Newsletter 3rd
January 2022
Just days away the most important
release for 30 years
Get your money back EXCLUSIVE OFFER
Why isn't Turner on
the census?
Save 50% on Ancestry
subscriptions
Adoption records to
be opened in Nova Scotia
Even more prizes in
my New Year Competition!
How to enter more
relatives and win more prizes
Are you researching
someone else's tree?
The LostCousins
newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue
(dated 25th December) 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!
Just days away the most important release for
30 years
At one minute after midnight (London time) on Thursday 6th January
the 1921 England & Wales census will be released (the 1921 Scotland census
won't be released until the second half of his year). Although it will be available
free at three sites across the country (The National Archives in London, Manchester
Central Library, and the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth), in practice
most family historians will be unable or unwilling to make the journey to one
of those locations.
Online the new England & Wales census will ONLY be available at
Findmypast and it won't be included in any of their subscriptions, although
those with Pro subscription will qualify for a handy 10% discount. At £3.50 per
household (£3.15 for Pro subscribers) the cost of viewing images is in line
with the 1911 Census and cheaper than the 1939 Register when that was released:
nevertheless, for those of us who are used to paying an annual subscription and
getting unlimited access to records it's likely to be a slightly uncomfortable
experience. See below for my advice on how you can get the best value for your
money.
What makes this census the most important release for 30 years? Because
the 1931 England & Wales census was lost in a fire during World War 2 and
there was no census taken in 1941, the next England & Wales census to be released
will be the 1951 Census, which by law cannot be released until 2052 that's a
30 year wait!
You
won't need to be a Findmypast subscriber to access the 1921 Census, but you
WILL need to have registered at one of their sites. Given how busy the sites
are likely to be when the census is released my advice is to register NOW, so
that all you need to do on Thursday is log-in. Please use the relevant link
below:
Once
you have registered you will be able to log-in at any of the Findmypast sites
using the same email/password combination. I suggest you also take the opportunity
to add a credit card if you haven't already done so (or your existing card has
expired).
Tip:
even if you have registered previously I recommend you
click the relevant link above NOW to make sure you can log-in successfully
you dont want to be in a position on Thursday where you're waiting for an
email so that you can reset your password.
Last,
but not least, if you DIDN'T receive an email telling you about this newsletter
I suggest you also register
as a LostCousins member so that you're notified when future editions are released
this will make sure that you dont miss out on information about the 1921
Census or other important family history news.
I
started researching my family tree 20 years ago, when the 1901 Census was
released. At that time it was only available at a pay-per-view
site, and over the course of the first 12 months I
spent £150 viewing records a lot of money today, and even more at the time. As
it turned out, a lot of that money was wasted so how can YOU make sure that
you get the best value for your money?
- First
of all,
work out which households you'd most like to see whether to solve
a longstanding mystery, or simply to fill in a gap in your knowledge. For
example, I never met any of my great-grandparents - they all died long before I was
born but most of them were still alive in 1921. And then there are the
relatives who were recorded in the 1911 Census, but don't appear in any
later records. Did they die in the Great War or in the influenza pandemic
or did they marry?
- Next, get in
touch with the cousins who share your interest in family history, to make
sure that you dont end up buying the same records this simple tip could
easily halve the cost! Also bear in mind that some of your relatives
will have been away from their family on Census Night they could have
been staying with other relatives who aren't on your list,
but are on a cousin's list.
- Make more
contacts with cousins after all, it's the reason LostCousins exists,
and hopefully the reason why you became a member. Make sure that you've
added all the relatives you can find especially on the 1881 Census, as it's
the one that's most likely to connect you to a previously unknown cousin.
- Don't pay for
transcripts
it's the handwritten images that matter, rather than someone else's
interpretation.
- Try to resist
spending ANY money on the 1921 Census until you've read my next newsletter, which will
provide practical hints based on my own experience of using the census I'm
planning to publish it on the day of release, probably late afternoon
(London time). To make sure that you're near the top of my mailing list
log-in to your LostCousins account before Thursday.
