Newsletter – 17th
June 2024
Save 30% on Findmypast PREMIUM subscriptions ENDS SUNDAY
Support LostCousins and get a bonus!
Headstones with an unusual story to tell
The LostCousins
newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue
(dated 6th June) 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!
Save 30% on Findmypast PREMIUM subscriptions ENDS SUNDAY
I
know that many of you took advantage of the recent free access weekend to explore
the records at Findmypast. I hope you followed the advice in this article
because it would have made an enormous difference (judging from the comments of
the members who wrote in afterwards). It wasn’t just members who were new to
Findmypast who benefited - for example, one long-term user of the site wrote:
“A
million thanks for your incredible instructions to research FMP. For all the years I've subscribed to that
site, I now know I've missed finding more accurate information. Hearty thank you for opening my eyes to a much better research
method.”
Because
searching is always free at Findmypast there’s a lot you can achieve without a
subscription. Nevertheless, no serious researcher can manage for long without
access to the records themselves, and whilst family history is one of the
cheaper hobbies, it can still be difficult to find the money for a 12 month subscription, even though annual subscriptions
invariably provide a significant cost saving compared to shorter subscriptions.
So I am delighted that until 11.59pm (London time) on Sunday
23rd June Findmypast are offering a massive 30% discount on 3 month
and 12 month Premium subscriptions at all of their sites. Inevitably the discount only
applies to the first payment so if you can possibly manage it, purchase a 12 month subscription and lock in your saving for a whole
year. And as a 12 month subscriber you’ll also benefit
from a 15% Loyalty Discount should you opt to renew your subscription, as many
of you undoubtedly will.
With
a PREMIUM subscription you’ll get everything that the Plus and Pro
subscriptions offer, plus virtually unlimited access to the 1921 England &
Wales Census – all for just under £140 at the UK site, a massive saving of £60. This is
less than you could have paid for Findmypast’s top subscription 15 years ago –
even though you’re getting billions more records and around three-quarters of a
billion newspaper articles. According to my calculator it works out at 40p a day,
about the price of a glass of milk.
The
offer is open to both new Findmypast subscribers and former subscribers,
and ends just before midnight (London time) next Sunday. If you have any
questions for me, ask them now – don’t leave it to the last minute as I like to
take Sunday evenings off.
Existing
subscribers can’t take advantage of this offer – but hopefully you benefited
from a special offer when you bought your first subscription. And remember, if
you’re an annual subscriber, when your subscription comes up for renewal you’ll qualify for Findmypast’s Loyalty Discount,
currently 15%.
Tip:
don’t rush off to Findmypast just yet, because in the next article I provide
the link you will need and explain how you can support LostCousins AND get a
bonus for yourself when you purchase a new 12 month
Findmypast under the offer. You could save yourself over £70 in total!
Support LostCousins and get a bonus!
Although
the Findmypast offer isn’t exclusive to readers of this newsletter, you’ll only
have a chance of supporting LostCousins if you use the appropriate link at the
end of this article – but please don’t stop reading as the next bit is
important!
It’s
one thing to click the link – but sadly that doesn’t guarantee that your
purchase will be tracked as coming from LostCousins. For a start, if you’re
asked about cookies when you get to the Findmypast site, please choose That’s
fine (you can always change the settings after you’ve made your purchase).
IMPORTANT:
if you have installed any browser extensions with names that include the words
'ad' and/or 'block' this is a danger sign! Bear in mind that if you allow your
children or grandchildren to ‘help’ you with your computer they may well have
installed something you don’t know about. And please don’t use a work computer
or a device connected to your employer’s network as this is very unlikely to
work.
Tracking
is least likely to be blocked by default if you use Chrome or Edge as your
browser. Browsers such as Firefox and Brave are very likely to block tracking,
and this also seems to be true of Safari (though I can’t check it out myself as
the Windows version is no longer updated). Chrome is free to download and works
on just about any device (one reason I use it), so this might be a good time to
download it and navigate to this newsletter from within Chrome – please don’t
click the link in my email as that will take you to your usual browser, which
is what you’re trying to avoid!
