Newsletter
- 12th August 2015
"Improved"
Ancestry site causes consternation
How to
switch back to the 'old' site
Save
20% at Findmypast ENDS SOON
Over a million more Staffordshire register
entries online
1939
National Register: update
Merchant
Navy Apprentices 1824-1919
Wigan
Borough Online War Memorial
British
Movietone: historic newsreels from 1895-1986
How to
save money on key subscriptions
Save
money on DNA tests ENDS SOON
Bringing
DNA back from the dead
Review: Tracing Your Ancestors Through
Death Records
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published
fortnightly. To access the previous newsletter (dated 30th July) 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
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Whenever possible
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To go to the main LostCousins website click the
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of this newsletter available!
"Improved" Ancestry
site causes consternation
Researchers who have taken up Ancestry's
offer to switch to the "improved" site are in uproar over the changes
to their family trees - ancestors who lived in Britain all their lives have
suddenly been transplanted to other countries.
The underlying problem has been there
all along - I'm sure that like me, you've seen online trees where vital events
are shown as taking place in Birmingham, Alabama or Paris, Texas rather than in
England or France - but the new 'Timeline' feature makes it much more obvious
by including information relating to siblings, parents, and children. For
example, here's an entry from my grandmother's timeline:
In my tree I had recorded Clara Maria's
birth as taking place at "194 Oxford St, Mile End" - which is what it
shows on her birth certificate - but Ancestry's software gets a bit confused,
perhaps because the format it expects is:
Here's another example, this time for my
3G grandfather, whose birthplace I had recorded as "3 Sugar Loaf Court,
Essex Street, Whitechapel" (this was also from his birth certificate):
I know from emails I've received from
other LostCousins members that all sorts of anomalies are becoming apparent,
though as far I can tell the underlying data isn't being corrupted. All the
more reason, I'd venture to suggest, for NOT making your Ancestry 'public'.
Tip:
Even if your Ancestry tree is private, your cousins can still find you, just so
long as you haven't also ticked the box that prevents your relatives being
found when other members search. The settings shown below are the ones I'd
recommend:
How to switch back to the
'old' site
To their credit, Ancestry are allowing members to trial the new site, but switch back
to the old one. To switch back go to the home page, click on your log-in name
at the top right, and then choose Old
Ancestry from the dropdown menu:
When you do this you'll be invited to
comment on your reasons for switching back, so this is a great opportunity to
provide feedback and offer suggestions:
User feedback was incredibly important
when Ancestry last made a major change to their site a few years - the switch
from the 'Old Search' to the 'New Search' was incredibly controversial and,
thanks to the efforts of subscribers like you and me, we ended up with the best
of both worlds.
Save 20% at Findmypast ENDS 20TH AUGUST
Readers of this newsletter can save £20
on all NEW annual subscriptions to Findmypast - but only until 20th August.
For example, this brings the cost of
their most popular subscription - the BRITAIN subscription - down to a mere
£79.60 (less than 22p a day). Or buy a WORLD subscription from Findmypast.co.uk
for just £103.60 (under £2 a week - less than the cost of some Sunday papers).
I've also negotiated similar savings at
other Findmypast sites around the world.
Note: these offers are for new
subscribers. If you've been a Findmypast subscriber in the past you may qualify
- it doesn't do any harm to try - but I can't guarantee it.
You can only take advantage of these
offers and support LostCousins by using one of the links below
to go to the special page on the appropriate Findmypast site:
If the links don't work for you please
disable the adblocking extension in your browser
before trying again.
Should you not make your purchase
immediately, please click the link again when you do - otherwise LostCousins
won't benefit. If you want to share this offer with friends or relatives,
that's fine with me, but please do it by sending them a link to this
newsletter, and not a link to the offer page.
Claim a FREE
LostCousins subscription!
