Newsletter – 21st January 2022

 

 

Click this link!

Do you have Scottish ancestry? LAST CHANCE

Transcription Tuesday COMING SOON

We have a winner!

Head first?

The other Dr Jenner

Finding the right household in the 1921 Census

Objects of the Census

Step-parents in the census

Clerical errors

What is a 'living room'?

Just 10 days to win ENDS 31ST JANUARY

If you want to win a prize, you have to tell me!

Have you got a 'brick wall'?

Viewing the 1921 Census in Manchester

Stop Press

 

 

The LostCousins newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue (dated 10th January) click here; to find earlier articles use the customised Google search between this paragraph and the next (it searches ALL of the newsletters since February 2009, so you don't need to keep copies):

 

 

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!

 

 

Click this link!

Would you like to be repaid all the money you spend on 1921 census images between now and the end of January (maximum £175)? For a chance of winning this unique prize, one of many prizes that I'm giving away in my New Year Competition, log into your LostCousins account and click the personal 1921 Census link you'll find near the top of your My Summary page. (Click it at again at the start of each session to make sure your purchases are recorded.)

 

After the end of the month one lucky member will be chosen at random, but taking into account the number of competition entries each person has made. Every direct ancestor or blood relative you add to your My Ancestors page before the end of January counts as one entry, or two when you input relatives from any of the 1881 censuses that we use (Canada, Scotland, or England & Wales).

 

If you would like to support LostCousins but are not interested in winning your money back there's no need to log-in to your account, instead you use this link to go to the 1921 Census.

 

 

Do you have Scottish ancestry? LAST CHANCE

25th January is Burns Night – the 263rd anniversary of the birth of Scotland's great poet – so there couldn't be a more appropriate day for Chris Paton, one of the leading experts in Scottish genealogy, to deliver an exclusive Zoom presentation entitled Scottish Research Resources Before 1800 to an invited audience chosen from the LostCousins membership. The talk will begin at 10am London time, which will allow members in Australia and New Zealand to attend.

 

If you'd like to be in that audience there are two things you must do if you haven't already: first, go to your My Prizes page at the LostCousins site and indicate your interest in attending; second, add as many relatives as you can to your My Ancestors page, especially those who were recorded in any of the 1881 Censuses that we use (Scotland, Canada, England & Wales). Because the draw is random you'll have a chance of winning even if you've only entered one relative since the competition began on 10th December 2021, but the more relatives you enter before the winners are drawn at 9am on Monday morning, the greater your chance of receiving an invite. All of the lucky audience members should have been notified by noon, London time, on Monday.

 

Note: although the 1921 Scotland Census isn't due for release until the second half of 2022, ScotlandsPeople have this month released an additional year of births (for 1921), marriages (for 1946), and deaths (for 1971); whereas those of us with English & Welsh ancestors have to wait a few days for PDF copies of historic birth and death entries, those lucky Scots can get instant access for a fraction of the price!

 

 

Transcription Tuesday COMING SOON

1st February 2022 is Transcription Tuesday, Who Do You Think You Are? magazine’s annual online volunteer event for family historians around the world. While the growth of online family history websites has made many records more accessible, millions of important historic documents that could be the key to tracing someone’s ancestor still only exist in paper form.

 

Transcription Tuesday was launched in 2017: every year since then, volunteers have come together online to support a variety of not-for-profit transcription projects. It’s a great way to practice your family history skills, and the records often tell fascinating stories of ordinary people’s lives in history. On the last Transcription Tuesday, an incredible 100,000 records were transcribed!

 

For more details please follow this link.

 

 

We have a winner!

Last month dozens of members attended my Zoom presentation DNA for Christmas, which inspired some to take a DNA test and others to make better use of their results by following the proven strategies in my DNA Masterclass.

 

The winner of the first prize to be drawn in 2022 is Jane in Australia, who is looking forward to a one-to-one brick wall-busting session with Dr Janet Few, one of the leading figures in the world of genealogy, and someone who will be known to many of you through her books, which include Ten Steps to a One-Place Study, Barefoot on the Cobbles, and Sins as Red as Scarlet: a Devon Town in Turmoil.

