Newsletter – 2nd
June 2023
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MASTERCLASS: How to get the most from
Findmypast
From the archives: Census Street Indexes
1931 Census released – in Canada NEW
The introduction of printed marriage registers
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This week at the Society of Genealogists ONLINE PRESENTATIONS
The LostCousins
newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue
(dated 25th May) 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):
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Save 15% on Findmypast subscriptions EXCLUSIVE
OFFER – 4 DAYS ONLY
Although
family history is one of the cheaper hobbies, it can still be difficult to find
the money for a 12 month subscription, even though annual
subscriptions invariably provide a significant cost saving compared to shorter
subscriptions.
So I am delighted to have been able to negotiate an EXCLUSIVE
15% DISCOUNT on new 12 month subscriptions to Findmypast – and whilst the new
Premium subscription isn’t included in the offer, if you purchase a Pro
subscription from Findmypast.co.uk you can upgrade to Premium for £20 (or the approximate
equivalent at Findmypast’s other sites around the world).
Note:
the only difference between the Pro and Premium subscriptions is the 1921
England & Wales census. The Premium subscription includes virtually unlimited
access to this census; with a Pro subscription you get 10% off the normal pay-per-view
price.
With
a PLUS subscription you’ll have unlimited access to ALL
of Findmypast’s billions of British and Irish records, including censuses
up to 1911, Church of England parish registers for many counties, Catholic
records, military records, ships passenger lists, historic electoral rolls, and
the modern UK Electoral Register for the UK – which can help you track down
living relatives, schoolfriends, former colleagues etc. With 15% off you’ll save
over £20, bringing the price down to under £115 – or about £2.20 a week, less
than the cost of a sandwich, and (believe it or not) less than you would have
paid back in October 2009, when there were far fewer records on the site. In those
days there were no parish registers, no Catholic records, and even the census collection
was still incomplete – so much has been added since.
The
PRO subscription includes everything in the Plus subscription, as well
as billions of records from outside the UK, and unlimited access to half a billion
newspaper articles in the British Newspaper Archive. In fact
it includes everything that Findmypast has to offer, with the exception of the
1921 Census. With 15% off you’ll save more than £27, reducing the cost to a
little over £157 – or about £3 a week.
Perhaps
the best news is that, as an annual subscriber, when your subscription comes up
for renewal in a year’s time you’ll qualify for
Findmypast’s Loyalty Discount. As this is also 15% you won’t see any increase next
year (unless subscription prices rise, which sadly can’t be ruled out given the
high rate of inflation).
The
offer is open to both new subscribers and former subscribers,
but ends at 11.59pm (London time) on Monday 5th June – don’t miss
it! Existing subscribers can’t take advantage of this offer but if you have a 12 month subscription you’ll benefit from the Loyalty Discount
when it renews.
Tip:
in the next article I’ll explain how you can support LostCousins when you make
your purchase AND get a bonus for yourself.
Support LostCousins and get a bonus!
Although
the Findmypast offer is exclusive to readers of this newsletter, you’ll only be
supporting LostCousins if you use the appropriate link at the end of this article
– but don’t stop reading as the next bit is important!
Please
make sure that your purchase is going to be tracked - if you have installed any
browser extensions with names that include the words 'ad' and/or 'block' this
is a danger sign! (Beware: if you allow your children or grandchildren to ‘help’
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I
also recommend, based on past experience, that you
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since many problems can be solved by using a different browser).
I
also recommend you use a computer rather than a smartphone or tablet, but
whatever device you choose, please stick to it, as clicking my link on one
device and then making your purchase on another definitely won't
work.
In
Chrome you'll find the 'Do not track' switch by going to Settings, then Privacy
and security, then Cookies and other site data – the default setting
is OFF, as shown BELOW, and this is exactly what you want:
The
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(and blue) then please move it to the left.
In
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Once
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(to the minute!).
