Newsletter
- 26th March 2016
Free
access to Ancestry's British records ENDS MONDAY
How to
get the most from searches at Ancestry & Findmypast
LostCousins is free for Easter ENDS
TUESDAY
Contacting
living relatives - your life in their hands
Could new
GRO indexes provide easy access to local certificates?
Donald
Trump and Hillary Clinton are related!
Review:
In Search of the Real Dad's Army
The LostCousins newsletter
is usually published fortnightly. To access the previous newsletter (dated 9th
March) click here; to find earlier articles use the
customised Google search below (it only searches these newsletters, so you
won't get spurious results):
Whenever possible
links are included to the websites or articles mentioned in the newsletter
(they are highlighted in blue or purple and underlined, so you can't miss
them). If one of the links doesn't work this normally indicates that you're
using adblocking software - you need to make the LostCousins site an exception (or else use a different
browser, such as Chrome).
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!
Free access to
Ancestry's British records ENDS MONDAY
Until Monday you can get free access to
the UK and British Commonwealth records at Ancestry.co.uk - just follow this link.
It's a great opportunity to research your collateral lines and add more
relatives from the 1881 Census to your My
Ancestors page!
Tip:
Ancestry is currently the only subscription site to provide the Scotland 1881
census references, so this is an excellent time for anyone with Scottish
ancestors to collect the data. Note that whilst all of the census references
are included in Ancestry's subscription, some are found under 'Source Citation'
and some in the main body of the transcription.
Don't confuse the free weekend with the 14-day trial - they
are two different offers. If you decide after the weekend that you'd like to subscribe to Ancestry
click this link
to save 30% on a Premium subscription (which includes all UK & Ireland records).
How to get the most from
searches at Ancestry & Findmypast
Sites like Findmypast and Ancestry face
a difficult challenge - how can they make their site appealing to beginners
without reducing the utility for more experienced users (as most LostCousins members are)?
Both came up with a similar solution:
provide a simple and easily-accessible search of all their records, so that
beginners can be sure to get some results from their first search, but offer
more advanced searches of specific collections and record sets.
Here's how they did it - they provided
a Search all records option for
beginners, and made it the first option in the Search menu:
At the same time they offered two
routes for more experienced users who were familiar with their record
collections and knew what they were looking for. The first option for
experienced users is to choose a collection of record sets, such as Census & Electoral Rolls or Birth, marriage, death & parish records;
the second is to home in on a specific record set using the Card Catalogue (at Ancestry) or
the A-Z of record sets (at Findmypast).
When you search one of the collections
you can filter the search results in order to focus in on a particular record
set - so at first glance, there's no reason to go straight to an individual
record set. However, as the following examples from Findmypast show, when you
search across a range of records sets you can miss the very records you're
trying to find!
The Search form below is the one you'd
get if you started with the Census, land & surveys option
from the Search menu:
It might look pretty comprehensive at
first sight, but just look at what you get if you go straight to the 1881
Census from the A-Z of record sets (sorry it's so small but I
had to reduce the scale to fit it all in!):
As you can see, there are LOTS more
boxes on the form, which means that you've got a much wider range of search
options. In particular you can search on the place of birth, which isn't an
option when you search all censuses at the same time - and for a good reason
too (the place of birth isn't shown in the 1841 Census).
Of course, as any experienced user of
these sites will tell you, filling in more boxes on the Search form is usually
a big mistake - it's something you should only do when you get more search
results than you can handle. Beginners usually assume that the more information
they enter, the more likely they are to find the records they're looking for -
but in reality it works the other way round.
The smart approach is to fill in only the
information that is most likely to lead you to the right records. So, for
example, if you've got an ancestor with an unusual first name that might be the
only piece of information you enter.
I generally try to avoid entering
birthplaces when searching the census - because even if my ancestor knew where she
was born (and many didn't) there can be many different ways of writing it down.
