Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2020 i Who Do You Think You Are?

Welcome to our fifth issue produced during lockdown. Working from home has made us look at the way we do things and has been good for us in some ways (the pots in my garden have certainly benefited!). On page 17, Chris Paton highlights the differences between the various websites we use to access census information, and it has made me think that perhaps now is a good time for us to reassess how we search online. Many of us stick to the same site out of habit, but there are benefits from using more than one site and it doesn’t have to come at a price. There’s no denying that 2020 has been a bad year for us all, but on page 70 we turn the clock back 80…

CHRIS PATON A genealogist and blogger (scottishgenes.blogspot.com), Chris is a frequent contributor to this magazine. Turn to page 17 to see what he thinks of the various census providers. ANGELA YOUNGMAN Angela is a freelance journalist and keen genealogist based in Norwich. On page 57 she explores the lost tradition of the ‘fisher girls’ who came down to Norfolk each year. JAMES HOARE James is a journalist specialising in military history who has been involved in history publishing for many years. On page 70 he gives a moving account of the Blitz of 1940.…

8 September 1894 Periodical raided over stamp The London-based office of the Million was in the news because it had been raided by the authorities, but not in an attempt to censor the press – the visitors worked for the Inland Revenue. According to rival publication the People, the periodical had published “an engraved reproduction of the old English penny stamp – the red variety” as part of a series on stamp collecting, unaware that it was against the law to reproduce a postage stamp.…

HERITAGE OPEN DAYS 11–20 September a Various locations e info@heritageopendays.org.uk w heritageopendays.org.uk Heritage Open Days is England’s largest festival of history and culture. Every year, thousands of historic places across the country throw open their doors, offering unique behind-the-scenes access to the public. Its organisers have just confirmed that this year’s festival will go ahead, although for the first time there will be digital as well as in-person events. Some of the highlights include ‘digital tours’ of 575 Wandsworth Road, London, featuring intricate carvings by poet Khadambi Asalache that aren’t usually on view to the public; discovering the trees and historic stories in Wombwell Cemetery, Barnsley; and a ‘Naughty by Nature’ horticulture tour of Torre Abbey in Devon, which boldly promises “plant names that will make you blush”. Check the…

STRS Short tandem repeats (STRs) measure the number of times a sequence of genetic code is repeated at a specific location on the Y-chromosome. The common tests available are on 37 or 111 markers. Since the values for these markers change over time, they are useful for establishing the timeframe when two men shared a common paternal ancestor. This is the type of test that is recommended for establishing male-line relatedness in the past 400–500 years. Pros • Can often be indicative of your genetic family surname • May suggest what haplogroup and subgroup you belong to Cons • Unstable markers • Cannot define precisely when your most recent common ancestor with your matches lived SNPS A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) is a mutation in one of the nucleotide bases…

Ann lives in Massachusetts in the USA and has been researching her family history for many years, with a particular interest in her paternal line, the Stewarts. Documentary evidence took the research back to James Stewart, born c1800 in Donegal, Ireland, but beyond that the family could not be traced. At this point Ann turned to DNA testing. Her brother Thomas Philip Stewart was happy to take a basic Y-DNA test. At the 67-STR-marker level this shows 204 matches, of which 151 were Stewarts. Such a preponderance of the one surname was clear evidence that Thomas was genetically a Stewart, but was this of the line of the Ancient High Stewards of Scotland? The next step was to do some SNP testing, and the results of a Big Y test…

BOOKS Written accounts of an area or occupation in your ancestor’s lifetime are great for background information. You may even find your forebear mentioned by name, as Nigel did in The Gold Mines of Merioneth by GW Hall. LOCAL ARCHIVES w bit.ly/GwyneddRecordOffices Nigel headed to Meirionnydd Record Office in Dolgellau, where his mining ancestors had lived. These archives had a rich seam of information about the local mining industry and other aspects of daily life in the area. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF WALES w library.wales The library holds everything from wills and parish records to mining plans and a huge collection of newspapers in English and Welsh. These revealed stories about Nigel’s family in Wales and Colorado.…

