Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2015 i Who Do You Think You Are?

This month the magazine has a distinctly criminal edge to it... We chat to Anne Reid about her forger forebear John Reid – see page 18. (She had me in stitches when she relived the moment she read about his crimes in the Presbytery minutes). Plus we have a guide to the convict resources used to piece together his amazing story. Elsewhere in the magazine, we meet a reader who uncovered a whole criminal dynasty on his family tree (page 32). Then we have a guide to using Chancery Court records to uncover the legal arguments your forebears may have been involved in (page 52). Ever wondered if you’re descended from royalty? It’s certainly a popular topic on our website. In our feature on page 25, we reveal the clues…

Sir Derek Jacobi’s episode bit.ly/1EFnYrY This has to be one of the best ever episodes – I would love to see him play his ancestor in a movie. The story has everything: royalty, war, political intrigue, courtroom drama, romantic betrayal, prison break and stunning locations. On a historical note, in 1691 the area near Shropshire was very Catholic and included local major landowners of the Gifford family. This is the opposite of the strong Protestant history of the family. Maybe they were there to quell this? See wolverhampton history.org.uk/people/faith/christian/catholicism. mariegriffiths John Scott, Stirling bit.ly/1EFoTJa My grandmother, her two sisters and brother were all found wandering the streets of Stirling in 1910, apparently abandoned by their parents (their mother is found the next year living with another man and new baby).…

Tiny drops of Royal blood Alan looks back at the work of an ambitious and obsessive genealogist and notes how many of us may have a little blue blood in our veins As I idly recalled a family story that we had aristocratic forebears via an illegitimate descendant from the Dukes of Marlborough, I looked at the life of a very remarkable – albeit seriously obsessive – genealogist, who flourished a century ago. Melville Amadeus Henry Douglas Heddle de La Caillemotte de Massue de Ruvignés, Marquis of Ruvigny and Raineval, was born in 1868 and died in 1921. Ruvigny’s aristocratic titles were suspect, since his grandfather, an Irishman called Lloyd Henry de Ruvynes, unilaterally adopted them. He changed the spelling of his own name because of a remote link to…

Who Do You Think You Are? has teamed up with AXA PPP healthcare to bring readers Cancer CashCover- an affordable cash plan for cancer. Once you’ve had the plan for six months, if you’re diagnosed with cancer for the first time, you could receive a cash lump sum of up to £60,000* to help support you and your family. It also offers access to licensed cancer drugs if they aren’t available to you on the NHS and 24/7 telephone support from dedicated cancer nurses. Not all cancers are covered by this plan. To find out more on what is and isn’t covered call AXA PPP healthcare on 0800 313 4936 or visit www.axappphealthcare.co.uk/who. Lines are open 9am to 8pm weekdays. AXA PPP healthcare may record and/or monitor calls…

BOOKS • Blood, Bodies, and Families in Early Modern England By Patricia Crawford (Routledge, 2004) • The Gentry in England and Wales 1500-1700 By Felicity Heal & Clive Holmes (Stanford University Press, 1994) • Love, Lust, and License in Early Modern England: Illicit Sex and Nobility By Johanna Rickman (Ashgate, 2008) WEBSITES Alumni Cantabrigienses archive.org Alumni Oxonienses, 1500-1714 british-history.ac.uk/ alumnioxon/1500-1714 Family Search familysearch.org This free parish record database covers most English counties comprehensively. The College of Arms college-of-arms.gov.uk Home to the official visitations. The Harleian Society harleian.org.uk/Volumes.htm Complete list of the Harleian visitations. The National Archives nationalarchives.gov.uk…

The unexpected is only to be expected in genealogy. But one WDYTYA? Magazine reader was absolutely bowled over when he discovered evidence that he was descended from a remarkable criminal dynasty, as well as finding some other incredible revelations closer to home. “I have been researching my ancestors for more than 35 years,” says Robert Ward. “I’ve always liked history. As a child I was fascinated that whenever you saw books about royalty you would see a family tree and yet I knew nothing about my own ancestors. I can remember wondering if it was possible for an ordinary person to do their own tree. “I also wondered if we were related to the Baron Wards of Birmingham. We’re not, of course! But it was a desire to find out…