For example, I've seen birthplaces for people born in London which are as
imprecise as 'London', or 'Middlesex' - or as precise as the name of the
street.
At Ancestry the difference between the
Search forms is not quite as pronounced, but that's mainly because Ancestry
offers fewer options (for example, you generally can't search by address or occupation).
Trying to find a record set in
the Card Catalogue at Ancestry is rather more difficult than
searching the A-Z of record sets at Findmypast, but
fortunately Ancestry offers a neat feature to make it easy to jump to the
records you use most frequently using user-definable Quick Links.
This article from my January 2014 newsletter
describes how to set up your own links, and to get you started, here are the
links that I have on my Ancestry home page:
Birth Marriage and Death Indexes
London School Admissions and Discharges
Of course, I've chosen those links to
reflect my own research interests - you'll no doubt want a different list. I'm
hoping that Findmypast will offer a similar quick links feature at some point
in the future.
LostCousins is free for Easter ENDS TUESDAY
I don't believe that anybody should be
prevented from connecting with their own cousins by lack of funds, so to
complement Ancestry's offer LostCousins will also be
FREE this weekend.
Even better, my offer won't end until
midnight on Tuesday - which means that you'll have plenty of time to find your
relatives on the censuses, enter them on your My Ancestors page
and connect to the new cousins you've been matched with. To take advantage of
this offer simply:
(1) Log-in to your LostCousins account (if you
can't remember your password you can get an automated reminder)
(2) Check your My Cousins page for new matches -
click Make contact or Accept invitation
(3) Go to your My Ancestors page and click the Search button
to look for more matches
(4) Add more relatives to your My Ancestors page and click Search again to look
for even more matches
See the next article for some tips to
help you find lots of new cousins.
Tip: it doesn't matter if your cousins
don't respond during the offer period, just so long as you find the match and
click 'Make contact' this weekend. And if anyone doesn't reply within 14 days
I'll chase them up on your behalf (how about that for service!).
Beginners often make the mistake of
assuming that their direct ancestors are the only people they need to enter on
their My Ancestors page. They are important, of course, but
realistically most of us already know our 1st cousins and many of our 2nd
cousins - who are the relatives who share our grandparents and
great-grandparents.
There are big advantages in finding
3rd, 4th, and 5th cousins - not least of which is that someone who is
researching our ancestors from a different perspective will often have a better
insight into the 'brick walls' that inevitably bring our research on a
particular line grinding to a halt. But it's not just about exchanging past
research and collaborating in the future - sometimes our cousins carry the
answers we're seeking within their DNA.
You'll get most matches at LostCousins when you enter the members of your ancestors'
extended families who were recorded in the 1881 Census - so the winning
strategy is to trace your collateral lines forwards until you get to
1881, then enter them all on your My
Ancestors page. I suggest you aim to trace collateral lines from the
1841 Census onwards, but if you can start further back you'll be even more
successful!
Contacting living
relatives - your life in their hands
I'm sure everyone reading this will
empathise with the LostCousins member who penned the
following article:
In response to your question for our
feelings on the subject of contacting living relatives…. I am sorry that this is at such length, you can take
from it what you wish, but I hope it will help you to understand how painful it
is to be rejected and denied information that only they can supply. I hope you
find the contrasting examples useful – but please don’t use my name if you
quote – as I am still hoping for a change of heart.
The article about contacting living relatives had
resonance for me. I would not dream of telephoning anyone. I found my father’s
cousin by sending polite and sensitive letters (some people of a certain age
still find illegitimacy uncomfortable) to all 11 men in the country, sharing
the same name, until one of them contacted me. Bill was delighted and told me
everything that he knew about my father’s parentage. His mother, (my
grandmother’s sister,) married at 39 and had him at 40, so I had thought she
was a spinster or childless, but I found that he was the informant on her death
certificate. He knew the family history, but as he was 20 years younger than my
father, and a life-long sheltered bachelor, there were finer details that his
mother and live-in aunt did not discuss with him, as it would have been
inappropriate.
