Newsletter - 17th
January 2020
Academics criticise 2021 Census questions
ScotlandsPeople add
an extra year of online register entries
Irish Genealogy add 1845-64 marriage images
Senate vote could change everything
More fantastic prizes to be won in my New Year
Competition
Why don't Ancestry members reply?
103 year-old veteran gets his medals - at last!
The inside story of a War Hospital during the Great
War
The LostCousins
newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue
(dated 8th 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):
To go to the main
LostCousins website click the logo at the top of this newsletter. If you're not
already a member, do join - it's FREE, and you'll get an email to alert you
whenever there's a new edition of this newsletter available!
Academics criticise 2021 Census questions
Family
historians aren't the only ones who are unhappy with the questions that will -
and won't - be asked in the 2021 Census, as you can see from this article
in The Herald.
ScotlandsPeople
add an extra year of online register entries
In
January each year ScotlandsPeople add to their
collection of birth, marriage, and death registers - all of which are provided
by the General Register Office for Scotland. Civil registration didn't commence
until 1855, but the information recorded is generally significantly more detailed
(and more helpful) than you'd find on an English or Welsh certificate.
This
year ScotlandsPeople have added births for 1919 (ie over 100 years ago), marriages for 1944 (over 75 years
ago), and deaths for 1969. ScotlandsPeople is a
pay-per-view site, but you can search and view
the LDS transcription of the 1881 Scotland Census - the one we use at
LostCousins - free of charge.
Irish Genealogy add 1845-64 marriage images
Claire
Santry's Irish
Genealogy News blog is a great source of information for those who have
ancestors from the island of Ireland. The latest news is that the Irish
government site IrishGenealogy.ie
has uploaded marriage registers for the period 1845-1864, which means that all
of the civil registers of marriages for the period 1845-1944 are now online -
and free to access!
Please
bear in mind that the only civil registers kept prior to 1864 were for
non-Catholic marriages. There are no civil records of births, deaths, or marriages
before that date - so you'll have to rely instead on church registers, not all
of which have survived, and not all of which are online.
Although
there are no surviving Ireland censuses (other than scraps) prior to 1901, the fact
that the civil birth, marriage, and death registers are free online makes it
very feasible to track the branches of your Irish family tree through to the
1911 Census, which is the one we use at LostCousins (and is also free online).
As
predicted last year, after the UK leaves the EU on 31st January subscriptions
paid by LostCousins members living in the European Union will be subject to VAT
at the standard rate applicable in their country - typically around 20%. I had
hoped that this change wouldn't come into force until 31st December when the
transitional period ends - or that some deal would be negotiated to free small
organisations from this burden, but sadly that hasn't happened.
In
the circumstances I'm gong to make it as easy as possible for LostCousins members
in the EU to pay their subscriptions in advance, ahead of the 31st January deadline.
This will save me paperwork, and it can save you money (especially if exchange
rates move the wrong way - currently the pound is close to a low against most
other currencies, including the Euro). Simply log-in to your LostCousins
account, go to the Subscribe or Renew Subscription page, then
enter one of the following codes:
|
Code |
Length
of subscription (months) |
Single
subscription |
Joint
subscription |
|
1YEAR |
12 |
£10 |
£12.50 |
|
2YEARS |
25
(1 bonus month) |
£20 |
£25 |
|
3YEARS |
38
(2 bonus months) |
£30 |
£37.50 |
|
5YEARS |
66
(6 bonus months) |
£50 |
£62.50 |
If
you have an existing subscription the new subscription will start when the old
one has finished (the start and end dates will be clearly shown both on screen
and in your email receipt). If you upgrade from a Single subscription to a
Joint subscription the upgrade will take effect immediately, ie you will get a free upgrade for the remaining period of
your existing subscription.
Note:
these codes can also be used by members who don't live in the EU, but only
until 31st January 2020.
Senate vote could change everything
As
members who live in France will know, it is currently illegal to take a DNA
test, even if only for
genealogical purposes. However there is currently legislation before the French
Senate which would allow DNA testing for genealogical, though not health purposes
- you can find out more here
(Chrome will do a very good job of translating the text if your French isn't up
to it).
Will
this solve the problem? Possibly - but as the tests for genealogical and health
purposes often use the same technology most tests do both, though you only get
the health information if you pay extra.
More fantastic prizes to be won in my New Year
Competition
Have
you entered my New Year Competition yet? It's easy to take part - all you need
to do is add relatives to your My Ancestors page, which is something
that all keen family historians should be doing anyway! There were scores of
new cousins exchanging emails over the Christmas period, all because one or
other (or both) of them had given up a few minutes of their time.
This
year I'm unveiling the prizes more gradually, to keep up the suspense. In
previous issues you'll have read about the free tickets for Family Tree Live
and the autographed paperback of The Death Certificate - Stephen Molyneux's
wonderful follow-up to his debut novel, The Marriage Certificate (see
the review below).