Provided
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or 12 months when you purchase a Pro subscription. To claim your bonus forward the email receipt you receive from Findmypast,
ensuring that the time and date of your purchase is shown. Alternatively send
me an email stating the precise time and date of your purchase, the time zone
(if you are not in the UK), and the amount paid. As usual ,
my email address was in the email you received telling you about this newsletter.
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IN DOUBT PLEASE CHECK WITH ME BEFORE MAKING YOUR PURCHASE - AFTERWARDS
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The
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subscription at other sites, but the Essential subscription is a
cut-down version of the Plus subscription (so check carefully before
choosing it).
Tip:
it’s usually best to purchase from your local website, even if you prefer to
use one of the other sites for your research. Once you have your new subscription
you can log into whichever site you wish (they all have the same records).
MASTERCLASS: How to get the most from
Findmypast
From
time to time I’m contacted by readers who don't get
the same excellent results as me when they search at Findmypast – so I'm going
to tell you how I transform their searches….
The
first thing you need to appreciate is that there are two ways of searching at
genealogy websites. One is to enter lots of data on the Search form in the hope
that some of it might lead to the record you're looking for – this type of
search can work well at FamilySearch or Ancestry, where it typically produces
lots of results (though most of them won't be relevant).
The
other approach is to put the minimum amount of information on the Search form,
see how many results you get then – only if there are too many results to
glance through – filter the results so that you're only left with those that
are most relevant. This type of search works best at Findmypast.
Because
I'm so busy I generally prefer the second type of search – most of the time the
record I'm looking for is on the first page of search results, so I get there
very quickly. I even cheat by using wildcards rather than typing long surnames
in full – this has the secondary benefit of sometimes picking up records that
might otherwise have been missed.
How
minimal should your searches be? If I'm searching the census
I'll typically enter just a forename, a surname (possibly using wildcards), and
an approximate year of birth. I rarely enter a place of birth as this tends to
vary so much from one census to another, but when I do I enclose it in
wildcards, eg *London*
Different
surnames require different tactics. The surname Smith is very unlikely to be
spelled differently or mistranscribed – but you are
likely to get lots of results, so you'll need to narrow your search in some
way. By contrast, when I'm searching for my Vandepeer
ancestors I'm more concerned about misspellings than anything else, so I'll
typically search for v*d*p*r* and leave the other boxes empty.
Tip:
even as you’re filling in the search form Findmypast are looking to see how
many records they have that match what you have typed so far; a running total
is displayed on the Search button so you'll know when
there's no point entering any more information.
Put
these tips into practice and you'll immediately see the difference. But don't
stop reading, because I've got another, even more important, tip for you – one
that even Findmypast won't tell you!
Did
you realise that at Findmypast there can be three or more ways of searching for
the same historical record? Would you like to know which of those three ways I
use myself? Yes, I thought so…..
The
gateway to all of the different approaches is the Search
menu:
Let's
suppose that you were hoping to find one of your ancestors in the 1881 Census -
you could choose Search all records, or narrow down your search by
clicking on Census, land & surveys. But I wouldn't choose either of
those options - I'd go to the precise record set I'm interested in by clicking All
record sets, the option beginners are least likely to choose (but the one I
use 99% of the time).
If
I search the 1881 Census specifically I’ve got a vast
range of options on the search form:
The
boxes highlighted in red don’t appear when you
carry out a more general census search, and whilst that might not matter for
some searches, if you don’t know that these other options exist
you’ll never have a chance to use them.
Choosing
All record sets also allows me to find out what record sets Findmypast
has which are relevant to my research. For example, if I want to search Devon
parish registers I’ll type devon in the search box at
the top left:
If
I hadn’t used these records before I would be able to confirm that:
- Findmypast has a complete (or
substantially complete) set of parish records for Devon
- There are images of the register
pages, so I won’t be totally reliant on the transcription
- There is an option to browse the registers
- There are other records for the
county that might help me find elusive ancestors, or provide added detail about
their lives
You
can see from the list that at Findmypast records are organised in a way that
makes them easy to search – all of their Devon marriages
can be searched at the same time, whether they were before or after the 1754 watershed
when separate registers were mandated. Similarly
baptisms and burials aren’t split in 1813, when pre-printed registers were
introduced: this not only makes it quicker to search, it makes it easier to
pick up late baptisms you might otherwise have missed.
