Newsletter – 6th
May 2022
An opportunity to
record your memories for posterity FREE
Nearly 2 million
pages added to the British Newspaper Archive
Free access to Newspapers.com ENDS MONDAY
Ancestry making great
progress on the 1950 Census FREE
More Roman Catholic
records at Findmypast
Save on Ancestry DNA
in Australia, NZ, and the US ENDS SUNDAY
The LostCousins
newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue
(dated 30th April) 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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Today
would have been my father’s 106th birthday had he not passed away in
2011. I’m very glad that I started researching my family tree while he was
still around – there’s so much that he told me which couldn’t have been
discovered from the papers he left behind (and certainly not from records in any
public archive).
It
was fortunate that I owned a camcorder, so that during his last years I was
able to record him talking about his life, especially his experiences during WW2
– which he’d never spoken about when we were young. These days there are many
other ways of recording memories, including one that you might not have
considered before…..
An
opportunity to record your memories for posterity FREE
During
the pandemic most family historians have become familiar with a piece of
software that we hadn’t even heard of 3 years ago – Zoom has allowed family history
societies and many other groups to keep going despite the restrictions. It has also
been a lifeline for many elderly people who have been deprived of face to face contact with their families – it’s not as good
as being in the same room, but it’s arguably the next best thing.
Best
of all, most people have been able to use Zoom without paying a subscription,
and without the need to buy any additional hardware – because it works with computers,
smartphones, and tablets. It has also provided me with an opportunity to speak
to family history societies around the world – previously I turned down most of the
invitations I was offered because the travelling time would have made it
impractical. And between December and March hundreds of entrants in my competition
were able to hear exclusive talks from experts in their field – thanks to Zoom.
However though we’ve found all sorts of uses for
Zoom and similar technologies over the past couple of years, until recently I’d
never thought of using Zoom to talk to myself. I know what you’re thinking (and
probably not for the first time) – Peter’s losing his marbles – but read on and
you might just change your mind.
In
the days when I used my camcorder to record my relatives talking about their
lives it was quite an occasion – I had to set up my tripod, make sure that the
camcorder was fully charged and had sufficient hard drive space. And, of course,
we all had to be in the same room at the same time – and that itself could be
quite a challenge.
Of
course, the whole point of Zoom is that you don’t have to be in the same room –
you can talk to someone on the other side of the world as if they were sitting
in front if you. So to record the memories of your
relatives all you need to do is choose the ‘Record’ option when you set up the Zoom
meeting. Indeed, you could routinely record your family chats – provided your
relatives agree.
But
a Zoom meeting doesn’t have to involve more than one person – even with a free
account you can set up a meeting and talk to yourself for up to 40 minutes.
What a great way to record your own memories for posterity!
Tip:
if you want to share your recording with relatives, one option is to upload it
to YouTube as a Private or Unlisted video – there are, of course, YouTube videos
that will show you how to do this.
Once
you’ve tried this out I’m sure you’ll come up with additional
ways to make use of this opportunity. But please don’t write to me - instead
post them on the LostCousins Forum so that others can benefit from your wisdom
and initiative.
Tip:
almost anyone can join the LostCousins Forum, but first you have
to achieve a Match Potential of 1.00 or more. Your Match Potential is
shown on your My Summary page – you can increase it most quickly by entering
relatives from the 1881 censuses.
There’s
a very useful guide to WW2 records on the website of Who Do You Think You
Are? magazine – you’ll find it here.
You
don’t need to be a subscriber to the magazine to read that article, but if you are
tempted to take out a subscription you can still save between 49% and 68% by
following this exclusive link.
Nearly
2 million pages added to the British Newspaper Archive
This
week there were nearly 2 million pages added to the British
Newspaper Archive, bringing the total up to an amazing 52,643,331 pages –
not bad going considering that it took 10 years to reach the original 40
million target, a landmark that was reached little more than a year ago.
Despite
this enormous growth the cost of subscriptions hasn’t gone up – at least, not
yet. If you do decide to subscribe please use the link
in the previous paragraph so that you can support LostCousins.
