Newsletter
- 12th January 2017
Leicestershire
parish registers online this month OUT NOW
Good news
- the enhanced GRO indexes are still online
Free
access to BMD records and Censuses at Findmypast ENDS
SUNDAY
LostCousins
is free this weekend! ENDS MONDAY
200
years of the census: how it was seen in 2001
How
were homeless people recorded in the census?
REWRITING
HISTORY: the mother who bore 33 children - or did she?
Understanding
family photos: one-day course in London SOLD OUT
First
test results from Living DNA OFFER ENDS SUNDAY
Peter's
Tips: Best of 2016 (part three)
The LostCousins newsletter is usually
published fortnightly. To access the previous newsletter (dated 30th December)
click here; to find earlier articles use the
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To go to the main LostCousins website
click the logo at the top of this newsletter. If you're not already a member,
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new edition of this newsletter available!
Leicestershire parish
registers online this month OUT NOW
A recent tweet from the Leicestershire
Record Office let slip a piece of information that will be great news for
anyone with ancestors from the county: "Look out for our Leicestershire
Unknown Soldier feature and the launch of our parish registers, wills and
electoral rolls online this month".
As you'll know from my exclusive
revelation last February, the contract for the Leicestershire (and Rutland)
registers was won by Findmypast.
Good news - the enhanced GRO
indexes are still online
Although the GRO's PDF trial ended after
just three weeks, the enhanced birth and death indexes which were launched
around the same time are still online - and to the best of my knowledge will be
available permanently, even if it is decided not to continue with PDF copies of
register entries.
As most of you will already know, it's
the additional information in the indexes that has led to the most discoveries
- not the PDFs - and, because the indexes are free, the only investment we need
to make is our time. I suspect that by now everyone has used the indexes to
identify children who were never recorded by name on any census, but whose
existence was revealed by the 1911 Census - but have you thought about using
them more speculatively, to identify children of earlier marriages? The infant
mortality rate was so high in the 19th century that most families will have
lost children in infancy - and whilst identifying them won't help us trace our
ancestors (or find living cousins), it will tell us a little more about our
ancestors' lives.
Tip:
there's a handy guide to the new indexes and their quirks here
- being able to search only 5 years at a time, and only for males or females,
are perhaps the biggest limitations. But fortunately the original indexes -
which cover a longer period and include marriages - are still available at
several websites, including Findmypast, where they're offering free access this
weekend….
Free access to BMD
records and Censuses at Findmypast ENDS SUNDAY
If you have ancestors from England &
Wales the essential records are the censuses from 1841-1911, and the GRO
indexes from 1837-2006. From 10am on Thursday 12th January until midnight on
Sunday 15th January you will have free access to these and billions of other BMD
and census records at Findmypast, including indexed transcriptions of the
Scottish censuses from 1841-1901, so it's a great opportunity to fill in some
of the gaps in your tree. When I checked just now parish records, including images of
the original register entries (where available), were also included so you could
potentially take your ancestry right back to 1538!
Note that whilst you will be expected to
log-in, or to
register if you haven't done so before, you won't be asked to provide
credit card or bank details. There really is no catch - other than the
possibility that once you discover how easy it is to add to your family tree
you'll want more!
Tip:
when you visit the Findmypast site you might see an advert for a 14-day free trial; this is always available,
but you can only do it once, and you will be expected to provide your
card details if you choose this option - so don't choose it unless it is really
what you want.
Please use these links to visit
Findmypast and search the free records:
Different sites require different search
techniques if you want to get the best results (and which family historian
wouldn't?). Last month I published a Masterclass article to help you make the
most of Findmypast - you'll find it here.
LostCousins is free this
weekend! ENDS MONDAY
With free access to the censuses at
Findmypast, there couldn't be a better time to investigate the branches on your
family tree so that you can add extra relatives to your My Ancestors page - especially since every direct ancestor or blood
relative you add before the end of January represents an entry* in my seasonal
competition (you'll find full details of the fantastic prizes here).
