DNA test, and a collection of parish register transcripts.
TOP PRIZE – 12 MONTH ‘EVERYTHING’ SUBSCRIPTION TO FINDMYPAST WORTH £199.99
As you would expect, the Findmypast subscription – offering a year’s unlimited access to all of their billions of records and historic newspaper articles – was one of the most sought-after prizes. This year it went to Jackie in Australia, who I remember from Genealogy in the Sunshine in 2015 – well done, Jackie!
STAR PRIZE – 12 MONTH DIAMOND SUBSCRIPTION TO THEGENEALOGIST WORTH £139.95
Also at the top of many wish lists was the chance to explore the rather different collection of records at TheGenealogist – where you’ll find millions of records that are exclusive, as well as some very different ways to search records that are also found art other sites. Catherine in New Zealand was a very deserving winner, having added over 600 relatives to her My Ancestors page during the competition year, one of the highest tallies.
STAR PRIZE – 12 MONTH UK SUBSCRIPTION TO WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? MAGAZINE
LostCousins is all about collaboration between distant cousins who not only share some ancestors, but are researching them, so I was delighted to hear that Stephen, who lives overseas, will be sharing his prize with his 3rd cousin, who lives in the UK.
SPECIAL PRIZE – ANCESTRY DNA TEST (UK ONLY)
This is another prize that will be shared with a cousin because John, the winner, has already tested. I donated the test myself – it was easier than trying to jump through all the hoops at a big organisation like Ancestry. But, to be fair, they’ve done the hardest bit of all: building the world’s biggest database of genealogical DNA tests, and integrating it with their enormous collection of family trees.
SPECIAL PRIZE – CAMBRIDGESHIRE BAPTISM, MARRIAGE, AND BURIAL INDEXES
Kate won this phenomenal collection of transcribed parish register entries – now that there are so many parish registers online it’s quite a shock to the system when we have to go back to the old ways of doing things (though with luck Ancestry will have the images online in the next year).
This year there were also 4 prizes donated by authors, any one of which I would have been delighted to win myself.
NATHAN DYLAN GOODWIN, author of the Forensic Genealogist series (featuring Morton Farrier), but also the creator of the Venator Cold Case series, which introduces us to the world of investigative genetic genealogy, donated a ticket for GSI Superstition Mountains, offering the chance to solve three fictional murders using the latest techniques (find out more here). This prize was won by Sharon, and I’m looking forward to finding out how she gets on!
JEAN RENWICK, author of The Mourning Brooch trilogy, donated a signed copy of Book 1, which is currently on its way to Ken.
Last, but by no means least, WENDY PERCIVAL, creator of the Esme Quentin series of genealogy mysteries donated two Blood-Tied audio books., which were won by Jean and Richard.
This year a couple of entries which would otherwise have won one of the top prizes in my competition were disqualified because the information entered was incorrect – and, as you must know by now, incorrect entries can’t possibly match with your cousins’ entries.
Fortunately it’s not difficult to get it right, and it’s usually even easier to check whether you’ve got it wrong. Most entries on your My Ancestors page will have an arrow in front of the census references: clicking this arrow carries out an automatic census search at either Ancestry, Findmypast, or FamilySearch (depending on the census). You’ll to be logged-in at the relevant site, but you won’t need a subscription in order to carry out the search.
Some arrows are grey, some are red – it’s not a reflection on the quality of your data, it’s all about whether the census site allows a census reference search for that specific census. All of the British and Irish censuses have grey arrows: these search using the census references, and if you get no results, or the wrong results, this almost always indicates that you’ve entered the wrong references. (Usually it is only one of the references that’s wrong.)
Entries from the Canada 1881 and US 1880 census have red arrows – these will carry out a census search, but they won’t check all the census references. At Findmypast census references are usually part of the transcript, but at Ancestry they’re usually – but not always – part of the Source Citation. Always read the few lines of advice on the Add Ancestor (or Edit Ancestor) form and, if you need to know more, follow the link to the relevant FAQ.
Changing the subject, my wife spotted this article in the Guardian which lists 6 ways to avoid being scammed by fraudsters. Younger people seem to think that’s it’s oldies like me who are most vulnerable, but I’m not so sure…. there are gullible people of all ages!
Even big respectable companies sometimes do things that are unethical, unwise, or (occasionally) downright dishonest. Don’t allow yourself to pushed around or railroaded – if you believe that you are in the right, keep pushing. Sometimes all it takes is to go up a level in the organisation so that you are talking to someone who has the authority to circumvent silly rules or ridiculous policies.
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, because sadly I have to go to a funeral this afternoon – one of my oldest friends passed away last month, just a few days after a mutual friend of ours died suddenly following a fall. It hasn’t been a good start to 2025, I’m afraid.
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2025 Peter Calver
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