Newsletter – 29th
January 2024
Why the GRO birth indexes can be misleading
Looking at wills from a different perspective #1
Looking at wills from a different perspective #2
Looking at wills from a different perspective #3
Last chance to win one of hundreds of prizes
ENDS WEDNESDAY
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Why the GRO birth indexes can be misleading
You’ll
know from previous articles that in the early days of civil registration some
births were recorded in a way that you might not have expected – for example,
in my first newsletter of the year I demonstrated how one registrar’s use of
the word ‘late’ rather than ‘formerly’ had resulted in legitimate births being
indexed as if they were illegitimate. Occasionally we can deduce what has
happened by comparing the contemporary quarterly index entry (or entries) with
the entry in the recompiled GRO indexes, but now that it only costs £2.50 to purchase
a copy of the birth register entry, it’s better to make sure.
If
you came across this entry in the new GRO birth indexes I doubt you’d think twice
about it:
When
we look at an entry like this we naturally assume that
Pilkington was the father’s surname, and that the mother’s maiden name was Till.
And since David Pilkington married my great-great-great grandmother Jane Till at
the register office in Witham registration district in 1846, you might well
assume that they were Eveline’s parents.
It’s
certainly a reasonable assumption if you’ve got nothing else to go on – but you’d
only be half right, because this is the GRO birth register entry:
David
Pilkington had died aged 76 in 1848, but Jane – who was only 29 years old when
she was widowed – didn’t remarry until 1863 – so when she registered Eveline’s birth she correctly gave her surname as Pilkington, and her
maiden name as Till. Furthermore the entries in both
the contemporary quarterly birth index and the GRO’s online index are correct: the
scope for confusion arises only because we’re used to interpreting the index in
a certain way, one that doesn’t work when a widow gives birth to an illegitimate
child.
Tip:
if you found the birth index entry for Eveline before you searched for David
Pilkington’s death you might well have assumed that he died after 1850 – and missed
the 1848 entry. It’s an example of how one unwitting error can easily lead to
another.
Of
course, that’s not the only situation in which we might be fooled by the index entry
– when a married woman gives birth the only father who can be named in the
birth register is her husband. That doesn't mean the husband has to be named as
the father – but it does mean that you can’t tell from the index entry who the
father was. Another reason to spend £2.50, just to make sure.
Note:
Jane Till is one of my favourite ancestors – at the age of 16 she gave birth to
my great-great grandmother Emma Till, then bore three more illegitimate
children before she married David Pilkington – who had a daughter old enough to
be Jane’s mother. She gave birth to one legitimate child during that brief marriage,
so Eveline was her 6th child and her 5th illegitimate
child – and when she remarried at the age of 43 in 1863
she was already a grandmother 4 times over. Her 7th child, and 2nd
legitimate child was born when she was 45, and by the time Jane died in 1907 in
her 88th year she had 17 great-grandchildren and 4 great-great
grandchildren. One of these days I hope to find out what happened to her sons,
Stephen and Henry, who had a couple of brushes with the law as teenagers, but
then seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth…..
On
Thursday 18th January a new-born baby, thought to be less than an
hour old, was found in a shopping bag left in an east London street – according
to this BBC article
she is the third abandoned child to be found in the London Borough of Newham
since 2019. At the end of the last week a second BBC article revealed
that ‘Elsa’ had left hospital and was being looked after by foster parents.
This
newsletter article
from 2016 includes an image of the 1906 birth certificate for a foundling, and
the following month I relayed an appeal
from an 80-year-old foundling who was trying to find her birth family – but it
was only today that I came across this March 2018 article
from the Daily Mail which reveals that she eventually identified her birth
parents with the help of DNA on the back of a stamp!
Looking at wills from a different perspective #1
The
future of post-1858 wills is in the balance (see this article
from last month and follow the link to the consultation). On the one hand, many
genealogists consider that original documents should never be destroyed – on
the other hand, members of the public who are not researching their ancestors might
question whether taxpayers should bear the cost of storing documents indefinitely
just in case someone might want to examine them in the future.
