Newsletter – 9th September 2025
Your chance to save £100 at Findmypast is slipping away….
Is it worth saving 25% at the British Newspaper Archive?
Member’s story: An Unexpected Connection
Save on Who Do You Think You Are? magazine 6 ISSUES FOR £11.99
Do you have ancestors from the Waltham Forest area? FREE ONLINE TALK
AI doesn’t always get it right…..
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue (dated 1st September) 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!
Your chance to save £100 at Findmypast is slipping away….
First of all, my condolences to existing subscribers who are unable to take advantage of this offer which – like all such offers – is designed to attract new subscribers. Many of you benefited from a discount when you bought your first Findmypast subscription, so I hope you won’t begrudge Findmypast using similar marketing tactics to attract other first-timers.
As I explained to one disappointed reader in the week, if Findmypast were going to offer half-price subscriptions to everyone they’d have to double the price first, otherwise they’d soon go out of business!
However, if you are in a position to take advantage of the offer, you haven’t got long to make up your mind. First let me remind of some of the key points from the newsletter in which I first broke the news of the offer:
- It’s impossible to research your British ancestors thoroughly if you only have a subscription to one of the two biggest sites – whether that’s Ancestry or Findmypast doesn’t matter, neither of them has ALL the records you need.
- Even when two sites have the same records, there are going to be differences in search capabilities and transcriptions.
There’s something else that I should have mentioned, but didn’t:
- It’s often necessary to weave backwards and forwards from one site to the other – but you can do this only if you have subscriptions to both at the same time. Which is why the chance of getting a half-price subscription can be a game-changer for your research.
To take advantage of Findmypast’s half-price offer and support LostCousins (at no cost to you) please use the relevant link below, rather than a link you’ve obtained elsewhere:
Findmypast.co.uk – SAVE 50% ON 12 MONTH ‘EVERYTHING’ SUBSCRIPTIONS
Findmypast.com.au – SAVE 50% ON 12 MONTH ‘EVERYTHING’ SUBSCRIPTIONS
Findmypast.ie – SAVE 50% ON 12 MONTH ‘EVERYTHING’ SUBSCRIPTIONS
Findmypast.com – SAVE 50% ON 12 MONTH ‘EVERYTHING’ SUBSCRIPTIONS
Thanks for your support!
Is it worth saving 25% at the British Newspaper Archive?
I’m never one to turn my back on a discount, but the current offer at the British Newspaper Archive is underwhelming for most readers of this newsletter since, for just £25 more than the cost of a 12 month BNA subscription, you could get a 12 month Findmypast subscription.
Indeed, even someone who isn’t researching their tree might still find it worthwhile paying a little extra to get access to the billions of additional records at Findmypast – if only for the purpose of checking the details of people and places mentioned in newspaper articles. Even now newspaper reporters sometimes get things wrong, and this is likely to have been even more of a problem back in the 19th century when reporters with deadlines to meet had little opportunity to doublecheck whether what they had written down in their notebooks was correct.
Nevertheless, a standalone BNA subscription might well be of interest to the dwindling number of Findmypast subscribers who still have a Plus subscription: you may recall that this provided access to all of Findmypast’s British and Irish records (other than the 1921 Census), but excluded the British Newspaper Archive. Although they can probably upgrade to an Everything subscription on favourable terms under the Findmypast offer, they won’t be able to go back to the Plus subscription afterwards, as it was removed from sale when the Everything subscription was introduced. A 3 month subscription to the BNA for around £25 (during the offer) might well seem an attractive compromise.
But, whatever your reason for considering a British Newspaper Archive subscription, please use the link below so that you can support LostCousins should you choose to make a purchase:
British Newspaper Archive – SAVE 25% using code SEPT2525
I wasn’t very good at history when I was at school, but I was good with numbers, so I used to be able to recite the names and dates of all the monarchs from Henry VII up to Elizabeth II (in fact, I can still remember most of them). And then there were the key dates in history: 1066, 1215, 1415, 1776, 1805, 1815 and so on. But one date I don’t recall from my childhood is 927.
In 2027 it’ll be the 1100th Anniversary of England. Aethelstan, who ruled England from 927 to 939 united the kings of Wessex, Mercia, Northumberland and East Anglia/Danelaw under a single crown – which, according to David Woodman, Professor of History at Cambridge University means that I (and millions of others) should be celebrating in 2 years’ time.
