Newsletter – 17th June
2021
Oldest 'brick wall' comes crashing
down (part 2)
Last chance to save
on Ancestry DNA in the UK ENDS SUNDAY
Y-DNA tests
discounted ENDS SUNDAY
Probability and
family history (part 3)
What would you do
with a marriage register?
Findmypast are discontinuing
credits BREAKING NEWS
Last chance to save
on Who Do You Think You Are? magazine
Review: The Esme
Quentin Mysteries
The LostCousins
newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue
(dated 6th June) click here; to find earlier articles use the customised Google search between
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2009, so you don't need to keep copies):
To go to the main
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Oldest 'brick wall' comes crashing down (part 2)
In the last issue I explained
how an Ancestry DNA match in 2018 provided hope that at last my oldest 'brick
wall' might come crashing down – my new genetic cousin in New Zealand was
descended from a James Burns who was very probably the brother of my great-great
grandmother Mary Ann Burns. Mary Ann had been a 'brick wall' ever since I'd started researching my tree, and I'd persuaded several documented
cousins who shared the same line to take a DNA test.
Note: I've never met any of the 3rd cousins who agreed to help me knock
down the Burns 'brick wall' by taking a DNA test – but it wasn't my powers of
persuasion that made the difference, it was the fact that they too were interested
in their family history. That's why finding 'lost
cousins' is so important – they might be more distant than the cousins you know,
but you have shared interests and shared objectives. Remember too that close
cousins aren't nearly so useful when it comes to
knocking down 'brick walls' because they share such a large part of your tree.
In this instance I could deduce how we were
connected from the information in my genetic cousin's tree, but usually you'll be dependent on shared matches, genetic cousins who
are also matches for documented cousins. In this case the fact that most of my
relatives who were descended from Mary Ann Burns also matched my new-found
cousin supported the family tree evidence.
Although both my great-great grandmother and my New
Zealand cousin's ancestor gave their father's name as James Burns, this wasn't sufficient to provide the breakthrough that we needed.
Fast forward to the spring of 2021…..
Getting your DNA results is just the start of a
continuous process – as more and more family historians test the opportunities
to make discoveries multiply. Upwards of 10 million people have taken genealogical
DNA tests in the past 3 years, and earlier this year a family historian in
Australia decided to take the plunge – and I'm so glad
that he did! It turned out this previously unknown genetic cousin was descended
from an Ellen Burns, who also gave her father's name as James Burns. This match
was shared with two documented cousins who share my Burns ancestors, and this meant
it was very likely that Ellen Burns was the sister of
my ancestor Mary Ann.
Although we'd just found
each other we began collaborating over email – the fact that we were in different
time zones seemed to help! One day my cousin sent me a census entry from 1841 –
it was one of many that I'd looked at previously, but now
there was an additional reason to consider it:
© Crown Copyright Image reproduced by courtesy of
The National Archives, London, England and Findmypast
When
I'd first seen that census entry there had been no compelling reason to follow
it up – the spelling of the surname was consistently shown as 'Burns', not
'Byrnes' in all of the records I'd found, nor was there any evidence that my Mary
Ann was born a Catholic (as the Irish birthplace of the mother in the entry implies),
since she had married in the parish church and her children had been baptised
into the Church of England. Even her granddaughter, who I was lucky to speak to
on the phone 10 years ago (she died aged 90 a few years later), didn’t know of any Irish connections.
However,
thanks to my DNA match I had an important piece of additional information –
Mary Ann had a younger sister called Ellen, so the fact that the wife of James
Byrnes was called Ellen was significant. Over the next couple of days more
information came to light – my cousin found an 1839 marriage between a James
Byrnes and an Ellen Shannon in the GRO indexes, and then I discovered this
entry in the Roman Catholic baptisms at Findmypast:
Image
© Westminster Diocesan Archives; used by kind permission of Findmypast
The
name of the first sponsor (godparent), Bernardus Byrne, ties in with the name
James Byrnes gave for his father when he married Ellen Shannon:
©
Image copyright London Metropolitan Archives; All Rights Reserved. Used by kind
permission of Ancestry.
As
a newcomer to Irish research it took me a while to
confirm my suspicions that whilst Bernardus is the Latin for 'Bernard', it can
also be used as the Latin form of Bryan. I found the baptism of Ellen at a
different church, where the priest registered the event in English, naming the
godfather as Brian Byrne – but so far the baptism of their
brother James hasn't been found. Nor were any of the births registered –
something that's not particularly unusual in the early
years of civil registration.