Tip:
identifying the siblings of your ancestors is a simple, but effective, way to make
sure that your research is on the right (ancestral) lines. It not only gives
you a better idea of when your ancestor’s parents married, making it easier to
go back another generation, you may find that your ancestor was a witness to
the marriage of one of their siblings (or vice versa).
Another
advantage of the way that Findmypast group records is that finding entries
which were recorded in the combined registers is simpler. It’s difficult enough
researching in the 1600s and early 1700s – we don’t need additional obstacles
in our way.
Tip:
even when two sites appear to have the same record set, differences in the way
that the records have been organised (or in the search options provided) can
mean that records easily found at one site are difficult to find at the other. Most
researchers have a ‘favourite’ site, usually the one they’re most familiar with,
but don’t make the lazy assumption that your favourite site is better in every
respect than all the other sites.
When
I began my researches I had to go up to London every
time I wanted to look up an entry in the General Register Office’s quarterly
birth, marriage, or death indexes – but these days we have a multiplicity of
choices, including FreeBMD and the GRO’s new birth
and death indexes, which are also free online.
When
the GRO reindexed their birth registers they included
the mother’s maiden name from the start of civil registration in July 1837 – previously
this important information was only available from 1911 onwards, which made
finding the correct 19th century births much harder than it should
have been. But searching at the GRO site is tedious and restrictive: you can
only search 5 years at a time, you can only search for males or females, not
both, you can’t specify a county or multiple registration districts, and you
can’t use wild cards, or leave the surname field blank.
Thr good news is that over the past few years
Findmypast have been updating their birth index to include the mother’s maiden
name from 1837 onwards, and whilst there are still a few gaps, it’s so much
quicker and easier to search at Findmypast than at the GRO site (or any other,
for that matter) that it’s usually my first choice. I find it particularly
helpful when I’m looking for all the children of a particular couple.
Here's
a table of links that will enable you to jump straight to some of the key
resources at Findmypast without going through the Search menu (all searches are
free, so you don't need a subscription unless you want to look at the records
themselves, though you will need to register, or log-in if you have registered
previously):
|
1881 British census (FREE transcription) |
|
1939
Register (England & Wales) |
*
these links will take you to the baptisms for the
county – from there you can easily access other records
Note: there are a few
record sets which currently can't be found by searching in the way I've
described; for example, if you're looking for the Chelsea pensioner records you'll find them under British Army Service Records
because Findmypast have grouped together all army service records. Other
instances reported to me in the past involve Australian cemetery records.
Finally,
another useful tip – one that even regular users of Findmypast frequently miss.
When you search an individual dataset you'll see a
list of Useful links & resources at
the bottom right of the page – and when the records in question are parish
records there will usually be a link to a page with a list of parishes that are
included, showing the dates of coverage.
From the archives: Census Street Indexes
Although
Findmypast make it quite easy to search the censuses by address, those of you
who have been researching as long as I have may well have fond memories of the
street indexes at the late-lamented Family Records Centre.
There
was a project to make the street indexes available online through a wiki hosted
by the National Archives, but this was closed to new contributions in 2012, and
the indexes are now only accessible via an archived version of the site in the Government
Web Archive. Indexes are available for 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, and 1891 – you can
find them here.
1931 Census released – in Canada NEW
Yesterday
the 1931 Census of Canada was released online,
although currently it is only browsable. Ancestry and FamilySearch are working
together to transcribe the census using AI – which worked well for the 1950 US
Census when it was trialled last year.
The
one thing that journalist Mary Louisa Toynbee has in common with my antecedents
is the pet name ‘Polly’, which was also the name by which my great-great aunt
Mary Bright was known within the family. That’s where the resemblance ends, as
my ancestors seem to have been poor, mostly labourers of one sort or another,
and the two – one on each side of my tree – who tried to better themselves by becoming
grocers managed to go bankrupt (at least one of them ended up in a debtors prison).
