Newsletter
- 5th December 2014
Irish
registers will be free online
Trade
Union records at Findmypast OUT TODAY
Findmypast
add 60 million FamilySearch baptisms
Half-price
subscriptions at Genes Reunited ENDS FRIDAY
Richard
III DNA poses new mystery
Family
Tree DNA offer continues, whilst 23andme launch in UK
Are you descended from Edward III?
Graham's
Dad meets the King & Queen
How
to find pre-1858 wills for England & Wales
Probate
Service changes will help most of us
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published
fortnightly. To access the previous newsletter (dated 27th November)
click here, for an index to articles from 2009-10
click here, for a list of articles from 2011
click here and for a list of articles from
2012-13 click here. Or use a Google search prefixed by 'site:lostcousins.com'
Whenever possible links are included to the
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use a different browser, such as Chrome).
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!
Irish registers
will be free online
On Monday there was a momentous
announcement from the National Library of Ireland - the library's entire
collection of Catholic parish registers on microfilm is to be made available
online, completely free of charge, during the summer of 2015 (you can download
a PDF copy of the press release by following this link).
Since the 1970s it has been possible to view the microfilms by going to Dublin,
but many researchers simply haven't been able to make the journey.
Dating from the 1740s to the 1880s, the
registers cover 1,091 parishes throughout Ireland, and consist
primarily of baptismal and marriage records; in the region of
390,000 images have been digitized. Catholic baptism registers often include
the names of godparents, which can be a great help in identifying the correct
entry - potentially even more helpful than the names of marriage witnesses; some
show the mother's maiden name.
The bad news is that there are currently
no plans to transcribe and index the records, which means that researchers who
don't know which part of Ireland their ancestors came from will have an
impossible task. Let's hope that one of the large genealogy websites is
planning to step into the breach.
Some lucky researchers may not have to
wait - you can search millions of Irish records, including some parish records,
at Ancestry
and Findmypast.
And by the way, Findmypast have just added a further 3.6 million Irish dog
licence records, more than doubling the size of this interesting resource to
over 6 million. Don't worry, they're indexed by the name of the owner, not the
dog - you can search them here.
Tip:
there's a guide to common Latin words and phrases that you might come across
during your research on this page
(although it's an Ancestry guide, you don't need to be a subscriber).
Trade Union records
at Findmypast
Today Findmypast released over 3 million
trade union records from the collection at the University of Warwick's Modern
Records Centre. If you have carpenters or other woodworkers, railway workers,
printers, boilermakers or shipbuilders in your tree it's well worth taking a
look - you can search free here,
and whilst you'll need to pay to see the records there's actually quite a lot of
information in the search results. For example, I was able to identify Charles
Calver, my double 1st cousin 3 times removed in these search results:
As you can see, he appears twice, with
different joining dates - perhaps his membership lapsed because of the Great
War, or maybe he simply switched from one branch to another.
There was a surprising bonus - the last
entry in the snippet above relates to Charles Henry Barton Calver, my 1st
cousin twice removed, who went with his parents and siblings to Toronto in
1910. I would never have thought to look for my migrant relatives in these
records!
Also somewhat unexpected was the
discovery of my mother's father in the records of the United Society of
Boilermakers & Iron Shipbuilders - not because I didn't know he was a
boilermaker (I remember the inscription on the clock he was given in 1947,
after 47 years with the same firm), but because in the 1911 Census he was
recorded as an employer, not an employee.
By the way, it's not only men who
belonged to these unions - there are tens of thousands of women who worked for
the railways, especially during World War 1, when you may find them as porters,
van drivers and in many other roles.
I wonder who you'll find in these new records?
Note:
if you're wondering why I described Charles Calver as my double 1st cousin, it's
because he shares my great-great-great grandparents twice over - two brothers
married two sisters.
Findmypast add 60 million
FamilySearch baptisms
Both Ancestry and Findmypast are working
together with FamilySearch to make the records more readily available. In the
Stop Press of my last newsletter I mentioned that Findmypast had added over 13
million Scottish parish records; now it's the turn of England & Wales with
60 million English
and 700,000 Welsh
baptism records.
What's the point of adding records to
subscription sites when they're already available free elsewhere? The fact is,
the more records there are in one place, the less likely we are to miss what
we're looking for (or to pick the wrong baptism entry); you know how well as I
do that from time to time we make serendipitous discoveries - as I did when I
searched the new Trade Union records. Another important factor is that
different sites offer different searches - so you might find it easier to find
a record at one site than another.
