Newsletter – 7th
November 2024
ALL RECORDS FREE AT FINDMYPAST ENDS MONDAY
Armistice Day was not
the end of the war
Another serial
enlister who fought in WW1
How 5 minutes this
weekend can save you hours
1939 National
Register
First WW2 records
online at Ancestry NEW
Peter’s Tips
Stop
Press
The LostCousins
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ALL RECORDS FREE AT FINDMYPAST ENDS MONDAY
The
last three weekends have seen a succession of free resources at Findmypast as
we approach Remembrance Sunday. We began with free access to military records
and censuses (though not the 1921 Census), continued with free access to the
British Newspaper Archive (the largest online collection of historical British
newspaper), then last weekend the 1939 Register allowed us to see many of the
soldiers who returned home from the Great War, as well as many of those about
to serve in the Second World War. This time EVERYTHING at Findmypast is free,
so it’s a chance to explore parish records, migration records, school records, electoral
registers – and much more.
Not
only is it a long time since Findmypast have offered completely free access to
their site, it’s the first time that the 1921 Census
has EVER been free online!
What
will I be looking at? Well, I’ve been a Findmypast subscriber since they first
offered subscriptions (before they were even called Findmypast, in fact), so
I won’t be doing anything differently – but that long experience allows me to
give you some advice about how to make the most of this incredible opportunity!
·
Search differently: if you’re more used to searching at
other genealogy sites you’ll struggle at Findmypast because the search
techniques required are rather different. Rather than entering everything you
know on the search form, be more frugal – I generally enter the minimum, then refine
the search if I get too many results.
·
Use wildcards liberally: spelling wasn’t considered
important until the 19th century and surnames continued changing into
the 20th century. To complicate matters further, images can be
blurred and handwriting ambiguous – so there are bound to be transcription
errors. When I’m searching there are often as many wildcards as there are
letters in the surname I enter – I omit most vowels and include the minimum of
consonants. But you don’t need to worry about forenames – by default Findmypast
include common alternative spellings, as well as variations like ‘Harry’ for ‘Henry’,
or ‘Bert’ for any number of forenames!
·
Search specific record sets: confining your search
to a particular record set – such as ‘Kent baptisms’ – allows you to be more
flexible in your searching. One key difference between Findmypast and Ancestry
is that whereas Ancestry segment their records
according to the provider, Findmypast organise them more thematically which helps
to overcome problems caused by changes in county and municipal boundaries. Findmypast
also combine transcribed records (with no images) with indexed records (which
do have source images), which simplifies searching.
·
Focus on parish registers: most LostCousins
members are researching in the 1500s to the 1700s, a period when parish
registers may be the only surviving records that mention our ancestors
by name. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to find and download images of your
ancestors’ baptisms, marriages, and burials – provided you have the images you
can transcribe the facts later. If you have the time, also download the baptisms,
marriages, and burials of your ancestors’ siblings; it’s not only good
practice, you’ll often find useful clues, such as
maiden names in baptism entries, or the names of marriage witnesses.
·
Download images, copy transcripts: remember to click the
download button so that you have a copy of the images relevant to your research
on your own computer. For transcribed records (or BMD index entries and others
where the transcript is more informative than the image), click the Copy to
clipboard button and paste the information into your family tree program.
(And if you don’t have a family tree program that runs on your own computer, perhaps
that’s something to sort out next week?)
For
a more detailed guide see the Masterclass How
to get the most from Findmypast
– it was last revised in June last year so some of the screenshots might be
slightly out of date, but it’s great way to ensure you make the most of this
weekend’s opportunities. This offer ends at 11.59pm (London time) on Monday 11th
November, which is the 106th anniversary of Armistice Day.
Please use the relevant link below to get to the
Findmypast site of your choice:
Search
FREE at Findmypast.co.uk
Search
FREE at Findmypast.com.au
As
previously, you will need to log-in (or register if you haven’t done so
previously), but you won’t need to provide any payment details or make any
commitments (whatever you do, DON’T click Free
Trial).
Armistice Day was not the end of the war
At
11am on the 11th day of the 11th month the Armistice took effect, but – as you
can see from the newspaper clipping below – it was not necessarily the end of
the war, only a temporary cessation for 36 days. In practice the armistice had
to be extended three times, and it was only in January 1920 that a permanent peace
treaty came into force.
