Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2018 i Who Do You Think You Are?

One of the first questions I get asked by people wanting my advice on family history is “Do I need to subscribe to a genealogy website?”, almost always followed by “Which one is better?” Unfortunately there isn’t a simple answer to either of these questions. Libraries and archives provide enough free access to databases that, coupled with free website familysearch.org, you can certainly research your family history without subscribing to Ancestry or Findmypast. But I get so much pleasure from being able to hop onto the internet at any time and indulge my passion for ferreting around in documents, that I would recommend subscribing to at least one of the genealogy giants if you want to get the most out of family history. Of course, many enthusiasts subscribe to both…

Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine’s popular Transcription Tuesday event returned this year, with volunteers from around the world transcribing thousands of important historic documents and sharing photos of themselves hard at work. In total 335 volunteers signed up to take part in the event on 23 January 2018, with hundreds of others inspired to join in. Volunteers could choose between five projects, each championed by a member of the magazine’s editorial team, as a way of helping fellow family historians by opening up records collections to online access. Those in the Southern Hemisphere were the first to get to work. Sue McLachlan enjoyed transcribing personnel files of soldiers from New Zealand in the First World War for Measuring the Anzacs, the project chosen by production editor Seth Burgess.…

Search surnames with Kent Family History Society’s redesigned website Kent Family History Society (KFHS) has announced a redesign of its website, kfhs.org.uk. The new site has a surname search function, allowing visitors to search more than 12,000 surnames currently of interest to KFHS members, and contact the relevant member. The website’s other features include an online shop, maps of the county’s parishes, a brief history of Kent, information about the society’s six branches, and a guide to archives and libraries. TheGenealogist expands its collection of records from Warwickshire Family history website thegenealogist.co.uk has added 366,260 individuals to its Warwickshire parish records collection, bringing the total to 934,495 records and images. The new additions come after Ancestry’s five-year exclusive deal with Warwickshire County Record Office came to an end, and follows…

Starting out in family history can be confusing enough without the need to make a decision about which subscription website you will choose. Seasoned researchers often subscribe to both Ancestry and Findmypast, but with costs of £10–15 a month for each, it is easy to see why most people prefer to stick with just one. Over the next 12 pages we will look at how well each website performs with a basic census search, as well as what the sites offer that set them apart – from regional resources to military records. Both websites offer millions of records, and if you already subscribe to one, perhaps this article may encourage you to swap for a year. If you have yet to dip your toe into the waters of genealogy websites,…

Ancestry’s collaboration with London Metropolitan Archives has seen some 20 million Church of England parish records for the capital dating back to 1538 added to the site, as well as many other major unique collections. Supplementing the Anglican parish records are nonconformist registers from 1694 to 1931, burial registers for the City of London and Tower Hamlets from 1841 to 1966, various Poor Law removal and settlement records from 1698 to 1930, and workhouse admission and discharge registers from 1659 to 1930. Other useful records for London research include electoral registers from 1832 to 1965, land tax records from 1692 to 1932, school admissions and discharges registers from 1840 to 1918, and rate books from 1684 to 1907. Among the more unusual collections are Stock Exchange Membership Applications 1802–1924, Middlesex…

A major resource on Findmypast is its collection of British and Irish newspapers, although access is restricted to Pro-level subscribers. These records are sourced from the British Newspaper Archive (britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk), a 10-year project between Findmypast and the British Library to digitise some 40 million pages of content. Newspapers can mention ancestors in local coverage and family notices (a useful substitute for missing vital records information), and can provide valuable context in the form of the historical, social and political environments within which they once lived. The search interface on Findmypast’s portrayal of this resource, via its ‘Newspapers & periodicals’ page, is not great, requiring much filtering to locate results. But the search screen of the British Newspaper Archive website itself can be freely used to initially locate a story by…

Canada, British Regimental Registers of Service, 1756–1900 Although this collection of records is identified as a Canadian connection, it actually presents surviving description books and regimental entry books from British Army regiments, which are held at TNA in Kew (WO25). Great Britain, Royal Aero Club Aviators’ Certificates, 1910–1950 Sourced from the Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon, this collection carries 28,000 index cards and 34 photo albums of aviators issued with licences from 1910 to 1950, including the first army and naval personnel to become pilots. Gretna Green, Scotland, Marriage Registers, 1794–1895 This collection, sourced from the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, presents the Lang Collection of Gretna Green Marriage Registers. Named after David and Simon Lang, who performed services at Gretna, the collection contains more than 10,000 records.…

