Newsletter
- 20th June 2013
Last
chance to save 10% on findmypast subscriptions ENDS
SOON
Ancestry
add Surrey parish registers
Lincolnshire
parish registers online at findmypast
Problems with online trees - have you been affected?
New
South Wales wills to go online
Canada:
is the 1921 Census about to be released?
Ireland:
hopes of early release of 1926 Census dashed
Tracing Your Irish History on the Internet
Can
you claim an Arctic Star medal or Bomber Command clasp?
Debate
over the future of the UK census continues
Ancestry
errors - the saga continues
Findmypast
advert embarrassment
Could you be replaced by a computer?
New TV
series: Secrets from the Workhouse
Nearly 7
million newspaper pages at findmypast
The LostCousins newsletter is
usually published fortnightly. To access the previous newsletter (dated 1 June
2013) 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.
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).For your convenience, 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 nothing seems to happen then you need to enable pop-ups in
your browser or change the settings In your security software.
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!
Last chance to save 10% on
findmypast subscriptions ENDS
SOON
You've got little more than a week to
save 10% on a new findmypast.co.uk subscription AND get a free LostCousins
subscription. You'll find full details of the offer here - please
make sure you read all of the instructions carefully before you start. The offer ends on 30th June.
The Imperial War Museum and BrightSolid (owners of findmypast) are working together on Lives of the First World War,
a massive venture that aims to bring together information and images for as
many as possible of the more than 8 million men and women from Britain and the
Commonwealth who served in uniform or worked on the home front. There's a short
video that will give you an idea of how it will work - I was really impressed
by what I saw.
But it's not just about records held in
archives - the idea is to supplement the official records with digital images
of the letters, photographs and other mementoes from the 1914-18 period that
are held by families (there will even be an opportunity to post unverified
stories that have been passed down, although they must be identified as such). See
the FAQs
for more details of how you can be involved.
Ancestry add Surrey
parish registers
Not that long ago there were no parish
registers viewable online - at best you might find transcriptions, but these
usually didn’t include all of the information. However over the past few years
more and more archives have been making the registers in their collection
available online, usually in co-operation with Ancestry or findmypast.
The latest county in Ancestry's
collection is Surrey:
Surrey
Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials 1538-1812
There are about 2.7 million entries in
all, including the baptism of my great-great-great grandmother.
Lincolnshire parish
registers online at findmypast
Findmypast
have added browsable images of Lincolnshire parish
registers from 1538-1911 (there are 103 parishes in the collection). If you
don't have a findmypast subscription you can also view many of the registers at
the free Lincstothepast
website, although it's not the easiest of sites to navigate.
Of course, what family historians with
Lincolnshire connections will be waiting for is indexed transcripts of the
records - hopefully they'll be appearing on the findmypast website in the near
future.
Problems with
online trees - have you been
affected?
Already this month I've received two
emails from members whose online trees have been corrupted, and I am concerned
this may just be the tip of the iceberg.
John wrote about his Ancestry tree:
"I've just discovered that no fewer than seventeen (17) of the marriage
details of my ancestors have disappeared from my tree, and those are [just] the
ones I know of".
But it seems that such problems aren't
unique to Ancestry - Bryan discovered that his Genes Reunited tree had been
corrupted: "Thank you for your advice many months ago to store family tree
data on my own system rather than rely on an online service. Perhaps another
warning to your newsletter readers would be appropriate.... I was surprised to
find that marriage data in my tree had been swapped for two direct ancestor
couples, two generations apart.... I
think this is unlikely to be a single error in my tree only and fear that extensive
corruption of data/pointers may have taken place."
Have you noticed any problems with the
data in your online tree becoming
corrupted?
Note: Bryan didn't lose any data because he stores his family tree program on
his own computer, using Genopro (which is
also the program I use myself). Even before these recent revelations I would
never entrust my data to a website - I feel much happier having it on my own
computer. If you're looking for a family tree program the best advice I can
give is to "try before you buy", because everyone has different needs.
New South Wales wills
to go online
Findmypast.com.au
has signed a contract to publish all of the registered wills for New South
Wales, the most populous Australian state, up to 1952. The official copies are
handwritten from around 1800-1924, then typewritten for the period to 1952.
It is anticipated that the wills should
be online before the end of this year, and I would expect them to be available
to World subscribers at the UK site, although that has yet to be confirmed.