Image
© National World Publishing Ltd. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY
BOARD. Used by kind permission of Findmypast
Because
fighting might restart if peace negotiations broke down both sides continued firing
until the last minute – and according to this BBC article from
2008 there were thousands of casualties on what proved to be the last day. You
can see a BBC documentary entitled The Last Day of World War One if you
follow this link.
If
you have time this weekend, take a look at what British
newspapers had to say at the time: historians can look back with the benefit of
hindsight, but newspaper reporters didn’t have that luxury.
Another serial enlister who fought in WW1
A
few weeks ago I published the first half of an article
by military historian and LostCousins member John Sly, and I know that many of
you have been waiting eagerly for the second instalment. The first article was
about William Sigsworth alias John Aker, and if you missed it, or would like to
read it again, you’ll find it here.
My second soldier changed his name only once. He too had
a history of moving from one unit to another, and
managed in his time to serve in all three Armed Services. Frederick Edward
Goodwin (registered as Edward Frederick) was born 14 March 1881 at 5 Lower
Church Lane, Bristol, the son of Edward Goodwin, a French polisher. In the
census of that year he appears as a one month old,
born St Michael’s, Bristol. In the 1891 census he appears living with his
family, now at 21 Burrith Street, Middlesbrough, as
Edward F Goodwin, age ten years, born Glosters [sic], but this is the only time his name is rendered in this
way in an official document apart from his birth certificate. He next appears
enlisting for the Militia Battalion of the Queen’s Royal West Surrey Regiment
in London on 17 July 1900, number 1331. He used his full name,
and stated his correct birthplace (Bristol) and age (nineteen years
three months). Interestingly there were two physical features that made it easy
to recognise him in all future service documents. He
was only five feet two inches tall, relatively short for a nineteen
year old, and he had a distinctive birth mark on the top of his head.
On 14
August 1900 he attested for the Liverpool Regiment at Guildford, number 7025. He
gave his next of kin as his father Edward Goodwin at 27 Middle Bank Street,
Stockton on Tees, Durham. Again he used his birth name,
and gave his other details correctly; he was immediately identifiable by his
short stature and birthmark. He joined the regiment at Warrington on 15 August.
He was posted to 2nd Battalion on 21
November, but six months later on 29 March 1901 he was marked ‘absent’, and declared a
deserter on 20 June. In red ink underneath this statement was written: ‘Irreg enlisted as No 16754 Gunner Frederick Palmer 99th
Battery RFA’.
Fortunately a service record for this enlistment exists: ‘Frederick E Palmer’ attested
at Dublin on 4 June 1901 for the 99th Battery RFA. He claimed to
have been born in Clifton, Bristol, to be twenty years old, and to be a labourer. This time his father was Edward Palmer of
New-bank Street, Glasgow. His height was five feet two and a quarter
inches, and he had a birth mark on top of his head. In this record his
service sheet is a fascinating history of crime. He was posted Driver on 23
July 1901, but by 25 October he was awaiting trial, and sentenced to fifty-six
days imprisonment. Then, again in red ink: ‘Fraudulently enlisted as above
whilst in a state of desertion from the 2nd Bn King’s Liverpool Regt
wherein he served as No. 7025 Pte Frederick Edwin [sic] Goodwin…’ He
was imprisoned again on 15 April 1902 for 122 days, but this was remitted to
fifty-one days, and he was discharged on 4 June as ‘incorrigible & worthless’.
Anyone
would think that Fred Goodwin had had enough of the Army by now, but that was
not the case. After ‘incorrigible & worthless’ once again came the
red ink: ‘Irregularly enlisted into 53rd Battery RFA on 26 August
1902 as No 25815 Dr F E Goodwin. Tried therein and sentenced to 1 years Impt with H[ard] L[abour] and discharged with ignominy on 19-2-03’. Yet
again there is a surviving service sheet which records his ability to pass the
attestation process.
