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

PAM ROSS Pam is a regular contributor and author of Researching Your Family History (2010). On page 15 she shares her tips for going beyond the Victorian era. KATHY CHATER Kathy has been writing about Huguenots and family history for over 10 years. Don’t miss her talk in London this October (see page 26 for details). NIGEL TAYLOR Nigel has worked at The National Archives since 1989 and is TNA’s legal records specialist. Learn about King’s Bench records on page 54.…

3 First World War publications – Our Heroes , Honourable Women of the Great War and Airmen Died in the Great War – now indexed on findmypast.co.uk 1,044 records of convicts transported to Western Australia added to criminal history website digitalpanopticon.org 1,294,406 Second World War Allied prisoner of war records added to fold3.com 41 archive services and record offices have committed to take part in the new Archives Card membership scheme for researchers, which launches in April 2019 1,930 men and women commemorated on the Hollybrook First World War Memorial to those who were lost or buried at sea, which can now be explored in a 3D model at forgottenwrecks.maritime archaeologytrust.org/hollybrookmemorial…

Burial and cremation records from the Isle of Wight are available online after the island’s council launched a new website. The website, iw-bereavementservices.co.uk , holds 99,147 burial records and 72,947 crematorium records, dating from November 1856 through to the present day. Each individual’s name, their month and year of burial or cremation, and the cemetery or crematorium are included in a free database, while digital or print copies of the records are available to buy, starting at £3 each. The new website covers all 12 of the island’s cemeteries, as well as the Isle of Wight Crematorium. The project is designed to preserve the records while also making them widely available. Councillor John Hobart, cabinet member for environment and heritage, said: “A huge amount of work has gone into digitising…

On 1 July 1837 the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths was introduced in England and Wales. Four years later, the first surviving national census was taken. Both of these sources give us information about the close relationships and origins of our ancestors. However, let’s say that you’ve found a possible ancestor: John Smith, baptised 28 November 1836, son of John and Mary Smith. If only he’d been born a few months later and the birth registered with the local registrar, then the mother’s maiden name would be on the birth certificate. But there’s a John and Mary Smith in a nearby parish. Could they be the same couple? Before 1 July 1837, you won’t have certificates or censuses to help you, so you need to be a bit…

A will names family members and identifies relationships. Wills of the wider family, particularly maiden aunts and childless uncles, are useful as they often spread the bequests with a few pounds here and there to named nieces and nephews. Wills made before 1858 were ‘proved’ by the church courts, of which there were many. They can be difficult to find but are well worth looking for. And it’s getting easier because many are now available online. The National Archives (nationalarchives.gov.uk) holds Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) wills, which can be viewed on their website for a fee or are available to subscribers on www.ancestry.co.uk and thegenealogist.co.uk. One tip for finding which church court a will has been proved in is to consult the indexes to death duty registers published at…

By this time you might have collected several John Smiths in the same area. Unfortunately there’s no alternative to finding out as much information as you can about all of the candidates, then identifying your relative through a process of elimination. Don’t forget to look carefully for infant burials. It’s easy to note a baptism and miss the burial a few days later, lurking quietly in another part of the same register. It’s highly probable that the parents of your John Smith, baptised in 1836, didn’t stop producing children and might have had others after July 1837. Look out for birth registrations of later children and identify the mother by her maiden name, which should be on the birth certificate.…

Family names and relationships appear in manorial court rolls. They’re often underused because they can take a bit of finding, but it’s worth the effort. Copyhold tenants of the manor were bound to appear before the manor courts when a tenancy changed hands, for example after a death (which can give you a date of death and the name and relationship of the person inheriting the land). The Manorial Documents Register at discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/manor-search gives details of where the records are. Street directories or old gazetteers can provide the name of a manor covering a particular parish.…

Head to Spitalfields for a celebration of the Huguenots who found refuge there… Huguenot Month is the fifth festival organised by the charity Huguenots of Spitalfields. The event will celebrate the heritage and culture of the Huguenots who settled in this part of the capital. The festival’s diverse programme, which is part of the City of London Corporation’s ‘Women: Work and Power’ season of events, includes a free talk by Kathy Chater called ‘Was My Ancestor a Huguenot?’ on Monday 1 October. Visit huguenotsofspitalfields.org/walks-events.html for more details including booking information.…

Catalogues are incredibly powerful resources to help you identify the records you need, but understanding how items are recorded affects how you search them. Archivists will use various terms such as ‘fonds’, ‘series’, ‘file’ and ‘item’ to describe the level of detail at which a collection has been catalogued. The British Postal Museum has a great blog post explaining the differences at postalheritage.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/cataloguing-archives-in-four-very-easy-steps. Some holdings may be very broadly described by one line, such as an estate or a family name, with the collection subsequently requiring hours of plunder through boxes of materials to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. Other items may be individually catalogued at ‘item-level’ – in some cases, you may even be lucky enough to find a transcript of the document within the catalogue description.…

