Newsletter – 14th March 2025
11 million Scottish records go online at Ancestry NEW
Ancestry Networks launches at RootsTech 2025 NEW
LostCousins to work with family history societies
Marriage to a deceased wife’s sister
Marriage to a divorced wife’s sister
What a difference the railways made
Lloyd George ‘Domesday’ Records for Essex NEW
Will you get an Ancestry subscription for just £1?
Gardeners Corner: Fascinating Fuchsias
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue (dated 2nd March) 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!
11 million Scottish records go online at Ancestry NEW
This week Ancestry added more than 11 million Scottish records thanks to an arrangement with West Dunbartonshire Arts & Heritage Service – however the transcribed records go beyond West Dunbartonshire, there are baptism and marriages from Argyll, Renfrewshire, Stirlingshire, and Lanarkshire (there are also burials from Lanarkshire).
You can search the records here. It’s not just parish register entries – there are prison registers, muster rolls, valuation rolls, electoral registers, and more.
Ancestry Networks launches at RootsTech 2025 NEW
Up to now the main reason I’ve subscribed to Ancestry Pro Tools has been for the enhanced Shared Matches, an important feature when you’re the member of the family who is in charge of DNA. But at RootsTech this week Ancestry launched Ancestry Networks, which offers the opportunity to find out more about your ancestors, their families, and the people they counted as friends – such as neighbours, co-workers , people who went to the same church or the same school.
You don’t need to have signed up for RootsTech to watch this one-hour presentation by Christa Cowan, which demonstrates the benefits of finding out more about our ancestors’ network – not least for the opportunity to identify people in photos who aren’t family members, but clearly played a big parts in our ancestors' lives.
I didn’t need convincing – we’ve been doing much of this at LostCousins for 17 years. Those of you with memories like an elephant will recall that in the January 2008 newsletter I announced the Neighbours feature, allowing you to enter the people who lived so close to your ancestors that they must have known each other; the following month I continued the ‘soap’ theme with an article headed Upstairs Downstairs, which introduced the Employment feature.
LostCousins to work with family history societies
Towards the end of last year I upgraded the LostCousins Zoom subscription for a trial 12 month period so that more members than ever before could attend the exclusive presentations organised in connection with the Annual Competition. But those 8 Zoom presentations were over in a fortnight, so I wondered how best to make use of the upgrade before it runs out…..
The answer was obvious: give family history societies the opportunity to demonstrate the benefits they offer their members, so that the societies can expand their membership, and LostCousins members can knock down some of their ‘brick walls’. And, when you read the next article you’ll see that 4 family history societies have already fixed dates and are busy preparing their presentations.
Note: if you’re involved in running one of the larger family history societies please make sure your committee are aware of this opportunity.
Book your free place BOOKINGS OPEN NOW!
On Friday 4th April Hertfordshire Family History Society will be giving a presentation to LostCousins members, and if – like me – you have ancestors from Hertfordshire it’s a great opportunity to find out what the society can offer, and pick up some tips about researching in the county. After the weekend, on Monday 7th April, Suffolk Family History Society will be giving an exclusive presentation to LostCousins members, and whilst I’ve been a member for many years I’m sure I’ll learn something new.
Next we’ll be hearing from two West Yorkshire societies, Huddersfield & District on Tuesday 8th April, and Calderdale on Thursday 10th April (there are lots of societies which cover parts of Yorkshire – see this page for a list of the societies in the Yorkshire Group - unfortunately some of the links are out of date).
All of the presentations start at 10am London time, which is 7pm in Sydney, 9pm in Auckland (except for the 4th April talk which is before the clocks go back, so an hour later). The presentations will be recorded, so you needn’t miss out just because the timing isn’t convenient, but you still need to put your name down.
To indicate your interest please go to the My Events page at the LostCousins site (this new page has replaced the My Prizes page which we used for the recent competition). You’ll have an opportunity to ask a question in advance, which is particularly important if you can’t make the live presentation – note that concise general questions are more likely to be answered.
Tip: I’m currently talking to several other family history societies and expect to announce more dates in the next newsletter. But if you’re a ‘Friend of LostCousins’ you’ll be notified by email in advance of the newsletter so that you can make a priority booking.
Marriage to a deceased wife’s sister
Many of you will have examples in your tree of widowers marrying their deceased wife’s sister before 1907, when this was legalised.