This
time he changed his name back to Frederick Edward Goodwin, but his birthplace
was now Islington, he was twenty-one years five months old, and a labourer. His next of kin was his father at 32 Remington
Street, City Road, EC. He was still five feet two and a quarter
inches, but this time he had no distinctive marks – I wonder what
happened to that birthmark? He was posted to 53 Battery on 5 November 1902, but
the next entry on the service sheet was the inevitable red ink: ‘Found to
have previously served in the 99th Battery RFA as No 16754 RFA.
Driver Frederick Edward Palmer. Discharged therefrom as Incorrigible & Worthless
on 6th of June 1902’. Inevitably he was discharged with ignominy
4 March 1903, but another red colour entry on the
sheet read: ‘Impt [Imprisonment] expires 22 Feb
1904.’
By this
time Goodwin had spent a large part of the time between July 1900 and February
1904 either awaiting trial or serving a sentence in a military prison. He must
have known how every fraudulent enlistment would end, and I cannot believe that
he actively enjoyed being locked up. It is difficult to understand the
psychology of this choice of career, as he was gaining nothing from it. What
happened next is almost incredible: he enlisted yet again, in his own name,
this time on 3 January 1905, number 7997, in the Yorkshire Regiment, just like
William Sigsworth a decade earlier - and he did not desert again.
In fact he appears to have prospered. Tracing his career
through the Green Howards Gazette was not very easy as the editor
clearly decided to reduce the amount of regimental comings
and goings and expanded the amount of regimental history. I managed to find a
reference to him being on a draft from the Depot to 1/Yorkshire Regiment at
Aldershot on 17 April 1905, and his posting to 2nd Battalion in South
Africa on 16 March 1906.
Continuing
to search the GHG I found several references to a ‘Pte Goodwin’ as a
goal-scoring forward in the 1/Battalion football team in the year 1910, and a
photograph was published of the team after it had won the large unit league in
Egypt. I appreciate, of course, that a number of ‘Privates
Goodwin’ could have been in the battalion at that time, but the caption of the
photograph identifies a player who could easily be the diminutive Frederick
Edward of that ilk, which is unfortunately not forensically reliable, but plausible.
Perhaps being successful at something physical had given the ‘incorrigible
and worthless’ recruit a discipline that extended to soldiering.
Goodwin
appears in the 1911 census with 1/Yorkshire Regiment at the British Barracks,
Khartoum; he was described as age twenty-nine, born Clifton, Bristol, which is
accurate for the Frederick Goodwin I am researching. Clearly there was a
certain amount of transferring of soldiers from one battalion to another which
was not detailed in the Green Howards Gazette; Goodwin, because his MIC
clearly shows his date of disembarkation in France as 5 October, the date of
the disembarkation of the 2nd Battalion, had transferred back to the
2nd Battalion between March 1911 and August 1914.
His
name does not appear in the GHG among the wounded of the 2nd
Battalion who went through 1st Ypres, Neuve Chapelle, Aubers Ridge, Festubert, Givenchy, and Loos. Whether he was present at
any or all of these actions is impossible to say. It
is only reasonable that even in the fiercest fighting some men will escape
injury, but for a soldier who was at 1st Ypres to escape injury for
nearly two years is remarkable. He was, however, mentioned as wounded in the
fighting of July 1916, and as 2nd Battalion was involved from the
first day he could have been wounded at almost any
time in that month.
He next
appears on a roll of the Silver War Badge, dated 10 October 1917, which gives
his discharge date as 5 October 1917. There is no indication whether his
discharge was owing to sickness or wounds, but further data would indicate
sickness. There is a record of him held by the Green Howards Museum; it is a
record card, with no reference, listing units and service numbers which seemed
to have no relevance to the information I already had. Two Yorkshire Regiment
numbers were there, 7997 and 4380790, the latter belonging to a group of
numbers allocated to the Green Howards when regimental numbers were superseded
by Army numbers in 1921. This also makes sense of the fact that the medal roll
listing Goodwin’s entitlement to the British War & Victory Medals is
annotated ‘Still serving’. However, this roll lists his regimental
number as 66659, a number not recorded on the Green Howards Museum record card,
although this is perhaps not surprising giving the
amount of confusion after the end of the war, when rapid demobilisation
was required.