Tip:
if you are not sure which browser you are currently using
click the three dots at the top right and choose ‘Help’ from the browser menu: if
one of the options that is displayed is ‘About Google Chrome’ then you know you’re
in Chrome.
I
also recommend that, if you possibly can, you use a computer rather than a
smartphone or tablet. But whatever device you choose, please stick to it, as
clicking my link on one device and then making your purchase on another definitely won't work.
In
Chrome you'll find the 'Do not track' switch by going to Settings, then Privacy
and security, then Cookies and other site data – the default setting
is OFF, as shown BELOW, and this is exactly what you want:
The
switch should be to the LEFT and appear grey. If the switch is to the right
(and blue) then please move it to the left.
In
Edge you'll find a similar switch in Settings under Privacy, search
and services and it works in the same way. If it is set to the right, move
it to the left. I also recommend temporarily turning off Tracking Prevention.
Once
you are satisfied that your purchase is going to be tracked, click the relevant
link and make your purchase, noting the EXACT time of the transaction (to the
minute!). If you change your mind about which site you want to subscribe to,
please go back to the newsletter and click the link for the site you’ve chosen.
Provided
that we receive commission on your purchase of a new 12 month
Findmypast subscription under the offer above you’ll receive a free LostCousins
subscription worth up to £12.50. To
claim your bonus forward the email receipt you receive
from Findmypast, ensuring that the time and date of your purchase is shown.
Alternatively send me an email stating the precise time and date of your purchase
(to the minute), and the amount paid. As usual, my email address was in the
email you received telling you about this newsletter.
IF
IN DOUBT PLEASE CHECK WITH ME BEFORE MAKING YOUR PURCHASE - AFTERWARDS
WILL BE TOO LATE!
Findmypast.co.uk - Save
30% on 3 and 12 month Premium subscriptions
Findmypast.com.au - Save
30% on 3 and 12 month Premium subscriptions
Findmypast.com - Save
30% on 3 and 12 month Premium subscriptions
Findmypast.ie - Save 30% on 3 and
12 month Premium subscriptions
All
of the offers end at 11.59pm London time on Sunday 23rd
June. So if you are in Australia, you could get up
early on Monday 24th – whereas in California the offer will end at
4pm on Sunday.
Note:
Findmypast offers which end at the weekend sometimes extend into Monday
morning, but don’t bank on this!
How Findmypast could knock down your ‘brick walls’
You
might think “I don’t need a Findmypast subscription, I already have a
subscription to XXXX”. The problem with that line of reasoning is that it assumes
that all sites have the same records – and whilst that may be true for some
record sets, there are lots of records that you’ll only find at one site or the
other. Even if two sites appear to have the same records, they’ll usually have
different transcriptions – and whilst it’s the images that we’re most interested
in, remember that most of the time we find the images by searching, which means
we’re dependent on the way the records have been indexed.
But
it’s not just about records and transcriptions, different sites have different
search options, and sometimes the records are organised in different ways. There
could also be differences in coverage, especially when it comes to parish
registers. This article
from last year provides an example of how mistakes can easily be made.
There’s
another pitfall we need to be wary of. Back in the 1960s Joni Mitchell sang “You
don't know what you've got 'till it's gone”; my 21st century equivalent
for family historians is “You don’t know what to look for until you’ve found it”.
What
I mean by that is, if you only look for what you expect to find, you’ll miss
out on the discoveries that you weren’t expecting. For example, a few years ago
when Findmypast announced their exclusive arrangement to publish Catholic registers
and other records I appreciated how valuable it would be for others, but I didn’t
think it was relevant to my own research – in nearly 20 years there hadn’t been
any clues that suggested I had Catholic ancestors. It turned out that I was wrong
– my great-great grandmother had been baptised at a Catholic chapel in 1840.
