Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2020 i Family Tree UK

Welcome What are you looking forward to focusing on with your family history this spring? From digging deeper into the parish records, to tackling DNA, and deciding how best to write up your family history – we’ve got so many ideas to help you get miles more from your family tree discoveries The question of how best to write our family history is one that’s right at the heart of all that we do, isn’t it – the need to trace and preserve the stories, to tell them and share them, and do our best to ensure they’re passed on to the next generations. This issue we’ve gathered together advice from an inspiring selection of ‘storytellers’, each of whom has a unique take on some of the many ways in…

ALL ABOUT FAMILY HISTORY Family historians to help boost online military records service at top Alexandra Palace show Visitors to Family Tree Live will be able to order copies of deceased relatives’ military records from 1920 onwards from the Ministry of Defence – and help develop an online service in the process. At London’s historic Alexandra Palace this 17 and 18 April, the DBS Records and Medals Office team will have the Gov.UK online application system (currently a development product) that enables ordering of and payment for the service record. To use this service applicants will need a debit/credit card to make payment, and a copy of the death certificate (unless death was in service) for the serviceman/woman whose record they seek. Applicants will be assisting the DBS Records team…

New releases round-up • TheGenealogist.co.uk has launched a new collection of more than 500,000 records; RAF Operations Records Books covering 1915 to beyond WW2 (Air 27 at The National Archives): www.thegenealogist.co.uk/news • Ancestry has released part two of its World War II Royal Artillery Tracer Cards, 1939-1948 collection, adding nearly 185,000 records (369,970 images) for individuals with surnames Q-Z. It joins the first release last year of records for soldiers with surnames starting A-P. The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly known as ‘The Gunners’, tracer cards enabled the tracking of soldiers from unit to unit during the war: www.ancestry.co.uk • Fold3, a military records subsidiary of Ancestry, has released 30,000 Imperial Yeomanry records (186,741 images), comprising attestation and discharge documents from the War Office. They record the details of men…

GET A HELPING HAND FROM OUR AUTHORS Putting them in the picture Do you need some inspiration on how to illustrate your writing? Family history tutor, lecturer, event manager and enthusiast Jackie Depelle has some tried and tested visual ideas to help keep your readers’ attention, while turning back the pages of the past Illustrate your narrative with evocative images Make sure you name the people. Study the photo carefully. Take a look at the four generations in this family photograph. It speaks volumes – family features, clothing and just look at the great-grandfather’s hands. (If only the people in such pictures could talk!) Make sure you illustrate your work to keep it interesting Extend with lifestyle material, for example living conditions, health and housing. Chart such aspects as the…

IMPROVE YOUR SKILLS Your Family Tree Academy Document Challenges Now it’s time to put your research skills to the test. Each issue we’ll show you some documents and ask you a variety of questions relating to them. The documents themselves are just the starting points and you’ll need to look at other sources to find all of the answers. This month’s challenges each start with information about someone’s death. Document A Barnabas Almond – Probate Calendar, 1888 I How old was Barnabas when he died?II What, according to the 1871 Census, was his occupation?III What happened to Barnabas on 19 May 1880? Document B Elizabeth Hulme – Legal Notice, Gloucestershire Chronicle, 1915 IV Where was Elizabeth born?V What was her address at the time of the 1881 Census?VI What was…

MY FAMILY HISTORY IN 1,000 WORDS STORYTELLING SKILLS Tales from MY TREE Last year we challenged Family Tree readers to write their family history in only 1,000 words. Kate Holloway picked up the gauntlet… and here are some stories about her family’s lives My mum’s mother was Muriel Annie Phillips. Born in 1902 in Erith, Kent, she grew up to be an attractive and talented lady. Her piano playing was excellent and she planned to teach piano. She also worked in the florist’s shop in Pier Road. During World War I, her brother worked for Vickers and consequently she met Frederick Cameron Dorrell, my grandfather. Unfortunately, Muriel’s mother, Annie, was less keen on him as Frederick’s family came from Wheatley Terrace, which Annie considered a less pleasant part of Erith.…