 

Jane wasn't the first person to be chosen by the random number generator, but she was the first person to be drawn who had completed their My Prizes page. As I explained when the competition launched last month, with hundreds of prizes on offer this year it is absolutely essential that there is a simple, straightforward way to allocate them to the winners who would appreciate them most – so please log-in and express your preferences now!

 

Tip: this year you can win more than one prize – something that hasn’t been allowed in previous years.

 

 

Head first?

We're all used to the head being the first person listed on the household schedule, or in the enumeration summary book, but it's not always the case – as you can see from this extract from the 1851 Census (HO107/645/19):

 

© Crown Copyright Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives and with the kind permission of Findmypast

 

Prince Albert may have been the head of the Royal Household, but when you’re married to the monarch you’re relegated to second place. Something else you might notice is that Queen Victoria is recorded as Her Majesty Alexandrina Victoria – the forenames she was given by her parents – and the birthplace of Prince Albert is missing (it is, however, shown in the 1861 Census – which took place a few months before the Prince Consort died).

 

Note: you can see the full page from 1851 in this guide at the TNA website.

 

 

The other Dr Jenner

It's well known that Edward Jenner, a surgeon from Gloucestershire, was a key figure in the adoption of vaccination to prevent smallpox, but it's less well-known that it was another Jenner – William Jenner – who first distinguished between two other deadly diseases, typhus and typhoid, which were once thought to have the same cause. However, although both are caused by bacteria, they are different bacteria, spread in different ways.

 

In 1861 Dr Jenner was appointed Physician Extraordinary to Queen Victoria, and later that year he attended Prince Albert, and diagnosed him with typhoid fever – he died 5 days later, on 14th December. Two of Albert's cousins had died of typhoid the previous month, which might have swayed Dr Jenner in his diagnosis – as Albert had suffered from stomach pains in the two years preceding his death it has been suggested that the actual cause of death might have been a chronic disease such as Crohn's disease, kidney failure, or abdominal cancer (see Wikipedia).  

 

 

Finding the right household in the 1921 Census

Although £3.50 isn't a fortune, nobody wants to spend money on the wrong census schedule. So I thought it would be useful to run through some of the techniques I've been using, or that have been suggested by members:

 

 

Although you might be tempted to think that having identified who is in the household and noted their birth years and places of birth there's no need to purchase the census image, those of us who have splashed out can assure you that the extra information is well worth paying for! But use the link near the top of  your My Summary page at the LostCousins site and you might win back all the money you spend on 1921 images up to the end of this month (one winner, maximum £175, equivalent to 50 images, or 55 if you have a Pro subscription to Findmypast).

 

 

Objects of the Census

In 1921 the government published a document entitled The Coming Census which explained, amongst other things, that:

 

The object of the census is to obtain reliable figures of the population of the country, showing how the population is made up, that is to say of what sorts and compositions of people it is composed, and how it is distributed through the local sub-divisions of the country, such as counties, towns, rural districts, parliamentary divisions, parishes &c.

 

As the object of the Census is figures, it is not concerned with the private lives or actions of the individuals counted, and only asks them questions as to their personal characteristics in order that they be properly accounted and assigned to the particular groups of the population in which they ought to be reckoned. For example, the Census needs to know that Mr. William Smith is a married man aged 49, not because the State proposes to interest itself in Mr Smith's private life or actions, but solely in order that the number of married men in the population and the number of men aged 49 in the population may be properly counted.

 

This information as to the number and composition of our population is not asked for to gratify curiosity or merely add to the sum-total of human knowledge. The cost of census-taking is far too great to be incurred solely to provide interesting facts.

 

It’s a salutary reminder that, invaluable as the surviving censuses are for family historians, they weren't produced for our benefit. You can currently download this and other documents about the 1921 Census free from The National Archives if you follow this link.

 

Tip: the RG27/9 documents include blank copies of the various census schedules. In fact, there's so much information that I'm still working my way through it as I write!

 

 

Step-parents in the census

Some of the key pieces of information I gleaned from the documents in RG27/9 related to column (e) on the household schedule, which has a dual purpose. For persons aged 15 and over it shows their marital status, for children under 15 it shows whether their parents were still alive.