Jerry Hall was aware that she had English roots on the paternal side of her family. It was her great grandfather, James Hall, who made the decision to emigrate from Lancashire to the United States in the 1880s. He left in 1881 and eventually settled in Texas to begin his new life. He came to Texas at a time of rapid settlement and James found work in the booming railroad industry. We were able to trace James’s migration to the US using passenger lists. His naturalisation record gave us the exact year of travel (in 1881), the ship he travelled on and the port he arrived at. Passenger lists for people travelling to the US can be found in a number of places. Both Ancestry and Findmypast have extensive collections…

Isle of Man volunteer cavalry list, 1799 Wendy Thirkettle from the Manx National Heritage Library and Archives tells Jon Bauckham about a detailed military record drawn up by one of the Isle of Man’s wealthiest men During the French Revolutionary Wars, fears of foreign invasion spread across the British Isles. However, rather than relying solely upon the government to ward off unwanted visitors, some wealthy individuals took it upon themselves to raise their own militia, leaving behind some meticulous records to explore. One example survives on the Isle of Man, as Wendy Thirkettle from the Manx National Heritage Library and Archives explains. Which document have you chosen? My choice is a list from August 1799 that details, by rank, the men amassed in the Castletown division of a volunteer troop…

The England and Wales-centric Historical Directories website made our Top 5 this month, but there are digital directory sources for Scotland and Ireland, too. The National Library of Scotland’s digitised collection of more than 700 post office directories, for example, can be explored at digital.nls.uk/directories. This covers most of Scotland from between 1773 and 1911, plus you can explore more digitised material from the library at https://auth.nls.uk/ldc/. There’s also Addressing History (addressinghistory. edina.ac.uk) which has directories from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. The Public Record Office for Northern Ireland (PRONI) has a dedicated site for directories published between 1819 and 1900 (streetdirectories.proni.gov.uk), and Library Ireland (libraryireland.com) has digital copies of historic volumes. You can explore highlights from the National Library of Wales via bit.ly/1MxJzDu. This includes the diary of John Cowper Powys,…

It is often necessary to carefully examine the evidence we collect during our family history research in order to break down a brick wall, or to prove relationships. The work of gathering all available evidence and weighing it up can be just as painstaking as good science or police work. Those who are the best genealogy detectives solve mysteries and smash down brick walls by working at a very precise level with original documents to build up a case for proof. Making out a strong case includes weighing up the evidence according to the type of document, thinking about who gave the information or wrote it down, checking all details using documentary sources, making sure each ‘fact’ about a person has a source, and looking at a variety of different…

The Victorian gardener Shirley Hibberd kept an astute, commercial eye on the interests of the amateur gardener. In the 1860s, while professional nurserymen subscribed to the Gardeners’ Chronicle, Hibberd launched a populist publication designed to cater for the tastes of the ordinary ‘villa gardener’, the Gardener’s Magazine. The magazine listed the proceedings of local garden societies under ‘Exhibitions and Meetings’ and shared titbits of advice. Hibberd himself was both an ardent advocate for vegetarianism and a pioneering environmentalist. He valued the compost heap, writing in Profitable Gardening: “You must treasure every scrap of stinking rubbish, solid and liquid, and not waste so much as a dead cabbage leaf.” On the threat of potato blight, which had recently ravaged Ireland, he declared: “If someone now lamenting that he has lost half…

Although the first undertakers in Britain appeared in the 1670s, the trade did not grow significantly until the mid-Victorian period since there was no real need for them. In the 17th century, only the wealthy were buried in individual coffins. It was more common for corpses to be transported to the churchyard in the reusable parish coffin and buried in shrouds, not in the coffin itself. By the early 1700s, parish coffins fell out of use and coffin-making developed as a trade. When a person died, the coffin-maker visited the deceased’s home to take measurements for the coffin. A local woman would ‘lay out’ the corpse for a small fee, and the body was kept at home until the funeral three or four days later. The coffin was carried to…