Note:
there was a problem with the English baptisms (missing forenames), but Findmypast's programmers worked
through the weekend and it has now been sorted. What service!
Findmypast have a Christmas
Countdown - a sort of advent calendar substitute which features a daily
tip, quiz, or competition - it's well worth keeping an eye on and I suspect
that the closer we get to Christmas the more fun we'll have!
Half-price subscriptions at Genes Reunited ENDS FRIDAY
You've
got just a week to take advantage of the exclusive offer I arranged for readers
of this newsletter - see last issue for details.
Note: the offer is for new or lapsed
subscribers only, and applies to the 12 month Standard subscription, which is
the best value option.
Richard
III DNA poses new mystery
The skeleton of Richard III, discovered
under a Leicester car park, was identified using the mtDNA
that he inherited from his mother - it was a perfect match with a sample taken
from two female line descendants of his sister, Anne of York. Research
published this week has concluded that the odds are at least 100,000 to 1 that the
body has been correctly identified. And yet a Y-DNA sample doesn't match with
that of supposed living male relatives - what could have gone wrong?
Richard III had only two sons, one
legitimate and one illegitimate: his legitimate son died in childhood and the
fate of his illegitimate son is unknown - one source says that he was executed.
There are certainly no documented descendants of Richard who could provide a
Y-DNA sample for comparison purposes, and the researchers had to go back 4
generations, to Edward III, to find an ancestor with living descendants in the
direct male line, as you can see from this family tree (reproduced from the Nature article).
Licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License
Note:
the numbers in the family tree show the number of people in the tree between
the named individuals - thus there are 14 generations between John of Gaunt and
the 5th Duke of Beaufort.
Assuming that we accept the overwhelming
evidence from mtDNA and other factors that the skeleton
is indeed that of Richard III, how can we account for the discrepancy?
Five descendants of the 5th Duke of
Beaufort were tested - four of the five had Y-DNA that was closely-matched, so
it is overwhelmingly likely that it is also a match for the Y-DNA of the 5th
Duke. This leaves two possibilities - either the 5th Duke of Beaufort or
Richard III was not a direct male descendant of Edward III, even though this is
what the history books record.
There are 4 generations between Edward
III and Richard III, but 15 between Edward III and the 5th Duke of Beaufort -
this means it is most likely that the infidelity occurred not in Richard III's
line, but in the Duke of Beaufort's line. Indeed, if you research the Duke of
Beaufort's ancestry you'll discover that his ancestor Charles Somerset, the 1st
Earl of Worcester, was born illegitimately c1460 - though he was acknowledged
by his supposed father, Henry Beaufort, the 2nd Duke of Somerset.
Similarly John de Beaufort, 1st Earl of
Somerset, was born illegitimately between 1371 and 1373 but acknowledged by his
supposed father, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and son of Edward III (his
birth was later legitimated by parliament, and by a
papal decree).
Could either of those putative fathers
have been hoodwinked into believing that they were the father of their
mistress's child? Or was one of the wives of the legitimate ancestors
unfaithful? It's possible that further DNA tests will provide the answer.
In the abbreviated family tree above the
focus is on the direct male and direct female lines - because it's Y-DNA and mtDNA that passes from one generation to the next without
mixing.
But these tests are far from equal - whereas
Y-DNA tests have the potential to solve mysteries, mtDNA
is rarely able to do more than prove (or disprove) a hypothesis. For example,
if the archaeologists who discovered Richard III's skeleton hadn't already got
a pretty good idea who it might belong to, the mtDNA
test probably wouldn't have told them anything useful. One for reason for this
is that mtDNA mutates more slowly, but the biggest
problems is that surnames are passed down the male line, so that whereas the
Y-DNA matches you get will often tell you the surname of the person you're
trying to identify, mtDNA results provide no such
clues.
Of course, if you're female you haven't
inherited your father's Y-DNA, so if he's no longer around to provide a sample
you'll need to ask someone who shares his Y-DNA - this might, for example, be
your brother or your uncle (your father's brother). Even if you're male, the
Y-DNA you've inherited will have come from the ancestors in your direct
paternal line - and the chances are that the 'brick walls' you're trying to
knock down are on different lines.
However, you shouldn't give up - there
may well be someone else who can provide the sample you need. Perhaps the most
common problem family historians face is an illegitimate ancestor - there are
several in my tree (and those are just the ones I know about!). In this case
you'll need a sample from someone in the direct male line of descent from the
unknown father, ie a son of a son of a son etc
This means that if your
illegitimate ancestor was female (as most of mine were), you fall at the first
hurdle - unless, perhaps, there were other illegitimate children born to the
same mother and you have good reason to suspect that they had the same father.
