Newsletter - 15th October 2019
2021 Census revealed EXCLUSIVE
Will log-jam seems to be
easing
We're still discovering parts of the human genome
Genetic solutions for genetic problems
Can you inherit more DNA from one parent than the
other?
Ancestry launch DNA-based health service BREAKING NEWS
Christopher Eccleston - Who Does He Think He Is?
Single - but "on the look out"
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published
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2021
Census revealed EXCLUSIVE
In the last issue I mentioned that several LostCousins
members were involved in the rehearsal for the 2021 Census (Sunday 13th October
was the effective date).
Thanks to those members I now
have a copy of the 2021 Census form - you'll find it here on the dedicated site
(2021Census.com) that I've created as a repository for information about the
2021 Census. It's rather basic at the moment, but then
there isn't much to tell you - I'll update the site as more information becomes
available.
Sadly the Office for National Statistics haven't taken up
our suggestion that respondents should provide their precise birthplace, and
are simply going to ask for the country - as has been the case in every other
census since 1961. Since I was born in 1950, my birthplace was stated in the
1951 Census, but anyone younger than me will never have given this crucial information
- and that's more than half the population!
Since this could well be the
last census of its type it's a shame that the ONS hasn't taken the opportunity
to record this information for posterity - even if it was just the county of
birth it would help! Unfortunately it looks as if the
family historians of the future are going to be faced with quite a challenge!
Tip: the form includes
pages for up to 5 members of a household, many of which are essentially
identical; the short version, which will download more quickly, includes only
the general pages for the household, plus the pages for one individual household
member.
Will log-jam seems to be easing
Judging from recent
contributions to the discussion on the LostCousins Forum the Probate Service
(or rather, their contractors) are at last beginning to clear the backlog of
wills, many ordered as long ago as July, and supposedly due for delivery more
than 2 months ago.
If you want to contribute to
the discussion but are not currently a member of the forum, check your My Summary page to see if you qualify. The forum is a privilege reserved for
members who are taking part in my project to connect cousins around the world -
and whilst most could qualify, it will require about an hour of your time if you’re
starting from scratch. Simply add to your My Ancestors page as many
as possible of the relatives you can find on the 1881 censuses (all the
information you need is available free online).
Tip: remember that ALL of
your living cousins are descended from the branches of your tree, so the fact
that your direct ancestors weren't recorded in 1881 makes little difference to
your chances of finding 'lost cousins'. A good strategy is to start in 1841, or
earlier if you can, then track each twig and branch using censuses and BMD
indexes (especially the new GRO birth and death indexes).
Please
don't write to me about delays in fulfilling your order - that's what the
forum discussion is for - but I would be interested to hear about any discoveries
you've made in the wills received recently that have solved a mystery or revealed
a new branch of your tree.
We're still
discovering parts of the human genome
When you take an autosomal
DNA test your genome is sampled at around 700,000 specific points which are
known to vary - but although these positions are defined by reference to the standard
reference genome that was generated by the Human Genome Project, the reality is
that there is no 'standard'. For genealogical purposes this doesn’t matter -
the aim is to find cousins who share the same DNA segments, irrespective of
what is in the standard reference genome - but when it comes to medical
applications, it's crucially important that sections of DNA aren't ignored
simply because they don't appear in the reference genome.
A recent study
which involved sequencing the genomes of 1000 Swedes (the people, not the
vegetables), found 61,000 novel genetic sequences that are missing from the reference
genome. Not simply different, but missing. A handful of these sequences were
found in genes that can cause disease, and as one of the researchers said
"These are sequences that we don’t interrogate today because they are not
in the human reference genome - so if they are somehow linked to disease, we
wouldn’t know about it.”
Studies of other populations
have found similar omissions. Bearing in mind that one of the most promising
avenues of genetic research is the possibility of developing medicines and treatments
that are customised to the individual, researchers can't afford to ignore
sections of DNA simply because they aren't in the reference genome.