I
was prompted to compare our family trees when a Twitter post drew my attention to
this review
of her memoirs, which were published
yesterday. By and large people who write memoirs do tend to come from
privileged backgrounds, which is why we know so much more about the middle and
upper classes of earlier centuries than we do about the average working man.
(We know even less about the lives of the women.)
Those
of you who are old enough to remember the Monty Python sketch featuring four successful
businessmen who tell ever more exaggerated stories of the hardships of their
youth will understand it when I say that I’m proud of my humble ancestry – but
it certainly makes it more difficult to find evidence of their lives beyond the
parish register entries. Even those who went into the workhouse seem to have
picked an establishment for which few records, if any, survive. Viewers of Who
Do You Think You Are? would have zero interest in my family tree, even if I
somehow became a D-list celebrity.
Early
in my research I discovered the term ‘gateway ancestor’, usually someone who
descends from the aristocracy, and thereby provides a link to medieval
genealogies – and I got the impression then that eventually everyone finds one
of them in their tree. Well, more than 20 years later I’m still waiting, and if
you’ve been more fortunate please don’t write
in as it’ll only depress me further – it seems I’m doomed to be marooned in the
1500s!
Note:
if you’re too young to remember the ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch, or would like
to listen to it again, you’ll find it here on YouTube.
The introduction of printed marriage registers
In
the last
issue I erroneously implied that printed marriage registers were mandatory
from 1754 onwards, when Lord Hardwicke’s Act came into force (in my defence I
should mention that FamilySearch also get it wrong in their History
of Parish Registers in England). In fact, pre-printed registers weren’t
mandatory until 1813 – but it is certainly the case that when the 1753 Act was passed
printers saw an opportunity to sell pre-printed registers and that most
parishes found it convenient to use one of them.
I’m
very grateful to John Wintrip, professional genealogist and author for highlighting my error – and for
sharing with me the slides he used when he spoke on the Implications
of Hardwicke’s Marriage Act in Genealogical Research to fellow members
of the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA).
In
fact, I found the slides so interesting that I have persuaded John Wintrip to give a Zoom talk on this topic to LostCousins members
– it will be at 10am (London time) on Tuesday 4th July. If you are
interested in attending please DON’T write to me – instead
log into your LostCousins account and indicate your interest on the My
Prizes page (which is normally used for our annual competition, but is well
suited to other events).
Because
there are members all over the world it wasn’t possible to pick a time of day
that will work for everyone, but we’ll do our best to accommodate as many
members as possible. Apologies in advance if you are one of the unlucky ones.
Note:
if this event is over-subscribed I will give preference
to members who are taking part in the LostCousins project (to connect family
historians around the world who are researching the same ancestors).
Professor
Rebecca Probert, the leading authority on marriage in England over the centuries,
has written the introduction and contributed an article to the latest issue of
the journal Family & Community History, which focuses on marriage.
The good news is that although it’s an academic journal the relevant articles
are available free online. So far I’ve only had a chance
to glance through Professor Probert’s article, but it has a mention of the sterling
contribution to her research made by LostCousins members, which is always heartening.
You’ll
find the journal here.
Time
to buy a DNA test! SAVE 30%
One
of the questions I’m asked most frequently is “How can I be sure that I’ve
found the right person?”. Nobody wants to trace somebody else’s ancestors instead
of their own, but often there are too few surviving records for us to be absolutely certain that we’ve identified the correct
baptism, or the right marriage.
I
first tested my DNA in 2012, but it wasn’t until I re-tested with Ancestry in
2017 that things started falling into place. Suddenly I was getting matches
with distant cousins, matches which proved that we’d both got our research
right as far back as our common ancestors. I was able to use a few of these
matches to knock down ‘brick walls’ further back in my tree, but all of them were
valuable – it’s important not to under-estimate the reassurance they provided
that my previous research was correct.