Can you tell me when this studio portrait was taken? Q Can you suggest an approximate date for this photograph please? The photographer was a Chas W Hassall or WC Hassall of the Osborne Studio, Church Street, Longton, Stoke-on-Trent. There are newspaper references to the photographer operating in 1921–1922. Is that a likely timeframe for this photo? Christine Penn A This is a formal studio portrait dating from a time when many households were acquiring personal cameras and taking amateur snapshots. Nevertheless, professional studio photographs were still favoured for important occasions. Searching online, I found no information for Chas/WC Hassall of Stoke-on-Trent. However, your newspaper discovery of 1921–1922 operational dates (although probably incomplete) perfectly supports the visual evidence. This elderly gentleman is smartly dressed in the manner of the late…

Finding a publican in your family tree is exciting, especially if you can research the public house and the community it served. You can certainly empathise with your ancestors when you can prove that six of them lived in two cramped rooms, above drunken Mancunian miners, and surrounded by toxic industrial fumes! And my recommendation is a research tactic, rather than a specific website. My ancestor, Nehemiah Hobson, was a beer seller at the Britannia Inn, Beswick, Manchester, in the 1880s, and lived on the premises. If you have the name and location of your ancestor’s pub, then the best way forward is a local-history site. Local historians know a lot about the area your ancestor lived in, and are often obsessed with pubs! A Google search brought up a…

During the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, hundreds of young Scotswomen took part in an annual tradition – ‘chasing the Silver Darlings’, ie following the herring boats all the way down the East Coast to Great Yarmouth to work gutting and preparing the fish. Initially these ‘fisher girls’, also known as ‘fisher lasses’ or ‘herring girls’, travelled for just a few months, but as demand for the herring grew, it became an almost constant activity. The fishing boats followed the annual shoals of herring down the coast from spring in Scotland, stopping in South Shields, before arriving in Scarborough in late summer. By the autumn, the girls were in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft, before taking the train back to Aberdeen and the boat to the Shetland…

When it comes to exploring where our ancestors lived, the National Library of Scotland’s collection of maps is an essential part of any researcher’s toolkit. The website even allows you to overlay one map on top of another, with the top layer made semitransparent so you can compare it with the one beneath. Why do this? The obvious reason is to compare how a place looked during your ancestor’s life with how it appears now or at some other point in history. Last year, the NLS launched new options in the form of digital topographic models to add to the collection of satellite views and traditional maps (old and new). This allows you to get an idea of the terrain in which your ancestors lived. The map overlay can be…

In the 1820s Isaac Solomons became the most notorious receiver of stolen goods in the East End, and reputedly the model for Fagin (pictured) in Dickens’ Oliver Twist. As a young man, ‘Ikey’ as he was universally called was a pickpocket. He was sentenced to transportation for stealing a pocket book, containing £40 in notes and a cheque for £56, from a gentleman at an election meeting at Westminster Hall in April 1810, but was released in 1816 after serving six years on board a prison hulk. Within a few years Ikey was known to the police as the biggest ‘fence’ in London. He appears several times in the collection ‘UK, Prison Hulk Registers and Letter Books, 1802–1849’ on ancestry. co.uk. The criminal registers, also on Ancestry, reveal that in…

Naming traditions can be invaluable to family historians, but they can also cause confusion because of their idiosyncratic and quirky nature. As generations pass and memories of family members ebb away, who is left to remember a relation’s nickname or the precise name that they favoured and signed on official documents? Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine reader Rosemary Wilmot hit a stumbling block with her great grandfather George Gray, which related to a naming quirk. Here Rosemary explains how she solved the mystery. MY BRICK WALL My father Kenneth Miller told me that no one spoke of his grandfather George Gray. I found that odd, and wondered why there were no photographs of him in our family albums. I began researching my tree in 1976, combing through the…

A Lambeth barrow-boy turned Labour MP, Herbert Morrison rose from implacable critic of the Government’s Blitz strategy to the post of home secretary in Winston Churchill’s cross-party war cabinet from 1940 to 1945. As the chair of London County Council in the 1930s, he understood all too well the limitations of local government when it came to handling the crisis. Morrison inherited a patchwork quilt of prewar organisations which he quickly shaped into coherent bodies. Air Raid Precautions itself had grown rapidly beyond its remit. Morrison removed it from the control of local councils, and renamed it Civil Defence to better reflect its evolving duties and inspire esprit de corps. He also improved the condition of public shelters: they were washed with antiseptic paint and bunks were installed, while shelter…