New South Wales has been in the news
recently for another reason - a court there recently decided that birth, marriage, and death
registrations do not need to specify whether the individual is male or female.
You'll find more information here.
Canada: is the 1921
Census about to be released?
In Canada the Statistics Act allows
personal data from the censuses from 1901 to 2011 to be released once it is 92
years old, and earlier this year it was anticipated
that the 1921 Census would be published on 1st June 2013, precisely 92 years
after it was collected.
However, that didn't happen - although
according to an article
dated 4th June "Library and Archives Canada is committed to making the
1921 Census’ rich and complex information accessible and available to all
Canadians, no matter where they live, in the next few weeks. Further details on
the 1921 Census’ availability will be shared once they are available."
Ireland: hopes of
early release of 1926 Census dashed
According to John Grenham,
author of Tracing
Your Irish Ancestors (now in its 4th edition) there is little chance
that the 1926 Census of Ireland, the first to be carried out after the Irish
Free State was established in 1922, will be released before the statutory
100-year period expires in 2027.
Previously the campaign for early
release seemed to be gaining ground - only now is the determination of the
Central Statistics Office to keep to the original schedule becoming clear.
However it's worth bearing in mind that there are potential disadvantages for
the family historians of the future in pressing for early release - members of
the public may be less likely to participate in future censuses if they are
concerned that their personal data could be released during their lifetime.
Tracing Your Irish History on the Internet
I've had John Grenham's
masterwork on my shelves for many years (mine's only the 2nd edition) so when I
discovered that genealogist, author, blogger and LostCousins member Chris Paton
had written his own book on Irish research I decided to get hold of a copy,
even though I don't - to the best of my knowledge - have any Irish ancestry.
I chose the Kindle version of Tracing
Your Irish History on the Internet as it was virtually half the price
of the paperback, although I read it on my computer screen so that I could more
easily follow up the links (remember that you don't need a Kindle to read
Kindle books - you can get a free app for your PC or tablet).
Whilst the 19th century Irish censuses
may not have survived, there are an amazing number of records that are not only
available, but online - if only you know where to look. And that's precisely
why this book is so invaluable - at less than the price of one BMD certificate
it's a real bargain for anyone with Irish ancestry!
Tip:
there are now over 12 million records in the Irish Petty Sessions Court Records
collection at findmypast.
When I wrote about ScotlandsPlaces almost 3 years
ago it was a totally free resource where you could view the farm horse tax
rolls from 1797-98.
Kate wrote to tell me that the coverage
has now expanded to include other tax records, including hearth tax rolls
(1691-95), dog tax rolls (1797-98), shop tax rolls (1785-89), and many more -
but sadly it's no longer free. On the plus side, you don't have to buy credits as
you would at ScotlandsPeople - you can get an unlimited use 3 month
subscription for £15. A subscription also allows you to view the Ordnance
Survey Name Books for 18 counties - more will be coming online soon - and these
sometimes give the names of occupiers or owners.
Tip:
I've heard that some users of the ScotlandsPeople website who were having
problems with Internet Explorer 10 were able to solve them by switching to
Google Chrome.
Can you claim an
Arctic Star medal or Bomber Command clasp?
In December the Prime Minister announced
that the bravery of the veterans of these campaigns were to recognised, but it
was only this month that LostCousins member Donna realised that as next-of-kin she
could apply for her late father's medal.
You'll find more details and an
application form here.
Debate over the future
of the UK census continues
Next week I'm going to be in Westminster
at an event run by the Social Research Association entitled The Census: Now and in the Future (many
thanks to Debbie Kennett, author of DNA
and Social Networking: A Guide to Genealogy in the Twenty-First Century
for tipping me off about this event).
It will be interesting to see whether
the importance of the census to family historians comes up - and if it doesn't,
you can be sure I'll do my best to put that right!
Ancestry errors -
the saga continues
Perhaps inspired by the 2 million errors
that other LostCousins members had already found in Ancestry's GRO indexes,
when Brenda discovered that 2 marriage register pages for St John, Hoxton -
part of the London Metropolitan Archives Collection at Ancestry - had been
omitted, she decided to carry out a systematic check into the records.
The 2 pages originally identified became
14, and eventually there were hundreds of missing pages - in just a 25 year
period. It's hard to believe that any checks were carried out on the data, so
it has me worried that there might be similar gaps in some other parishes.