My proudly working-class grandfather, Harry Croft (1923–2009), used to talk a lot about his own grandfather Henry Westbrook (1872–1950). Westbrook was one of the Winchester labourers who helped diver William Walker (1869–1918) shore up the sinking Winchester Cathedral between 1906 and 1911. My grandfather told me that Westbrook was widely regarded as very knowledgeable, was “educated, for his class”, and taught his wife to read and write after they got married. However, how was it that Westbrook was “educated, for his class”? Once I got into genealogy I found the answer. His own father, George Westbrook (1850–1912), was a shepherd by the age of 11. But George somehow became an engine driver, a profession that was reasonably well paid. Accordingly, he sent Henry to school, despite this not becoming mandatory…

‘Sometimes one phrase or a tiny drawing opens a door into the lives of Dorothy’s patients’ Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs) were set up by the Red Cross in 1909 to provide medical support in the event of war. At the start of the First World War there were approximately 9,000 VAD members, and by 1918 there were 23,000 nurses and 18,000 orderlies. They assisted the armed forces both at home and abroad, working in areas including nursing, transport duties and organising rest stations. VAD nurse Vera Brittain described her experiences in Testament of Youth, and other famous VAD nurses include Agatha Christie and Olwen Carey Evans, daughter of the Liberal prime minister David Lloyd George. Among the collections of The Wilson art gallery and museum in Cheltenham is an autograph…

East India Company Ships (eicships.threedecks.org), now under new ownership, provides information on ships and voyages of the East India Company’s mercantile service. The focus of this project is vessels, rather than individuals, although the names of captains are noted where known. For a more official take on the company’s heritage try theeastindiacompany.com. We’ve mentioned the British Library’s India material already. But for more depth and background try the library’s old India Office Family History Search section (indiafamily.bl.uk/ui/home.aspx), or this page explaining India Office records for researchers (bit.ly/ india-office-records). As usual, The National Archives’ research guides are worth checking. If you’re tracking an ancestor who travelled, migrated or perhaps sought citizenship, you can find relevant guides via this A–Z page: bit.ly/research-guides-keywords. You’ll also find advice about researching Indian Army personnel. Although it…

There have been a few previous projects to digitise 1910 Domesday records. The valuation books for the City of London are also online with ancestry.co.uk, but without the accompanying maps – an omission that seriously limits the potential of their resource. A similar problem occurs with the website’s other coverage, the valuation books for the modern county of West Yorkshire. The introductory text describes the records as “field books”, when they are actually the working copies, held by West Yorkshire Archive Service, of the books used in the field by the valuers – confusingly, not the same thing! Findmypast.co.uk has a collection entitled Devon, Plymouth & West Devon Land Tax and Valuation Records 1897–1949 which includes the 1910 valuation books for Plymouth and adjacent areas, but again without the…

Born in Cornwall in 1828, John Langdon Down was the son of a druggist and grocer. He became apprenticed to his father, and in 1846 went to London to receive pharmaceutical training. Poor health forced him to return home, but in 1853, after his father died, Down pursued a career in medicine. He trained at the London Hospital and was an outstanding medical student, gaining the qualifications Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS), Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries (LSA), Bachelor of Medicine (MB) and Doctor of Medicine (MD). In 1858 he was appointed as the new medical superintendent at the Earlswood Asylum for Idiots in Redhill, greatly improving the patients’ treatment by, for example, banning punishments and praising good behaviour. Down continued to study, and in a…

The emergence of The British Antique Dealers Association in 1918 was a significant moment in the increasing prominence of the antique dealer in Britain, because it sought to regulate and professionalise the trade, and counteract the growing fear and concern surrounding forgeries and the public distrust of dealers. The organisation implemented rules for members, including that they must indicate reproductions when stored next to antique items, to give collectors faith in how dealers were conducting their business. Dealers frequently used their membership of the association as a marker for their own authenticity and trustworthiness in advertisements. William Lee, advertising his holdings in his Harrogate and York premises in the Yorkshire Post in 1936, described himself as a “member of The British Antique Dealers Association since 1922”. He was also open…