And her parents were Irish, something that even her granddaughter didn’t know.
Historic
newspapers are another source of unexpected revelations. Already this year I’ve
corresponded with two LostCousins members whose much-loved ancestors turned out
to have had a criminal record – something that was only revealed by a search of
the British Newspaper Archive – which is accessible from Findmypast if you have
a Pro or Premium subscription. In one case the article had only been added to
the archive the previous month, so an earlier search wouldn’t have found it.
By
now most regular readers of this newsletter have already taken a DNA test, and
hopefully you will have been following the advice in my DNA Masterclass – which
will not only save you an enormous amount of time, it will
ensure that you get the best outcomes (which for most of us means knocking down
‘brick walls’ that have withstood years of research in historical records).
Whether
or not you have already tested, you’ll find this list of DOs and DON’Ts a handy
reminder…..
DO
- Choose the best test – which means
the Ancestry test, and not an ‘ancestry’ test sold by some
other company
- Attach a searchable tree to your
DNA results
- Follow the advice in the DNA
Masterclass – otherwise you’ll end up wasting your time on things that don’t
really matter
- Remember that DNA only works in
conjunction with records – there are no names or dates in your DNA
DON’T
- Assume that you’re the best
person to test – with each generation some DNA is lost, so give priority
to survivors from earlier generations
- Imagine that DNA makes it easy
to knock down ‘brick walls’ – what DNA does is make it possible
- Waste time puzzling over ethnicity
estimates
- Include your partner’s ancestors
in the tree you attach to your DNA results
I wish it could be Census every day!
I’ve
been writing recently about some of the censuses that have taken place in my
lifetime (ie 1951
and 1961),
and I hope you have taken the opportunity to download the blank census forms to
your own computer. Some of you may even have printed them out and filled them
in based on your knowledge of your own families (though if you have, make it clear
that this is what you’ve done, in case in the years to come someone is misled
as to the nature of the information).
Whilst
I was an enumerator in 1971 I had no real interest in
family history until much later – like most young men I wanted to get away from
my family! But, like many of you, I kept a copy of my 2011 and 2021 Census
submissions, though in each case I chose the online option, which made it a
little more difficult – since the Office for National Statistics (ONS) didn’t
provide a print function.
Sarah
in Canada has also been keeping copies of her census submissions since 2011,
though as there is a 5-yearly cycle in Canada this includes three censuses
(2011, 2016, and 2021). She told me: “We who are researching now are ecstatic
when we find an ancestor in one of the old census reports. One day, others will
hopefully be researching our families too. So I’ve
tried to make it a bit easier for those future researchers.”
Of
course, when we find an ancestor in the census we’re
looking at their entry in the published record – not a contemporaneous copy
that our ancestor made. If we make our own copies then they’re not subject to
closure – in the UK censuses are closed for 100 years (in Canada it’s 92 years,
and in the US it’s a mere 72). However, the main advantage of the published
censuses is that they include virtually all of the
population at a fixed point in time, so whilst we may have to wait to get
access, we can at least be pretty certain that we’ll find our ancestors listed
somewhere. By contrast, how many of us have ancestors who were sufficiently
far-sighted to make a copy of their census information in (say) 1951?
Here
in the UK there may not be ANY more censuses – the ONS
has absolutely no interest in the heritage value of the census, which is why
they refused to include in the 2021 Census any of the questions that family
historians suggested. In future they may cobble together statistics using
“administrative data”, which means that there won’t be any record of named individuals
or families. But there is nothing to prevent us from assisting the family
historians of the future by creating our own censuses, recording information about
our own families.
Note:
given their lack of interest in the heritage value of the census it seems
somewhat disingenuous of the ONS to publish a history of the
census on their own website. Interestingly this history, published on 20th
June 2022, reproduces wording from a letter I had discovered in the National Archives
3 months earlier, and referred to on 14th March 2022 in an article
entitled “Revealed: the truth about the 1931 Census”.