The case featured in 126 newspaper articles published throughout Britain and Ireland Why would an ancestor move hundreds of miles away from pastoral Wiltshire, to settle amid the wild, bleak landscape of Kent’s Hoo Peninsula? This is the question that sparked a fascinating search for Valerie Corby. “I started researching my husband Alan’s family eight years ago, and was perplexed to discover that his great grandfather Alfred Barlow suddenly left his family and employment in Wiltshire to live at Cliffe, on the Kent marshes,” Valerie explains. “This desolate area was made famous by Charles Dickens in Great Expectations.” It’s the setting of the novel’s opening, when Pip is accosted by the convict Magwitch who has escaped from a prison hulk. “Through researching Alfred Barlow’s line, I believe I’ve found the…

ANTHONY ADOLPH has been a professional genealogist since 1990, and is the author of 10 books SHARON GRANT chairs the council of the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA) CELIA HERITAGE is the author of Tracing Your Ancestors Through Death Records EMMA JOLLY is a writer, historical researcher and member of AGRA ANTONY MARR is a council member of AGRA and a former deputy registrar CHRIS PATON is a genealogist, author and blogger at britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk STEVEN SMYRL is a member of Accredited Genealogists Ireland PHIL TOMASELLI is a military family history expert and the author of Tracing Your Air Force Ancestors SIMON WILLS is a maritime genealogist, researcher and writer…

The latest series took broadcaster and DJ Marvin Humes on a journey back to his Jamaican roots. It was Marvin’s paternal grandfather, Robert Humes, who left the island in 1955 to start a new life here in the UK. Robert (known as Randall) was born in 1919 in the parish of St Catherine, Jamaica. Using genealogical sources we were able to trace back to Marvin’s 5x great grandfather, Edward Brown, and learned that he was a slave in the early 19th century. We managed to uncover Marvin’s tree through a variety of genealogical records, some of which are online and easily accessible. Firstly, FamilySearch has a collection of Jamaican civil records from 1880 to 1999: familysearch.org/search/collection/1538386. In addition Ancestry has various collections of Jamaican records at search.ancestry.co.uk/places/northamerica/jamaica/default.aspx. Newspapers are an…

‘The records are full of social history to feed the imagination about what life was like’ Back in 1945 my father, aged 21, was serving in the Royal Marines in the Far East. That September he was among the troops who liberated the Japanese internment camp at Changi in Singapore, a terrible experience he remembered for the rest of his life. He witnessed the appalling conditions and emaciated inmates – the stuff of nightmares. And yet despite the horrors of the camps, a semblance of normality was sometimes possible. More than 4,500 civilians from 20 countries, including the UK, were interned after the Japanese invasion of Singapore in February 1942. Despite frantic attempts to evacuate British and other nationals, those interned included many children who were trapped on the island…

ARCHIVES The British Library 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB 01937 546060 bl.uk The library’s collections feature many Victorian books on spiritualism, and such magazines as Freethought, The Key and The Spiritual Review. The National Archives Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU 0208 876 3444 nationalarchives.gov.uk TNA hold many records of local spiritualist churches, including births, marriages and deaths, together with material from local societies. The Society for Psychical Research 1 Vernon Mews, Hammersmith, London W14 0RL 0207 937 8984 spr.ac.uk The society has a library and will help family historians with their research. The Wren Library Trinity College, Cambridge CB2 1TQ 01223 338488 bl.uk trin.cam.ac.uk/library/wren-library The library holds the archives of debunkers FHW Myers and Henry Sidgwick. BOOKS The Darkened Room by Alex Owen (Virago, 1988) Owen looks at the role…

British Newspaper Archive  britishnewspaper archive.co.uk You can search and browse local and national newspapers for ‘Situations Vacant’ advertisements. The articles are also accessible to Pro-level subscribers to Findmypast. Get a Taste of Life Below Stairs  nationaltrust.org.uk/lists/get-a-taste-of-life-below-stairs The National Trust’s website includes a round-up of some of the organisation’s properties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland that have significant rooms ‘below stairs’. National Trust for Scotland  nts.org.uk The National Trust for Scotland also has properties with servants’ quarters, including Edinburgh’s Georgian House and Pollok House in Glasgow. Recipes from a Victorian Kitchen  english-heritage.org.uk/visit/inspire-me/victorian-recipes Find out more about cook Avis Crocombe and watch videos showing how to make dishes from her original recipe book. Royal Household Staff  search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-Records/royalhousehold-staff-1526-1924 In Findmypast’s collection you can trace a cook in a royal household between 1526…

