Newsletter – 14th
September 2023
Save 15% on Findmypast 12 month Premium subscriptions NEW 3 MONTH OPTION
Genealogy hoard returned
to rightful owner
Changing Carrs – a real life mystery story
Review: The
Deserter’s Tale OUT FRIDAY
Get Hiding the
Past absolutely FREE ENDS SUNDAY
Review: The Co-op’s
got bananas
The LostCousins
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a short period Findmypast are discounting their 12 month
Premium subscription, the only one that includes free unlimited access to the 1921
England & Wales census – you’ll save £30 at their UK site, bringing the
price down to £169.99 (which works out at just over £3 a week), and similar
amounts at their other sites around the world. Put it another way, during the
offer period you can get a Premium subscription for less than the cost of a
Pro subscription (which doesn't include the 1921 Census).
If,
like me, you didn’t ask the questions you should have done when younger, you’ll
discover that the 1921 Census fills in some of the gaps in your knowledge. When
I was young I couldn’t even remember the names of all
my great uncles and great aunts, yet now I not only know what many of them did
for a living, but also where they were working in 1921.
Findmypast
are also launching a 3 month Premium subscription – at
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over the course of a year. But perhaps 3 months is sufficient to get all the information
you need right now…..
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follow the relevant link below so that LostCousins can benefit from your
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be pleasantly surprised!
Genealogy hoard returned to rightful owner
Last
month this message was posted on the LostCousins Forum:
“Two old suitcases
full of family history documents and memorabilia have been found in a London park, I was contacted because my name and phone
number were amongst the papers. But they are not mine, although they might
relate to someone whose tree I compiled years ago. If
the surnames Horlick and Taylor are in your tree, these could be yours.”
I
followed up with the member who posted the message, and this is what she told
me:
“I was rung early
one morning by the police at Battersea Park as two battered suitcases had been
handed in, found in the bushes. The police themselves were fascinated by the
papers inside: old ration books, photos and family
history. Also my name (and I think phone number or
else they tracked me down) on one paper. Hence the phone call. There were two surnames
that stood out: Taylor and Horlick. I was puzzled. There was one mention of a
Hollick in my tree but not a Horlick. Then I remembered that I had done a
family tree for a friend who did have Horlick in her tree; she had since died.
I rang her widower, and he recognised those surnames too. That's when I posted
on the forum, just in case.
“Then I went away
and when I returned ten days later rang my friend to see what had transpired if
anything. He said he did remember vaguely someone in his wife's family having
two suitcases stolen from the boot of a car. The thieves must have seen no
value in the contents and threw the suitcases away. So
he rang the police in Battersea, gave the relative's number and she has been to
collect them.
“It sounded as if
it could have been the beginning to a novel...”
Perhaps
it WILL end up as the beginning of a novel – there are lots of talented writers
who read this newsletter!
When
I linked to Georgian
Papers Online last month I anticipated that it would be of general historical
interest rather than relevant to someone’s family tree, but Janet proved me
wrong:
“I am contacting you to say thank you for the
link to Georgian Papers Online. Using the website I
have managed to find a bill of sale relating to silk for Princess Charlotte
(daughter of George IV). The silk mercer was Philip Cooper of Pall Mall. He was
a 4x great grandfather to my husband. Previously, I have found contemporary
newspaper advertisements referring to the company supplying Royalty so now I
have the proof!
“Thank you for your hard work in producing
your newsletter which I always look forward to dropping in my inbox.”
Janet
subsequently sent me this link
to the relevant document – it’s on pages 23 to 26 – and she believes the
signature ‘M Elgin’ to be that of Princess Charlotte's governess/guardian - Martha
Bruce, Countess of Elgin and Kincardine.
Thanks
to everyone who wrote in with examples of relatives whose birthdates were registered
incorrectly – this is a topic I’ll be returning to in a future newsletter,
because it’s so important that we don’t take documents at face value just
because they’re ‘official’.
Over
the Christmas/New Year period I run a competition for members which is designed
to encourage you to enter more relatives on your My Ancestors page.
After all, if I haven’t connected you to at least half-a-dozen ‘lost cousins’
then I’ve failed – but I can’t do it without your help.
Those
of you who have figured out what LostCousins is all about might be surprised to
learn that most members have entered fewer than 100 relatives from the 1881 censuses
– and some have entered nobody at all!