If
Goodwin wished to continue in the military despite having been discharged in
1917, those additional numbers might have some significance. There were two RAF
numbers, which meant nothing to me, until I discovered two more service records
for Goodwin. The first was an enlistment into the Royal Naval Air Service,
number F 48919, dated 31 January 1918, height five feet three inches, with a
birthmark on top of his head; it gave his correct date of birth and address. On
1 April 1918 Goodwin was ‘absorbed’ into the RAF as Aircraftsman I at Lerwick. This
document is interesting in that it records correctly the dates of his Yorkshire
Regiment service and discharge as Corporal (more precisely Acting Corporal). He
was also identified by his shortness (five feet three inches) and his
birthmark. He was promoted Corporal on 31 July 1918, and discharged on 30 April
1920, address 191 Grange Road East, Middlesbrough. It must have been after this
date that he re-enlisted in the Green Howards, hence the two different numbers.
After
this there is little to trace Frederick Goodwin. There
is no record of a marriage. He appears in the 1939
Register as being with the City of London Corporation ARP Demolition and Rescue
as a builder’s labourer at St Martin’s Pipe Subway.
His date of birth was recorded incorrectly as 15 March 1881, but this date had
been used instead of the correct date (14 March) on every occasion during his
career. He was recorded as single. There is no doubt
that this is the same man who first attested for the Queen’s Royal West Surrey
Regiment Militia in July 1900. Unfortunately it has
been impossible to trace a reliable date of death for him.
Many
thanks to John for his excellent examples – I wonder how many other soldiers
changed their identity without leaving any obvious trail?
Since John wrote the original article the 1921 England & Wales census has
been published by Findmypast, and I noticed that there is a Frederick Goodwin
aged 40 yrs and 2 months and born Bristol who was serving in an infantry regiment
of the British Army:
©
The National Archives – All Rights Reserved. Used by kind permission of
Findmypast
You’ll
recall that the 1921 Census was delayed to 19th June, so if this is the
same Frederick Goodwin he was actually 40 years and 3 months
old. And where was he serving?
©
The National Archives – All Rights Reserved. Used by kind permission of
Findmypast
I
wonder what discoveries you’ll make in the 1922 Census this weekend?
How 5 minutes this weekend can save you hours
With the exception of the US censuses, all
of the entries on your My Ancestors page have a grey or red ‘checking’
arrow in front of the census references: click this arrow and an automatic
census search is carried out, which – depending on the country – could be at
Ancestry, FamilySearch or Findmypast. All of the England & Wales census
searches are performed at Findmypast , and whilst you
don’t need a subscription to carry out a search at Findmypast (or to view their
transcripts of 1881 England & Wales entries) you do need to be logged-in.
(See this newsletter article
from March for an illustrated example.)
Since
just about everyone reading this newsletter is going to be logged-in at
Findmypast this weekend it’s a good time to use those little arrows to very quickly
check your entries from the England & Wales censuses (you only need to
click one arrow from each household). I suggest focusing on 1841 and 1911
because for those two censuses we use the information shown in the image (where
this differs from the transcript), so a glance at the search results won’t
necessarily tell you what you should have entered.
Of
course, this is also a great opportunity to download those census pages if you
haven’t already got them stored on your computer because it’ll take just a few
seconds. If the household extends onto a second page that’s not a problem –
click the arrow to the far right of the image, and about half-way down (it’s quite
small, so easily missed if your eyes are as bad as mine).
Note:
see the Help information on your My Ancestors page for an explanation of why some
arrows are red, and why this should act as a warning (don’t worry it doesn’t
mean you’ve made a mistake, only that you need to take a little more care).
Last
week I circulated an updated version of my extensive guide to the 1939 National
Register for England & Wales - if
you missed it you’ll find a copy here
(there’s also a permanent link on the Subscribers only page of the main LostCousins
website.
I
mentioned in the guide that, whether by accident or design, some people were
recorded more than once in the 1939 Register, and Alma wrote in from Canada to
tell me that the famous scientist Fred (later Sir Fred) Hoyle was one of those
recorded twice – once at the home of his future wife, Barbara Clark, in
Lincolnshire, and once in Cambridge:
©
The National Archives – All Rights Reserved. Used by kind permission of
Findmypast
©
The National Archives – All Rights Reserved. Used by kind permission of
Findmypast
Incidentally,
we’re so used to thinking of ‘Fred’ as a truncated version of
;Frederick’ that I thought I should point out that in 1915 there were
three boys born in England & Wales called ‘Fred Hoyle’ and none at all called
‘Frwederick’. Mind you, there was a war on….