I’m
an inveterate hoarder – I have bank statements going back half a century, and
credit card statements which extend nearly as far. I’ve got bus tickets from
the late 1960s, and – thanks to my parents – my school reports, and a drawing I
did at primary school in the 1950s. I’ve even got most of the records of my
software business going back as far as 1978 – including invoices and other
documents (boxes and boxes of them). Few of these things are of any great interest
to anyone other than me, so it’s an indulgence – and, I suppose, an expensive
one if I take into account how much space they’re
taking up.
But
I’m unusual, even – I suspect – amongst genealogists. Most people and,
especially, organisations are less sentimental – or more pragmatic. You only have to watch a TV programme like Cash in the Attic
to realise how little most people care about heirlooms, and the only reason we
don’t see them auctioning off the family papers is because they were discarded
as worthless long ago. Over the years I’ve acquired quite a few photo albums
and other ephemera that were sold off at auction – including the collection of early
Victorian family correspondence that I wrote
about in December, and this amazing sampler
which I was eventually able to return to descendants of the family. If everyone
was like me, these things would never find their way onto the market.
When
the Ministry of Justice launched their consultation into the future of post-1858
wills I realised that simply objecting to the proposal was a high
risk strategy – if we succeeded there was a strong possibility that it
would discourage other parts of the public sector from consulting in the future
– they would simply do what they’ve done in the past, and destroy records
without consultation. And if we failed we’d have little
opportunity to shape what happened to the wills, or to other records in the years
to come
Since
the consultation was largely about the cost of continuing to store the original
post-1858 wills I felt that the best way to counter that argument was to attempt
to quantify the benefit of keeping them. Currently there is no public access to
the original wills – we can only order digital copies, and more
often than not they appear to have been scanned from the office copies
of the wills, rather than the original documents. They’re also black and white,
rather than colour – and I doubt there’s a single person reading this who doesn’t
appreciate what a difference colour makes, whether one is trying to interpret
parish register entries or decipher the annotations on census forms.
One
way to estimate the likely level of interest in viewing post-1858 wills is to
look at how frequently original pre-1858 wills are viewed – and as the Prerogative
Court of Canterbury (PCC) wills, which cover the pre-1858 period, are held by
the National Archives (TNA) I submitted a Freedom of Information request to TNA
at the end of December.
On
Thursday I received a spreadsheet from TNA which listed the number of times
each of the pieces in PROB 10 were produced, whether at the request of a member
of the public or a member of staff, between 24/05/1999 and 25/12/2023 – a period
of 24 years and 7 months. Because wills are filed by year and month of probate
it is likely that on each occasion only one will in the bundle was of interest.
I
decided to look at wills for January 1847 and December 1857, an 11-year period
which ought to provide the best comparator as it immediately precedes the
establishment of the Principal Probate Registry. The wills for this period are
stored in PROB 10/6436 to PROB 10/7353, and according to Ancestry 89,748 wills were
proved during those 11 years. A small number of wills are filed separately, rather
than in the main sequence, but this may be balanced out by the inclusion in
PROB 10/7353 of a small number of wills for January 1858.
According
to the spreadsheet there were 493 occasions on which wills for that 11-year period
were produced, either at the request of a member of public or a member of staff
– that’s 1 will in 182 over a period of 24 and a bit years,
or 1 in 4475 in an average year.
The
consultation document doesn’t give a figure for the number of wills and
administrations since 1858. I have seen figures of 100 million or more quoted
in the press, but these can’t be right – it’s more than the number of people
who have died in England & Wales between 1858-2024! The best guide is the
number of entries in the National Probate Calendar at Ancestry – there are 20.5
million wills and administrations for the period 1858-1995. About 2.4 million
of these relate to the 10-year period from 1985-1994, so it’s reasonable to
assume that the current total is around 28 million.