In
1851 there is a Mary Ann Byrnes aged 11 in Mile End Old Town Workhouse;
although my ancestor would have been just over a month short of her 11th
birthday, I'm pretty sure it's her, especially since the
next name on the list is an Ellen Byrnes aged 6. Also in the workhouse is a
James Burns aged 10 – could he be their brother?
Mary
Ann didn't give her father's occupation when she married in 1859 (he's just
shown as deceased), but when Ellen married in Australia
she said that her father was a policeman. James Byrnes was shown as a servant
when he married in 1839, and as a labourer in the 1841 Census, so currently there's no evidence that he was in the police (though
there's a younger James Byrne who was a police constable in 1851), but we do
know that his father Bryan was recorded as a 'Sergeant of Police', which
certainly hints that it's the right family.
My
Australian cousin and I are pretty certain that we've
found the right parents for our ancestors, but as always happens, behind every
'brick wall' there are at least two more – what a wonderful hobby this is!
I
was over the moon to discover that my great-great grandmother Mary Ann Burns
was born on 6th May 1840 because it's a date that has been
special to me since I was a young boy. I'm sure many readers
will instantly recognise the significance of the date but, if not, Google knows
the answer!
Last chance to save on Ancestry DNA in the UK
ENDS SUNDAY
As
you will have seen from the 'brick wall' article at the start of this
newsletter, DNA isn’t a replacement for conventional
research but an additional tool to help us solve problems in the most
challenging parts of our tree. I've been working with
DNA for almost a decade and investigating it for far longer, yet I'm still
amazed by what can be achieved.
Perhaps
surprisingly, only half of the readers of this newsletter who are based in the
UK have tested their DNA – so with 25% off Ancestry's world-leading test until
Sunday, now's a good time for the rest of you to take advantage of the best
thing that's happened in the world of genealogy since
the invention of the computer.
You
don't, of course, have to restrict yourself to just
one test. Whilst there's no point you taking more than
one test yourself (unless you previously tested with a different provider), if you
can persuade some of your cousins to test, especially the cousins who share
your most frustrating 'brick walls', it'll make an enormous difference. Although
for data protection reasons everyone who tests with Ancestry needs their own
account, your cousins can appoint you as Manager if they don't
want to get involved.
Tip:
when you order DNA tests from Ancestry they won't ask
who's going to be testing, so you might want to do what I do and buy a couple
of spares – not only will you benefit from the sale price, you'll also save on
shipping. It's not just about saving money – it means that when I persuade a
cousin to test I can pop a kit in the post to them the
same day.
Please
use the link below to support LostCousins (it’s best
if you log-out from Ancestry before clicking the link):
Ancestry DNA
(UK only) - £59 plus shipping ENDS 20TH JUNE
Tip:
there are some well-meaning people who'll try to
persuade you to test with another provider, and often their arguments are
superficially convincing. However, the key thing to remember is that Ancestry not
only have by far the biggest database, but also the simplest and most powerful system
(because of the clever way they integrate DNA matches with their enormous
collection of family trees). And you can always transfer your Ancestry data to
another provider if you really need more matches – but you can't
go the other way.
Y-DNA
tests discounted ENDS SUNDAY
The
first DNA test I took was a 37-marker Y-DNA test – I can't
remember exactly how much it cost, but it was hundreds of dollars. Nowadays there's only one company still selling Y-DNA tests –
fortunately it's Family Tree DNA, the company I chose back in 2012.
Over
the past decade prices have fallen considerably, but Y-DNA tests are still
expensive compared to autosomal DNA tests, even though the latter are much more
comprehensive and there's a far larger database of results
to match against. Nevertheless there are some situations
in which only a Y-DNA test might help, so I suspect a few of you will be interested
to know that Family Tree DNA currently have a sale:
Y-DNA reduced to $109
until 20th June
Please
check out this article
before ordering – experience has shown that most people who consider buying a Y-DNA
test would have a higher chance of success if they used autosomal DNA instead (ie Ancestry DNA).
Probability and family history (part 3)
Over
on the LostCousins Forum there has been an interesting discussion about the
twins puzzle that I mentioned in the previous
article in this series (if you've yet to join the forum please see that article
for more details).
One
thing that came out of the discussion is just how important probability is to genealogists
like us – even though we're unlikely to put numbers on our estimates, most of
us aren’t going to show someone as a direct ancestor of ours unless we're very
confident that they are, since if we're wrong we could
end up researching someone else's ancestors.