 

 © Crown Copyright Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives and with the kind permission of Findmypast

 

Those of you who are familiar with marriage law in England & Wales will recognise immediately that there is a conflict – in 1921 it was possible for a girl aged 12 or a boy aged 14 to marry with parental consent, though it was a criminal offence for a man to have intercourse with a girl below the age of 16, as this Hansard transcript reminds us.

 

The minimum age at marriage was raised to 16 only in 1929 (and there it remains, although the government have stated that they plan to raise it to 18 – a somewhat controversial proposal). So in theory there could be children recorded in the census who were married, but not shown as such – although the evidence I can find suggests that marriage below the age of 16 was extremely rare by the turn of the 20th century, at least in Scotland.

 

(It might be an interesting question to ask Professor Probert when she gives her talk next month to an invited audience chosen from the LostCousins membership – are you taking part in my competition, and if so have you completed your My Prizes page yet?)

 

I thought my grandfather had completed his census form incorrectly – against his eldest daughter Marian (actually Marion) he put 'Both alive', even though her mother, his first wife, had died when my half-aunt was just 11 months old. But the Instructions to Registrars (included amongst the documents mentioned in the previous article) state:

 

Where, however, a child has a step-parent, the stepfather or stepmother should be regarded as having taken the place of the natural father or mother as the case may be and no reference to the latter should be made on the schedule.

 

In this connection it may be added that while, generally speaking, it is an enumerator's duty to make further inquiries in respect of any answer on the schedule which he has good reason to believe to be erroneous, the Registrar may accept a statement of the relationship of parents and children which, though in doubtful concordance with their legal status, is not inconsistent with the other information returned on the schedule.

 

So, whether by accident or design, my grandfather did fill that in that box correctly. However, he didn’t get everything right – not only did he omit the column (e) entry for my grandmother's sister Clara, he got several of the ages wrong by a month. My grandmother was born on 22/10/1893, so at the time of the census she was just under 8 months past her 27th birthday, but her stepdaughter had been born on 11/11/1906, so was 14 years and 7 months old on Census Day. Similarly Charlotte's birthday was on 3rd January, so she was also a month older than shown, whereas Clara was a month younger.

 

I suppose it's easier to be out by a month when you're doing these calculations in your head – but much more difficult to understand is how he came to be 4 months out on his own age. It was such a large discrepancy that I went to my paper files and dug out his birth certificate, to make certain that I hadn't recorded his age incorrectly – however it definitely states that he was born on 24/11/1882, making him 38 years and less than 7 months old on 19th June 1921, not 10 months as shown in the census schedule. His birth was registered on 1st January 1883, just a few days within the 6 week limit, so was it possible that his mother had changed the date to avoid a penalty? Probably not - both my grandfather's baptism register entry and his 1939 Register entry give the same birthdate, so I'll just have to assume that his arithmetic let him down in 1921.

 

 

Clerical errors

When census staff reviewed the household schedules, filling gaps and correcting what they saw as obvious mistakes, they didn't always get it right. For example, Dawn wrote with this example from her own tree – I'll let her tell you about it in her own words:

 

"The household is headed by a widower, Ernest Lancaster, followed by a married 'boarder', Ellen Martha Wigg, and her two teenaged children, surnamed Wigg, then two much younger children, surnamed Lancaster. These two are shown as having two parents living - as they do, since they are the children of the 'boarder' and Ernest Lancaster (confirmed by birth certificate). However, a clerk has 'corrected' this, to show them as having only one parent living, presumably based on Ernest status as a widower – thus giving rise to erroneous statistics, and possible confusion.

 

© Crown Copyright Image reproduced by courtesy of The National Archives and with the kind permission of Findmypast

 

"To fill in the back story, Ellen Martha, née Hood, was first married to James Wigg, a fisherman who died in 1903. She then married Frank Grieve (1906) and was still married to him in 1921. During the war, he had been on the naval patrol boats (converted from local fishing boats) in Lowestoft. They had three surviving children (born in 1906, 1908, 1910). She 'took up with' Ernest Lancaster, so Grieve had her Navy allowance stopped, she handed him the children, and the Mission to Seamen helped him place them with Barnardo's. Thus Ellen was indeed a married woman at the time of the census, but her husband's name wasn't Wigg. She and Ernest Lancaster moved to London and then married in 1953, not long after Grieve's death.

