15/6/2022 LostCousins Newsletter

Newsletter – 15^th June 2022

Save 25% on Findmypast Pro subscriptions ENDS SUNDAY

How to support LostCousins and get a free LostCousins subscription

Missing from the 1939 Register? EXCLUSIVE

A double marriage with a difference

When DNA brings an unexpected bonus

Ancestry DNA still discounted in the UK

Review: Fashion and Family History

Dates to remember

Peters Tips

Stop Press

The LostCousins newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue (dated 5^th June) 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):

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!

Save 25% on Findmypast Pro subscriptions ENDS SUNDAY

From 10am (AEST) on Wednesday 15^th June in Australia, and from 10am (London time) elsewhere, you can save a massive 25% on all 12 month PRO and ULTIMATE subscriptions at Findmypast. For example, at their UK site you can save £45, which means that a PRO subscription offering unlimited access to ALL of Findmypast's collections, including worldwide records and newspapers, costs just £5 more than a PLUS subscription. Considering that an annual subscription to the British Newspaper Archive costs £80 you’re getting an awful lot for your fiver, even if the worldwide records aren’t of interest.

There are similar savings at other Findmypast sites – just remember that at Findmypast.com the ULTIMATE subscription is the equivalent of a PRO subscription. This offer does not apply to existing subscribers, only to those who have never subscribed before, or whose subscription has lapsed. The offers end at midnight (London time) on Sunday 19^th June. You’ll find links in the next article, but I recommend you read all the way through.

Tip: whilst you can also save on 1 month subscriptions the 25% saving only applies for the first month – by choosing a 12 month subscription you're not only locking in the saving for an entire year, you'll also benefit from Findmypast's Loyalty Discount, currently 15%, when your subscription comes up for renewal next year. Findmypast don't guarantee that their loyalty scheme will continue indefinitely, but it has been in place for as long as I can remember. Of course, you can always cancel your subscription renewal if circumstances change – at Findmypast it’s easy to do, you don’t have to jump through hoops or walk across hot coals!

As mentioned above the offer applies not only to new subscribers but also lapsed subscribers, so it's a great time to come back to Findmypast, one of the sites that I find indispensable for my own research – not least because they have images of the parish registers for Cheshire, Devon, Hertfordshire, most of Kent, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Rutland, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, much of Yorkshire, and most of Wales. They also have tens of millions of indexed records from other counties, many of them the result of Findmypast's connections with family history societies, and billions of records from other countries.

Findmypast’s collection of Roman Catholic records is second to none – without it I couldn’t have knocked down my oldest ‘brick wall’. And, by the way, I didn’t even know that I had Catholic ancestors – that was quite a discovery!

I'm also offering you an exclusive bonus - a FREE LostCousins subscription when you support LostCousins by using one of the links I’ve provided to buy a new 12 month Findmypast Pro or Ultimate subscription (not a renewal or upgrade) AND ensure that your purchase is tracked by following the advice in the next article (read it carefully BEFORE making your purchase – afterwards nothing you or I can do will make any difference).

Tip: if you are also researching on behalf of your partner or another family member you can link the two accounts together and get a joint subscription covering BOTH accounts. Simply enter the other person's Membership Number (found on their My Summary page, or in a Password Reminder email), in the relevant box on your My Details page.

PROVIDED we receive commission on your purchase you'll qualify for a 12-month LostCousins subscription or a 12 month extension to your existing subscription. In the next article I’ll explain how to ensure that everyone benefits – the good news is that it’s simpler than ever before.

How to support LostCousins and get a free LostCousins subscription

Unfortunately simply clicking one of my links doesn’t absolutely guarantee that you'll be supporting LostCousins when you make your purchase, because these days quite a few people use adblocking software, or have disabled tracking in their browser. Whether you've done this deliberately or inadvertently, it can have a big impact on small independent websites like LostCousins - in effect you’re telling the big website that you're buying from to ignore the information about which site you just came from. This prevents them from paying any commission on your purchase - great news for the big website, since it adds to their profits, but very tough on the small genealogy websites that depend on that income.