FORUMS Much of Mike’s research took place in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but forums are still a fantastic place to share your research and get advice. Our own whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/forum has a very active community, while genealogy.com (formerly GenForum, where Mike met George Regan) has a huge archive of past discussions. PASSENGER LISTS If, like Mike, your ancestors travelled overseas, they should be recorded in UK passenger lists. Outbound lists from BT27 at The National Archives (1890–1960) are on both ancestry.co.uk and findmypast.co.uk, with the former hosting the accompanying inbound records from BT26 (1878–1960). Some outbound passenger lists are also on thegenealogist.co.uk. WILLS Wills and probate records can reveal family relationships. To find a will after 1858, search probatesearch.service.gov. uk/#calendar, which acts as an index for wills proved in…

While researching for an exhibition to mark the centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918 – the first Act to grant some women the right to a parliamentary vote – staff at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) uncovered a shocking reaction to the death of suffragette Emily Davison. It appears in a letter written by a Captain Charles Alexander to his mother Mary in Termon, Co. Tyrone, in which he describes witnessing the 1913 Epsom Derby. He writes: “There was a bad scene when the wretched suffragette caught the King’s horse and nearly killed his jockey. I wish the woman had been given to the crowd. It would have stopped suffragettes. She is badly hurt – I enjoyed the day awfully.” This is just one…

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

The Story of the British Isles in 100 Places by Neil Oliver Bantam Press, 448 pages, £25 Neil Oliver covers the length and breadth of the British Isles in his latest book. Through his pick of 100 memorable places, the Coast presenter uncovers the history of Great Britain. From our earliest ancestors to the Industrial Revolution, each corner of the country is steeped with a history that formed the way we live today. The Restless Kings: Henry II, His Sons and the Wars for the Plantagenet Crown by Nick Barratt Faber & Faber, 336 pages, £20 The dramatic reign of the first Plantagenet King, Henry II, is explored in genealogist Nick Barratt’s new book. Tensions between the king and his sons over the future of the empire and conflict with…

We had quite an influx of letters from people who sympathised with the reader who wrote in last month complaining about family historians who won’t correct errors on their family tree. Mistakes are particularly prone to slipping in as we step past the relative security of civil registration and census records into the uncertain world of parish registers and missing records. We asked leading genealogist Pam Ross to share some of her tips for bridging this gap so that you can confidently continue your family tree back in time (see page 15). October is Huguenot month with activities happening in London and beyond, so we thought we would mark it with a helpful guide on who these French refugees were and how you can discover if you have any in…

Mandy Stubbs It was such a sad story but what amazing ancestors he found. Best for a long time. Nadine Scott A wonderful family who have been through so much. Stories like his grandfather’s need to be told however much sadness and hardship. Patricia Marks Illustrated very well the impact of discovering your family history. Sad but life-affirming. …and Jonnie Peacock. Hazel Turner Ooh my great grandmother’s father was William Roberts from Liverpool Docks! Might be related. Maxine Greenwood Williams Loved the way he was nonjudgmental and thrilled with what he was learning.…

The Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum (SOFO) is calling on the public to donate stories and objects that shed light on the impact that conflict has had on life in the county. The objects will be used in a new exhibition about how life in Oxfordshire was affected by the Second World War, post-war National Service and the Cold War. The museum is also planning to use them in community reminiscence and outreach work, with themes including childhood, home, work, holidays and Oxfordshire life. Vicki Wood, SOFO’s education and outreach officer, said that the museum is looking for “small objects or photographs of domestic life” dating from about 1930 to 1970, as well as diaries, letters and memorabilia. If you can help, please get in touch with the SOFO by emailing…

Family history website findmypast.co.uk has announced a new record collection: ‘England & Wales Electoral Registers 1920–32’. The collection consists of more than 53 million records transcribed from images of electoral registers from the years 1920 and 1926–1931, as well as a smaller set from 1932. The records are annual lists of those registered to vote in each constituency. There are few other family history resources covering this period, since the 1921 census returns are closed under privacy laws and the 1931 records were destroyed in the Second World War. The records are also available in Findmypast’s wider 1832–1932 electoral registers collection. However, records in this dataset are in PDF format, and can only be searched via optical character recognition. The new collection was created by reprocessing the original documents to…

Our fictional John Smith was probably baptised within a few days of his birth, as was generally the case. It’s unlikely that his baptism entry would also give his date of birth, but sometimes an incumbent might decide to round up the unbaptised in his parish and do the whole lot at once. On these occasions it’s possible that their dates of birth would also be annotated in the original register. You should note both dates.…

Mug up on your history: wars your ancestors might have fought in, loss of work due to land enclosure, or pit closures that might have caused them to move. Choose your online provider carefully. Who has the most records relating to your area? For example, Ancestry has a close relationship with London Metropolitan Archives. If there are gaps in online parish indexes, were they in the original registers? Ask at the relevant county archives if it’s not clear.…

Look out for the class barrier. If you’re tempted to conclude that a laundress married the son of a duke, you will need a lot of very convincing evidence. It’s more likely that the laundress became pregnant and was paid or married off. You only have to read Jane Austen or watch Poldark on TV to realise that class barriers were crossed less frequently than we’d like to think, and then usually not by much distance.…