• National Association of Funeral Directors nafd.org.uk The website for this trade organisation includes some interesting history pages. • The Coffin Works coffinworks.org An award-winning museum in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter where you can see original stock and tools from Newman Brothers, which made coffin furniture. • The Dictionary of Victorian London victorianlondon.org Lee Jackson’s website includes a fascinating section on death and dying. • British Newspaper Archive www.britishnewspaper  archive.co.uk Search for your undertaker ancestor in Victorian and Edwardian local and national newspapers (also available via findmypast.co.uk). • Join Me in the 1900s 1900s.org.uk/1900 s-death-in-house.htm Pat Cryer’s website includes interesting memories of her mother’s experiences of family funerals in the early 1900s.…

1586 Fotheringhay Castle becomes the final place of imprisonment of Mary, Queen of Scots, before her trial and execution here in February 1587. 1605 Conspirators meet in a room above the Gatehouse at the Jacobean manor house of Ashby St Ledgers to plan the gunpowder plot. 1656 The Washington family, forebears of the first President of the United States of America, migrate from Northamptonshire across the Atlantic. 1858 The Northamptonshire Boot and Shoe-makers Mutual Protection Society is formed to oppose increased mechanisation of the trade. 1878 The author of Murray’s Handbook for Travellers writes: “The visitor to Northampton will at once be reminded by the leather aprons and grimy faces which haunt the streets that he is in the land of shoemakers.“ 1935 The first steel is produced at Stewarts…

BOOKS The Railways: Nation, Network and People by Simon Bradley (Profile Books, 640 pages, £25) At more than 600 pages, this is a huge book in every sense of the word: a comprehensive history of Britain’s railways characterised by exhaustive research yielding a plethora of delightful anecdotes and arcane facts. Simon Bradley has a fine eye for the telling details and has mined diaries, letters, novels, poems, films and archives to find them. The experience of railways is brought alive through tales such as Gladstone being spotted travelling with his feet on the upholstered seat opposite, tobacconists selling ‘railway pipes’ adapted for concealment in non-smoking carriages, and Brunel removing his ring to present to the foreman at the breakthrough in Box Tunnel. Bradley is also willing to challenge historical orthodoxies…

Scottish wills Finding Scottish wills is relatively straightforward as scotlandspeople.gov.uk has placed them online for the years 1500-1925. The index can be searched for free but credits need to be purchased to view the actual wills and testaments. 1 Navigate to the homepage of scotlandspeople.gov.uk. You will need to register if you have not done so already. After logging in, click on the option for ‘Wills & Testaments’, which can be found on the bottom left-hand side of the homepage. 2 You now need to enter the details of the person whose will you are searching for. For example, you may be looking for a ‘Matthew Kirkwood’ who lived in the Paisley area and died in 1879. Enter the relevant details and press ‘Do the search’, then ‘View (free)’. 3…

Common kin I just watched Derek Jacobi’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are? and couldn’t believe it when Derek’s relative Armand Laplain and the 1841 census came up. I also have a copy of this record as Armand’s sister, Hannah, as mentioned in the programme, is my great great grandmother. I found out earlier this year that her married name was Sudbury and that she had stayed in the French hospital for a number of years. As a family, there had always been talk of a French connection and we knew the name of Laplain and I had managed to get back using records to 1800. Now after watching this episode, I have gone back and found Salome, Joseph and son Guillaume De La Plaigne and his baptism…

I have read Alan Crosby’s interesting article in the August magazine about the unlikely high ages at death of some Cumberland people in the 1700s. In particular, he quotes the death of a John Taylor who, it was ‘calculated’, died aged 135; and explains the danger of grasping at names when researching, and thinking that it is the right one without any further proof. The name John Taylor reminds me of my own family research. In my own Taylor family, I have found that all the first-born sons have been named John going back as far as I have managed to get. My own grandson is the eighth generation where the name is continued (with various middle names in recent generations). The census records and an early marriage record have…