Get your money back EXCLUSIVE
OFFER
As
regular readers will know, I'm currently running a competition which is exclusive
to LostCousins members to enter all you need to do is add relatives to your My
Ancestors page, which is something you ought to do any way (since connecting
with family historians who share the same ancestors is what LostCousins is all
about). There are lots of prizes on offer, more than ever before, and for the
first time you'll be able to win more than one prize see below for full
details.
However,
there's a VERY SPECIAL PRIZE that I want to tell you about one lucky entrant
will get a refund of ALL the money they've spent purchasing images from the
1921 England & Wales between 6th January and 31st January (maximum £175, equivalent
to 50 households at the full price, or 55 if you have a Findmypast Pro subscription).
To
have a chance of winning you need to enter at least ONE relative on your My
Ancestors page before the competition ends on 31st January, and the more
you enter the greater your chance of winning this or any other prize. You'll
also need to click the customised link on your My Summary page at
LostCousins to go to Findmypast so that your purchases are automatically
tracked but you'll only need to do this once per session, not before every
purchase. (If tracking is disabled in your browser please enable it, at least
for the duration of the competition.)
Tip:
the pages at the LostCousins site with names beginning 'My' are customised to
each individual member, so to access any of those pages you must first log-in
to your LostCousins account. If you can't remember how to log-in, don't panic
you can get an instant email reminder by clicking Password reminder
and entering your email address (as shown in the text of the email that told
you about this newsletter).
Why isn't Turner on the census?
On
New Year's Eve my wife and I watched Mike Leigh's wonderful film Mr Turner about the artist J M W Turner,
best-known for his seascapes (I picked up a second-hand Blu Ray copy for less
than I would have paid to watch it online). If you've seen the film in which he
was portrayed by Timothy Spall on an award-winning performance or are simply
a fan of the artist, who never married, you may be interested in two posts
about Turner's first and last loves, which you'll find on the British Library's
Untold Lives blog here
and here.
Turner's
last love was Sophia Booth, born Sophia Caroline Nollte
to German immigrant parents in Dover in 1798 (the baptism register shows the
surname as Nolt):
©
Copyright Dean and Chapter of Canterbury; used by kind permission of Findmypast
From
around 1829, the year that his father died, Turner began staying at Mrs Booth's
boarding house in Margate, and at some point after her
husband, John Booth, died of cholera in 1833 they began a relationship which lasted
until Turner's death. In 1841 only Mrs Booth and her servant Judith Holland are
recorded in Margate there is no sign of Turner, and it is said that he spent
Census Night rowing on the Thames to avoid being enumerated!
©
Crown Copyright Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London,
England; used by kind permission of Findmypast
In 1846 they purchased a house in Cremorne
Road, Chelsea which overlooked the River Thames, but the
neighbours had no idea who he was they assumed he was Mr Booth, and I suspect
that Turner enjoyed the deception. It was there that Turner died in 1851, also
of cholera, but he wasn't there on Census Night at least, not according to
the return, nor can I find him anywhere else in the census:
©
Crown Copyright Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London,
England; used by kind permission of Findmypast
But
perhaps you can find Turner on the 1851 Census? Bear in mind that he was born
in Covent Garden in 1775, and that he was known as William during his lifetime (but
dont confuse him with the other artist named William Turner).
Save 50% on Ancestry subscriptions
At
Ancestry.com you can currently save 50% on 6-month subscriptions, which brings
the price down to just $74 for the World Explorer subscription. Please click the
link below so that you can support LostCousins when you make your purchase:
Ancestry.com
- SAVE 50% on 6-month subscriptions until 10th January
Ancestry.ca
- SAVE 50% on 6-month subscriptions until 10th January
Ancestry.com.au
to follow
At
the current time offers in other territories are being emailed by Ancestry to
individual users, but the links above will be updated if possible.
Adoption records to be opened in Nova Scotia
Legislation
passed last year in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia will lead to adoption
records being opened to adoptees and birth relatives in certain circumstances:
you can find out more here. There is also
information about adoption in Canada at OriginsCanada and at Library
and Archives Canada.
