Newsletter - 29th May
2020
Competition extended $1000 STILL TO BE WON
Free access to London records at Ancestry ENDS SUNDAY
Save on Who Do You Think You Are? subscriptions
EXCLUSIVE
RAF WW2 Operation Books online NEW
Grandmother ordered to delete Facebook photos under
GDPR
Most Brits don't know
they have Australian cousins!
Victorian BDM 'certificates' still reduced
When ethnicity estimates can seem like double
Dutch
Index of Incorrect Surnames UPDATED
Dick Francis thriller for Elizabeth
Social distancing in Tudor times
The LostCousins
newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue
(dated 17th May) 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!
Competition extended $1000 STILL
TO BE WON
Despite
the gradual loosening of lockdown in many countries there are still many,
especially older people like me, who are largely 'confined to barracks' - so as
many of the prizes in my competition have yet to be won, including the top
prize of £1000 (or $1000 or €1000 depending where you live) I've decided to
continue the competition for another month.
EVERY
READER OF THIS NEWSLETTER CAN TAKE PART - IT'S FREE TO ENTER
If
you received an email from me telling you about this newsletter then you’re already
a LostCousins member - simply log-in using the email address shown in the email
I sent you (which might not be the address where it was eventually received).
If you've forgotten your password click here and
enter your email address. If you aren't on the mailing list for this
newsletter, but are researching your family tree and are interested in
collaborating with other researchers who share your ancestors you can open a
free LostCousins account by following this link.
For
full details of the competition prizes, and how to take part, see this article.
Even if you don't win a prize there's an excellent chance of finding some 'lost
cousins' who can help you knock down your 'brick walls'.
Free access to London records at Ancestry ENDS SUNDAY
Some
members have had difficulty accessing the records, which are free until 31st
May. If you’re one of them, try clicking the link on the London Metropolitan
Archives page to which my article
in the previous newsletter links - once you've done that once you should find
that you can use my links from then onwards.
Save on Who Do You Think You Are? subscriptions EXCLUSIVE
I've been a reader of Who Do You Think You Are?
magazine since it launched. Even though I have many sources of information
there are always a few things in the magazine that I didn’t already know, plus
a few that I'd forgotten, so I always read it as soon as possible after it arrives
through my letterbox (after disinfecting it, of course!).
I'm
delighted that I've been able to persuade Who Do You Think You Are? to
offer a special deal for LostCousins members in the UK - 6 issues of the magazine
for just £9.99 (less than you'd pay at the newsagents for 2 issues).
To
take advantage of this offer please follow this link.
RAF
WW2 Operation Books online NEW
To
the best of my knowledge none of my relatives served in the RAF in the Second
World War, but the RAF reached a total strength of 1,208,000 men and women, of
whom 185,000 were aircrew - so the release by The Genealogist of further searchable
RAF Operations Record Books containing 1.2 million records will be of interest
to many of you.
I
don’t normally quote from press releases, but in this
instance the explanation given is better than anything I could come up with:
Operations
Record Books (ORBs) are official Air Force documents chronicling an air force
unit from the time of its formation. They were intended to be an accurate daily
record of the operations that the squadron carried out in peace and at war. The
ORBs are for squadrons primarily after the First World War, but there are a few
early squadron records from 1911 to 1918. We have made the Operations Record
Books fully searchable by name, year and keywords.
This
collection also includes some record books for Dominion Air Forces (Australia,
Canada, New Zealand and South Africa) as well as Allied Air Force squadrons
under British Command and can be used to find the stories of brave aircrew,
giving insights into the operations that they carried out. The ORBs follow a
daily diary format giving summaries of events and can reveal the death of
aircrews, crashes, as well as less disquieting entries such as the weather for
flying, promotions and the decorations men of the squadron received. ORBs also
detail the areas that the fighter planes patrolled, or the bombers targeted, as
well as where the squadrons were based as the war wore on. These duties and
assignments include bombing the enemy, patrolling the skies, convoy escorts,
submarine hunts, attacking docks & shipping, dive bombing raids, and more.
[The
Operations Record Book for 14 December 1931]
As
aircrew personnel are named in these reports, those wanting to follow where an
ancestor had been posted to and what may have happened to them will find these
records extremely informative.