* relatives from the 1881 Census count
double!
To make it even more exciting the
LostCousins site will be completely FREE this weekend - this means you won't
need to be a subscriber to contact the new cousins you find. Even if you don't
plan to enter any new relatives you should still log-in and click the Search button on your My Ancestors page.
Tip:
if you've forgotten how to log-in click here and enter
your email address (the one that appears near the end of the email that told
you about this newsletter).
200 years of the
census: how it was seen in 2001
2001 doesn't sound like a long time ago - indeed, when
I watched the film 2001: A Space Odyssey nearly half a
century ago it seemed like a long time in the future. But for me, 2001 seems like a lifetime ago - I'm ashamed to say that
I didn't start researching my family tree until 2002, when the 1901 Census was
released. However, it's better to start late than not at all, and thanks to the
wealth of records that have become available online in the past 16 years it's
possible for someone starting today to catch up very quickly indeed (although
gaining experience and developing insight still takes as long as it ever did!).
In 2001 the Office for National
Statistics was celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Census - somewhat
ironic, one might think, in view of their current position (that the heritage
value of the census is irrelevant). There are some interesting facts and
figures in this PDF
document, which the ONS published just before the 2001 Census was taken -
so I'd encourage you to take a look.
How were homeless
people recorded in the census?
When I came across the following household
schedule from the 1911 Census it seemed interesting, but little more; it was
only when I read what was more written more carefully that I began to realise the
implications…..
Crown Copyright Image
reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England and Findmypast
As you can see, there were two homeless
persons 'kipping' in the shed at Bagden Farm,
unbeknown to the gardener and his family. But ponder the implications of the
heading, which reads "Police Return of Homeless Persons received too late
by the Registrar to be inserted other than on this Schedule." Have you
ever seen a Police Return of Homeless Persons in the 1911 Census? I hadn't, so it
started me wondering whether it was because they didn't exist, or simply
because I'd never stumbled across one.
Fortunately Google came to my rescue,
leading me to this fine example of a Police Return from the parish of Ockham in
Surrey:
Crown Copyright Image
reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England and Findmypast
Of course, having found this example in
the 1911 Census I was keen to find out how the homeless had been treated in
earlier censuses. This page
from the 1901 Census Report reveals that in that year there were 1,645 persons
found in barns or sheds, and 12,574 in tents, caravans, or in the open air -
but I've not been able to locate any such entries. Have you come across any in
1901 (or earlier censuses)?
When you come across one of your
ancestors in the census it's natural to assume that this is where they were on
census night - but when Margaret found her relative recorded in two different
places in 1871 she realised she needed to take a closer look. Here's what she
saw:
Crown Copyright Image
reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives, London, England and Findmypast
Notice the all
important 'not' that has been inserted in the heading. Margaret surmised
that the schedule was prepared in advance, but that there was a last minute
change of plan. She might well have been right - in 1911, the only census to
have been published so far for which the household schedules have survived, we
often see deleted entries - but if you go to the front of the enumeration book
(which you'll find here)
you'll see that written on the front cover it says "Book 6 - Book Not
to be abstracted", ie not to be included in the
census. The personnel actually on board HMS Indus are listed in Book 5.
Investigating further I discovered that Books 3 & 4 similarly listed the
personnel who were and weren't aboard HMS Impregnable on census night.
The book for HMS Implacable revealed all
- it was divided into two sections, with those crew actually on-board shown on
pages 1 to 12, whilst pages 15 onwards gave a "LIST of the OFFICERS, MEN,
BOYS and MARINES borne on the Books of the Ship but NOT ON BOARD on the NIGHT
of SUNDAY, April 2nd, 1871".
Only page 15 was pre-printed -
subsequent pages had been ruled and annotated by hand, as you can see from the
example below (this was probably of necessity, and explains why the ships Indus
and Impregnable commandeered entire books for their absentee personnel):
Note:
a key difference I've noticed between Ancestry and Findmypast is that Ancestry
generally index deleted entries on the census, whereas Findmypast don't - it's
debatable which approach is best. These particular records have been indexed by
both sites, however.