Even more prizes in my New Year Competition!
I've already mentioned the attractive cash
prize that you can win, simply by completing your My Ancestors page, but
it's not the only addition to the list of prizes in my biggest ever competition.
Did members of your family
travel to India; could some of your relatives have been born there? The latest
addition to the prize list is an exclusive talk by Elaine MacGregor, entitled Lost
an ancestor? There were 3 million Britons in India.
Elaine started researching her family history
in her teens and used her grandmothers dog breeding pedigree forms to fill in
a basic family tree! Then life
intervened and it was only about 30 years ago that she started researching her
family in earnest when her husband bought her a family history software package
for Christmas. She knew that her father and grandmother were born in Calcutta,
but it was not until she joined FIBIS (Families in British India Society) over
20 years ago that she discovered through research that she has 6 generations in
India.
Elaine
will be speaking over Zoom to a small invited audience,
and there will be time for Q&A at the end. Please indicate your interest on
the My Prizes page at the LostCousins site; the date and time of the
presentation will be announced closer to the time in the meantime you can
maximise your chance of being one of the fortunate few by adding as many relatives
as possible to your My Ancestors page.
In
December the first batch of prize winners were chosen, and they had the opportunity
to attend an exclusive DNA presentation which I gave over Zoom (for those who
missed out I'm hoping to organise another presentation, probably during
February. In the meantime here's a reminder of the
other prizes on offer
SPECIAL PRIZE: Baroness Scott interview followed by Q&A
session (11am 3rd February 2022)
Baroness
Ros Scott was the prime driver behind the legislation that allows the General 
Register Office to
provide 'certificates' in an electronic format I first reported her proposals on
Christmas Day 2014, and what a Christmas present for family historians it
turned out to be!
The
2015 Deregulation Act subsequently imposed a duty on the GRO to come
forward with proposals relating to historic certificates, and in late 2016 we
were all taking part in the PDF trial, which eventually became a permanent
service.
I
will be talking to Baroness Scott in front of a small virtual audience about
her interest in family history and how that has fed into her work in the House
of Lords I suspect I'll be asking whether she hopes that one day there will
be instant access to the historic registers for England & Wales, as there
already is in Scotland. Following the interview there will be an opportunity
for members of the audience to ask questions.
To
maximise your chance of winning this valuable opportunity add as many relatives
as possible to your My Ancestors page during the period of the competition, and indicate your interest on the My Prizes
page at the LostCousins site.
STAR
PRIZE: One-to-one brick wall busting session with Dr Janet Few, author and genealogist
Janet is an experienced and qualified family, social, and
community historian who has spoken at many national and international
genealogical events. She is also a well-known author, several of whose books
have been reviewed in this very newsletter, including Putting Your
Ancestors in Their Place. A founder member of the Society for
One-Place Studies, and a former Chair and Vice-Chair of the organisation, she
is currently Chair of Devon Family History Society.
Janet
has kindly volunteered to provide a one-to-one 'brick wall' busting Zoom
consultation on a mutually-convenient date for one
lucky member. If you have a English 'brick wall' in
your family tree, Janet will suggest productive areas of research so that in 2021
you'll be able to approach the problem from a different angle.
As
previously announced the winner of this prize has already been chosen, based on
entries made up to the end of December, and will be notified shortly. But if you missed
out, don't worry there are lots of other prizes to be won, including a brick
wall busting session with Sarah Williams, the incredibly knowledgeable editor
of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine (see below).
STAR
PRIZE: 12 month Diamond subscription to The
Genealogist (normal price £139.95)
You
could win unlimited access to a wide range of records including non-conformist
records, exclusive tithe records and tithe maps, and a growing collection of
'Lloyd George' Domesday records and maps which you won't find at any other
site. If you already have a Diamond subscription an additional 12 months will
be added.