Genetic solutions
for genetic problems
Many genetic diseases are
very rare - and for good reason, if the sufferers don’t live long enough to
have children they can't pass on their tainted legacy. This story of a girl with a rare
genetic disease provides a glimpse of what might, just might, be possible in
the future.
Can you
inherit more DNA from one parent than the other?
It's well-established - we
inherit two sets of autosomes (chromosomes 1 to 22), and one set comes from each
parent. Except when it doesn't work like that....
An article
last week in The Atlantic reports that a study of DNA from 4.4 million
customers of 23andMe and 430,000 donors to the UK Biobank found 675 cases where
an individual had inherited two copies of the same chromosome from one parent
(and none from the other), a condition known as 'uniparental disomy'.
This doesn’t necessarily lead
to ill-health - but it can. It could also have a small impact on genealogical
DNA testing
Ancestry
launch DNA-based health service BREAKING NEWS
Last week Ancestry confirmed
their plans to offer genetic health tests direct to consumers, but gave no
prices, dates, or other specifics (you can read the Bloomberg article here).
Today the company launched AncestryHealth (which will initially be available only
within the US) - you can read the announcement from the CEO, Margo Georgiadis, here.
The Core service makes use of existing technology to provide reports on 9 health
conditions as well as 8 'wellness' reports. At the same time Ancestry are also
introducing a Family Health History tool that can be used to map health
conditions onto a family tree.
Ancestry have stated that
most existing DNA customers will not be required to submit a new sample. I
suspect that these are the users whose test was processed using Ancestry's latest
(v2) chip, which was introduced during May 2016 - but if your test was
processed using the earlier chip Ancestry wlll
provide a new kit free of charge when you sign up for AncestryHealth.
AncestryHealth Core costs $49; AncestryHealth
Plus costs $49 per 6 months, plus an initial $49 payment to cover AncestryHealth Core. But many of the advanced features of AncestryHealth Plus won't be available until early next
year - it will make use of next generation sequencing technology to examine
millions of markers in your genes and provide far
more information than is possible with existing, chip-based, technology. If you
follow this link
you should be able to read more about what AncestryHealth
Plus will offer.
Healthcare is, rightly,
heavily-regulated - which is why Ancestry are initially launching only in the
US. In fact, checking the small print I note that it isn't yet possible to buy AncestryHealth if you live in New York, New Jersey, or
Rhode Island. Here in Britain we have a publicly-funded service, the National
Health Service, so it will be interesting to see how Ancestry adapt their offering
when it eventually launches.
Although the first story had
an unhappy beginning, I'm glad to say it had a happy ending (names have been
changed to protect the living).
"My
adoption story reaches back almost a century, to the years just after the First
World War. My mother, brought up by her mother, a
single parent 'in service' as a housekeeper in a great many situations, knew
that an elder sister had died 'of a fit' before she was born. Her father, she
was told, had died 'of shrapnel', though as my mother was born a few years after
the war my grandfather can't have been killed in action. My grandmother worked
hard to keep her daughter, and no one had ever questioned the story - there were
many children without fathers in that post-WW1 generation.
"When
my mother was in her 80s she became curious about the
sister who had died as a baby. Granny had kept her photo - a lovely child with
beautiful curls - 'that was little baby Agnes' she had told me, and cried, but
later she destroyed it.
"I
started to look for Agnes, found her birth certificate, born to Granny and her
soldier husband, a few years after the Great War. But the only death registered
in her unusual surname was clearly another child of an unrelated family. I put
our family tree on a website - but what to do about Agnes, so long
unacknowledged? I decided her short life deserved recognition, and added her.
"A
couple of years later I received some curious and, at the time, disturbing
emails via that website, from Agnes's daughter-in-law! We had an emotional
phone conversation. It turned out that Agnes hadn't died, she had been adopted,
her name changed, and was alive and well in another part of the country. The
family sent me some documents, including a copy of the lovely photograph
(probably an adoption photograph) and the papers for her adoption, which had
taken place through a recognised society. They were signed by Granny in her
recognisable handwriting. It was amazing that the papers had survived, considering
that this was all before adoption was legally-regulated (from 1927 onwards).
