Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2023 i Family Tree UK

Rachel Bellerby reports on the latest genealogy news. Got a story to share? Email editorial@family-tree.co.uk Over 1,000 years of the county’s history will be brought to life in the new heritage project, which has been made possible thanks to a grant of £4,858,699 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. The new centre will include an extension to the existing Staffordshire Record Office on Eastgate Street in Stafford, incorporating the William Salt Library. A glazed entrance will link both buildings, creating an exhibition space to showcase museum, archive and William Salt library collections. Additional strong rooms will provide space for a further 55 years of collections. The project also has funding to deliver a four-year programme of activities enabling people to discover more about their family or local history through behind…

The record set, available to Diamond subscribers of TheGenealogist, is part of the military records collection and comprises high-quality scans of the docment pages. The records in this release include: * registers * admission books * ledgers The records relate to army pensioners and the payment of pensions to these individuals. The majority of the records relate to pensions payable by the Commissioners of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, to either in-pensioners or out-pensioners. The bulk of the registers and admission books give the name, rank and regiment, rate of pension, date of admission to pension, and residence of the army pensioner. Additionally, many of the records will provide a date and place of birth, a record of service and complaint, or reason for discharge.…

The site, which is due to launch this spring, aims to focus attention on individual family history societies, thereby encouraging visitors to read various articles, then click through to the individual society website of its contributor. Family history societies are invited to submit contributions on: • in-depth content about a particular source or concept • short description of a data set or documents of value to researchers • any particular unique and local knowledge  For full details on making a submission, email admin@ familyhistoryfederation.com…

It was on a cold winter’s morning, and in the middle of a snow storm when the postman delivered a registered letter from the College of Preceptors. I was aware that the word ‘preceptor’ was used in Victorian times to describe a teacher. Yet in those years, the college, founded in 1846, not only achieved pioneering fame but also occupied a unique position in Britain’s national heritage. Some time before the letter arrived, I had put cursory feelers out to the preceptors in a bid to research their history. I was friends with the college’s marketing and academic officer, Judith Roberts, and I had a good track record and reputation as a family historian. I had also worked as a research assistant for the preceptors previously, researching into their exams…

DNA Help for Genealogy (UK) is a Facebook group dedicated to helping people work with DNA to confirm their genealogy or solve their genealogical puzzles. The group was formed in 2015 as an offshoot of the larger Ancestry UK Facebook group, although neither are associated with the well-known Ancestry company. It’s hard to believe that back in 2015 many genealogy groups did not allow threads about DNA, actively closing them down. The group was set up to give genealogists who are interested in DNA a place to discuss issues and ultimately get help from each other. The group now consists not only of genealogists, but also people wanting help to solve tricky DNA puzzles relating to cases of unknown parentage, such as those involving adoptions, foundlings and donor-conception. Using DNA…

Indian migration to Uganda/Kenya QMy attention was drawn to the article British Seafarers of Black & Asian Ancestry in FT November. I am of Indian heritage. My father (born in Advana, Gujarat, India in 1907) migrated (travelling by steamer from Gujarat (India) to Uganda in late 1920s/early 1930s, but he was not in the navy or armed forces. I was born in Uganda and arrived in the UK in 1967 and have lived here since then. For past year or so, I have been drawn into the science of genealogy and currently am constructing my family tree. I am seeking help/guidance to access passenger lists of the passengers who would have travelled from (then) Bombay or Porbander, Gujarat, India to Mombasa, Kenya. Any other useful information about the migration of…

Ancestry and the County Council have worked together to make these historic documents accessible on Ancestry.co.uk. Featured in the records are fascinating examples of everyday Hampshire residents, including: • Thomas Hancock of Hawley died of the plague in 1604. The records show that his will was handed to Alexander Read on a nine-foot pole because Hancock was afraid of passing on the infection to his witnesses. • Frances Dillington of West Cowes, who illustrated her will with pictures of Father Time and a scene of Jesus Christ in judgement. Her will was read in 1704.  As well exploring the records at www.ancestry.co.uk from wherever in the world you live, you can access Ancestry free of charge at Hampshire public libraries and record office.…

The biggest milestone was the 2.5 billion historical records added to myheritage.com, followed by 500 million new family tree profiles.  MyHeritage is well known for its innovative photo technologies, which were well reflected in its 2022 results, with 10 million photos animated, and 36 million photos uploaded to the AI Time Machine, which allows users to turn themselves into historical figures using everyday photos. Their final major announcement of the year was the launch of Global Name Translation™ which automatically translates names in family trees and historical records from one language to another, enabling users to connect with relatives and locate historical records in different and sometimes unexpected languages.…

Introduction On 7 December 1884, my great-great-grandfather’s sister, Margaret Jolly, died at number 33 Cowgate, Edinburgh. Scotland’s capital city was just over 100 miles from rural Benholm, Kincardineshire (now in Aberdeenshire), where Margaret was born on 25 February 1834. At the time of her death from cervical cancer, she was the alleged wife of John Campbell, a dock labourer. Orphaned at an early age, and the eldest of five children, teenage Margaret was forced to provide for herself by working as a flax spinner in the more urban Montrose (to where the family had relocated). She married a weaver, twenty years her senior, in Dundee on 25 November 1859 and began a family. Sadly, he died ten years later and Margaret seems to have migrated to Edinburgh by 1873 in…