47 years’ worth of editions of the Illustrated London News (1842-1889) can now be explored online by visiting the genealogist.co.uk £5 million has been awarded to Imperial War Museums from the Pears Foundation to redevelop the Holocaust Exhibition at IWM London 35,000 Lancashire burial records dating as far back as 1841 have been made available at deceased online.com 121 years after it was hidden, a time capsule containing whisky has been unearthed in the Cairngorms. More at bbc.in/1IfGQsg 4.37m viewers tuned in to watch Jane Seymour’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are? on Thursday 20 August…

There are a lot of interesting ancestors in the Reid history!” actress Anne Reid tells me as we’re chatting about her Who Do You Think You Are? experience. She leaves me with no doubt that her fascinating episode merely scratched the surface of what the Reid family tree has to offer – they really could have dedicated a whole series to her. Here she reveals what the episode couldn’t include – from spies to American pioneers – and talks about her experiences of getting to know her convict ancestor… “There were several starting points for Anne’s episode – there was plenty of story and some great characters,” Mary Crisp the director tells me. At the centre was the tale of John Reid, Anne’s great great grandfather, and it began with…

In 1787, the British government shipped the first fleet of convicts to Australia’s east coast, identified by Captain James Cook as suitable for habitation in 1770. Hundreds of prisoners, guards and mariners landed at Port Jackson in January 1788, becoming the first Europeans to settle in Australia. Although the terrain was much harsher than had been expected, they quickly set to work building the first camp at Sydney Cove, New South Wales. Two more fleets arrived in 1790 and 1791, and by the time transportation came to an end in 1868, more than 162,000 men, women and children had been forcibly sent Down Under. In 1803-1804, the British took a party of convicts to build penal colonies on an island off Australia’s south-east coast, named Van Diemen’s Land by Dutch…

By 1617, Sir Thomas Egerton (c1540-1617) was one of the most powerful men in England. Recently elevated as 1st Viscount Brackley, Egerton had been Lord Chancellor for 21 years. But he was no ordinary 17th-century statesman. Egerton was a ‘bastard’, specifically a ‘gentle bastard’ – an illegitimate child of the gentry. If you’ve hit a genealogical brick wall in the mid-17th century or before, one possibility – especially if the surname sounds French or is a village – is that your ancestor was a gentle bastard as well. Until the mid-17th century, after which Puritanism led to illegitimacy becoming increasingly taboo, the gentry had as many ‘bastard’, ‘base’ or ‘natural’ children as they had legitimate ones. George Owen (1552-1613), geologist and High Sheriff of Pembrokeshire, fathered 20 children of which…

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Many families have criminal ancestors lurking in the past, but they might not be forgers or murderers. It is more likely that your predecessors committed fairly minor offences, some of which can be quite unusual. The 19th century was a period of judicial change, which led to increased legislation and penal reform. By 1841, the list of capital offences had been reduced to 11, but throughout the century, more crimes were added to the statute book, as many previously accepted practices were criminalised. The new legislation covered all areas of life, from working conditions and health, to food production and leisure activities. The rise in possible offences meant that there was more chance of ordinary people falling foul of the law. In the 1800s, theft and assault were the most…

PAUL BLAKE co-wrote Discover Your Roots and is a fellow of the Society of Genealogists. JANET DEMPSEY is a Records Specialist at The National Archives, concentrating on maritime and transport records. SARA KHAN is the lead researcher on the Who Do You Think You Are? BBC television series. NICK PEERS is a freelance writer who has been published in more than 40 magazines. STEPHEN THOMAS is a genealogist with over 20 years experience and appears regularly on TV as an expert MICHAEL TOBIAS is Vice President of JewishGen Inc and Co-Founder of Jewish Records Indexing – Poland. PHIL TOMASELLI is a military family history expert and the author of Tracing Your Air Force Ancestors. MIKE TRENCHARD is a member of the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA).…