On
the other hand, if we demand 100% certainty we could have a
very long wait, because in family history there is very little that is
absolutely certain. Whilst beginners tend to assume that if something is
written down in an official document it must be true, it's
rarely long before their assumptions are torn to shreds by the reality that everyone
makes mistakes, and the discovery that many people are prepared to tell lies
when it is to their advantage to do so. Your great-grandfather may have been
present at your grandmother's birth, but was he there when she was conceived? Sometimes only DNA can tell us.
We
wouldn't get very far if we weren't prepared to
compromise by including ancestors on our tree based on probability. For most of
us the threshold will be a high one: I don't add direct
ancestors to my tree unless I'm extremely confident that I've found the right
baptism, or the right marriage. Nevertheless I'm always
open to being proved wrong – the important thing is to take note of all the
evidence that comes to light, whether it supports our case or not. We might be
99.9% certain, but that still leaves a 0.1% chance that we're
wrong.
When
I see an online tree that differs from my own tree I don’t
assume that I'm right and they're wrong – instead I look at the evidence. The
biggest mistake we can possibly make is to assume that only other people make
mistakes!
It's often fairly easy to see where others have
gone wrong – when they've gone wrong – but usually the only way to confirm that
our own research is correct beyond all reasonable doubt is to use DNA, because DNA
can't lie. But whilst DNA can’t lie, it can be misused
– like any other evidence, the way that it is interpreted is very important. We
might have a very plausible hypothesis about how we're
related to a genetic cousin, but that shouldn't blind us to the possibility
that the connection isn't the one we think it is.
Note:
you might think that given the importance I place on probability that I would
be a fan of online calculators that give percentage probabilities for the
different possible relationships between two genetic cousins. But I'm not, for the simple reason that the calculations can't take
into account all of the other evidence.
Julie in New Zealand
has been collaborating with a potential cousin who found this newspaper article
about the inquest into the untimely death of Julie's great-great-great
grandfather.
Image
© THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Used by kind permission of
Findmypast.
You
can see a spring gun on this page
at the North Hertfordshire Museum website. Spring guns and other lethal traps were
outlawed in 1827, too late for poor Henry who left behind a child and a
pregnant wife.
Although
it's a sad story, it's good example of how collaborating
with other researchers can lead to unexpected finds – and in this case it
wasn't even a proven cousin. Remember, when you find a 'lost cousin', it’s not just an opportunity to exchange past research, it's
also an opportunity to collaborate in the future. My tree would be a lot
smaller if it wasn't for the cousins I've collaborated
with over the years – none of whom were known to me before I began my research.
Family
history has changed over the past decade, and so has the way that family
historians work together – for most of us it's no
longer about meeting up at a record office, instead we collaborate virtually
and asynchronously with cousins who in most cases we've never met in the flesh,
and possibly never will. If there's one good that has come out of the pandemic,
it's the extent to which we have embraced video-conferencing,
enabling us to interact with others as if they were in the same room.
What would you do with a marriage register?
I
mentioned recently that although churches in England & Wales will no longer
be able to issue official marriage certificates following the changes that came
in on 4th May, Church House Publishing – the official publisher of the Church
of England – are selling a Register of Marriage Services for churches to use as
their own record.
It
seems that anyone can order one of these registers – in fact, I have one
sitting on my desk at the moment, as you can see in
the photo above. So my question is, how would you use
one of these registers if you had one? Post your thoughts on the LostCousins
Forum – if you’re not already a member I explained in
the last issue how you can join.
For
legal purposes the church marriage register is replaced by a marriage document
which must be completed and returned to the local register office within 21
days – you can see an example with instructions in both English and Welsh here.
I
also wrote
last time about Richard Makinder, and a remarkable sequence
of marriages which were recorded in the Stamford Mercury in 1783; this
prompted Yvonne to write and tell me that she's the 5G granddaughter of Richard
Makinder, by his third wife Mary. I guess that with
70,000 readers it's hardly surprising that one of them
turned out to be a descendant, but I still get a buzz when someone writes in,
because it's a link to a piece of history. Incidentally Yvonne did reveal that
one 'fact' in the newspaper article was 'fiction' – when Richard Makinder married for the 4th time in 1783
he wasn't 70 but a mere 65 years old.
Another
correspondent on the same topic was Peter, who told me about a pair of marriages
in his tree, which involved his widowed grandfather marrying a widow on the
same day that his son (Peter's uncle) married the widow's daughter. This was
sufficiently newsworthy for the Daily Mirror to publish an article on 2nd October 1944, though it can't compete with the story of Rolling Stone Bill Wyman's 1989
marriage to Mandy Smith (who was 34 years younger), which was followed in 1993
by the marriage of Wyman's son Stephen to Mandy's mother Patsy. As a result of
the second marriage Mandy became step-mother-in-law to her own mother, whilst
Stephen became step-father-in-law to his own father – I wonder how many family
tree programs could cope with that!
