Newsletter – 21st
October 2023
Recovering lost information after nearly 2000
years
Last chance to save on Ancestry DNA tests SALE ENDS MONDAY
Where can I find the Source Citation?
94 year-old man found his
father’s 1930s car
Ancestry.com subscriptions reduced SAVE 40%
None so blind as those who will not see
Review: Oxford BBC Guide to
Pronunciation
The LostCousins
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Recovering lost information after nearly 2000 years
1944
years ago, in 79AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted, engulfing the Roman towns of
Pompeii and Herculaneum, and destroying hundreds of papyrus
scrolls in a library at a villa in Herculaneum (believed to have belonged to
the father-in-law of Julius Caesar). Now, almost 2000 years later, scientists
are managing to decipher some of the writing on the charred scrolls.
In
the mid-18th century an attempt was made to slowly unroll the
charred papyrus of some of the scrolls, but they disintegrated – see the photos
in this article
on the University of Kentucky website. More than 250 years later scientists
began to develop techniques that could read the handwriting without unrolling the
scrolls, and this 2018 article
from Smithsonian Magazine describes the progress up to that point.
In
March this year a competition was set up with cash prizes for various
achievements in reading the scrolls, and last week it was announced that the first word
had been successfully read from an unrolled scroll – by a 21 year-old student.
I
suspect the same technologies could be used to read more modern documents which
have been damaged by fire – provided that they have
survived reasonably intact, as in the case of documents in a safe or filing
cabinet. Unfortunately nothing short of a time machine
can bring back the 1931 England & Wales census since the charred remains
were disposed of following the catastrophic fire in December 1942.
Last
chance to save on Ancestry DNA tests SALE ENDS MONDAY
Last
Saturday I spoke about DNA to members of Suffolk Family History Society in the lovely
new premises of Suffolk Archives at The Hold, Ipswich. I have more ancestors
from Suffolk than any other county, so I was particularly keen to encourage
members of the audience who hadn’t already tested to do so, and to remind those
who had already tested how they could make the most of their results.
And
now it’s your turn: remember that DNA is the only record that cannot lie, and it’s
often the only way to fill gaps in the written records – and, having taken just
about every DNA test there is over the past 11 years, the Ancestry DNA test is the
only one that I can wholeheartedly recommend. But it’s not just about taking
the right test, you also have to follow the best strategies in order to knock down
‘brick walls’ – so make sure that you not only read my DNA
Masterclass, but follow the straightforward advice and the simple
techniques that you’ll find there.
Please
use the appropriate link below to order your test so that you have a chance of
supporting LostCousins with your purchase.
UK: AncestryDNA® is only £59! Offer ends 23rd Oct.
AUS/NZ: Early Gifting! Save up to $59 on AncestryDNA®. Terms Apply.
Canada: Early Gifting! Save up to $65 on AncestryDNA®. Terms Apply.
Tip:
if the link doesn’t work for you, please log-out from your Ancestry account and
click it again.
Following my articles
about George Carr, my childhood next-door neighbour who – I found out 60 years
later – used his cousin’s identity when marrying in 1920 (and continued to use
it for more than a quarter of a century), Carole wrote in with a true story of
her own. In this case, however, many of the people involved are still living,
so the names and some of the other details have been changed to protect the
individuals concerned.
In a Dorset market town in 1967, a
25-year-old nurse called Jane had a whirlwind romance with a handsome young New
Zealander of a similar age. He had been introduced to her as Bruce Brent-Walker,
and he told her that he was a TV news reporter in his home country – he certainly
looked the part. Jane introduced him to her parents
and, within a few weeks, the couple decided to get married. The ceremony took
place in the local registrar's office with just a few of her closest friends
and family in attendance (Bruce’s friends and family were on the other side of
the world).
Not long afterwards, Jane was
watching a TV news report with some friends. To everyone's astonishment, Bruce Brent-Walker's
name appeared in the caption - the biggest surprise being that Jane's husband Bruce
was not reporting at the political event in New Zealand, but with them in the
same room. Also, it was instantly evident that the Bruce Brent-Walker on TV
looked very different from his namesake.