It's not that unusual for the same
person to appear twice on the census, and it's often fairly easy to deduce why
that might have been - even today we are encouraged to complete the census form
ahead of schedule, the assumption clearly being that we have a crystal ball. In
practice children might be at their grandparents, itinerant workers could be in
transit, and some unfortunate individuals will be in hospital.
Please don't write in just because one
of your ancestors is listed twice in the census, but if you have an example of
someone who is recorded twice in particularly interesting circumstances - for
example, someone who has two families, each apparently unaware of the other -
then I'd be very interested to hear about them.
REWRITING HISTORY: the
mother who bore 33 children - or did she?
This article is the first in an
occasional series in which I will be examining stories that have been accepted
as true, but which can now be more fully researched using the wealth of online
resources available to family historians. The series was inspired by an email
from Peggy in Australia who spotted the story of Mary Jonas while transcribing
births as a FamilySearch volunteer.
In Overleigh Cemetery,
Chester there is a memorial to John Jonas and his wife Mary, who is described
as the "mother of 33 children" - you can see the headstone and
inscription here.
The death of Mary Jonas was reported in
the Cheshire Observer on the 9th
December 1899 under the heading "Death of a local celebrity", and
according to the article Mrs Jonas "was a successful competitor some time
ago in a competition promoted by a London periodical for mothers in the United
Kingdom having the largest number of children".
(The image on the right is copyright of
the British Library Board and reproduced by kind permission of Findmypast.)
A number of Internet sources name the
periodical as Tit-Bits, a weekly
magazine published between 1881 and 1984. By 1881, when the magazine was first
published, Mary Jonas would have been nearly 70 years of ago
- assuming that she was indeed 87 years old at her death in December 1899 - so
her child-rearing days would have been well behind her. I naturally wondered
how the magazine verified her feat - did she produce birth certificates or
baptismal certificates for each of her children?
One Internet source suggests that she
had 15 sets of twins, each made up of one boy and one girl - an incredibly
convenient arrangement that I found hard to believe, so I decided to embark on
some research of my own, starting with the marriage of John Jonas to Mary
Thomas at the church of St John the Baptist, Chester (in the registration
district of Great Boughton, which spans the border of
Cheshire and Flintshire).
Image copyright
Cheshire Archives and Local Studies Service, reproduced by kind permission of
Findmypast
According to the marriage register Mary
was already 24 years old when they tied the knot on 17th June 1839, so to bring
33 children into the world would be quite an achievement - though she hit the
ground running, as she was already pregnant with twins at the time of the
marriage (they were baptised less than three months after the wedding). In 1841
there were 2 children recorded on the census; in 1851 there were 8, and there
were the same number in 1861, although 2 of them had been born after the 1851
census. Across the three censuses there was evidence of 10 children, including
two pairs of twins - a large family, it's true, but could there really have
been 33 children in all?
Fortunately the new GRO birth indexes
make it easy to track the births of John and Mary's children, because the
mother's maiden name is shown (the contemporary indexes only showed this
information from the 3rd quarter of 1911). Searching the new indexes using the
surname Jonas and maiden name Thomas I was able to identify only 19 children,
including 6 pairs of twins (of which only four were girl-boy) - all were
registered in Great Boughton. As a crosscheck I
searched the Cheshire baptisms at Findmypast, finding the baptisms of 15 of the
children - and apart from one with an apparent change of name there no
discrepancies.
Of course, it's just possible that there
were other children who were not baptised, whose births were not registered (or
which appear in the indexes under slightly different surnames), and who died
before they could appear in the census - but it's inconceivable that there were
as many as 33 children born alive. Perhaps the figure of 33 includes stillborn
children? It's just about possible, however given the other discrepancies in the
story I'm inclined to believe that the numbers were simply exaggerated.