The
prize winner will be chosen after the competition closes on 31st January 2022,
but if you can't wait you can get a 4 month Diamond subscription for just
£44.95 when you follow this link
(you'll also get a Free 12 Month subscription to Discover Your Ancestors
Online Magazine worth £24.99).
STAR
PRIZE: 12 month unlimited subscription to British
Newspaper Archive (normal price £79.95)
Over
46 million pages from historic British and Irish newspapers, with hundreds of
thousands more pages added every month. Upwards of half a billion articles,
notices, and adverts, and literally billions of names. Was your ancestor famous
for 15 minutes?
Optimised
search features include the ability to search for articles added after a
particular date, so that you don't have to repeatedly trawl through articles
you've previously read or discarded. The prize winner will be chosen after the
competition closes on 31st January 2022.
SPECIAL PRIZE:
Scottish Research Resources Before 1800 with Chris Paton (mid-January, date to
be confirmed)
Do
you have Scottish ancestors? In this talk Chris Paton, author and professional
genealogist will Zoom you to pre-19th century Scotland, when things begin to
get a little more complicated with your ancestral research. From Kirk to state,
a variety of records are available but it's one thing to find them, and quite
another to understand them, with different handwriting styles, language
problems and the feudal nature of Scottish society forming some of the many
challenges that make earlier Scottish research fun but challenging.
Chris
will explore the various record types available, and how to access them both
online and offline. This exclusive Zoom presentation in front of a select
audience will be followed by a question and answer
session in which all are invited to participate. To maximise your chances of
being one of the lucky few to attend, add as many relatives as possible to your
My Ancestors page bearing in mind that the winners will be selected
about a week before the talk takes place.
You'll
find my reviews of two of Chris's most recent books here and here.
STAR
PRIZE: One-to-one brick wall busting session with the editor of Who Do You
Think You Are? magazine
Most of you will know
Sarah Williams as the editor of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine but
she is also a highly competent genealogist with a Masters degree in Medieval Studies. I'm delighted to
say that Sarah has generously offered to help knock down an English 'brick
wall' for the lucky winner of this prize.
This
one-to-one consultation will take place over Zoom on a mutually convenient
date, and whilst there's no guarantee that Sarah will be able to solve your
problem during the session, I'd be surprised if her insight into your 'brick
wall' doesnt lead you in a new and more productive direction. To maximise your
chance of winning this valuable opportunity add as many relatives as possible
to your My Ancestors page before Christmas, as the winner of
this prize will be chosen on Christmas Day.
Tip:
only one lucky member can win this prize or the one below but everyone can
benefit from the advice in my Masterclass 'Knocking down brick walls' which was
recently updated and can be found here. (Note: that there
are links to ALL of my Masterclasses on the
Subscribers Only page.)
SPECIAL
PRIZE: Seminar on marriage law with Professor Rebecca Probert (date to be
confirmed)
Many of you will
already be familiar with Professor Probert's books for genealogists (you'll
find my reviews here and here), but even if you
haven't read the books you'll know, I'm sure, that she is the leading authority
on historical marriage law in England & Wales. Her books have over-turned numerous
myths about the ways our ancestors married, shedding new light on their
behaviour and the sometimes difficult decisions they
were faced with.
Currently
Professor of Law at Exeter University, in 2015 she was seconded to the Law
Commission to work on their scoping paper Getting Married and since August
2019 she has been acting as specialist advisor to the Commission on their Weddings Project.
This
exclusive Zoom presentation in front of a small invited
audience will be followed by a question and answer session in which all are
invited to participate. To maximise your chances of being one of the lucky few
to attend add as many relatives as possible to your My Ancestors page.
SPECIAL
PRIZE: Nathan Dylan Goodwin interview followed by Q&A session (date to be
confirmed)
I'll be interviewing
Nathan Dylan Goodwin, the creator of the Forensic Genealogist series featuring
Morton Farrier, live on Zoom and you could be in the audience! Amongst other
things I'll be asking questions about the characters in the books, and where
the inspiration for them came from.