Iwas approached by FT reader, Richard Bousfield, who wanted to know how DNA could help him find the parentage of his greatgrandmother Ellen Cracknell and whether it would be worthwhile his sister testing. Richard writes: Q: My grandfather Albert Bousfield, born 1891 in Southgate, North London, has his mother named as Nellie May Bousfield, formerly Cracknell on his birth certificate. His father is named on the birth cert as Albert Richard Bousfield, however it is known that my grandfather was illegitimate. After the birth of Albert Bousfield, Nellie disappears. At the time of the 1891 Census Nellie would have been three of four months pregnant. I have found a number of Nellie and Ellen Cracknells in the right area, although not at the address given on the birth certificate. Without…

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. ORGANISING A HYBRID MEETING... IN 30 STEPS This issue we take a slightly different tack: looking at how a family history society organises a hybrid meeting – to allow members to participate in person or online. The details to follow were supplied by Bedfordshire Family History Society with the kind help liaising and writing by members of the committee, Kerr Clement, Peter Sharp, and Cathy and Kevin Friend. In the interests of space, we have not included every detail, but we hope that it nonetheless makes for helpful guidance to anyone else wishing to set up hybrid meetings – and also demonstrates what a huge…

SIGN UP TO OUR NEWSLETTER FOR WEEKLY NEWS & EVENTS: https://familytr.ee/reg ONSITE EVENTS RootsTech, 2-4 March Family Tree’s Helen Tovey and Matt Hill will be at RootsTech 2023 so come along to the FT stand, see our special offers and find out more about our new Family Tree Plus genealogy community. You can attend this year’s conference in person at Salt Lake City, Utah, or as a virtual visitor, and either option gives you access to on-demand sessions and classes that you can watch over the coming months. Register at www. familysearch.org/rootstech/event/rt2023 Visit City of Westminster Archives, 9 March Come to visit the City of Westminster Archives for a behind the scenes tour of their strong rooms, conservation studio and search room. You will also have a chance to see…

For a period of more than a year, MyHeritage indexed thousands of public domain images made available by the Israel State Archives that include all surviving records of all those who immigrated to Israel by ship and by plane from all over the world, starting in 1919. MyHeritage is the first organisation to create a searchable index for this collection and associate it with the scanned images. The collection is available for all to search and view for free, without having to sign up to MyHeritage. The records in the collection include the name of the immigrant and the names of relatives who immigrated with them, country of origin, the name of the ship they arrived on, the date of arrival, names of parents, names of relatives who were expecting…

These records join more than 50 million records already available within the Local BMD (Births, Marriages and Deaths on the Internet) site (www.ukbmd.org.uk/ localbmdproject). A spokesperson for Kingston Upon Thames Register Office said: ‘Kingston upon Thames Registration Service are delighted to announce that the Kingston BMD website is now live. This exciting project will look to digitise all of our local indexes, with Kingston and BMD working closely together to make this happen. The site is being continually updated with searchable indexes of birth, death, marriage and civil partnerships, making family history research of Kingston events easier than ever. Use Kingston BMD to search for records from 1837 onwards, with more records being added regularly. ‘Many thanks to the Register Office and the volunteers who have been involved in this project…

The upcoming new feature will enable members of family groups to collaboratively add and share memories with one another about living or deceased relatives. They will also be able to collaborate with one another on adding facts and sources for a living relative. FamilySearch adds up to 1 billion new online genealogical records from around the world each year but what many might not know is that since 2019, each year, FamilySearch has focused extra efforts on select countries (homelands) to significantly increase its online offerings of genealogical record collections from those countries. In 2023, new homeland countries of focus will be the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Luxembourg, Nicaragua and Uganda. In addition, FamilySearch will make ‘continuing significant additions’ to the homeland collections of Argentina, Belgium,…

First steps When first starting your online tree, it’s fine to proceed slowly. This means gradually adding details to your tree, as and when you have found clues and evidence, so that you can be sure that the details you’re adding really are those of your ancestor (not just someone with the same name etc). What NOT to do & what TO do It can be really tempting to use the auto-prompts (aka the ‘hints’), which may be provided with the website you use, to grow your tree rapidly. However, you will thank yourself and avoid a muddle if you progress carefully, evaluating each hint, ensuring each piece of information is THE BASICS There are many different websites to choose from, on which you can build your online family tree…

Parent assigning with Ancestry So, you've clicked on your match list on Ancestry and you can see the ‘by parent’ BETA. What does it mean and what can you do with it? Here are a few pointers. Below is the BETA page of my paternal aunt. The ‘last name in trees’ simply shows the most common in the attached trees of your matches. As you would expect, Smith and Jones feature prominently. Again the common communities reflect where your matches live so don’t be surprised that, as a majority of testers are from North America, the communities are from the US. STEP 1: I’m going to focus on the Ethnicity inheritance. So I click on ‘All Matches’. As you can see below my aunt’s siblings are at the top and…