I have at least two examples in my tree, both in my Wells line. In 1843 John Overett married Mary Ann Wells, a younger sister of my great-great grandfather, Robert Wells; they had only one child before Mary Ann died in 1853. In 1855 John Overett married Sarah Jane Wells, who was born 10 years before Mary Ann, but lived until 1902:
© The London Archives. All Rights Reserved. Image used by kind permission of Ancestry
There are a couple of interesting things about this marriage entry from the register of St Dunstan, Stepney – you’ll see that the name of Sarah Jane’s father was originally written as John but has been corrected to George. That amendment should have been initialled by the vicar, or whoever conducted the marriage.
The second interesting thing relates to the witnesses: the first witness is my great-great grandfather, the second – who signed as Maria Rees – was his youngest sister, who had married Thomas Rees in 1851. Nothing strange about that, but somewhere in my files I have a marriage certificate from the GRO which shows that she signed as Maria Wells (her maiden name).
The marriage was invalid in any case, but it didn’t matter much because they didn’t have any children, and John Overett died in 1857 (though I only found the entry this week, because it was indexed as OVENT both in the contemporary quarterly indexes and the new GRO online death index):
I mentioned earlier that Maria Rees had signed as Maria Wells – did Sarah Jane, John’s widow make the same mistake when registering John Overett’s death?
She didn’t – the Sarah (Jane) Wells who registered the death was almost certainly my great-great-great grandmother, mother of Robert, Mary Ann, and Sarah Jane. The two women were both living at 44 Charlotte Street in the 1861 Census, but it was Sarah Jane Wells who was the head of the household:
© Crown copyright Image reproduced courtesy of The National Archives, London, England. Used by permission of Findmypast
42 years after Robert Wells’ sister married their sister’s widower, Robert’s son John Wells (my great-grandfather) married his late wife’s sister. But whereas the marriage of John Overett and Sarah Jane Wells was short-lived and childless, John Frederick Wells and Ellen Mercy Pepperell were married for 24 years during which Ellen bore 9 children. All of those children were technically illegitimate until the law changed (with retrospective effect) in 1907, though whether they knew it at the time is a different matter. My late aunt (born in 1916) knew that there was a skeleton in the cupboard, but it was only when I began researching the family tree that we were able to put flesh on the bones.
But let’s leave that story for now, and go back to St Dunstan, Stepney where John Overett married his second Wells sister…..
I’ve spent a lot of time looking at parish registers for east London, so I was interested when as LostCousins member directed me to this article on the Spitalfields Life website. It suggests that for a long time all births and marriages at sea were registered at St Dunstan in Stepney – a very useful piece of knowledge, if correct.
But as readers of this newsletter know, I don’t take things at face value – just because something has been regarded as ‘fact’ for a century or more and repeated time after time doesn’t make it true. And searching the Internet I came across this 1964 article by Alan D Ridge in the Journal of the British Records Association which makes it clear that it is just a myth.
There were in fact no births or marriages at sea recorded in the Stepney registers. The first baptism at sea is registered in 1893, and between 1893-1936 there are just 84 such entries. I would surmise that these only appear in the Stepney registers because of the myth. According to The National Archives:
"From 1854 records of births, marriages and deaths at sea had, first, to be recorded in ships’ logs. When the ships next docked at a British port the information from the logs was then recorded by the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen (RGSS). Copies of the RGSS registers were periodically sent to the General Register Office. Marriages on British registered ships were not legally valid and only a relatively small number of records for marriages at sea exist."
Have you debunked any myths recently? I’m not talking about family stories – experienced genealogists debunk those before breakfast – but the sort of myths that have propagated across the Internet, been published in books, or repeated by genealogy experts. There’s one person I know who is an expert at debunking myths, and that’s Professor Rebecca Probert – an expert on historical marriage law and practice, who has taught me most of what I know about the subject through her books and her lectures.
Marriage to a divorced wife’s sister
Whilst marriage to a dead wife’s sister was legalised in 1907, it was not until 1921 that it was possible for a man to legally marry his deceased brother’s widow – an anomaly that was highlighted in the Parliamentary debate which considered the bill (you can read the Hansard report here).
But it was much, much longer before marriage to divorced wife’s sister, or a divorced husband’s brother became legal – this didn’t happen until 1960, even though divorce became more and more common during the 20th century.
A well-known example of an illegal marriage to a divorced wife’s sister was that of William Avery, whose marriage to Caroline Walker ended in 1863 when she divorced him on the grounds of his incestuous adultery with her sister Emma. It’s worth reminding you that for a woman to divorce her husband in those days it wasn’t sufficient to prove his adultery, there had to be an additional aggravating factor, and incestuous adultery was one of those factors.