 

"This story took some years to disentangle, with assistance from one of Grieve's descendants - an unexpected kindness, perhaps, given that my interest is in Lancaster. But in family history I have often been grateful for the kindness of strangers."

 

Dawn subsequently shared with me the birth certificate for Ernest Edward Wigg – note that both the father and mother attended the register office – otherwise the father's name couldn't have been recorded in the register.

 

 

 

Normally when a child is born to a married woman, under Common Law her husband is presumed to be the father – I'm not sure what evidence, if any, the registrar would have required in order to record Ernest Lancaster as the father.

 

 

What is a 'living room'?

One piece of information shown on the 1921 household schedules that isn't filled in my head of household is the number of 'living rooms'. When a LostCousins asked me recently which rooms were excluded I hazarded that bathrooms and kitchens weren't included, but it turns out I was only half right.

 

Having since read the Instructions to Enumerators which can be found in the fifth download file of RG27/9 (starting at image 37), I now know that whilst bathrooms and sculleries are excluded, kitchens are included in the definition. This surely means that the 4 rooms occupied by my grandfather and his family (see above) would have provided pretty cramped accommodation, especially as my great aunt was still living there when she married 10 months later.

 

 

Just 10 days to win ENDS 31ST JANUARY

Dozens of members have already won prizes in this year's competition, but there are still hundreds of prizes to be won. To win a prize requires no expertise, other than the research skills that all serious family historians acquire by indulging in their favourite hobby!

 

One lucky member is going to win up to £175 in cash to pay for the images they've viewed from the 1921 Census after clicking my link – see the article at the start of this newsletter. But there are lots of other prizes, most of them experiences that money cannot buy….

 

SPECIAL PRIZE: Baroness Scott interview followed by Q&A session (11am 3rd February 2022)

Baroness Ros Scott was the prime driver behind the legislation that allows the General A close-up of a person smiling

Description automatically generatedRegister Office to provide 'certificates' in an electronic format – I first reported her proposals on Christmas Day 2014, and what a Christmas present for family historians it turned out to be!

 

The 2015 Deregulation Act subsequently imposed a duty on the GRO to come forward with proposals relating to historic certificates, and in late 2016 we were all taking part in the PDF trial, which eventually became a permanent service.

 

I will be talking to Baroness Scott in front of a small virtual audience about her interest in family history and how that has fed into her work in the House of Lords – I suspect I'll be asking whether she hopes that one day there will be instant access to the historic registers for England & Wales, as there already is in Scotland. Following the interview there will be an opportunity for members of the audience to ask questions.

 

To maximise your chance of winning this valuable opportunity add as many relatives as possible to your My Ancestors page during the period of the competition, and indicate your interest on the My Prizes page at the LostCousins site.

 

The Genealogist - UK census, BMDs and more online

STAR PRIZE: 12 month Diamond subscription to The Genealogist (normal price £139.95)

You could win unlimited access to a wide range of records including non-conformist records, exclusive tithe records and tithe maps, and a growing collection of 'Lloyd George' Domesday records and maps which you won't find at any other site. If you already have a Diamond subscription an additional 12 months will be added.

 

The prize winner will be chosen after the competition closes on 31st January 2022, but if you can't wait you can get a 4 month Diamond subscription for just £44.95 when you follow this link (you'll also get a free 12 month subscription to Discover Your Ancestors online magazine worth £24.99).

 

 

STAR PRIZE: 12 month unlimited subscription to British Newspaper Archive (normal price £79.95)

Over 46 million pages from historic British and Irish newspapers, with hundreds of thousands more pages added every month. Upwards of half a billion articles, notices, and adverts, and literally billions of names. Was your ancestor famous for 15 minutes?

 

Optimised search features include the ability to search for articles added after a particular date, so that you don't have to repeatedly trawl through articles you've previously read or discarded. The prize winner will be chosen after the competition closes on 31st January 2022.