FAMILY HISTORY GALORE AT FAMILY TREE LIVE! Indulge your family history passion at Family Tree Live 2020, which promises an exciting array of genealogy activities all under one glorious roof… Taking place for the second year in the stunning grand hall at London’s Alexandra Palace on 17 and 18 April, visitors will be able to enjoy more than 125 fascinating workshops and lectures, one-to-one advice sessions, living history entertainment, DNA Hub and more. Be sure to book all your workshops, lectures and advice sessions in advance, and leave time to browse the fantastic range of exhibition stands, manned by all sorts of specialists who could help you smash a long-standing brick wall, make new discoveries and take your family tree to the next level. Organised by Family Tree in partnership…

NEWS Karen Clare reports on the latest genealogy news. Got a story to share? Email editorial@family-tree.co.uk Volunteers launch Devon church graveyard database A lottery-funded project to record thousands of memorial inscriptions from headstones in a churchyard in Devon has come to fruition. A dedicated group of volunteers has spent two years deciphering the inscriptions on ancient and weathered headstones at St Mary’s Churchyard in Brixham, recording details and plotting locations for a new searchable online database. Project volunteer Nina Hannaford explained: ‘The initial remit for the Brixham St Mary’s in Devon churchyard project was to focus on Victorian memorials. As the churchyard covers nearly three acres over various plots and contains headstones from early 1700 to the present day, it quickly became obvious each plot contained burials and dates ranging…

TheGenealogist YOUR FREE RECORDS WORTH £34! At Family Tree we’ve teamed up with UK family history website TheGenealogist.co.uk to offer you selected free sources from its extensive online collections. Read on to learn about the census and other genealogy records you can search today for free… 1871 Census search You can search and use the 1871 Census for Warwickshire. Church marriage records Get free access to Wiltshire Parish Registers (Marriages), Vol XII, edited by WPW Phillimore and John Sadler (1912), which cover Bratton 1542-1837, Kington St Michael 1563-1837, Fuggleston with Bemerton 1608-1837, Boyton 1560-1837, Sherrington 1677-1837, Latton 1578-1837 and Collingbourne Ducis 1654-1837. How to use the records…

CHURCH RECORDS KEY WEBSITES Where to find parish registers Parish registers are recordsof baptisms, marriages and burials created by local churches that can help you trace your ancestors to before civil registration – and back to Tudor times. Chris Paton gives the lowdown on what’s available online When researching our family history we start back by consulting civil registration records of births, marriages and deaths, which have been kept by the state in England and Wales from 1837, in Scotland from 1855, and in Ireland mainly from 1864. To go further back than these years we must consider a completely separate source, in the form of parish registers, as kept by various church insitutions across Britain and Ireland from Reformation times. These records can be broadly considered in two major categories…

DIGGING DEEPER TRACING BRANCHES Twiglets Diarist Gill Shaw charts the rollercoaster ride of researching her family history Well, this is a first: using the newspaper report of an inquest into my 2x great-grandfather Martin Leah’s suicide to work out where some of his children lived, and how they fit into the tragedy. But despite the grim subject matter, the snippet from the Manchester Evening News of 31 January 1887 is a bit of a gift, so what we can glean from it? Let’s grab the mini tree of the 10 little Leahs, so we can see who’s who. OK, at the start of the news item it says, ‘The deceased resided with his son-inlaw at 60 Old Lane Openshaw’, and I’ve already decided that son-in-law must be the husband of…

GET A HELPING HAND FROM OUR AUTHORS Here are Mike Sharpe’s top 10 tips to set help you write your story 1 Define the scope: You may wish to focus on a single family, all of whom share the same name. Or you could write about multiple family lines that converge to one individual. Or it may be that the information you have lends itself to being a biography of a specific ancestor 2 Compile a timeline: Make lists of events, with dates, for key individuals. You can use these as a framework to guide the narrative. Many family history programs are able to output reports in this format 3 Identify your stories: Your write-up needs to tell a story. Use the timeline(s) to decide which are the most interesting…