Family
historians who haven’t tested their DNA (and even some of those who have), often
assume that DNA tests are all about finding close relatives we don’t know about
and thereby uncovering family secrets – after all, most families have a skeleton
or two in the proverbial closet. But that’s not how it works in practice,
because 99% of the matches we get will be with distant or very distant cousins.
Of
course, it’s not always obvious how you’re connected to a distant cousin – many
people who have taken a DNA test are at an early stage in their research, and
some have no tree at all. That’s why it’s crucially important to follow the strategies
in my DNA Masterclass – they sidestep the matches who have no tree at all,
deprioritise the matches with very small trees, and point you in the direction
of the cousins who are most likely to help you knock down your ‘brick walls’.
Working
out how you’re connected to one of your DNA matches can be satisfying, but it’s
only the first step in the process. If you are able to
persuade them to allow you to view their DNA matches (ideally as a ‘Collaborator’
rather than as a ‘Viewer’), the chances of knocking down one or more of the ‘brick
walls’ that you share improve significantly.
When
it comes to DNA there is only one test that I can wholeheartedly recommend, the
AncestryDNA test. It’s not the cheapest nor the most expensive, but it is by
far the most useful. That’s partly because Ancestry has a considerably larger
database, so you’ll get more useful matches, but mainly because Ancestry do so
much to help, with features like Common Matches and ThruLines
which make the most of Ancestry’s enormous collection of family trees. Put it
another way, they do most of the work, so you don’t have to!
With
Father’s Day approaching Ancestry are offering some enticing reductions on DNA
tests in the UK, the US, and Canada – and you can support LostCousins with your
purchase if you follow the appropriate link:
Ancestry.co.uk
(UK & Ireland only) SAVE 30% – ENDS 15TH JUNE
Ancestry.com
(US only) SAVE $40 – ENDS 18TH JUNE
Ancestry.ca
(Canada only) SAVE UP TO $65 – ENDS 16TH JUNE
Ancestry.com.au
(Australia & New Zealand only) SAVE UP TO $54 – ENDS 8TH JUNE
If you are
logged into your Ancestry account the link may not work, so please log-out first. Finally, a reminder that anyone – male or
female – can take the Ancestry DNA test.
Don’t do things by halves
Sadly my parents weren’t able to take a DNA test, nor
were any of their siblings, so the best proxy I have for their DNA is my own
(and that of my brother and sister).
Whilst
we inherit all of our DNA from our parents, we don’t
inherit all of our parents’ DNA – we only inherit half of it. For example,
whilst I inherited a complete set of chromosomes from my father, those chromosomes
were cobbled together from parts of the chromosomes he inherited from his own
parents. My brother would have received a different mishmash of chromosomes, so
between us we’ve probably got around three-quarters of our father’s DNA. The
same applies to our mother’s DNA.
Had
our parents both been alive when DNA tests became available it would clearly have
been better for them to test rather than the two of us. If you test your own DNA
when your parents could test you’re only testing half
of their DNA – hardly the route to the best results!
Even
if only one of your parents is still alive they should
test. Indeed, it doesn’t need to be a parent who tests, it could be one of
their siblings (ie your aunt
or uncle). Had autosomal DNA testing come in 2 years earlier I could have
tested my father and my mother’s sole surviving sister – who inherited just as
much DNA from my maternal grandparents as my mother did.
The
important thing to remember is that it isn’t our DNA that matters, it’s our
ancestors’ DNA that is going to link us to our genetic cousins. So the closer you can get to your ancestors, the better –
which means testing members of the earliest surviving generation.
This
week at the Society of Genealogists ONLINE PRESENTATIONS
At
2pm (London time) tomorrow, Saturday 3rd June, you can hear genetic
genealogy expert Debbie Kennett give a talk entitled I’ve got my autosomal
DNA results but what do I do next? which will be of particular interest to
those who have tested with Ancestry (though she will also give some tips for
other sites).