When you take up Findmypast's offer
using one of the links above you'll also be supporting LostCousins - so as one
good turn deserves another, I'm going to give you a FREE LostCousins
subscription worth up to £12.50! When you take out a new World subscription
under the offer you'll qualify for a 12 month LostCousins subscription; when
you take out a new Local (eg Britain)
subscription you'll qualify for a 6 month LostCousins subscription.
Tip: if you already have a LostCousins
subscription you can still benefit - I'll extend the expiry date.
All you need to do is forward a copy of
the email receipt you receive from Findmypast showing the date and time (your
LostCousins subscription will run from that date, so it's best to get your
claim in as soon as possible), and quoting your LostCousins membership number,
which is shown on your My Summary page. You can forward it to
any of the LostCousins email addresses, including the one I wrote from when I
told you about this newsletter.
If you want to benefit from a joint
subscription, covering two LostCousins accounts, you must link them together
before forwarding the receipt; to find out how to link the accounts just log-in
and go to the Subscribe page (it takes 2 minutes and
only needs to be done once).
Terms and conditions: your Findmypast subscription purchase cannot
be combined with any other offer; you must click the link for the Findmypast
site where you buy your subscription (and you must do it before buying
the subscription), otherwise the purchase won't benefit LostCousins and you
won't qualify for your free LostCousins subscription. Upgrades, downgrades, and
renewals do not qualify for this offer - your subscription might count as a
renewal even if your previous subscription lapsed some time ago, but if
LostCousins benefits, then so will you.
Over a million more
Staffordshire register entries online
It's just over a year since Findmypast
launched the first phase of their Staffordshire Collection, comprising 2.8
million records from baptism, marriage, and burial registers - with this second
phase they are now nearly 4 million records online out of an eventual 6
million.
Included in the latest release you'll
find the 1894 baptism of Vera Brittain whose memoir Testament
of Youth, published in 1933, has recently been turned into a film
(though whether it matches the superb BBC
series starring Cheryl Campbell I've yet to discover).
You can search all of the records
released so far by following these links:
It's also possible to browse the
registers by following this link. No date
has been given for the release of the remaining records, but I'd be surprised
if we saw another release before the end of 2015.
1939 National Register:
update
I recently discovered this YouTube clip which shows
Findmypast working on the digitisation of the registers. You'll notice that in
the comments below Findmypast are talking about a release date before the end
of this year.
I can't be certain that this valuable
resource will be included in existing subscriptions, but I very much hope that
will be the case. Let's keep our fingers crossed!
Merchant Navy
Apprentices 1824-1919
Ancestry
have just added over 300,000 index entries relating to apprentices who were
indentured on Merchant Navy ships between 1824-1910 (under the Merchant Seamen
Act of 1823 Masters of British merchant ships of 80 tons and over were required
to carry a given number of indentured apprentices).
You can search the indexes here.
In a small number of cases the records to which the indexes refer are held by
the National Archives, but sadly most were destroyed in a decluttering disaster.
Wigan Borough Online War
Memorial
Wigan
Borough Online War Memorial is the result of a project between Archives
& Local Studies Volunteers and Wigan Council's First World War
Commemoration Fund. They have tried to research every name listed on Wigan
Council's war memorials, linking biographical information on the men and women
who died during the war to thousands of digitised newspaper stories. You can
search for individual people using the search tool or browse the newspaper
reports.
I know there have been projects all
across the nation, but I felt that Wigan's efforts deserved a special mention!
British Movietone: historic newsreels from 1895-1986
Do you remember when we used to go to
the cinema to see the news? (These days you don't even have to turn on the
television - you can get the news on a smartphone.)
There are tens of thousands of wonderful
clips in the British Movietone archive, which you can
search and view completely free (though
you'll have to pay to use any of the footage). In all there are over 10,000
hours of digitised video in the Associated Press archive, and as some events
were recorded both by British Movietone and British
Pathé (whose archive can be searched here)
you can see them from more than one perspective.