1517 Martin Luther puts forward proposals to reform the Roman Catholic church, sparking the Reformation. 1533 John Calvin flees France for Switzerland, leaving many followers in his native land. 1562 The Wars of Religion begin in France. In 1572, the Massacre of St Bartholomew on 24 August in Paris is followed over the next three months by some 10,000 Huguenots being killed across the country. As a result, there is a spike in refugees during this period. 1598 Henri IV’s Edict of Nantes ends the French Wars of Religion and gives Protestants in France a degree of legal toleration. Some refugees head home from England. 1660 Louis XIV begins to limit the rights of Protestants in France, and a small but steady stream of Huguenots leave for more sympathetic states.…

ARCHIVES AND LIBRARIES French Protestant Church of London 8–9 Soho Square, London W1D 3QD 0207 437 5311 egliseprotestantelondres.org.uk The church has records relating to various English congregations, but no registers. The catalogue was published as Vol. 50 in the Huguenot Society Quarto Series. Huguenot Society University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT 0207 679 2046 huguenotsociety.org.uk/library-and-archive Some publications are held at UCL, while others are at The National Archives in Kew. You’ll need to book ahead to consult them. Search UCL’s online catalogue at bit.ly/ucl-explore, making sure to include ‘Huguenot’ in the search field. BOOKS Huguenot Heritage, Second Edition by Robin Gwynn (Sussex Academic Press, 2000) Gwynn discusses Huguenots’ contribution to the history and culture of Britain. The Huguenots by Geoffrey Treasure (Yale University Press, 2013) This book traces…

1 If this is your first visit you may need to bring proof of identity to create a reader’s card and order documents. 2 The archive’s website will provide information about opening hours and holidays throughout the year – something particularly worth checking around Christmas and the New Year. 3 Check the online catalogue from home to search for materials in advance, and note relevant accession numbers. 4 Are the relevant records on-site, or held in off-site storage? You might need to order them in advance. 5 Can you photograph records, or can staff at the archive copy documents for you? Policies vary between repositories; you may be charged a fee to do so, while copying some collections may be restricted (especially if they are private deposits). 6 When ordering…

COURT PROCEEDINGS Free site Old Bailey Proceedings Online at oldbaileyonline.org has details of almost 200,000 trials held at London’s central criminal court from 1674 to 1913. Some of the accounts, which are on average just under 600 words long, have witness statements. CRIMINAL RECORDS Findmypast’s vast collection ’England & Wales, Crime, Prisons & Punishment, 1770–1935’ features 5,762,300 records, both transcripts and images: bit.ly/fmp-crime . The information may include personal details (such as birth year, age, birthplace and occupation), offence, plea, verdict and sentence. You can also find records from the criminal justice system on ancestry.co.uk and thegenealogist.co.uk. NEWSPAPER ARCHIVES Trials regularly feature in local and national newspapers. Subscription website britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk has 27,508,678 pages (and counting) dating back to the 1700s, which are also available to ‘Pro’ subscribers to Findmypast, while…

Are these Snelsons related? bit.ly/snelson-family I am researching my Snelson family. I have two families who I believe may well be connected. My direct ancestors are from Abthorpe, Northamptonshire, and have been there since about 1735 when William Snelsone married Rebecca Hart in Northampton. Their first child was born in Abthorpe in 1737. William was born in Eccleshall, Staffordshire, in 1711. Slightly earlier, possibly late 1680/1690, a Snelson family appeared in Great Tew, Oxfordshire, and later the surrounding villages. I believe that they also originated from Eccleshall, but cannot prove the link. tricky researcher John George Mainwaring bit.ly/mainwaring John George Mainwaring was born in 1880 in Lincolnshire, and in 1897 enlisted with the North Staffordshire Regiment before being transferred to either the 1st or 2nd Grenadier Guards – his papers…

“Tracing a Merchant Navy ancestor during the second half of the 19th century can be difficult. National registration of Merchant Navy employees stopped in 1857 and didn’t begin again until the early 20th century, and seafarers are often missing from censuses too. Fortunately the 1881 Crew Lists Database mun.ca/mha/1881/crews1881.php helps fill this gap. A team at the Maritime History Archive in Newfoundland is indexing British crew lists by name on this free website, which already contains more than 344,000 names. “A crew list tells you the name of everyone on board a ship plus their age, place of birth, role, dates of service, and where they left the ship. Crucially, it also specifies the previous ship an individual served on, which you can use to retrieve a crew list for…