An explanation was demanded, but
was not forthcoming, and so the police were called. Jane’s husband was
questioned, whereupon he admitted that Bruce Brent-Walker was not his real name
– though he didn’t divulge his true identity. Police in
New Zealand investigated, and it became clear that the real Bruce Brent-Walker and
his family knew nothing about the impostor – who disappeared from Jane’s life
and was never heard from again.
An extremely upset Jane was
advised to forget all about 'Bruce' and continue with her life as if she had
never married him. Jane took this advice to heart and, about four years later,
married a nice young man called Tony. They bought a house in her home town and later produced three sons.
Jane always refused to talk about
her experience and Tony, not wanting to pry and upset her, only understood from
Jane that she had once attempted a marriage which 'never happened'. Though her
family knew of her first ‘marriage’ they were convinced that this marriage, to
an unidentified conman, was null and void.
But many years later, a mystified
Tony, by now a widower in his eighties, discovered that despite the
circumstances, Jane's marriage to an unidentified man was not null and void,
and that he himself had been the counterparty to a bigamous marriage. Even
worse, it must surely mean that their children were illegitimate….
What an awful position for Tony to be in! When Carole told me this
story I felt it unlikely that Tony had committed an
offence, and was able to reassure Carole accordingly, but considering how important
this all was to Tony and his family I contacted Professor Rebecca Probert at
the University of Exeter for her advice, as she is a leading expert on marriage
in England & Wales. I’m sure most of you have a copy of Professor Probert’s
Marriage Law for Genealogists* on your bookshelf (if you don’t, you
jolly well ought to!), and I’m fortunate that because of the help that
LostCousins members have provided over the years when Professor Probert has
needed examples for her research projects, she looks kindly on my requests for
assistance.
In the next issue I’ll tell you what Professor Probert had to say,
and whilst the circumstances of this case are quite unique there are important
lessons for all of us. We all have ancestors who married, or didn’t marry, or
might have married – understanding the law as it stood at the time is key to our
understanding of the decisions they took.
* you can read my review of Marriage
Law for Genealogists here
This
month Ancestry have added two datasets that are likely to be of interest to
those of you who have Royal Naval or Royal Air Force officers in your tree.
The
smaller of the two datasets contains over 32,000 wills of Royal Navy and Royal
Marines warrant officers and ratings, covering the period 1786-1882, though the vast majority seem to
relate to men who served in the Napoleonic Wars. In some cases
there is additional correspondence included, though I didn’t come across any in
the records I looked at. Most of the wills were made on pre-printed forms,
though there can be quite a lot of handwritten information.
UK,
Wills of Royal Navy and Royal Marines Personnel,
1786-1882
There
are over 100,000 records for RAF officers who served during 1918-19 which
generally include the serviceman’s permanent address, and the name and address of their
next of kin – as well as rather cryptic details of their postings.
UK,
RAF Officer Service Records, 1918-1919
It’s
worth bearing in mind that a higher proportion of RAF personnel were officers
than in the other services.
Where can I find the Source Citation?
We
all know the importance of recording our sources, but it can sometimes be
difficult to find the information. For example, at Ancestry it’s now necessary
to click the Source tab in order to view the Source
Citation for a record.
Here
is the record for Joseph Keehner, my 2nd cousin 3 times removed, in
the US 1880 census – on the left is the record transcription, which is found
under the Details tab, on the right is the Source Citation, found
under the Source tab.
It
might seem obvious, but those of us who have been Ancestry members for 20 years or
more are used to finding the Source Citation and the transcript in the
same place.
You
may have a similar problem at FamilySearch, where there is a not-very-obvious link
entitled Document information.
At
LostCousins we use census references to define a specific census page – put that
information together with a name and age, and 100% accurate matching becomes
possible.
