Newsletter 6th June
2021
What makes a 'brick wall' crack?
Oldest 'brick wall' comes crashing down
Save 25% on Ancestry DNA in the UK ENDS 20TH JUNE
Dont just read the Masterclass
..
Exporting servants to Western Australia in the
1850s and 1890s
Scottish Roman Catholic registers online
An amazing sequence of marriages and other
chance discoveries
Adoption stories: forced to give up their child
The last veteran of Dunkirk and D-Day?
Get better results from your newspaper searches
What's available from your
local library?
Realising the potential of DNA: gene therapy
Probability and family history (part 2)
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What makes a 'brick wall' crack?
In
genealogy a 'brick wall' is something that prevents us taking an ancestral line
back any further. When we begin our research we
usually have just one or two 'brick walls', but the more experienced we become
the more 'brick walls' we have around 100 in my case, but there are people
reading this who have many more.
There
are a number of things that can help us to crack
'brick walls', some of which are beyond our control, but most of which are the
result of our own hard work and sound techniques. For example:
The
putative father of my illegitimate great-grandmother was an apparently happily
married farmer whose wife had borne him four sons during their 10 years of
marriage. Would he really risk everything for a fling with a young widow?
At
first this seemed unlikely, but then I discovered that he had a track record
in 1826 he'd been ordered to pay maintenance to a
woman whose child he had fathered. This was a few years before his marriage,
but instead of marrying the mother he'd been prepared
to leave her in the lurch I guess that's the sort of person my great-great
grandfather was. DNA matches later confirmed his identity: I have multiple
matches with descendants of his legitimate sons.
Note:
knocking down that one 'brick wall' means that I now have 5 more 'brick walls'
further up my tree. But that's how genealogy works!
Connecting
and collaborating with cousins who share the same 'brick wall' has always been
a good way to crack the problem, but in recent years it has become more important
than ever, as the next article demonstrates.
Oldest 'brick wall' comes crashing down (part 1)
For
almost 20 years I've been trying to find the birth or
baptism of my great-great grandmother Mary Ann Burns. When she married in November
1859 she claimed to be 'of full age' but so did the groom, and he definitely wasn't 21 until the following January (I've found
both his birth and his baptism).
On
the 1861 census she's shown as 21, and none of the
ages she gave in subsequent censuses are consistent with her being 21 or older
in 1859, so if she was born in England and the three different birthplaces
she gave on the censuses were all in London her birth ought to have been
registered (though in the early days of civil registration many births weren't).
I
couldn't find any evidence of her existence before 1859, which suggested that even
the small amount of evidence I had might be wrong or misleading, and some of it
certainly was as you can see, the name given for her father on her marriage
certificate was James Brown deceased, not James
Burns. This certificate is a facsimile of the entry in the marriage register
held at the local register office and since my ancestor signed it, rather
than making her mark, she might have been expected to notice if her father's surname
had been shown incorrectly.
©
Image copyright London Metropolitan Archives; All Rights Reserved. Used by kinsd permission of Ancestry.
But
a few years later, when I was able to view the church copy of the register at
the London Metropolitan Archives I found out that her
father's surname was given as Burns which at least removed one element of
uncertainty.
Note:
that although the signatures are identical, two different people have completed
the register entries did the couple sign a blank entry which was completed later,
I wonder?
However I still couldn't track down her birth or
baptism, and I was well aware that if she was illegitimate the name she gave
for her father at the time of her marriage could be a figment of her imagination
so I looked at that possibility as well.
But
it wasn't until 2018 that I got a useful lead an
Ancestry DNA match with someone in New Zealand whose surname was Burns and significantly
it was a match that I shared with a 2nd cousin once removed who was also
descended from Mary Ann Burns. I'd paid for my cousin to test, and this match
alone justified the expenditure, because it represented
more progress than I'd made in the previous 16 years.
Our
genetic cousin was descended from a James Burns who would have been just a
little younger than Mary Ann and he too had given his father's name as James.
The younger James was a fisherman, and so according to his marriage
certificate was his father which, since my great-great grandfather (the man
who Mary Ann Burns married) came from a long line of fishermen, made the DNA
match all the more intriguing. It could also explain how
my ancestor Mary Ann was apparently born in London, but my genetic cousin's
ancestor James claimed to have been born in Great Yarmouth.
I
seemed to have found Mary Ann's brother and confirmed the name of her father
but this wasn't enough to knock down the 'brick wall'.