Regnal year The date falls within the sixth year in the reign of George IV, who came to the throne on 29 January 1820. Trinity Term The fourth and final term of the legal year runs for three weeks in May, June or July. Name of judge Sir Charles Abbott was the Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench between 1818 and 1832. Location This shows the county where the parties reside, ie Cumberland. Remember that county boundaries change over the years. Plaintiffs Ann Wales, widow, and Elizabeth Bendle, spinster, are bringing the case. Defendant Thomas Wales is said to be in a debtors’ prison, although this is formulaic wording and may not always be the case. Amount owed Thomas borrowed “seven hundred pounds of lawful money”. Location of agreement…

ARCHIVE The National Archives Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU 0208 876 3444 nationalarchives.gov.uk TNA’s site has guides covering the Crown Side and the Civil Side of the Court of King’s Bench: bit.ly/tna-guides. BOOKS Criminal Cases on the Crown Side of King’s Bench in Staffordshire, 1740–1800 by Douglas Hay (ed) (Staffordshire Record Society, 2007) You can buy this compilation of cases from SRS for £45+P&P: s-h-c.org.uk/?page_id=2. An Introduction to English Legal History by JH Baker (OUP, 2002) Baker outlines the development of English legal institutions. The Practice of the Courts of King’s Bench and Common Pleas in Personal Actions and Ejectment by William Tidd (London, 1790–1828) Download this book for free from the Internet Archive at bit.ly/practice-courts-tidd. The Practice of the Crown Side of the Court of King’s Bench and the…

Fourteen-year-old Margaretta Fox and her eleven-year-old sister Catherine were ordinary girls from a family in Hydesville, New York State, until the mysterious events of 31 March 1848. Strange sounds had been heard emanating from the walls and furniture, but the girls managed to communicate with what they surmised was a spirit in their household by means of stamping their feet, with the spirit rapping in return. The spirit was allegedly that of a peddler who had been murdered in the house some years before, although his existence was never verified. As a result of the publicity surrounding the events, the girls’ fame grew, with believers asking them to intervene with the spirits on their behalf. Spiritualism soon reached British shores, and your ancestors may well have joined in one of…

“Chefs could earn £100–£150 annually, and far more in a royal household” From the Middle Ages, ‘man-cooks’ or chefs were employed to take charge of the kitchens in royal castles and palaces; later, they became a status symbol for the aristocracy. By the early 19th century, according to Samuel and Sarah Adams’ manual The Complete Servant (1825), the man-cook was “generally a foreigner, or if an Englishman, possesses a peculiar tact in manufacturing many fashionable foreign delicacies”. He superintended the kitchen with female assistants to do the manual jobs while he concentrated on the dishes that required sauces, such as fricassees and fricandeaux. Such was the man-cook’s prestige, especially if he was French, that he was paid two or three times as much as the most experienced female English cook.…

CHARACTER A written reference provided by an employer so that a cook could find another post. CHEF DE CUISINE Another term used to describe a male cook who was a head chef. COOK-GENERAL A role in which the duties of a cook and general servant were combined. PERQUISITES Kitchen byproducts, such as dripping, that a cook could sell to supplement their wages. PROFESSED A cook who declared that he or she had learned fine or Continental cooking by apprenticeship. SERVANT TAX The tax on male servants from 1777 to 1937, one of many taxes on luxuries introduced during the 18th century.…

This year saw the first signs of a revolution in everyday life, beginning a transformation in the way we shop. It started with John James Sainsbury, who was born in 1844 in Lambeth, South London. He began work at 14 as a shop assistant to a grocer. When he was 19, his father died, leaving him to support his mother and two sisters. Sainsbury met Mary Ann Staples, who was five years younger than him, when she was employed in a dairy a few doors away from the shop where he worked. They shared a dream of having their own business and married on 20 April 1869. That same year, they set up what was to be the first Sainsbury’s. It was a small dairy at 173 Drury Lane, selling…

1609 James I seeks to put an end to revolts through the Ulster Plantation, parcelling out land to English and Scottish Protestant settlers. 1641 The Irish Rebellion sees existing Irish and their supporters attempt to seize control of the English administration in Ireland. 1689 Williamite stronghold Derry is besieged by Jacobite forces, an event commemorated every August by the Apprentice Boys of Derry. 1690 William of Orange’s army defeats the forces of James II at the Battle of the Boyne. The Ulster Protestants who fought with William become known as Orangemen. 1840s The Great Famine, which begins in 1845 when the autumn potato crop fails, leads to extensive emigration. 1908 The first keel plate of the RMS Titanic is laid in the Harland & Wolff Shipyards. 1963 Belfast-born footballer George…

DOWNLOAD Kelly’s Directory of Bristol  bit.ly/kellydirectory, £13.45 Covering Bristol and its suburbs, this 1,246-page directory has a record of street addresses, businesses and residents from 1933. If you are looking for a relative who may have owned a trade or business in the area then this directory will be useful. The directory includes addresses and the heads of households. LISTEN The Home Babies Podcast  bit.ly/thehomebabies, free This BBC podcast, narrated by Becky Milligan, delves into the shocking true story of the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in the west of Ireland. You can listen to the truth about this home for unmarried mothers unfold over 11 episodes, and learn the secrets of the mass grave that made news headlines around the world. WATCH Coronation Street’s DNA Secrets  bit.ly/corrie-dna, free…