But
if we are going to simulate the census in this way, there is no reason
to do it only once every 5 or 10 years. It would be too much to do it every
day, but once a year seems perfectly reasonable – and perhaps if there are any
changes during the course of the year we could note
that as well?
Note:
since writing about the 1961 Census I have received an
email from Anne, who tells me that her father was Chief Statistician at the
General Register Office in those days – and therefore heavily involved with
that census.
Recently
I came across the following entry in the marriage register of St Saviour’s,
Pimlico:
©
City of Westminster Archives Centre, used by kind permission of Ancestry
What
on earth had happened on 10th January 1933 to cause the marriage to
be cancelled? Nothing, as it turned out, because on the very next page was a
replacement entry:
©
City of Westminster Archives Centre, used by kind permission of Ancestry
I assume that either
the officiating cleric or one of the participants was unhappy with the number
of corrections to the original entry.
So
far as I am aware the marriage would have been legal irrespective of how the
bride signed her name, but as this was a society wedding – the bride’s father
was the Earl of Onslow – standards were, perhaps, a little higher than usual.
Even so the bride used her married name when signing the second time, and it
was clearly felt that this needed to be corrected, perhaps so that it matched
the name on the marriage licence.
Shakespeare
wrote that “the course of true love never did run smooth”. The engagement had been
announced just 10 days earlier, and the happy couple had originally planned to
marry on 8th February.
[Image © Reach PLC. Image created
courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD and used by kind permission of Findmypast]
According
to the newspaper report in the Western Daily Press of 13th
January 1933 the marriage had been brought forward because the groom was having
to rejoin his regiment rather sooner than previously expected. The article also
indicates that there were to have been 6 bridesmaids at the wedding – so there were
a lot of disappointed young ladies.
Their
son Richard Arthur Michael Garside was born in November 1933, but there were no
further children of the marriage. The next time we read about the couple is on 1st
July 1939 when the Surrey Advertiser
reported their divorce.
Image © Reach PLC. Image created courtesy of
THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD and used by kind permission of Findmypast
Judging
from the judge’s comments the honeymoon period doesn’t seem to have lasted very
long – although it was Lady Mary who divorced her husband, on the grounds of his
adultery, it seems that she had deserted her husband some years earlier and was
“associating with another man against her husband’s wishes” to use the judge’s
words.
There
were 8254 divorces in 1939, but on a single day in January 1940 a record 633 were granted, according to
contemporary newspaper reports; those same articles highlighted
the Garside-Onslow divorce. The following month Lady Mary advertised in the London
Gazette her intention to abandon the surname of Garside for herself and her
son, by then 6 years old, and to resume her maiden name. It can’t have been
much fun for poor Richard.
These
days divorce is all too common – in 2022 there were
80,057 divorces in England & Wales, and whilst that was the lowest figure
since 1971 it’s nevertheless far higher than the 1939 figure.
What’s
the moral of the story? For family historians it’s the importance of turning
over the register page and looking at other entries – so many queries can be
solved that way!
Name
changes are something that family historians frequently need to overcome – even
if it’s only the addition of a middle name, it can still cause problems if we’re
not alert to the possibility that it was acquired later in life.
Of
course, in the world of show business name changes and stage names are de rigeur. For example, you may recall me mentioning last
month that the very first record I bought, at the age of 9, was Seven Little
Girls Sitting in the Back Seat by the Lana Sisters. However, despite the claim
in some of their early promotional material that they were three sisters with the
surname ‘Lana’, their real names were Iris Long, Lynn Abrams, and Mary O’Brien –
who was later much better known as Dusty Springfield, a name she initially acquired
when she joined her brother Dion (“Tom Springfield’) in a folk trio called The
Springfields.
In
1962 the singing duo Ray Hildebrand and Jill Jackson performed a song Ray had
written called Hey Paula during a charity fund-raising event on a local
radio station in Texas, and when it was released afterwards by a local record label
the performers were credited as ‘Jill and Ray’.