Debbie
really knows her subject – she spoke at both of the Genealogy
in the Sunshine events I organised a few years ago – and she is the DNA
expert for Who Do You Think You Are? magazine (you’ll find a discounted
subscription offer here).
For more details, or to book your place see this page
at the SoG website – it’s £6.50 for SoG members, £10 for others.
Next
Thursday, 8th June, also at 2pm (London time) I’ll be giving a talk
about LostCousins – explaining why it’s so important to collaborate with other
researchers, and how much easier it is when you’re put in touch with someone
who is not only an experienced family historian, but
has already indicated their interest in collaborating with their own cousins.
If
you know someone who might be interested in attending they can book here
– again it’s £6.50 for SoG members, £10 for others
(but I’ll be giving away a free one-year subscription worth £10 to new members
who register at LostCousins for the first time after hearing my talk).
I’m
delighted that my wife has come up with another fascinating article for those
who share her love of gardening….
Welcome
back – and hello to any newcomers. It’s already June but this is my first
gardening article of the year, so my profound apologies for a very long wait. I
have been busy installing fencing, planting camellias, and planting other
shrubs while the English Spring has brought ample rain to soften the ground and
make a day’s gardening not too hot for me or for the plants. More on what I’ve
been planting and learning about on another occasion.
But
what has finally motivated me to rest my bones and get typing was a newspaper
article about wisteria, which the newspaper claims can add 5% to the value of a
property. Wisteria is one of Peter’s favourite plants, and before we moved here
a quarter of a century ago he would gaze longingly at
the stunning wisteria outside a Georgian house in the main street of the village
where we were living.
Peter
has once again suggested that the main body of my article should be on a
separate web page (this is a genealogy newsletter, after all), so please follow
this link to
read it. But I will take the liberty of including here links to some online bargains
that I’ve spotted this week (please use the links provided as LostCousins may
benefit):
Gardening Express has
supplies of several varieties of mature (6’) and smaller wisteria plants, as well as
some unbeatable offers on
soft fruit, fruit trees (4 bare root trees for £9.97, reduced from £79.97), and
dozens of garden plants
Crocus
also has a good selection of wisteria plants in varying sizes depending on your
budget (and patience!)
From
1st July electricity prices in Britain will be coming down by about
10%, and gas prices by around 25%. If, like me, you found ways of reducing your
power usage over the winter your monthly Direct Debit could well be higher than
it needs to be: for example, since the beginning of this
year I’ve been paying £284 a month, but it should now be more like £184. EDF
allowed me to reduce the payments to £227 with quibbling, but to reduce them
any further I’ll have to wait for the next account review (in July).
When
interest rates were close to zero I didn’t worry too
much about paying more than I needed to each month, since I knew that the surplus
would be refunded at the end of the year, or set off against the following
period’s bills. But now, with deposit rates approaching 4% for easy-access
accounts (and around 5% if you can afford to tie your savings up for a year), there
is more of an incentive to make our spare cash work harder. I make a point of
paying with a cashback credit card whenever I can, and I also have a debit card
that gives me a 1% rebate on most bills.
Note:
although I’ve had credit cards of one sort or another for half a century I’m one of those annoying people who pays the bill
in full every month – I don’t suppose the card issuers have made much money out
of me!
I’ve
never lost a phone, at least not permanently, but my very first mobile phone
was stolen from my offices in 1990 – even that was not my fault, because I’d
lent it to my sales manager, who spent much more time on the road than I did. I
suppose the government official who drained a dam, emptying it of 2 million
litres of water over the course of three days, in order to
recover their Samsung phone had an equally impressive record to uphold – but at
what cost? He did get the phone back, but by then it was too waterlogged to
work. You can read more about this story here.
Do you
remember the song in the Cadbury’s Flake advert: “Only the crumbliest, flakiest
chocolate….”? I was reminded of those words this week when I read about the
ice cream sellers who are moaning that after Cadbury’s relocated their manufacturing
the flakes were just too crumbly and too flaky. That advert is also on YouTube – it’s from 1985,
apparently (doesn’t time fly?).
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 2023 Peter Calver
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