If
the rate at which the original post-1858 wills are viewed is the same as for the
1847-1857 wills there would be 6257 (ie 28 million divided by 4475) wills viewed per year. As
you will know, the consultation estimates the cost of continuing to store the wills
from 1858-2023 as £4.5 million per year at current prices, and if you divide
this by 6257 you get a figure of just under £720 for each will viewed.
What
we can’t know is whether the researchers who look at those wills could have
obtained the information they were looking for from digital scans of the
documents. My guess is that in most cases scans would have been sufficient,
especially if they were colour scans – after all, the vast
majority of family historians rely on scans or microfilm images of parish
registers, rather than visiting the record offices that hold the registers and insisting
that they are produced from the vaults.
What
we DO know is that digitising documents makes them infinitely more accessible.
Looking at wills from a different perspective #2
If
you’re planning to respond to the wills consultation
– as I hope you will – bear in mind that they’re open to suggestions (as you
can see from the following question):
There
are two alternatives which immediately spring to mind:
·
Transfer
the original documents to the National Archives
·
Offer
the original documents for sale (descendants and other relatives could be given
priority)
Transferring
the wills to the National Archives would mean that the cost of keeping them
still falls upon taxpayers, although TNA might well be able to cut the cost of
storage. But personally I’m rather taken by the idea
that we might one day be able to purchase our ancestors’ original wills –
turning something that Is currently a liability into an asset and an heirloom!
Perhaps
you have some suggestions of your own? If so, why not post them in this discussion
on the LostCousins Forum so that you can get feedback from other members before
sending in your response to the consultation?
Looking at wills from a different perspective #3
In
the Ministerial Foreword to the consultation the minister concerned, Mike Freer,
writes:
“It
is my responsibility to challenge the current system on behalf of taxpayers and
to look at
ways
of preserving original wills in a more economic and efficient manner”
And
yet when I wrote to the Ministry of Justice they were
unable to confirm whether, in the event that the proposals went ahead it would be
the original wills and accompanying documents that would be digitised. In my
view it is disingenuous to talk about ‘preserving original wills’ if that is
not what is being proposed. Indeed, there is no information in the consultation
about the quality of the digitised copies – the Ministry of Justice were also
unable to confirm that the documents would be scanned in colour.
None
of the questions in the consultation document invite comments on these important
matters, but that does not mean that WE cannot highlight the importance of
these issues. I suggest you mention them more than once in your response since
it is probable that the responses will be analysed question by question.
If
you have obtained a copy of an ancestor’s post-1858 will in the past it’s likely
that all you were sent was a copy of the will and the grant of probate – no
supporting documents would have been provided because, as pages 15 and 16 of
the consultation make clear, there is no statutory duty to produce them for
inspection.
Family
historians use documents in a very different way from lawyers – we’re trying to
get an insight into our ancestors’ lives, and whilst it is hard to predict what
we might learn from any documents that accompanied the will, I wouldn’t be
happy with such documents being destroyed without first being digitised.
There
is surely a good case to be made that the documents submitted by the executors are
part of the estate of the deceased, rather than belonging to the government,
and that they should first be offered to surviving members of the family? This
might be impractical, but it does at least provide a good reason why they
should not be destroyed.
Perhaps
a random sample of wills and documentation should be evaluated by a
multi-disciplinary panel that includes lawyers, archivists, and historians (including
family historians) in order to better understand their
value to society? The focus should be on benefits as well as costs.
An
argument made by those who object to the destruction of paper wills is that digital
information can be lost as a result of changing file
formats, or changes in technology.
These
are valid concerns, but it’s almost inconceivable that information would be
lost because these sorts of changes don’t happen overnight, they take place
over a period of years or even decades. An example that is often cited is the
BBC’s Domesday project, which used LaserDiscs – but,
as I understand it, the problems were more to do with analogue video and still
images rather than digital data. Of course, the fact that the BBC chose a proprietary
technology that never really caught on didn’t help.