However when Philips, a major record publisher, acquired
the song and re-released it it was decided to rename
the duo ‘Paul and Paula’, thus giving the impression that they were a couple –
though this was never the case. It worked – the song went to No.1 in the US and
sold 3 million copies worldwide. It was only when I read Ray’s Guardian obituary
last September that I discovered the deception – I felt slightly let down.
In
2024 another Paula has been hitting the headlines, and if you’ve been watching
the Post Office Inquiry
– I find it riveting – you may have formed the impression that there was
deception involved; there are certainly a lot of people who were let down by
the actions and/or inactions of some of the dramatis personae. Paula Vennells
– who was Group Network Director of the Post Office from 2007, then Chief Executive
from 2012 to 2019 – has attracted more criticism than any other individual,
though she clearly feels that she was let down by her staff, who supposedly kept
bad news from her, and only told her what she wanted to hear. It probably didn’t
help that she knew nothing about IT and nothing about the law, so wasn’t in the
best position to ask probing questions of her advisors. Some may conclude that
she was simply out of her depth and doing the best that she could – when the
former Chair of the Post Office was being questioned earlier this month documents
were shown which showed that government officials were questioning Ms Vennells’ suitability for the job in February 2014 (see
this Guardian article).
Although
the Inquiry was established nearly 4 years ago, the issues only really hit the
headlines when ITV broadcast the documentary drama Mr Bates vs The Post
Office in January this year; within days Paula Vennells
stated that she would return the CBE honour that had been awarded in 2019, a decision
that was encouraged by a petition that attracted over 1 million signatures. If
you are in the UK the series is available free through ITVX, and it’s also
available in Australia through Channel 7 (though I’m not sure whether it is
free to view on catch-up).
Postscript:
as I was finalising this article the news came through that Alan Bates, who
founded the Justice For Subpostmasters
Alliance in 2009, had been knighted in King Charles’ Birthday Honours List.
Ironically, the termination of Alan Bates’ contract with the Post Office in
November 2003 occurred just weeks before the death of his namesake, the award-winning
actor Sir Alan Bates, on 27th December 2003.
When I was talking to my wife about name changes she mentioned that roses are sometimes sold under
different names in different countries. An interesting example is Peace,
a cultivar which was originally named Madame A. Meilland,
after the grower’s late mother. Developed just before World War 2, cuttings
were sent to other countries as a precautionary measure before the Germans invaded.
After
the liberation of France the grower, Francis Meilland,
wrote to Field Marshal Alan Brooke asking if he might name the rose after him –
but he demurred, suggesting that Peace would be a more enduring name,
and it is under this name that it is now known in many countries (though not
Italy or Germany , where it is called Gioia
and Gloria Dei respectively).
After
the war Viscount Alanbrooke, as he now was, held a number of positions including (from 1946-54) Colonel
Commandant of the Honourable Artillery Company, which was incorporated in 1537
under a charter from King Henry VIII. Both my father and his father served with
the HAC, in WW1 and WW2 respectively – and since the Dad’s Army actor John
Laurie also enlisted in the HAC during WW1, I wonder if he ever met my grandfather?
Headstones with an unusual story to tell
Although
this BBC article
dates from 2017, I seem not to have noticed it at the time, so thought it was
worth mentioning in case you also missed out.
The
celebrities for the 2024 series of Who Do You Think You Are? have been
announced – you can find out more here,
at the website of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine.
Talking
of the magazine, I’m glad to say that I’ve been able to negotiate an extension
of the exclusive offer for readers of this newsletter. There's an extra special introductory offer for
members in the UK, but there are also offers for overseas readers, each of
which offers a useful saving on the cover price:
UK - try 6 issues for just £9.99
Europe - 13 issues (1 year) for €74.99
Australia - 13 issues (1 year) for AU $125
Rest of the world - 13 issues (1 year) for US $89.99
To take advantage of any of these deals (and to
support LostCousins) please follow this link.
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......
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2024 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!