In
past years prizes have been awarded based on relatives entered during the competition
period, but this year all relatives entered since the last competition ended on
31st January will count. This means that you can add entries now, or
whenever you have the time, rather than waiting for the competition to be
announced in December.
For
those of us who want to knock down the walls in our family tree the opportunity
to collaborate with experienced researchers who share the same ancestors – and the
same ‘brick walls’ – is a blessing. Not only are problems solved more easily
when two or more people put their heads together, the joy that comes with each
breakthrough is multiplied.
Whether
your ‘brick walls’ are in the 1500s, the 1600s, or the 1700s, connecting with
your ‘lost cousins’ through the 1881 Census will boost your chances of success –
whilst also benefiting your cousins. It’s a win-win situation!
Changing Carrs
– a real life mystery story
As
genealogists we’re naturally curious, but isn’t it strange how our curiosity can
lead us to make amazing discoveries, often where they’re least expected?
In
the last issue I mentioned
the next door neighbour who lent me his copy of the very first Guinness Book
of Records when I was still in short trousers. I knew him as Uncle George, but
as I wrote the review I couldn’t for the life of me remember his wife’s name.
But like any good family historian I used the resources at my fingertips to do
some digging, and what I found was so intriguing that I just kept going…..
Carr
is a fairly common surname, but I remembered that their
daughter married a policeman called Danny Eldred – and that’s a much rarer name.
I soon found the marriage at FreeBMD:
(Out
of curiosity I looked up Gwen and Danny in the modern Electoral
Registers at Findmypast – I was amazed to see that were still living in the
same house when they died in 2013 and 2017 respectively, so had been there for
over half a century.)
Now
that I had Gwen’s precise first name and middle initial it wasn’t difficult to
find her birth, and as she was born in 1920 I was able
to get a copy of the GRO birth register entry instantly for a mere £2.50:
It
was no great surprise to see that George was her father’s middle name rather
than his first name – that’s something we come across frequently in our
research. Nor was it particularly surprising to see that the birth had been registered
after precisely 6 weeks, as many people seem to have been under the illusion
that registering a birth after 42 days would incur a penalty (see this article
for more information).
However,
it was a bit of a surprise to see that her father was in the Highland Light
Infantry – I hadn’t been aware of any Scottish connection, though it’s not
necessarily something that a 10 year-old kid would have noticed and, in any
case, it’s possible that in the chaos of the Great War he had found himself in
a different regiment from the one he joined.
And
with all that information it surely wouldn’t be difficult to find the Carr-Major
marriage?
These
were the only Carr-Major marriages in the right time period,
and my first thought was that two brothers had married two sisters – not at all
unusual (in fact, there are several examples in my own tree). But when I
clicked on page 1390a there was no bride listed, and when I clicked on page
1391 this is what I saw:
Emma
A Major must surely be Gwen’s mother, but who was William M Carr? It was time
to dig deeper – I tried the 1921 Census, but Emma and Gwen were
living with Emma’s mother, presumably because Emma’s husband was still in the
army:
©
The National Archives – All Rights Reserved. Used by kind permission of Findmypast
The
address, by the way, was 28 Essex Road, Chadwell Heath – where Gwen had been
born 7 months earlier. Next I tried the 1939 Register:
©
The National Archives – All Rights Reserved. Used by kind permission of Findmypast
This
is clearly the right family, but there’s more confusion over the name of Emma’s
husband – he was recorded as William when the register was compiled in 1939,
but his forenames were amended, probably in the 1970s, to George William
Edward. However the date of birth shown didn’t match
the death index entry I’d found:
First name(s) George William E
Last name Carr
Sex Male
Birth
day 5
Birth month 5
Birth year 1902
Death quarter 3
Registration month 7
Death year 1985
District Redbridge
Register number 785
Volume 14
Page 1191
The
1937 edition of Kelly’s Directory of Ilford (which I inherited from my father) shows
a William George Carr living at 36 Essex Road, just 4 doors away from Emma’s
widowed mother, who was still at No.28 – it must surely be him!
I
decided to take a closer look at the 1920 marriage – it had taken place in
Essex, so if they had married in church I ought to be able to find the entry in
Ancestry’s collection of transcribed parish register
entries. I could, and it confirmed that Emma Alice Majer (sic) had married
William Michael Carr at the parish church of St Paul, Goodmayes,
on 8th July 1920. So was George really
William Michael?