Gather records and documents together, and get ready to analyse what you have. Put any documents or information where you can’t answer the question ‘where did it come from?’ or ‘what is it?’ to one side. These are clues, but not evidence until you can verify the source. Write out a chronology of events in a person’s life, using your records, and noting the source. This will highlight any records that conflict, for example, someone in two places at once. Put in the full date of each event along with the place and the name the person was recorded with at the time. Add all the people who appear on certificates, including marriage witnesses and household members from the census. If you add information that is uncertain into the chronology,…

Marriage details The parish priest sometimes recorded the details of the marriage of one of his congregation (including those who emigrated) beside their baptismal entry. Names of parish priests The names of the parish priests who conducted the baptism, D Moloney and M Hare, are recorded after each entry. Family surname In some registers, the parish priest underlined the family surname, making it easier to search the register for a specific individual. Family address The address of the family is sometimes recorded at the end of the baptismal entry. Sponsors The sponsors are Godparents, often siblings or cousins of the parents. In this entry the parish priest has recorded the maiden name of a married sponsor, indicating that she was probably an aunt of the child. Thomas McDonagh Here we…

BOOKS Unearthed: The History of Bream Flower Show 1865-2015 by Ian Hendy (Holborn House, 2015) A Little History of British Gardening by Jenny Uglow (Chatto and Windus, 2004) Shirley Hibberd, The Father of Amateur Gardening by Anne Wilkinson (Cortex Design, 2012) RESOURCES The Lindley Library The Lindley Library (rhs.org.uk/ libraries) at the RHS in Vincent Square, London SW1P 2PE has back copies of Shirley Hibberd’s Gardener’s Magazine from 1874 to 1916. The Lindley is open to everyone, Monday to Friday, although only RHS members may borrow books. The British Library The British Library also holds back copies of the magazine (shelf mark P.P.2170) in its Yorkshire store. Allow two to three days for delivery for viewing at the Library in London. The RHS’s The Royal Horticultural Society: A History, Brent Elliott…

How long have you been doing your family history? In 1994, after my father died, my passion to discover our family history gathered pace. As a child, I spent many happy summer holidays travelling from home in Wiltshire to London to stay with my maternal grandparents, Victor and Josephine Grandy. Victor took me all over London to see the sights and a good time was had by all. I was 16 when he died and it was then that I became curious about his family and background. What had you discovered before you hit your brick wall? There were numerous family stories about Victor: he was Italian; his father was a Count; he had a sister who was a ballet dancer. It was also said that he hated his stepmother…

WW2 prisoner of war records hit the web The third tranche of records to join Findmypast’s Prisoners of War Collection reveals the plight of Allied troops captured during the Second World War One million records of troops who were taken prisoner during the Second World War have been published on findmypast.co.uk. Released to mark 70 years since the liberation of the notorious Changi Prison camp in Singapore, the fully searchable collection contains the name and rank of each prisoner and where they were held. Britons represent the largest nationality in the database, followed by people from the Netherlands, North America and Australia. Searching the record set reveals a number of famous names, such as the late Eric Lomax, whose horrific experiences of life in a Japanese prisoner of war camp…

A DRUNKEN FREAK At the Sheffield Town Hall yesterday, before the Stipendiary, Martin Flannagan, a labourer, who was apprehended early in the morning on a charge of burglary, was charged with wilful damage at 4 Court, 2 House, Trinity Street, the residence of William Moore. The circumstances are peculiar. Mr Moore stated that he awakened shortly after midnight last night by a great smashing of crockery in the kitchen. He lit the candle and upon going downstairs he found Flannagan perfectly naked, amusing himself by breaking “sundry things”. His clothes had been put under the sofa. Upon being asked what he had to say for himself, the prisoner said, “I can’t remember nothing until I woke up at half-past five this morning in the police cell.” He was fined 10s.,…