BITE-SIZE FAMILY HISTORY 60-MINUTE RESEARCH The lunch hour genealogist Being busy doesn’t mean you have to neglect your favourite hobby, you can still learn in your lunch break! Squeeze just 60 minutes of family history into your daily routine and you’ll soon start to see your tree blossom. It’s time to tuck into Rachel Bellerby’s genealogy treats Know-how in under 100 words! Learn some abbreviations to speed up your research… The below abbreviations are ones that you might come across regularly when using historic records: ackd. Acknowledged bur. Buried cem. Cemetery née Maiden name rec’d Received Get organised! Keep those source citations Many of us have a family tree at more than one online location, something which isn’t a problem since you can import or export a GEDcom file to ensure…

CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF THE SLOUGH TRADING ESTATE INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY & HERITAGE One hundred years of memories As a keen local and family historian, Lisa Edwards had been starting to collect her father’s memories. Sadly he passed away a few months ago, and here Lisa shares her research, both in memory of her dad and also to celebrate the centenary of the Slough Trading Estate (which reaches 100 years old this spring) where her father once worked in so many companies based there The Slough Trading Estate was previously a government dump for broken down vehicles in World War I. On 17 May 2020 it will be a 100 years since the Memorandum of Association was signed by a syndicate of seven men forming the Slough Trading Company, that in 1926…

WHAT’S ON MAJOR NEW EXHIBITIONS Starts 3 April Exhibition East London. The Museum of London Docklands’ major new exhibition Havering Hoard: A Bronze Age Mystery reveals rare finds from London’s biggest Bronze Age hoard, including a pair of terret rings – the first examples of their kind ever to be found in the UK. They are believed to have been used to prevent the reins from tangling on horse-drawn carts, providing fascinating insight into how people and goods may have travelled cross-country. The discovery of the rings, along with a bracelet believed to be from the modern-day French/German border and copper ingots possibly from the Alps, suggests a well-connected community of travellers and traders across Europe. This exhibition takes visitors on a journey through life in the Late Bronze Age…

Appeal for ‘Mayflower’ links to families left behind in England Devon Family History Society (FHS) is hosting a Mayflower International Genealogical Conference this summer and wants to hear from family historians with links to the Pilgrim Fathers. The Mayflower left Plymouth for the New World in September 1620 and anyone descended in England from a Mayflower passenger’s family is invited to contribute to ‘The Families They Left Behind’ project. It is hoped a booklet will be created containing research in time for the conference on 29 August 2020 in Plymouth, part of this year’s Mayflower 400 events. Visit www.devonfhs.org.uk/mayflower_conference.pdf for details. Census bell tolls The UK’s 2021 Census could be the last, according to the national statistician, Prof Sir Ian Diamond. The BBC reported he is examining cheaper alternatives to…

NEWS #AncestryHour Susie Douglas, the founder of Twitter’s #AncestryHour, looks at fresh ways to investigate the lives – and deaths – of your ancestors If you are looking to get closer to your ancestors now is the time to get creative! As the past has already ‘happened’ it is a rich source of information that will add real context and depth to your research. Imagining ancestors as central characters in a setting and writing a story around them will help you uncover facts and information you had perhaps not considered before. At 11am on 18 August 1910 my great-grandmother witnessed a young governess take her own life by throwing herself partially dressed into the sea at Rumbling Kern (pictured), near Howick, Northumberland. This ‘snippet’ might trigger a very simple pattern…

GENEALOGICAL MISCELLANY Dear Karan WHEN FETE INTERVENES We launch this issue’s proceedings with a remarkable story reported in the press nearly 73 years ago and unearthed, as it were, by our regular archive newshound Teresa Williams. The article is from The Daily Mirror of Monday, 16 June 1947 and reads: ‘G.I. Bride of the 1914 War, Nellie Thomas, then 21 years of age, lost a signet ring at a Garden Fete at Northolt, Middlesex in 1921. Despite a thorough search it could not be found before she travelled to America. ‘A fortnight ago she returned to England and at the weekend she visited her uncle, Mr Wm Oakley of Church Lane, Northolt. She found him in the garden digging and as he greeted her he turned over a spade full…