In
a future issue I’ll show you an example from the 1939 National Register for
Northern Ireland – it’s quite different.
First WW2 records online at Ancestry NEW
You
will recall me reporting
last year that Ancestry had won the contracts to digitize millions of World War
2 service files over the period from 2024-2029, and the first small tranche
went online at the end of last week.
UK,
Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Service Records, 1942-1959
UK,
Selected Smaller Units Service Records, 1921-1959
Of
more immediate interest to me was a collection that I wasn’t anticipating:
UK,
British Army World War II Medal Cards, 1939-1945
The
bad news is that the images of the medal cards are hosted at Fold3, another site in the Ancestry
family, so unless you have an All Access membership
you’ll need a separate Fold3 subscription. The good news is that the miniature
images shown on the Ancestry site can be quite legible when blown up using a
graphics program such as Irfanview (which I’ve been
using ever since it was recommended to me by a LostCousins member over 15 years
ago).
Tip:
what I did was to enlarge the image using the Zoom control in my browser (Ctrl
+) before taking a screenshot (using the Print Screen key). I could then paste
the image on the clipboard into Irfanview and magnify
it further..
I
may have been lucky – my father had exceptionally good handwriting, and whereas
the WW1 medal cards were filled out by clerks, the WW2 equivalents were, in
effect, application forms.- so most of the important
information had been written by my Dad. No matter how much I magnified the image
some of the pre-printed text was illegible, though since this is the same on most
of the cards it’s not a great problem – I just needed to find ONE legible image!
Fortunately there was one here,
in a blog post by another company in the Ancestry family.
Ancestry
have also added a small collection of WW2 photographs:
UK,
World War II photographs, 1939-1945
If
you live in the UK you’ll know that the opportunities
for saving on energy bills evaporated when prices started skyrocketing – every provider
started charging the maximum allowed by the regulator. The good news is that
some companies have started offering tariffs that are guaranteed to be slightly
lower than the cap, fixed price deals have returned for those who want certainty,
and there are even some companies that offer signing-on bonuses. One company
that does all three is my provider, EDF – and if you switch tariffs after using
this link
there’s a fourth benefit, I’ll also get some money off my bill!
Do
you remember the saying about monkeys and typewriters? Well, it seems that a
couple of mathematicians in Australia had nothing better than do with their
time than prove that even if all the monkeys in the world were touch typists
they wouldn’t have a hope in hell of writing even one of Shakespeare’s plays in
the life of the universe (see this BBC article if you really
want to know more). Personally I’d be very happy if
the monkeys turned their attention to Shakespeare – right now they seem to be honing
their typing skills by creating nonsensical online family trees!
A
more heartening story from Australia reported the joy of a couple who discovered
film footage of their wedding that had been lost for 57 years – you can read
about it here, in another BBC article. Incidentally,
my own wedding footage might have been lost had I not transferred it onto DVD –
the obscure format used by my (then) state-of-the-art Sony camcorder hasn’t
been supported for years, and isn’t recognised by any
modern video editing software!
Black
Friday is three weeks away but I’m expecting that some of the best deals will
come along before then – so do watch out for my next newsletter (and keep an eye
on the Stop Press in this issue, just in case someone catches me out with a
surprise offer).
Ancestry are giving free access to all of their military records until 11.59pm
on Wednesday 13th November - so that should keep you busy after the Findmypast offer runs out on Monday!
Last, but not least, a reminder that this year’s Annual Competition
has already started. Last year over 1000 prizes were on offer ranging from
subscriptions to DNA tests to exclusive Zoom presentations, so it’s well worth
getting involved. Not only is it free, to enter you need only do something that
you OUGHT to be doing anyway – add relatives from the census to your My
Ancestors page. Just an
hour of your time could change somebody’s life (and win you a couple of prizes
in my competition).
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2024 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?
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