IRISH CENSUS RECORDS The 1901 and 1911 census returns for Ireland are available to search free of charge at census.nationalarchives.ie, along with surviving fragments of the 1821–1851 censuses, which were damaged during the 1922 Dublin Four Courts Fire. The 1861 and 1871 census returns were deliberately destroyed shortly after they were collected, while those for 1881 and 1891 were pulped during the First World War. IRISH MAPS Thanks to a project carried out in partnership with the National Library of Ireland, the Ordnance Survey Ireland website (osi.ie) provides online access to historic maps that were created between 1829 and 1913. LIVING PERSON RECORDS If you’re trying to find living relatives, people-tracing services such as 192.com can point you in the right direction, along with datasets such as the 2002–2014 UK…

858 Æthelwulf, the king of Wessex and the father of Alfred the Great, dies in Upper Beeding. He is buried across the River Adur in Steyning, but his body is later moved to Winchester Cathedral. c1073 Bramber Castle is founded by William de Braose in West Sussex. About 100 years later another William de Braose falls out with King John, who confiscates the castle. c1076 The building of a new cathedral in the centre of the Roman town of Chichester begins under the auspices of Stigand, the last Bishop of Selsey. 1611 An ecclesiastical court records the earliest written evidence of the game of cricket in Sussex, after two parishioners from Sidlesham dodge church on Easter Sunday to play. 1752 Capability Brown begins work on the 700-acre Petworth Park. He…

DISC Cambridgeshire Union Workhouses Inmates Registers bit.ly/workhouse-records, £20 This newly released resource from Cambridgeshire Family History Society, also available to download, includes births, deaths, creed and infirmary registers, as well as inmate admissions and discharges. The disc could reveal hard-to-find information about poorer East Anglian ancestors. WEBSITE Scottish Post Office Directories digital.nls.uk/directories  , free More than 700 Post Office directories, covering most of Scotland and dating from 1773 to 1911, have been digitised and are available to search at the National Library of Scotland’s website. The directories include names, addresses and professions, and are ideal for researching years without a census. LISTEN The British History Podcast Apple, free This ambitious podcast sets out to tell the history of Britain chronologically from prehistory right through to the modern day. With more…

Don Roberto Tuesday 20 February, 1.30pm BBC RADIO SCOTLAND & BBC iPLAYER RB Cunninghame Graham (1852–1936) led a remarkable life. A Scottish politician, writer and adventurer, he gained the nickname ‘Don Roberto’ when he was in Argentina, where he sought his fortune as a cattle rancher. As well as stories of the Wild West and friendships with the likes of playwright George Bernard Shaw, presenter Billy Kay’s five-part documentary series also explores Graham’s role in the creation of both the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Labour Party. The Day When… Wednesday 21 February, 8pm YESTERDAY In times of crisis, the personal decisions made by political leaders profoundly shape what follows. This series focuses on five such decisions, each made by a leader forever associated with the part he played…

Birmingham burial records Readers with forebears in the Midlands will be pleased to learn of a new online database of burials. It contains more than 1.5 million records dating back to 1836, and is free to search although you need to pay to access and download full records. 1 Navigate to the homepage at birminghamburialrecords.co.uk. The search function is on the left-hand side of the screen. Enter the name of your ancestor to start, for example ‘Sara Khan’. Enter the year too, if known. Then click ‘Search’. 2 You will now see all of the relevant results, including near spellings, with the month and year of burial/cremation and the name of the cemetery. In this case there are only two entries, so choose the one with the correct date of…

653,521 birth, marriage and death records, dating from 1845 to 1913, have been added to the Irish civil registration collection on familysearch.org 62 maps from Bartholomew’s Revised Half-Inch Maps of Britain, 1940–47, have been digitised on the National Library of Scotland website, nls.uk 11,500 years after her death, genetic testing on the remains of a baby girl found at an archaeological site in Alaska has uncovered a previously unknown group of ancient Native Americans 213,712 records have been added in the annual statutory release of records on scotlandspeople.gov.uk , consisting of 1917 births, 1942 marriages and 1967 deaths £1.7m awarded by the Heritage Lottery Fund for major heritage projects at the historic Willesden Jewish Cemetery…