If you want to make sure that your purchase will benefit LostCousins, click the appropriate offer link near the top of your My Summary page at the LostCousins site, but do NOT complete your purchase – wait until I email you back to let you know that it’s OK to go ahead, then click the same link to make your purchase. There should be no need to claim your LostCousins subscription – I will update your LostCousins account within 48 hours of your Findmypast purchase, and you'll see the new expiry date on your My Summary page. (However it would be useful to note the EXACT time of your purchase, just in case I can’t track it down.)

If you don’t get an email from me within 24 hours of clicking the link a first time, please send me an email quoting your LostCousins membership number (which is shown just below the test link). If your click hasn’t been tracked I’ll explain what to do.

Note: if you’ve forgotten how to log into your LostCousins account just follow this link and enter your email address (as shown in the text of the email that told you about this newsletter) – you should receive an instant email reminder. If it doesn’t arrive immediately check your spam folder; if it still hasn’t been delivered after 60 minutes your email provider has probably rejected it. In this case email me and – if you can – provide a second email address with a different email provider. Hotmail and other Microsoft addresses are particularly problematic.

If you’re not bothered about getting a free LostCousins subscription, or supporting LostCousins, and just want to take advantage of the Findmypast offer please follow the appropriate link below:

Findmypast.co.uk SAVE £45

Findmypast.com SAVE $45

Findmypast.com.au SAVE $80

Findmypast.ie SAVE €54

Missing from the 1939 Register? EXCLUSIVE

There are lots of reasons why someone might be missing from the 1939 Register – or why you might not be able to find someone who’s listed. (But please don’t write to me about the people you can’t find, my job is to teach you how to research, not to do it for you, nor to listen to you whinging about the transcribers!)

Whatever your queries in relation to the 1939 Register, the best way to start is to study Inside the 1939 Register, the special edition of this newsletter devoted entirely to the 1939 Register for England & Wales. Although it relates to the Findmypast version of the register, most of the information is equally applicable to Ancestry’s version. If you’re a LostCousins subscriber you’ll find a link to Inside the 1939 Register on the Subscribers Only page, but anyone can find it using the customised Google search at the start of this (or any other) newsletter.

Note: I could have included a link to the special edition newsletter in this article, but there are so many members who don’t use the search box in the newsletter (and perhaps haven’t noticed it’s there), that this a great opportunity for them to learn about this valuable feature.

Make sure you read the whole of that newsletter rather than simply skimming it until you find the answer to your current query – there are many differences between the 1939 Register and censuses, and not all of them are intuitively obvious.

The other valuable resource is the 1939 Register itself – if you’re an Ancestry subscriber you might not have considered searching the 1939 Register at Findmypast, yet because Findmypast provide a lot of information in their free search results it’s a great way to find out whether your relative is really missing, or whether their entry has been mistranscribed, or their record is still closed at Ancestry even though it could have been opened. Follow this link to search the 1939 Register free at Findmypast (but please note that you will have to log-in, or register if you haven’t done so previously).

Note: Ancestry are currently way behind on opening up records for people who were born in 1921 – nearly half of the records open at Findmypast are still closed at Ancestry – and there’s also a backlog of entries for people born between 1918-20.

A double marriage with a difference

In the last issue I wrote about the Earl of Rosebery and his two marriages on the same morning to the heiress Hannah de Rothschild – one of many illuminating case studies in Rebecca Probert’s latest book, Tying the Knot. This prompted Graham to write to me with a fascinating example from his own tree – one that will, I suspect, find its way into one of Professor Probert’s future books.

The story begins conventionally enough: banns of marriage between Herbert Henry Jeapes and May Hammond Bond were read for the first time on Sunday 20^th January 1901 at St Luke, Holloway – both are described as ‘of this parish’.