Brian wrote in to warn that in
Ancestry's West Yorkshire collection the wrong parish is sometimes shown - but
he also came up with a possible solution. Many of the images show a West
Yorkshire Archive Services reference number which you can compare against the
list of parishes in this
PDF file.
In fairness I should remind you that
everyone makes mistakes, including me - it's just that Ancestry seems to make
bigger boobs than anyone else.
Findmypast advert
embarrassment
One of the problems with Google ads is
that you don't have much control over what adverts appear (which is why you
won't have seen Google ads on the LostCousins website, even though we could do
with the money!).
Last week Liz wrote to tell me that she
had complained to findmypast about an advert on their website that she thought
was completely inappropriate - it was for a company called TCS Exhumation
Services, who specialise in 'rearranging' cemeteries.
I'm glad to say that she did get a very
apologetic response from a member of findmypast's Customer Support Team, and
when I checked the site today the Google ads had disappeared completely.
Well done, Liz!
Could you be replaced by a computer?
Most people achieve immortality of a
kind by passing on their genes to their offspring (who hopefully do the same)
but the 2045 Initiative is aiming
for a world in which human consciousness can be transferred from a living body
to a machine.
Since scientists still can't decide precisely
what consciousness is, it seems a little premature to envisage a scenario like
that in the film Avatar
- then again, when I saw Face
Off a decade or so ago it seemed like complete science fiction, yet it
has already become science fact.
But just for a moment, let's forget
about what it would be like for us to live for ever, and imagine what it would
be like if we could talk to our ancestors, and ask them some of the questions
that we're currently struggling to answer. If you could ask three questions of
your ancestors, who would you ask, and what would those questions be?
Note:
ironically there will inevitably be some questions that we're in a better
position to answer - thanks to DNA testing we can hope to answer some questions
of paternity that our ancestors couldn't.
We tend to believe that our ancestors were
honest citizens who always told the truth, even though the evidence often
contradicts this. LostCousins member Peter wrote in recently with a fascinating
tale:
"I
had a breakthrough recently that was quite extraordinary. My ggg-grandfather
Charles Heald was from Wakefield. He married in Hull in 1822. When his daughter (my gg-grandmother)
married he was listed as 'mariner, deceased'.
It was always a mystery. But now
I have found he was far from dead - he married again in Calcutta and named his
two sons identically to the ones left behind in Hull (Charles Broadley Heald and Thomas George Heald). He turned out to be a master mariner and it seems
he also spent time in Calcutta Prison for debt."
New TV series: Secrets from the Workhouse
In the latest issue of
Who Do You Think You Are? magazine (July 2013) Peter Higginbotham writes about
the new ITV series in which he was involved, and which tells of workhouse life
using as examples the ancestors of five celebrities (including actress Felicity
Kendal and author Barbara Taylor Bradford). There are two programmes in the
series: the first is on Tuesday 25th June at 9pm, the second is a week later.
You'll find more details if you follow this link.
Nearly 7 million newspaper
pages at findmypast
There are now almost 7 million pages
from the British Newspaper Archive at findmypast.co.uk following the addition
of 31 new titles (you'll find a list of the new titles here).
If you have Full or World subscription
to findmypast.co.uk
you have unlimited access to this phenomenal collection (it would cost almost
£80 a year to subscribe to the British Newspaper Archive directly).
This week many people
in the UK were shocked to discover that the Care Quality Commission - the
National Health Service regulator - had covered up a report that was critical
of its own failure to spot problems at Furness General Hospital, where several
babies had died. But if that
wasn't bad enough, the CQC refused to name the personnel responsible because
they had been advised by their lawyers that do so would contravene the Data
Protection Act!
Fortunately, not only did the Health
Secretary say that this was "completely unacceptable", the
Information Commissioner - whose office is responsible for interpreting data
protection legislation - told the BBC that senior managers could not "hide
behind the Data Protection Act". (There's more information, including an
interview with the Chief Executive of the CQC, on the BBC website.)
I'm sure you've found, as I have, that
there's a tendency for all sorts of organisations to quote the Data Protection
Act when they don't want to tell you something. For example, when I telephoned
BT to ask who was behind the unwanted telephone marketing calls I was receiving
they refused on the grounds that this information is protected by the Act. They
soon changed their tune when I pointed out that the Act protects individuals,
not businesses or other organisations - though I still didn't get the
information I was after, because they then claimed that Ofcom, the regulator,
wouldn't allow them to disclose it.