EAST The Future of Family History 12 October MARK RUTHERFORD UPPER SCHOOL, BEDFORD bfhs.org.uk/talks.html bfhs@bfhs.org.uk Bedfordshire FHS invites members and non-members to a talk from Nick Barratt, best known for his work on the Who Do You Think You Are? television series. LONDON Hospitals, Nurses, Barber-Surgeons and Surgeons in History 13 October SOCIETY OF GENEALOGISTS, CLERKENWELL sog.org.uk/books-courses events@sog.org.uk A half-day course with Kevin Brown, presented in two parts: ‘Aspects of hospital and nursing history’ and ‘Why is a surgeon a Mr and not a Dr?’. £20. The Great Victorian Moving Picture Show 18 October BFI IMAX, WATERLOO whatson.bfi.org.uk 0330 333 7878 This year’s Archive Gala at the BFI London Film Festival will be ‘The Great Victorian Moving Picture Show’, which will see…

Irish Genealogy Boy George was born George Alan O’Dowd, and his paternal grandparents and his mother were born in Ireland. You can view Irish birth, marriage and death records for certain periods free of charge on the website irishgenealogy.ie. 1 Navigate to the website’s homepage. The menu bar at the top of the page allows you to search ‘Church Records’ and ‘Civil Records’. We wanted to search for the birth of Boy George’s paternal grandfather, George O’Dowd, in 1904, so clicked ‘Civil Records’ and input the relevant details. 2 Click ‘Search’. You will be asked to give your name before you can see the results, and you may also have to pass an anti-spam ‘captcha’ test to confirm you’re human. In this case there were only two relevant births, both…

The Genealogy Show tickets go on sale Tickets for a major new family history show taking place in Birmingham next year have gone on sale. Day tickets to The Genealogy Show are £13.50 each, while weekend passes are £22.50. This ‘early bird’ rate runs until 30 September 2018, when tickets will revert to the standard prices of £15 for a day/£25 for the weekend. The show will take place on Friday 7 and Saturday 8 June 2019 at the NEC in Birmingham. Tickets can be purchased via the website (thegenealogyshow.uk) which also includes details of talks by a large range of experts. IBCC launches digital archive A new digital archive telling the stories of those involved in Bomber Command during the Second World War was formally launched at the University…

A relative of a First World War soldier was able to attend a commemoration ceremony following genealogical research by Sefton Council. An appeal from Councillor Dave Robinson, the mayor of Sefton, led to efforts to trace relatives of Lance Sergeant Arthur Evans, with potential relations discovered as far away as Australia. However, Evans’ first cousin twice removed Stuart Kirkland was found living in nearby Aigburth. He joined Councillor Robinson and members of the armed forces at the laying of a memorial stone in Seaforth on 7 September. Evans was awarded the Victoria Cross for heroic actions including single-handedly forcing four German soldiers to surrender.…

‘Some houses feel like living beings, with a strong character’ During the summer I visited several country houses. Three were described as “the ancestral home of the XYZ family”, and the fact that generations of the family had lived there was a feature of the visit. There were rooms full of family portraits, libraries accumulated by generations of readers (although few of the books looked like they’d been read!), a dinner service that was a wedding present 150 years ago. There was even one house – Castle Ward in Northern Ireland – that is Gothic on one side and classical on the other, because the husband and wife who built it had diametrically opposed tastes in architecture. Their house really does bear the family imprint! There’s something impressive about one…

Most pre-1837 marriage entries don’t give fathers’ names, although they might be identifiable as witnesses. However, if the phrase “by licence” appears, you have a route to more information. A couple might marry by licence if they were nonconformist and didn’t want to have banns called for three weeks, or if speed was of the essence: for example, because a soldier was going away to join his regiment. The licences themselves are rarely found but the application forms, the ‘bond’ or ‘allegation’, might survive in diocesan archives with details about the bride and groom such as age, occupation and father’s name. Findmypast.co.uk and www.ancestry.co.uk have some datasets. The one on the left is from Ancestry’s Cheshire Collection.…

ARCHIVES The Borthwick Institute  bit.ly/borthwick-probate Guides to various probate courts include the PC of York. The National Archives  bit.ly/tna-guides TNA has pre-1837 research guides. FREE-TO-ACCESS SITES FamilySearch  familysearch.org As well as parish register indexes, the site explains parish boundaries at maps.familysearch.org. FreeReg  freereg.org.uk Search transcriptions of parish registers by county. Manorial Documents Register  bit.ly/tna-manor Track down manorial documents. Welsh wills  www.librarywales/discover/nlwresources/wills/ Free wills proved in Welsh courts. SUBSCRIPTION/MEMBER SITES Ancestry  www.ancestry.co.uk Ancestry has Army muster books and pension records, quarter sessions and parish records. Findmypast  findmypast.co.uk Findmypast has indexes to death duty registers and wills, Army records, parish registers, Bishops’ Transcripts and quarter sessions. TheGenealogist  thegenealogist.co.uk Visit here for PCC wills, militia lists, parish register transcripts and nonconformist registers. Society of Genealogists  sog.org.uk The society has Boyd’s Marriage Index, and…