South Yorkshire is made up of four metropolitan boroughs – Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield. Although Sheffield remains the largest settlement, we’re going to start our tour in Rotherham, where archivist Ruth Cummins is preparing to welcome researchers to the reopened searchroom, nestled in the heart of Clifton Park Museum. The museum itself looks after an awe-inspiring collection covering Rotherham’s social and industrial history. Gems include the Rhinoceros vase, made in 1826 by the Rockingham Pottery, which is about four feet tall and is claimed to be the largest piece of single fired porcelain in England. All through lockdown the archive’s staff have been running a remote-enquiry service, as well as sharing collections through social media and preparing upcoming exhibitions for when the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions ease. AUTUMN REOPENING “We…

HAINSWORTH  This habitational name comes from the hamlet Hainworth, near Bradford. HARDAKER  Hardakers pop up all over Yorkshire in the 1881 census, although Horton in Bradford, Idle, Leeds, Eccleshill and Yeadon are the main local hotspots. LONGBOTTOM  This topographic name refers to someone who lived in a long valley. NEWSUM  In the 1881 census this name crops up in the Rotherham registration district. OGLEY  The surname Ogley can be found frequently in Barnsley, as well as wider Yorkshire. OLDROYD  In the 1881 census this surname is particularly common in Dewsbury, Mirfield and Batley. PULLAN  The Yorkshire variant of Pullen is common across the county. STANIFORTH  The late Sheffield historian David Hey once suggested that a farm named Stonyford in Ecclesfield could be the origin of this South Yorkshire surname. WILBURN…

Why did you want to write this book? I’d just started a one-name study of the name Bowrey back in 2014, and one day I was doing a random search for the surname online when I came across references to Thomas. He lived at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th, and 200 years later a pile of old manuscripts was discovered in a dirty old attic. These turned out to be Thomas’ papers, a huge batch of documents connected primarily to his trade in the East Indies. The strange and surprising thing about it all is that there was another manuscript he’d written, A Geographical Account of Countries Round the Bay of Bengal 1669–1679, and the first Malay–English dictionary, which he published in 1701.…

I loved Carol Kerry-Green’s solution to Julie Wilkinson’s ‘Big Question’ on page 43. We have covered before how names can sometimes lose and gain an initial ‘h’, and this was an excellent example of how to use this knowledge to solve your family history mysteries. Carol mentions that Find my past allows searches where a wildcard replaces letters at the front of a name, but I should add that Ancestry and The Genealogist allow it too.…

OLD HULKS FOR WAYWARD BOYS The ‘Focus On’ article in the August issue about 19th-century Navy records mentions that the old wooden sailing ships were converted to accommodation when they were superseded. I discovered another use for an old ship when researching my Fisher ancestors, namely the National Nautical School ship HMS Formidable, anchored in Portishead Dock, Bristol. The Formidable had been an 84-gun sailing ship of the Royal Navy, launched from Chatham Dockyard in 1825. In 1869 it was leased to the Bristol Training Ship Association to train and help destitute and wayward boys. The subjects taught included seamanship, tailoring, barbering, cooking and shoemaking, as well as normal schoolwork, all within a background of strict discipline. My relative, Apsley John Fisher, was born in 1859, the son of John…

A new digital archive of local news from the East of England is seeking volunteer editors. Local Recall is a project by newspaper publisher Archant to make more than 750,000 pages of the Eastern Daily Press, dating back to 1870, available using voice-search and research-bot technologies, including smart speakers such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home. It is funded by Google Digital News Innovation. The newspapers have been scanned using character-recognition software, but ‘community editors’ are needed to check the accuracy. Anyone can volunteer – all you need is a computer, internet access and an email address, and you can contribute as much or as little time as you like. To take part, visit localrecall.co.uk/volunteers. Visit the Local Recall website to find out more…

Denbighshire and Flintshire’s archive services have merged to form the North East Wales Archives, which launched on 1 April. The two archive services currently have separate websites and will remain based in separate buildings, but Flintshire County Council said that “the long-term plan” is for the joint service to move to a new purpose-built, environmentally friendly building in Mold, Flintshire. Denbighshire councillor Tony Thomas said that the joint service would “diversify its visitor base, increase its volunteer numbers [and] expand its digitalisation activities and outreach activity”. Both archive services are currently closed because of Covid-19.…

