Newsletter – 20th June 2025
The census has been saved – for now BREAKING NEWS
How do you know if you have the right person?
The Genealogical Proof Standard
Railway accident database doubles in size FREE
Findmypast and the British Library renew their vows
Secrets & Lies: almost sold out
MP seeks change in birth registration
Message in a bottle: mystery solved after 47 years
Turing papers “were nearly shredded”
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 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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The census has been saved – for now BREAKING NEWS
For over a decade the England & Wales census has been under threat – at one time it looked as if the 2011 Census might be the last, and though the 2021 Census did take place that too might have been the last census. Certainly the Office for National Statistics was determined to replace the decennial census with more frequent statistics based on ‘administrative data’, such as government records, loyalty card information and so on – all of it anonymised so that there would be no prospect of the family historians of the future being able to make sense of it.
But this week the UK Statistics Authority recommended that 2031 Census should go ahead as usual, and the expectation is that the government will accept this recommendation – which has been welcomed by the Royal Statistical Society.
Although historical censuses are very useful for genealogists – not least because they show families, ages, and birthplaces – censuses are primarily information tools for government.
The
1801 census was the first official, nationwide census in Great Britain. It was
prompted by a combination of factors, primarily:
- Concerns about Population Growth and Food Supply:
- The late 18th century saw significant debate and anxiety about the rapidly increasing population, particularly in urban areas due to the Industrial Revolution.
- There were widespread fears, notably articulated by Thomas Malthus in his 1798 "Essay on the Principle of Population," that population growth would soon outstrip the country's ability to produce enough food, leading to famine, poverty, and social unrest.
- The
poor harvests and food shortages around 1800 exacerbated these
fears. The government needed to know how many people there were to feed
and how many were involved in producing food.
- Military and Strategic Reasons (Napoleonic Wars):
- Britain was heavily involved in the Napoleonic Wars with France. A key concern was understanding the nation's human resources for military recruitment, including how many men could be conscripted for the militia and how many seamen were available. France, with its larger estimated population, posed a significant threat.
- Knowing
the size and distribution of the population was seen as crucial for
national defence and planning.
- Desire for Better Governance and Planning:
- Beyond immediate crises, there was a growing recognition among government officials and statisticians that reliable population data was essential for effective governance, "wise legislation, and good government."
- Understanding
the population's size, distribution, and occupations (even if broadly
defined in this first census) could help in resource allocation,
infrastructure planning, and addressing social issues.
- Influence of John Rickman:
- A
key figure in advocating for the census was John Rickman, a
statistician and government official. He had argued for the utility and
feasibility of a population census since 1796. He was instrumental in
drafting the Census Act of 1800 and subsequently directed the first four
censuses (1801-1831).
The
Census Act of 1800, formally titled "An Act for taking an Account of the
Population of Great Britain, and of the Increase or Diminution thereof,"
clearly reflected these dual aims: to count the population and to understand
its growth or decline. It gathered information on:
- The number of occupied and unoccupied houses.
- The number of families.
- The total number of males and females.
- The number of people employed in agriculture, trade/manufactures/handicrafts, or other occupations.
- Crucially,
it also collected data on baptisms, marriages, and burials from parish
registers for the preceding century, to provide an indication of
population trends.
While the 1801 census was primarily a headcount and did not collect individual names (that started in 1841), it provided the first statistical snapshot of the British population and laid the groundwork for the decennial census tradition that continues to this day.
Thanks to Google Gemini for putting together that overview.
How do you know if you have the right person?
From 1841 onwards there are usually sufficient clues in census records to guide us towards the right ancestors, especially if the clues are backed up by evidence from civil registration records. (Registration of births, marriages, and deaths began in 1837 in England & Wales, in 1855 in Scotland, and in 1864 in Ireland.)
But how can we know if we’ve found the right person in earlier records? Nine years ago Else Churchill – the genealogist at the Society of Genealogists – wrote this blog post for Findmypast in which she set out some simple guidelines that all competent researchers should abide by, and they’re just as valid today as they were in 2016. I would encourage you to read what she wrote – it’ll only take 2 or 3 minutes, and you don’t need a Findmypast subscription (in fact you won’t even need to register or log-in).
Those guidelines are based on the ‘Genealogical Proof Standard’, although personally I feel a little uncomfortable with the use of the word ‘proof’ since it can be very difficult to thoroughly test historical evidence. Perhaps the familiar phrase “beyond reasonable doubt”, which is often quoted in the context of criminal cases, should be applied to genealogical research?
