Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2023 i Family Tree UK

Family Tree UK|January 2023

AASLH Introduces new council leaders and members

Rachel Bellerby reports on the latest genealogy news. Got a story to share? Email editorial@family-tree.co.uk The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) Council is the governing board of the association and is comprised of leaders in the field of public history. Burt Logan succeeds Norman Burns as council chair. Burns’ two-year term as Chair has ended, but he will stay on Council as immediate past chair. Logan retired as executive director and CEO of the Ohio History Connection (OHC) earlier this year and is now an executive consultant to the OHC Board. Members also elected four new members of Council, who will serve until 2026. They are: Lisa Anderson of the Utah Valley University Museum of Art in Orem, Utah; JerriAnne Boggis of the Black Heritage Trail of…

9 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

Who Would Be King? (Or Queen?)

Why are we fascinated with royal descents? Most of our ancestors were ordinary people, not nobles or royalty. Some royals were extremely prolific and lived a very long time ago, so have left vast numbers of traceable descendants, however, and royals are traceable into the distant past when ordinary folk generally are not. For instance, we have accurate dates for the birth, marriages and death of Edward I (born 17 June 1239, first marriage Oct 1254, second marriage 8 Sep 1299, died 7 Jul 1307) while I have only a possible death date for my poor Irish great-great-grandmother, born sometime in the earlier 1800s, and no marriage or birth dates. People of pedigree For us genealogists, the key feature of royalty is that they are people of pedigree, carefully recorded.…

19 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

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news, advice & offers By signing up to our enewsletter you will receive regular, but not too frequent emails from the Family Tree team with family history news, advice & offers subscriber perks Even if you subscribe it’s worth registering on the Family Tree website, so that you can view our subscriber only video and benefit from subscriber only prices. join today! It’s easy to register or login to your Family Tree account here: https://www.familytree.co.uk/account/ register. If you subscribe to Family Tree use the same email address to link your account Regist er today at: https://familytr.ee/registertoday…

1 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

An Ancestor Living In Sin - SURELY NOT!

Records show that William Phillips was baptised in 1797 in the parish of Chapel Hill close to the village of Tintern, Monmouthshire; Tintern, of course, famous for its Abbey ruins that were burned down on the orders of Henry VIII. However, William’s parents and family moved to Bristol which is where this narrative begins – with William’s first marriage in 1822 to Elizabeth Simlett who was also born in Wales. The couple had four children and everything in their life was working very nicely until, after ten years of marriage, Elizabeth died in 1832 at the age of 39. Widowed: what was William to do? William was left with their four children still young enough to be living at home. As it was vital that he continued his job in…

7 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

PHOTO CORNER

Your family photos John Brass writes: Photographs 1, 2, and 3 were sent to me by a distant cousin some years ago. He told me that the lady was “Jane Proud”, according to his grandmother, Annie Proud, who died in 1971. I had assumed he meant Annie’s mother, my 2x great-grandmother Jane Robson (1855-1916), who married George Proud (1855- 1917) in 1874. It does look like the same lady in all three photos, but at different ages. Do you think they square up with Jane, b.1855? However, another cousin sent me photograph 4, marked as “Connie and Olga” – my grandmother Constance Proud (1911-1991) and her sister Olga Melina Proud (1914-2007). It seems to me that the younger sister Olga is the same girl as in photo 3. I wonder…

8 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

DIARY DATES

DISCOVER LEARNING EXPERIENCES TO ENJOY FROM ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, PLUS ON-SITE AND HYBRID EVENTS ONSITE EVENTS To Be Read at Dusk: Dickens, Ghosts and the Supernatural, until 5 March This new exhibition explores Charles Dickens’s famous ghost stories, including A Christmas Carol, and demonstrate Dickens’s significant influence on the ghostly genre. See beautiful editions of his haunting tales including a copy of The Chimes which he gifted to fellow author Hans Christian Anderson, and original sketches of Dickens’s ghosts of the past, present and future by John Leech. The display will showcase that Dickens not only wrote ghost stories but also performed them to friends, family and the paying public, as shown through original tickets and playbills. Charles Dickens Museum, 48 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LX; tel: 020 7405…