1 Check Y-DNA matches This link will display the test-takers you match closely with through STR testing. See if there is a predominant surname among your matches. This will indicate which DNA surname project you should join. 2 View the Y-DNA haplotree and SNPs The position in the haplotree of the current most recent (terminal) SNP is revealed by a backbone SNP test undertaken by FamilyTreeDNA as part of your STR test, or tested positive during any SNP testing you did. 3 Compare results with other members When you’ve signed up to a DNA surname project and a relevant haplogroup project, compare results with participants of the projects who may not show up as close matches on your Matches page. 4 Do more testing Follow the advice from the administrators…

ADVICE ON TESTING INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF GENETIC GENEALOGY w isogg.org/wiki Find out more about genetic genealogy in general. WDYTYA? MAGAZINE w whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine. com/tutorials/dna Our website has a section devoted to articles about DNA testing, including advice on buying a test and understanding the results. You can also share queries at facebook. com/groups/wdytyareadergroup. BOOK Tracing Your Ancestors Using DNA Graham Holton (editor) Pen and Sword, 2019 Edited by the co-author of our article, this guide has a chapter explaining DNA projects. PREDICTOR WEBSITES NEVGEN w nevgen.org This Y-DNA Haplogroup Predictor tool requires that you have taken a 67-marker test to predict a haplogroup and a subclade. Y-DNA HAPLOTREE w familytreedna.com/public/ y-dna-haplotree/A FamilyTreeDNA has the largest and most up-to-date haplotree: a family tree based on known SNPs. TESTING COMPANIES FAMILYTREEDNA w familytreedna.com…

LATEST NEWS Accurate, in-depth coverage of the week’s biggest record releases and genealogy news FAMILY HISTORY TUTORIALS Learn how to master basic skills or take your research further with our genealogy tutorials, packed with top tips and expert advice LATEST OFFERS Discover our round-up of new deals and discounts for family historians – helping you save money REAL STORIES Read extraordinary real-life stories that our readers have uncovered while researching their tree KEEP UPDATED! Don’t miss out on important family history news SIGN UP TODAY BY VISITING whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com SCROLL DOWN TO FIND OUR ‘SIGN ME UP’ BOX…

Can you help me track down my forebear’s birth record, and tell me whether she was married before her wedding of 1808? Q I’m trying to solve the mystery surrounding one of my ancestors, Jane Addington. She married William Birdsall in Tadcaster in December 1830. The 1851 census says she was born in 1808 in Tadcaster. She died in 1893 in Kirk Fenton aged 86. I cannot find her birth anywhere, and wonder if she was previously married before marrying William Birdsall. But I can find no confirmation of this. Julie Wilkinson A Jane appears with her husband William on the 1851 and 1861 censuses, which both state that she was born in Tadcaster around 1808. The marriage entry for William and Jane doesn’t mention if they are single or…

GENGUIDE w bit.ly/gen-guide-pubs This page details the kinds of records that may survive for breweries, victuallers and pubs. LONDON PUBS IN THE 1890S w booth.lse.ac.uk/notebooks Read interviews with landlords from social reformer Charles Booth’s notebooks. LOST PUBS w closedpubs.co.uk This database records pictures, information and anecdotes about vanished public houses. MIDLANDS PUBS w midlandspubs.co.uk This local-history hub covers pubs and breweries across Birmingham and the Black Country. MODERN RECORDS CENTRE w bit.ly/mrc-brewers Find out more about the brewery holdings looked after by the Modern Records Centre in Warwick. NATIONAL BREWING LIBRARY w brookes.ac.uk/nbl Oxford Brookes University preserves the libraries of the British Beer and Pub Association (formerly the Brewers’ Society) and the Institute of Brewing & Distilling. PUBS OF HASTINGS & ST LEONARDS w hastingspubhistory.com This is an excellent example…

1 FULL NAME The inclusion of a full name, together with date and place of birth and some information about the nurse’s parents, means you can be confident that she is your relation. 2 STATUS Originally, candidates had to be single or widows of “good social standing”; later, married and working-class women were accepted. 3 EDUCATION The schools attended is an example of one of the many leads you can follow up in other records. 4 HEALTH Nurses had to be fit to cope with overseas work, so nurses who were less healthy were assigned to home hospitals in the UK. 5 FURTHER NURSING EXPERIENCE This section gives an indication of your ancestor’s skills. Dora Woodhouse had a CMB qualification (Central Midwives Board). 6 REFERENCES Where they survive, the references…