As you'll find out in the next instalment, it not only
required more help from DNA, but also some key discoveries in Findmypast's
massive collection of Roman Catholic records.
Save 25% on Ancestry DNA in the UK ENDS 20TH JUNE
By
far the most useful genealogical DNA test you can buy is Ancestry's test. It
costs a little more than most, but my experience, and that of many others, is
that it delivers 10 times the value and there are three key reasons for this:
But
none of us has unlimited funds to spend on genealogy, so when the opportunity arises
to purchase Ancestry DNA tests at a discount it's
worth shouting about. Currently UK residents can save 25% on Ancestry DNA
tests, but you'll only be supporting LostCousins with
your purchase if you use the link below (please note that you'll probably need
to log-out from your Ancestry account before clicking the link):
Ancestry DNA
(UK only) - £59 plus shipping ENDS 20TH JUNE
Dont just read the Masterclass
..
Most
of the people who contact me for help with their DNA results have read my Masterclass,
some of them several times. But hardly any of them have actually followed the
advice in the Masterclass, which is not only annoying and frustrating for me, it means they're missing out on the wonderful opportunities
that DNA testing provides to knock down 'brick walls' and confirm their
records-based research.
I
dont expect everyone to understand the science of DNA
and for someone who is working with DNA for the first time there's even more
to get to grips with. That's why I set out clear instructions
that anyone can follow, whether they understand why they're going to work or
not.
My
wife has pointed out that the unhelpful behaviour I've described in this
article is typical male behaviour she compared it with the reluctance of male
drivers to look at a map, or stop to ask for
directions. My instinctive response was to say that she was talking rubbish, but
when I had more of a chance to think about it I
realised that she was spot on. So, thank you ladies for doing the sensible thing
and following the advice you've been given and come on
chaps, dont let your ego stop you from succeeding!
Exporting servants to Western Australia in the 1850s and
1890s
As
negotiations on a trade deal between Britain and Australia continue it seems a
good time to look back one of our greatest British exports people. A genetic
cousin of mine discovered a dissertation
entitled The Immigration of Domestic Servants to Western Australia in the
1850s and 1890s it makes interesting reading.
Scottish Roman Catholic registers online
Findmypast
have added over half a million Roman Catholic records from Scotland (mostly the
Archdiocese of Glasgow). For details of the parishes included please follow
this link.
In
the last issue I reported
that churches in Wales had been asked to hand in their marriage registers, and
that according to my correspondent they might not even be able to offer
ceremonial marriage certificates. However I commented that some enterprising
company might have come up with replacement registers, and this was confirmed
shortly afterwards, as you can see here.
Church House Publishing is the official publisher of the Church of England, and
they are also producing 'Wedding Celebration Keepsake Cards' in packs of 10 for
£4.50 you can see a sample here.
Staying
on the subject of marriage registers, Frances directed
me to this interesting example from Milton next Canterbury, Kent:
©
Copyright Dean and Chapter of Canterbury. Used by kind permission of
Findmypast.
All of the pages in the register that are online
have been similarly defaced, and as the most recent entry is from 1924 it seems
likely that the stamp was applied at some point after that date.
At
the beginning of the register is this explanatory note:
©
Copyright Dean and Chapter of Canterbury. Used by kind permission of
Findmypast.
An amazing sequence of marriages and other
chance discoveries
Many
thanks to Evelyn for pointing out this remarkable story in the Stamford
Mercury of 18th December, 1783 (you might need to
read it more than once):
Stories
of this type are not unusual for the period, but they're
usually impossible to verify. In this case Evelyn has been able to identify the
parish register entries that support this incredible tale.
Tonya in Australia
made a serendipitous discovery behind an old framed map that her father
bought was an English newspaper from 1820, which reported on the inquest into
the death of Richard Smithers, a Bow Street Runner (predecessors of the
Metropolitan Police). He'd been killed by one of the
anarchists involved in the Cato Street Conspiracy, which some of you will
remember from studying history at school.
Smithers
was the name of one of Tonya's ancestors her great-great-great-great
grandfather was a Bow Street Runner around the same time. She's
yet to prove the connection, but wouldn't it be amazing if poor Richard
Smithers turned out to be a relative?
It
reminds me of the scrapbook I bought at an auction of household effects 20
years ago in it I found a newspaper cutting from 1928 which mentioned my
uncle, Horace Calver, who I never met (because he died of tuberculosis in 1936).