After
the interview I'll be inviting questions from the floor note that the number
of attendees will be kept low so that as many people as possible have the
chance to ask their question. However you can also
submit questions on the My Prizes page that way your question could
get asked even if youre not fortunate enough to be invited.
To
maximise your chances of being one of the lucky few to attend, add as many
relatives as possible to your My Ancestors page and don't leave it to
the last minute, because this is an opportunity that no fan of Morton Farrier
will want to miss!
Note: you'll find my review of Nathan's latest book here.
SPECIAL
PRIZE: Secrets of the census with Dr Donald Davis (date to be confirmed)
Speaking to us from Canada will be Dr Donald Davis
, who retired from a vocation studying the health of populations to an
avocation exploring population records he is currently looking forward to the
release of the 1921 England & Wales Census which, taken following the Great
War, explored new avenues of importance to family historians.
When the previous census (1911) was released we saw for the first time the forms that our
ancestors had filled in, replete with misunderstandings, spelling mistakes,
amendments, and gratuitous comments. This was eye-opening all that had
survived from the 1841-1901 censuses were the enumerators' summary books. Or so
it was thought then Don discovered a cache of household schedules from the
1841 Census at Shropshire Archives and many of our assumptions about the census
were overturned.
INVITED PRESENTATION: 'Brits to Canada', with John D Reid (date to
be arranged)
From the first part
of the 19th century, to late in the 20th, many British people from all walks of
life chose to cross the Atlantic for opportunities in Canada. Are they missing
from your family history? Explore the resources available to you to throw light
on your Canadian cousins and some remarkable personalities and stories.
Born
in Norfolk, now a long-time resident of Ottawa, John D Reid is a retired
environmental research scientist. Since 2006, he has presented an independent
view of British and Canadian family history resources and developments, seen
from an Ottawa perspective in his Canada's Anglo-Celtic Connections blog.
Those
of you who were fortunate to be amongst the attendees at one of the Genealogy
in the Sunshine events I organised in Portugal some years ago will, I'm sure,
remember John D Reid as well as Chris Paton and Dr Donald Davis, all of whom were
amongst the distinguished speakers as was Professor Probert in the second
year.
Remember,
the competition ends on 31st January, and to have a chance of winning one or
more prizes you need only enter relatives from any of the 9 censuses we use
on your My Ancestors page.
Note:
only relatives who are genetically-related to the member concerned will count,
however if you are researching on behalf of someone else (eg
a spouse) entries you make on their account will also qualify;
relatives from the 1881 censuses count
double.
How to enter more relatives and win more prizes
Although
the key page at the LostCousins site is called My Ancestors dont assume
that you can only enter your direct ancestors and their immediate families.
Indeed, this would be a very poor way to find your 'lost cousins', because ALL of your living cousins are descended from the
branches of your tree that's what makes them cousins. For example, 1st
cousins branch off your direct line 1 generation ago (they share your
grandparents), 2nd cousins branch off 2 generations ago (they share your
great-grandparents) and so on.
Inevitably
we have more 2nd cousins than 1st cousins, more 3rd cousins than 2nd cousins,
and so on and that's one of the reasons why we can't afford to ignore our
more distant cousins. All cousins share our ancestors the only difference
between close cousins and distant cousins is that the common ancestors we share
with close cousins are more recent. However family
historians like you and me are more likely to be knocking down 'brick walls' in
the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries than the 19th century, 20th and 21st centuries
so the fact that our cousin is distantly-related can actually be an advantage.
A
good strategy for identifying relatives to enter on your My Ancestors
page is to start in 1841, or earlier if you can, then track each branch and
twig making use of the censuses, BMD indexes, and parish records too (if they're
readily available). Typically for each person in your tree who was alive in
1841 there will 3 or 4 who were alive in 1881, so you'll soon be making
contacts with new cousins as well as increasing your chances of winning prizes
in the competition.
Not
sure about the different relationships? Your direct ancestors are the
people from whom you are directly descended, ie your 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8
great-grandparents and so on; blood
relatives are people who share some
of your ancestors (which includes all of your cousins, no matter how distant).
Are you researching someone else's tree?