"By
this time both sisters were in their late 80s, and prevented by frailty and
distance from meeting. They spoke on the phone but their initial euphoria (I’ve
got a sister!) turned to disappointment.
"Both
felt betrayed by my grandmother. Agnes had been given away - 'Why?' she has
asked many times, and of course we don't know. Clearly the marriage had not
lasted, and probably money was a large factor. My mother felt she had been
deceived by her mother who she was very close to all her life, sharing a room
and often a bed too, until my mother’s marriage. She cared for her mother
through many illnesses, and gave her a home until she died aged 72. Granny had
never told my mother the truth. Having given up Agnes, she was expecting my
mother within a matter of months.
"I
went to meet Agnes and felt an instant affinity. She looked, and sounded, and
behaved just like my much-loved grandmother. And finally, another family member
solved the transport problem and a four-generation group came to meet my
mother, by this time in a nursing home. Mother and Agnes, both in wheelchairs,
held hands and said You're my sister'. It could have gone either way, but was a
magical moment. Sadly my mother died unexpectedly soon
afterwards so that was their only meeting - ever.
"Agnes
herself is now confined to bed in a nursing home and in her late 90s. She has
her own family nearby who care for her and although physically frail she is
bright and alert, and takes an interest in everything. She is always a joy to
visit and I do feel a great closeness to her, as if she had always been part of
my life.
I
know there were times when my mother had regrets and didn't cope very well with
the knowledge of what she considered her mother's deception. I feel that
Granny, having given up her first child, regarded her as dead. She knew she would never see her again and it
was her way of coping. She then struggled to keep my mother in the face of many
difficulties.
"We
don't know what happened to her husband, who may or may not have been the
father of both girls. His military records are a masterpiece of filing and show
that he served in both wars, using two names, but after that the trail runs
cold.
"So
- it has been a rollercoaster ride along the way, and I am sorry that it has
caused some sadness and unanswered questions as well as happiness, but I am
truly glad that we made the 90-year journey. Granny would have been truly amazed and I hope she would have been glad, too."
In time DNA testing may
reveal more of the story. If there is a postscript to the story
I hope to be able to bring it to you in a future newsletter. Meanwhile, I'd
like to share with you this addendum to a story published last November about a
member who had been forced to give up her baby, a little girl, in 1960 (you can
read the original article here):
"I
have already told you my adoption story and how my daughter found me - I now
have an update. Naturally, my daughter had asked me about her father but all I
knew was that at some stage he had married and gone to Australia. He never knew
I was pregnant as my parents forbade me to contact him.
"Fast
forward to a couple of months ago, and the daughter I'd given up for adoption
decided to have her DNA done. Imagine her surprise when, before she even
realised her results had been put up on Ancestry, she was contacted by someone
in Australia. It turned out to be a half-sister who had no idea that her dad
had fathered a child previously. Sadly he had died over 20 years ago, in his
late 50s, from cancer.
"Despite
this being such a shock for his family in Australia they have all welcomed my daughter
with open arms and have told her all about her father. My daughter has sent
me photographs of her half-sister and apart from different hair and eye
colouring, you can tell instantly that they are sisters. In fact, she looks much
more like her Australian family than she does me and my family.
"So the baby I gave up for adoption all those years ago now
has a happy outcome to her search for both her birth parents - albeit it too
late to actually meet her birth father."
There's no doubt that DNA
testing sometimes uncovers secrets that, with the benefit of hindsight, we'd
rather not have known about - but almost all the stories I hear are like this
one, about families being brought back together - rather than torn apart, as the
sensational headlines in the mainstream media would have us believe.