In my first few minutes of searching I
found footage
from 1931 of King George V opening the new hospital in Ilford where, 25 years
later, I was to have my tonsils removed. Looking through other films
from my home town I noticed June Whitfield, the actress, opening the new PDSA
(People's Dispensary for Sick Animals) sanatorium in 1958 - it was on the site
of the PDSA's (and Europe's) first animal sanatorium, which opened in 1928. My
last visit to the Ilford sanatorium was in 1976 when our family dog had to be
"put to sleep" after a stroke that left her paralysed.
What will you find that reminds you of
your youth?
You'll often find fascinating
information in parish registers that seemingly has little to do with the church
- on one occasion I came across a list of trees planted in the church grounds,
on another I found details of the payments made to parishioners who had helped
to rid the parish of vermin.
I've never thought of sparrows as vermin
(perhaps because my family's connection
with farming ended in the 19th century) and since 2005 they have been fully
protected in England - but an audio
clip that I discovered recently on the Essex Record Office blog underlined
the fact that it hasn't always been that way. (Rickling
is just a couple of miles up the road from where LostCousins is based, but I
can assure you that I would never knowingly harm a sparrow.)
Warning:
some people might find the recording, which describes activities in the 1920s
and 1930s, upsetting.
How to save money on key
subscriptions
One of the great advantages of credit
cards is the ability to spend money in almost any currency. I know that many
people shy away from spending money in unfamiliar currencies, but as long as
you get your calculations right (or use a site like XE.com
which has a calculator) there are some big savings to be made, because exchange
rates can fluctuate quite widely.
Some of the biggest savings are on
subscriptions for sites like Ancestry and Findmypast - for example, until the
end of 2014 the cost of a World subscription to Ancestry was cheaper at their
UK site than at any of the others, and I heard from several members who had
saved $100 or more by switching. However from January 2015 Ancestry's
subscription rates went up, even for existing subscribers, partly as a result
of changes in the VAT rules.
Here are some tips that you might find
useful:
- World
subscriptions offer the same features at every site (this applies to both
Findmypast and Ancestry, though of course the two companies have very
different collections)
- Other
subscriptions are completely different - they typically include only local
records, so price comparisons between different sites aren't usually relevant.
But there's one important exception: you may find that a better
subscription at another site is actually cheaper - for example, at current
exchange rates a new World
subscription to Findmypast costs less through their Australian site than a
new Britain subscription bought
at their British site. Similarly, for someone living in Australia a UK Heritage Plus subscription to
Ancestry currently costs less than a Premium
subscription at the UK site, even though it offers more records.
- UK
subscribers to overseas Ancestry sites may have to pay an extra 20% to cover
VAT; the precise amount will be shown only after you have entered your
credit card details and gone to the Checkout (though before you have
actually been charged). As far as I can tell UK subscribers to Findmypast's
overseas sites pay the same rate as everyone else (but always check the
price displayed immediately before you make a purchase).
- Findmypast
offer a 10% Loyalty discount to existing subscribers who allow their
subscription to be renewed automatically; Ancestry don't offer any loyalty
incentives that I'm aware of.
- Both
Ancestry and Findmypast will renew your subscription automatically unless
you ask them not to; in the case of Findmypast you need only change a
setting, but at Ancestry you must cancel your subscription, which takes a
little longer (but is just as effective). Note that if you cancel an
Ancestry annual subscription in the first 30 days you'll be given a full
refund; otherwise your subscription will continue until the end of the 12
months that you've paid for (the same applies to the free
subscriptions that come with some
versions of Family Tree Maker).
You can support LostCousins (and save an
extra 20%) by using the Findmypast links in the article near the beginning of
this newsletter; you can also support LostCousins by using the following
Ancestry links:
If you're in the UK you can also save
money on Ancestry subscriptions by buying Family Tree Maker, even if you don't
intend to use the software. For example, when I last checked you could buy the 2014
Platinum edition for under £40 at Amazon,
even though it comes with a 6 month Premium subscription (normally £119.99 a
year), whilst the 2012
World edition could be found for as little as £49.99 (it comes with a 6
month World subscription - this normally costs £179.99 a year).