Time
to bite the bullet and activate my subscription to Essex Archives Online,
an Essex Record Office service which would provide access to a high resolution digital
image of the marriage register entry.
All
Rights Reserved. Reproduced by courtesy of Essex Record Office - Reference: D/P
656/1/7
For
a start I was able to confirm that the bride’s surname was indeed ‘Major’, and not
‘Majer’ – though only by examining her signature, as the vicar’s handwriting
was appalling! The groom had signed as ‘William Michal Carr’ – well, he wouldn’t
be the first who couldn’t spell his own name – and his father was shown as
Henry Carr (deceased).
But
what is really interesting about this entry is the
annotation in the margins, which reads as follows:
In col.2 for “William Michael Carr” read “William
Michael otherwise George William Edward Carr” and in col.3 Bridegroom’s age for
“19” read “18”. Corrected on 29th June 1946 by me Frederick Harry
Smith, Vicar in the presence of George William Edward and Emma Alice, the
parties married, a Statutory Declaration having been made by the man.
It
was this amendment which created a new entry on a supplementary page in the GRO
register, with a corresponding addition to the index. In fact
there had been a clue to the timing in the FreeBMD
search results which, as you may recall, showed Ilford in italics. Clicking the
link revealed that Ilford registration district didn’t exist in 1920 – it wasn’t
formed until 1939:
We’ve
all got relatives who changed their name for one reason or another, but what
make this instance unusual is that George William Edward Carr had a first
cousin whose name was William Michael Carr. In other words
he seems to have been impersonating his cousin:
Henry
Carr, the father of George, was one of the witnesses at the marriage of his brother
Arthur Carr, the father of William. Both Arthur and Henry were French
polishers, as you can see from their sons’ birth register entries.
Was
it George or William who walked down the aisle with Emma Major in July 1920? Although
the groom signed as ‘William Michal’, he gave his father’s name as Henry, which
was the name of George’s father. And one of the witnesses was Henry George
Carr, George’s elder brother, who had married 2 months’ earlier – so I was able
to check his signature. Clearly he would known whether it was William or George, and the fact that
he went along with the deception suggests that it was “for the good of the
family”.
On
the other hand, if it was George who married Emma, you have
to wonder why he would have given his cousin’s age (19) rather than his
own age (18), and why he continued to use his cousin’s birth date until at
least 1939. Who was he trying to fool?
Most
importantly, why would George want to marry Emma using his cousin’s identity – might
it be something to do with Emma being 5 months pregnant when she walked down the
aisle and, if so, was George or William the father? Could the fact that George
was in the army have anything to do with it? It’s a real mystery, and because there
are no living descendants there seems to be no way that DNA could be part of
the solution.
Eventually
I found a vital clue in a most unexpected place – I discovered George Carr’s NAVY
record:
©
The National Archives – All Rights Reserved. Used by kind permission of Findmypast
In
January 1919 he had joined the Royal Navy as a boy, committing to serve for 12
years from his 18th birthday on May 1920 – it must
have seemed more exciting than being a baker’s boy. But in February 1920 he went
AWOL, apparently after completing a course as an electrician (someone more
familiar with Royal Navy records might have a better interpretation).
No
wonder he used a different name when he married a few months’ later, and didn’t assume his real name until after the end
of World War 2!
His
absence seems to have been noticed on 16th February 1920, probably when
he failed to return from leave; Gwen was born on 11th November that
year. By my calculations that’s just under 9 months later… I think we all know
what he was doing on leave!
Note:
I’ll be returning to this intriguing story in a future newsletter; I didn’t
plan to research my former neighbours, but I’m jolly glad that I did!
Review: The Deserter’s Tale OUT FRIDAY
This weekend it’s the
10th anniversary of the release of the very first Morton Farrier novel,
and to mark the occasion author Nathan Dylan Goodwin has written a special story
– one that sees Morton travelling to RootsTech, where he finds himself sitting
on a panel with his former girl-friend Maddie whilst his wife is at home watching
the livestream with her mother. Could be tricky….
In
his spare time he’s recovering from jet-lag and researching
his wife’s great-grandfather, who disappeared after the First World War, only
to resurface 20 years later. Sound familiar? Perhaps, but it isn’t the story of
George Carr – though it is based on a real person, and the book is impeccably
researched, something that we’ve come to expect from this author.