Not only did William marry Emma, describing himself as a widower (although Caroline didn’t die until 1885), he did so in the parish church. I’m not going to go into the details of this case, as you can read all about it in this article by Jennifer Aston, Assistant Professor of Law at Northumbria University – her account begins on page 79 of the journal.
But I would like to tell you about a case uncovered by a LostCousins member who is descended from some of the individuals involved.
Albert Aldred divorced his wife Florence (nee Rennocks) in 1921; she had had an affair with another man and borne his child while Albert was away in the army. Whether he was seeking consolation or revenge I can’t say, but Albert began a liaison with Elsie, Florence's sister - who bore his child in 1923.
They eventually married in 1933 and in the marriage register the bride called herself Elsie Cumberland (Cumberland being her mother's maiden name), and gave the name of her father as John Cumberland, not John Rennocks:
Note that the groom is described as “formerly the husband of Florence Aldred, formerly Rennocks spinster, from whom he obtained a divorce”, the standard form of wording in the first half of the 20th century. I have not doubt in my mind that if Elsie had given her surname, or that of her father, as ‘Rennocks’ the registrar would have started asking awkward questions.
This is an example of misstatements on a marriage certificate which are only obvious when you know more about the individuals involved than is shown on the certificate. I plan to provide more examples of situations in which family historians could be confused in the next newsletter – I am still analysing the many responses to my request for examples of divorcees who remarried.
What a difference the railways made
The first public railway to use steam locomotives opened in 1825, and ran from Stockton to Darlington – though until 1833 only goods were hauled by steam locomotives (passengers travelled in a coach that was hauled along the railway tracks by horses). The first steam-hauled passenger railway ran between Liverpool and Manchester and opened in 1830.
This year is the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, and from March until November events are being staged to mark the occasion (see this BBC article for more information). The website of the Friends of the Stockton and Darlington Railway has a fascinating description of the line’s history, and you might be tempted – as I was – to make a donation towards the campaign to save Heighington Station, the oldest railway building in the world.
As with canals it was the movement of heavy goods and raw materials that impelled the growth of the railway network and you can see maps of the network as it was at the end of 1836, 1837, 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1844, 1845, 1850, 1851, 1863, 1869, 1870, 1879, 1881, 1891, 1901 and 1911 in this superb PDF document on the University of Cambridge website.
However the maps I found most interesting were the ones which show how journey times changed from 1680, when the average speed was 2mph, to 1830 when – thanks to turnpike (toll) roads – average speeds of 8.7mph were possible for those who could afford to travel by stage coach. Unfortunately the map for 1910 (though mentioned in the text) is missing, but the example journey times quoted suggest a further increase of 4 to 5 times in the average speed, thanks to railways. A journey from London to Newcastle, which would have taken about 140 hours in 1680, and about 35 hours in 1830, could be made by train in 7 hours by 1910 (it’s about 3½ hours in 2025).
The ability to delivery food to cities by train meant that there was no longer a need for farms in cities, which meant that the land they occupied could be used for housing. Then railway companies encouraged the building of suburbs so that they could sell tickets to commuters – railways really have shaped our lives.
Would you like to save money on tickets for family history shows? I’ve got an offer so good that I’m not allowed to advertise it – please visit the Peters Tips page of the LostCousins site to find out more (you’ll need to log-in first as it’s a members-only part of the website).
Last month I wrote about the Marks & Spencer Pension Scheme which publishes a list of employees who have passed away. This prompted a number of members to write in with information about other pension schemes which provide similar lists – though unfortunately none of them are available online, usually because they are in members-only areas of their websites.
However the Thomas Cook Pensioners’ Association does have online lists, which you can find here, though at present they only cover the years 2015-24. If you know of any other similar records which are openly available, do please let me know.
Lloyd George ‘Domesday’ Records for Essex NEW
TheGenealogist specialise in records that most other sites ignore, such as tithe records and tithe maps, and the 1910 Land Valuation, commonly known as the Lloyd George Domesday. The 1910 Land Valuation is an enormous project, one that will take years to complete: The Genealogist began with London and most of the Home Counties, but to my disappointment the next counties to appear were Wiltshire and Dorset, when all I wanted was Essex, the county where I was born, where I went to school, where I married, where I live, and where I founded LostCousins.
Thankfully I didn’t have too long to wait – this week TheGenealogist released Essex, and I’ve been looking through the records ever since. As a child I spent a lot of time in Epping Forest – there were school trips to High Beech, and my family used to go to Hainault for picnics, and to pick blackberries. One of the properties included in this latest release is known as Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge, although it was built in 1543 for her father, Henry VIII. This is how the property on the edge of Epping Forest was described by the surveyor who inspected it in 1912:
© TheGenealogist © Crown copyright Image reproduced courtesy of The National Archives, London, England
The property is owned by the City of London Corporation, which also owns Epping Forest – it’s a museum with free admission, but you can book a private tour – you’ll find out more here.