THE QUARTO SERIES The Huguenot Society of Great Britain’s Quarto Series includes the major sources for Huguenot ancestry in England and Ireland (huguenotsociety.org.uk/publications/quarto.html). The most vital are the Returns of Aliens, made in the early 17th century; the naturalisation and denization records from 1500 to 1800; and all the extant registers of French churches in this country. These are all on CD-Rom. Publications in the Quarto Series are available in a number of libraries including the Huguenot Library. THE HUGUENOT LIBRARY As well as thousands of books and documents, the library has copies of research carried out into individual names and families. An index is online at bit.ly/huguenot-research. THE HUGUENOT SURNAME INDEX Containing more than 200,000 entries, this is a master index to all of the publications in…

This series began with an explanation of how to get your research underway by seeking birth, marriage and death records. In the second part I explored some of the key websites that can help to add further flesh to the bones of your family history. For this third and final instalment, the fun really begins, because the ultimate stage of the genealogical journey involves learning how to really take control of the research process, by venturing where angels fear to tread – offline! The greatest revolution in family history over the past 20 years has been the online provision of key genealogical records, and in permitting collaboration with distant cousins across the world, through internet forums and social media. The internet is an undoubted force for good, but a key…

Clowning around Women’s work Lord George Sanger (1827–1911) was one of the most flamboyant and well-known British circus-owners of the 19th century. By 1887, when this striking photograph of female performers in his circus was taken, he had opened circus buildings in at least 10 regional towns. Pratfall pioneer This photo of Lulu Adams, one of a small number of female clowns, was taken in the 1940s. She began performing at the age of 12. Versatile performer Hal Denver (real name Ralph Norman) was a film, variety and circus star on both sides of the Atlantic, and featured in a Wild West speciality act. Magic touch The illusionist Renée Bernard performed with the Bertram Mills Circus as the legendary Koringa, “the only female fakir in the world”. A living work…

Why is one daughter missing from this divorce petition? Q I am researching the Hopewell family in Leicestershire and Rutland, but the divorce petition of Ernest and Edna Hopewell in 1936 is giving me some concern. In the court minutes, it states: “There is no issue of the said marriage other than the child referred to in paragraph 8 hereof.” Paragraph 8 then states “that the Respondent was on the second day of February 1933 delivered of a female child named Dorothy Irene… the paternity of which (sic) is in issue”. However, there is an older daughter, Ida Mary, whose birth certificate states that she was born on 4 September 1927, to Ernest and Edna. Edna had been cohabiting with an Arthur Calladine from March 1926, and so it seems…

It’s worth looking for extra proof of the identity of Sarah’s father, by ordering the marriage certificate of Sarah’s sister, whom you have identified Q I have been doing my tree for 10 years, but can’t find my great great grandmother, Sarah Davis, before she married my great great grandfather, Samuel Crowther, in 1865. At that time, her age was given as 23, he said he was 40 (which is a lie), and her father was given as Joseph Davis. She is then on the 1871 census for Hill End, Dodderhill, Worcester, aged 28 and born Castle Bromwich, with Samuel (age 53, born Droitwich) and William Henry (my great grandfather, aged one). The last time I can find her is on her death certificate – she died on 28 October…

Louis Daguerre created the first practical photographic process, called the daguerreotype, in 1837. He was followed by the British inventor Henry Fox Talbot, who invented the calotype. The first photographs took several hours to capture, but during the 19th century exposure time was reduced to an hour, then several minutes and eventually seconds. By the 1890s wealthy amateurs were beginning to buy their own cameras and take photographs. Historic Environment Scotland holds many of these early photographs, including an album belonging to the Stewart family of St Fort House, Fife. As archivist Kristina Watson explains, it provides an invaluable record of the house and of life in this era. Can you describe the album to me? It’s bound in leather, and it has quite a plain cover compared with some…

The Royal Museums Greenwich (RMG) website has sections covering the National Maritime Museum (NMM), the Cutty Sark, Queen’s House and the Royal Observatory. There are many helpful research guides (rmg.co.uk/discover/researchers/research-guides), although you’re after guide C1: ‘The Merchant Navy: Tracing People – Crew Lists, Agreements and Official Logs’ (bit.ly/rmg-c1-merchant). Important sources found at the NMM include the Lloyd’s List and records relating to the Marine Society, which was founded in 1756 to provide destitute boys with a place on board ships. For more information about the Register of Merchant Seamen at Southampton Archives go to southampton.gov.uk/libraries-museums/local-family-history/southampton-archives/index-merchant-seamen.aspx. There are various useful datasets available via commercial websites. For example, Findmypast has more than 1.1 million Merchant Navy seamen records (search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-records/britain-merchantseamen-1918-1941), while Ancestry has the collection ‘UK, Apprentices Indentured in Merchant Navy, 1824–1910’ (search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=60609).…

