Newsletter
- 3rd September 2015
Help
me celebrate my 65th birthday
Is
"Happy Birthday" copyright?
Virtually
FREE Findmypast offer ENDS SUNDAY
Three
sisters give birth on the same day
Half
cousins and three-quarter siblings
Review:
How Our Ancestors Died
Derbyshire
hospital admissions and deaths NEW
Leeds
Burial Ground records NEW
The LostCousins newsletter is usually published
fortnightly. To access the previous newsletter (dated 24th August) click here, for an index to articles from 2009-10
click here, for a list of articles from 2011
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To go to the main LostCousins website click the
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Help me celebrate my
65th birthday
In a few weeks' time I'll be 65, the
traditional retirement age. However I can assure you that I won't be reducing
my commitment to LostCousins - far from it. Indeed I've come up with a plan to
boost the total membership from the current total of 99,355 to the magic
100,000 level in time for my birthday. But - and this is the important part - I
can only achieve this target with your
assistance!
I have 650 one-year subscriptions - 10 for
each of my 65 years - to give away to the first 650 members who join LostCousins
using the offer code 65TH (they'll
need to enter this at the bottom of the registration page).
It's impossible to predict how quickly
those 650 subscriptions will go, but my advice is to pass the good news on to
the researchers you know as soon as possible - whether they're friends,
cousins, in-laws, researchers you've met at your U3A or family history group,
or even people you've met at family history websites. Once the one-year
subscriptions have gone, the same offer code will provide a free 3 month
subscription to EVERY new member who joins before midnight on 30th September -
so all new members joining between now and the end of the month will benefit.
You might be thinking "What about
existing members like me - how can I benefit?". Well,
assuming they have British ancestors, all those new members will be cousins of several
existing members - so you could get
the best gift of all, a new cousin!
Tip:
to maximise your chances of finding some extra cousins make sure that you've
entered all the cousins you can find on the 1881 Census - it's the members of
your direct ancestors' extended families who are most likely to connect you to
your cousins.
Over the years I've been running
LostCousins quite a few members have said that they wished they could buy me a
drink sometime - well, now you can! With the help of PayPal I've created a
button that allows you to buy me a Birthday drink, should you feel so inclined....
You don't need a PayPal account - any
credit card and most debit cards will work. Cheers!
Is "Happy
Birthday" copyright?
Everyone knows the song, but nobody
knows who wrote it. The tune, yes - that was written by sisters
Mildred and Patty Hill - but the original song was "Good Morning to
All". Now a lawsuit in the US could lead to the copyright being overturned
- you can read all about this fascinating, but rather complicated, story in this
New York Times article
(which, by the way, is copyright).
I'd just like to thank everyone who
contributed to the consultation which ended last Thursday - let's hope that the
Office for National Statistics realises how important the census is to our
heritage.
Virtually FREE Findmypast
offer ENDS SUNDAY
You've still got three days to take
advantage of a virtually free World subscription to Findmypast. Until 6th
September Findmypast are offering NEW subscribers the opportunity to get the
first month of a World subscription for just £1, $1, or 1€ - considerably less than the price of a small
ice cream cone, and much longer lasting.
Follow the appropriate link below and
you won't be the only one who'll benefit - LostCousins will also receive a
small amount of commission when you use these links (so please feel free to
forward a link to this newsletter to others who might be interested):
Note: if you see a message that the discount code is no longer
valid log out out from Findmypast and click the link again - this usually works. But if
you get a blank screen when you click the links see the notes at the start of this (and every)
newsletter about adblockers.
Of course, whilst the people I know at
Findmypast are a nice bunch of people, they're not doing this out of the
goodness of their heart - they’re hoping that some of you will continue to
subscribe after the first month (in which case you'll be charged the full
monthly rate). If you're not tempted to continue simply change the auto-renew
setting at the bottom of the Personal Details page.
Three sisters give
birth on the same day
On Tuesday three Irish sisters gave
birth in the same hospital - and it could have been four, because another sister
is also due to give birth any day. Coincidences do happen - my 2nd cousin once
removed was born the same day as I was in 1950, though I only discovered this
when I started researching my family tree half a century later.
Half cousins, double
cousins, and three-quarter siblings
Technically they don't exist - you're
either cousins or you're not, and you only need to share one parent with
someone to be their sibling. But when you're talking about your own relatives
it can be helpful to distinguish between half-cousins - who share only one
grandparent - and double cousins, who are related through more than one line.
My great-great-great grandfather James Beamont married twice. My 4th cousin Sue is descended from
his first wife, whereas I'm descended from his second wife - so I find it
useful to describe us as half 4th cousins, even if it does annoy some people.
Similarly, my grandfather's brother
married my grandmother's sister - so I consider their grandchildren to be
double 2nd cousins of mine. Genetically they're about as close as 1st cousins, because
half of our trees are the same (starting from our four shared great-grandparents).
