Newsletter – 14th
July 2020
Ancestry DNA tops 18 million users BREAKING NEWS
Thousands of DNA matches will disappear soon
URGENT ACTION REQUIRED
Society of Genealogists prepares to re-open
The varied origins of English forenames
Which is the best family history site?
Review: Tracing Your Scottish Family History
on the Internet
Review: Tracing Your Poor Ancestors
The LostCousins
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Ancestry DNA tops 18 million users BREAKING
NEWS
Great
news this afternoon – Ancestry have announced that the total number of users
who have tested their DNA and opted to be included in cousin-matching now
exceeds 18 million, which by my calculations is more than every other provider
added together.
Thousands of DNA matches will disappear soon URGENT
ACTION REQUIRED
In
the same conference call I learned that Ancestry are in the process of updating
their DNA matching criteria, and that as part of this process almost all matches where users share less than 8cM will
be removed, probably next month (see below for the exceptions). The current
threshold is 6cM, and I estimate that as many as 8000 of my 24000 matches will
be lost.
The
aim is to remove false matches – matches that occur by chance, or because of
statistical anomalies. But whilst improving the quality of matches is important,
it's inevitable that many valid matches will be
discarded. Indeed matches could disappear even if Common
Ancestors have been identified.
However,
if you’re quick there's a possible solution - I've
been advised that matches of under 8cM won't disappear should any one of the
following apply:
1.
You've added them to a group (using one the 32
user-definable coloured circles)
2.
You've entered something in the Notes field
3.
You've sent a message to the other member
I
suggest you give priority to those where common ancestors have been identified.
This won’t take very long – in my case just 6 of my 75
'Common Ancestors' matches share less than 8cM of DNA and I'd already made a note
against all of them. What I hadn't done, however, was go through the same process
for all of my cousins – I manage about a dozen tests for relatives – so that's
what I'm going to be working on over the next week.
I'm also going to add notes against matches who
have surnames in their tree that correspond to my major 'brick walls' - any one
of those matches could provide a vital clue! (This is particularly important
where the other user's tree is private since I won’t have
been able to evaluate the match.) And again, I'm going
to have to repeat the process for the cousins whose tests I manage.
I
understand that before the end of this week Ancestry will be adding a message
to the DNA page notifying users of the impending change, and that they'll also
be publishing a White Paper describing the updated matching process, but I wanted LostCousins
members to have as much time as possible to prepare for the change.
Tip:
check the LostCousins Forum for updated information and to see what suggestions
members have.
The
National Archives (TNA) in Kew will be re-opening from Tuesday 21st July – a date
that is already ringed on my calendar (though for an entirely different
reason). Visitors will be required to book their visit and order documents in
advance, and there will be a limit of one visit per week. For full details
please follow this link.
Society
of Genealogists prepares to re-open
The
Society of Genealogists (SoG) is also preparing to
re-open – as you can see from this blog post by Else Churchill
the staff were making preparations on Tuesday, and there should be an announcement
soon about the date of re-opening. The SoG will be
following TNA's example with online booking of slots.
Tip:
the SoG and many other family history societies are
organising online lectures and event, and most are open to non-members - check online to see
what is available from the SoG.
I
don’t know what the situation is elsewhere in the country,
but here in Essex 16 public libraries opened last week, and a further 44
(including my local library) have opened this week; 14 still remain closed. But
there will be a limit on the number of people allowed in each library, a
self-service system will be in place for readers taking out or returning books,
and – perhaps most importantly for family historians who depend on libraries
for the Internet – there will be no access to the library computers, at least
initially.
