Newsletter – 6th July 2025
Birmingham mental hospital records go online at Ancestry NEW
Half-price subscriptions at Ancestry.com ENDS TUESDAY
Findmypast add Incoming Passenger lists
Gardeners Corner: Summer Rose Care
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue (dated 29th June) 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!
Recently it has been so hot in this corner of England that I’ve been spending less time in the garden weeding and mowing the lawn than I normally would at this time of the year, and more time working on my family tree. When it’s in the low 30s outside it can be up to 10 degrees cooler indoors, so it’s an ideal time to catch up on research.
It has also given me the time to look more closely at some of the new records that have come online recently….
Birmingham mental hospital records go online at Ancestry NEW
You’ll recall that in the last issue I explained that the formal titles of two recently-released collections at Ancestry conceal hidden gems. On the last day of June Ancestry released their third new collection of the month:
Birmingham, England, All Saints Hospital Records, 1845-1931
These are not just any hospital records – All Saints was a mental hospital, and you’ll find it described under a range of different names, including All Saints Mental Asylum, Winson Green Asylum, Birmingham City Asylum, Birmingham City Mental Hospital, and Birmingham Mental Hospital, Phew!
But that’s not all you need to know – within the collection you’ll also find records for Rubery Hill Asylum, which opened in 1882 and was used for longer-stay patients.
There was no National Health Service in those days: patients were either private patients or (mostly) paupers. In the next article I take a look at another source of information about patients in mental institutions.
These days we don’t talk about lunatics when we’re referring to the mentally ill, but it was a term that was widely used until a century ago – not just in common parlance, but in the titles of institutions for those with mental illnesses.
For example on 31st August 1910, when my paternal grandmother was suffering from what we now generally refer to as postnatal (postpartum) depression, she was admitted to the Essex County Lunatic Asylum in Warley (near Brentwood). She was there for over 7 months, only returning home on 3rd April 1911, the day after the 1911 Census.
Though I knew from my father that his mother was often unwell, and that when he was growing up there was a young girl who came to help, I had no inkling that she suffered from any form of mental illness, and I’m not sure he ever knew. Ours wasn’t one of those families where mental illness was a taboo subject – my mother’s much older half-sister was a permanent in-patient at Goodmayes Hospital, and she used to stay with us one night a week – so I doubt that my father would have knowingly concealed the nature of his mother’s condition.
That 7-month stay in the asylum was several years before my father was born, and there’s no evidence that she went back there. Perhaps if my grandmother had returned home a few days earlier, so that she was at home on Census Night 1911 I might never have known about the nature of her illness – indeed, even with the evidence of the census it required an element of lateral thinking, since hospital patients, especially those in mental hospitals, were usually recorded only by their initials.
© Crown Copyright Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England. Used by kind permission of Findmypast
The bottom entry in that extract is the one relating to my grandmother: she is shown simply as E.C. aged 25 although her full married name was Ethel Emma Calver, and she was actually 26 years old at the time of the census (though she had been 25 when she was admitted the previous summer, so that’s possibly how the error came to be made).
It’s not unusual for the birthplace of a patient or inmate to be shown as ‘unknown’ but it certainly didn’t help to identify her, and none of the questions relating to the years of marriage and the children born to the marriage were answered for any of the patients (which is why columns 6, 7, 8, and 9 are all blank in the extract above).
It was far from certain that this E. C. was my grandmother, so in 2012 I paid Essex Record Office, which holds the surviving records of the asylum, to search the admission register – which confirmed that my ancestor was indeed a patient at the time of the census.
Two years later, in 2014, Ancestry added a collection that could well have saved me some money:
UK, Lunacy Patients Admission Registers, 1846-1921
© Crown Copyright Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England. Used by kind permission of Ancestry
Following the passing in 1845 of the Lunacy Act and the County Asylums Act a register was kept of patients in asylums, both public and private. The fact that they were regarded as ‘patients’ was itself an advance – previously many had been considered prisoners.