BOOKS Fisherwomen Craig Easton Ten O’Clock Books, 2020 This new book complements a travelling exhibition, and features photos and fisher girls’ stories. The Silvery Hosts of the North Sea C Stacy-Watson Home Words, 1883 This book about the herring industry in Great Yarmouth is available for free at the Internet Archive: bit.ly/arch-silvery. WEBSITES THE ANGUS MACLEOD ARCHIVE w angusmacleodarchive.org.uk This website includes information about the history of the fishing industry in Scotland. THE EAST ANGLIAN FILM ARCHIVE w eafa.org.uk The site includes Scotch Fisher Girls at Yarmouth (1935; bit.ly/ eafa-fisher ) and Fish Quay Scenes (c1902; bit.ly/eafa-quay) also filmed in Great Yarmouth. Search britishpathe.com too.…

BRITISH NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE w britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk Newspapers, especially local publications, have always included reports about crimes and trials, so the archive is a vital resource. THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE OLD BAILEY, 1674–1913 w oldbaileyonline.org Search nearly 200,000 cases from London’s Central Criminal Court and its predecessors. DIGITAL PANOPTICON w digitalpanopticon.org This site holds millions of records from about 50 datasets, relating to the lives of 90,000 convicts who appeared at the Old Bailey.…

ANALYSING YOUR ANCESTRY ‘DNA STORY’ This map shows an estimated breakdown of Rosemary’s ethnicity. She has 15 per cent Irish and Scottish ethnicity, which tallies with her findings that the Gray family originated in Scotland. WHERE TO LOOK FOR CLUES Ancestry suggested that Rosemary was most likely to find distant relations in Yorkshire and the East Midlands. In fact her third cousin Jacquie Lowes lives in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. FINDING LIVING RELATIVES The test united Rosemary with Jacquie via their shared great great grandparents, William Gray and Mary Ann Tinmouth of Bishopwearmouth. This proved that John George Gray was her great grandfather.…

BOOKS The First Day of the Blitz: September 7, 1940 Peter Stansky Yale University Press, 2007 This epic account of ‘Black Saturday’ draws on ordinary Londoners’ recollections. The War on Our Doorstep Harriet Salisbury Ebury Press, 2012 Drawing from the Museum of London’s oral histories, Salisbury exposes life in the East End under German bombing. MUSEUMS MUSEUM OF LIVERPOOL a Pier Head, Liverpool Waterfront, Liverpool L3 1DG t 0151 478 4545 w bit.ly/blitz-liverpool The exhibition ‘Blitzed: Liverpool Lives’ matches photographs of bomb damage from the files of Liverpool City Police with personal accounts to tell the story of the most devastating raid outside of London. MUSEUM OF LONDON DOCKLANDS a No. 1 Warehouse, West India Quay, London E14 4AL t 020 7001 9844 w museumoflondon.org.uk/ museum-london-docklands Explore the first target…

1297 A tax record includes the name Robertus le Coteler (Robert the Cutler), in what is thought to be the earliest reference to cutlery in Sheffield. 1590 Pilgrim father William Bradford (centre) is born in Austerfield. He will govern the Plymouth Colony intermittently for three decades. 1751 The glass manufacturer that will become Beatson Clark is set up in Rotherham. 1853 The Great Northern Railway moves its engine-building to Doncaster. 1857 The first meeting of Sheffield FC, the world’s oldest surviving football club, is held in October at Parkfield House, Highfield. 1912 Harry Brearley invents a new kind of ‘rustless steel’ (later known as ‘stainless steel’) at the Brown Firth Laboratories in Sheffield. 1912 In a replay following a no-score draw, Barnsley beats West Bromwich Albion 1–0 to win the…

BRITISH SUMMER TIME BEGINS THE SCHOOL SUMMER HOLIDAYS 1930–1980 YSENDA MAXTONE GRAHAM Little, Brown, 352 pages, £18.99 When I began reading British Summer Time Begins, I was immediately captured by the prologue and the references to Enid Blyton which took me back to my childhood in the 1960s. This book has memories of childhood holidays from all over the UK, many from famous writers and journalists. The book covers many different aspects, such as children working on farms; working in shops and cafés and hop-picking; staying with parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles; and taking day trips to the seaside or countryside. There are also short and long journeys in cars. Towards the end there are holidays in France, Greece, Spain, Holland and India too. Scattered throughout the book are numerous…