Records revealing how the authorities struggled to scrutinise and arrested campaigners for votes for women have been published online for the first time on findmypast.co.uk. The website launched the collection on 1 February, ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Representation of the People Act, which gave some women the right to vote, on 6 February. Findmypast has made the collection available for free, until 8 March – International Women’s Day. The collection contains original Home Office Registered Papers and Metropolitan Police Files dedicated to the suffragettes, which are now held by The National Archives at Kew. It includes a police watch list of 1,300 known suffragettes, as well as highly detailed material about a small number of individuals involved in illegal protests including arson, smashing windows and vandalising paintings.…

• British Telecom • Dorset History Centre • Fife Archives • General Medical Council • Glasgow Museums and Libraries • Gloucestershire Archives • Lancashire Archives • Library of Birmingham • Liverpool Record Office • London Metropolitan Archives • Manchester Libraries and Archives • National Army Museum • National Maritime Museum • Perth and Kinross Archives • The Postal Museum • Royal College of Nursing • Surrey County Council • Warwickshire County Council • West Yorkshire Archive Service • Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre SEARCH TIP Ancestry has a page of advice at search.ancestry.co.uk/landingpages/searchtipsmod.aspx for making the most of the site’s search functions. By default searches on Ancestry tend to be ‘fuzzy’, meaning that search terms entered will produce variations in the results, for example ‘Harry’ for ‘Harold’. It is possible…

Edmund Bonner (c1500–1569) was bishop of London and persecuted Protestants under Mary I. He began life as an illegitimate son of George Savage, the rector of Davenham. Richard Plantagenet (d1550) was a Kent bricklayer. But, argues historian David Baldwin, he may have begun life as Richard Duke of York, son of Edward IV (pictured) and one of the ‘Princes in the Tower’. The son of a London hosier who only sent him to school long enough for him to learn how to read and write, William Blake (1757–1827) earned lasting fame as a leading Romantic poet. Sir Henry Cromwell (d1604) was one of the biggest land owners in Huntingdonshire. His son Robert Cromwell (pictured), the father of Oliver Cromwell, only just managed to stay within the gentry. The daughter of…

‘A large part of my heart lies in Kent. We have a vast extended family there that can be traced back centuries’ The Knowles family is an unusually entrepreneurial breed. From Kentish fruit farmers and amusement-arcade owners, to a lord mayor of London and a medieval knight, their lineage includes a fascinating array of characters. All of these rich personalities could have slipped away into the shadows if it had not been for modern-day relatives, who have collated their research in a fascinating memoir called The Knowles Family. One of the driving forces behind the book is Edward Knowles, an art director from London. “I was born in Chatham and a large part of my heart lies in Kent,” Edward explains. “We have a vast extended family there that can…

EMMA JOLLY is a professional genealogist, writer and historical researcher DEBBIE KENNETT is the author of DNA and Social c Networking ppears and in The Surnames e u Handbook but disappears after this date ANTONY MARR is a member of the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA) SUSAN MOORE is a member of AGRA and the author of Tracing Your Ancestors Through the Equity Courts JAYNE SHRIMPTON is a professional dress historian and portrait specialist STEVEN SMYRL is a member of Accredited Genealogists Ireland ALAN STEWART is a family historian with 30 years of experience and the author of Grow Your Own Family Tree STEPHEN THOMAS is a genealogist with more than 20 years of experience and regularly appears as an expert on TV PHIL TOMASELLI is a…

Emma Willis began her Who Do You Think You Are? journey last year by tracing the life of her Birmingham-born 3x great grandfather, James Gretton. Intrigued by his occupation of ‘horn and hair merchant’, the TV presenter managed to find entries for James in local trade directories, revealing further details about where in the city he had worked. Thankfully for researchers, a large number of directories have been digitised and made available to search online at ancestry.co.uk, as well as findmypast.co.uk and the free University of Leicester Special Collections website at bit.ly/leicester-directories . Archives and local studies libraries also tend to hold collections of trade directories for their area, some of which may not have been digitised. When researching Emma’s episode, we were able to find several publications at the…