But
relaxation in some aspects of our lives goes hand in (gloved) hand with tightening
in others – it was announced this morning that face coverings will be
compulsory in shops in England from 24th July. It won't affect me directly as I've
only been in shops twice in 4 months and, even though they were very brief
visits at quiet times, I wore face coverings - a thick tea towel on one occasion,
an even thicker scarf on the other. But the decision will make us all a little
bit safer
I
suspect some of the precautionary practices we've learned over the past few
months are going to be with us for some time to come, since even if a vaccine
is approved it's likely to be the middle of next year before a sufficiently
large proportion of the population have been vaccinated (and in some countries
this point might never be reached because of anti-vax campaigns promoted by anarchists,
narcissists, and sociopaths). The latest scientific evidence suggests that those
who have recovered from COVID-19 will only be immune for a matter of months – so
'herd immunity' is no longer an option – but there's a good chance that the
effectiveness of a vaccine can be prolonged with booster doses.
The
good news is that the measures we have been taking to guard against COVID-19
will also be effective against many other infectious diseases, including
seasonal flu – which kills an average of 17,000 people a year in England alone
according to this article. Incidentally, flu
vaccinations only provide a limited degree of protection because there are many
different strains - this NHS report (in PDF format) suggests
that vaccination is typically only 30%-60% effective.
Hopefully
there will also be a reduction in hospital acquired infections – it has been
estimated that in England as many 300,000 patients a year contract an infection
in a healthcare setting (see this NICE report), and whilst the vast
majority recover there are several thousand who don't. The impact on care homes
will be more difficult to discern because most people who go into care homes do
so towards the end of their life: a 2013 report found that 56% of those
in a sample of 38 nursing care homes died within their first year of residence,
and this report into BUPA care homes
published in 2011 found a broadly similar pattern.
The
one thing we can’t do, at least in the UK, is go back
to the way things were 6 months ago – and perhaps we never will. I'd like to
think that some of the changes that have benefited the environment will become permanent
– working from home more often and less business travel would make a world of
difference (and perhaps a different world). I was musing recently that it's 35
years since I began employing people to work from their own home – until now the
rest of the world has been rather slow to catch up…..
The varied origins of English forenames
There's
an excellent article
on the Oxford English Dictionary blog which looks at the origins of personal
names - or forenames as family historians usually refer to them. I certainly
wasn't surprised to learn that "from the mid-thirteenth to the
mid-eighteenth centuries, John, Thomas, Robert, Richard, and William named
between them over 70 per cent of the male population" since John and William
dominate my tree (in the late 14th century John alone accounted for over
one-third of male forenames; Alice was the most popular for girls).
Many
libraries have online subscriptions to the Oxford English Dictionary, so if you
want to look up the origins of forenames in your tree which aren’t
mentioned in the article, check with your local library.
Talking
of forenames reminded me of the entry I came across in a cousin's Ancestry tree
– her ancestor was shown as Katherine, although she actually signed her name
Catherine when she married – I imagine the confusion arose because she was
shown as 'Kate' on the census. The spelling 'Cate' was very rare prior to the
20th century, and remains quite rare today – the Duchess
of Cambridge is another Kate whose full name is Catherine.
Which is the best family history site?
I'm often asked which of the major family history
sites I would recommend. It's a question that's very
easy to answer - the best site is the one that has the records you're looking
for!
Most
family historians with British ancestors begin their research using censuses
and BMD indexes, and these can be found at many sites. But what beginners often
don’t realise is that these are the only records that cover the whole of Britain
- once you get back before 1837 (when civil registration began in England &
Wales - it was 1855 in Scotland) the main sources of information are local
records such as parish registers, Poor Law records, court records, wills and
probate records, and tax records.
Most
of these records are held by record offices – though not always the record
office that covers the area where your ancestor lived. Historic changes in
county boundaries are a confounding factor, as are more modern local government
reorganisations – whilst wills tend to be organised by diocese, as are (less surprisingly)
Bishop's Transcripts. Ancestry and Findmypast generally make exclusive deals
with record offices, each preventing the other getting access for the duration
of the contract, and whilst there are sound reasons for operating in this way,
it means that almost all family historians have to use both sites at some point in
their research.
Which
site is best for you is going to depend on which counties your ancestors lived
in, and which of your ancestors you’re focusing on at the moment.