ADVERTISING t 0117 300 8803 e andy.williams@immediate.co.uk EDITORIAL t 0117 300 8621 e wdytyaeditorial@immediate.co.uk Q&A QUERIES e wdytyaquestions@immediate.co.uk SUBSCRIPTIONS AND APP FAQS t 03330 162120* t +44 1604 973728 (overseas) w buysubscriptions.com/customer-services/ contact w buysubscriptions.com/customer-services/FAQs WEBSITE QUERIES e wdytyaeditorial@immediate.co.uk *UK calls will cost the same as other standard fixed-line numbers (starting 01 or 02) and are included as part of any inclusive or free minutes allowances (if offered by your phone tariff). Outside of free call packages call charges from mobile phones will cost between 3p and 55p per minute. Lines are open Monday to Friday 9am–5pm.…

In the 22 years I have been researching my family history, and in particular since the internet became so useful for our hobby, I have been so grateful for the help I have received from total strangers who have generously helped me to break down brick walls or to look up records in areas I cannot easily get to. I have always tried to help others in return. That thought was on my mind when I recently replied to an email asking if I could help someone with any living relatives of Eva Armstrong of Southampton. Eva was my husband’s grandmother and I remember her very fondly, so I replied to the email hoping to be of help. Imagine my delight when it turned out that the enquiry was actually…

TheGenealogist adds records from Australia Family history site thegenealogist. co.uk has added a new set of records for tracing Australian ancestors. They include South Australian directories (1882–1883, 1904, 1910, 1920 and 1936); the Australasian Handbook (1906); the Victorian Municipal Directory and Gazetteer (1886); Who Is Who in Australia (1908); Navy Lists (1919–1922); and a list of First World War casualties from 1917. Ancestry improves London parish registers collection Family history site ancestry.co.uk has added a new set of parish registers from the City of Westminster Archives Centre. The collection has 969,776 baptisms (1813–1919); 194,940 burials (1812–1910); 1,062,855 banns and marriages (1754–1935); and 2,206,507 parish records (1558–1812). All of the records are searchable and accompanied by images of the documents. Many are already available in the Westminster collections on findmypast.co.uk. Cambridgeshire…

IN-PERSON EVENT THE OPS BLOCK: BATTLE OF BRITAIN Opens 15 September t 01223 497501 w iwm.org.uk/history/ battle-of-britain-80 Imperial War Museums Duxford is marking the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain by opening up three previously unseen Second World War rooms. The newly transformed Battle of Britain Exhibition will also reopen, while its annual Battle of Britain Air Show will take place as planned on 18–20 September. Adult admission costs £20.25. ONLINE EVENTS DEVON FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY Various dates e virtualtalks@devonfhs.org.uk w bit.ly/devon-fhs-zoom The society is hosting various talks on Zoom. The topics this month include emigration to New Zealand and ‘Curing the Family in the 17th Century’. Free. THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES Various dates  t 020 8876 3444 w nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/ visit-us/whats-on/events The National Archives in Kew is still offering online…

Censuses are some of the most important records that we can use to research family history. Many of us may be tempted to favour one website in particular to look for our ancestors, perhaps because of our familiarity with the interface, or loyalty to it from many years of use. But when trying to achieve our research goals, are we wise to put all our eggs into one basket? To investigate, we decided to assess and compare the ways that censuses can be searched on six key websites – Ancestry (ancestry. co.uk), FamilySearch (familysearch. org), Findmypast (findmypast.co. uk), FreeCEN (freecen.org.uk), MyHeritage (myheritage.com) and last but not least TheGenealogist (thegenealogist.co.uk). COVERAGE Ancestry, Findmypast, MyHeritage and TheGenealogist host images and searchable transcripts for the 1841–1911 records for England and Wales, while Ancestry…

A key event in the history of Scotland took place in 1320. Despite the Scots’ overwhelming victory over the English at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, the many years of conflict between the two countries continued. The Scots, led by Robert the Bruce, sought peace and recognition of their place as an independent nation. At Newbattle, a Cistercian abbey a few miles from Edinburgh, a great council of the nobles and barons deliberated on the content of a letter to be sent to Pope John XXII, asking him to encourage Edward II of England to grant this recognition and reach a peace agreement. Some weeks later, as a result of the council’s decisions, the letter – which was expertly drafted by the Scots Chancery at Arbroath Abbey, and dated…