Use
these records to:
•
Add details to an aircrewman's story
•
Study the war movements of personnel in air force units
•
Discover if a pilot, navigator, radio operator or gunner
is mentioned in the action
•
Note dates airman received promotions, medals, or other
honours
•
See the names of squadron members wounded, killed, or who
did not return
•
Easily search the transcribed records and images licensed
from The National Archives
To
view these records you'll need a Diamond subscription.
Other key records at The Genealogist include tithe records, tithe maps and - for
some counties - colour tithe map (colour tithe maps are currently available for
Essex, Bedfordshire , Warwickshire, Rutland, Huntingdonshire, Buckinghamshire,
City of York, Middlesex, Northumberland, Surrey, Westmorland, and the North and
East Ridings of Yorkshires). The Genealogist is also in the process of publishing
the 'Lloyd George Domesday Survey', the 1910 Land Valuation that goes into
great detail about the land and buildings that our ancestors inhabited - the
early releases included the City of London, Paddington, Westminster, Islington,
and Greenwich, and because the maps held by the National Archives are at a
scale of 5 feet to the mile the amount of detail is incredible.
You
can save £20 on a 4 month subscription to The Genealogist, and get a free subscription to Discover
Your Ancestors online magazine if you follow this link.
Grandmother
ordered to delete Facebook photos under GDPR
This
article on the BBC
News site is a reminder that we must be very careful when we post information
about others online.
Most Brits don't
know they have Australian cousins!
People
who live in the New World know that their ancestors were immigrants - indeed it's often that knowledge, and a desire to find out more,
that spurs their interest in family history. But what they sometimes fail to appreciate
is that their British cousins could be completely ignorant of their existence!
The
National Archives at Kew, just outside London, hold ship's passenger lists for
both arrivals and departures - but they only cover the period from 1890-1960 (there
are a few earlier lists for incoming passengers, but even so they only go back
as far as 1878). In my own family tree there are dozens of cousins who
disappear from the censuses during between 1841 and 1891 (or, indeed, before
1841), but there's a limit to how much time I can spend trying to figure out
what happened to them, especially if common surnames are involved - I'd rather
focus on my ancestral lines than spend a lot of time on what could well be a wild
goose chase.
I was musing on this earlier
this week, as I was enjoying the Bank Holiday sunshine - then I happened to
glance at the wisteria that grows around my study window, and it struck me that
it’s an interesting metaphor for what family trees are really like. A typical family
tree shows only our ancestral lines, and perhaps our ancestors' siblings; many
researchers don't include collateral lines (or branches).
Of
course, all of our living cousins are descended from the branches of our tree -
so whilst they share some of our ancestral lines, the later generations in are
full of names and locations that are likely to mean nothing to us. I'd been researching for many years before I
discovered the first cousin who shared my surname, and even now I've not met any
of them (so far as I know none of them share my interest in genealogy); nor do
I have an autosomal DNA match with anyone who bears the same surname.
If
you think of the trailing flowers In the photograph as collateral lines, you'll
notice that from inside my study I can only see some of them - and that's just what
it’s like when we research our family tree - we see it from a particular
perspective, and we might never be aware of some of the other branches until we
chance upon a cousin who's descended from one of them. When I began to research
my own tree I wasn't aware of any cousins outside the UK - now I'm in touch
with scores of cousins all over the world, in Australia, New Zealand, Canada,
South Africa, France and - inevitably - the US.
Although
our cousins share some of our ancestors and part of our family tree, they're not going to have our perspective - it’s as if they’re
looking through a different window. They'll be able to
see things that we can't, and we'll be able to see things that they can’t - and
the difference between the New World and the Old World really brings this home......
Let's
suppose you're one of the many members who live in the New World - when you
started your research you may not have known exactly where your British ancestors
came from, but at least you knew where they ended up. What you might not have
realised is that from the point of view of your British cousins your ancestors
probably just disappeared, especially if they migrated before 1890. Many of the
records that you're familiar with - immigration
records, passenger lists - aren't routinely used by British researchers because
their first instinct is to focus on researching their ancestors.