Tip:
at LostCousins nobody else can see the information you enter – even your
cousins can only see the relatives they share with you, and then only if they
have already entered them. No other genealogy site offers such accurate
matching combined with privacy.
94
year-old man found his father’s
1930s car
Few
families had a car in the 1930s. My paternal grandfather did, but only because
he worked as a manufacturer’s representative selling lace and similar products.
Whilst my father lived to 94 he never learned to drive,
so when my grandfather no longer needed a car he gave it to a cousin.
Much
more interesting is the story of the 94 year-old man
who, intent on making a model of his father’s 1930s classic car, searched
online for photographs of similar examples only to find that his father’s car
was up for auction – albeit in need of restoration!
You
can read more about this story in an article
on the BBC News site; this follow-up article
has a video of the Sunbeam Talbot being taken for its ‘maiden voyage’.
I
often wonder what happened to my first car, a January 1965 MGB roadster with
wire wheels, overdrive, and no synchromesh on 2nd gear, which meant
I had to learn how to double declutch. Have you ever encountered a car that you
never expected to see again? Please post your memories in the LostCousins
Forum, where there is a dedicated area for Comments
on the latest newsletter.
Ancestry.com subscriptions reduced SAVE 40%
If
you’re in the US you might be interested to know that
Ancestry are currently offering a 40% discount on 6 month memberships – please follow
this link to take advantage of the offer:
Note:
although you don’t have to live in the US in order to subscribe
to Ancestry.com you will probably find it better, and possibly cheaper once exchange
costs and taxes are taken into account, to subscribe to your local Ancestry
site.
None so blind as those who will not see
In
the last issue I showed you a 1793 burial entry from Weybridge, Surrey where
the surname had been transcribed by Ancestry as Keener, and by Findmypast as
Keene. I was hoping that it read Keene – and there were certainly Keene
families in the parish – otherwise it would cast doubt on the baptism I had found
for my great-great-great grandmother Elizabeth Keener (or Kuehner) at Mitcham,
Surrey in February 1793.
© Surrey History Centre, Surrey County
Council. Used by kind permission of Findmypast
I
originally came across this burial entry at Ancestry, where the Surrey register
images had been scanned from microfilm (and we all know how problematic microfilm
can be!). These days archivists are keen for the registers in their vaults to
be scanned in colour, and when Findmypast took over the contract, researchers
with Surrey ancestors got access to colour scans.
However the first time I had an opportunity to examine
the high-resolution scan above was when I was writing the newsletter article – and
that’s my excuse for not noticing that that the word ‘Infant’ was in parentheses,
something that a couple of readers pointed out in the Forum discussion that followed
the release of the newsletter. That changed everything – but left me wondering how
old could a child be, and still referred to as an infant in a parish register?
In
legal parlance the word ‘infant’ was equivalent to ‘child’, and referred to someone
who was not an ‘adult’ – but bearing in mind that the age of majority was 21 (until
1969, when it came down to 18) it’s highly unlikely that the two words were
interchangeable in parish registers.
These
days the term infant tends to be used for ‘babes in arms’ – though as I
attended an ‘Infants school’ from the ages of 5 to 7 clearly there is some scope
for discussion. When trying to clarify the previous meaning of a word it’s
necessary to refer to contemporary sources, and in 1755 Dr Johnson’s
Dictionary defined
an infant as “A child from the birth to the end of the seventh year” (under the
age of 7, in other words). He used the same definition in the 1773 edition,
which predates the burial register entry by just 20 years.
In
the past I’ve always interpreted the word ‘infant’ in parish registers as referring
to a baby or, at most, a toddler – but from now on I’m going to be looking at
those entries in a different light.
Review: Oxford BBC Guide to Pronunciation
Even before I began
visiting the US regularly more than 40 years ago I was intrigued by differences
in pronunciation,
not only between England and America (reputedly described by George Bernard
Shaw as “two nations separated by a common language”), but also within the two countries.