(In
fairness I should reveal that Bill and Mandy got divorced after less than 2
years so the couples were never married at the same time. Indeed since this newsletter was
published I've also been told by a
LostCousins member who is a friend of Steve Wyman's that he and Patsy were never married,
contrary to the sources I used when researching this article, which included The Guardian.)
Just
to add a personal touch to this story, in the early 1990s (before I met my wife,
I hasten to add) I went out a few times with one of Patsy's 1st cousins, and completely
coincidentally, when Bill Wyman started touring with his own band in 1997 they
were called the Rhythm Kings – and Rhythm King was a name I had invented
for a computer program that I published more than a decade earlier.
Findmypast are discontinuing credits BREAKING
NEWS
This
notice popped up when I went to Findmypast this morning:
I
don’t suppose many people reading this newsletter
routinely use credits, since purchasing a subscription is almost always cheaper
– but it might be relevant when the 1921 England & Wales Census is
published early next year, since the 1901 and 1911 Censuses and the 1939
Register were pay-per-view only on their release. I doubt the timing of this
change is a coincidence.
Last chance to save on Who Do You Think You Are?
magazine
All
good things must come to an end, including the exclusive offer I arranged with Who
Do You Think You Are? magazine. Until the end of June readers in the UK can
get 6 issues for just £9.99, less than the price of two issues from the
newsagents – just click this link and you'll not only
be grabbing yourself a bargain, you'll be supporting LostCousins.
The
offer for overseas readers also ends on 30th June – there are big discounts on
13 issue subscriptions, but the price varies according to where you live,
so I'll leave it to you
follow the link above and check what the deal would be in your home country.
The
term 'Jerry' referring to German soldiers originated in the Great War, although
it was just one of many terms, most of them pejorative (see this Wikipedia page). But
the term 'Tom' or 'Tommy' for soldiers in the British Army goes back much further,
and derives from 'Thomas Atkins', a term that is recorded as far back as the
1700s, with a possible reference in 1743 (see this Wikipedia page for further
information).
But
perhaps between us we can come up with some earlier examples of both terms? Please
post your comments and suggestions on the LostCousins Forum so that I can focus
on helping members who need my assistance or advice.
When an autographed paperback
copy of That We Shall Die arrived in the post a few months ago I was faced with a conundrum. On the one
hand I was desperate to read the third Jane Madden genealogical mystery, having
greatly enjoyed the first two – on the other hand, I was conscious that one day
it might be a valuable heirloom, so I wanted to keep it in pristine condition.
But as it happened I was so busy during the first half
of the year that I didn’t have time to read it until very recently – by which
time I'd come up with the perfect solution, which was to buy the Kindle version
and read that.
Peter
Hey's heroine isn’t a
conventional genealogist – Jane Madden is a former policewoman who is applying
her investigate skills in a different area. Like most of us she's
learning on the job, and like many of us she has a guru to guide her. And like
all of us she has a life of her own that sometimes gets in the way.
At
the heart of the story is a real life event – the 1958
kidnapping of five-times Formula 1 champion Juan Manual Fangio – but this certainly
isn’t a story about motor racing because Fangio only makes a fleeting
appearance. Instead it's the tale of an idealistic
young woman whose dreams were shattered, and the impact this had on her son,
Jane's client.
I
really enjoyed this book, but I recommend that you read the first two books in
the series if you haven't already done so – the fascinating
interplay between Jane's private and professional lives is an important element
of the stories, and there are themes that carry through from one book to the
next. You'll find my reviews of the other books here
and here,
but you can use the links below to support LostCousins when you purchase any or
all of the books:
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
Review:
The Esme Quentin Mysteries
If you haven't read the
first three books in Wendy Percival's genealogical mystery series you'll be
delighted to hear
that you can get all three of them in Kindle format for £5.99 (or the approximate
equivalent in your local currency), which represents a useful saving.
Whereas
many of the heroes of genealogical mysteries are bright young things, Esme
Quentin is – how shall I put it – more like one of us. Which is perhaps not
surprising, since Wendy Percival is herself a LostCousins member!
If
you enjoy books 1-3 as much as I did you'll be delighted to know that book 4, The
Fear of Ravens, was released last year (you can read my review here,
which includes links to reviews of the first three books), and Wendy tells me
that a fifth book is in the works.