Of
course, some of your British cousins' ancestors are also your ancestors, and
that's why your British cousins are worth tracking down - just as you’re more
familiar with the records in the country where you live, they’re likely to be
more familiar with the British records. They may even live close to the record
offices that holds the records of most interest - but they'll
certainly be thousands of miles closer to them than you are!
Tip:
it doesn’t matter when your ancestors emigrated so long as you can identify
some of the relatives they left behind in Britain - they're the ancestors of
your British cousins, and if you can find them, and/or their descendants, on
the 1881 Census you could be just minutes away from discovering a 'lost cousin'
.
Victorian BDM 'certificates' still reduced
Two
months ago I mentioned that the Australian state of Victoria
had reduced the cost of downloadable, uncertified historical 'certificates'
from $24.50 to $20 for the month of March - but apparently that offer has been
extended. You can find out more details here
Note:
I put the word 'certificates' in quotes because you clearly can’t have an
uncertified certificate - what they're presumably offering is an uncertified
copy of a register entry, equivalent to the PDFs available from the GRO in
England & Wales, and the images available from ScotlandsPeople
for Scotland..
When ethnicity estimates can seem like double Dutch
For
genealogists taking a DNA test isn’t about ethnicity -
it’s about finding named ancestors. But there are few who still believe that
ethnicity estimates are important, even though I've
said on many occasions that at best they're going to confirm what you already
know.
This
blog article
by Dutch genealogist Yvette Hoitink provides an
excellent illustration of why ethnicity estimates are of limited value - and
how different companies can produce wildly diveregent
results.
Tip:
if you really want to know how to make use of your autosomal DNA results, check
out the DNA
Masterclass that has helped so many. The good news is that you don’t need to be an expert to make use of DNA - you just
need to follow the simple advice in the Masterclass!
Index of Incorrect Surnames UPDATED
There
are many reasons why names can be incorrectly recorded in the census - aside
from spelling discrepancies and transcription errors, there can be all sorts of
misunderstandings. One common problem occurs when a niece, nephew or grandchild
is visiting - it's not unusual for them to be erroneously
recorded under the surname of the head of household. Other discrepancies can
occur when a single mother or widow marries - sometimes children from a previous
relationship are shown under their stepfather's surname even when this wasn't the name they were generally known by.
Tip:
the younger children were when their stepfather came into their lives, the more
likely it is that they'll use his surname.
Nevertheless, they sometimes revert to their birth name when they marry - the nature
of their relationship with their stepfather probably has a lot to do with this
decision.
When
you enter a relative on your My Ancestors page you have the option of adding
extra information on the second part of the Add Ancestor form. Most of
this information is solely for your own use - and none of it is used for
matching purposes, which is why it is optional.
However,
when you enter a correction to the surname recorded in the census it is automatically
added to the Index of Incorrect Surnames at the next update - and it
might help your cousins find the same entry. Here's an
example of a search:
In
this case all of the entries are alternative
spellings, but if you search for a common surname (like 'Smith') you'll see a
very different set of results. Common surnames are less likely to be misspelled,
but that doesn’t mean that they're always correctly shown in the census.....
The
Index of Incorrect Surnames is on the LostCousins website, and you'll find it near the bottom of the main menu. The index
contains over 48,000 entries but isn't open to the general public, so you'll
need to log-in to your LostCousins account to carry out a search (if you received
an email from me telling you about this newsletter, you can use the index -
whether or not you pay a subscription).
Tip:
although the incorrect surnames in the index are compiled only from entries in
the censuses we use at LostCousins, reviewing the
alternative spellings in the index might provide inspiration when you are searching
other records.
Dick Francis thriller for Elizabeth
I've
got so many novels by the late Dick Francis, the jockey turned thriller writer,
that they're stacked two deep on a shelf in my library.
I also changed careers - in my previous career I used to travel across the
Atlantic a lot, and since I can rarely sleep on planes, immersing myself in a compelling
story was a great way to pass the time. So when
Elizabeth wrote to tell me that she'd discovered that Mary Brenchley,
the wife of Dick Francis, and also his collaborator, was her 6th cousin once
removed my ears pricked up.
