Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2022 i Who Do You Think You Are?

As we wait in eager anticipation for the release of the 1921 census, it was interesting hearing from Alex Cox on page 17 about the work done on the documents themselves and the information we will discover. I was slightly worried to find out about the historical flood damage (fingers crossed it doesn’t affect too many pages), but delighted to learn that Findmypast is looking to open up access to other institutions beyond The National Archives in Kew. Judging by Jonathan Scott’s round-up of websites to watch in the year ahead (see page 27), it looks like the 1921 census isn’t the only gem on the horizon. I was particularly thrilled to see projects that our readers have worked on during our annual Transcription Tuesday event coming to fruition. Our…

I was adopted and did not discover my birth mother until I was 28. My birth father has been identified following an AncestryDNA test just this year. I am now 72. As far as I am aware the two sides of my birth family were quite separate, one living in London and the other living in Retford. I was brought up in Redcar. But my investigation into my family history has shown that the three families have an incredible link. My adopted family were landowners, and owned an extensive farm here in Skelton in Cleveland where I live. They were sympathetic to the ironstone miners and from 1872 onwards lent their fields for the Miners’ Annual Gala, as well as sitting up on the platform with the speakers. My birth…

Ancestry adds overseas records for UK soldiers Family history website Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) has added ‘UK, Military Records of Baptisms, Confirmations, Marriages and Burials, 1813–1957’. The collection contains 38,417 baptism, confirmation, marriage banns, marriage and burial records for UK soldiers serving overseas and their wives and children. If your ancestor is missing from British records, these documents may allow you to trace them. They are taken from the War Office records held by The National Archives in Kew in series WO156. Findmypast adds filter to the 1939 Register Family history site Findmypast (find mypast.co.uk ) has added a filter to its 1939 Register collection, making it easier to search for special-interest groups. The categories are ‘Blind’, ‘Deaf’, ‘Disabled’, ‘Dumb’, ‘Evacuee’, ‘Heavy Worker’, ‘Mental Health’, ‘Refugee’ and ‘Welsh Language’. The register is…

Family history website Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) has added a collection of records of removed tombstones. ‘UK, Records of the Removal of Graves and Tombstones, 1601–1980’, at ancestry.co.uk/ search/collections/61802, consists of 164,858 records and dates from records that are held by The National Archives at Kew in series RG37. The records are indexed by each person’s date of death and place of burial, and include a transcription of the inscription on their headstone that was made before it was removed.…

Almost 20,000 pension records of Victorian and Edwardian Post Office employees can now be searched online for free. The records were transcribed by volunteers for the research project Addressing Health (addressinghealth.org.uk). This includes readers of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine, who pitched in during our annual Transcription Tuesday event on 2 February 2021. They are now available on data.addressinghealth.org.uk. The records are shown on a map of Britain and Ireland. Family historians can click on each postal worker’s name to see details such as their position; place of residence; date of retirement; age at retirement; and details of their health and income throughout their career. They can also filter the data. The site is being continuously updated and will eventually hold 30,000 records. Dr Laura Newman of King’s…

THE LONDON GAZETTE w thegazette.co.uk Royal appointments and the results of local elections were published in the London Gazette. Graham found details of his ancestor’s knighthood via its free online archive. THE SHIPS LIST w theshipslist.com Discover records of sailings, shipwrecks, marriages at sea and passenger manifests at this comprehensive site. It’s free too, and offers a wealth of detail. THE WORSHIPFUL COMPANY OF LORINERS w loriner.co.uk Loriners make bits, spurs, stirrups and other small items of harness. The company dates back to 1261, and is still active today. If your ancestor was a loriner, you can visit the website to find out more about lorinery and the company itself.…

My great great grandparents Edward and Caroline West née Goodwin lived in Kent and had nine children. Edward was a sergeant in the Royal Engineers. My 3x great grandmother Keturah Goodwin née Calcutt married a Grenadier Guard named John Goodwin. They lived in London and had 11 children. The West family on holiday This photograph, taken in South Wales c1910, shows my great great grandmother Caroline West sitting in the centre on the balcony of a beach hut with some of her children. My 3x great uncle Charles Frederick Goodwin was a drum major in the Grenadier Guards. Edward, Caroline and some of their children Here are (back) William, Edward, Alice and son-in-law Charlie Robinson, plus (front) Eva, Caroline, her daughter Caroline and her baby, and daughter-in-law Bertha with her…