Save money on DNA tests ENDS SOON
Although I haven't finished my latest
series of articles on DNA testing I'm sure that some of you have already made
your mind p about DNA testing. It's in that spirit that I'm passing on news of
some discount offers that are ending very soon.
Ancestry DNA
are offering $20 off to customers in the US, bringing the price of their
autosomal test down from $99 to a mere $79 when you follow this link -
sadly here doesn't seem to be an equivalent offer in other countries. This
offers runs until 17th August.
Over at Family Tree DNA, where they
offer a whole range of tests, you can save 15% on orders of $99 or more when
you follow this link
and use the code CJS2015, or else
get $30 off when you spend $140 or more using the code CGS30 (these offers could end at any time - but they were both still
working today).
Tip:
by using the links above you'll be helping to support LostCousins
Bringing DNA back from
the dead
This week I read a news story
which said that a judge in Argentina has ordered the exhumation of motor-racing
legend Juan Manuel Fangio in order to resolve paternity cases involving two men
in their 70s who are claiming (separately) to be his sons.
Meanwhile, in England the author of a
book on Jack the Ripper is hoping to exhume the body of Mary Jane Kelly, the
Ripper's final victim - who he believes was really his great aunt, Elizabeth
Weston Davies. You'd think he might have waited for the DNA results before
rushing into publication, but my guess is that (a) he won't get permission for
the exhumation (despite the optimistic note in this Telegraph article),
and (b) even if he does get permission, the DNA results will disprove his
hypothesis.
Still, I could be wrong - and maybe if
you read his book
you'll be convinced that Dr Weston-Davies has hit on the solution that has
eluded others....
Review: Tracing Your Ancestors Through Death Records
I've recently finished reading the 2nd Edition of
Celia Heritage's book, which includes a few, mostly minor, updates from the original 2013 version (so
if you've already got that one there's absolutely no point buying the new one).
However, when it was first released I
didn't have time to review the book properly, so I welcomed the opportunity to
set matters right - because Celia is not only a well-known and highly-respected
lecturer who runs her own genealogical research company, she's also been a
LostCousins member for 10 years.
At one time I used to think that whilst
records of births, baptisms, and marriages often provide vital clues, death
certificates and burial records tend to reveal relatively little - so I didn't
invest nearly as much time, effort, or money collecting them. This was a
mistake - not least because it isn't just about death certificates and burial
records, there are lots of other sources which come into play at the end of our
ancestors' lives - wills, inventories, obituaries, inquest records, newspaper
articles, headstone inscriptions are just a few examples.
Celia carefully guides us through the
process of finding and interpreting these records - then just as we think we've
reach the end of the book she adds a short chapter
entitled "Repercussions of Death and Reading Between the Lines". Here
she offers intriguing suggestions, such as "if the deceased was a
craftsman or tradesman of any sort, try to find out who took his place in the
community after his death" - what a good idea!
Both easy to read and a useful work of
reference that will stay within easy reach on my bookshelf, Tracing
Your Ancestors Through Death Records is an excellent guide to an
often-neglected part of our research. There are more comprehensive books on
individual topics, such as wills or causes of death, but no other book that
I've read offers such a good overview of what's available. The cover price is
£12.99 but I found new copies at under £9 (including postage) at Amazon;
there is a Kindle
version of the 1st edition which is cheaper still.
Note:
in the next newsletter I'll be following up with a review of How
Our Ancestors Died by Simon Wills, an in-depth look at causes of death, and
how they might be shown on a death certificate.
Although I knew Les Law, the author of The
Adopted Prisoner - his son and I went to the same primary school and
the same secondary school, as well as belonging to the same Boys' Brigade
company - I knew nothing of his wartime adventures (and they were adventures) until I read this excellent
book.