That said, if you read this BBC article about Professor Woodman and the book he has written about Aethelstan, you might wonder whether we should be celebrating in 4 years’ time (since it wasn’t until 929 that the Vikings gave up their last territory).
Furthermore if you are able to read this Daily Telegraph article you’ll see that the Venerable Bede also has a pretty good claim to be the progenitor of England, and he lived two centuries before Aethelstan. I’ll let the historians fight it out amongst themselves….
Isn’t it annoying when you find a completely erroneous entry in an online tree? Some of the trees I come across at Ancestry are full of tosh, like the one I found recently that showed my ancestor marrying twice, 50 years apart, and having children from both marriages. Good for him, you might be thinking – but this was my 5G GRANDMOTHER!
What do YOU do when you find an error like that – do you write to the tree owner and ask them to change their tree, even though you know that they’re not going to do anything about it? That’s what Samuel Johnson called a “triumph of hope over experience”.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with writing to the tree owner: where most people go wrong is that this is ALL they do (apart from having a good whinge when, predictably, nothing happens).
Thankfully Ancestry have long provided a means by which we can not only inform the tree owner of their error, but also warn other researchers not to copy the entry. Posting a Comment is by far the most productive thing you can possibly do when you find an obvious error in someone else’s tree, not least because the tree owner can’t easily delete what you’ve written.
Of course, it’s important not to mock the tree owner – you could find yourself in hot water if you do and, if anything, it’ll discourage the tree owner from checking what you’ve written and correcting their entry. Instead explain politely why you believe there is an error, and include any information you have that might be helpful – not just for the tree owner, but anyone else looking at the entry.
You can also post comments against profiles in your own tree – it’s very rare that anyone does this, but it’s a great way to share information with other Ancestry users.
You might think “I don’t need to add a Comment – I’ve already included everything in the Notes” – but if you look carefully you’ll discover that Notes are visible ONLY to the tree owner and others who have been given editing rights. By contrast, Comments are visible to EVERYONE who can view the tree.
If you've not used Comments before you'll find them in the Tools menu.
The Samuel Johnson quote in the previous article (“triumph of hope over experience”) was originally referring to second marriages, which is a good way to introduce Philip Field, who in 1861 was living in Breck Road, in the Everton district of Liverpool:
© Crown Copyright Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England. Used by kind permission of Findmypast
Unusually, Philip Field’s wife Mary is shown as the head of the household, whilst Philip himself is shown as a visitor: this may have something to do with the fact that in 1858 Philip bigamously married an 18 year-old nurserymaid named Mary Ann Thomas, a crime for which he was sentenced to 3 years’ penal servitude.
This is just a short excerpt from one of the many fascinating case studies that will be included in Professor Rebecca Probert’s forthcoming book about bigamy, Double Lives: Stories of Bigamy in England and Wales, 1604-2024. I will review the book around the time of publication in April 2026, but the reason I’m writing about it in this newsletter is because there is a mystery that I’m hoping you might be able to solve…..
What is the connection between the Field family and the two Burton brothers who were boarders in 1861 – other than the fact that they were born in Leicestershire, where Philip and Mary were born, and were in the glass business, as Philip was?
You’ll need an extra piece of evidence to understand why I’m asking the question. Here is the Field family in 1851:
© Crown Copyright Images reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England. Used by kind permission of Findmypast
Note the youngest member of the family, Sarah B Field, aged just 1 month at the time of the census. Any guesses as to what her middle name was? No, not Beatrice or Barbara or Beulah (and certainly not Britney):
Poor Sarah Burton Field had a short life – she was just 2 years-old when she died in 1853 – but what prompted Philip and Martha to give her that middle name? The chances are that there is a family connection, and the good news is that the parish registers for Leicestershire are online at Findmypast – so can you figure out what the connection is?
Tip: although the birthplace recorded for Mary Field looks suspiciously like ‘Bolton’, it’s actually Belton – a Leicestershire village about 4 miles from Swannington, where the Burton brothers are said to have been born.
Please don’t write to me: instead post your findings (both positive and negative) in the Comments on the Latest Newsletter area of the LostCousins Forum so that others can see them, and build upon them. Collaborating to solve mysteries is much more efficient than working independently – indeed, that’s the very reason I founded LostCousins in 2004.
Tip: if you’re not yet a member of the LostCousins Forum the chances are that you’ll find an invitation waiting on your My Summary page at the main LostCousins site. Membership of the forum is a privilege reserved for LostCousins members who are taking part in the LostCousins project to connect experienced family historians around the world (if you have time to spend on this puzzle then you most certainly have the time to complete your My Ancestors page!).
