Newsletter – 25th February 2025
20th century New York State births to be closed to genealogists?
An unusual source of death records
Was your ancestor in the fire brigade?
Nearly 4000 prizes awarded in this year’s competition
Are you involved with a large family history society?
Save on Ancestry DNA ENDS FRIDAY
It’s NOT about finding cousins!
Save 30% at Newspapers.com ENDS FRIDAY
Are you researching on behalf of someone else?
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue (dated 5th February) 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!
Thanks to everyone who sent their good wishes for my cataract operation on 7th February – I’m glad to say that, whilst I haven’t had my post-op assessment yet, it seems to have gone very well. And not only is there a better outcome, it was a much shorter and less unpleasant experience than my first cataract operation in 2022.
February is my busiest month of the year because I have to choose the winning entries in the Annual Competition, send out thousands of email invitations to winners of tickets for the Zoom presentations, and act as host when they take place. So hopefully you will understand why this is the first newsletter for three weeks.
This week I received my copy of the March 2025 issue of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine, and opened it up to find an article by Caroline Roberts which revealed ‘how blind campaigners overcame adversity to fight for accessibility and inclusion in the 19th and early 20th centuries’.
Note: if you are in the UK you can get a one-year subscription (13 issues) to Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine by following this link.
I couldn’t imagine doing what I do if I couldn’t see, yet I learned from the article that Henry Fawcett, a blind man who was a professor at Cambridge University, was elected to parliament in 1865, becoming Postmaster General and introducing postal orders, parcel post, and savings stamps.
Thankfully these days we can all get help from technology: instead of typing this newsletter I could simply talk to the computer (voice recognition is built into Windows). Instead of straining your eyes to read the newsletter you could get Windows to read it to you (that’s also a standard feature), or use the Zoom function in your browser to enlarge the text (just hold down the Ctrl key and press +).
20th century New York State births to be closed to genealogists?
At present uncertified copies of New York State birth records can be obtained after 75 years, and marriage and death records after 50 years provided the individuals are deceased.
It is proposed to increase the embargo period for births to 125 years, which would effectively include the entire 20th century, and to 100 years and 75 years for marriages and deaths. And if that wasn’t bad enough, big price increases are also planned – making it more difficult and less affordable for researchers to get their facts right.
Ironically US censuses are closed for just 72 years, compared to 92 years in Canada, and 100 years in the UK and Ireland.
In England & Wales we can get instant digital copies of birth registrations that are more than 100 years old for just £3 each (less than $4); in Scotland they cost half as much (so less than $2); in Ireland they are free. In New York State the current charge for an is $22, and it could increase to as much as $95. So much for the ‘Land of the Free’.
Many thanks to Miriam Margolyes for alerting me to this issue. For more information please see this letter from the Association of Professional Genealogists.
Do you have marriage certificates for any relatives who remarried after divorcing a previous spouse? I’m trying to establish how the status of the divorcee was recorded – if at all – in marriage registers.
I have seen examples where there is no hint that the individual had previously been married, others where it states ‘previous marriage dissolved’ and just one – sent in by Joanna – which gives the name of the previous spouse.
According to the Church of England website “in certain circumstances the Church of England accepts that a divorced person may marry again in church and this has been the case since 2002. Before that date a vicar could choose whether or not to conduct a marriage ceremony for a divorced person whose former spouse was still living, according to his conscience.
Note: despite the change in the Church of England’s position, when King Charles and Queen Camilla (as they now are) married in 2005 they chose to do so in a civil ceremony.
Divorces were fairly rare during the period for which marriage registers are online, so you won't often see the word ‘divorced’ in an historic marriage register. Some of those intending to marry may have been economical with the truth: I’ve seen examples of divorced men who claimed to be bachelors, and divorced women who claimed to be spinsters when remarrying. Were they just trying to fool the vicar, or was the new spouse also being 'kept in the dark'?