There are over 840,000 entries in the register for the period 1846-1921 but it’s amazing what you can spot when browsing at random – amongst the Bethlem Hospital admissions for 1869 I spotted a surname I recognised:
© Crown Copyright Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England. Used by kind permission of Ancestry
Abberline is an extremely rare surname and I knew that my 1st cousin 4 times removed, Emma Beament, had married Frederick George Abberline. I’d done quite a bit of research into Frederick Abberline’s career, since as Chief Inspector Abberline of the Metropolitan Police he was in charge of the hunt for Jack the Ripper, but I’d never previously looked at his family background – after all, he was only related by marriage and he and Emma had no children.
There is no entry in the GRO birth indexes for Miriam Abberline, but there is a female child whose birth was registered in Blandford, Dorset in the first quarter of 1838 – checking the baptism register at Ancestry I was able to find that Miriam Harriet Abberline was baptised to Edward, a saddler, and his wife Hannah (formerly Chinn) at Blandford Forum on 26th January 1838:
© Copyright image – register held by Dorset History Centre – All Rights Reserved. Used by kind permission of Ancestry
Five years later Frederick George was baptised to the same couple in the same church, and you’ll find the family living together in the 1851 Census – although the father died the previous year, and Miriam Harriet is shown just as Harriet:
© Crown Copyright Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England. Used by kind permission of Findmypast
I can’t find any evidence that Miriam/Harriet was readmitted to an asylum, and I’m fairly certain she wasn’t the Harriett Aberlin who had been admitted to Peckham House Asylum in 1856 – it’s more likely that entry relates to the 15 year-old daughter of Jean Henri Aberlin (Chief Cook to Queen Victoria at the time of the 1861 Census). In any case Miriam/Harriet lived to the ripe old age of 85, passing away in 1923 – in 1921 she’s living with her niece.
Although the newly released Birmingham records duplicate some of the information in the older collection they are generally more detailed – and they include entries beyond the 1921 cut-off date. If you have ancestors from the Birmingham area I’d recommend checking both record sets.
Note: for more information about asylums around the country see the County Asylums website.
I was shocked to read this article on the BBC News site about fraudsters who have forged wills in order to steal legacies of hundreds of thousands of pounds left by people they didn’t even know.
Fifteen years ago it was all about non-existent legacies which were used as bait to hook the gullible and greedy – I’m not sure that many people were fooled by those emails (any more than they were by offers of donations from Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, or numerous Nigerian princes and lottery winners).
This latest scam is much more worrying – I certainly hope the authorities can do something about it.
Half-price subscriptions at Ancestry.com ENDS TUESDAY
To mark Independence Day Ancestry.com are offering 50% off most of their 6-month subscriptions. You don’t have to live in the US to subscribe to the US site, but be aware that you will be billed in US dollars and that local taxes may be added on, so be sure to check carefully what you will be charged before completing your purchase.
If you go for the All Access subscription you can share it with up to 4 relatives or friends. Please use the link below so that there’s a chance that LostCousins might benefit from your purchase (whether we do or not will, of course, depend on your settings):
Ancestry Membership Sale: Up to 50% off. Sale ends July 8. Terms apply.
Findmypast add Incoming Ships’ Passenger lists
At one time it was simple – if you wanted to look up records of passengers arriving in the UK you went to Ancestry, but to search records of passengers leaving the UK you went to Findmypast.
Then, in 2013 Ancestry added the Outward passenger lists – but only recently have Findmypast reciprocated by adding the more than 16 million records in the Incoming passenger lists held by The National Archives.
As regular readers of this newsletter will know, I’m all in favour of having more than one source for major record sets – a new pair of eyes might spot something that was previously missed. But there’s more to it than that – different sites have different search options so you can increase your chance of locating hard-to-find records by using more than one site.
Britain and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960
I don’t know about you, but there are certain websites – and certain pages on those sites – that I return to time and time again. I could bookmark them, but I find it simpler to have multiple tabs open in my browser. For example, I have at least one page open at the GRO website, and several at key pages on the Ancestry and Findmypast websites.
You’re probably thinking, “I do that too”, but I doubt you use this handy browser feature as prolifically as I do – I currently have 102 tabs open in a single Chrome browser window, and another 70 open in a second window. It’s a bit excessive, but it gives you an idea of what can be done if you push your computer to the limits!
I generally don’t shut my computer down completely at the end of the day – this saves me about 10 minutes at the start and end of each day – but if I have to close it down in order to install an update I can reinstate the browser tabs by opening Chrome then going to Settings then History. There you can choose which tabs to reopen, or you can do what I do, which is to reopen ALL of the tabs that I had open previously.