Martin lives in Glasgow. Through documentary research, he had identified his earliest Dunbar ancestor as Alexander Dunbar, born 1775, from Alves in Morayshire. FamilyTreeDNA has a Dunbar surname project, so Martin took the introductory Y-DNA 37-marker test in 2017. His Dunbar line belongs to haplogroup R-M269, formed about 13,300 years ago. Martin had more than 140 matches with various surnames. However, the 37-marker test could not predict his Y-DNA subgroup, or weed out false-positive matches. So Martin upgraded to 111 markers, which eliminated some false positives. The project administrators also confirmed that he belonged to the main Dunbar lineage descended from Crinan the Thane (born c975). In 2019 Martin took the Big Y-700 test. The results revealed that Martin shares a Dunbar ancestor with a group of Americans. They reputedly…

Was Victoria Bartram a bigamist? Q My wife’s great great grandfather was Charles Bartram. His first child, Charles Albert Bartram, was born in Walthamstow on 18 May 1861 to Victoria Bartram formerly Cook. She married John Impey in 1873, but we can’t find a death record for Charles. Philip Clarke A The 1861 census records Charles Bartram, a 33-year-old married bookseller, living alone as a lodger in Walthamstow. In the same census, Victoria, his purported wife, is at home with her parents in Great Yeldham, Essex, where she is recorded as “Victoria Barham, unmarried”. The census was taken on 7 April and the couple’s son, Charles Albert Bartram, was born on 18 May 1861, so she would have been obviously pregnant at the time. There is no registered marriage of…

How can I learn about John’s army service? Q I know lots about my grandfather, John Thomas Harrison (born 1895), but have been unable to find out anything about his time in the Army. In this picture, he is standing on the right. Can you tell me his regiment, and how I can go about uncovering more about him as a soldier? Jane Leonard A This is a great group photo of three soldiers. Two of the cap badges are very clear. Your grandfather’s is a little more problematic, but is probably that of the Dorsetshire Regiment. Once you know the regiment, you can search for a Medal Index Card (MIC) on The National Archives’ (TNA’s) website – it’s easier and better indexed than other sources: nationalarchives. gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/british-army-medal-index-cards-1914-1920. There’s no…

Higher education became much more accessible to our ancestors in 19th and early 20th century Britain as new universities opened. Swansea University was one such institution, founded in 1920. In its 100th anniversary year, Emily Hewitt, assistant archivist at the university’s Richard Burton Archives, reveals the first issue of a beloved university institution – the student newspaper. CAN YOU DESCRIBE YOUR GEM FROM THE ARCHIVE? The student newspaper is the very first Students’ Union publication at the University College of Swansea (now Swansea University). The newspaper, titled The Undergrad, was published in the summer term of 1921. The cost was 1s 6d, which today would be approximately £2.20. The newspaper is A5 in size and has 52 pages. It includes adverts for local businesses, such as bookshops and leather merchants;…

BOOK Tracing Your Service Women Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians Mary Ingham Pen & Sword, 2012 This detailed reference book covers the 1850s to the 1930s, and includes nurses, doctors, VADs, the WAAC, WRNS and WRAF. MUSEUM THE MUSEUM OF MILITARY MEDICINE a Keogh Barracks, Ash Vale, Aldershot GU12 5RQ t 01252 868612 w museumofmilitary medicine.org.uk The museum hopes to reopen in September. It holds the archives of the Army Medical Services Corps including Queen Alexandra’s Royal Nursing Corps (the new name for QAIMNS), plus some impressive artefacts. WEBSITES THE FAIREST FORCE w fairestforce.co.uk Set up by the late Sue Light, this site is a must for finding out about the lives of nurses who served in France and Flanders in the First World War. SCARLET FINDERS w scarletfinders.co.uk…

ScotlandsPeople (scotlandspeople.gov.uk) is always a good starting place for finding Scottish forebears, but for more information on specific fisher-girl ancestors within Scotland itself, there are three key resources. The School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh (www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/ library-museum-gallery/cultural-heritage-collections/school-scottish-studies-archives) holds extensive records and oral-history interviews relating to the Scottish workers. Check out the Tobar an Dualchais project for archival recordings, and testimony from those working in the fishing industry including those who travelled with the fleets: tobarandualchais. co.uk/en. The Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther, Fife, possesses archive material specific to individuals and businesses within the fishing industry, including the gutting process: scotfishmuseum.org. Finally Shetland Museum & Archives has lots of information about the industry and the fisher girls who worked and travelled from Shetland: shetlandmuseumandarchives.org.uk.…

