Newsletter - 05 February 2011

New problems with Ancestry's search?

FreeBMD vs Ancestry

Over 11 million new records at findmypast

Can you be your own cousin?

Can't see the wood for the trees?

Green wood

Hearth Tax Online

Are you reading this by candle light?

Internet Explorer: new security flaw uncovered

Understanding Copyright & the Data Protection Act

Scottish directories free online

Corrections and updates

Errors on certificates (continued)

The 1953 floods

Peter's tips

Have you tried.....

Stop Press

About this newsletter

The LostCousins newsletter is published twice a month on average, and all LostCousins members are notified by email when a new edition is available (unless they opt out). To access the previous newsletter (dated 23 January 2011) please click here. Each newsletter links to the one before, and you can go back to February 2009 when the newsletter first went online; in due course there will be an online index to articles.

Whenever possible links are included to the websites or articles mentioned in the newsletter (they are highlighted in blue or purple and underlined, so you can't miss them). Note: when you click on a link a new browser window or tab will open so that you don’t lose your place in the newsletter - if you are still using Internet Explorer you may need to enable pop-ups (if the link seems not to work look for a warning message at the top of the browser window).

Although these newsletters are hosted at LostCousins, they are not part of the main website. Click here to go to the main website and take part in the LostCousins project to link relatives around the world.

New problems with Ancestry's search?

I've written in the past about the dangers of using Ancestry's 'new search', and on New Year's Eve I provided a link to an article from last May in which I explained how to get back to the 'old search'. Since then I've had a series of appreciative emails - yet I suspect there are still thousands of LostCousins members who have only ever known the 'new search', and don't realise what they are missing.

Here's an example of a problem I experienced only today (I'll give you a blow by blow account so that if you wish you can duplicate what happened). I was looking in London Metropolitan Archives records for a marriage that took place at St Saviour, Southwark in 1847. As the banns had been read on April 11th, 18th, and 25th I expected the marriage to have taken place the following Sunday, 2nd May.

Searching by name didn't produce any results, but they were both foreign names that could easily have been mistranscribed, so instead I decided to search for marriages on that date in that particular church. As I typed 'St Saviour' in the 'Place' box I was prompted with two options, one of which was 'St Saviour, Guernsey, Channel Islands' and the other 'St Saviour Southwark, London, England'. Naturally I chose the latter, but on clicking 'Search' I got no results at all if the 'Match all terms exactly' box was ticked, and 608,166 results when I unticked it. When I saw that none of the first 200 results were even in the right church I understandably gave up on that line of enquiry).

OK, I thought, maybe the church was closed that day for repairs (you realise, I'm sure, that by now I was clutching at straws - and getting a little bit frustrated into the bargain). So I removed the day and searched for marriages at any time in May 1847 - again there were no results if I ticked 'Match all terms exactly', whereas if I unticked the box I once again got 608,166 seemingly irrelevant results. Next I tried entering 'St Saviour' as the place, and ignoring the prompts. Still no results - and in fact this time there were no results even when I unticked 'Match all terms exactly', which made me wonder where those 608,000 near matches had disappeared to.

Finally I had a brainwave, and tried typing 'Southwark St Saviour'. At last I got some results - 820 of them - and they included some from the right church. Yet strangely, though the search results were supposedly 'Sorted by Relevance' the ones for 'Southwark St Saviour' weren't at the top of the list - in fact one of them was 790th in the list.

I got there eventually, but it was a far from satisfactory journey. I can't tell you whether this is a new problem or an old one, but either way the experience was both annoying and frustrating - and since I've been using Ancestry longer than any other genealogy website (even my own), it makes you wonder how newer users (and those with less patience than me) can possibly cope. Of course, having wasted 15 minutes with the 'new search', as soon as I switched back to the 'old search' the problem evaporated - and within seconds I had found the marriage entry I'd been seeking!

When will Ancestry start listening to their users?

Tip: if your Ancestry subscription is about to be renewed, I suggest you cancel it - because there could well be a special offer at the end of this month when Who Do You Think You Are? Live takes place. Indeed, it's a good idea to cancel your subscription whenever it is due to expire - because, with no loyalty discount for members who renew, there's nothing to gain by allowing it to be renewed automatically. You might even be tempted by findmypast's new pricing (see below)!