My grandmother gave birth to my father out of wedlock,
when she was 20. Bill, her nephew, confirmed who my biological grandfather was.
I had already worked it out from things my father had said. His mother,
(comfortably off as her father left her money and a house), became engaged to
marry Arthur in 1922, and he promised to raise my father as his own. After they
were married, he reneged on his promise, went to the home of the biological
father, and demanded that he pay for my father to be fostered. This was done,
and my father had a loveless and deprived upbringing by a bachelor and his
sister, whom he had to call Mr and Mrs rather than Mum and Dad.
His mother went on to have 3 more children in the
1920s, and died in 1942. My father, Arthur and the other 3 children were in
touch a few times in the 1960s, but I was not aware of their children. Grandmother’s
only daughter had two sons whom I did meet, as a teenager and the families
exchanged Christmas cards. One of the boys appeared to be willing to meet up a
couple of years ago, but then they, their mother, and their other cousins are now
refusing to share information about our grandmother and the circumstances of my
father’s conception.
As my grandmother and biological grandfather were both
free to marry and both financially comfortably off, I need to know why they did
not marry and, if my grandmother was violated, as this is what I believe. She
was deeply religious and had a high profile in her community and church. She
would not have had a casual relationship. I would like
my cousins and step Aunt, to tell me what they know about our Grandmother. After
she died, she often saw Bill’s mother. I have sent them copies of photos that I
have, and originals of their mother and aunt and uncle – which had been sent to
my late father. I have also sent them information on the family back to 1745. They
don’t respond. One had agreed to meet- and now won't reply to my pleadings.
I grew up with
no siblings and thought I just had 2 cousins in England, who were distant (it
turned out that they are actually 1st cousins!). It turns out there are probably
another five 1st cousins, the children of my father's other siblings. I was in regular
contact for the 5 years I knew him. I have sent them begging letters. I just
want to know about my grandmother. I have read about her in the papers of the
time, and she and Bill’s mother sound so kind, and their father, born 1850 and
widowed when the girls were toddlers, was described as an “exceptional father”.
Another example: my husband’s mother (born 1904) was
adopted. We found two much older brothers that she did not know about. One of
their children is now over 90. We found him a few miles from our home. He is
too uncomfortable to meet up, and of course his father probably did not know
that his parents had had a daughter after the boys left home, let alone given away
their much younger sister. We can accept that. He is not knowingly withholding
information that would complete the picture, but are in touch with his
offspring.
I just think it is very sad that somebody could have priceless
information and not share it. I, on the other hand, spent an age tracking down
the son of my father’s pilot, and was able to tell him that the father whom he
did not know, was greatly admired and that he saved the life of his crew on
several occasions. I have sent to my mother’s maternal cousins in three different
countries the tree which took me years to compile, and provided their children
with photos of their great grand parents. I cannot
tell you how much pleasure that gave me. Other friends have done the same –
giving cousins, somewhat removed, photos of their grandparents and parents as
children etc.
I enjoy the TV programmes about reunions between lost
relatives (though they can feel voyeuristic), and sharing the joy for those who
can finally put the last piece of the jigsaw into place, concerning close
relatives. What a pity the value of this cannot be given more publicity. We all
want to know if we are who we think we are, and the circumstances explaining what
made our parents who they were.
Who could knowingly withhold such a gift?
There will always be some who prefer to
keep quiet about the past, and choose to keep their family skeletons in the
closet. Fortunately people like that don't become LostCousins
members - it's the last thing they'd do - so when you find a 'lost cousin', you
can be sure that they joined the site in order to share information rather than
hide it!
Of course, even that doesn't guarantee
that the cousins you're connected with will share their information with you -
if you joined late, or if you've been slow completing your My Ancestors page, you could well find that some of your cousins
have passed away or developed dementia by the time the connection is made. In
many cases I'm able to put members in touch with a close relative who has taken
over the research, but this isn't always the case.