However, the next day the bride applied for a marriage licence in which she gave her parish as St Mary, Stoke Newington and that of her intended as Preston Park, Sussex (close to Brighton, but about 60 miles from Holloway):

On Tuesday 22^nd January Queen Victoria died – I don’t think it has any relevance to this story, but it puts it into historical context. The following day, Wednesday 23^rd January, Herbert and May married by licence at St Mary, Stoke Newington:

The groom is revealed to be a jockey, and the son of Amos Jeapes (shown as retired); the bride’s father is shown as William Albert Bond, a stockjobber (in my day we just called them jobbers). Neither father was a witness, though that doesn’t necessarily mean that they didn’t attend. Florence Eleanor Stephens was Herbert’s sister.

Although Herbert and May were now married, the banns were read for a second time on Sunday 27th January and for a third time on Sunday 3^rd February. And then, on Tuesday 5th February, they went through a second ceremony, this time at St Luke, Holloway in the presence of their fathers:

Note that Amos Jeapes is now a gentleman whilst his counterpart is a stockbroker rather than a stockjobber – it sounds as if they were pretty well-heeled, and a search of the newspapers at Findmypast revealed that Amos Jeapes owned at least two racehorses – though which of his sons rode them isn’t clear, as only the initial of the riders is given (both Herbert and his brother Harald were registered jockeys). But the big question is, why did Herbert and May they marry twice? In a sense the second marriage is more explicable than the first – clearly the two fathers must have given their blessing to the match, and as both families seem to have been quite well off there would have been wedding presents and, perhaps, a financial settlement.

Two months later, at the time of the census Herbert and May are shown as visitors in the household of Florence Eleanor Stephens and her husband Frederick, a Professor of Music:

Searching the British Newspaper Archive at Findmypast revealed that May was an accomplished pianist, as this report on an Enfield Choral and Orchestral Society published in the Middlesex Gazette of 3^rd March 1900 demonstrates:

Another article I found in the archive revealed that she was a piano teacher – perhaps it was Herbert’s sister Florence, married to the Professor of Music, who introduced them? But none of this explains why, having arranged for the banns to be called, Herbert and May went to the expense of marrying by licence. Could the fact that May was 3 months pregnant have been a factor? Their eldest child, Herbert Phineas William Jeapes, was born on 29^th July 1901.

The address shown is that of Herbert’s sister and her husband – the same as in the 1901 census. By 1911 they had 6 children (another had died) and were living in Caterham, Surrey; in 1921 they were still in the same house (another child had arrived in 1918). At 45 Herbert was no longer working as a jockey, but he’s shown as a trainer, employed by a local farmer.

I can’t find them in 1939 but things certainly don’t seem to have worked out financially – despite their middle class backgrounds, when Herbert died in 1950 his estate didn’t go to probate and when May died in 1953 her estate was valued at just over £5, a trivial sum.

When DNA brings an unexpected bonus

When I founded the LostCousins site 18 years ago to make it easier for cousins to connect and collaborate on the ancestral lines that they share I couldn’t possibly have predicted how important DNA would become – after all, it was only a year previously that the first human genome had been sequenced in an international project involving thousands of scientists, and at a cost of several billions dollars.

Nor could I have predicted that the same collaborative techniques would be crucial to so many of the DNA discoveries that would be made. Last year I described how I collaborated with two genetic cousins in Australia and New Zealand to knock down one of my oldest and most frustrating ‘brick walls’ – now I’ve cracked another puzzle with the assistance of a 2nd cousin who I’ve never met, though in this case it was a most unexpected bonus.

My cousin and I share great-grandparents on our mothers’ sides, so it was natural for me to ask him to collaborate on knocking down the ‘brick walls’ in that quarter of my tree – and naturally my focus was on the parts of our trees that we share. But last week I was glancing at his tree when I noticed a surname that was familiar to me, because it was the name of one of my ‘brick wall’ ancestors: Frances Anthoney married Joseph Till at St Peter ad Vincula, Coggeshall, Essex in 1786, but I’d been unable to find a baptism entry for Frances, even after Ancestry indexed the Essex parish registers a couple of years ago.