What about three-quarter siblings? This
is a term I coined myself to account for a rather unusual configuration: my
great-grandfather John Wells married twice - and his wives were sisters. I've
mentioned his marriages before in a different context - because at the time he
married the second sister, in 1897, he was breaking the law (it wasn't legal for a widower to
marry his dead wife's sister until 1907). But the reason I'm mentioning him now is
because whilst his children from the different marriages only shared one
parent, they shared the same four grandparents.
I said it was unusual but, thinking about
it, I've already found three instances of men marrying two sisters in that part
of my family tree - and all of the second marriages took place between 1835,
when it became illegal to marry your late wife's sister (previously such marriages
were voidable, but not void), and 1907, when the law was changed.
So perhaps three-quarter siblings aren't as rare as all that!
Review: How Our Ancestors Died
My
great-great-great grandfather George Wells died a few months after the 1841
Census, and according to his death certificate the cause was a "putrid
sore throat".
You wouldn't expect someone to die of a
sore throat, even before the discovery of antibiotics, so I was interested to
read in Simon Wills' interesting book How
Our Ancestors Died that diphtheria was sometimes referred to as
'malignant sore throat' or 'putrid fever' - and my guess is that this is what
my ancestor really died from.
Although it's a handy volume to have on
your bookshelf for reference purposes I learned an awful lot from reading this
interesting book from beginning to end - I found the chapters on scurvy and influenza
particularly interesting. A bonus, for those with an interest in the macabre,
is the chapter on execution - and what other book would be able to name the
patron saint of those suffering from venereal disease (St Fiacre, in case
you're wondering)?
In the past I've relied on Internet
searches to decipher my ancestors' death certificates, but I now realise that
this approach was rather too simplistic. How
Our Ancestors Died is available as a paperback, or as a Kindle book,
and because it has been out for a couple of years you can pick it up the
paperback for about half the original price.
Tip:
you can support LostCousins by using the following links:
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
Derbyshire hospital
admissions and deaths NEW
Findmypast recently added a new dataset,
Derbyshire hospital admissions and deaths
1892-1913, which includes admissions to the Victoria Memorial Cottage
Hospital at Ashbourne from 1899-1913, and deaths recorded at Derbyshire Royal
Infirmary between 1892-1912 (the death records I checked not only gave the cause
of death, but also the length of stay, so it was possible to work out the date
of admission). The records have been transcribed - there are no images.
Other medical records at Findmypast
include London, Bethlem
Hospital Patient Admission Registers and Casebooks 1683-1932.
Leeds Burial Ground
records NEW
Last week Ancestry
uploaded over 187,000 records for Beckett Street Cemetery, also known as Burmantofts Cemetery, or Leeds Burial Ground. They cover
the period 1845-1987 and can be searched here.
I recently got a Y-DNA match between a
sample provided by one of my Wells cousins and a lady who has traced her Wells
ancestors all the way back to the late 15th century. There's no doubt that
we're cousins - but it could take some time to work out who our common ancestor
was.
Still, a few months is nothing compared
to the 13 years I've been waiting to make headway on this line! Because George
Wells died in September 1841, all I knew from the census about his origins was
that he wasn't born in London or Middlesex, and all that I knew from his
marriage licence application was that in July 1807 he was living in London, in
the parish of St James, Clerkenwell - which was where
they married the following day.
By contrast his bride-to-be was shown as
"of Bildeston, in Suffolk", though in the
1851 and 1861 Censuses her place of birth was shown as Chelsea, Middlesex - 90
miles away. So far I haven't found her baptism in either location, although I
strongly suspect that she came from Suffolk, especially since their children
were born in the county.
So it was really important to receive
DNA confirmation that my Wells line came from Suffolk - up to that point George
could have come from anywhere in England. Being able to search in a single
county makes it much easier, even though many of the parish registers haven't
been transcribed. It just goes to show how important it is to be patient - it's
over 2½ years since my cousin provided a Y-DNA sample!
Note:
if you have ancestors called Wells you might be interested in joining the Wells
Surname project at Family Tree
DNA - though you may need to persuade one of your cousins to test (as I had
to), since Y-DNA passes down the male line (in other words, person who tests
would need to be a male with the surname Wells). As a bonus, if your Wells
ancestors came from Suffolk, you might turn out to be a cousin of mine!
Of
course, there are thousands of other surname projects at Family Tree
DNA - when you visit the site look for the Projects tab at the top left.
Some of you will recall a series of
articles three years ago in which I talked about traits that are passed down
within families, including my own - you'll find the articles here, here and
here. Those
articles generated a LOT of correspondence!
Many traits are unnoticed and have
little or no effect on the individuals concerned - that's certainly true in my
case - but this article
posted on the BBC website about the world's hairiest family underlines just how
great an impact some inherited traits can have.
When I'm researching my own tree I
frequently need to check how close two places are, to determine how feasible it
is that somebody born in one place might have migrated to the other. Whilst the
theory that, in earlier centuries, few people ever left the village where they
were born was disproved long ago, the reality is that it's far more likely that
somebody would have moved 5 miles than 50 miles, or 50 miles than 500 miles.