There are two things you can do to
minimise the possibility that your
family connections are lost. One is to complete your My Ancestors page - as soon as you can, and as comprehensively as
you can (remember that it's the members of your direct ancestors' extended
families recorded in 1881 who are most likely to connect you to your living
cousins).
The other is to complete these vital
boxes on your My Details page - it'll
only take a minute of your time, but could make an enormous difference to your
cousins:
Could new GRO indexes
provide easy access to local certificates?
Since 1837 there have been two ways to
obtain birth, marriage, and death certificates for England & Wales: from
the local register office, or from the General Register Office.
However researchers are faced with a
conundrum: whilst locally-sourced certificates are preferred because they're
more likely to be accurate (and may show the original handwriting of our ancestors),
the only indexes that cover the entire country are the GRO indexes. A further
confounding factor is that it can be considerably more expensive to order copies
from local register offices - gone are the days when you could walk into the
register office and come away half an hour later with the required certificate
(without paying a premium price).
Although it's still very early days,
I'm hoping that when the GRO takes advantage of the provisions of the
Deregulation Act it might be possible to create new indexes that offer cheaper
and easier access to local certificates.
The references in the present indexes
relate to the GRO copies of the BMD registers - they're little or no help to
local registrars, whose records are indexed by sub-district. However, I've
established that the data transcribed from the birth and death registers during
the abortive DoVE (Digitisation of Vital Events)
project included the sub-district and date of registration - key pieces
of information that might make it easier (and thus cheaper) for local
registrars to locate the entries in the original registers, allowing a
reduction in the price if ordered via the GRO. And I'm sure that many more
certificates would be ordered if researchers could simply click an entry in the
online index.
However at this stage this is simply
speculation on my part, so I'd be interested to hear the views of local
registrars - I know that there are some amongst the LostCousins
membership, and no doubt there are other members with close contacts in
register offices.
Note: births to 1934 and deaths to 1957 were scanned and transcribed during
the DoVE project; local BMD indexes do exist for a few areas - see the UKBMD site for more details.
Donald Trump and Hillary
Clinton are related!
A genealogist in Illinois has claimed
that Donald Trump is related every one of the 43 Presidents of the United
States, including Abraham Lincoln and Bill Clinton (see this news article
for more details). Since the most distant connection (to Franklin Roosevelt,
not Barack Obama as you may have suspected) involves a number of marriages it's
clear that Donald Trump must be at least as closely related to Hillary Clinton
as he is to FDR.
Even if the research is correct it's
only telling us what we already know - because ultimately we're ALL related, as
Anthony
Adolph pointed out in this newsletter recently (although I suspect that
another Adolph.0. who would have been most uncomfortable with that statement!).
DNA is a complex topic, and whilst I've
attempted to explain in a series of articles how DNA is inherited, and
therefore how DNA tests can be used to supplement the information available
from conventional records, the emails I get from members suggest I haven't done
a very good job!
For example, this week I received an
email which began with the sentence "Y-DNA: I've read your article in the
newsletter and it seems sceptical of the value of DNA to establish
truths."
The reality is that Y-DNA testing
offers a highly-accurate way of
determining whether two men share the same ancestor in their direct paternal line. But it only works
for that single ancestral line: a Y-DNA test tells you absolutely nothing about
any of the other lines - this means that it doesn't matter how many of their
other lines two male relatives might share, unless they share their direct
paternal line a Y-DNA test would come up negative.
If you were interested only in that
single line - for example, if you were a lawyer trying to settle a paternity
dispute - a Y-DNA test would be ideal, especially if it doesn't matter who the
father was in the event that the test proved negative.
Perhaps I should remind you at this
stage that a single DNA test usually tells us nothing about the recent ancestry
of the individual who tested, so when I referred just now to a test being
negative, what I really meant is that there wasn't a match with another,
specified, DNA sample. In a paternity case the two samples being matched might be
the Y-DNA of a male child and his putative father.