‘Putting the archives online helps anyone who wants to explore the area’s heritage’ The Friends of the Dales (formerly the Yorkshire Dales Society) has recently completed Phase 1 of Capturing the Past, a three-year project helping heritage groups and societies to digitise their archives and make them publicly available online. The project began with a local history group at Horton in Ribblesdale, started in 1984. It researched the history of the parish from earliest times up to the 1980s, attracting much local interest. The group accumulated a collection of archive material, at first housed in lofts and garages but eventually stored at Horton Rail Station’s community room. However, the material was not easily accessible to researchers, and was uncatalogued. The need to assess its importance, catalogue and digitise it, and…

• The British Newspaper Archive  britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk The archive has digitised pages from thousands of newspapers. Regional titles provide lots of useful information about ‘idiot asylums’: you’ll find reports about annual meetings, appointments of staff, special events such as concerts, the election of patients, sales of work by patients, visits by dignitaries and so on. The pages are also available to Pro-level subscribers to findmypast.co.uk. • Down’s Syndrome Association  downs-syndrome.org.uk Located in Langdon Down Centre, formerly the theatre wing of the Downs’ private asylum Normansfield in Teddington, the charity was founded in 1970 and provides information and support for people with Down’s syndrome and their families. • Hospital Records Database  nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords If your ancestor was a patient in a particular asylum, you can use the database to find out if the…

BOOKS • The Emergence of the Antique and Curiosity Dealer, 1815–c.1850 by Mark Westgarth (University of Southampton, 2006) You can download this PhD thesis for free at ethos.bl.uk. • Fraud, Fakery and False Business: Rethinking the Shrager v. Dighton ‘Old Furniture Case’ by Abigail Harrison Moore (Continuum, 2011) This study sheds light on the contemporary antiques trade. • Murray Marks and His Friends by Dr GC Williamson (The Bodley Head, 1919) This tribute is the first known biography of an antiques dealer. WEBSITES • Ancestry  ancestry.co.uk Ancestry offers access to trade directories and census records. • Antique Dealers Interactive Map  antiquetrade.leeds.ac.uk The Antique Dealers project aims to create a database of every antique and curiosity dealer in Britain from 1900 to 2000. You can search the database for free by…

Northumberland’s Military Heritage by Neil R Storey (Amberley, 96 pages, £14.99) This is a fascinating account of the military of Northumberland, spread over 12 chapters. We begin with a short introduction to the book before moving forward to the Romans, the Norman Conquest, the Border Wars, the Wars of the Roses, the Battle of Flodden, the Civil War, the Jacobites, the Napoleonic Wars, the Victorian and Edwardian Eras, and the First and Second World Wars. The final chapter focuses on the recipients of the Victoria Cross from the region. This book will appeal to readers who have a general interest in military history and those who might have ancestors who resided in this part of the country, close to the border with Scotland and therefore significant in both the Jacobite…

I just wanted to let Alan Crosby know how much I enjoyed his Off the Record article in the January issue. As soon as I saw the headline ‘Addicted to the thrill of detection’ I thought, “That’s me!” In fact I had quite recently noted in my diary that I thought I was a genealogy addict, after spending yet another evening glued to the computer, researching elusive ancestors. I even tried to go ‘cold turkey’ and not do any research for a week, but my good intentions all came undone when some certificates arrived from the GRO [General Register Office] earlier than expected, and I just couldn’t resist following up a couple of new leads. I’ve been interested in family history since I was young, when my mum used to…

A group of local historians from Waltham Forest, North-East London, are appealing for descendants of the First World War casualties who are buried in the borough’s cemeteries to share their family stories. Malcolm Doolin of the East London Branch of the Western Front Association told Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine that he and the other project organisers were trying to “find the home stories” behind the 411 First World War casualties buried in Waltham Forest. Doolin wants to present the information he uncovers about the soldiers’ lives at an event on 15 September. In addition Roy Berg, a councillor on Waltham Forest council, is looking for the next of kin of the victims of both world wars buried in Chingford Mount Cemetery to take part in a commemoration…