Cupar Presbytery minutes The Presbytery was the local level of government in the Church of Scotland system. Beyond church affairs Presbyteries often also acted as moral guardians and helpfully minutes of their meetings were sometimes recorded. The Cupar minutes are part of the Special Collections at St Andrew’s University but are presently being held at the National Records of Scotland (nrscotland.gov.uk/research). They are a great source of local detail; in this instance they listed the complaints made against John Reid by his neighbours and, crucially, highlighted his more serious crime of fraud. Trial records This collection was found at the National Records of Scotland and comprises all of the papers relating to John’s trial including numerous witness statements; his own testimony and most excitingly the actual forged Bill of Exchange.…

A study published by the British Journal of Cancer revealed that around 43% of cancer cases seen in the UK in 2010 were caused by lifestyle and environmental factors. This means that many thousands of people could avoid becoming ill if they made changes to their behaviour. Perhaps surprisingly, just 5% of all cancers are caused by an inherited faulty gene. The single biggest step anybody can take to lower their chances of developing cancer is to stop smoking. The earlier you quit, the greater the impact – and it is not just your lungs that benefit. Research suggests an unhealthy diet causes 1 cases of cancer. Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables (at least five portions a day) and fibre (found in wholegrain pasta, bread, breakfast cereals and rice…

THE NOBILITY The 60 Peers of the realm were England’s ‘higher nobility’. The gentry were the ‘lower nobility’. In both cases, surnames tended to be French-sounding – reflecting Norman origin – or the name of the manor of which their Norman ancestor had been made feudal lord. However, many ‘new rich’ (with surnames reflecting profession, father’s name etc) rose into the gentry. There were two kinds of gentry: • County gentry were very wealthy, armigerous (had the right to bear coat armour, usually by legitimate descent from a knight or peer), and might be county sheriffs or magistrates. They included knights (being a knight was very expensive, demanding unpaid public service. You had to become a knight if you were an esquire, your income rose over a certain threshold, and…

TRADE DIRECTORIES Before the internet and before telephone directories, if you needed to find a local tradesman or business, you looked in a trade directory. They have been produced for over 300 years – pre-dating the census – and can be a great source of information about the communities in which your ancestors lived. The University of Leicester has a collection at specialcollections.le.ac.uk/cdm/landingpage/collection/ p16445coll4. QUARTER SESSIONS RECORDS These are some of the oldest documents surviving in the UK – in some counties they may stretch from the 16th century to 1972, when the quarter sessions were replaced by crown courts. They cover a huge amount of local administration relating to taxation, wage control, lists of local officials, through to the prosecution of felony crimes, offences against local bylaws and many other…

SCOTT/Surrey Q Adrian Foster had a query about his grandfather, William John Scott, which appeared in our July issue. A “William John Scott is related to me,” Carolyn Wood wrote in to tell us. “His father, also the same name, is the brother-in-law of my first cousin twice removed. William jnr (b1876) had a brother Alfred who sadly died on his way back from the war in 1919. His wife Caroline Minnie Pearson and her sons emigrated to New Zealand. I am in touch with Minnie and Alfred’s granddaughter Heather.” HOYLAND/London Q In our August issue, Sue Bryars was looking for information on Ava Hoyland. A Stephen Ward wrote in: “The censuses all indicate she was born in about 1795 in Middlessex, London. On Ancestry there is a Maria Hoyland…

“Archive.org has by far the biggest online library. It began as an attempt to record snapshots of as many websites as possible, almost since the infancy of the internet. Also included are some 4.5 million books, most of which have been scanned on behalf of US and Canadian university libraries, so the majority of titles available are American. But there is a fair number of British texts to be found here. “What has been scanned is rather hit-or-miss. For example, there are many published transcripts of parish registers or vestry minute books, all of which are name-rich sources. There is the parish register for Richmond, originally published by the Surrey Parish Register Society in 1905 as volume 3 of its series of parish registers. Also available is volume 7, for…