However, it's important to remember
that it's not only Y-DNA that a son inherits from his father: half of his
autosomal DNA (atDNA) comes from his father - the
other half comes from his mother, as does his X-chromosome and his
mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). This means that another
way to investigate paternity is to compare atDNA -
indeed, if the child was a daughter, rather than a son, it would be the only
option.
There are two reasons why atDNA tests (such as Family
Finder) are often preferable even when Y-DNA is an option:
- Of
the major testing companies only Family
Tree DNA still offers both tests, and Y-DNA tests cost at least 70%
more than atDNA tests
- You're
likely to get many more matches - perhaps a hundred times as many - when
you test your atDNA; this is partly because more
people have tested their atDNA, but also because
you'll get results from every part of your tree. By contrast, when you use
Y-DNA tests you're putting all your eggs in one basket.
Nevertheless, autosomal DNA tests aren't
always the answer - because the mixing at every generation limits their reach (in
effect the resolution of the test decreases by 4 times with every generation);
this means that even where there is a connection between two individuals it
might not show up. By contrast, Y-DNA is passed almost unaltered from father to
son and so Y-DNA tests can reach back many generations - certainly back to the
start of parish registers in1538.
The aim of this article is to remind
you that in many cases you will have a choice - the obvious test isn't always
the best one. This page
on the International Society of Genetic Genealogy wiki includes statistics for
the average amount of atDNA shared by cousins of
different degrees; some of you might also be interested in the simulation carried
out by Paul Rakow (there's a link from the wiki).
Review: In Search of the Real Dad's Army
One of the best-loved and most-repeated
TV series of all-time, Dad's Army was never intended to present
a realistic view of the Home Guard, but for many of us it's all we know about
the organisation that would have defended Britain's shores in the event of an
invasion. So I was very interested when I heard about Stephen M Cullen's book In Search
of the Real Dad's Army - which certainly helps to redress the balance between
fact and fiction.
By the end of June 1940 nearly 1.5
million men had registered to join the Local Defence Volunteers, forerunner to
the Home Guard - and by the end of the war 4.6 million had served at some time
or other. There must have been many of my relatives amongst them (and yours too),
but with the exception of 80,000 records for Durham the records aren't
currently available online (you can search the Durham records here).
There shortages at first: uniforms and
weapons were limited, and some of the weapons pre-dated the Great War - but
with true British spirit they made the most of what they had. The German enemy had
been able to conquer Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands in days,
and in 1940 Britain fully expected to be invaded.
So-called Fifth Columnists were thought
to have played a key role in Germany's earlier successes, and in the summer of
1940 the Local Defence Volunteers were on full alert. Sadly mistakes were made:
Cullen reports that on the night of June 2nd/3rd four innocent people were
killed in separate incidents, whilst on 22nd June a noisy exhaust prevented a
driver in Romford, Essex from hearing a challenge, and four passengers were
killed outright.
The book gave me an insight into an
aspect of World War 2 that I hadn't previously known much about, and I suspect
you'll find it equally interesting. Because this book has been out for a few
years you can pick up a copy at the substantial discount to the cover price,
but the biggest bargain is the Kindle version,
at a mere £1.59!
As foreshadowed in the previous issue I'm
currently reading Kindred, Steve Robinson's latest
Jefferson Tayte novel. It's not due to be published
until 12th April, so all I can tell you at the moment is that the story begins
in Germany, where Jefferson is researching his own origins (readers of earlier
novels in the series will know that he was adopted). But suffice it to say that
if this newsletter is bit shorter than the last one, it's because I can't wait
to get back to the book!
You can support LostCousins
when you pre-order Kindred (or
purchase anything else from Amazon) using the following links:
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca
I've just finished reading Kindred - I simply couldn't put it down! Also see the opening article for an Ancestry offer that I've just heard about.
That's all for this issue - I'll be back
soon with more news from the wonderful world of family history..
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins