Newsletter - 13th March 2018
St Patrick's Day: Findmypast
launch worldwide offers END SUNDAY
Updated England & Wales birth indexes prompt
investigation
Were you, or one of your ancestors adopted?
St Patrick's Day: DNA offers END SUNDAY
While you are waiting for your DNA results….
Oldest message in a bottle found on Australian beach
Parking charges finally come in at the National
Archives
When you interrupt Dad filling in the census form....
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published
2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous newsletter (dated 9th March)
click here; to find earlier articles use the
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The April issue of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine
includes an excellent guide to the 1939 Register written by Audrey Collins of
the National Archives - even though I've written at length about this unique
wartime record myself there are always new things to discover and, without a
shadow of a doubt, Audrey knows more about the 1939 Register than anyone else.
Tip: the WDYTYA magazine subscription offer I told you
about at the end of February is still running - you can find out more here.
Because the 1939 Register has
only ever been available online as high-resolution full-colour scans it's easy
to ignore the importance of colour to our interpretation of the information on
the pages we see. Annotations and amendments in red or green leap out at us,
and thanks to differences in ink colour most of the time it’s possible to
discern how a crossed-out entry once read. The different ink colours also help us
to date the changes.
Of course, most pages have
entries which are closed, so we're generally in the dark - quite literally -
about what's behind the 'blackout curtain'. Sometimes, however, there are
traces of the hidden entry - perhaps ascenders or descenders stray into an
adjoining entry. It's not much, but it might be sufficient to confirm your
suspicions about the identity of the individual you're not supposed to see. We
won't see all of the entries until 2040 at the earliest - and even then there is no guarantee that we'll get to see all the information
on the right-hand page.
At the back of each volume of
the register you'll usually find a page or two with individuals listed, and not
in any apparently logical order. These are continuation entries needed when the
right-hand page filled up, and it tends to be mostly younger people on those
pages - partly because they would have been more mobile, necessitating more
postings, and partly because they would have lived for longer after 1939
(ditto).
As you may recall I've
published an entire newsletter dedicated to the 1939 Register - you'll find it here (and if
you ever need to get to it in a hurry, there is a link from the Subscribers Only page). But if you
already consider yourself to be an expert on the 1939 Register I'd like to
leave you with a challenge - what is most
unusual about the page below?
Findmypast launch global
offers for St Patrick's Day END SUNDAY
You don’t have to be Irish to
benefit from Findmypast's latest offer - it's
available at all Findmypast-branded sites around the world, and includes the top subscriptions at each of those
sites.
You can save 10% on a NEW
top-level 12 month subscription, and because Findmypast reward loyalty, you'll have an opportunity to
renew at a discount (currently 15%) in a year's time! The subscriptions listed
below all provide access to the same records even though the names are
different:
SAVE 10% on 12 month Pro subscriptions at Findmypast.co.uk
SAVE 10% on 12 month World subscriptions at Findmypast.ie
SAVE 10% on 12 month World subscriptions at Findmypast.com.au
SAVE 10% on 12 month Ultimate British & Irish
subscriptions at Findmypast.com
All of these subscriptions include virtually unlimited
access to all of Findmypast's historical records and
newspapers from around the world, including the 1939 Register, their
fast-growing Catholic records collection, military records, migration records,
and parish registers for many counties in England and most of Wales (plus
transcribed records for many other counties). They also have an amazing
collection of Irish records, and an impressive collection of records from
Australia and New Zealand.
This offer is not exclusive
to LostCousins, but LostCousins
can only benefit if you use a link that I've provided. So
I'm once again offering a free 12 month subscription to members who go out of
their way to take up Findmypast's offer using my
links - this means that the total savings you make can be as much as £28. But
please read the terms and conditions below so that nobody misses out.
To
claim your LostCousins subscription (which will run
from the date of purchase of your Findmypast
subscription, unless you already have a LostCousins
subscription, in which case it will be extended by a year), please forward to
me the email receipt that you receive from Findmypast,
bearing in mind that I need to know the precise time of
your purchase (so write it down, in case the receipt doesn't arrive). You can
use any of the LostCousins email addresses, including
the one I wrote from when telling you about this newsletter.
Terms & conditions:
your free LostCousins subscription will be funded by
the commission that Findmypast pay us; if we don't
receive any commission on your purchase then unfortunately you won't qualify, so
it's up to you to make sure that doesn't happen. For example, if you use an
adblocker the link may not work; if you have disabled tracking in your browser
the link will appear to work, but Findmypast will
ignore it, so won't pay us any commission (this is the most common problem - if
you’re not sure ask for my advice before making your purchase,
afterwards is too late!). Commission isn't paid on renewals,
and may not be paid on upgrades.
If you’re already a Findmypast user you may have noticed
some changes recently. To my mind the best innovation is the blue capsule at
the bottom of the screen which tells you how many results there would be if you
started your search at that point.
This might seem a trivial
thing - indeed, at first I thought it was pointless.
But then I realised I was modifying my behaviour in response to the prompts - if
the number of search results was low I'd stop filling in the search form, since
it clearly wasn't necessary to filter the results any further. And if the number
was zero I might backtrack and modify the information I'd already entered, perhaps
adding a wildcard, or else ticking the 'Name variants' box.
I probably haven’t done a very
good job of explaining it - the fact is, it’s one of those things that just
works!
Note: I understand that not all
Findmypast users are seeing this new feature - they appear to be trialling it on a sample of users.
Updated
England & Wales birth indexes prompt investigation
I mentioned in the last issue
that Findmypast are updating their birth indexes to
include the mother's maiden name for the period prior to 1st July 1911 when
this information was first included in the contemporary indexes compiled by the
General Register Office and later transcribed and indexed by FreeBMD, Findmypast, and one or
two other sites.
I was perhaps a bit behind
the times when I said that only a small minority of the entries had been
updated - the project appears to be proceeding very quickly, and when I
searched for the 13 children who were born to my great-great grandparents
William Samuel Stevens and Sarah Holmes between 1854 and 1877 I was delighted
that as many as 5 were found.
Although it was a largely
academic project - to provide a very rough estimate for this article of how
many records now have the mother's maiden name added - there was a bonus of
sorts. Previously I hadn't bothered to look up the date of birth of my
great-great uncle George Stevens in the birth indexes because I had already
found his baptism, which gave his date of birth as 21st September 1874 - but
the birth doesn't appear in the GRO indexes until the first quarter of 1875.
Since births are supposed to be registered within 42 days this got me wondering
- but first I checked the next entry in the register, for another baptism on
the same day, just in case the two birthdates had somehow been transposed. This
proved not to be the case - or, at least, since both entries were registered in
the first quarter it seemed unlikely.
Why was George's birth
registered late? Was it because they hadn't chosen a name (he wasn't baptised
until 17th January 1875), though this shouldn't have made any difference, or was
there some more practical reason - for example, was it possible that George
wasn't really the child of William Samuel and Sarah, but of their unmarried
daughter Jane, who by then would have been around 19 years old?
You might think this is me being
cynical, and unfairly slandering poor Jane Stevens - but as some of you may
recall from my November 2016 article
('Two unusual birth certificates'), two years later Jane, still unmarried, gave
birth to a daughter who she named Georgina. That birth certificate was quite
fascinating because Jane pretended she was married to a Henry Stevens and that
her maiden name was Rushbrook - in
reality the father was Henry Rushbrook. You
see the way my mind is thinking…. George, Georgina - could they both have the
same mother, and perhaps the same father?
On the other hand - and it's
important that we consider the evidence on both sides of the argument - there
was another son, Edward, born in 1877 who can't have been Jane's son, because
he was born less than a month after Georgina……
I think I'll order the PDF
for George Stevens' birth just to see what birthdate is shown - in the next
newsletter I'll let you know what I've found out.
Going back to these enhanced
indexes, whilst it would seem obvious that Findmypast
are somehow getting the data from the GRO site, I do wonder why - if this is
the case - they aren't taking the opportunity to upgrade the forenames where
initials are shown in the original indexes?
Were you, or
one of your ancestors adopted?
In the last issue I wrote
about the search for Roy Phillips, the heir to a fortune who can't be found
because his identity changed when he was adopted. Since that article appeared
on Friday I've been approached by a member who is related to Roy - but
sufficiently distantly that there would only be one chance in six of getting a
match with Roy (assuming he has tested, as many adoptees do). I'm sure there
must be many LostCousins members who are more closely
related to Roy - statistically there should be around 20 of you who are his 5th
cousin or closer, and whilst half will share a common ancestor on his father's
side (so probably wouldn't be able to identify the connection) that still
leaves 10 potential matches.
But what I want to write
about in this issue is more general: DNA and adoption. I frequently get emails
from members who tell me that they were adopted, or one of their parent's was adopted, and asking whether DNA testing can
help.
The answer, of course, is
that very often DNA is the ONLY thing that can help. It depends where in the
world you live - in the UK it's now fairly easy to find out about your birth
mother (and, perhaps, your father), and since the change in the law promoted by
LostCousins member Frances Lake, the untiring founder
of the Descendants of Deceased Adopted
Persons Group, it's also possible to find out similar information for a
deceased direct ancestor (usually a parent, since adoption wasn't legally
regulated in England & Wales until 1927). But in other countries the law is
less accommodating, and there are some whose adopted
parent is still living, but refuses to take the necessary steps. There will
also be some whose adoptions were not legally regulated - at one extreme this
could be someone who was informally adopted within the family, perhaps by
grandparents or an aunt and uncle, and at the other it could involve
kidnapping, baby-trafficking, or war.
Someone who is adopted is
likely to get just as many matches with cousins when they test - which, if you
follow my advice and test with Ancestry, means over 10,000 matches. It's
unusual to get matches with previously unknown relatives who are closer than
2nd cousin, but one adopted LostCousins member who
asked for my advice had a match with a half-niece. It was a sad case in many
ways - the niece's father, the half-brother of the member, had absolutely no
interest in his birth parents, nor (the last I heard) in meeting his
half-sister. But that isn't the fault of DNA - the same thing could happen to
an adoptee who identifies living relatives in some other way.
So, if you are an adoptee, or
born to a single mother, or have a similar event in your direct line it's well
worth testing your DNA - and obviously you would want to do so with Ancestry,
because they have by far the largest database.
Tip: when you test with Ancestry you can download your
results and transfer them to other sites, but you cannot do things the other
way round; in other words, the only way you can
compare your DNA against that of the estimated 10 million people who have
tested with Ancestry is to test with Ancestry yourself. That's why I re-tested
last year - it goes against the grain for me to pay twice for what is in
effect, the same service, so that's why I do my best to ensure that you don't
make the same mistake as I did.
St Patrick's
Day: DNA offers END SUNDAY
Although it's only three days
since my last newsletter I've already learned about two new offers. In Canada
you can save $30 - Ancestry.ca have reduced their price from $129 to $99 (plus
shipping); in Australia and New Zealand you can take advantage of the lowest
price ever for Ancestry DNA tests in those territories, just $90 (normally
$129) plus shipping of $30. These offers end on Sunday 18th March, and you can
support LostCousins when you make your purchase using
the following links:
Canada (reduced from
CAD129 to CAD99)
Australia
or New Zealand (reduced from AUD129 to AUD90)
USA (previously $99,
now $79, but reduced to $69 until Monday 19th March)
You may find that shipping
works out more cheaply when you order more than one test at the same time -
that's certainly the case in the UK. The UK offer finished yesterday, but if
you are a LostCousins subscriber be sure to check the
Subscribers Only page where you'll
often find offers.
Family Tree DNA also have a
St Patrick's Sale, which brings down the price of their Family
Finder test by $20 to $59 (excluding shipping). This price applies
worldwide, so it’s very attractive if you live in a country where Ancestry
don't sell their test. Family Tree DNA are the only major company offering
Y-DNA tests, and they have by far the biggest database of results - and whilst
they’re not discounting their Y-DNA tests you can get a good price on bundles, eg 37-marker Y-DNA test and Family Finder for $199
plus shipping. However please bear in mind that when you buy a bundle it must
be the same person who takes each test. You can find out more about all the
offers here
(it’s worth clicking the link just to see the photo!).
Tip: don't buy any mtDNA
test unless you check with me first - and don’t buy any DNA test from a
company you've never seen recommended in this newsletter. There's usually a
very good reason why I haven't written about them!
While you are
waiting for your DNA results….
Make sure that you have
extended your family tree as far as you can in every direction - if you've only
focused on your direct line you'll struggle to make sense of your DNA matches, because
all of your living cousins are descended from the
branches of your tree - indeed, that's what makes them cousins.
And do everything you can to
connect with living cousins who are researching their family tree, not just at LostCousins but at other sites. It's much, much easier to determine
how you match your genetic cousins if you have shared matches with documented
cousins, especially if they have tested their DNA or are prepared to do so. I
know there are people out there who think that spending an hour or two
completing their My Ancestors page is
so arduous that they can't find the time (even though they’ve been members, in
many cases, for more than 10 years) - but believe me, nothing is as tedious and
energy-sapping as trying to work out how you connect to your genetic cousins
when you haven’t done the basic groundwork!
Tip: when you are connected with
a 'lost cousin' you'll usually know immediately whether they have already
tested their DNA.
Oldest message
in a bottle found on Australian beach
A family from Perth has found
the oldest verified message in a bottle on a beach in Western Australia - and it’s
132 years old! You can read more about this amazing find in this BBC News article.
Parking
charges finally come in at the National Archives
It was in August 2010 that I
first reported
that the National Archives were planning to introduce charges for parking at
Kew, but the plans were put on hold - until now. From 3rd April you'll have to
pay, but the cost is very reasonable - cheaper than many hospital car parks,
and around the same as I have to pay when I visit the
Essex Record Office in Chelmsford or the Suffolk Record Office in Bury St
Edmunds, neither of which have any parking of their own.
You can read more about the
planned charges here.
When you
interrupt Dad filling in the census form....
I don’t, of course, know the
precise circumstances which led to this comment on 1911 Census schedule, but I
think it’s a reasonable bet that the young lady concerned was annoying her father
as he filled in the form:
In case you can't read it,
the two year-old's occupation is shown as
"annoying other people"! Many thanks to LostCousins
member Dave who spotted this gem in a Facebook discussion (I knew Facebook had
to be useful for something).
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 2018
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?