 

SPECIAL PRIZE: Scottish Research Resources Before 1800 with Chris Paton (10am 25th January)

Do you have Scottish ancestors? In this talk Chris Paton, author and professional genealogist will Zoom you to pre-19th century Scotland, when things begin to get a little more complicated with your ancestral research. From Kirk to state, a variety of records are available but it's one thing to find them, and quite another to understand them, with different handwriting styles, language problems and the feudal nature of Scottish society forming some of the many challenges that make earlier Scottish research fun but challenging.

 

Chris will explore the various record types available, and how to access them both online and offline. This exclusive Zoom presentation in front of a select audience will be followed by a question and answer session in which all are invited to participate. To maximise your chances of being one of the lucky few to attend, add as many relatives as possible to your My Ancestors page and complete your My Prizes page so that I know which prizes you'd most like to win.

 

Note: You'll find my reviews of two of Chris's most recent books here and here.

 

STAR PRIZE: One-to-one brick wall busting session with the editor of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine

Most of you will know Sarah Williams as the editor of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine – but she is also a highly competent genealogist with a Masters degree in Medieval Studies. I'm delighted to say that Sarah has generously offered to help knock down an English 'brick wall' for the lucky winner of this prize.

 

This one-to-one consultation will take place over Zoom on a mutually convenient date, and whilst there's no guarantee that Sarah will be able to solve your problem during the session, I'd be surprised if her insight into your 'brick wall' doesn’t lead you in a new and more productive direction.

 

Tip: only one lucky member can win this prize or the one below but everyone can benefit from the advice in my Masterclass 'Knocking down brick walls' which was recently updated and can be found here. (Note: that there are links to ALL of my Masterclasses on the Subscribers Only page.)

 

SPECIAL PRIZE: Seminar on marriage law with Professor Rebecca Probert (date to be confirmed)

Many of you will already be familiar with Professor Probert's books for genealogists (you'll find my reviews here and here), but even if you haven't read the books you'll know, I'm sure, that she is the leading authority on historical marriage law in England & Wales. Her books have over-turned numerous myths about the ways our ancestors married, shedding new light on their behaviour and the sometimes difficult decisions they were faced with.

 

Currently Professor of Law at Exeter University, in 2015 she was seconded to the Law Commission to work on their scoping paper Getting Married and since August 2019 she has been acting as specialist advisor to the Commission on their Weddings Project.

 

This exclusive Zoom presentation in front of a small invited audience will be followed by a question and answer session in which all are invited to participate. To maximise your chances of being one of the lucky few to attend add as many relatives as possible to your My Ancestors page.

 

SPECIAL PRIZE: Nathan Dylan Goodwin interview followed by Q&A session (date to be confirmed)

I'll be interviewing Nathan Dylan Goodwin, the creator of the Forensic Genealogist series featuring Morton Farrier, live on Zoom – and you could be in the audience! Amongst other things I'll be asking questions about the characters in the books, and where the inspiration for them came from.

 

After the interview I'll be inviting questions from the floor – note that the number of attendees will be kept low so that as many people as possible have the chance to ask their question. However you can also submit questions on the My Prizes page – that way your question could get asked even if you’re not fortunate enough to be invited.

 

To maximise your chances of being one of the lucky few to attend, add as many relatives as possible to your My Ancestors page – and don't leave it to the last minute, because this is an opportunity that no fan of Morton Farrier will want to miss!


Note: you'll find my review of Nathan's latest book
here.

 

SPECIAL PRIZE: Secrets of the census with Dr Donald Davis (date to be confirmed)

Speaking to us from Canada will be Dr Donald Davis, who retired from a vocation studying the health of populations to an avocation exploring population records – he is currently looking forward to the release of the 1921 England & Wales Census which, taken following the Great War, explored new avenues of importance to family historians.

 

When the previous census (1911) was released we saw for the first time the forms that our ancestors had filled in, replete with misunderstandings, spelling mistakes, amendments, and gratuitous comments. This was eye-opening – all that had survived from the 1841-1901 censuses were the enumerators' summary books. Or so it was thought – then Don discovered a cache of household schedules from the 1841 Census at Shropshire Archives and many of our assumptions about the census were overturned.