BOOK Tracing Villains and Their Victims Jonathan Oates Pen & Sword, 2017 This practical handbook is an excellent introduction. MUSEUM THE NATIONAL JUSTICE MUSEUM a High Pavement, Nottingham NG1 1HN t 0115 952 0555 w nationaljusticemuseum. org.uk The museum is housed in a former Shire Hall, and you can view its catalogue online. WEBSITES DISCOVERY w discovery.national archives.gov.uk Search TNA’s catalogue for summaries of criminal petitions for mercy that were submitted by convicted people or their friends and relations; the petitions are also on findmypast.co.uk. FINDMYPAST w findmypast.co.uk This is best for both criminal records and newspapers. TNA’S RESEARCH GUIDES w bit.ly/tna-criminals Read advice for researching criminals, convicts, prisoners and prison staff. WDYTYA? MAGAZINE w bit.ly/wdytya-prisoners Don’t miss our round-up of the best websites to help you trace prison records.…

1948 AIRLIFT SAVES BERLIN With road and rail links to Berlin cut by the Soviets, the West entered the first great battle of the Cold War in the Berlin Airlift of 1948. At the end of the Second World War, Germany had been divided into British, US, French and Soviet regions of control. The country’s capital, Berlin, was 100 miles inside the Soviet zone of the divided Germany, and the other partners relied on Russian goodwill for right of access. However, a Western decision to incorporate West Berlin into the West German economy infuriated the Soviets, particularly because a new currency was established for Germany: the Deutschmark. They refused to take part, and walked out of discussions. A few days later, the first Western trains on their way to Berlin…

BMD RECORDS  w sheffieldindexers.com Visit the website for birth, marriage and death records; parish material; school records; census data; and lots more. THE LIFE OF ANNE LISTER  w bit.ly/wyjs-lister Read the diaries of scholar, traveller and iconoclast Anne Lister of Halifax, the subject of BBC One’s series Gentleman Jack. HISTORICAL DIRECTORIES  w bit.ly/yorks-directories Search digitised trade and street directories from across Yorkshire on this website from the University of Leicester. ONLINE INDEXES  w sheffieldfhs.org.uk/ searchable-online-indexes The society’s online indexes include census data and registers of canal boats. MARRIAGE LICENCES  w bit.ly/ int-archyorks-marriages Explore digitised volumes of Paver’s Yorkshire marriage licences as published in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal. PICTURE SHEFFIELD  w picturesheffield.com View historical images of Sheffield in this searchable archive, including maps – and 1:500 Ordnance Survey maps are expected…

LOC COLLECTIONS iOS Free To celebrate its 220th anniversary in April, the US Library of Congress – the largest library in the world – has launched an app allowing users to explore the country’s history from their smartphone, with free access to more than one million of its historic maps, photographs, films, books and manuscripts. An Android version is due to be released later this year. HER CENTURY: SCOTTISH WOMEN ON FILM bit.ly/hercent Free until 20 September This compilation of archive footage captures Scottish women’s lives throughout the 20th century. It was initially intended to be shown as part of a special exhibition at the National Library of Scotland this summer, but has now been released online for free. OLD FRONT LINE Apple Podcasts Free While travelling overseas remains difficult,…

The former co-star of BBC One’s The Apprentice and the latest host of Channel 4’s Countdown appeared on the programme seven years ago. Nick is of Anglo-Irish descent. His mother, Mary Patricia Jamieson, was born in Belfast in 1918 IRISH MARRIAGE RECORDS We located the marriage of Mary’s parents, Oswald Jamison and Jane ‘Jeannie’ Smith, on www.irishgenealogy.ie, where searches and downloads of records are free. The couple married on 30 April 1912 in Belfast: civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/ images/marriage_returns/marriages_1912/09911/5544631.pdf. IRISH CENSUS RETURNS Irish census returns for 1901 and 1911 can be viewed for free at census.nationalarchives. ie . In 1901 Nick’s maternal grandfather Oswald was living with his widowed mother and siblings in Belfast, and you can see the record for yourself at bit.ly/census-oswald. THE ULSTER COVENANT This incredibly important document in Unionist…