In the censuses ‘divorced’ was not an official category in the census until 1921, though there are examples in earlier censuses – see, for example, this entry from 1881:
© Crown Copyright Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England. Used by kind permission of Findmypast
Of course, many people who divorced did so in order to remarry, so that alone would restrict the number of ‘divorced’ individuals at the time of the census. Divorce first became practical in England after the law changed in 1857 – prior to that it required an Act of Parliament, something that was within the means of very few ordinary citizens. Nevertheless only 15 people in England were described as divorced in the 1861 Census.
Note: prior to the 1891 Census the three categories of marital condition were ‘Married’, ‘Widowed’, and ‘Unmarried’; in 1891 the term ‘Unmarried’ was replaced with ‘Single’.
An unusual source of death records
I recently discovered that the Marks & Spencer pension scheme reports the deaths of former staff members – for example, you can see a list of nearly 1800 employees who died between April 2023 and September 2024 if you follow this link. The earliest list I could find online covered the period from late 2016 to April 2017 but I’m sure that there is earlier data in existence.
The information given is fairly minimal: name, age, month of death, and location (ie where they worked) if known. Nevertheless it’s clues like this that can help us to build a picture of someone’s life and, bearing in mind that many people die a long way from where they used to live, it might help to confirm whether an entry in the GRO death index relates to our relative.
Do you know of similar reports published by other large pension schemes?
When LostCousins began over 20 years I spent a lot of time helping members with their research, but I soon realised that it was better to teach them techniques rather than spoon-feed them with answers, and that shaped the way that the LostCousins newsletter developed in the early years.
After a while I realised that most of the tips and techniques could be collected together in order to create Masterclasses on key topics – and today there about a dozen Masterclasses which are updated from time to time and republished in the newsletter, each of them providing a practical guide that anyone can follow.
You can find the Masterclasses using the search at the top of any newsletter, or – if you are a Friend – by using the links on the Friends Only page of the LostCousins site.
Was your ancestor in the fire brigade?
My wife’s father and brother each served as firemen at some point during their working lives, so I wasn’t surprised when she pointed out this document with biographies of Essex firemen who served between 1900-1920.
You may see a security warning when you follow the link as it’s on an old version of the official website, but for some reason it isn’t one of the 45 articles you’ll find here, on the new website of the Essex Fire Museum. Many of those articles will be of interest even if your ancestor served elsewhere in the country.
Nearly 4000 prizes awarded in this year’s competition
This year’s competition offered many more prizes than ever before: apart from the subscriptions (thanks again to Findmypast, TheGenealogist, and Who Do You Think You are?), books, and other prizes I had the pleasure of sending out nearly 4000 invitations to exclusive Zoom presentations.
This was only possible because as an experiment I upgraded our Zoom subscription so that we could accommodate 5 times as many attendees as in previous years.
Of course, not everybody who was invited could make the live presentation, but everyone who was invited was sent a link to the recording of the session – and because there was an opportunity to submit questions in advance, nobody was left out, whether they were there on the day or not.
All this was possible because of the speakers who gave up their time to talk to us and answer questions. Professor Rebecca Probert is such a popular speaker that I persuaded her to speak twice, on successive Saturdays – once in the morning so that members in Australia and New Zealand could attend, and once in the late afternoon so that members in North America could be there. This year we heard about bigamy: why people did it, what the punishment was if they were caught, and why some people weren’t charged or convicted.
Organising the talks is hard work, but it’s all worthwhile because I get to hear them – and ask the odd question of my own.
Interviewing authors is one of my greatest pleasures, and this year I was delighted to be able to persuade DJ Wiseman, creator of the wonderful Lydia Silverstream series of genealogical mysteries to join us last Monday from his home in Canada. You never know what answer you’re going to get when you ask what inspired an author to write novels, but this time I hit the jackpot – and the real-life story of his bigamous grandfather was so fascinating that I invited David Wiseman to tell his story at Professor Probert’s presentation on Saturday.
Another first-time speaker was Simon Fowler: a genealogist and author with 20 years experiencing of working for The National Archives. We not only learned how to make the most of our visit, but also how we could access the records if we couldn’t in person.
We once again welcomed Mark Bayley, head of Online Development at TheGenealogist, who highlighted a selection of the records that are unique to the website and demonstrated how many record sets are now linked to Map Explorer.