 

INVITED PRESENTATION: 'Brits to Canada', with John D Reid (date to be arranged)

From the first part of the 19th century, to late in the 20th, many British people from all walks of life chose to cross the Atlantic for opportunities in Canada. Are they missing from your family history? Explore the resources available to you to throw light on your Canadian cousins and some remarkable personalities and stories.

 

Born in Norfolk, now a long-time resident of Ottawa, John D Reid is a retired environmental research scientist. Since 2006, he has presented an independent view of British and Canadian family history resources and developments, seen from an Ottawa perspective in his Canada's Anglo-Celtic Connections blog.

 

Those of you who were fortunate to be amongst the attendees at one of the Genealogy in the Sunshine events I organised in Portugal some years ago will, I'm sure, remember John D Reid as well as Chris Paton and Dr Donald Davis, all of whom were amongst the distinguished speakers – as was Professor Probert in the second year.

 

INVITED PRESENTATION:  'Lost an ancestor? There were 3 million Britons in India', with Elaine MacGregor (date to be arranged)

Did members of your family travel to India; could some of your relatives have been born there?

 

 Elaine started researching her family history in her teens and used her grandmother’s dog breeding pedigree forms to fill in a basic family tree!  Then life intervened and it was only about 30 years ago that she started researching her family in earnest when her husband bought her a family history software package for Christmas. She knew that her father and grandmother were born in Calcutta, but it was not until she joined FIBIS (Families in British India Society) over 20 years ago that she discovered through research that she has 6 generations in India.

 

Elaine will be speaking over Zoom to a small invited audience, and there will be time for Q&A at the end. Please indicate your interest on the My Prizes page at the LostCousins site; the date and time of the presentation will be announced closer to the time – in the meantime you can maximise your chance of being one of the fortunate few by adding as many relatives as possible to your My Ancestors page.

 

Remember, the competition ends on 31st January, and to have a chance of winning one or more prizes you need only enter relatives – from any of the 9 censuses we use – on your My Ancestors page.

 

Note: only relatives who are genetically-related to the member concerned will count, however if you are researching on behalf of someone else (eg a spouse) entries you make on their account will also qualify; relatives from the 1881 censuses count double.

 

 

If you want to win a prize, you have to tell me!

When I announced this year's bigger and better competition on 10th December I wrote:

 

"Also new this year is the My Prizes page at the LostCousins website, which lists the prizes on offer and allows you to express your preferences – this doesn’t guarantee that you'll get the prize that you want, but it does mean that you won’t be offered a prize that you don't want (because you will only be considered for prizes that you have rated)."

 

So when at the beginning of the month I had to pick a winner for the one of this year's top prizes, a one-to-one brick wall-busting session with one of the stars of the genealogy world, Dr Janet Tew, I was surprised to discover that only half of the entrants had followed the advice – it wasn't that they hadn’t expressed an interest in that particular prize, they hadn't expressed an interest in any of the prizes on offer.

 

If you are taking part in the competition – and why wouldn't you – do please complete your My Prizes page as soon as possible!

 

 

Have you got a 'brick wall'?

Yes - I know it’s a stupid question! All genealogists have 'brick walls', and the only thing that some might find slightly surprising is that the more experienced a genealogist is, the more 'brick walls' they have.

 

Over the years I've noticed that there's a tendency to focus on one 'brick wall' at a time, which is in many ways a good thing – let's face it, if I was trying to knock down all of the my 100+ 'brick walls' at the same time I'd be lucky to make any progress at all. On the other hand, focusing on a single 'brick wall' to the exclusion of everything else is a poor strategy: some 'brick walls' will never be knocked down, some will be knocked down only when new records become available online, and there will be some that – because of deficiencies in the records – will only ever be solved using DNA matches, and even then may depend on future matches, rather than the matches that you (and the cousins you are collaborating with) already have.

 

Two of the top prizes in this year's competition were 'brick wall' busting sessions, one with Sarah Williams – the editor of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine – which is still to be awarded, and one with Dr Janet Few, which has already been awarded. I've written a Masterclass in knocking down 'brick walls' yourself (you'll find it here), and some of my other Masterclasses are also highly relevant, but there's an article on Dr Few's blog which everyone should read before asking others for help.