Member’s story: An Unexpected Connection
I’m very grateful to Chris Carver for allowing me to share with you some of the highlights from the years of research that eventually led him to an unexpected connection. I’ll leave it to Chris to tell you all about it….
My tale is of an ancestor who worked with a man whose family is related through marriage to Andrew Parker Bowles and by extension to the current King and Queen, but I only discovered this after a fascinating genealogical journey of discovery involving some unusual records and old-style legwork.
Whilst searching for my 3G Grandfather Samuel Carver in the early days of the Internet, one of my first online hits was the 1841 obituary of another Samuel Carver, partner in the esteemed printing company of Bowles & Carver of St Paul’s Churchyard. This seemed irrelevant because of his birthdate and obvious fame and fortune given my forebears’ relative poverty.
Some years later I had still not placed the famous Samuel in my tree, but out of idle curiosity on a visit to The National Archives, I looked at his will.
© Crown Copyright Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England. Extract used by kind permission of Ancestry
To my utter surprise and amazement, not only did he reference my Samuel as the son of his late brother Thomas, but also introduced a completely unknown branch of the family. Therefore the famous Samuel was my 4G Granduncle – though proving the connection through traditional lines was far from simple.
At that time I knew only of 3 of Thomas’s siblings through baptism records. All had been non-conformists but, after their father Samuel died, all 4 had been baptised, presumably so that they could receive poor relief. But there was no trace of Samuel.
The first glimpse came in an obscure reference in the 1767 Overseers Accounts for Hitchin in Hertfordshire: poor relief granted to their newly-widowed mother Mary with “3+2”. Presumably 3 boys and 2 girls. This led me to believe that the extra boy was probably Samuel and he was an unbaptised child from his father’s first marriage. But how did he end up a partner in a prestigious firm?
The next clue came when trawling through rates books to find that for several years earlier his family lived next to a Mr Edward Bowles, gentleman. My working theory was that the orphaned Samuel had been informally “adopted” by the Bowles family via connections in their Strict Baptist church. This was later supported by a newspaper account I found in the British Newspaper Archive: taken from the Kentish Gazette of 22nd September 1772, it lists the moneyed visitors to Hastings that summer, who included Mrs Bowles accompanied by her son and Master Samuel Carver:
Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Used by kind permission of Findmypast
The final proof came when researching the records of the Worshipful Company of Joiners, which stated that Samuel was indentured to Henry Bowles and that his father was also Samuel. His future business partner Henry Carrington Bowles was also a member of the Guild.
Samuel never married, so on his death – after several bequests to various Carver relatives – he left the bulk of his fortune to the Bowles family. He had also been appointed the executor to Henry Carrington Bowles and this led me eventually to the notoriously difficult Chancery Court records, but that’s another story.
One of the stipulations in the will of Henry Carrington Bowles will was that descendants who wanted to benefit had to bear the Bowles name, so eventually – when the last female married a Parker – they assumed the name Parker Bowles. By sheer coincidence, I once “met” Camilla Parker Bowles in a very narrow Wiltshire country lane: she was on a horse, I was in my car going the other way.
Many thanks to Chris for that brief summary of what was clearly a long journey through the records. It’s also a reminder that we won’t find all the records we need online – the Overseers Accounts are only available at Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, somewhere I visited frequently in the early years of this century when I was researching my maternal grandmother’s ancestry. As for Myddelton House, where Samuel Carver was living at the time of his death, it turns out that my wife visited the gardens earlier this year with her local U3A gardening group – so perhaps I’ll be able to persuade her to write an article for a future newsletter.
Save on Who Do You Think You Are? magazine 6 ISSUES FOR £11.99
For a limited period members in the UK can get 6 issues of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine for just £11.99, under £2 per issue. Considering how much useful information each issue contains it’s a real bargain – for example, when I received the October issue yesterday I immediately identified 6 major articles that I wanted to cut out and keep – one of them about Chancery Records – as well as several shorter articles of interest.
To take advantage of this offer please follow this link.
The Readers Letters often cover interesting topics, and the prize-winning Star Letter this month was written, as many are, by a LostCousins member. Coincidentally the latest winner is the same Chris Carver who wrote the article above – but with a poignant story from the other side of his tree. Well done, Chris!
The Crystal Palace built to house the Great Exhibition of 1851 was a masterpiece of human ingenuity. The largest enclosed space that had ever been built, it covered an area of 18 acres (equivalent to 10 football pitches), and yet it was built in just 5 months!