I gave two DNA talks this year: one for those who haven’t tested, and one for those who have: very different, but with a common message (follow the steps in the Masterclass!). And, as I type this, my wife is about to commence her gardening talk, which is the last of this month’s presentation.
Almost everyone who entered the competition and completed their My Prizes page (to indicate which prizes were of most interest) was awarded at least one prize, and many received two, three, or even more.
However there were others who missed out because of misunderstandings. Several hundred members who entered the competition couldn’t be awarded any prizes because they hadn’t completed their My Prizes page, and there were others who didn’t realise that the Zoom presentations were being recorded.
Many more failed to enter the competition at all because they erroneously assumed that there was nobody else they could add to their My Ancestors page – they must have missed this paragraph in one of my November newsletters (and repeated in January):
“Tip: ALL of your living cousins are descended from collateral lines, the lines that branch off from your direct lines, so the best way to find them is to enter the relatives from the branches. Start with your ancestors' siblings then continue with their cousins. A good approach is to start with everyone you know about in 1841 – whether or not you can find them on that census – then track each branch and twig through the censuses until you get to 1881.”
But perhaps most poignant is the case of the unnamed member who would have won one of the top prizes had not the ‘winning’ entry been disqualified because the information entered didn’t match the census. It’s so easy to check your entries using the arrows provided* – you only need to click one arrow per household – and since incorrect entries can’t possibly match with your cousins’ entries, isn’t it worth spending a few seconds extra to make sure your entry is correct?
* arrows are provided for most censuses
Are you involved with a large family history society?
For some years I’ve wanted to ask family history societies to introduce themselves to the LostCousins membership by way of an online presentation, but it has only become practical this year, with the purchase of an upgraded Zoom subscription.
Leaving aside my Irish, German, and Belgian forebears, I have ancestors from at least 10 English counties (plus London), so it’s quite likely that – given the number of people who receive this newsletter – there are several thousand LostCousins members who have ancestors from a given county, certainly the larger counties.
Indeed, for any county there are probably more LostCousins members with ancestors from that county than there are members in the relevant family history society! It wouldn’t, therefore, have been practical to limit the attendance to 100, which is the standard limit for Zoom subscriptions.
If you are involved in the running of one of the larger family history societies perhaps you would like to sound out your colleagues on the possibility of giving a presentation to LostCousins members – one that would attract new members to your society and/or promote the sales of society products such as data CDs?
Should they be interested, please ask them to contact me by email, putting the name of the society as the subject. My email address was in the email that told you about this newsletter.
Note: the live presentation will need to be recorded as there are LostCousins members with British ancestry all over the world.
Save on Ancestry DNA ENDS FRIDAY
If you’re in the UK you can save £30 on an AncestryDNA kit, paying just £49 (plus shipping) instead of £79 – and if you don’t currently have an Ancestry subscription you can add on a 3-month Worldwide Membership for just £1 extra (normally £49.99).
Please use the link below and there will be a good chance of supporting LostCousins when you make your purchase!
Save £££ on AncestryDNA®. Terms Apply
Note: if the link doesn’t seem to work the first-time, log-out from Ancestry and click the link again.
It’s NOT about finding cousins!
Most people only take one DNA test – indeed, if you follow my advice and choose the AncestryDNA test there’s no reason why you would ever need to test again.
One consequence of this is that the vast majority of people who take a DNA test have no experience of working with DNA, even if they have been doing conventional records-based research for decades (as most LostCousins members have).
It’s not surprising that when people receive their DNA results the non-genealogists focus on their ethnicity estimates, which are reasonably easy to understand, whilst experienced genealogists work their way down their list of matches started with the cousins who share the most DNA – after all, that’s the way the list is sorted by default.
However, if you attended my DNA presentation on Monday, you’ll know that this approach is counter-productive. Not only will you get frustrated by matches who don’t have trees and don’t respond to messages (probably because they’re not researching their family tree), you’re aiming for the wrong target!
After all, wasn’t the reason you took a DNA test to knock down ‘brick walls’?