If you come across an old newspaper don't throw it
away you never know what you might find!
Adoption stories: forced to give up their child
Hundreds
of women coerced into giving up their babies for adoption between the 1950s and
1970s have called on the Prime Minister to issue an apology you can read about
it in this BBC article.
Much
as I sympathise with those women, I wonder if their lives would have been
better or worse had they brought up their child themselves? I can't forget how stigmatised illegitimacy was in those days
times have certainly changed!
The last veteran of Dunkirk and D-Day?
Following
the death last month of 98 year-old Alfred White it
has been suggested that there's nobody still alive who served in the British
army at both Dunkirk in 1940 and D-Day in 1944. Recordings of his recollections
are going to be made available through the Imperial War Museum you can read
more here.
He
lived much longer than his namesake, Alfred White of Southampton, who survived
the sinking of the Titanic, but reportedly
died aged just 41 while waiting in a queue at a bank. (I think we've all been in queues like that!)
Note:
this weekend, the 77th anniversary of the D-Day landings, a memorial opened in Normandy to 22,442
soldiers who lost their lives during the landings and the Battle of Normandy.
Get better results from your newspaper searches
I know that some of you are researching in historic
newspapers for the first time following the recent British Newspaper Archive
offer, so you might be interested in a one-hour online talk being offered next
month by the Society of Genealogists you'll find the details here.
What's
available from your local library?
I've only once visited my local public library to access Ancestry at a
time when my subscription only covered the UK and Ireland and whilst I did go
to the library in the next town a few times it was only to use their microfiche
reader.
And yet the library is one of the resources I use
most frequently because it provides free online access to key resources such as
the The Times Digital Archive which has digitized
copies of issues from 1785-2014, and The Oxford Dictionary
of Family Names in Britain and Ireland which is the most
up-to-date and comprehensive work of its kind.
Other important reference works that I can access
free from anywhere in the world using my Essex Libraries number include Who's Who, Who Was Who, and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (the most highly-regarded of them all, almost
always referred to by the enigmatic acronym DNB).
During the pandemic many
libraries have provided access to resources that would in normal times only be
available using computers sited in the library these often include some or
all of Ancestry Library Edition, Findmypast, and the British Newspaper Archive.
But most of the other digital resources are available every day of every year
so find out now what your local library offers. And yes, you can do that online as well!
Tip: some libraries allow
you to join even if you don't live in their area.
Last month I published a chart from 1936 which had
appeared in the News Chronicle and as it generated a lot of interest and comment I thought it would
be interesting to link to a chart
published earlier this year, one which presents a very different picture.
But if you think that's different, consider how
things might look in the future, as a result of the passing of the Succession
to the Crown Act, 2013 this abolished male primogeniture and removed the
bar to the throne for those who marry a Roman Catholic. However, it only applies
to those born after 28th October 2011 it won't affect
the rights of anyone born before that date so, for example, the Duke of York
and Earl of Wessex will continue to rank ahead of Princess Anne, even though
she was born before them.
Note: if you think
that male primogeniture was discriminatory, the crown of Hanover was inherited
according to Salic Law, which excludes females from the succession that's why
Queen Victoria ruled the British Empire, but not Hanover, even though all 5 of
her predecessors ruled both.
Finally, a link to an article about
a 92 year-old who has spent the last 2 years knitting
a woollen replica of a the Queen's Sandringham Estate. (This lady has form: she
previously recreated the Great Yarmouth seafront as it was in the 1970s.)
Realising the potential of DNA
DNA
is a wonderful thing it's the equivalent of a
blueprint for life. However if it wasn't for random
mutations I wouldnt be writing this and you wouldn't be reading if we
existed at all we'd be primitive organisms.
The
downside of random mutations is that some are harmful. If they're
so harmful that the organism cannot survive to breed then the mutations will
die out, but if they only cause problems in certain situations they can flourish.
We each have two sets of DNA, one inherited from our
mother, and one from our father: if a hereditary disorder is recessive only
those who inherit a copy of the problem gene from both parents will
suffer, those who inherit the variant from only one parent are simply carriers,
who can pass it on to their own offspring.
You
may have read in the news recently
of a rare genetic disorder for which the National Health Service will be offering
gene therapy, in the hope that it will alleviate the symptoms. Although roughly
1 person in 50 carries the gene, the chance of two randomly-selected selected
parents both being carriers is 1 in 2500 (ie 50 times 50) and the chance of them both passing
on the faulty gene to their child is only 1 in 4. That's
why the disorder occurs in about 1 in 10,000 births.