Of course, some of us are
more cautious than others, and some of us are more pessimistic about what DNA
tests will reveal. If you fall into either of those categories then I recommend
you bear in mind that if there is a dark secret in your family history,
being involved in the discovery enables you to manage the situation so that the
positive benefits are maximised, and any possible downsides are minimised.
Turning your back on DNA risks
putting someone else in the driving seat, someone who doesn't have the perspective
that reading this newsletter provides - someone who might who might blunder
through your family like a bull in a china shop.
You know what they say about
"too many cooks", but there are two Cooks who changed the attitude of
Britons towards travel.
Captain James Cook was the
first European to circumnavigate New Zealand, and to sail to the east coast of
Australia and the Hawaiian Islands - where he was killed in 1779. There are no living
descendants of Captain Cook, but his legacy lives on thanks to the millions of
Australians and New Zealanders of British origins - and in 1934 his parents'
last home, known as Captain Cook's Cottage (though it's uncertain whether he
himself ever lived there) was moved from the site in Great Ayton, North
Yorkshire where it was constructed in 1755, and reassembled, brick by brick in
Melbourne, where it still stands.
Coincidentally, Melbourne
also features in the story of another Cook: Thomas Cook (no relation to James) was
born in the village of Melbourne in South Derbyshire - and he too left a great
legacy. Though the travel company that he built eventually succumbed to competition
from the Internet (I can't remember the last time I used a travel agent, but it
must have been over 20 years ago), it linked an age when most people worked 6
days a week, 52 weeks a year, with no paid holidays, to the current era of several
weeks paid vacation time, plus Bank Holidays.
Just one month after the 1841
Census was taken, the first excursion organised by Thomas Cook took 485 people
by train from Leicester to a teetotal rally in Loughborough - at one shilling
per person for the return journey the cost was 3 or 4 times higher (in relation
to wages) than one would pay today, but if you only consider the change in the Retail
Price Index it's half the price of today's off-peak tickets. By the time of
Great Exhibition in 1851 Thomas Cook's business had expanded so much that he
was able to take 150,000 people to London during the five and a half months
that it was open to the public.
The first overseas excursion
came in 1855, followed by trips to North America a decade later, and in 1869 Thomas
Cook chartered two steamships to take travellers up the Nile - this was the
same year that the journalist Henry Morton Stanley (born in Wales in 1841, just
a few months before Cook's inaugural tour) was commissioned to search for Dr David
Livingstone.
Thomas Cook went into
partnership with his son, John Mason Cook, who opened a new head office in Ludgate
Circus, London - but by 1878 the disputes between the two were such that Thomas
decided to let his son take over the travel business that bore his name, whilst
he himself set up a chain of coffee and cocoa houses in the Leicester area. You
can read more about Thomas Cook on the Story of Leicester website.
Hansard records
that in 1991 Thomas Cook was described by Lord (Geoffrey) Rippon as the inventor
of the traveller's cheque, but whilst he certainly popularised them from 1874
onwards, they had been in existence for over a century - they were first issued
by the London Credit Exchange Company.in 1772, around the same time that centralised
clearing of cheques was introduced (bank clerks would meet daily at the Five
Bells tavern in London's Lombard Street).
The words "Dr
Livingstone, I presume" may never have been spoken by Stanley, but I can
remember being told about them at a very early age, possibly at Sunday School. Henry
Morton Stanley was commissioned by his editor to find Livingstone - but the
task I'm going to set you is to find Stanley!
According to Wikipedia Henry
Morton Stanley was born John Rowlands on 28th January 1841 in Denbigh, the
illegitimate son of Elizabeth Parry, but brought up in his early years by Moses
Parry, his maternal grandfather. Wikipedia and other sources record that his
birth certificate referred to him as a bastard, but I've never seen that description
on a birth certificate.