As genealogists we’re naturally more concerned about our direct lines than we are about collateral lines. If you identify the wrong baptism for one of your direct ancestors, the chances are that everything you do from that point onwards (or rather, backwards) will be wrong – whereas if you make a mistake on a collateral line the consequences are less serious.
On the other hand, if you have a public tree which includes collateral lines, aren’t you running the risk of misleading other researchers when you adopt a lesser standard of proof? Food for thought, perhaps…..
The Genealogical Proof Standard
The Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS) is a methodology developed by professional genealogists to establish reliable conclusions. It has significant benefits but also some practical limitations, and I’ve invited Claude.ai to explain the pros and cons:
Pros of the GPS
Ensures Research Quality The GPS requires exhaustive research, meaning you can't stop at the first record you find. This prevents common mistakes like accepting convenient but incorrect information or missing contradictory evidence that might change your conclusions.
Promotes Source Evaluation It demands critical analysis of source reliability, considering factors like how close in time a record was created to the event, who created it, and their potential biases. This helps genealogists distinguish between strong primary sources and weaker secondary accounts.
Requires Documentation Every conclusion must be supported by cited evidence, making research reproducible and verifiable. This transparency allows others to evaluate your work and builds confidence in your findings.
Addresses Conflicting Evidence The GPS specifically requires researchers to resolve discrepancies rather than ignoring inconvenient information. This leads to more accurate conclusions and honest acknowledgment of limitations.
Professional Credibility Following GPS standards elevates genealogy from hobby-level family stories to research that meets academic and legal standards, particularly important for inheritance cases or lineage society applications.
Cons of the GPS
Time and Resource Intensive Truly exhaustive research can take enormous amounts of time and money. For casual family historians, the GPS standard might be impractical - you could spend years proving a single relationship definitively.
Analysis Paralysis The requirement for exhaustive research can lead to endless searching when "good enough" evidence might suffice for personal family history purposes. Perfect can become the enemy of good.
Accessibility Issues Not everyone has access to extensive archives, professional databases, or the skills needed for advanced source analysis. The GPS can inadvertently create barriers for amateur researchers.
Inflexibility in Unique Situations Some genealogical problems involve inherently limited records (destroyed archives, sparse documentation for certain populations). The GPS framework might be difficult to apply when exhaustive research simply isn't possible.
May Discourage Beginner Researchers The formal structure and high standards might intimidate newcomers to genealogy, potentially discouraging people from exploring their family history at all.
The Practical Reality
Most genealogists use a sliding scale - applying GPS principles more rigorously for crucial relationships or disputed claims, while accepting reasonable evidence for less critical family connections. The standard works best when adapted thoughtfully to your specific research goals and circumstances rather than applied as an inflexible rule.
The most recently-released UK dataset at Ancestry is an index to civil registrations for the Isle of Man, which is a self-governing British Crown Dependency between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland. There are nearly 380,000 transcribed entries for the period 1849-2013 and although they are also available at the website ManxBMD (run by Denise Killen), there is a monthly subscription of £4.99 for that site – so if you already have an Ancestry subscription you’ll find it cheaper, as well as more convenient.
Isle of Man, UK, Civil Birth Marriage & Death, 1849-2013
Younger readers may be surprised to learn that there was a time when British entries were more successful in the Eurovision Song Contest than recent disappointing performances would suggest. In 1976 the group Brotherhood of Man won with their catchy number ‘Save Your Kisses For Me’ – and despite the name there were no brothers, or even sisters (though the two female members in the 1976 line-up did share the same surname, Stevens, which doubles the chance that one of them shares my own Stevens line!).
I don’t watch the Eurovision Song Contest these days – too demoralising if you’re British – but I did enjoy this YouTube video which has short clips of all the winning songs from 1956 to 2025, but lasts less than 20 minutes.
Incidentally, if you search YouTube for ‘LostCousins’ you won’t find any of the recordings that I’ve uploaded as they are in a private area – see your My Events page for links to this year’s talks. Note: if you’re a Friend of LostCousins you’ll have access to more recordings, including some on the Friends Only page of the website.
Railway accident database doubles in size FREE
The Railway Work, Life & Death project has just released a new dataset, featuring details of a further 69,000 English and Welsh railway workers who had accidents between 1855 and 1929. The project looks at accidents to railway staff before 1939, transcribing and summarising details from railway records. With the existing data, the whole database now covers c.117,000 individuals, all transcribed by the project's excellent volunteers.
The new records were originally kept by railway companies, and are now housed at The National Archives of the UK, with whom the project has been working on this release. The records tell us about what people were doing in their day-to-day work, the accidents they had, and the compensation, if any, they received.
The project is a joint initiative of the University of Portsmouth, the National Railway Museum and the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick, working with The National Archives and the RMT Union. It wants to see the information it's making available being used by you, in your research - it's all available free, from the project website. They're also keen to hear from you if you find someone you're researching, so please let them know.
Tip: you can download the data as a spreadsheet – the link is at the bottom of this page.
Findmypast and the British Library renew their vows
When I checked the British Newspaper Archive this morning there were 92,825,012 pages that had been digitised and indexed – a massive number considering that the original agreement was to digitise just 40 million pages.
Last week the British Library and Findmypast announced an extension of their contract, one that will involve adding an estimated 70,000,000 more pages to the archive over the next 5 years.
You can currently save 25% on any British Newspaper Archive subscription when you follow this link – but remember that you can also access this massive archive through the Findmypast site, provided you have an Everything subscription (or a legacy subscription such as Pro or Premium).
Secrets & Lies: almost sold out
I discovered this week that there are fewer than 10 rooms still available for the Secrets and Lies conference organised by the genealogical charity, the Halsted Trust, which takes place in Peterborough this September. You can find out more on the conference website, but one thing it won’t tell you is that there is a £30 discount code for LostCousins members – you’ll find it on the Peter’s Tips page of the LostCousins site.
Tip: I wasn’t going to the conference – I didn’t think my wife would allow it – but when she watched the preview she insisted that we went! You’ll find a link to the recording of the EXCLUSIVE preview on your My Events page.
I received a lot of correspondence following the article about AI in the last newsletter – some from members who didn’t realise that the insightful analysis had been written by an AI, and others from members who could see either benefits or disadvantages.
For example, Jack wrote from New York state to express his concern that AI would take away an enjoyable pastime:
“My fear is the AI will become so good and so reliable that all you will need to do is give it a few facts about you and your parents and ask it to generate a complete family tree of all your ancestors. And worse yet, it will be able to do it extremely fast, and reliably, [so] you will have to do nothing else. If I only wanted the final result, this would be great. But one of the most enjoyable pastimes that I have had, genealogy as a hobby, would be lost completely.”
I can certainly understand that concern: back in the early 1980s my then partner and I used to play a lot of Scrabble – until we acquired a Scrabble dictionary. From then on Scrabble was no longer the challenge that it had been – all the answers were in the book.
But genealogy is rather different – much of the evidence is not publicly available or not online, and what is available can be incomplete, contradictory, misleading, or downright wrong. Even DNA has its limits – because we only inherit half of our parents’ DNA.
Estelle in Hertfordshire put the other side of the story:
“I just wanted to say a big thank you for your recent LostCousins newsletter, where you talked about using AI in family history research. It encouraged me to give it a try — and I had a real breakthrough.
“With the help of ChatGPT (and by providing it with everything I already knew), I was finally able to discover what happened to my great-grandfather, Mark Goldstein, after he sailed to the US in 1912. I’ve been researching my tree for over 30 years, and he was the reason I started all those years ago. For all that time, he remained a mystery.
“Thanks to the AI’s guidance, I was able to trace him through the 1915 New York State Census, his 1927 naturalisation papers, and his US marriage certificate — where he gave a different surname entirely. These are record sets I’d never seen before nor had I come across them in search results. They gave me the information I needed that tied in with everything I already knew about him.
“It turns out his marriage in the US was his second. He had left behind my grandmother and her sister in Lincolnshire around 1910, where they were raised by guardians. His first wife returned to her parents in Southampton. The girls never heard from either of their parents again.
“And this week, I finally discovered that Mark Goldstein died in 1937. I hope to visit his grave should I return to New York at some point.
“It’s been a hugely emotional journey, and finding these answers — after so long — means more than I can say. It really was my very own WDYTYA moment. Thank you again for the newsletter that nudged me to try a new approach.”
Maybe one day AI will get so good that it removes the challenge from genealogy – but think of all the discoveries we’re going to make on the journey!
These days it’s less likely that a mother will come home from the hospital with someone else’s baby, but mistakes were made in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s according to this BBC article. One problem is that the cots were labelled, but not the babies – so if two babies were put down in the wrong cots the error might never have been noticed.