LostCousins members often ask me how I manage to fit so much into my day – and now you know: keeping browser tabs open at the pages I use frequently saves an enormous amount of time over the course of a day. You should try it!
After listening to Sarah Williams, Editor of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine talk about the many different ways that her readers can interact with the magazine I realised that featuring some of the questions I get from LostCousins members in this newsletter could well help other readers.
For example, Jane wrote in recently with a question about Ancestry ThruLines:
QUESTION: If I have already built a tree, and then do my DNA, will it tell me if I have made mistakes or does it assume you have your tree right?
If you’ve paid for a DNA test you want to make the most of it, so knowing what to do and how to do it is crucially important – which is why I created the DNA Masterclass, which you’ll find here. However this particular question isn’t one I’ve been asked before, so it isn’t answered in the Masterclass. Here’s what I told Jane:
ANSWER: Ancestry don't attempt to check members' trees using DNA - it's not really necessary because it's so easy for the person who tested to do the checking themselves once their DNA results come through.
Bear in mind that it's up to you what tree you attach to your DNA results - you can have as many Ancestry trees as you like, but only one can be connected to your results. I recommend attaching a direct ancestors-only public tree, as this will be the most helpful for your genetic cousins.
I would suggest excluding from that tree any ancestors that you're not confident about - and see what Ancestry suggests. You may find that you were right all along.
This is a reminder that there are two good reasons for testing our DNA: one is to knock down some of our ‘brick walls’; the other is to enable us to verify our records-based research. It’s not a question of whether we’ve made a mistake, it’s whether the records we’ve relied on are correct.
Staying with DNA, Wendy asked me to clarify the advice in the last newsletter about being able to manage multiple Ancestry DNA tests with a single Ancestry Membership.
QUESTION: As far as I am aware this facility was removed quite some time ago, and only one DNA test per account is allowed. Has this decision been reversed?
Wendy is absolutely correct that some years ago Ancestry changed their procedure. But it doesn’t contradict the advice I gave in the newsletter, and here’s why:
ANSWER: You're thinking of the ability for a single account to 'own' more than one DNA test. Each DNA test has to be owned by a different Ancestry account, for data protection reasons, but there is no apparent limit to the number of tests you can 'manage' on behalf of their owners.
I have access to 30 DNA tests through my account: for one of the tests (my own) I am the 'owner', for some of the tests I am the 'manager', for others I am a 'collaborator', and for a handful I am just a 'viewer'
Occasionally I come across people who ‘manage’ a relative’s test by logging into the other person’s Ancestry account – indeed, they might have set it up for them in the first place. However, it’s far better (and far simpler) if your relative appoints you ‘manager’ of their test – this feature is under DNA settings, which is accessed from the DNA Summary page.
After clicking DNA settings look for the DNA test sharing section, which is near the bottom of the list. Of course, this needs to be done by (or with the authority of) the person who is appointing you Manager.
When you have access to multiple DNA tests, whether as a Viewer, a Collaborator, or Manager you can switch between tests using a drop-down menu. In the screenshot above you’ll see a downward arrow to the right of my name – clicking that arrow will open up the menu.
Note: if you didn’t see Sarah Williams’ talk you’ll find a recording on your My Events page.
Gardeners Corner: Summer Rose Care
I know how popular my wife’s gardening articles are, so I was delighted when she surprised me with this, just as I though the newsletter was complete…
Most roses will flower from early summer to mid-Autumn, but strong repeat flowering can only be sustained with a helping hand. To flourish well, roses need plenty of sun, nutrients and adequate moisture- noting that those kept in containers are entirely reliant on your attention for their survival.
Old roses (usually defined as bred before 1867) tend to bloom in “cool” shades of white, mauve, lilac, cream and bluish of pink. With very limited exceptions, these will not form another flush of rosebuds, so both the shrubby and rambling types can be lightly pruned after flowering to reshape them – or wait until winter if the variety is known to produce highly attractive rose hips.