I
can remember on one of my visits to Chicago having difficulty getting the taxi
driver to understand the words ‘Chicago Hilton’, and I tried the alternative
pronunciation of ‘Chicago’, with a short ‘a’ – only to discover that it was ‘Hilton’
he didn’t comprehend!
When
I discovered that Oxford University Press had, in 2006, published the Oxford
BBC Guide to Pronunciation: the Essential Handbook of
the Spoken Word I was determined to buy it – and for a little more than £6
(including postage) I acquired a second-hand copy in very good used condition
through Amazon.
There
are around 20,000 entries including placenames, the names of famous people
past and present, words that are often mispronounced, and even a few tradenames
– though the Tesla listed is not the eponymous car manufacturer, but the scientist
whose name the company adopted.
Frustratingly
there is nothing to say how we should pronounce ‘clematis’, a flower that even the
presenters on Gardener’s World can’t agree about, nor does the surname ‘Cholmondeley’
feature, but there are several different options for the pronunciation of ‘Featherstonehaugh’,
some of which I’d never come across before.
If
you can pick up a copy for around the price I paid, I think you will agree that
it was a good investment.
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
As
a boy in the late 50s and early 60s I used to read every science fiction book I
could find, including everything that John Wyndham wrote. Trouble With Lichen
was his 1960 novel about a lichen extract which prevents ageing and prolongs
human life.
Every
few months there seems to be a new theory as to how we can prolong our lives
beyond the allotted three-score-and-ten, but it was this article
about the rare lichens that are only found in British rainforests that caught
my eye this week. I hadn’t even realised that we had rainforests in this
country, though having been caught in a torrential storm on Friday 13th
I’m not completely surprised.
The
loss of an obscure plant species may not seem that important, but the loss of
human DNA certainly is. Although we pass on DNA to our children, they don’t inherit
all of our DNA – only a random 50%. Make sure that
key information in your DNA is preserved by taking a test before it is
too late!
As
a former software developer and publisher I tend to be
quite critical of websites that don’t work very well, and since I order
groceries from Tesco most weeks I tend to pick up quite a few anomalies.
Whilst
having bread and cheese as the main meal of the day might sound strange, when
the bread is Tesco Finest Cranberry Raisin and Cashew Bloomer, and the
cheese is well-chosen and well-aged, it makes the perfect accompaniment for the
crisp, tangy Egremont Russet apples from our garden. But can I order the bread?
Not without great difficulty!
The
first problem is that it’s often out of stock – but even when it is in stock,
it can be impossible to order unless you know precisely what to type in. For
example, if you search for ‘finest bread’ it doesn’t show up (though some other
‘bloomers’ do), nor does it appear if you search for ‘cranberry’.
Choose
‘cashew’ as the search term and you’ll be luckier – but only if you’re persistent, since it was the 89th of 104 results
when I tried today. To be fair, ‘finest bloomer’ works wonders – it’s the 4th
of 5 results, but surely it ought to be a lot easier to find?
It’s
not just Tesco who make things more difficult than they ought to be – I’ve had a
lot of complaints from members who have attempted to support the LostCousins
project by purchasing a subscription, but get stuck on the payment screen,
because it isn’t obvious what to do after ticking the box alongside “I’m not a
robot”. That page is on the WorldPay site so there’s nothing I can do about it –
but I did this week get to speak to a senior technical person at WorldPay, who
has promised to look into the problem (which also
affects the GRO website).
In
the meantime, the ‘trick’ is to scroll down until you see Make payment
and a tick icon – but don’t click Make payment as nothing will happen, it’s
the tick that you need to click. They don’t make it easy, do they?
Ancestry's recently released Royal Navy wills collection includes the
wills of warrant officers and some ratings, but not commissioned officers as I assumed
when reading Ancestry's description.
I’ll be back soon with more news and tips from the wonderful world
of genealogy. In the meantime, remember that your ‘lost cousins’ are depending on
you – so please enter your cousins from 1881 so that your cousins from 2023 can
connect and collaborate. You know it makes sense!
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2023 Peter Calver
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