In
the last issue I revealed that you could win a free copy of Family Historian
7, the soon-to-be-released version of Britain's leading family tree
program, and that Findmypast, Britain's leading family history company, had
generously agreed to donate a 12 month Pro subscription - providing virtually
unlimited access to every one of the billions of historical records, modern
records, and newspaper articles in Findmypast's enormous collection.
The
BIG news this time is that I've also persuaded Findmypast to give away a free
12 month subscription to the British Newspaper Archive, with tens of millions
of pages from historical newspapers and magazines.
Also
added to the prize list is a signed copy of the next book in the Forensic Genealogist
series, kindly donated by Nathan Dylan Goodwin, the author. It’s not out yet,
but I've got an advance copy and hope to review it in the next newsletter.
Anyone
can win a prize in the competition - but only if you enter!
Simply
complete your My Ancestors page, adding relatives from the censuses I've
selected, but giving priority to the 1881 censuses (because they're not only
the most likely to match with your cousins' entries they also count double in
the competition). Not sure what to do? See the illustrated Getting Started
guide on the Help &
Advice page - you can become an expert in 10 minutes or less.
Wondering
which of your relatives to enter? Think you've already entered them all? Here are some tips:
Tip
#1: remember that ALL of your living cousins are
descended from the branches of your tree, so it’s the branches and twigs that
you need to track through to 1881. The best way to find 'lost cousins' is to
enter their ancestors, so it doesn't matter if your ancestors
migrated before 1881.
Tip
#2: a good approach is to start with all the relatives you know about in 1841 (whether
you can find them on the census or not), then track each family member as they
marry and have children, until you get to 1881. Now that the GRO's birth
indexes for England & Wales include maiden names it's a lot easier than it
used to be.
Tip
#3: always think of your cousins; if you only enter relatives from the ancestral
lines you're currently working on, how are your cousins going to benefit from
your past research?
Tip
#4: click the arrow symbol to launch a census search so that you can check your
entries; if you don't get any results it usually means that one of the census
references is wrong.
In
this competition everyone can win - because even if your name doesn’t come out
of the hat when the prizes are awarded, you're going to find 'lost cousins' - living
relatives who not only share your ancestors, but are researching them!
It's
rare to find hyphenated surnames in the 19th century GRO indexes, but nowadays it's
common to have a hyphenated surname. Is there a simple rule as to when to use a
hyphen - it seems not, judging from this BBC News article.
Why don't Ancestry members reply?
Whether
or not you're researching using DNA, getting replies from other users can be
problematical - and the site that most people complain about is Ancestry. It's not
necessarily Ancestry's fault - the same problem can happen with Findmypast
emails and even LostCousins emails.
It's
generally the fault of the email provider the recipient uses - they see lots of
superficially similar emails coming from one source and assume that they must
be spam. Hotmail and Yahoo are arguably the worst offenders (this usually includes
other addresses run by the same companies, such as BT addresses). In the past
Gmail has generally been reliable but I have noticed recently that they too are
failing to deliver some LostCousins emails.
Even
if your Ancestry contact receives your message they
might not feel able to respond, or might put it at the bottom of their pile. Although
people may be active on Ancestry, they may not be actively researching the part
of your tree that you are interested in - indeed, it would be a remarkable
coincidence if they were. Sadly few people these days
have worked in an office where it was normal to send acknowledgements of
receipt!
Furthermore,
if they're not a cousin of yours they may never have researched that part of
their online tree - they may have simply copied it from someone else's tree. At
Ancestry and other sites it can be exceedingly difficult to find out whether
someone is a cousin just by looking at their tree, since two or more trees are often
combined into one, and the details of living people are hidden so it isn't
always clear whether the person you're corresponding with is the 'home person'.
Note:
this is why at LostCousins we ask members not to enter someone else's
relatives, and why we show explicitly how relatives are connected (on the My
Contact page for the relationship - accessed by clicking the other person's
name or initials on your My Cousins page).
In
most cases the only way you can improve the response rate is by making it really easy for people to reply - ask them a simple question
and give them a little bit of information of your own. If you can entice them
by hinting at more to come, so much the better.
Tip:
if you've tested your DNA you can avoid most of the frustration by following
the simple strategies in my DNA
Masterclass. These are designed to focus your attention on the genetic cousins
who have online trees (so are likely to be actively researching), and particularly
on those who have the largest trees. It's not enough to read the Masterclass,
of course, you also need to do what it says!
103 year-old veteran gets his medals - at last!
Many
former soldiers didn't bother to collect their campaign medals when WW2 was
over, though my Dad finally obtained his in the mid-1950s. But this story
of a 103 year-old who has only just collected his medals probably sets some
sort of record!
The
inside story of a War Hospital during the Great War
Findmypast
have recently released some additional medical records from WW1 (you can search
them here), and I found a record of my
grandfather that I hadn't seen before. I was having trouble interpreting the abbrevation and hoped there would be glossary at the
beginning or end of the register - sadly there wasn't, but it led me on a voyage
of discovery, as these things often do.