5 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

The Family Tree Academy PICTORIAL QUIZ

ESSENTIAL SEARCH SKILLS TO MASTER Just study the documents and see how much you know. • On the following pages you’ll find a number of document images and a series of questions relating to each of them. • You’ll find the answers to some of the questions in the documents themselves. • For others, however, you’ll need to look at a range of different documents. • Some of the answers may be found via subscription websites. Some of the websites may be accessible at your local library. Tip: If you are not able to access a website then have a think about the sorts of documents that would provide you with the answers. (After all, knowledge of records is fundamental to the thorough family historian). ABOUT THE FAMILY TREE ACADEMY…

4 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

TRACING GENTLEMAN’S SERVANTS

What was a gentleman’s servant? Think of the TV series Downton Abbey as an example of a household where the servants regarded themselves as gentleman’s servants. These households typically employed numerous different servants in a hierarchical structure offering career progression – page boy to footman to butler, kitchen maid to cook, nursemaid to lady’s maid and so on. There were distinctions between outdoor and indoor servants, and the inner servants were further divided between lower and upper servants. A young servant who aspired to move up the career ladder would generally change employers several times during their working life. Life as a gentleman’s servant The largest households spent the major part of the year at their country house, moving to their London residence during the season, typically late spring to…

11 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

DOUBLE TAKE: My ancestor’s alias

Everyone’s first question is: why? Why would my ancestor have two different names? In some cases people had more than that. Although an alias was often adopted to hide from officialdom, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your ancestor was some sort of hardened criminal. An alias must be distinguished from other potential reasons for having an alternative name. For example, writers have commonly adopted a different name when authoring books. This is usually called a pseudonym: the real name of Lewis Carroll who wrote Alice in Wonderland was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Similarly, genealogists will be familiar with the minor variations of an ancestor’s name which can appear in family records. These might include nicknames such as Polly for women whose real name was Mary, and the slightly frustrating tendency of…

9 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

Spotlight on... THE ASSOCIATION OF GENEALOGISTS AND RESEARCHERS IN ARCHIVES (AGRA)

Over the past four years, AGRA has been continuing to develop as an organisation and having just undergone a rejuvenation to its company brand, AGRA now looks at further initiatives as part of a development plan to make AGRA a vibrant, active and growing company for the future. As a membership organisation, AGRA represents and formally recognises the achievements of the best independent professional genealogists across England and Wales. Members, who all hold relevant qualifications, have demonstrated their genealogical skills, and follow AGRA’s code of practice which gives prospective clients confidence and protection when commissioning work. AGRA also takes on Associates who are all working towards full membership by developing their practice and attaining qualifications through partner institutions: IHGS, Pharos Tutors and the University of Strathclyde. Membership benefits With membership…

3 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

Your questions answered

What does the WWI Grenadier Guards acronym ‘Td.S’ mean? Q I was delighted to find a previously unknown photo of my grandfather, Henry Griggs, in a photograph of a group of Grenadiers dated 1917 from a random online search. He is standing in the front row, far right, wearing two (inverted) long service chevrons. Whilst all the others have recognisable ranks, the letters ‘Td.S’ prior to his name is a conundrum after checking all WWI sites that provide abbreviation and acronym meanings. By 1918 he had transferred to the Royal Engineers Inland Water Transport Division, finishing the war as a sergeant, which might explain the designation, but his war records were destroyed. I also hope that the other names may be of use to other readers. Steve Clark A The…

11 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

Your LETTERS

A poem penned My parents were married in 1928 (in fact Family Tree printed their wedding photograph in May 2012). The picture shown here (see below right) was a wedding present from my father to my mother. As a child I never liked it and hated being in the same room with it especially when on my own. My mother was widowed in 1973 and died in 2003 so the home was finally left for the next stage of its history. My sister had always adored the picture so she took on the ownership and it now takes pride of place in her home. It is a large picture! In memory of our mother she has written a poem – and this I do like and find very moving. Each…

9 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

SHOULD SHE, SHOULDN’T SHE?

It’s raining outside, and, shades of my mother’s Brontë country ancestry, through the faulty triple glazing pane, the wind’s wailing “Let me in through your window-ow-ow-ow!”. My husband, as one does on a wet winter’s day, is putting together a newly delivered garden shredder in the front room. This is a room that has in its time been a post office, a purveyor of seed and animal feed and our pottery shop – so it’s seen all sorts. The lodger-cum now resident cat is demanding we switch the weather off, and I’m trying to justify in my mind the expense of sending off for a mitochondrial DNA test. We did one recently for my husband, adding to his now impressive collection of Scottish results, even though brought up in Sassenach…