Of
course, you can also get access to the archive if you have a Pro subscription
to Findmypast – though sadly
these subscriptions have recently increased in price. It’s also worth bearing
in mind the dedicated British Newspaper Archive site has a significantly more
powerful search.
Free access to Newspapers.com ENDS MONDAY
Until
Monday you can access hundreds of millions of newspaper pages free at Newspapers.com – part
of the Ancestry family.
Most
of the newspapers are American, but there are 12 million pages from British
newspapers – and I’ve also found relatives from the US branches of my tree, including
a 1979 wedding photo of my 4th cousin Linda who I’ve never met, or
even corresponded with. Though as it happens her daughter and I are DNA matches
(at Ancestry), so the two of us have exchanged messages.
Who
will you find, I wonder?
Ancestry making great progress on the 1950 Census FREE
On
Wednesday Ancestry announced the preliminary release of their transcription of
the entire 1950 US Census – you can search it here.
It’s completely free, as are the images, though you will need to sign in – but you
can use an Ancestry log-in from one of their other sites, so you probably won’t
need to register).
The
1950 Census was released by the National Archives and Records Administration only
on 1st April, but already by 9th April Ancestry had
transcribed the entire census using their proprietary handwriting-recognition
software. At this point they handed the data over to FamilySearch whose volunteers
have been checking and updating it – but the quality of the transcripts checked
so far has been so good that Ancestry took the decision to make all of them available
to researchers without further delay.
I
wasn’t going to find my cousin Linda in the census, because her parents-to-be didn’t
marry until later. I did, however, easily find her father, uncle, and paternal
grandparents, whose names and ages had all been correctly transcribed – which was
pretty impressive considering that Linda’s grandmother
had a very unusual forename.
Linda’s
grandfather – my 2nd cousin twice removed – was entered on a sample
line, which meant that extra information is provided for him. It shows that his
parents were both born in England, that he left school at the age of 13 or
thereabouts, and also how much he earned in 1949. Roughly
1 in 5 of the population were included in the sample.
Thanks
to everyone who wrote in to congratulate LostCousins on our ‘coming of age’.
18
years might not sound like a long time to those of you have been researching
your trees for over 40 years (and over 70 years in at least one case), but we
were only a year behind Findmypast (known at the time as 1837online), and
several months ahead of Who Do You Think You Are?, which aired for the first time in
the autumn of 2004. Ancestry, of course, has been around a lot longer – as this
New Yorker article
reminds us.
More Roman Catholic records at Findmypast
Towards
the end of last month Findmypast added nearly half a million Roman Catholic
records for the diocese of Salford – supplementing their already massive
collection drawn from England, Scotland, Ireland, and the USA.
You
can see what records are held if you follow this link.
Save
on Ancestry DNA in Australia, NZ, and the US ENDS SUNDAY
Until
midnight on Sunday you can save on Ancestry DNA tests, the only tests I can
wholeheartedly recommend (and I’ve tried them all). Of course, there’s nothing
special about the tests themselves – what matters is that they’re the only
way to get access to Ancestry’s database of 21 million users, far more than any
other site.
And
it’s not just about the size of the database – the way that Ancestry integrate
DNA with their massive collection of family trees is superb.
Ancestry.com
(US only) – reduced from $99 to $59 until 11.59pm EST on 8th May
Ancestry.com.au
(Australia & NZ) – reduced from $129 to $99 until 11.59pm AEST on 8th
May
The
article in the last issue about the plans to update the survey of regional
dialects inspired Roy to write in with a story about the time he spoke to
Prince Philip at a Buckingham Palace garden party. When
Roy mentioned that he lived in Somerset, the Duke of Edinburgh commented “Good
God! Can you understand a word they say down there?”
Sadly Prince Philip passed away last year, so he
won’t be at this year’s garden parties, which are resuming for the first time
in 3 years – nor will the Queen be able to attend, as she finds it difficult to
stand for long periods.
As
a young man I always imagined that one day I would meet the Queen; sadly it looks as if it will never happen, but Your Majesty,
if you’re reading this, I’d gladly settle for a Zoom call.