Something
else that we’ve come to expect is a sting in the tail – a last minute surprise
that has us looking forward to the next story, because we really want to know what’s
going to happen next. You won’t be disappointed!
I
know I always say this, but if you’ve read the earlier books
you certainly won’t need me to persuade you to buy this one – you’ve been
waiting for it ever since you finished the last story! But if you’re a
latecomer to the party, welcome to The Forensic Genealogist series – you
can start with any of the books, though for maximum enjoyment I would recommend
reading them in sequence.
The
Kindle version is out tomorrow, priced at just £3.49 from Amazon.co.uk and at
similar prices at other Amazon sites (you don’t need a Kindle – I usually read
Kindle books on my Samsung smartphone using the free app). All
of the previous novels are also available as paperbacks, but you might
have to wait a little longer for a hard copy version of The Deserter’s Tale.
Personally I prefer Kindle versions of fiction so that
I can read them in my spare moments, and hard copies of non-fiction books because
I know I’m likely to be referring to them time and time again.
Please
use the relevant link below in order to support
LostCousins:
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
Get Hiding the Past absolutely
FREE ENDS SUNDAY
If
you’ve somehow managed to miss out on all of the books in the series, there’s a
brief opportunity to get a free Kindle version of the very first book in the
series – it would normally cost £4.69 from Amazon in the UK, but to celebrate
the 10th Anniversary of it’s release it’s free
at all Amazon sites from tomorrow, Friday 15th September, until
Sunday 17th September.
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
Review: The Co-op’s Got Bananas
It was 7 years ago
yesterday that I met Hunter Davies, then a mere stripling of 80 summers and best-known
as the author of the only authorised biography of The Beatles (but now perhaps even
better known amongst people of my generation for the articles he writes about his
octogenarian dating experiences). I offered him the opportunity to write an
article for this newsletter, but he politely declined – suggesting instead that
I quote liberally from his book, The Co-op’s Got Bananas: A Memoir of Growing
Up in the Post War North.
In
the event it took me the best of part of 7 years to get around to reading the book
– partly because I didn’t want to spoil the hardback copy
he’d kindly autographed. Eventually I bought a second-hand paperback copy and
once I got started, discovered it was such a joy to read that I wished I hadn’t
waited so long.
Some
of you will have read Children of the 1940s, which I reviewed
last month – this book covers a similar period, since Hunter Davies was born in
1936, and he writes about his life up to 1960 when he married the author
Margaret Forster. However, because it’s about one person’s experience rather
than a collage with 20 odd contributors, it is more of an autobiography – yet at
the same time, because it is the story of someone who came from a modest background
it frequently reminded me of my own childhood and adolescence (even though he
spent his early years in Scotland and the north-west of England).
When
I finished The Co-op’s Got Bananas I had a look
at the Amazon reviews and even though the reviews average 4 star I was quite
shocked at some of the disparaging comments – thank goodness I didn’t read them
before. I’m just about to start reading the sequel, and it’s anywhere near as
good I shall be delighted!
My
second-hand copy of The Co-op’s Got Bananas cost me about £4, most of
which was postage, from Amazon Marketplace – but there are new copies still
available, both hardbacks and paperbacks. I suspect that it might not appeal
quite so much to women as to men, but I’d delighted to be proved wrong!
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
What
strange weather we’ve had this year – at least, those of us in the east of
England. July and August were as cold and wet as the summer holidays of my
childhood (all those days spent shivering on Southend beach), whilst June and early
September were almost unbearably hot. I’ve filled more Kilner jars with stewed
fruit than ever before, and already made 17 jars of jam. I’m clearly not the
only one – my usual supermarket has sold out of jam sugar!
This
year I might make salsa for the first time – we have so many tomatoes that I
have to try something different (the tomato chutney I made last year was a bit
of a disappointment). If you have a good recipe for salsa that will keep for
weeks or months in a sealed jar, please pass it on!
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......
Finally, please remember that LostCousins is not a newsletter, it’s
a website where experienced family historians can connect and collaborate – if you
received an email about this newsletter you’re already
a member, and if you haven’t entered all of your relatives from 1881 you’re missing
out!
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2023 Peter Calver
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