The one clue I had was the name of one of the witnesses, Jane Anthoney, and I’d been able to find a 1758 baptism for a Jane Anthoney baptised to Abraham Anthoney and his wife Rebecca. It turned out that my cousin had a Jane Anthoney in his tree whose parents were also shown as Abraham Anthoney and Rebecca, though again the baptism was missing – this Jane Anthoney couldn’t have been born in 1758 because she was still giving birth in 1810. However one of the witnesses at her 1788 wedding was an Abraham Anthoney.

Abraham and Rebecca were non-conformists – the baptisms I had been able to find took place at the Independent Meeting House in Stoneham Street, Coggeshall. There were clearly gaps in the tree where other children would fit, though whether this was the result of deficiencies in the records of that chapel, or because the children were baptised at a different chapel whose records have been lost is anybody’s guess. But whilst the circumstantial evidence certainly supported the hypothesis that both my ancestor and my cousin’s ancestor were the children of Abraham Anthoney and Rebecca I had no DNA matches to back it up.

Fortunately my cousin had made me a collaborator on his DNA test, which meant I could see his matches – and searching the trees of his matches for the surname Anthoney (and Anthony) I discovered that he had a DNA match with a cousin who was descended from Abraham Anthony, whose baptism to Abraham and his (unnamed) wife was scrawled in the notebook by Henry Peyto, the minister. The image on the right (© The National Archives, used by kind permission of Ancestry) is only just decipherable, but it supports the hypothesis that Jane Anthoney, my cousin’s ancestor, was also descended from Abraham and Rebecca – and that the Jane whose baptism was recorded in 1758 must have died as a child.

Similarly, because Jane Anthoney was a witness at my ancestor’s marriage the evidence that Frances Anthoney was also the child of Abraham and Rebecca becomes that much stronger. The evidence became stronger still when I discovered that my brother also has a DNA match with a descendant of the Abraham Anthon(e)y who was baptised in 1767 – it’s a match of only 7cM, less than Ancestry’s current lower limit, but thankfully I’d marked it for further investigation prior to the increase in the lower limit to 8cM.

Yet again the records made life difficult – the marriage register of St Mary the Virgin, Chelmsford records that the banns were read for Moses Anthony of Kelvedon and Susanna Davis, but the groom clearly signed as Abr. Anthony (perhaps the vicar muddled his Biblical names)? Although the record is, not surprisingly, indexed as Moses Anthony at Ancestry, it appears correctly as Abr. Anthony in Boyd’s Marriage Index (at Findmypast).

What are the key takeaways from this case study?

You can be related to your cousins in more ways than one – I knew from the outset that we were 2nd cousins on our mothers’ sides, but the discovery that we were also 5th cousins once removed on our fathers’ sides was completely unexpected.
Shared matches aren’t the only benefit of collaborating with your cousins – the strategies in the DNA Masterclass can be used to search their matches as well as your own.
Identifying my brother’s match with someone who had an Abraham Anthony in their tree was important, but if I hadn’t flagged it up as worth following up it wouldn’t be there now.
The more DNA tests you have access to, the more likely it is that confirmatory matches can be found.
Never confine your searches to a single website.
DNA can only deliver answers in conjunction with conventional records-based research; similarly, when the historical records are missing, incomplete, or plain wrong DNA may be the only way to fill the gaps.

Having made that discovery I’ve been able to add 16 direct ancestors to my tree – I’d say that’s a good week’s work, wouldn’t you?

Ancestry DNA still discounted in the UK

If you live in the UK you can still save 25% on Ancestry DNA tests – and make discoveries like the ones I’ve written about (and the ones I can’t write about because they involve adoptees and others who didn’t know who their parents were).

Ancestry.co.uk – SAVE £20 PER TEST

Tip: if the link doesn’t work first time please log-out and click the link again (even if the offer page appears when you log-out); also remember that you don’t have to specify who will be testing when you place your order.

Last month of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine offer

This really is the last month that you’ll be able to take advantage of the savings on Who Do You Think You Are? magazine – so don’t delay if you want to get 6 issues for a miserly £9.99 (in the UK) or save between 49% and 64% in the rest of the world. Follow this link - NOW!