One of the most famous trials heard at the Court of King’s Bench is the Somerset (or Sommersett) case, Somerset vs Stewart. This milestone in the history of slavery took place in 1772. James Somerset, an African slave, was purchased by Charles Stewart, a customs officer, when he was stationed in Boston, Massachusetts; at the time America was still a British colony. Stewart brought Somerset with him when he returned to England in 1769. A couple of years later Somerset escaped, only to be recaptured and imprisoned on a ship bound for Jamaica. The involvement of the Court of King’s Bench started when the three godparents of James Somerset made an application in December 1771 for a writ of habeas corpus, a writ issued to try to release a prisoner.…

Emmanuel Thomas Middlehurst, a shipyard worker from Sunderland, is recorded on the 1911 Overseas Military Census. He is among men who were single and working class generally recruited from the farms and factories of northern England. He joined the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment in December 1904 at the age of 23. Many of the men recorded on the census with him were in the same military draft before they were despatched to India on the HMS Plassey in October 1905. The census finds the ‘Dukes’ on the Ambala Cantonment, a military station in northern India near the Grand Trunk Road, one of Asia’s oldest major roads. Emmanuel’s exploits in India include his appearance before a military court at Fort William, Kolkata, in 1906. He explained how his army…

Florence Cook was born into a respectable upper-working-class family in rural Kent. She was still only a teenager when she started to claim mediumistic abilities in 1870. Her mother took her to the Dalston Association of Enquirers into Spiritualism, and she blossomed into a fully fledged medium with the support of its secretary, Thomas Blyton. She commented, “Under Mr. Blyton’s guidance my development from that period was rapid… I had gone through the whole string of phenomena associated with mediumship I have ever heard of.” During her séances she claimed to materialise ‘Katie King’, the daughter of a 17th-century buccaneer. Cook also displayed skills at table-turning, automatic writing and levitation. As Katie King, she flirted with her sitters, touching and kissing them. Her antics breached the etiquette of the middle-class…

How long have you been researching your family history? I first started researching my tree in the mid-1990s when my late father happened to mention that his own father – Frederick Ernest Greatorex – had been born in Philadelphia. This immediately sparked my interest, as I had known my grandfather, and there was nothing remotely American about him. He was your typical retired Yorkshire miner with a flat cap and muffler, who spent most of his time down the allotment. I asked my father for more information but he could not help me, claiming “I was the youngest, and nobody told me ’owt!” What did you manage to uncover before hitting your brick wall? After learning about our family’s American link, I turned to my father’s elder sister, May, who…

STEP 1 Visit whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/bonuscontent and click the ‘view content’ button next to the image of this issue’s cover. Enter the code above in the box that appears. STEP 2 You’ll now see a list of the resources for this issue. We’ve made the entire set available to save to your computer in three parts – just click on the ‘Download part 1’, ‘part 2’ or ‘part 3’ links. STEP 3 You can also find out more about all of the records and download each one individually. Simply click the red button next to the file to start transferring it to your computer. For a full step-by-step guide, see bit.ly/Bonus_Guide…

The Royal Air Force: The First One Hundred Years by John Buckley and Paul Beaver Oxford University Press, 288 pages, £20 From Wilbur Wright’s first flight in 1908 to the 2018 launch of a reconnaissance satellite, the aviation history of the RAF is meticulously outlined in this book, which features detailed indexes and photographs of aircraft. From seaplanes to the Boeing P-8A Poseidon aircraft, due into service in 2019, all types of aircraft, squadrons, bases, conflicts and technical details are included. Helicopters are given special mention as they have assisted in Search and Rescue for many years, helping with flooding at the likes of Boscastle and the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster. The authors not only cover the history but look to the future of aircraft and bases, hopefully keeping…

Oxfordshire Family History Society Fair 6 October MARLBOROUGH SCHOOL, WOODSTOCK bit.ly/ofhsfair fair@ofhs.org.uk Oxfordshire Family History Society’s annual fair will bring together family history societies from around the country. The society will be selling transcriptions, indexes and memorial inscriptions, and you will be able to consult experienced advisors for help with your brick walls. There will be stalls from specialist suppliers and services including the Society of Genealogists’ Census Detectives, the Western Front Association and the EurekA Partnership, which transcribes and publishes material for the benefit of family and local historians. There will also be practical advice on using DNA to find relatives. Food and drinks will be available, and entry and parking are free. Victoria Roe…