Mary
died in 2000, and Dick in 2010, but in Elizabeth's words their youngest son, Felix
'picked up the reins' helping his father with research after his mother died, and
later collaborating in the writing. He now publishes under his own name - but
the theme remains the same.
Of
course, not everyone is interested in tracking collateral lines, preferring to
focus on their direct lines - though ironically, because researching collateral
lines inevitably leads to 'lost cousins', you can actually achieve more when
you harness all of the resources at your disposal!
Tip:
for LostCousins purposes you only need to research collateral lines as far as
the 1881 Census, but I often bring them right up to date - doing this helps me
to identify DNA matches who don’t have a tree.
Social distancing in Tudor times
If
you want to get an historical perspective on the current crisis the National
Archives has a webinar on 12th June entitled 'Quarantine and social distancing
during Tudor epidemics'.
You
can sign up for the webinar here.
Please note that you will require either the latest version of Chrome or the
latest version of Firefox - other browsers are not supported.
Although
the World Health Organisation's recommendation is only 1 metre, many countries have
a 2 metre rule to reduce the transmission of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Of course, there's nothing magic about either number -
the closer you are to someone, and the more time you spend in their company,
the more likely you are to be infected by them. Or infect them, for that matter
- after all, many people who get the disease are asymptomatic, but that doesn't mean they can’t infect others. Remember 'Typhoid
Mary', who I first wrote about way back in 2010. This article
summarises some of the issues to consider when you’re judging how safe it is to
meet someone.
My
2010 article was inspired by the fact that my father's uncle died of typhoid
fever in New York in 1893, aged just 20. Mary Mallon (Typhoid Mary) was already
in the city, but I've no reason to think that my Great Uncle Ernest encountered
her.
My
father also lost his only sibling to tuberculosis in 1936 - my Uncle Horace was
just 25 years old, though it's thanks to him that I
have any photos from that side of my family. My father was also hospitalised with
TB around 1931-32, though thankfully he recovered - otherwise I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale. And luckily, when I
caught dengue fever in 2013 - a disease for which there is no vaccine and no specific
treatment - I too recovered.
But
I've had to stop visiting countries where the mosquito
that transmits dengue fever are found because - even though I was found to have
antibodies, they don’t confer immunity. Indeed a
second bout is more likely to be fatal. It's no wonder that clinicians are wary
of suggesting that prior infection with COVID-19 will provide immunity - maybe
it will, and maybe it won't, but even if it does, it might only be effective
for a short period. There are few certainties in the world at the current time.
It
looks as if Britons might have to holiday in the UK this year - there is a 14-day
quarantine being introduced on 8th June. These 1980s photographs
of holidays in Britain will remind you what it used to be like (and possibly
still is in some parts of the country).
Interest
rates for savers have dropped to virtually zero, so you might be tempted to try
something more risky. Resist the temptation! Instead,
perhaps you could start thinking about how you might use your savings to help
get the economy moving again as we come out of lockdown?
You
certainly shouldn’t waste your money on the expensive gadget referred to in
this BBC article -
it won't protect your health, but it will harm your wealth!
Earlier
this year I had a problem with my broadband connection, which turned out to a
fault on the telephone line, but even now it’s working again we still don't get
more than 10 or 11 Mbps download, and the upload is about 1 Mbps - not ideal
when you send out as many emails as I do! It got me wondering whether - since
we live close to a mobile phone mast - we might do better using a 4G connection
- and a quick test showed that we would do much better. I then did some
research into 4G routers, and eventually settled on this one.
It's
not the latest model, but the disadvantage
of the newer model is that it doesn't have an RJ11 port. The RJ11 port allows me
to connect a standard landline telephone and make calls using the SIM card in
the router - very handy these days, since most mobile data packages come with
unlimited calls and texts. I'm not sure that there is
any way of sending texts, but being able to make phone calls which are
effectively free is a definite advantage, especially if I decide to ditch the
landline one day. Even now I never make outgoing calls on the landline - they're so expensive!
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......
Finally, I was sorry to read today that Bob Weighton,
the Briton who was the oldest man in the world, died yesterday from cancer. Nevertheless I suspect that right now most of us would
settle for making it to 112.
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2020 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?