Note:
in the preceding paragraph I talked about the parents being randomly-selected.
If they happened to be 1st cousins it's significantly
more likely that they'll both be carriers of this and any other recessive
hereditary disorder.
Probability and family history (part 2)
In the last issue I wrote
about the importance of probability to family historians, focusing particularly
on the way we adjust our thinking according to how common the names are that
we're researching, and also the proportion of records that have been transcribed
and indexed (so might show up in searches).
This time I want to focus on whether and how we
adjust our thinking when new information becomes available. For example, let's suppose that the only information we have about
our ancestor's birthplace comes from the census and that when we review the
baptism register for the parish there's only one baptism in the right name
around the right time. We'd probably feel fairly
confident that its the baptism we're looking for perhaps 95% certain.
Now let's suppose that looking through the census
you come across another person with the same name who is around the same age, and gives the same birthplace. Do you feel so confident
now? You certainly shouldnt do in the absence of
any other clues the chances of your initial assumption being correct have just plummeted
from 95% to 50% or less.
It may be that one of the individuals has given the
wrong birthplace on the census many people didnt know
where they were born, only where they grew up. Or perhaps the birthplaces are
correct, but only one of the children was baptised in the parish church. There
are any number of possible explanations, and clearly further investigation will
be necessary.
I'm going to end this article with a puzzle which was recently posed in New Scientist magazine (15th
May 2021, p.52). A farmer has a sheep which is pregnant with twins. A genetic
test finds fragments of Y-DNA in the mother's bloodstream, indicating that at
least one of the twins is male but the question is, how likely is it that the
other twin is female? You might think it's 50/50, but are
the odds changed by the test result which has eliminated the possibility that
they're both female?
Please post your answers and your reasoning on the
LostCousins Forum. Remember,
if youre already a member of the forum or have
qualified to join there is a link to the forum on your My Summary page at the
LostCousins site.
If you haven't qualified
yet, simply add more relatives to your My
Ancestors page membership of the forum is a privilege
reserved for those who are making a significant contribution to the LostCousins
project (to connect cousins around the world who are researching the same
ancestors). It isn't a reward for long service all
you need is a Match Potential (shown on your My Summary page) of 1.0 or more, so a new LostCousins member with British,
or mostly British ancestry could qualify for forum membership in under an hour.
So could the vast majority of readers of this
newsletter it doesn't much matter where you live or when your ancestors left
these shores, it's where your cousins' ancestors were in 1881 that matters.
I've been a reader of Which? magazine for
most of my life, and a subscriber for as long as I can remember, but every now
and again they contrive to mislead. This month they published an article
about Premium Bonds which I'm sure would discourage most readers from holding
them yet the prizes paid out over the course of a year are equivalent to 1%
of the amount invested, or 0.85% if you only take into account £25 prizes. This
average return is far higher than the interest on most easy access savings
accounts! For a more balanced view of Premium Bonds see this article.
There
were a lot of complimentary emails regarding my wife's gardening column in the
last newsletter, and more than a few stories were prompted by that article. For
example, one member wrote in to tell me about a friend who was born in 1947:
her father planted a peony for her, and when her parents died
she transplanted it to her own garden, where it is still flourishing 74 years
on!
In
the past week clinical trials have begun in Britain to investigate whether a
third dose of vaccine will provide recipients with greater protection against
the COVID-19 virus, and find out how different vaccines work together (you can read
more about it here). I'm
sure there will be many who will say that it's wrong to even think about giving
people in the UK a third dose when there are billions around the world who
haven't even had a first dose, however I suspect that most scientists would
argue that the more we learn about this virus, and how we can protect people
against it, the sooner we'll be able to focus on the problems that arent so
easily dealt with but cause even more death and suffering around the world.
On
Sunday morning the Health Secretary revealed that the current best estimate is
that the Indian variant is 40% more transmissible than the Kent variant. If you
plug this figure into the equation I published
two weeks ago, implies an increase in the R number from 0.8 to 1.12. This fits
in the middle of the range for the R number in England, which was 1.0 to 1.2 according
to the government's 4th June report.
However the recent rate of growth in cases reported
by the Office for National Statistics implies a much higher R number this is
probably due to the relaxation in restrictions and consequent changes in
behaviour. My wife and I continue to remain cautious but we're
fortunate in that unlike some, we can both work from home.
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 2021 Peter Calver
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