Understanding family
photos: one-day course in London SOLD OUT
On Saturday 4th February Jayne
Shrimpton, the professional dress historian, portrait specialist, and photo
‘detective’ will be gresenting a full day course at
the Society of Genealogists in London. At a cost of just £35 (less for SoG members) it's a great opportunity to learn how to
'read' family pictures, and participants are invited to submit photos in
advance for analysis on the day.
Update: unfortunately all the places
have now been filled - but I will let you know if the course is going to be
re-run.
First test results
from Living DNA OFFER ENDS SUNDAY
LostCousins member Debbie Kennett
lectured on DNA testing at Genealogy in
the Sunshine in both 2014 and 2015 - she's also in great demand at other
events, is the author of The Surnames
Handbook and DNA & Social
Networking, and an Honorary Research Associate attached to the
Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London.
It's not surprising, then, that she was invited to be one of the first to try
out the new Living DNA test which promises to offer a far higher resolution
guide to British ancestry than the tests offered by other companies.
Yesterday Debbie posted a blog article
entitled "My Living DNA results Part 1: family ancestry maps", which
will be of interest to anyone who has taken a DNA test, or might consider doing
so - you'll find it here.
You
can find out more (and support LostCousins) when you follow this link. Use
the voucher code XMAS16 to claim a 10% discount - the discount
is valid until Sunday 15th January.
File Under
Fidelity is the final book
in Geraldine Wall's excellent trilogy featuring Anna Ames, an heir hunter who
tries - not always successfully - to balance the needs of her family with those
of her clients. If you've read the first two books you'll know that there are
numerous loose ends to tie up in the third book - but things didn't happen
quite as I expected, oh no!
I'm not going to reveal any more because
if you have read the first two books (File
Under Family and File Under Fear) you won't need to be convinced to read
this one, and if you haven't - well, I wouldn't want to give too much away!
Highly recommended, especially if you like a bit of humanity with your
genealogical mystery - and whilst this trilogy is only available in Kindle
format, you don't need a Kindle device (I read this book on my smartphone).
You can support LostCousins when you
order this book - or any other item - from Amazon using the relevant link
below:
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca
Peter's Tips: Best of
2016 (part three)
In the third part of my review of 2016
I'm focusing on books. The links are to my original reviews of the books - I
can't see any point in repeating myself - and when you go to the reviews you'll
find links to the books at various Amazon sites, so you can support LostCousins
if you feel so inclined.
The
first book I reviewed in 2016 was Family History Nuts & Bolts, the updated
version of a book that I found very useful indeed. The earlier edition had been
recommended by the author of Genealogy:
Essential Research Methods, Helen Osborn - a long-term LostCousins member
and founder of Pharos Tutors - with those two books on your shelves you can't
go far wrong!
But the most popular books that I write
about are the genealogical mysteries - and 2016 brought a new book from Steve
Robinson, one of my favourite authors - Kindred. Some
people reckon it's his best so far - all I can say is that I've enjoyed every one.
The
Irish Inheritance was by an author new to me - but what a cracking story,
so I'll certainly be looking forward to the next book from MJ Lee. However my
favourite book of 2016 has to be The
Death of Tommy Quick and Other Lies from DJ Wiseman, which was breathtakingly
good - you really mustn't miss it!
It's not often I read fiction that isn’t
a genealogical mystery, but I'm prepared to make an exception for LostCousins
member Anne Harvey - whose stories set in the 1950s recreate the era very well.
Bittersweet
Flight is her second book, and every bit as good as the first - so I was
delighted to find out yesterday that she's writing a third.
The final work I'd like to mention is A
Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford - because it
really puts what we family historians do into perspective.
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 Ctrl-F5) then check here before writing to me, in case
someone else has beaten you to it......
That's all for now - but I'll be back again
soon.
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2017 Peter Calver
Please
do NOT copy or republish any part of this newsletter without permission - which
is only granted in the most exceptional circumstances. However, you MAY link to
this newsletter or any article in it without asking for permission - though why
not invite other family historians to join LostCousins instead, since standard
membership (which includes the newsletter), is FREE