‘Every day came the bad tidings of new deaths – sons of friends, neighbours and their family’ How would our forebears have felt a century ago, in the spring of 1918? The war had been dragging on for three-and-a-half years, as bloody battle succeeded bloody battle but the front line hardly moved. Every day came the bad tidings of new deaths – those of lads from neighbouring streets, the young men who before the war had worked in the shops and the farms, who had been at the same school and drank in the same pub. The sons of friends, neighbours and – what they all feared the most – their family. In church on Sunday, in notices in the papers every day, and in the frantic and continuous verbal…

The AncestryDNA database has more than six million test results from around the world, including a growing number from the UK and Ireland, as well as the extended diaspora. Any potential matches with DNA cousins are flagged up, and a probability given as to the likelihood of the connection (as well as the value of shared genetic heritage between your trees, measured in ‘centimorgans’). Connecting a family tree on the site to DNA results will permit any identified genetic connections to be flagged up and the common ancestor identified, making it an extremely powerful tool. The use of ‘DNA Circles’ also allows you to see who else you may be connected to through a shared ancestor. Slightly less use for genealogical purposes, but certainly a lot of fun, is the…

We think of social mobility as a modern phenomenon: surely occupations pretty much passed from father to son in earlier centuries? If the father was a shepherd, then his son wouldn’t have gone to school, so he’d have little opportunity to be anything else. But the reality was not so simple. Some shepherds scrimped and saved to send their children to school, and some shepherd boys ran off and joined the army and worked their way up the ranks. A large-scale study, The Son Also Rises by Prof Gregory Clark (Princeton University Press, 2014), found that the level of social mobility across three or four generations, between the Middle Ages and 1950, was about the same. Social status – wealth, education level, occupational status – was approximately 70 per cent…

• A will may offer a hint that someone of modest means has ambitions for their offspring. If a poor weaver sets aside money “for the education of my children”, then perhaps they’ll rise up the social ladder. • If someone of low social status signs their name on a certificate, rather than marking a cross, it may imply social descent – especially if it was a man, because female domestics were sometimes taught to read and write. • Is there evidence of an ancestor being highly religious – for example choosing obscure biblical names for their children? Puritans and nonconformists both tended to be socially upwardly mobile.…

CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL ARCHIVES The cathedral’s library contains a collection of manuscripts, historic records, photographs, maps and books dating as far back as the eighth century. It’s a particularly rich resource if you have ancestors in east Kent. For more details visit canterbury-cathedral.org. The parish registers are also available through findmypast.co.uk. DNA HOME TESTING Edward is fascinated by DNA testing, and discovered links to relatives across the world by using kits from ancestry.com and 23andme.com. The results revealed that his ancestors were mainly from Britain, Ireland, and Western and Northern Europe (including Scandinavia) – and Edward was astonished to discover that 2.8 per cent of his DNA is Neanderthal. KENT FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY The society provided a crucial link in the chain for Jill, and can help anyone with Kentish ancestors.…

Cholera in Buxted, East Sussex bit.ly/2ETghzJ Does anyone have any knowledge about an outbreak of cholera in the Buxted area during the 1840s? I’m curious because the death certificate of my 4x great grandmother, Lucy Tyler, states that she died of cholera morbus on 1 May 1846. debbie65 Alice Dewbury of Waddesdon, Bucks bit.ly/2Bf6Kk2 Alice Dewbury was born in Waddesdon, Buckinghamshire, c1826, to John and Sarah (née Terry/Tarry), and orphaned in infancy. She’s on the 1841 census for Waddesdon as a female servant in the Dennis household, after which I can’t find her. In 1856, Agnes Grant was born in Manchester to Hugh and Sarah Grant. According to censuses, Sarah was born in ‘Wasdon’, Bucks, c1825. On Agnes’s birth certificate, her mother is Sarah Grant née Dupree, but Agnes’s baptism…

“Our goal is to provide researchers with as much helpful information as possible, and this includes links to outside organisations that have useful online resources. Foremost among these is the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia (BACSA). “BACSA is currently celebrating 40 years since it was founded by the renowned Theon Wilkinson for the purpose of preserving European graveyards in South-East Asia from the ravages of the region’s weather and acts of locally approved, or unapproved, vandalism. The association finances the construction and maintenance of boundary walls, associated buildings and more, to the tune of several thousand pounds each year. More recently, BACSA has developed its own searchable database, operating along similar lines to the one that we use at FIBIS. The association’s website (bacsa.org.uk) includes details of its…