Perhaps
the biggest advantage of storing information digitally is the ability to make
exact copies without any degradation. This allows the creation of backup copies
which are perfect replicas of the original, and in the event
that standards change the data can be copied into a different format and/or
onto different media without any deterioration.
But
what about hackers – can’t they steal data, or make it unusable? They can – but
provided you have backups in a read-only format that are kept in a secure
location hackers can’t destroy the data. They might attack the system that
provides access to the data, so that the data is temporarily inaccessible – as happened
last year to the British Library – but that’s not the same as destroying the
data.
The
real problem, one that affects all of us, is the risk that we entrust
information that is valuable (to us) to a service that is discontinued –
sometimes without notice. I wish I’d spent more time downloading data from the Friends
Reunited website before it closed down, and that I’d
kept copies of more of the emails that I sent or received in the 1990-2003 period.
But at least I have copies of everything since then – as well as backups taken
at intervals (and stored on multiple types of media).
This
BBC Future article
was published nearly 3 years ago but the issues raised are still with us today.
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This
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contribution to the LostCousins project over the past 12 months, the more
likely you are to win prizes. Adding an extra household to your My Ancestors
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Tip:
you can win more than one prize! Winning an invitation to one or more of the
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Tip:
although only one person can win the prize, everyone who has expressed an
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If you’ve yet to take
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your aim is to knock down ‘brick walls’, or simply to verify your
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Or
perhaps you’ve taken the test yourself, but would like
to enlist the help of one of your cousins. With DNA the real challenge is
figuring out which of your matches share each of your ‘brick walls’, and
comparing your matches with those of a cousin who shares a particular ‘brick wall’
helps enormously. But don’t choose a very close cousin as they share too many
of your ancestral lines – 3rd, 4th and 5th cousins
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generations back.
Note:
If you live outside the UK please nominate a cousin in the UK – should you be
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EXCLUSIVE
ZOOM PRESENTATIONS FOR WINNERS (NO CAMERA REQUIRED)
As
in previous years I have secured the services of some extremely-knowledgeable
speakers who are experts in their field. Attendance at the talks is limited to
ensure that members of the audience who wish to ask questions are able to do so – whether or not you are invited will
depend partly on how highly you have rated the talk on your My Prizes
page, and partly on how many entries you’ve made.
Zoom
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Allow
an hour to an hour-and-half for the talk and questions.
How
can the Society of Genealogists help you? LATEST
ADDITION
Natalie
Pithers, the Co-Chief Executive, and Else Churchill,
the Genealogist from the Society of Genealogists will be talking exclusively to
LostCousins members.
Founded
in the heart of 1911, the Society of Genealogists has been a champion of
heritage exploration for over a century. Their mission is to help you:
- Investigate your ancestors
- Preserve, organise
and analyse your genealogy, and
- Delve into social history….
- …so you
can connect with your past and discover your unique family history.
Discover
how the UK's oldest genealogy society can help you investigate your ancestors
at 10am on Friday 8th March.
Professor Rebecca
Probert
will be giving an exclusive Zoom presentation entitled Why EVERY family
historian needs to know the history of family law at 10am (London time)
on Saturday 10th February, and repeated at 5pm
on Saturday 2nd March. (This not only doubles the number of places
available, it also gives members in North America the opportunity to attend and
ask questions.)
Note:
invitations for the 2nd March talk will be sent out AFTER 10th
February. There is no need to put your name down for the second talk now unless
you already know that you will be unable to attend on 10th February.
As
the author of Marriage
Law for Genealogists Professor Probert is the leading expert in a field
that is incredibly important to everyone with English or Welsh ancestry.