It's not a long book - I read it in a
day - but I enjoyed every moment. It doesn't glorify war, nor try to make out
that everyone on the winning side was a hero, and it certainly doesn't go into
great detail into the construction of escape tunnels, as some books do. Nor
does the author try to elicit our sympathy for the deprivations that he
endured.
This book is primarily about people:
fellow soldiers, fellow PoWs,
and especially the Italian villagers who befriended and helped our Tommies despite the great risk to their own safety (and
that of their families). It ends with Les's return to
Italy, 27 years after the war ended, to see the 'family' he left behind. For a
time he was their son - they were his parents - and they never forgot each
other. In a sense it isn't a war story, but a love story - but however it's
categorised, this book is a shining example to anyone else thinking of writing
their memoirs!
I paid £8.07 for the paperback at Amazon,
but they are printed on demand, so you might have to wait a few days (you can
also buy an eBook - in PDF format - at Lulu.com).
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
I've reached the end of my tether as far
as unwanted calls are concerned - I don't mind so much when there's a person on
the other end who I can berate, but these days it's more likely that it'll be a
recorded message.
If I had my way the perpetrators of
these frauds would be behind bars, and anyone involved in helping them,
including the phone company that delivers the calls, should be liable to
prosecution. But since that isn't going to happen any time soon I've just
bought a BT8500 cordless phone with Call
Guardian, which intercepts all calls other than those from trusted numbers.
You can read an expert review of the
phone here.
I got a much better deal than the one quoted - for example, you can buy a twin
phone system from Amazon
for under £50. Even if you end up buying elsewhere, it's worth going to Amazon
to read the customer
reviews - the average rating, from well over a thousand reviews, was 4.6
out of 5 when I last checked, which is pretty much as good as it gets.
Something else that annoys me is the way
that supermarkets expect you to know what fits in a particular category and
what doesn't. For example, when I got a Tesco coupon at the checkout recently
which offered £1.50 off when I spent £6 on "any Healthcare products".
There were a couple of things I needed, so next time I went shopping I picked
them up - a bottle of Olbas Oil (great for clearing stuffed-up
noses), and a bottle of Corsydyl, described on the
NHS Choices website as a "medicine[which] helps treat or prevent gum
inflammation and plaque formation and also helps to relieve the discomfort
caused by mouth ulcers, inflammation and infections of the mouth".
There wasn't a shred of doubt in my mind
that I'd picked up two "Healthcare products", but would you believe
it, when I got to the checkout my coupon wasn't accepted! I went to Customer
Services, but as far as they were concerned "Healthcare products"
meant vitamins, and they stuck by this story even after I suggested they
contact a supervisor. By this time I'd wasted about 15 minutes, so I just
handed them back for a refund and walked off in disgust - I'm certainly not
going to be buying vitamins, since all the vitamins I need are already in my
diet or produced by sunlight. Oh well....
Some good news to end - with effect from
2nd September GiffGaff
will be including 4G for the same price as 3G, and improving some of their
'goody bags' at the same time. If you've got an unlocked phone (or one that's
locked to O2) it's worth ordering a free SIM and checking out the options. If
you use this link
you'll get a £5 credit the first time you top-up.
This is where any last minute updates
and corrections will be highlighted - if you think you've spotted an error
(sadly I'm not infallible), reload the newsletter (press F5) then check here before writing to me, in case
someone else has beaten you to it......
Must dash because I'm hoping to see the Perseid meteor shower - assuming the cloud cover
reduces. There will be another newsletter next week in which I'll continue my
series of DNA articles.
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2015 Peter Calver
Please
do not copy any part of this newsletter without permission. However, you MAY
link to this newsletter or email a link to your friends and relatives without
asking for permission in advance - though why not invite them to join
LostCousins instead, since standard membership, which includes this newsletter,
is FREE?