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
Many
of you will have read Jess Welby's book about her early life and her quest to
identify her father (if not you'll find my 2015 review of The Daddy of All Mysteries
here).
I thought you'd like to read this email that she sent
me recently:
I do love receiving your
newsletter, but these days a problem with my eyes prevents me from spending
much time on the computer researching my family’s history.
Thankfully, my book - The Daddy of
all Mysteries - written using my pen name of Jess Welsby,
is still selling in eBook format and it has been a Godsend in finding my late
father’s family. So rather than me researching for information for my book - my
book is now finding information for me! And I have YOU to thank for giving it a
kick-start after interviewing me for your Lost Cousins newsletter a few years
back.
To top it all, I took both the
Ancestry and 23andMe DNA tests - via your links - and those DNA tests have
linked me to members of my father’s nieces - confirming the entire story, as
told in my book, and the 20-year search for my late father’s family were all
worthwhile... I am my father’s daughter.
Given he was nothing more than an
ink blot on my birth certificate, I never thought I would be able to prove that
Harry Freeman was my father, so that’s a big void in
my life that has now been filled.
So please forgive me for not using
all the facilities on your website, but be assured
Lost Cousins is the first family history website that I recommend!
If
you haven't read Jess's book take a look at the Amazon
reviews – over 80% give it 5 stars, including one from Australia which begins
"I came across this book through the Lost Cousins website newsletter and I
am so pleased that I did. An excellent and rewarding account of the search for
a lost father that the author had never met".
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
I
never expected COVID-19 restrictions to be totally lifted on 21st June, so I wasn't in the least surprised that stage 4 of opening-up England
was postponed for 4 weeks, especially in view of the higher transmissibility of
the Delta variant. It's now thought that it is at
least 60% more transmissible than the Alpha variant which previously dominated
in the UK, and this is one of the reasons why case numbers have been rising so
quickly.
In
fact, one estimate is that the Delta variant is 80% more transmissible, and if
you plug that figure into the simple equation I published
last month it comes up with an R number of 1.44, which coincidentally is the
same figure quoted in the REACT-1 study
published this morning. However, it's important to
bear in mind that much of the infection is occurring amongst younger people who
tend to interact more – by 19th July more will have had a first vaccination,
university terms will have ended, and the school holidays will be a few days
away.
The
news on Wednesday morning that a monoclonal antibody treatment has been found
to reduce deaths amongst seriously-ill patients came just at the right time –
whilst most people in the UK who are reading this newsletter will have had both
of their vaccine doses the risk of catching the disease isn’t
completely eliminated for any of us. Thursday's case numbers exceeded 11,000 –
but thankfully the number of deaths is one-third of the level that it was when
we passed 11,000 cases at the beginning of October (nevertheless 19 families
have lost a loved one to COVID-19 in the course of 24
hours).
Turning to a more
cheerful topic, readers are still talking about my wife's piece on peonies, the
subject of last month's first Gardening Corner article. You may recall
that one reader wrote in about her friend's 74 year-old
peony: that has now been bettered by Roger, who tells me that the beautiful
flower on the right is from a plant cultivated from a cutting that originated
in his grandparents' garden, and which dates back to the first decade of the
20th century (and possibly even earlier than that).
I
hope that there will be another Gardening Corner soon – I'm twisting my wife's arm as I write!
Finally,
in case you haven't noticed, 21st June is the start of
Amazon Prime Day, which is (rather confusingly) a two-day event. I always take
advantage of the special discounts for Prime members – the savings can be quite
substantial, especially on Amazon's own products. If you're
not a Prime member don't worry – you can sign up below for a 30-day free trial
and get all of the advantages. Indeed, that's how I
started countless years ago and I've been a Prime Member ever since!
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
Apologies
for the plethora of Amazon links in this issue – but the links to different
pages should make it easier for you.
I've just heard that the release of the 1921 Scotland census will be
delayed until the second half of 2022 as a result of the pandemic. There had
previously been uninformed speculation that it would be released on 20th June 2021, the 100th anniversary of
the census, although ScotlandsPeople have never given a precise date. To the best of my knowledge
the England & Wales census is still due for release in early 2022.
I hope you've enjoyed this newsletter – but please remember that
LostCousins is so much more than a newsletter, it's a place where you can
connect with experienced researchers who not only share some of your ancestors, but are researching the same ancestral lines. If
you've forgotten you log-in details click here and
enter the email address in the text of the email that told you about this
newsletter (which might not be the address that it eventually arrived at).
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2021 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? To
link to a specific article right-click on the article name in the contents list
at the top of the newsletter.