FreeBMD vs Ancestry

Ancestry uses FreeBMD's transcriptions for the 1837-1915 period, and you'd naturally expect that you would get the same results whichever site you chose - however there has historically always been a time-lag between FreeBMD updating their records, and the updated database being uploaded to Ancestry. I had expected that since FreeBMD transcribers are working on records from the mid-20th century that the transcription 1837-1915 period would by now be 'set in stone', but Charlie recently wrote from Rhode Island to tell me about a whole page from the index that was missing from Ancestry, but not from FreeBMD. Referring to the charts at the FreeBMD site that show the coverage quarter by quarter I noticed that there are still quite a few gaps in the 19th century death indexes, and some too in the birth indexes - so it's likely that for some time to come the Ancestry version of the indexes for the 1837-1915 period will not only be incomplete, they'll also be less complete than the FreeBMD version.

Note: findmypast has complete fully-searchable birth indexes from 1837-2006, and will shortly be releasing fully-searchable death indexes for the same period; indexes for the period after 2006, and for marriages after 2005, can be viewed at the London Metropolitan Archives.

Over 11 million new records at findmypast

Findmypast have announced that so over 9 million records from the Society of Genealogists collection have been added to the site. They include apprentice records, marriages, burials and more - see the press release for all list of the different datasets and the number of records in each. You'll also find an in-depth introduction to each of the new record sets here.

At the same time findmypast has added over 2 million birth, marriage, and death records for Derbyshire. These are not parish records, but information extracted from the indexes held by the local registrars - and unusually there are bang up to date, with births as recent as 2008, marriages to 2010, and deaths to 2009. See the press release for more details.

Note: you'll find the Derbyshire records in the parish records collection, so the births are filed under baptisms, and the deaths under burials.

Tip: if you click here you can support LostCousins and get a findmypast subscription for a bargain price - just £77.95 for a 12 month Foundation subscription, and £109.95 for a 12 month Full subscription (6 month subscriptions are cheaper, but work out much more expensive over a year). However these low prices seem only be on offer to first-time subscribers - if you re-subscribe after a break you may have to pay more (of course, if you renew without a break you'll qualify for 20% loyalty discount). Email me if you need help or advice - and remember that ALL findmypast subscriptions now include the complete 1911 England & Wales census, so you'll get immediate access to those beautiful colour scans!

Can you be your own cousin?

I had a fascinating email from May in Australia in which she explained that because of her complex family tree she is her own cousin. I'll let her tell the story:

"My story is of Francis BROOKS and Sarah GREEN who were married in Bledlow, Bucks on 20th Aug 1797. They had 2 sons and 3 daughters and I am descended from all 3 of the daughters. Phoebe, born in 1808, was my mother's mother's great great grandmother; Ruth, born in 1811, was my father's father's mother's grandmother and Martha, born in 1814, was my father's father's father's grandmother.

"The only generation likely to have known of this link were my father's father's parents who were second cousins and I often wonder if they knew this or not. Other than that my father was born in Bucks and my mother in Middlesex. Who would have dreamed that they all came together in the late 1700s in Bledlow in such an unexpected way?

"So unless I'm confused, which is very likely:

I am my own 5th cousin once removed (twice over)

My own 5th cousin

My mother's 5th cousin (twice over)

My father's 4th cousin once removed"

Only today I had an email from Sarah in London complaining that Genes Reunited can't handle her family tree because there are two cousins who married in it -so goodness knows what Genes Reunited would make of May's tree!

Can't see the wood for the trees?

In the last newsletter I reported research which appears to demonstrate that researching your ancestors makes you smarter. I wasn't surprised to read this, because as family historians we learn how to research and analyse information from diverse sources, and because those records are often contradictory we develop a healthy scepticism about uncorroborated information from any source. But, having developed those valuable skills and techniques, it would be strange if we only used them when we researching our family tree - wouldn't you agree?

Let’s see how we might employ our 'healthy scepticism' in other areas of our life. For example, do you believe everything that politicians say? I certainly don't, nor do I take a face value everything that political activists or interest groups say. Let's suppose that you were directed to a website that stated:

"The government is planning a massive sell off of our national forests. They could be auctioned and fenced off, run down, logged or turned into golf courses and holiday villages. We can't let that happen. We need to stop these plans. National treasures like the Forest of Dean, Sherwood Forest and the New Forest could be sold off."

I doubt that anyone would be happy to read that - but is it true? Quite frankly I didn't know, so the obvious place to start was the announcement that the government had made. As regular readers of this newsletter will know, I too often come out with forthright and sometimes controversial suggestions, but I back them up with reasoned arguments and - in most cases - links to relevant web pages and documents that will enable members to make up their own minds (after all, I might be just as biased as the rest of them).

In this case, however, there was no reasoned argument on the website, nor were there any links that I could find to any relevant information. Sadly that's not unusual - politicians and interest groups often rely on emotion to sway the argument, just as Adolf Hitler did in the 1930s. Fortunately these days we have Google and other search engines, which are essentially unbiased - so it didn't take 5 seconds to find the Consultation Document. If you're concerned about what might happen to England's forests then I hope you will at least look through the introduction.