I can't see why any commercial
organisation should be allowed to hide their identity - perhaps if Ofcom were
to take a more pragmatic approach I wouldn't get so many phone calls about PPI
claims?
Napoleon famously described England as a
nation of shopkeepers, but these days it seems we do nothing but talk about the
weather - and with some justification, considering that in the past 12 months
we've experienced the coldest spring for half a century and the wettest summer
for a century. And looking out the window right now it's clearly not getting
any better!
It's not surprising that when English
people get to my age they often dream of retirement in the sunshine - and
whilst I don't imagine I'll ever be able to retire, I recently started
wondering whether it might not be possible to work in a warmer climate for part
of the year.
Here's the idea I came up with -
genealogy holidays on the Algarve, the sunniest part of Portugal. Even in
winter they have over 5 hours of sunshine per day on average, and in March and
April they have more sunshine than London gets at the height of summer!
Also, at that time of year the
temperature is about 17˚ Fahrenheit warmer on the Algarve than it is here
in Essex, yet the price of accommodation, flights, and car hire are really low
(provided you avoid the Easter period). The idea of spending a week or two in a
warmer climate with fellow family historians sounds pretty good to me, just so
long as there's an appropriate balance between sunshine and genealogy - no
point sitting inside when it's glorious outside!
Would anybody reading this newsletter be
interested, in principle? Email me to let me know (please title the email
"Genealogy in the sunshine" so that I can file it separately from the
hundreds of other emails I receive whenever a newsletter is published). What
would be the factors that would affect your decision? Would you be able to
bring a laptop or tablet, or would you need one to be provided? Would one week
be long enough, or should it be two weeks (whatever the length of the course there
would almost certainly be an opportunity for anyone who wanted to stay on
longer to do so for a modest extra charge)?
If there's a good response from members
I'll start making some detailed enquiries, although it might be too late to get
anything organised for Spring 2014.
Note:
talking of Napoleon, as I was at the beginning of this article, there was a page on the
BBC website recently about the semaphore telegraphy system that provided a
communications network across France that was only superseded by the arrival of
the electric telegraph in the mid-19th century.
Some of the members who followed my
recent recommendation to switch their mobile phone to GiffGaff (the
provider who came out top in this year's Which? survey)
have pointed out that I didn't highlight one of the key features - free calls
between GiffGaff users. Mind you, since they've just doubled the number of
minutes you get for £10 to 500, I'm not sure why anyone would need free calls
on top!
For that £10 you also get unlimited
texts and 1gb of mobile Internet access, which is far
more than most people can use in a month (which is why I usually go for the
£7.50 plan, which includes 200 minutes, unlimited texts, and 250mb of mobile
Internet). Follow this link to get a
free SIM AND £5 of free credit when you top-up for the first time.
It has been a while since I've come up
with any supermarket tips, but this one will make up for that! I recently
discovered Pepperidge Farm Soft Dark Chocolate Cookies, which look much like
the expensive cookies they sell in coffee shops, but are a LOT cheaper, and
absolutely delicious. Currently they are 74p off at Tesco, down from £2.49 to
£1.75, which might sound a lot for 8 cookies, but just wait until you taste
them! My wife and I sometimes split a cookie with our morning coffee, which not
only halves the cost but also the calories. Coffee is on special offer too - I
bought 8 packs of Tesco's decaffeinated ground coffee for £2 each (normally
£2.39) when I was shopping yesterday evening, and as we get through a pack most
weeks it's a useful saving.
By the way, if you're ever planning to
order from Tesco online, you'll find Tesco ads on the LostCousins site. Click
on the relevant advertisement before ordering your groceries, wine, clothing,
or other goods and you'll be supporting LostCousins, but it won't cost you a
penny more.
This where any late
updates will be posted, so it's worth checking back after a few days.
It won't be long now before the
LostCousins forum opens to everyone - in the meantime if you've received an
invitation from me I'd encourage you to register at the forum right away.There will be more invitations going out shortly - to
the members with the highest Match Potential (shown on your My Summary page).
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2013 Peter Calver
You
MAY link to this newsletter or email a link to your friends and relatives
without asking for permission in advance. I have included bookmarks so you can
link to a specific article: right-click on the relevant entry in the table of
contents at the beginning of the newsletter to copy the link.
Please
DO NOT re-publish any part of this newsletter, other
than the list of contents at the beginning, without permission - either on your
own website, in an email, on paper, or in any other format. It is better for
all concerned to provide a link as suggested above, not least because articles
are often updated.