To mark the centenary of both the First World War and the creation of the Royal Air Force, the RAF Museum has digitised some of its collections. Our Storyvault website (rafmuseumstoryvault. org.uk) includes casualty cards from the First World War into the late 1920s. These cards are searchable by name for information on personnel who were sick, wounded, killed or reported missing. The first type, ‘Incident’, details the circumstances, and sometimes the findings of courts of inquiry. The second type, ‘Person’, records what happened next such as hospital admission or acceptance of death for the missing. As well as aircraft accidents, injuries and deaths by enemy action, there are deaths from natural causes and sports injuries. The cards can be used to trace prisoners of war before they were recorded…

There is a decent chance that your 17th- and 18th-century forebears will have submitted a petition to the local magistrates if they were prisoners, paupers, publicans or parish officers. These humble requests or complaints, which might come from a single individual or a large group of neighbours, were an extremely common way for ordinary people to ask the authorities for assistance. Fortunately, many thousands of these documents have survived in local archives, and transcriptions of a substantial selection are freely available online. Today we tend to think of petitions as political statements backed by a list of signatures, whether written out on paper or at petition. parliament.uk . However, until the 19th century it was far more common for people to present smaller-scale petitions that meekly requested redress or favour…

The recently released RootsMagic 8 – and its cut-down, free sibling RootsMagic 8 Essentials – has had quite the makeover. As we revealed in last month’s review, its user interface has been overhauled to make the program more accessible and easier to navigate. But as with all radical changes, there’s a learning curve involved. This is where we step in. If you’ve just upgraded to the new program or are thinking of upgrading but unsure whether you’ll get on with the new user interface, then our step-by-step guide will take you on a tour of the program’s key areas – where to find them, and how they work. RootsMagic 8 is the first version of the software that has been built from scratch to run natively on Macs; previously the…

On 18 August 2021 the Bank of Scotland’s polymer £50 note entered circulation, bearing a portrait of Flora Clift Stevenson, a background illustration of Edinburgh’s Randolph Crescent, and the quotation “What Miss Stevenson did not know about education was not worth knowing”. Stevenson was a pioneering social reformer who specialised in education for poor or neglected children. In 1868 she joined the Edinburgh Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, and became one of the first women in the UK to be elected to the new school boards when she joined the first Edinburgh School Board in 1873. In 1900, after contributing to many debates on education over the years, she was unanimously elected the board’s chair. In 1899, when she was 60 years old, her achievements were acknowledged…

Researching the lives of ancestors who were born out of wedlock often requires sensitivity. A beloved parent or grandparent may not wish to divulge the name of an absent partner, especially if the family was abandoned. This can lead to a lifetime of curiosity, and a large gap in one’s family tree. Paul Cooper was keen to find out the identity of his maternal great grandfather, whose name had never been mentioned by his relations. Solving the mystery required some expert sleuthing. MY BRICK WALL I grew up in a terraced house by the gasworks in New Park, Harrogate, Yorkshire, in the 1950s. My grandmother Agnes and great grandmother Isabella Cundell lived next door to us. They had each been a lone parent, raising a daughter in tough times. I…

1739 David Dale is born in Stewarton. He finds great success in the cotton industry, and founds two model communities at Catrine and New Lanark. 1786 Robert Burns’ Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect is published by Kilmarnock printer and bookseller John Wilson. It is the first collection of his work. 1803 The first edition of the Ayr Advertiser is published by John Wilson and his brother Peter on 5 August. In 2020 the newspaper prints the headline “Turnberry hotelier tests positive for coronavirus” when President Trump announces that he has caught Covid-19. 1815 Edgar Allan Poe travels to Irvine to live with his foster father John Allan’s family for a short period. 1851 Kays of Scotland is founded in East Ayrshire, and still makes curling stones today. 1881 Alexander Fleming…

What made you want to write this book? I kind of failed my father. He wanted me to read his diary about the last days of the war, when he was a 17 year old being sent to the Eastern Front, and I failed him. Then when he was dying he gave it to me again, and I felt that I really owed him that. I couldn’t face doing it for years, but finally I got to work. It’s something that was on my whole generation as a weight – the fate of our parents, being in the war. And in general, I just felt that it was a story that needed to be told. Do you think people don’t talk enough about war children’s experiences in Nazi Germany? I…

On Christmas night 1951 the cargo ship Flying Enterprise was en route from Hamburg to the USA, and heading for a storm. There were 10 passengers on board. The vessel was about 400 miles west of Land’s End when it was caught in a Force 10 gale. On Boxing Day, a rogue wave slammed into the ship and it began to take on water. Dan had to make a close approach to allow his first mate to leap on board Its captain Henrik Kurt Carlsen issued an SOS the following morning, by which time the ship was listing 45 degrees to port. The whole nation was gripped by the coverage on British Pathé News. Various ships responded to the distress call, including the ocean rescue tug Turmoil captained by Frederick…