But whilst DNA tests cannot solve every problem, the fact that we can
knock down any 'brick walls' in our
family tree using technology that was invented in our lifetime seems like a
miracle to me!
Family Tree DNA offer
continues, whilst 23andme launch in UK
The big discounts at Family Tree
DNA continue - if you haven't already taken the plunge, there's no time
like the present. See the links in my last newsletter
if you need to know more about how DNA testing works, and what it possible.
Meanwhile 23andme have launched
their rather more controversial test in the UK (see this BBC news article). If
you're only interested in the genealogical aspects, rather than the health
angle, then a Family
Finder test from Family Tree DNA is a lot cheaper (especially while the
offer lasts).
Are you descended from Edward III?
As reported above, we now know as a
result of DNA tests that either Richard III or the 5th Duke of Beaufort (or
indeed, both of them) weren't descended from Edward III in the direct male line
- the paperwork is wrong. But ironically you and I might be descended from
Edward III, even if they aren't!
One genealogist has estimated
that the chance of someone alive today who has mainly English ancestry being a
descendant of Edward III is close to 100% - but as he rightly says, "documenting one's own descent from Edward III is,
however, another matter!".
Occasionally we may serendipitously
discover someone with whom we share a common ancestor several centuries ago -
for example, after mentioning one of my Devon ancestors by name in the last
newsletter I received an email from a member in Canada who shares my 8G
grandparents (which makes us 9th cousins).
I have to admit that you're fairly unlikely
to discover such a distant cousin though LostCousins - you're more likely to
find 3rd, 4th, and 5th cousins - but remember that a 5th cousin who shares your
4G grandparents also shares 4 of your 5G grandparents, 8 of your 6G
grandparents, 16 of your 7G grandparents and 32 of your 8G grandparents!
Tip:
a lot of people assume that because we focus on the 1881 Census at LostCousins,
the cousins they'll find won't be able to help them with 'brick walls' in the
17th, and 18th centuries. The reality is that the census is merely a simple -
and highly accurate - way to identify people who share the same ancestors.
Graham's Dad meets the King
& Queen
After last month's photograph which
purported to show Beverley's great grandfather meeting George V - but turned
out to be fakes - I thought you might like to some genuine photos.
Graham's father was in the army in 1948
when King George VI (in his kilt), Queen Elizabeth, and Princess Margaret came
to inspect the troops, possibly at Crieff. Sadly the
wonderful photos had become somewhat battered and torn over the years, as you
can see:
Graham's
father - the soldier on the right in
both pictures - died in 1974, and Graham's mother is now 88 - so he hoped that it might
be possible to restore the photos to something approaching their original
condition. Fortunately Graham spotted the link in recent LostCousins newsletter to Repixl.
I don't know
how much Graham paid, but I have a feeling that when it came to photos like
these price simply was't important (and after all, the most that Repixl charge
is £8.99).
What a difference! And you too can
benefit from such miracles because the exclusive 20% discount offer I've
arranged with Repixl continues until Christmas - just follow this link
and use the discount code displayed. (I can guarantee that when you see the
results you'll feel happier than Princess Margaret looks, poor girl!)
Wills can be incredibly useful documents
- and whilst you might be tempted to focus on wills made by your direct
ancestors, some of the most useful clues could come from people who are on the
periphery of your tree. For example Felix Kleyser,
who died in 1827, was married to my great-great-great grandmother's sister -
yet the clues I gleaned from his will were invaluable in solving a family
mystery. Here's an extract from his will:
"in the event of my said daughter dying before
she shall attain the age of twenty one years my said
Trustees or the survivor of them or the executors or administrators of such
survivor shall out of the said stock so to be purchased pay the sum of ten
pounds unto the son of Catherine Keener my late wife's sister and also pay the
sum of twenty pounds thereout unto Felix Dreysen my Godson (being the son of Francis Dreysen) and after the payment of the said Legacies upon
trust to pay over the remainder of such stock so to be purchased as aforesaid
unto and amongst the whole of my relatives who may then be living in Germany or
otherwise"
What did I learn from this? Firstly, it
helped to confirm that my great-great-great grandmother, Elizabeth Keehner, who had married Francis Driesen,
was the sister of Mary Ann Keehner (Felix Kleyser's late wife). Elizabeth, the eldest of the family, hadn't
been baptised at St Mary Magdalen in Bermondsey - unlike her 6 brothers and
sisters - so I needed to come up with some other way of proving that she was
part of the same family.