 

 

Viewing the 1921 Census in Manchester

In the last issue I reported Gay's experience viewing the 1921 Census at the National Archives in Kew; this time I'd like to share with you the story of Val's trip to Manchester Central Library:

 

"I emailed the library to ask about viewing the census and they sent a standard reply with all the info necessary, including a phone number to book a computer. The census is available via the Findmypast site on all their library computers (they have about 130 on different floors), so all you need is a login. If you are not a member of the library, then membership of other libraries in the Greater Manchester area or adjoining authorities might be accepted, but otherwise you can apply for a card via the online registration process at home or on a screen in the library before completing the process at the lower ground floor library information desk. You need a letter or something else recent with your name and address on as proof of address (you don't have to live in Manchester), and something with your photo and name on to confirm you are who you say you are.

 

"I encountered a glitch with the online process at home, as the system thought it recognised me and wouldn't take the next step, so I phoned the library and was told they couldn't find me on their database, so to go to the desk on the day for them to sign me up.  Which I did.  I arrived 30mins early in case of queues, and they let me start on the computer straight away, even though my booking hadn't started.  Probably because they had no record of my booking anyway!

 

"I had booked a computer slot while on the phone and had a choice of times, so I picked a mid-week mid-morning slot.  If over 60 you have two hours, and can ask for this to be extended if others are not waiting to use the computers (if you only qualify for one hour, you can do the same). However, when I arrived they had no record of my computer booking. I heard others arriving and asking about their booking, and again there was no record. Fortunately there were plenty of computers free.

 

"The two-hour slot was automatic as the registration includes your date of birth.  Unlike my own local library, where warning messages scroll across 20 minutes before time expires, the first message appeared at the 5 minute mark.  This doesn't give much time to close down any personal info such as email (I was emailing each set of docs to myself as I went along), collect up valuables and personal items, and queue at the desk to ask for an extension.  Next time I'll set a timer to remind me to ask when there's still 10 minutes to go. Fortunately I was close to the desk and the queue was short but think there were only seconds left by the time I was seen.  I left my coat on my chair and the screen open on FMP mid-search ready to resume and to show the space was in use, but it wouldn't have taken long to login and start again at the same computer or a different one. 

 

"Regarding COVID, I picked my time so I could use an off-peak train, and it turned out that it had very few passengers there and back.  I was quite shocked on arriving at how quiet the city was, with many shops and food places closed because so many were working from home. This meant demand for library computers was also low. I used a computer on the lower ground floor but there are others elsewhere. One table had plastic screens to separate users from each other, but not on the table I used.  As I had COVID over Christmas (like so many others) I did feel safer from catching it or spreading it in any case, and that, along with the working from home situation, also influenced my decision to visit the library sooner rather than later. I was planning to use the library café, but that area was very cold, being on the ground floor near the entrance doors, so not a place to linger long. Despite many cafés being closed there were still plenty to choose from that were warmer."

 

To make the best use of her time at the library Val did some searching at home, and created a list of households to look up. In 3 hours she managed to look up 30 households, which would have cost her £105 if she had done it from home, so she considered it a very worthwhile trip. However, she did add this comment:

 

"Now I know the library layout, I will book one of the computers surrounded by screens next time. I was surrounded by computer users without masks coughing and spluttering all over the place, so was not too impressed by that! Luckily have had my flu jab too. I felt sorry for the library staff having to deal with so many maskless and thoughtless people."

 

I don't recommend that anyone risks catching COVID just to save money on the census, but if you’re going to do it anyway, learning from the experiences of Val and Gay should make it a more pleasurable, more productive, and safer experience.

 

 

Stop Press

This is where any major updates and corrections will be highlighted - if you think you've spotted an error first reload the newsletter (press Ctrl-F5) then check again before writing to me, in case someone else has beaten you to it......

 

 

Description: Description: peter_signature

 

Peter Calver

Founder, LostCousins

 

© Copyright 2022 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?

 

Many of the links in this newsletter and elsewhere on the website are affiliate links – if you make a purchase after clicking a link you may be supporting LostCousins (though this depends on your choice of browser, the settings in your browser, and any browser extensions that are installed). Thanks for your support!