JONATHAN SCOTT Jonathan is the author of A Dictionary of Family History and writes our monthly ‘Best Websites’ and ‘Around Britain’ articles. On page 27 he looks at the year ahead for genealogists. BRODIE WADDELL Brodie is a senior lecturer at the University of London, and leads a project on petitioning. On page 56 he explains how to use these vital records and introduces a new online collection. EMMA JOLLY A regular contributor to our ‘Q&A’ pages, this month Emma turns her attention to Scottish schools and the rich records they generated, many of which are now online. See page 63.…

IN PERSON WISH YOU WERE HERE: 151 YEARS OF THE BRITISH POSTCARD Until 2 January a The Postal Museum, London t 0300 030 0700 w postalmuseum.org/ wish-you-were-here This exhibition explores the history and future of the British postcard, with themes including romance, First World War correspondence, the great British seaside, postcards in a digital age, and contemporary art. Every visitor to the exhibition can take away their own artwork in miniature. Free with entry to the museum (£16 online or £17 on the day for unlimited access for one year from your first visit). MELANCHOLY: A NEW ANATOMY Until 20 March a Weston Library, Oxford a 01865 277094 w visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/ melancholy-new-anatomy# This exhibition marks 400 years since the Anatomy of Melancholy, an encyclopaedia of mental and emotional disorder by Oxford…

Oh, I’ve been waiting so long for this! The release of the 1921 census of England and Wales on 6 January (see page 17) is going to be really important for my family history research, building on the delights of 1911 and all of those wonderful forms that are actually signed by my great grandparents. But 1921 will be very special. It came after they’d been through the horrors of the First World War and the global influenza pandemic. Family members had died, cousins had been killed in France, and now the survivors, the about-to-be-teenagers of 1911, had become young adults. The 1921 census might allow me to solve a few puzzles They’ll all be there – the grandparents, great uncles and great aunts who I knew well, half a…

1 ABERDEEN CITY AND ABERDEENSHIRE ARCHIVES  tinyurl.com/aberdeen-poor-relief Remote indexing of Parochial Board minutes, a project launched in March this year, will continue into 2022. 2 PERTH AND KINROSS SOUND ARCHIVE  tinyurl.com/pk-sound-arch Perth & Kinross Archive has won a grant from the Archives Revealed partnership to create a catalogue and portal to this collection of recorded conversations between fieldworkers and elderly residents of rural Perthshire. 3 TEESSIDE ARCHIVES  teessidearchives.wordpress. com Teesside Archives is currently moving to the Dorman Museum in Middlesbrough. It’s due to open at its new location in spring 2022, and the website will relaunch at the same time. 4 BORTHWICK INSTITUTE FOR ARCHIVES  york.ac.uk/borthwick Now that the website’s been redesigned, the institute is looking to update the content of the research guides and relaunching Archbishops’ Registers Revealed (archbishopsregisters.york.ac.uk).…

Where was Thomas Gavin born? Q My great grandfather was Thomas Gavin. The only information I have about him is from his marriage certificate and the census. He married Mary Callan on 3 September 1875 in Lesmahagow, Lanark, and his parents are recorded as Peter Gavin and Helen Blackburn. The age he gave suggests a birth year of 1851. According to the 1891 Scottish census on ScotlandsPeople (scotlandspeople. gov.uk), his birthplace was Ireland. I can find no information of his birth or references to his parents. Grace Smith A The fact that Scottish civil marriage and death records note parents’ names should have made your search quite easy. When Thomas Gavin (labourer) married Mary Callan in Lesmahagow parish, Lanarkshire, in September 1875, he gave his parents’ names as Peter Gavin…

CROSS AND COCKADE w crossandcockade.com The website of the First World War Aviation Historical Society is a useful resource for researching the war in the air. FLEET AIR ARM MUSEUM w fleetairarm.com Find out more about the Royal Navy’s specialist museum near Yeovil in Somerset. The National Archives’ guide to researching Fleet Air Arm personnel is at tinyurl.com/tna-fleet. GOV.UK w gov.uk/government/collections/ requests-for-personal-data-and-service-records Records of RAF airmen who served after 1939, and those whose service numbers were above 562875, are still with the RAF. Here you can find out how to obtain copies. THE AERODROME w theaerodrome.com Find out about First World War aces and aircraft. THEGENEALOGIST w thegenealogist.co.uk Millions of records from RAF Operations Record Books can be searched and viewed here. THE GREAT WAR ›1914›1918› FORUM w greatwarforum.org/forum/ 25-air-personnel-and-the-war-in-the-air…