For example, when I'm researching my London, Surrey, Essex,
or Oxfordshire ancestors I use Ancestry – but when I'm researching my Kent, Hertfordshire
and Devon ancestors I turn to Findmypast. But Berkshire and Suffolk registers
aren't currently online at any site, so when I'm at home I'm forced to rely on
the partial coverage of the transcriptions at FamilySearch, Findmypast and FreeREG – and I also use FamilySearch to research my German
ancestors.
Tip:
many researchers have a favourite site, one that seems to give them the best
results. I say 'seems' because when it comes to family history, beauty really
is in the eye of the beholder – typically the one that provides the best
results is the one that best matches your searching style. However, if you want
to do the best research you have to be flexible, and
adapt to the different approaches of various sites. In my experience the site
that produces the most variable results, depending on the attitude and aptitude
of the user is Findmypast, and that's why I produced this Masterclass
– I want everyone to get the same excellent results that I get!
I
had an email yesterday from a LostCousins member who was a little disappointed
to have found only 4 cousins. I was surprised too, so I enquired whether he'd recently clicked the SEARCH button on his My Ancestors
page. It turned out that he hadn’t, because within
minutes he emailed me back to say that he now had 9 matches - brilliant. But I
bet he's not the only one who has forgotten – I wonder
when you last clicked the SEARCH button?
It
might help to take a moment to explain where the inspiration for LostCousins
and the My Ancestors page came from. Back in 2003 there were plenty of sites where
you could search for other people who shared the same ancestors, but the annoying
thing was that because the databases were getting larger all the time, it was
necessary to go back and repeat the same searches, over and over again. It was
bad enough having to go round to all these different sites,
but having to key in the same information time after time was even more
inefficient.
So
I came with the concept of a single site, one which remembered your searches,
so that you could repeat them simply by clicking a button – and that's how the My
Ancestors page, the SEARCH button, and indeed LostCousins came about. The
rest, as they say, is history!
Review: Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the
Internet
Chris
Paton is a genealogist and writer whose practical knowledge of researching
Scottish records never ceases to amaze me – so I had high expectations of his
latest book, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet: 
A Guide For Family Historians. I was not
disappointed – it's a superb book from a researcher who
has numerous books and countless magazine articles to his name. (He's also a
brilliant speaker, as anyone who attended my Genealogy in the Sunshine conferences
will know.)
I've
yet to find any Scottish ancestors in my tree, so when someone asks me for help
researching their own Scottish forebears I generally point them in the
direction of ScotlandsPeople, the official
government site. But from now on I'm going to suggest that they buy a copy of
this book, which will do for them what Mark Herber's Ancestral Trails did for me back in 2002.
You
can tell that this book has been written by someone who knows his subject – instead
of simply referring readers to the Scottish records on the main genealogy sites
he points out that many of the resources you'll find there are also available
at other sites, and takes the time to list collections that are unique
to each site. But it's not just about the big sites that everyone has heard of –
this book is an amazing compendium, especially when you get to Chapter 4, where
there are 30 pages focusing on different occupations, and Chapter 5, where he
devotes 50 pages to a county by county guide to online resources.
Chapter
6 looks at Scotland's Diaspora, and might well provide clues for those whose
Scottish relatives disappeared from the records in their homeland. The book
ends with some suggestions for further reading and a comprehensive index – there's an awful lot crammed into fewer than 200 pages!
Highly
recommended, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet is
available as a conventional paperback or as a Kindle e-book. There aren't many
illustrations, so which version you buy is largely a matter of personal
preference – though there's a lot to be said for having such a useful book on
your smartphone or tablet (because it's printed on good quality paper the
paperback weighs almost a pound).
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
Review:
Tracing Your Poor Ancestors
I've
previously reviewed Tracing Your
Non-Conformist Ancestors and Tracing Your Church
of England Ancestors by Stuart A Raymond – both good books, but his latest
book, Tracing Your Poor Ancestors, is the one that really 
resonated with me. The poor are always with us,
but the plight of the poorer members of society is really being brought into
focus by the current pandemic which – like tuberculosis and many of the other diseases
that our ancestors faced – is more likely to affect those living in cramped
conditions with poor sanitation.