Last
month I mentioned Frederick
George Emmison, 1907-1995 the renowned archivist,
author and historian who was County Archivist for Bedfordshire from 1925-1938, and
for Essex from 1938-1969. In the article I commented that I wasn’t sure why he
was known by close friends and family as Derick.
I
soon found out the answer – from two LostCousins members who remembered him
well. Indeed Mary-Ann had known him all her life, as he was a friend of her family:
“For me as a 'history buff' child, he was
vastly entertaining, pointing out unknown places of interest on car journeys
and quizzing my history knowledge at the dinner table. He certainly stimulated
my love of the subject.”
Sue’s
connection was through her job:
“I used to work at the Essex Record Office in
the 1970s and remember Derick Emmison coming into the
Search Room on many occasions as he was still researching and writing in his
retirement – ‘Derick’ is the latter part of Frederick which he used as an
abbreviation, as opposed to the usual 'Fred’. I was very young at that time and
rather over-awed by the great man, so I’m not even sure that I ever spoke to
him, but I remember him as a dapper little man with a great deal of energy,
bustling about like a whirlwind.”
How
wonderful that the memory of this great man lives on!
From
Emmison to Mollison: I spotted an article in the latest
Devon Family Historian which I knew that readers of this newsletter
would enjoy, so I was delighted that the name of the author was someone I
recognised as a LostCousins member.
(I
can’t claim to remember the names of all 70,000 people who receive this
newsletter, but I seem to have a Sixth Sense that helps me spot them!)
Two
consecutive birth register entries reveal some unusually-named
twins:
Many
thanks to Bob for allowing me to recycle this tail, which could so easily have
been created by Beatrix Potter!
I’ve certainly mentioned
in the past that I make porridge from jumbo oats (regular porridge oats remind me
of Farex, not a good association); I’ve probably also
mentioned that I make it with water, but eat it with dark brown sugar (ideally Muscovado)
and double cream. But what I haven’t told you about is my latest recipe, which
includes sultanas and dried cranberries – indulgent, decadent, and delicious!
Talking
of cranberries, one of my favourite breads is Tesco’s Cranberry, Raisin &
Cashew Bloomer. It’s very often out of stock, but even when it is in stock it
can be difficult to find if – like me – you order online.
If
you search for ‘cranberry’ it doesn’t show up at all, and if you search for ‘cranberry
bread’ you’re told that no products matching your search have been found,
though in fact it is there, hiding among the search results. Searches
that do work well are ‘cranberry cashew’ and ‘cranberry bloomer’.
Once
a week or once a fortnight my wife and I have bread and cheese for dinner, and for
us it’s a treat – for me especially, because it means I don’t have to cook,
though I do have to remember to take the cheese out of the fridge a couple of
hours in advance. I grew up eating apples with cheese, but then I discovered
how well pears go with soft cheeses – so now we have apples, pears, and grapes too
(if there are some in fridge).
These
days almost all of the grapes sold in the UK are seedless,
but that certainly wasn’t the case when I was growing up – as a young boy in
the 1950s I would carefully skin grapes and remove the pips before eating them.
I suppose that because they were a rare treat I wanted
them to be as special as possible.
In
the late 1960s and early 1970s I used to buy coffee from a shop in Ilford
called Planters – they used to roast the coffee on the premises, and there was
a restaurant at the back where I would occasionally have a cup of coffee. However
mostly I would buy Kenya Peaberry beans, and
hand-grind them at home before brewing them in my Cona coffee maker,
a device that looked rather Heath Robinson, but actually
worked very well.
Nearly
half a century later I’ve discovered some sources of Kenya Peaberry
– and it tastes just as good as I remember. Bliss!
Just after this issue went to press I heard from Nathan Dylan Goodwin that
the Kindle edition of The Lost Ancestor (the second book in the Morton Farrier series)
will be on sale at just £1.99 in the UK and $1.99 in the US until Saturday 14th May. Please
use these links: Ancestry.co.uk Ancestry.com
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2022 Peter Calver
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