WEBSITES The National Archives’ Discovery Catalogue discovery.nationalarchives. gov.uk/advanced-search This includes descriptions of all classes of records, and detailed descriptions of many (but not all) Chancery records searchable by name, and in some cases by place. The National Archives’ research guides bit.ly/1hubYij  and bit.ly/1ig1gwm There are two main research guides: ‘Chancery Equity Suits before 1558’ and ‘Chancery Equity Suits after 1558’ which describe and list the records in detail, with advice on how to locate them. FamilySearch research guide bit.ly/1IfsMiv Another useful guide to Chancery Court records. BOOKS Family Feuds: An Introduction to Chancery Proceedings by Susan T Moore (Federation of Family History Societies) Available from susanmooreresearch.co.uk Chancery Equity Records and Proceedings 1600-1800 by Henry Horwitz (Public Record Office Handbook, no. 27) How to Use the Bernau…

It was an historic day for Irish genealogy when the National Library of Ireland (NLI) published digital images of its entire parish register collection online in July. Previously, the only means by which a researcher could view the majority of these registers was on microfilm in the NLI or by visiting the parish in question. As many parishes did not allow access to the original registers, the NLI was often the only place where copies of these records could be consulted. Now you can search for the baptism or marriage of your Irish ancestors at registers.nli.ie. The population of 18th- and 19th-century Ireland was largely Roman Catholic, the majority of whom were generally farmers and labourers, although there was also a small, but wealthier, Catholic merchant class. Small farmers and…

Like any family or local historian, I always look out for new resources, especially ones that can be found online. I declare a vested interest in what follows – I’m on the Council of the Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire and we’ve recently placed a database with hundreds of names of people from the North West (and especially Cheshire) on our website, as part of our commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the Battle of Preston. Local and family historians can search for ancestors who were forced to prove that they were not Roman Catholics, after the Jacobite supporters of the Old Pretender were crushed by government forces on 14-15 November 1715. The names were taken from documents called Sacrament Certificates, which were needed to prove that anyone in…

BIER The movable stand on which a corpse, in a coffin or a shroud, was placed before burial MUTES Men, employed in pairs, who guarded the deceased’s house and led the funeral cortege carrying wands of black crape PALL A cloth, usually in black velvet, which covered the coffin and the heads and shoulders of the pall-bearers SHROUD The white cloth or winding-sheet in which a body was laid out for burial FEATHER-MAN A man who was employed by the undertaker to carry a ‘tray’ or ‘lid’ of waving, black ostrich plumes WEEPERS Long, black crape material that hung from the undertaker’s silk hat to represent mourning cloaks of the past…

GENEALOGY FORUMS A tip-off from other users at www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/forum gave Lynne the breakthrough she needed to discover her grandfather’s true identity. FAMILY MEMORABILIA Old photographs, licences and even shop receipts can provide important clues to your ancestors’ whereabouts. Signatures on documents may also match with those that are found on marriage certificates. NEWSPAPER RECORDS Lynne was able to find articles in the archives written by her great grandfather Vittorio Papucci. These gave a fascinating insight into his career. Search at your local library, or the British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaper archive.co.uk). This website is also available through findmypast.co.uk.…

At Northamptonshire’s county record office there are various projects afoot, all seeking to improve access to historical sources. At the time of our last visit to the region in 2010, the record office’s digital catalogues were only available through The National Archives’ old Access to Archives site, but the past 12 months has seen the launch of a new dedicated online catalogue at nro.adlibhosting.com/search/simple. Archivist Daniel Williams says: “Customers are now able to search more than 660 collections (over 100,220 items) held here at Northamptonshire Archives, and it is something we add to every day. In fact, since September 2014, the Collections Team has added more than 4,690 items to Adlib, and 160 new collections.” There’s plenty more to do, but Daniel says they have an ongoing target to add…

Why doesn’t the code that’s printed in the magazine work correctly? Each bonus content code applies only to the issue of the magazine in which it’s printed. Make sure that you’ve clicked on the red ‘View content’ button next to the cover of the correct issue. Why isn’t the code box appearing? If nothing happens when you click the red ‘View content’ button, it’s possible that firewall or virus-checking software is stopping the website from running JavaScript. You can check to see if this is the case by temporarily halting these programs and then reloading the website. Why is the data only available for a period of six months? Due to the terms and conditions agreed with some of the firms that provide the bonus content for our magazine, we…