I generally use The Genealogist for non-conformist records and hard-to find census records, but I really need to spend more time learning how to use their Map Explorer which now includes all of the censuses up to 1911, as well as tithe records and the 1910 Valuation. I’ve certainly been using it more since Essex went online – I’ve not only found my present home, but the previous one, and my next task is to compare the information with what the 1911 Census shows.
If you’re tempted to try out TheGenealogist, there’s an attractive subscription offer which you’ll find here – it runs until the end of April. Or watch Mark Bayley’s presentation last month to LostCousins members – you’ll find a link on the Peters Tips page of the LostCousins site.
As regular readers will know, having taken every type of test, from every major company over the past 13 years I came to the conclusion that there’s one that’s streets ahead of the rest. Not only have Ancestry sold 27 million tests, far more than anyone else, they have around 140 million family trees in their database, which puts them in a unique position to combine the two in order to help researchers like you and me to knock down our ‘brick walls’.
From today until Sunday 30th March you can save 25% on DNA tests purchased from Ancestry’s UK site when you follow the link below (if it doesn’t seem to work first time, please log-out from your Ancestry account and click the link again):
Save 25% on AncestryDNA®. Terms Apply.
Remember that whatever price you pay for your Ancestry DNA test, you won’t fully benefit unless you follow ALL of the steps in my DNA Masterclass. You might think you can pick and choose, but life’s not like that – if you don’t intend to do the job properly you might as well not test in the first place.
Will you get an Ancestry subscription for just £1?
When you follow the link above to order a DNA test you may be offered the chance to get a 3-month Worldwide membership for just £1 extra – and I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that this is an absolute bargain.
Note: if you have an existing Ancestry subscription you won’t be able to take up the offer. However it does seems to be available to returning members as well as new members.
Gardeners Corner: Fascinating Fuchsias
In the Northern hemisphere, April is usually
the time to start preparing fuchsias for their fast-growing, long-flowering
summer season. Fuchsias are highly versatile: easy to grow, they flourish in
containers and tight spaces, they thrive in partial shade, and there are
hundreds of varieties in single or double flowered combinations of pink, red,
violet and white. They are not attacked by slugs and snails, and mature
fuchsias are rarely browsed by rabbits or deer. Fuchsias are also easy to
propagate; a modest investment now can give you many more free plants even
within the first year.
The first recorded fuchsia was named in honour of a 16th century herbalist and professor of medicine, Dr. Leonard Fuchs. Most fuchsias originate from coastal South America. Garden hybrids bred from fuchsias which are native to tropical and subtropical areas require frost protection in our British winters, so it may be preferable to grow these in containers to overwinter under cover. Hybrids bred from fuchsias that originate from the colder areas of South America are frost hardy; these can be left in place to overwinter, so are ideal for either ground or container planting. Do label your plants to remind you which fuchsias will need protection!
Although most fuchsias are frost tender, there are now well over 100 hardy cultivars available due to increasing demand. Fuchsias may be bushy, trailing, upright, or trained. Unlike many modern fuchsias which have bushy growth and rounded, flamenco-skirt flowers, The F. Magellanica and F. coccinea hybrids are best for very cold winters; these have a slender, upright habit with delicate “lady’s earrings” flowers and can even make attractive hedging.
Fuchsias are best
planted once the soil has warmed in late Spring. Wait until mid-Spring to prune
hardy fuchsias down to 8-10”. Tender varieties can be planted outside and
pruned after the last frosts. All need ample moisture, nutrient-rich soil,
shade from hot, direct sun and good drainage. Either deadhead the flowers and
seed pods throughout the summer, or leave the seed pods to develop into edible
berries (the biggest and best tasting come from large-flowering cultivars).
If you’re lucky, the large olive-green caterpillars of the pink-banded elephant hawk moth may eat some of your fuchsia leaves. Grow a sacrificial fuchsia at the back of the border to move them onto if your prize specimens are at risk!
Tip: when a watering
can isn’t big enough and the hosepipe won’t reach, try this wheelbarrow-sized
80 litre H2GO water bag from Amazon. Priced at under £10, it might prove an
essential piece of kit for those out-of-reach places! Peter asked if you could use
this link so that LostCousins can gain a
few pennies from your purchase. Thanks, Sian.
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Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2025 Peter Calver
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