I had a quick look for the
birth of John Rowlands or John Parry in the GRO birth index, but in the short
time available I couldn't find an entry that fitted - nor could I find John in
the 1841 Census. I think it's about time that the information on Wikipedia was
checked (and updated if necessary), so perhaps the members of the LostCousins
Forum can succeed where I failed? If you're not already a member of the forum check
to see whether there is an invitation on your My Summary page - please don't
write to me direct (this is a challenge for forum members only).
Note: I did find Stanley's
autobiography online, but it didn’t seem to answer any of my questions.
Christopher
Eccleston - Who Does He Think He Is?
Christopher Eccleston is one
of my favourite actors, but I don’t think he did himself any favours when he whinged
about his rejection by the makers of Who Do You Think You Are?
Anyone who has followed the
programme since the beginning - and it's only a few months younger than
LostCousins - will know that numerous celebrities have been rejected over the
years because - after a great deal of intensive research - nothing has been
discovered that would make the programme both interesting and entertaining for
viewers.
My ancestors were also poor
and uninteresting (except to me), and even if I became a celebrity overnight it
wouldn’t make my ancestors any more interesting to the viewers of BBC1. If you
want to know more about the workings of WDYTYA? you'll find a talk given
by Nick Barratt when you follow this link.
Single - but
"on the look out"
A LostCousins member sent me
this amusing entry from the 1911 Census:
© Crown Copyright Image
reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England and by
permission of Findmypast.
But much more interesting is
what happened next.... I'll tell you more about Miss Eva Burren in the next
issue.
If you've taken an autosomal
DNA test please consider contributing to the research
being carried out by Gabrielle Samuel of King's College:
I’m a social science researcher
at King’s College London University. My research involves looking people’s
views on police searching genealogy DNA databases in as part of their criminal
investigations.
I’m looking to speak to people
(over 18) from the UK, who have had their DNA sequenced (and/or uploaded this
to a genealogy site), about their views on this police
searching. I can explain the details of it if you have not heard of it before.
It will involve one interview (very casual) of about 30 mins (shorter or longer
if you prefer), via phone or in written format.
Unfortunately, I’m unable to
compensate you for participating, and for the time and effort you will put into
this. Though, I hope that your participation will contribute to building a
picture of the types of issues of concern (or not) people have about this
technology, which can contribute towards decision-making at the governance
level.
If you have any questions or concerns, or if you are happy to participate in the study, please contact me at gabrielle.samuel@kcl.ac.uk
Note: please don't volunteer
if you are a user of social media - Gabrielle already has sufficient
participants with that profile.
I first visited the antiques
warehouse in Ely, Cambridgeshire a quarter of a century ago, some years before
I was inspired to start researching my family tree. When I revisited recently I found an excellent selection of books related to family
history, and purchased several. One of them was Clandestine Marriage in
England 1500-1850 by R B Outhwaite. Published in
1995, it deals with marriages which were - to use an anachronism - 'under the
radar', and which ultimately led to the 1753 legislation that most of us know
as Lord Hardwicke's Act.
I suspect the book is out of
print - the few new copies available on Amazon are VERY expensive. But there
were several used copies available through Amazon Marketplace at around £10 (including
UK shipping), or about $20 in North America - I'd snap them up if I were you,
as this book is a classic!
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca
I recently commented on the
fact that these days, children living at home rarely contribute to the
housekeeping, even when they're working. So I wasn't surprised to read this Daily
Mail article,
which highlights the extra cost of having sons because - on average - they stay
at home for 4 years longer.
Being
taller than average I tend to walk faster than most - so I was heartened to
read that people who walk faster tend to age more slowly (though which is the
cause, and which the effect isn’t immediately obvious). You can read more about
the research in this article
on the BBC News site.
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, but I'll be back later this month - then in November I'll have a free
genealogical mystery for you to download, not a short story, or a novella, but
a whole book!
Peter Calver
Founder,
LostCousins
© Copyright 2019
Peter Calver
Please do NOT copy or
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instead, since standard membership (which includes the newsletter), is FREE?