You would think that such an enormous project, one that involved 5000 men working at great heights, would have resulted in a number of casualties but, if you were to search the Internet for evidence, the chances are that you’d only find mention of the tragic accident which killed 12 workmen in 1853 – long after the Great Exhibition had closed.
When researching his great-great grandfather, LostCousins member Alan came across a post mortem for a William Pearce in the archives of St George’s Hospital Medical School – you can see it here. The deceased had fallen from a great height, causing catastrophic damage to his head and spine – but there was nothing to indicate where the accident had taken place, and because no age was recorded he couldn’t even be certain that it was his ancestor.
It was only when Alan purchased a digital image of the GRO death register that he was able to confirm that his great-great grandfather had died while working on the Crystal Palace, just 10 days before it was due to open to the public:
This article on the English Heritage website explains how important the Great Exhibition was, and reproduces the comments that Queen Victoria wrote in her journal, after opening the exhibition:
‘The tremendous cheering, the joy expressed in every face, the vastness of the building, with all its decoration and exhibits…. all this was indeed moving, and a day to live for ever. God bless my dearest Albert, and my dear Country, which has shown itself so great today.’
Did any of your ancestors help to build the Crystal Palace and, if so, were they killed or injured during its construction? Alan’s discovery hints at a possible cover-up, and as the 175th Anniversary of the exhibition approaches, surely it’s about time that the truth was told?
Do you have ancestors from the Waltham Forest area? FREE ONLINE TALK
At 10am on Saturday 4th October we’ll be hearing from Waltham Forest Family History Society about how they can help you research ancestors from Walthamstow, Chingford, Waltham Abbey and the surrounding area. My 3G grandfather was born in Walthamstow, and baptised there in 1805, so I’ll certainly be listening carefully – and I hope that you’ll be able to join us.
To book your place at the live talk – or indicate your interest in viewing the recording – simply log into your LostCousins account (yes, you DO have an account otherwise you wouldn’t have received an email telling you about this newsletter), then go to the My Events page. There you’ll also find recordings of talks given by family history societies earlier in the year – they’re all free.
My copy of Computeractive dated 10-23 September arrived in the post at the weekend, so I’ve had chance to look through the different options suggested.
I’m not going to attempt to summarise a detailed 7-page article, but suffice it to say that the option of signing up for an extra year of support (see my recent article) still looks like the best choice for the vast majority, especially those of you who are more interested in what a computer can do than how it does it. It may only be a one year extension, but who knows what Microsoft will come up with as the 2026 deadline approaches?
Many of you will be able to access Computeractive through your local library (even in New Zealand, apparently), but if not the £3.20 cover price seems modest when you consider how important genealogy is to you. There’s also an article on how to transfer your files to a new Windows 11 computer should you choose to go down that route (and, by the way, when I last checked HP still had this brand-new Windows 11 laptop reduced from £449.99 to £279).
AI doesn’t always get it right…..
This week I decided to check the cost of a subscription to Essex Archives Online, which offers online access to parish registers and some other documents held by Essex Record Office.
Here’s the AI Overview (produced by Gemini, Google’s own AI):
Complete tosh! Essex Archives Online still offers subscriptions from 24 hours to 365 days.
In this case I knew it was rubbish, but I might not have done had I posed a different question. I’ve submitted feedback – let’s see if they take any notice!
Note: I’m sure many of you will have encountered similarly ludicrous examples. Please DON’T send them to me: if you feel you must share them, post them on the LostCousins Forum (see above).
The first week of EDF’s Sunday Saver challenge has just ended, and the good news is that my wife and have qualified for 12 hours of free electricity between 8am and 8pm this coming Sunday. It wasn’t difficult – we simply avoided having showers or using our washing machine between 4pm-7pm on weekdays. Should you be considering a change of energy supplier (EDF also sell gas) use this link and you’ll qualify for a £50 bill credit if you choose EDF (we’ll also get a bill credit).
At one point last week there were 14 titles in the Tracing Your Ancestors…. series which were available in Kindle format for just 99p in the UK; currently there are 9, but this could change by the time you read this it could be higher or lower. Please follow this link for the latest list.
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......
That’s all for now – my sister is arriving from Devon shortly to stay for a few days, and as we haven’t seen each other face-to-face for a couple of years we’re bound to have lots to talk about. So please excuse me if I seem slow to reply to an email.
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2025 Peter Calver
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