Attitudes
towards the poor varied; those who realised that they might one day be faced
with a similar challenge were more sympathetic than those who had a secure
existence. One group saw starving wretches endeavouring to feed their families,
the other lazy scroungers. The Elizabethan Poor Law Acts of 1597 and 1601 made
the parish the focus of poor law administration, and as no parish wanted to
bear the burden of another parish's paupers the question of which parish was responsible
was crucially important; the Poor Law Relief Act of 1662 set out the rules for
determining the parish of settlement, and some of the most useful records to
have survived are records of Settlement Examinations and copies of Removal
Orders.
As
I mentioned earlier in this newsletter, surviving poor law records are
generally held by local record offices, and whilst some have been made available
online, in other cases you'll need to visit the
appropriate record office. Chapter 4 of the book, which deals with the period
up to 1834, includes a useful list (by county) of local poor law records which
have been published or digitised, and Chapter 5 has similar information for
post-1834 records. The chapters that follow focus on vagrants, criminals, debtors and bankrupts, whilst Chapter 10 looks at miscellaneous
sources, some of which you will already be familiar with.
It's not the first book I've reviewed on this
topic, but it is the most up-to-date and the most comprehensive. I doubt there
is anyone reading this who doesn’t have relatives who fell on hard times, or
who succeeded in dragging themselves out of the gutter through their own
endeavours – there are certainly many of them in my tree. I read the paperback,
but the book is also available in Kindle format.
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
Sitting
patiently in the Kindle app on my smartphone is the new genealogical mystery
from Wendy Percival, The Fear of Ravens. I'm looking forward to reading
it because I've really enjoyed the previous Esme Quentin mysteries (as you can
see from my reviews - here,
here,
and here).
But sadly I have to give priority to the non-fiction
books that land on my desk because they're potentially of more practical use to
readers of this newsletter.
But
if you've read the previous books in the Esme Quentin series I doubt you'll need
to wait for my review, so here are links to the various Amazon sites (please note
that the paperback won’t be available until next week, though you can pre-order
it now):
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com
Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
I
don't give my email address on the LostCousins website because it's in every
email I send – at LostCousins we don’t use 'no reply' addresses, so you can reply
to any email you receive, whether it comes from me personally or has been
automatically generated by the LostCousins system. Publishing my address on the
site would simply increase the amount of spam email that I get, wasting my time
and preventing me from answering genuine queries.
But
when you click 'Reply' in your email program please don’t leave the subject of
the email as it is – it'll make life much easier for me (and guarantee you a
quicker response) if you take a few seconds to change the heading to something more
relevant to the content of your email. Thanks!
The
occupation of 15 year-old Catharine Cudney of Wisconsin is recorded in the US 1880 Census as
"does as she pleases", a description that could no doubt be applied
to many modern teenagers. But were teenagers from earlier centuries really that
different? I suspect not……
Savings
rates are close to zero. Even the rate on my Nationwide Loyalty Saver account
has dropped to 0.25%. There are still a handful of accounts around that pay
over 1%, but for peace of mind I've decided to open an account with National
Savings & Investments – where I can get 1.15% annual interest with complete
security which, at almost 70, is what I'm looking for in these tumultuous times.
I feel like I've gone full circle – when I was born my parents opened a Post
Office Savings Bank account in my name, and by the time I was 15 I had
accumulated over £25 (a vast sum for someone who had to manage on 5 shillings a
week pocket money).
Low
interest rates also provide a prompt for prudent savers to draw on their reserves
and spend – and if you spend your money wisely it could well generate savings
in future years. There's certainly a lot to be said for spending money on
repairs and home improvements since in many cases the money you spend will circulate
around the local community – small businesses have been hit the hardest, and
many don’t qualify for any of the government support packages (as my
wife and I are acutely aware, though I'm sure we’re better able to cope than some
others). Paying bills on time – or early, as I usually do – is another great
way to support smaller enterprises.
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
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