Save 30% at Newspapers.com ENDS FRIDAY
Until 28th February you can save 30% on a 6-month subscription to Newspapers.com – which has over ONE BILLION pages from newspapers, including some which are still in copyright.
Of course, when it comes to historic British newspapers, nobody has a bigger collection than the British Newspaper Archive, but even so I’ve found articles at Newspapers.com which aren’t in the BNA (as well as many that are). And you can subscribe for just one month if you just want to dip your toe in the water, though it obviously works out more expensive that way, not least because the discount only applies in the first month.
Unlock the Past with Newspapers.com!Limited-Time Offer: SAVE 30%.
Note: the prices quoted on the website don’t include tax, so if you’re in the UK expect to pay 20% VAT on top. The total cost for 6 months is just under £42, so about £7 a month.
Are you researching on behalf of someone else?
At some time most experienced family historians generously offer to help others – friends or relatives – with their own family trees. And that’s wonderful – provided, of course, it doesn’t get in the way of your own research.
If you are going to help someone else, it’s obvious that you’d want to take advantage of the opportunities that LostCousins offers – the chance to find other experienced researchers looking into the same ancestral lines. However, you can’t do this through your own LostCousins account – it simply won’t work.
You see, the objective of LostCousins is to connect you to other members who share your ancestors, so the system doesn’t function properly when you enter someone else’s relatives on your own My Ancestors page. But don’t worry if that’s what you’ve done because you can easily put matters right – the Refer a Relative option on your My Referrals page can be used to copy them to a new account (even if the other person isn’t a relative of yours). But DON’T open the new account just yet – because you’ll need to enter the referral code on the Registration page (in the box near the bottom of the page).
Start by logging into your account and clicking on My Referrals (in the My
LostCousins section of the menu), then click 
and on the next page enter
the other person’s name; you can leave the email address box blank. When you
click 
you’ll
be taken to a page that looks rather like this:
These are a handful of the relatives I’ve entered on my own My Ancestors page – you’ll see a list of the relatives you’ve entered. Let’s suppose that the first household shown is one of those that belongs to the other person – tick each of the boxes so that you see this:
In your case the relationships shown won’t necessarily be ‘Marriage’, though that’s often the situation if you’ve entered the relatives of a spouse or in-law. However what really matters is how these individuals are related to the other person, and if you’ve been researching on their behalf you’ll know the answer. Click the arrow in the relationship box and choose the appropriate relationship, for example:
.
Of course, there could well be some relatives who are related to the person by marriage, so don’t assume you have to change every entry (and by the way, don’t choose ‘Unknown’ – we don’t use this relationship any more).
Once
you’ve selected all the relatives to copy over, and chosen the appropriate
relationships go to the bottom of the page and click 
to create the
referral and display a message rather like this.
(
You’ll need to enter the referral code when you open the new account, so make a note of it, or else copy it to the clipboard (by selecting it, then typing Ctrl-C or right-clicking and choosing Copy).
Now log-out from your own account and click JOIN NOW in the website menu. Note that if you’re the one doing all the research it’s best to use your own email address – you can have up to two accounts at the same address, just so long as they have different passwords.
Remember
to enter the referral code near the bottom of the page – if you copied it to
the clipboard simply position the cursor in the box and press Ctr-V, or
right-click and choose Paste. Finally click 
and make a note of the temporary
password shown on the next screen in case the confirmation email is not
delivered by your email provider.
Now
log into the new account and glance at the My Ancestors page to make
sure that the relatives have copied across correctly – only if they have can
you delete them from your own account. You’ll need to do this one by one,
clicking on a name and then clicking the 
button – but as it’s just a couple of clicks
it’ll only take a few seconds for each entry.
Note: to open a LostCousins account for someone else you must have their permission – but that shouldn’t be a problem if they’ve asked you to help them with their tree.
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......
Finally, just to let you know that the 2025-2026 competition has already started: every direct ancestor or blood relative you’ve added to your My Ancestors page since 1st February will count as an entry in the next competition, as will those you enter from now until the competition closes. Your My Summary page shows (in red) how many of your qualifying relatives you’ve added so far.
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?
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