Review: Fashion and Family History

Jayne Shrimpton will be known to many of you, not as an author, but as the consultant on photographs and artworks for the Who Do You Think You Are? television series (for a decade). Analysing the clothes worn is one of the best ways to date a photograph when you’re not sure which of your relatives are pictured, nevertheless I should state at the outset that if you’re primarily looking for a book to help you date photographs, and have no interest in how fashions changed or what your ancestors were wearing when they weren’t being photographed, there are other books by the same author that will make the process easier (the Amazon links at the end of this review will show you all of her books).

Where this book succeeds is in providing a guide to changing fashions during the period 1800-1950 – and not just the ‘Sunday best’ clothes we typically see in studio portraits and wedding photographs, but also workwear and sports apparel. It also looks at how our ancestors made clothes for themselves and their families, and how they looked after their clothing in the days before tumble dryers and easy care fabrics. Read it to get a broad understanding of the topic, but keep it close by so that you can look things up in the comprehensive 12 page index.

I read the paperback, but it’s also available in Kindle format. Please use the appropriate link below so that you can support LostCousins:

Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au

Dates to remember

2022 is the 270^th Anniversary of the year that the English calendar was transformed – not only did we switch (belatedly) from the Julian calendar to Gregorian calendar, the year began in January, rather than on 25^th March (Lady Day). I’m not going to go into detail about the changes since I’ve written about them extensively in the past, and you can find the articles by typing calendar conundrum in the search box near the top of this (or any other) newsletter.

In my own records I record dates prior to 1752 as if the year had always started on 1^st January, but if the date concerned is between 1^st January and 24^th March I generally include a note which gives the year in the form ‘1733-34’. However if you’re looking at transcribed entries you usually won’t have the same clarity: for example, if you look up the National Burial Index entry for Everit (sic) Denton at Findmypast you’ll discover that he was buried on 3^rd March 1734, but if you look it up in the Essex Burial Index at the same site you’ll find it shown as 3^rd March 1733. Ancestry index the burial under 1733 but in their transcript give the date as 1733-34, so there is no room for doubt in this instance (though that won’t always be the case, and if you search for this entry in 1734 you won’t find it).

But whilst for legal purposes the year began on 25^th March, there were many people in England who regarded 1^st January as New Year’s Day, even before 1752 – and in Scotland the year began on 1^st January from 1600 onwards; accordingly contemporary correspondence often shows dates written in such a way that there can be no confusion, eg as ‘1733/34’. I’ll leave it to you to find out how newspapers of the period showed the year.

Note: if you have any comments, or queries relating to the calendar which aren’t answered by the articles I published in 2013, please post them on the LostCousins Forum rather than emailing me. If you haven’t joined the forum please check your My Summary page to see whether you have been invited to join (if not I suggest you focus on adding more relatives from 1881 to your My Ancestors page).

Peters Tips

Over on the forum we’ve had an interesting discussion about roots and branches – they mean different things to different people, and a lot depends on when we began our research. Do join the forum if you’ve been invited, but even if you haven’t you can still view most of the discussions.

Wimbledon, arguably the world’s most prestigious tennis tournament, is less than 2 weeks away – and whilst I’m not allowed to play tennis at the moment, my wife and I have been indulging in another Wimbledon tradition, strawberries – from our own garden, of course. Pimms is another Wimbledon tradition, and this week there was an interesting situation at Tesco – Clubcard holders could buy standard 70cl bottles of Pimms for £10, reduced from £15, but they could also buy 1 litre bottles for £10 reduced from £20. I’m sure you can figure out which bottles I ordered!

Although several of the supermarkets have own-brand equivalents, for me there’s nothing quite like the real thing (and frankly, at £10 for a litre it’s cheaper than any of the alternatives). Incidentally, this is the first year that my wife and I have been able to enjoy home-grown lemons in our Pimms – and before long we’ll be using our own cucumbers. Let’s hope the good weather continues!

Stop Press

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Peter Calver

Founder, LostCousins

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