Guardians of the poor From 1834, under the New Poor Law, guardians of the poor administered the law relating to settlement and removal. Missing evidence If Eliza had been able to supply a settlement certificate from her own parish, she might have been allowed to stay in Hackney. Husband’s settlement According to other records, Eliza’s late husband had paid enough rental in Shoreditch to gain settlement there. Dire straits It’s no surprise that Eliza needed support, considering she was a widow with six children who were aged 2–12 years old. Witness(es) You should take a note of the identities of any witnesses, because they could be family members or parish officials. Duplicate entry It’s important to check both parishes. This removal also shows up in an indexed accounts book from…

BOOKS • A History of the Irish Poor Law in Connexion with the Condition of the People by George Nicholls (John Murray, 1856) You can download this book for free from Google Books at bit.ly/irish-poor-law. • Pauper Ancestors by David T Hawkings (History Press, 2011) Hawkings’s book features transcriptions of records created by the Poor Laws. • Pauper Children and Poor Law Childhoods in England and Wales 1834–1910 by Lesley Hulonce (2016) Hulonce’s ebook explores the experiences of pauper children. MUSEUMS Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse Dereham, Norfolk NR20 4DR 01362 869263 bit.ly/gressenhall A former workhouse, the museum maintains an archive relating to the workhouse’s staff and inmates, and offers helpful documents for family historians on its website. In 2018 it is open 12–16 February then daily from 18 March. The…

The commercialisation of the art market arrived in the mid-19th century Charles Dickens made the antique dealer and his shop famous in his description of Little Nell’s Grandfather in The Old Curiosity Shop: “The place through which he made his way at leisure was one of those receptacles for old and curious things which seem to crouch in odd corners of this town and to hide their musty treasures from the public eye in jealousy and distrust. There were suits of mail standing like ghosts in armour here and there, fantastic carvings brought from monkish cloisters, rusty weapons of various kinds, distorted figures in china and wood and iron and ivory: tapestry and strange furniture that might have been designed in dreams.” By the time Dickens’s novel was published as…

How long have you been doing your family history? I first became interested in family history as a teenager, promising myself that I would return to the hobby when I had more time. However, this didn’t end up happening until my retirement. What did you uncover before hitting your brick wall? Having already traced my paternal and maternal lines, I decided to start researching my wife’s family tree in 2009. However, I soon hit a brick wall while trying to find a birth record for my mother-in-law, Marian, who had been born in the USA but spent her early life in Ireland. Even a visit to the Irish General Register Office in Dublin didn’t solve the problem. The only solid evidence I managed to uncover was that Marian’s father, Henry…

For most West Sussex parishes there are runs of registers from c1700 onwards West Sussex borders East Sussex (with Brighton and Hove) to the east, Hampshire to the west and Surrey to the north. Both East and West Sussex have their own dedicated record office, and the West Sussex HQ resides in the county town of Chichester. If you’ve moved beyond civil registration, or are researching ancestors who lived here before 1837, this is where you’ll find parish registers stretching back to 1538 (although not many survive from as early as that). For the vast majority of West Sussex parishes there are good runs of registers from about 1700 onwards. Indeed this month’s selection of archival highlights includes a rare incumbent’s listing of families in the parish of Singleton (c1850)…

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 terms and conditions agreed with the firms that provide bonus content for our magazine, data is only available for…

The Home Front in World War Two by Neil R Storey and Fiona Kay (Amberley, 64 pages, £8.99) The Second World War had an unprecedented impact on civilian life in Britain. This nostalgic and well-illustrated social history, featuring period photographs and propaganda posters, is a brief introduction to the effect that such major events as rationing, American soldiers and working women had on the home front. Charles I & the People of England by David Cressy (Oxford University Press, 464 pages, £14.99) British history is usually told in terms of the political movements of the royalty and aristocracy. In this reprint of his 2015 book Cressy attempts to offer an alternative view, retelling the life of Charles I and the events of the English Civil War through the lives and…