Hoping
to find another source I used Google to search for 'Army Book 27a', as it was
designated - it didn't lead to the answer I was looking for, but it did lead me
to reprint of a book published in 1917 entitled Observations Of An Orderly:
Some Glimpses Of Life And Work In An English War Hospital - and the Kindle
version is free. I was particularly interested to read of some of the (printable)
slang that was used by soldiers back then, so much so that the next article features
one of the term, one that has a surprising origin.
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca
I
suspect that most people faced with the phrase 'Chevy Chase' would think of the
actor, or perhaps the town in Maryland, USA. But it actually
goes back much further, to English ballads of the 15th and 16th centuries
which tell the tale of a hunting party in the Cheviot Hills, which straddle the
border between Scotland and England. (The word 'chase' refers to hunting land,
as in Enfield Chase, to the north-east of London.)
At
the time of the Great War the term 'chevy chase' was
Cockney rhyming slang for 'face', and widely used in the British Army. Knowing its
origins isn’t going to make you a better researcher, but - you never know - it
might help you win a pub quiz!
Like me you're
probably used to the leading characters in genealogical mysteries being professional
genealogists with clients who bring them interesting (and often dangerous) assignments;
indeed, sometimes the books read like a James Bond novel, albeit more 1837 than
007. But Peter Sefton, the hero of Stephen Molyneux's mysteries is one of us - in
other words, he's a family historian rather than a professional genealogist.
In
The
Marriage Certificate he stumbled across the certificate of the title in
an antiques market, and he was intrigued by it - as most of us would have been
in the same circumstances. I frequently come across similarly intriguing items
in auction sales - it helps that there's major auction house just round the corner from LostCousins - that's how I discovered
Ernest Cawcutt's WW2 notebook, and the 1838 sampler
listing the birthdates of William & Mary Godwin's family. So I'm a sucker for stories which start with small clues that
set the hero on a voyage of discovery, and I know that many of you are, too.
The
Death Certificate
involves another chance encounter - though not with the certificate of the
title. We learn that Peter Sefton has a second hobby, metal-detecting, and this
time his interest is sparked by the unusual find of a bronze Roman coin that has
been worn as a necklace in Victorian times. It bears the name of its last owner,
and because it is a rare surname Peter Sefton is able to
identify him in the GRO death indexes - so he orders the death certificate to
find out how he died. And as you can probably guess, he didn't die peacefully
in his sleep.
Although
the coin was found in a Wiltshire field, much of the action takes place in
Victorian London - where we are introduced to toshers,
and the scavengers known as mudlarks. It's hard not
to feel sympathetic towards the hero/villain at the centre - like many a character
from Dickens, he's only doing what he has to do in
order to survive.
The
Death Certificate
was well worth waiting for - and I certainly hope that it won't be the last in
this series. It's available both as a Kindle book and as a paperback - remember
that you don't need a Kindle to read the electronic version, as free reader
programs are available for smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca
Note:
if you missed my recent interview with Stephen Molyneux you'll find it here.
Almost exactly a year
ago I reviewed
Blood-Tied, the first book in the Esme Quentin series of genealogical
mysteries from Wendy Percival - I really enjoyed it, and a few months later I
was delighted to be able to tell
readers of this newsletter how they could get a free Esme Quentin short-story, Legacy
of Guilt - which is a prequel to the first book in the series.
I've
been so busy over the past year that I've only finished reading The
Indelible Stain, the second full-length Esme Quentin novel - and what a
good story it is! The author was inspired by reading Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore, which is a meticulously
researched account of the transportation of convicts to Australia between 1787
and 1868, and the founding of Australia. To be transported you didn't have to
commit high crimes and misdemeanours - two of the most common crimes which resulted
in a sentence of penal transportation were petty theft and prostitution.
However
- the action in The Indelible Stain doesn't take place in Australia but
in England, on the North Devon coast, where the wrongdoings of the 19th century
are still affecting people's lives in the 21st century. And their deaths too - the
book opens with a gruesome discovery, a woman spread-eagled on the rocks below
the clifftop. Did she jump or was she pushed? Or was it no more than tragic
accident - by all accounts she had been drinking the previous evening?
The
local police are convinced there was no foul play involved, but Esme has her
suspicion, - so she takes up the challenge, in the course of which there are some
interesting twists and turns in the plot that might well throw you off the scent!
As it happens I did manage to figure it out before
Esme, but will you? I suspect not....
I'd
have no hesitation in recommending this book at full price, whether as a
paperback or in Kindle format, but if you're in the UK or the US you can
currently get the Kindle version for just 99p/99c (offer ends noon 23rd January);
unfortunately Amazon don't currently allow similar price cuts in other
countries. If you use the links below LostCousins should benefit, even if you
end up buying something completely different:
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca
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 2020 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?