Of course, it’s only because of the increasing popularity of DNA testing that these errors are coming to light – but even now only a small fraction of the population have tested, and I suspect that not all of the anomalies have been identified, since most people who take a DNA test aren’t actually researching their tree.
MP seeks change in birth registration
An Essex MP is calling for a change in the law to allow unmarried mothers to include the name of their child’s biological father in the birth register in the sad event that the father has passed away.
What isn’t clear from the brief news report is what evidence – if any – the mother would be expected to produce. Maybe it would be simpler all round if mothers married the fathers of their children?
Message in a bottle: mystery solved after 47 years
Family historians are continually solving puzzles, but it’s good to know that mere mortals can also succeed if they persevere – so I was interested to read the BBC News story which described how a mystery was solved after nearly half a century.
In earlier centuries craftsmen would sometimes leave notes for future generations to find – or incorporate their name. If you’ve been following the story of the fragmented Roman wall paintings that are being pieced together by a team from Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) you’ll know that they’ve found a piece which bears the Latin word ‘FECIT’ (“has made this”) but that the name of the artist is missing. MOLA describe it as ‘the world’s most difficult jigsaw puzzle’ – let’s hope the missing piece turns up!
Note: whilst writing this article I discovered to my surprise that MOLA has an outpost in Stansted Mountfitchet, the village where LostCousins is located!
When my wife and I went to London’s National Gallery last year to view the Van Gogh exhibition the Sainsbury Wing of the gallery was closed for refurbishment (it has recently opened). One of the workmen discovered a letter that had been hidden inside a fake column, placed there not by a craftsman, but by Lord John Sainsbury – the donor after whom the extension is named. I’ll leave you to read this article if you want to know more….. let’s just say that Lord Sainsbury didn’t approve of that particular architectural feature!
Turing papers “were nearly shredded”
Not everyone appreciates the value of historic documents, and an accumulation of papers relating to Alan Turing which had been found in a loft nearly ended up being discarded. But this week the papers sold at auction for nearly half a million pounds – you can read more in this BBC article.
Sadly many family papers do end up being burned or recycled, and even when they find their way to auction they often fetch such relatively small sums that you wonder why the family didn’t keep them. Back in 1993 I bought a collection of family correspondence on a whim, having read about the auction in The Times – and that was when I first started to develop the skills that subsequently served me so well when I began to research my family tree.
When my father died in 2011 we discovered a box in the loft with papers that he and my mother had kept from when the three of us children were at school – the oldest examples were from my time at primary school in the 1950s, and not only included stories I had written, but also a picture I had drawn which had so impressed the teachers that it was pinned up in the school corridor. On looking through the papers I discovered several reminders of my early years – things that were important at the time, but faded from memory as I got older.
One of the items that had survived was an exercise book in which I’d written hundreds of answers to questions from an arithmetic book (in the Beacon series – some of you will have fond memories). I was subsequently able to track down a copy of the book for sale online, so added that to my collection.
Of course, it wasn’t my copy – that would have been too much of a coincidence, though after reading this story about a man who inadvertently bought a book that his wife had written in 50 years ago, it’s clear that coincidences do happen sometimes!
You may recall that
in the last issue I mentioned that I was taking full advantage of EDF’s Sunday
Saver challenge, which provides between 4 and 16 hours of free electricity
on Sundays for customers who are able to reduce their usage between 4pm and 7pm
on weekdays.
This week the very useful sum of £45.08 was credited to our EDF account, representing the electricity we’d used during the relevant hours on the previous four Sundays. We wouldn’t normally use that much electricity on a Sunday, but my wife and I had ‘saved up’ power-hungry tasks such as cooking for the freezer, washing, tumble-drying, and charging our electric car. This Sunday we’ll have 12 free hours of electricity, from 8am to 8pm, so all of our meals will fall into the window – and we’ll be able to do a whole week’s washing.
You can get a £50 bill credit when you switch to EDF using this link, whichever of their tariffs you choose – and if you do, we’ll also get a credit on our bill, so “thank you” in advance!
Finally, I’d just like to pay a tribute to Missie, the calico cat who was a very important part of our family from the day we visited the rescue centre 16 years ago and she chose to come and live with us, until Thursday of last week when Missie sadly came to the end of her long life.
This is where any major updates and corrections will be highlighted - if you think you've spotted an error first reload the newsletter (press Ctrl-F5) then check again before writing to me, in case someone else has beaten you to it......
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2025 Peter Calver
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