If
youre researching for someone else, even your spouse, they'll need a separate
LostCousins account. But don't worry you can use the same email address for
two accounts, just so long as the passwords are different. And if the other person
is a relative, an in-law, or your partner you can link the two accounts
together to take advantage of the discounted rate for joint subscriptions
just £12.50 for 12 months, compared to £10 for a single account. Not that
LostCousins subscriptions are expensive many family history societies charge
more.
To
link two accounts together is easy just enter the Membership Number for one
account on the My Details page of the other (it doesnt matter which way
round); your Membership Number is shown on your My Summary page, but
also in an email reminder of your log-in details.
Note:
if you need to be logged-in to two accounts at the same time please use
different devices or different browsers (eg
Chrome and Edge).
Few
of us had heard of aquamation, an environmentally-friendly
alternative to cremation, until the announcement that Desmond Tutu had chosen it.
Personally I'd rather go for a woodland burial, but this article
from The Guardian has more information for those who want to know more
about aquamation.
These days there are few restrictions on who may
marry whom, which may possibly be why the newspaper reports of former model April
Ashley's death focused on the annulment of her marriage to Arthur Cameron
Corbett on the grounds that she was still legally a man. Although I only glanced
at the articles the name of her erstwhile husband leapt out at me why did it
seem so familiar?
I then remembered that in his later years my father
had mentioned that many of the houses in Seven Kings, where he grew up, had been
built by a developer he referred to as Cameron Corbett indeed the church
where he and my mother married in 1948 was in Cameron Road, Seven Kings. A
little digging revealed that the aforementioned Arthur
Cameron Corbett was the 3rd Baron Rowallan, heir to a title that had been
bestowed on Archibald
Cameron Corbett, a Scottish-born housebuilder who had been a Glasgow MP
from 1885-1911.
That hardly counts as a coincidence, but then I
discovered who Archibald Cameron Corbett had married it was Alice Mary Polson,
daughter of the co-founder of the Brown & Polson cornflour empire, which I wrote
about in this very newsletter in November. Now that IS a coincidence!
Note: Archibald Cameron
Corbett was also responsible for housing estates in Forest Gate and Ilford (east
London), as well as Catford and Eltham (south-east London). There is a one-hour
documentary about his life and work that you can watch here.
I spent Christmas morning finalising the previous issue
of this newsletter but it's not as bad as it sounds, because while I was
writing to you my wife was visiting her mother in her care home. Otherwise we spent Christmas on our own as many of you
did, judging from the correspondence I received. We all love to meet up with
family and friends at Christmas, but this was one of those years when in many
countries of the world the risk-reward ratio was heavily weighted towards risk.
This article
from Wired looks at scientific
evidence which suggests we should be more worried about the transmissibility of
COVID-19 through small particles in the air than we have been led to believe in
the past. Coincidentally I'd already bought an air purifier with a HEPA filter in the Boxing
Day Sale at Amazon, and as I was writing this newsletter it was announced that an
additional 7,000 air purifiers will be installed in schools in England. I also
read at the weekend that 350,000 CO2 monitors are being provided for schools
you may recall that I recommended
these in November as the best way of ensuring that rooms and buildings are
adequately ventilated. Ahead of the curve yet again!
My favourite Christmas present this year was this virtual reality headset absolutely
amazing, and I've been coming up with all sorts of ideas for how devices
like this could be used by family historians. If only the technology had been
this advanced when I founded my software business 44 years ago!
PS: Bad news from my
mother-in-law's care home the home is in lockdown yet again, this time because
more than 10% of the staff managed to catch COVID-19 over Christmas. I guess
they didn't read the warning in my last newsletter
.
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, but I should be back again on Thursday with
hot tips for getting the most out of the new census dont miss it!
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2022 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?
Many of
the links in this newsletter and elsewhere on the website are affiliate links
if you make a purchase after clicking a link you may be supporting LostCousins
(though this depends on your choice of browser, the settings in your browser,
and any browser extensions that are installed). Thanks for your support!