Now consider these two statements:

"I was brought up near Epping Forest (which was saved for the nation by an Act of Parliament in 1878 at a time when it was under threat from private landowners), and live close to ancient woodlands. I will do what I can to ensure that future generations are not deprived of the opportunities I have had."

"I grew up a stone’s throw from Hatfield Forest, brought up my own children on the outer reaches of Shakespeare’s immortal Arden Forest, and understand fully the emotional attachment we have to our forests. I am determined to protect and enhance them for future generations."

Both demonstrate an affinity for woodlands and a concern for our national heritage. But in view of the way that the government's proposals have been represented in the press, you may be surprised to know that whilst one of those statements was written by me (for the first draft of this article), the other was written by Caroline Spelman, the government minister responsible for our forests (it appears in the Foreword to the Consultation Document).

One thing that I've noticed is that just as family legends always have a veneer of plausibility that only starts to rub off when we try to find the evidence to back them up, so too does the propaganda put about by politicians and interest groups of all persuasions. So wouldn't be a shame if we didn't use the skills we have developed through our research to help us make better decisions in other areas of our life?

Green wood

Until the advent of the railways wood was the primary source of energy for heating and cooking because, unlike coal, it was readily available through the country. Even today, wood is a key source of heating in France and Scandinavia - and in rural parts of Britain where there is no mains gas.

In Epping Forest there was a right - said by some to date back to Queen Elizabeth I - for the inhabitants of Loughton to lop the branches from trees in the forest between November 12th and April 23rd. Other parishes bordering the forest had similar rights, but it was one Thomas Willingale, a lopper from Loughton, whose actions directly contributed to the saving of Epping Forest when the Lord of the Manor attempted to inclose the forest in the mid-19th century.

Because wood is a renewable source of energy, unlike fossil fuels, but less convenient than oil and more expensive than coal and gas, the British government is planning to introduce subsidies to encourage the installation of wood-burning boilers (though not wood-burning fires and stoves); indeed, having written in the last newsletter that I was looking at solar panels, I'm now focusing on replacing our very old oil boiler with a new wood-burning boiler. It'll involve more work - whether chopping wood, stacking it in piles so that it can dry out, or stoking the boiler - but perhaps it will help me keep fit in my old age?

You'll find more information about the Renewable Heat Incentive in the February 2010 Consultation Document. Although the scheme was planned by the last government, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer confirmed in his autumn review that it would be going ahead in 2011/12.

Note: if you already have a wood-fired central heating system I'd be interested in learning from your experience - I'm finding it quite a steep learning curve

Hearth Tax Online

I'm sure you know about the Hearth Tax, which was introduced by Charles II in 1662 and continued until 1689 - but did you know that there is a Centre for Hearth Tax Research, based at Roehampton University? Their website, Hearth Tax Online, has downloadable surname indexes and/or transcripts for Kent (1664), Surrey (1664), County Durham (1666), and the West Riding of Yorkshire (1672). If your research in those counties has reached, or is approaching the 17th century then it's well worth checking whether your ancestors are recorded.

Are you reading this by candle light?

Like me you're probably familiar with kilowatt hours, but have you ever come across lumen-hours? A lumen-hour is roughly the amount of visible light produced by a candle, which not so long ago would have been the primary source of light for many people - and it's still rather fun to have a candlelit dinner, isn't it.

I discovered recently that in 1700 the average Briton consumed 580 lumen-hours of artificial light during the course of a year - that's about an hour and a half of candle light each day. Now, apparently, we each use an average of 46 million lumen-hours a year, an amazing 80,000 times more. Our present light consumption equates to over 5000 candles burning constantly for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year! If, like me, you find the short days of winter just that little bit depressing just imagine for a moment what it must have been like for our ancestors.

Tip: I bought a SAD Light Box from Maplin, and it seems to have made a difference. Currently it's on special offer at £49.99 (you could pay £79.99 elsewhere) with free shipping and an extra £3 off when you enter the voucher code secret3 at the checkout (or use secret5 for a £5 discount when the order value is £65 or more).

Internet Explorer: new security flaw uncovered

Last week Microsoft owned up to a major security flaw in Internet Explorer, which could potentially be exploited by hackers - however, there is nothing that you or I can do about it. It's yet another reason to switch to the Firefox browser, which is usually a step or two ahead of Internet Explorer. In the 6 years that I've been using Firefox I haven't once considered reverting to Internet Explorer, and the feature I particularly like is being able to delete individual cookies from my hard drive. You can download Firefox free here.