Understanding
why our ancestors married when and where they did, or why they didn’t marry, is
fundamental to our research. Although I have had the privilege of hearing Professor
Probert speak on many occasions over the past 10 years, I can honestly say that
I learned something new every time – it is such a fertile field of study.
Dave Annal worked for The National Archives for
many years, and is now a professional genealogist and author
– but he’s also known to many as the presenter of Setting the Record
Straight, a series of short YouTube films which take a new look at old
records.
At
10am (London time) on Thursday 15th February Dave will be leading a Zoom
seminar on the subject of Misinformation
and What YOU Can Do About It.
Incorrect
information whether in trees, books, are even parish registers presents a
problem that we all have to face, and after showing a
brief video we’ll be opening the discussion up to the audience – we want to
know what problems misinformation has caused for you, and how you dealt with
them. Were you able to persuade someone to change their tree?
I’ve also secured the
support of another very popular speaker, Jackie Depelle,
who is going to be talking over Zoom about Ideas for Researching
Non-conformist Ancestors (one of many topics listed on Jackie’s website).
Did
you know that the religious census of 1851 found that around half of those who
attended church were non-conformists? For many of us this could explain why we haven’t
found our ancestor’s baptism.
Jackie
will be speaking over Zoom at 4pm (London time) on Friday 1st March,
and there will be an opportunity for those attending to ask questions. I’ll be
there – but will you?
For
the first time prize-winners can choose from talks given by the husband and wife team behind LostCousins – I’ll be talking
about DNA and answering questions from the audience, whilst Siân will answer
questions about gardening. You might also get to sees
some photos of her garden, if you’re lucky.
Please
submit your questions in advance, and keep them short –
there is a space for comments against each entry on your My Prizes page.
DNA for Beginners means just that – it’s
primarily for those of you who are still wondering how DNA might help your
research, as well as which test would be the best one to take, and why (the
test that looks best in theory may not be the one that works best in practice).
However if you have already tested, but don’t have a
clue what to do with the results, you will also find it useful.
I’ll
be speaking at 10am (London time) on Wednesday 14th February – which
is also our 21st Wedding Anniversary!
Gardening
Question Time
provides you with an opportunity to put your gardening questions to Siân. As with
the radio programme with a similar name, questions should be submitted in
advance, so that the best use can be made of the time available. Please enter
your question in the Comments section of your My Prizes page – or
if you need to submit a photograph of a tree, plant, or garden send me an email
headed ‘GQT question’.
Sian
will be speaking at 10am (London time) on Friday 16th February.
Remember,
unless you log into your LostCousins account and indicate on your My Prizes
page which of the fantastic prizes on offer are of most interest to you – you
won’t be considered for ANY of them!
Nearly
80 years after the end of World War 2 there are still hundreds of thousands of
unexploded bombs and mines on the seabed around Britain, mostly in the area
between East Anglia and the low countries – Belgium and the Netherlands. If
they’re left alone they’re safe, but they’re a
constant hazard for fisherman, and last year the captain of a fishing vessel died
from injuries received when he and his crew encountered a bomb on the seabed in
2020.
See
this BBC News article
for more information.
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Reading
this BBC article I was
surprised to discover that in some parts of Britain the NHS still provides
earwax removal – I’ve had to manage without since 2020. Another service under
threat is the daily post – first there was speculation that Saturday deliveries
might end, then that there might be only 3 deliveries a week. Fewer and fewer
letters are being sent, and with the way that stamp prices are rocketing I can’t
see that changing.
Back
in 1997 when Royal Mail was publicly-owned (as the
Post Office still is today), I bumped into one of the directors at a
conference. Email was still a new phenomenon for most people in those days, but
I knew that it was a threat to Royal Mail and had come up with a new service
that would allow Royal Mail to capitalise on the forthcoming boom in email. Sadly I never got to share my idea – she told me that they
had it all in hand, and walked off. It was the same sort of arrogance that postmasters
faced a few years later….
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 2024 Peter Calver
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