START PENNING THOSE MEMORIES TODAY Revealed… Top tips for how to write your family history Discover the secrets for making the dream of writing up your family history a reality: with Ruth Badley, Jackie Depelle, Diane Lindsay, David Ryan and Mike Sharpe – 5 specialists whose unique take on preserving the stories of the past we hope will inspire you to write your own family histories Hooking‘em in Family history tutor, guru and dedicated research night-owl enthusiast Diane Lindsay explains why you really shouldn’t delay in putting pen to paper… One of my students, a lady of 93, once declared: ‘That’s it! Finished my family history!’ How we laughed. And sure as your grandad’s your grandad (or is he?) next week she sashayed into class having demolished a brick wall…

Your FREE Family Tree Ultimate Kit Get it when you subscribe to Family Tree on direct debit for just £10.99 a quarter What’s inside The Ultimate Kit? ‘Family Tree’ archive box: Perfect for storing your ancestor keepsakes and treasures ‘Family Tree’ archive box: Perfect for storing your ancestor keepsakes and treasures How to write your family history: A practical workbook showing you how to write up your research, with useful charts, logs and interview sheets My Family Tree chart: Essential for getting organised and displaying your family history ‘Family Tree’ magazine 2020 diary: Featuring fascinating family history websites for you to visit every week and keep genealogy top of your to-do list PLUS Fun stickers: Customise your laptop, Kindle, or anything else, and let people know about your family history…

Books With Helen Tovey and Karen Clare Author Q&A Helen Tovey asks Julie Summers how she approached researching and writing Dressed for War, a new biography of Audrey Withers, the British Vogue Editor extraordinaire from the Blitz to the Swinging Sixties A dedicated leader of fashion… Q Your portrayal of Audrey Withers is so evocative. How did you go about piecing together her life story? A I set about researching Audrey Withers’ life in the same way I do all my books, which is to approach the archive that houses the family papers, in this case, Somerville College, Oxford. That yielded excellent material about her childhood including fascinating letters and photographs from her various correspondents. I then approached Condé Nast in London with a request to read the archive of Vogue…

DIARY DATES Find or post diary dates at www.family-tree.co.uk/Events for FREE or email them to editorial@family-tree.co.uk APRIL 2020 From 1 April Talks & courses London EC1. The Society of Genealogists’ events this month kick off on 1 April with Joe Studman’s talk on History of Kentish Town (2-3pm, £8). On the 4th, Jane Fox presents a half-day course, Death Records: Bringing your Ancestors Back to Life (2-5pm, £20). The Missing of the First World War is Simon Fowler’s talk on 22nd (2-3pm, £8), followed by A Look at Cloud Computing: One Researcher’s View of Computing in the Cloud with Graham Walter on 25th (10.30am-1pm, £20). The same day is Amelia Bennett’s course, Discover your Ancestor’s Old Occupations (2-5pm, £20) while David Evans takes to the stand on 29th for A…

THOUGHTS ON… HISTORY’S HEROES Some are born great… Diane Lindsay is intensely proud of her most humble ancestors, but surely a family historian can dream… If you could discover a famous ancestor or family connection, who would it be? There can’t be many among us, especially with familiar surnames, who haven’t hoped and fantasised, albeit briefly. I occasionally permit such a moment myself. Not that I’m bothered about rich and aristocratic you understand. I guess it’s a case of who your heroes are. Though they’d never be intriguing enough for an episode of WDYTYA?, I’m absurdly proud of my humble forebears, who’ve dug, delved, tilled, ploughed, sewn, stitched, nailed, knitted and hewn their way through just over four centuries of probably not so Merry England. My favourites, in fact, are my…