Secondly, it told me that my ancestor's
sister Catherine had borne a child at least 5 years before her marriage in
1832. This wasn't a great surprise - I already had my suspicions - but this was
the first piece of hard evidence I'd found. Finally the reference to relatives
in Germany helped to confirm my supposition that my Keehner
ancestors had come from Germany. It wasn't proof - since Felix Kleyser was talking about his own relatives, not mine - but
it added to the circumstantial evidence.
So much useful information - yet the testator
wasn't even a blood relative of mine!
How to find pre-1858
wills for England & Wales
I don't know whether it's a record, but
I've finally finished reading Wills
and Other Probate Records which (according to Amazon) I bought on 18th
October 2004.
Published by the National Archives, and
written by two of their experts, the book told me an awful lot that I didn't
know previously, especially when it came to topics such as death duties, inventories,
and who could legally make a will. As I write there are second-hand copies
available at Amazon
for as little as 1p (plus postage) though I suspect they'll be snapped up as
soon as this newsletter appears (I certainly don't concur with the two
reviewers who gave it mediocre reviews - it's a very handy book to have).
From 1858 onwards there is a centralised
index of wills and administrations in England & Wales, the National
Probate Calendar - but prior to that date probate was primarily an
ecclesiastical matter, and there were over 200 courts which dealt with wills. The
relevant court was determined by the amount of goods and property, and where
they were.
For example, if the testator's assets
were within a single archdeaconry, then the Archdeacon's court would be the one
to handle probate. On the other hand, if there were goods or property in more
than one archdeaconry, but all of the archdeaconries were in the same diocese,
probate would be dealt with by the Bishop's court (referred to as a
'consistory' or 'commissary' court). In either case the surviving records will
be found at the local record office, although because the boundaries of
dioceses often didn't conform with county boundaries
it won't always be obvious which record office to go to.
If there were was property worth £5 or
more in more than one diocese then probate could only be handled by the
Archbishop's Prerogative Court, in either York or Canterbury. The Canterbury
records are held by the National Archives, and you can view the wills online
with a subscription to either Ancestry
or The
Genealogist (or you can download a single will from DocumentsOnline
at the National Archives website for £3.30). The York records are held by the Borthwick Institute, but there is an index
at Findmypast - if you locate a will of interest you can order it from the Borthwick Institute at a cost of between £7.50 and £10.
The National
Wills Index, currently hosted at Origins, is currently being transferred to
Findmypast, who have taken over Origins. You can search all of Findmypast's
wills and probate records here.
Pre-1858 wills for Wales can be viewed
free at the National Library of Wales website.
Note:
In Scotland the term testaments is used to refer to documents connected with a
deceased's estate - ScotlandsPeople has a free
index to testaments from 1514-1925 and if your search is successful you can
download documents using credits.
Probate Service changes
will help most of us
A few weeks ago I mentioned that the
Probate Service were planning to extend their online index and online ordering
to cover all England & Wales wills since 1858. What I hadn't anticipated
was the closure of the search rooms - with the London search room closing at
the end of next week (Friday 12th December). A meeting was called on Tuesday of
this week which was attended by several LostCousins members, including Dawn, who
kindly kept me informed. I also found a report
on the Society of Genealogists website which was written by Diana Bouglas, vice-Chairman of the SoG.
For most family historians the changes
are good news - relatively few of us have trekked up to London (or to one of
the provincial search rooms) - so historically we've ordered wills by post.
Overseas researchers have found it particularly difficult in the past, because
not only were overseas cheques not accepted (which is understandable, given the
high charges that banks levy), it wasn't possible to pay by credit card either.
So when I encountered Chris Grayling,
the Minister of Justice (and the first non-lawyer to be appointed Lord
Chancellor since 1673), last week I congratulated him on the new system, and
commented how sad it was that the General Register Office were still stuck in
neutral with the handbrake on.
However there was an ulterior motive to
buttering up the minister - I wanted to tackle him on two unresolved issues
which are also of concern to family historians, and which are administered by
his department. The first was the way in which the reorganisation and, in some
cases, redevelopment of cemeteries is managed.
At the moment cemeteries are allowed to
remove or destroy gravestones and move the remains of our ancestors without
making any meaningful attempt to warn us what is going to happen - all they are
obliged to do is advertise in the local newspaper listing the plot numbers of
the graves that are affected. As I said to the minister, because most people
move away from their home towns, we're not going to see the local paper - and
even if we did, we probably don't know which cemetery our ancestors are buried
in, let alone the plot numbers. What we really need is names and dates
published online!