4 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

GLIMPSES OF A FORGOTTEN LONDON COMMUNITY

It’s a bright Saturday morning and I’m standing on Hardinge Street, London E1, where my great-grandfather John Riboldi was born. The railway line overhead splits the street in two. To the south, the existing part of Hardinge Street crosses Cable Street (yes, the Cable Street, scene of the Blackshirts’ marches in 1936 – there is so much history here!) and leads down to the Thames at Wapping. Handsome brick buildings and a convent lie on one side, but the plaque says 1904, by which time the Riboldis were long gone. To the north, on the other side of the railway arches, a second sign says Hardinge Lane. The alleyway winds a short way right, then left, past some allotments, and joins Commercial Road, a busy dual carriageway in the borough…

6 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

THE YORK FEVER HOSPITAL

York City Council had been considering building a fever hospital since the mid 1800s and finally an appropriate piece of land was purchased, and the hospital was built and opened in late 1880. It was never expected to be fully occupied and it comprised two modest buildings with accommodation for only twelve patients along with accommodation for the housekeeper. There were verandahs at the side of the building to allow patients to have as much fresh air as possible. Staff in the early days The surprising thing about its development was that nursing and medical staff were not initially recruited. This was in a time before the NHS was established and it was expected that patients would engage their own doctor to visit, and possibly a private nurse or a…

8 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

YOUR DNA WORKSHOP

‘Can you help me find my mother-in-law’s father. I’m running out of time’ DIANE WRITES: Dear Karen I have a family mystery that I have been researching for years and I’m running out of time. It is regarding the father of my husband’s mother. She is nearly 85 years old and desperately wants to find out about him before it’s too late. I will lay out below all that I know so far. Gloria Agnes Georgina Smith was born 4 May 1937 to Florence A. Smith in Trowbridge, Wiltshire. Her mother Florence married William Henry Whitby on 5 August 1939 and Gloria was subsequently adopted by him. I spoke with Gloria in depth and she had a few clues about her father: • the name Stuart Law was in her…

12 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

GENEALOGY GADGETS & APPS FOR ALL OCCASIONS!

YOUR IDEAS If you have an idea you’d like to share, or a topic you’d like to see covered, please email helen.t@family-tree.co.uk with the details. CREATING A PROJECT MANAGEMEN T FLOWCHART Using Excel for my One-Name Study Alfred Gracey writes: I use my familiar MS Excel to draw family trees, work-flow charts, and mind-maps. This saves me the time and cash cost of learning a new program. I’m sharing here a recent example, with brief instructions. In this instance I’ve used Excel to create a project management flowchart for doing a one-name study. Simpler charts could be made in a couple of hours. Fancier charts could use Excel’s SmartArt shapes, colours and other decoration. Charts larger than A4 could be made by joining A4 sheets from a home printer (having…

5 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

A big birth cover up Exposed… 139 YEARS LATER!

87-year-old Jack Morath has been trying to solve a family mystery for over 50 years to uncover the parentage of his maternal grandfather, Charles Middleton Curtis, who he called ‘Gramps’. The story goes that Gramps’ father, Charles Curtis snr, who is entered as deceased on Charles Curtis’s 1920 marriage certificate, was supposedly wealthy. Charles was the twin of Mabel Middleton Curtis born at 24 Ampthill Street, Bedford, on 2 January 1883 and baptised at St John’s Bedford on 14 March, but Jack found inconsistencies between their birth certificates and baptism entries. The birth certificates record the twin’s parents as Charles and Diana Curtis, née Borne, and the father’s occupation as commercial traveller. Both children’s middle names are spelt ‘Mydlleton’. However, on their baptism entries, their middle names are spelt ‘Middleton’,…

8 min

Family Tree UK|January 2023

DISCOVER 4 GREAT BENEFITS OF SUBSCRIBING TO FAMILY TREE

The Study Club is included as part of your subscription to Family Tree magazine (print or digital edition). Join us on Zoom on the second Monday of the month, 6.30pm – you will need to log in to www.family-tree.co.uk to obtain the Zoom link. To find the link, once you are logged in, click ‘Study Club’ from the menu bar. 1tstudy club he family tree The next Study Club meeting will be held at 6.30pm GMT on Monday 9th January and will last precisely one hour. Topic: Photo-dating family images with Jayne Shrimpton. From here you will be able to get the link for the forthcoming meeting, and will be able to view recordings of past meetings. For any queries, please email enquiries@family-tree.co.uk 2 THE VIDEO LIBRARY 3 EXCLUSIVE MONTHLY…

2 min