Modern breeding has introduced a much wider variety of sizes, colours, repeat flowering and disease resistance. But the very fact that so many older roses have survived for hundreds of years is testament to their ability to thrive on a little neglect, whereas their descendants often require more attention to help them keep reblooming in cycles of roughly 5-6 weeks over a 4-5 month flowering season.
Your first task is to regularly deadhead spent flowers not by pulling them off at the top, but by snipping the stalk back to just above a fully formed leaf. Use sharp, clean snips or secateurs, cleanly cutting at an angle. Some roses - whether shrubby, bush or climbing- bloom in flower clusters (floribunda) – first, snip off the spent flowers without disturbing the other buds or blooms, then cut the whole stem down to just above a healthy leaf after the entire cluster has flowered. There are two reasons for deadheading: firstly to force more flower buds by preventing the plant putting its energy into forming hips, the fruit containing its seed. The second reason is that by cutting just above a healthy leaf, you can control any wayward growth and maintain the look, shape and size of your shrubby, bush and climbing roses throughout the summer.
The second stage – feeding – should only be necessary after the first flush of blooms. Roses are greedy feeders and if we expect them to rebloom for a long time, they need ongoing sustenance. The first time to feed roses is in spring; the summer feed is a much-needed boost. If a rose is really struggling, first apply a liquid feed which can be absorbed more quickly. Otherwise clear the soil of weeds and apply a slow-release granular rose fertiliser by forking it lightly into the surrounding soil and watering in. Then mulch with 2-3” of leaf mulch, compost or shredded bark, leaving a gap around the base of the rose. This will keep the roots cooler, lock in more moisture and reduce weeds.
Like humans, roses with access to good nutrition are less susceptible to diseases. There will inevitably be aphids, mildew and other diseases during the summer, and they are best dealt with promptly. A silvery grey layer of sooty mildew can kill leaves and weaken the plant; try cutting down on watering and/or misting the leaves lightly with 1 tablespoon of sodium bicarbonate dissolved in a gallon of water. This should kill the fungus as it dries. Another fungus, black spot, causes leaf yellowing with black spots; this one can remain dormant over the winter so is best treated chemically and by careful disposal of infected leaves. Avoidance of fungal growth is the main reason to only water the soil under roses (never the leaves!) and preferably to do it in the morning so that the soil won’t be wet under the leaves overnight. Fungal spores can breed in decomposing plant material – a good reason to always remove plant trimmings from your flowerbeds!
Aside from fungal infection, roses can attract a variety of bugs- some helpful, others not. Aphids (greenfly, blackfly and whitefly) suck the sap from stems, weakening growth and spoiling the rosebuds. There are plenty of sprays to eradicate aphids- or if you don’t mind the smell, steep a few garlic cloves in a pint of boiling water, add a drop of dish soap and mist your rose with it when cooled down. Ladybirds, lacewings, hoverflies and some parasitic wasps are beneficial aphid predators and a good reason to use organic solutions where possible. If you see ants marching up and down your roses, they “milk” the aphids for food without killing them – you may need to set down ant bait before they also create a nest in the roots, which can easily destroy the plant. Sawfly caterpillars are also bad news; use an insecticidal spray or soap or pick them off before they strip your plant of foliage! Finally, leaf cutter bees will nibble out circular sections of rose leaves for their nests, but they don’t cause lasting damage and are helpful pollinators.
While leaf yellowing can indicate overwatering, roses in containers often need more regular watering in hot weather. They should already be in large, deep containers and well mulched to conserve moisture. Mine have large drip saucers which reduce the frequency of watering and make it harder for ants to invade. It really helps to have a routine; weekly deadheading, inspection and essential treatment, deep watering on one or two mornings a week, midsummer feeding and mulching… with the upside of so many opportunities to enjoy your beautiful roses close up right through to Autumn!
Planting bare root roses is risky and best avoided during a hot summer. Potted roses can be planted during warmer months, but they still take time to settle especially in extreme heat and may not be at their best until the following year. Feed and mulch when you plant them, provide some shade from prolonged hot sun, and try not to over-or underwater.
Offers worth a look:
Amazon: Large plant pot saucers (these are a boon in heatwave weather!)
Crocus: their summer sale includes 40% off many highly desirable potted roses:
Gardening Express: dozens of £1 bargains, including some stunning dahlias
Please use the links above so that you can support LostCousins!
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 2025 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!