More importantly, the greater the presumed distance the more parishes are
within range - there might be only 10 parishes within 5 miles, but there would
probably have been over 10,000 within 500 miles.
Put it another way, if you fortuitously
discover someone with the same name as your ancestor 500 miles away from their
place of birth, you have to seriously consider searching all the other parishes
that are within a 500 mile radius (unless, of course, you have other evidence
to prove that it's the same person).
So, for very practical reasons the first
thing I do is calculate the distance between the two parishes - and the
quickest way to do this is using the free TomTom route planner, which you'll
find here.
I wrote
about another key aid recently - the maps of England at FamilySearch. Using these maps I can
find out all the parishes within a given radius of my starting point, then check them one by one. This is ideal if you're working
with unindexed images, whether online or in the record office, or if you
suspect that the record you're looking for has been mistranscribed (or simply
missed).
Would you pay for £40 for a £50 note? I
certainly would, but I've never had the opportunity. However this week I took
advantage of an offer at Amazon.co.uk
which is surely the next best thing - I got a £10 credit when I bought £40
worth of gift cards, which are as good as cash if,
like me, you're a regular customer of Amazon.
The offer runs until 12th September, but isn't available to every Amazon
customer - you'll have to log-in at Amazon to find out whether, like me, you're
one of the lucky ones (but first please click the link above, then LostCousins
might benefit - even if you end up buying something else).
I've just been to Amazon to buy Nathan
Dylan Goodwin's latest novel featuring genealogist Morton Farrier (it was
released on Tuesday). Though its title - The
America Ground - might lead you to think that Morton has headed across
the Atlantic I strongly suspect it's set in England -
since 'The America Ground' is the name of an area of Hastings, Nathan's home
town (you can read about its history here).
I'll be reviewing the novel in due
course, but if you want to buy it in the meantime please note that it's currently
only available for Kindle - though a paperback is on the way, I understand. The
links below will take you direct to the relevant page at your local Amazon site:
Amazon.co.uk Amazon.com Amazon.ca Amazon.com.au
Now, I'm not really a gambler - but ever
since the National Lottery started 21 years ago I've used the same 6 numbers,
which came to me in a dream. So far my dream hasn't come true, and now it may
never do so, as in October the lottery is changing - instead of picking 6
numbers from 49 we'll have to pick 6 from 59. Of course, I could just stick
with the same numbers, as I'm sure some will - but I'm not sure that it's the
best strategy (a simple calculation shows that in around 69% of draws at least
one of the 6 numbers will be between 50 and 59). What will you do, I wonder?
Less of a gamble is putting your savings
under the mattress, although if you live in the UK a safer and more
remunerative option is put them into a Cash ISA with a bank or building society
(since your savings up to £75,000 are covered by the Financial Services Compensation
Scheme). When I searched at the Which? site for an Instant
Access ISA that I could operate online I was pleasantly surprised to discover
that the top paying account was the Nationwide
Flexclusive ISA, paying 1.6% tax-free. That's equivalent
to 2% gross for a standard rate taxpayer like me, 2.66% for those of you lucky
enough to pay higher rate tax, and as for those of you who pay tax at the top
rate, you probably employ somebody to do it all for you, so I'll leave it to
them to do the calculation!
10 years ago a return of 1.6% after tax would
have seemed pretty stingy, but when you consider that the latest inflation
figure (as measured by the Consumer Prices Index) was just 0.1% for the year to
July, it's actually an historically good return for
such a safe investment.
The downside is that to take advantage
of this rate you have to be a Nationwide current account customer, though that's
not necessarily a problem as they'll pay you £100 to switch from another bank -
and also offer other incentives, even
with their free accounts! If you are interested in switching please ask me to
recommend you since that way I may also get a reward when you switch.
I probably won't keep my Cash ISA beyond
5th April next year because from 6th April it will be possible to transfer to
an Innovative Finance ISA, which would allow me to earn a much higher return
through peer-to-peer lending. Whilst it isn't covered by the FSCS, so far no
customer of Ratesetter has ever lost money because they have a provision fund.
Peer-to-peer lending isn't for everyone (and I'm not a financial advisor),
but you can get a £25 bonus when you lend your first £1000 if you follow this link.
Finally, a tip for
those of you who are already investing through Ratesetter - if you're patient
you can get a much better rate. For
example, this morning the interest rate for one month investments was oscillating
between 2.9% and 3%, but I decided to hold out for 3.2% - and an hour later I
received confirmation that my money had been invested. Of course, when you're
lending for longer periods - the maximum is 5 years - the benefit of even a
0.1% increase in the rate is quite significant. You don't have to keep checking
the rates - simply set your target and the money will be invested as soon as
that rate is achievable.
Findmypast have just added 1 MILLION extra
records to their PoW collection - more in the next issue.
Hopefully the next time I write I'll be
able to tell you that we're well on the way to the 100,000 target!
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2015 Peter Calver
Please
do not copy any part of this newsletter without permission. However, you MAY
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