Understanding Copyright & the Data Protection Act

The Society of Genealogists is running a half-day workshop on Saturday 12th February; the cost is £14 for members of the SoG, £17.50 for non-members - see the Events section of the SoG website for more details.

Scottish directories free online

There are 678 Scottish directories available online at the Internet Archive - all the ones I noticed were from the 19th or very early 20th century.

Corrections and updates

A number of members have told me that Info Disk 2002 (which I wrote about in the last newsletter) will work under Windows 7 - and I've now verified this. Because it didn't work on my Windows XP computer I assumed that it wasn't compatible with recent versions of Windows, but it seems that I was simply unlucky - another member reported that it worked on one of his XP computers, but not on the other. The even better news is that there was a copy of this hard-to-find program on sale at eBay when I looked today - and the bidding had only reached £3.20, so there's a chance you might pick up a bargain.

If you're looking for historic Electoral Roll information from the Birmingham area then the Midlands Historical Data website is worth visiting, as it has rolls from several years between 1912-1955. I haven't tried it myself, but Denise tells me that she has found it very useful (and in Birmingham Libraries it is free - otherwise you need to pay to see the search results).

I've also discovered, thanks to Julia in the USA, that whilst BBC television programmes can't be viewed online using BBC iPlayer unless you live in the UK, BBC radio programmes can be listened to worldwide. Good news for any Archers fans out there….

Errors on certificates (continued)

Since I wrote about the large number of birth, marriage and death certificates that contain incorrect information I've been swamped with examples. Perhaps the most dramatic examples came from Norma, who told me that her grandmother's birth had erroneously been recorded as that of a male child - because her father's forename had been written in by mistake! And the resting place of her other grandmother was shown incorrectly on her death certificate - as Norma said, "I wouldn't to be the person looking for the grave in the wrong cemetery!".

However, one thing I didn't make clear in my article was that modern certificates are much more likely to be accurate than those from earlier generations - as member who is a former registrar reminded me. These days when you marry you have to produce either your birth certificate or your passport, which considerably reduces the chance of mistakes occurring - though doesn't eliminate it entirely, since a British passport doesn't give any information about the holder's father. It's also worth remembering that most of the information on a modern death certificate is unchecked - and might in some cases be almost impossible to verify.

The 1953 floods

We've heard a lot recently about the terrible flooding in parts of Australia, and this reminded me of the floods that battered the East of England in 1953, taking hundreds of lives. BBC Essex recently added to their website two long-lost recording of survivors of the Canvey Island floods talking about their experiences - you'll find them here.

Peter's tips

When I was a child my mother wouldn't let me drink water with meals "because it dilutes the gastric juices", so I couldn't understand why when I had school dinners there were glasses and jugs of water on every table. These days I drink two or three pints of water with my main meal of the day, but perhaps I ought to be drinking water before every meal - research carried out at Virginia Tech in the US has shown that people who drank water before a meal consumed 75-90 fewer calories, and over the course of 12 weeks they lost about 5 pounds in weight compared to a control group. It sounds to me like the ideal way to lose weight - eat less by drinking more!

If, on the other hand, you want to put on weight then one way to do so is to turn up the central heating thermostat - it seems that the average bedroom temperature in the US increased from 19.3°C to 20.2°C between 1987 and 2005, a time when obesity was also rising. Researchers at University College London suspect that with less exposure to low temperatures we may permanently lose our supply of brown fat. Because of the soaring price of heating oil I've been gradually turning the thermostat down over the past 2 years, and I now feel just as comfortable as when it was 2°C higher - which suggests that my brown fat is still functional!

Until midday on Monday 7th February you can save an additional 10% at The Book People when you enter the code R3D10 at the checkout - and you'll also get free delivery when you spend £25 or more. I order from them several times a year - some of my favourites that are still available include a collection of 10 Dick Francis novels for just £9.99, a saving of over £60, and Jamie's 30 Minute Meals for £9.99, a saving of £16.

Have you tried….

Historypin is a simple concept - it’s a website where you can upload old photos and pin them to a map in the precise place they were taken. It covers the whole world, though so far most of the photos seem to be from Britain or the US - and the best way to describe it is as Google Street View with a time machine! Only 32,096 photos had been uploaded when I checked this afternoon, so I reckon that the combined might of LostCousins members could make a real difference!

Stop Press

This is where any corrections or updates will be shown.

That's all for now - I hope you've found my newsletter interesting. Many of the articles are inspired by you, the members, so please do keep writing in with your thoughts, comments, and suggestions.

Peter Calver

Founder, LostCousins

Copyright 2011 by Peter Calver & Lost Cousins Ltd except as otherwise stated