The other point I made related to the
Data Protection Act, and the way that it has - quite perversely - resulted in
personal data being destroyed rather than protected (or handed back to the
people it relates to). Hospitals routinely destroy our records after 8 to 12
years (it's usually even less for people who have died), and in some cases
organisations have chosen to destroy OUR records to avoid the hassle of
providing access to them. When data protection legislation doesn't protect
data, it's time for change.
I'm glad to say that the minister seemed
to be in broad agreement on both these points - though whether he'll have an
opportunity to do anything about them before the election next May is another
matter. We can never be sure what impact - if any - our actions will have, but
I know that if we don't raise these issues when we have the opportunity, then
we're unlikely to get the results we want.
Note:
at 6ft 4½in it's not often I look up to anyone, let alone a politician, but at
6ft 4¾in Chris Grayling is just that little bit taller than me.
Planning to visit the world's biggest
genealogy show? In 2015 it's at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham
between Thursday 16th to Saturday 18th April.
For a limited time you can buy two
tickets for £22 when you follow this link
and use the code EARLY2422 (the code is
valid for all 3 days of the show - click the BOOK TICKETS icon at the top right of the page
to choose a different day).
Most of Charles Dickens' novels were published in
instalments so when I heard that Nathan Dylan Goodwin, whose genealogical
mysteries featuring Morton Farrier have given me a great deal of pleasure, was
writing a novella I was delighted - it meant I wouldn't have to wait so long
for the next part of the story!
Whereas the novels have focused on the
ancestors of Morton Farrier's clients, The
Orange Lilies sees Morton for once investigating his own tree (and
about time too!). Moving smoothly between Christmas 1914 and Christmas 2014,
the author weaves an intriguing tale with more than a few twists - several
times I thought I'd figured it all out, but each time there was a surprise
waiting in the next chapter.
The way Morton Farrier used websites
like Ancestry and Findmypast made it all the more realistic - and the icing on
the cake came when he discovered a distant relative at LostCousins who had
inherited many of his great-grandfather's possessions, including his war
medals.
At 135 pages it’s little more than half
the length of The
Lost Ancestor, which came out in the autumn, and Hiding
the Past, which came out last
year - but at just £1.99 it's also half the price (and I enjoyed it just as
much). Thoroughly recommended - and I can't wait for the next novel, which I
gather is already being written!
The
Orange Lilies is currently only
on Kindle, but there may be a paperback version - if so I'll let you know. If
you live outside the UK please use these links (they'll take you direct to the right
page though you may find that it hasn't been released in your country yet):
Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
By the way, you don't need to have read
any of the previous books in the series, though you'll probably enjoy the books
all the more if you read them in order.
The very first commercial Christmas
cards were commissioned by Henry Cole in 1843. The British Postal Museum and
Archive is selling reproductions so that you can send them to the special
people in your life - you'll find them here.
Warning: they're not cheap!
Until midnight on Friday 12th December you can save
a massive 20% on the already discounted prices at The
Book People when you click here
and use the code ELF20 - I'm not going to tell you what I've bought, because
you-know-who might be reading, but I always place at least one order in the
run-up to Christmas. And by the way, if you spend £25 or more you get free
delivery (within the UK).
Something else to consider as a seasonal
gift is a one month gift subscription to the British
Newspaper Archive, which costs £9.95 - the month doesn't start until the
lucky recipient activates it using the code that you'll be sent by email.
If you're prepared to put in a little
more effort, then the 30% discount on photo books at Albelli
is well worth having; or spend £80 or more and get 40% off everything (except
shipping) when you click here
(both offers end on 25th December).
Finally, I promised to comment on the
government consultation
about the proposed inclusion of peer-to-peer lending (through sites like Zopa or Ratesetter) in ISAs. The
questions in the document are primarily aimed at companies in the financial
industry, and one point that doesn't seem to be covered is the question of
whether it would be possible to put existing loans into ISAs.
It seems to me that the market will be
greatly disrupted if this isn't possible - both before the start date, as a
result of people delaying investment, and afterwards. The consultation document
states that "all views are welcomed" so this is a point I shall make,
and you may wish to as well (especially if you are an existing lender, or plan
to become a lender as a result of the change).
Tuesday: Scotlandspeople have just launched the 1925
Valuation Rolls.
With Christmas fast approaching I'm not
sure when my next newsletter will be published - but it will be worth waiting
for, I'm sure!
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2014 Peter Calver
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