1 CHESTERFIELD This petition is addressed “To the Worshipful … Justices of the Peace … at Chesterfield”, the site of the Derbyshire quarter sessions. 2 JOSEPH JACKSON It is the “humble Petition of Joseph Jackson of Langston… Labourer”, allowing us to pin down his parish and his occupation. 3 WEALTH OF DETAIL The petition describes Joseph as “a Lame Man of about ffifty yeare of Age and has a Wife and ffour small Children and nothing to Live upon Save three Acres of land and what he gets by selling of Earthen Potts”. 4 REQUEST He complains that he has been ordered to pay towards the poor rates even though he “is a very poore man himselfe”. 5 PROMISE TO PRAY As was common, the petition closes with a promise…

The Church was responsible for education in Scotland from the Middle Ages. Boys could be sent to (Roman Catholic) church-choir schools. After the 1496 Education Act, the eldest sons of barons and freeholders of substance were required to attend grammar schools. The first university in Scotland was founded at St Andrews in 1413, followed in 1451 by the University of Glasgow and in 1495 by King’s College, Aberdeen. However, after the Scottish Reformation of 1560 the influence of the Catholic Church waned, and the newly established Kirk – the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland – set up elementary schools. The University of Edinburgh was born in 1583. Some free education was provided by Sunday schools and other charities The 1696 Education Act established the principle of a school for every parish,…

FINDMYPAST w findmypast.co.uk The site has transcripts of school registers and other records from Lanarkshire, and images of Edinburgh Academy’s registers (1824–1914). OLD SCOTTISH w oldscottish.com Search an index of School Leaving Certificates (1908–1924) containing about 250,000 entries; images cost £5 (see page 65). ANCESTRY w ancestry.co.uk Ancestry has records from schools in Fife, and ‘Perthshire, Scotland, School Registers of Admission and Withdrawals, 1869–1902’.…

1 BAPTISM The document gives Agnes’ date of birth and that of her baptism, which took place when she was exactly a month old. 2 FATHER’S NAME Only the father’s surname is given, and it’s incorrectly spelled “Edmundsen”. This kind of phonetic misspelling often occurred in the past. 3 MISSPELLING The mother’s name is given as Isabella “Cundhill”, another spelling error. 4 FATHER’S OCCUPATION The occupation of plumber provided a vital clue, because it corresponded with a census record for Samuel Edmondson – the man Paul has identified as his great grandfather.…

BOOKS 1920s Britain Janet Shepherd and John Shepherd Shire, 2010 Written from the perspective of those who lived, worked and played in Greater London, this book uncovers the hardships and stresses of the age, and the strains that manifested in the General Strike of 1926. Britain in the 1920 s Fiona McDonald Pen & Sword, 2020 McDonald’s book covers new technologies, fashions, women’s new freedoms and rights, and the rise of motor cars as well as houses full of electric gadgets. The Green Hat Michael Arlen Collins, 1924 Reflecting the atmosphere of the decade, the fashions, the youthful cynicism, and the rebellion of the ‘bright young things’ of Mayfair, this novel centres on femme fatale Iris Storm. It is available for free from the Internet Archive at tinyurl. com/arch-green-hat. MUSEUM…

SURNAMES w tinyurl.com/ayr-roots-ndb Although Ayrshire Roots is not currently fully functioning, the website is still home to useful lists and information, such as a surname database. LOCAL HISTORY w tinyurl.com/arch-in-ayr Titles available through the Internet Archive include a volume of William Scott Douglas’ In Ayrshire (1874) focusing on Cunninghame. DIRECTORY w tinyurl.com/nls-po-ayr This website from the National Library of Scotland contains Post Office directories from across Scotland, including an Ayrshire directory from 1851. WAR DEAD w tinyurl.com/roll-ayr The site Roll of Honour has details of those named on the region’s war memorials. MAPS w tinyurl.com/scotplaces-ayr Explore maps, drawings, photographs and texts covering Ayrshire, including Ordnance Survey name books.…

ARCHIVES AND LIBRARIES AYRSHIRE ARCHIVES a South Harbour Street, Ayr KA7 1JA t 01292 521819 e archives@south-ayrshire.gov. uk w ayrshirearchives.org.uk The archive service for South, East and North Ayrshire councils is closed ahead of a relocation to a new purpose-built HQ in South Harbour Street. Watch the website for updates plus facebook.com/AyrshireArchive and twitter.com/ayrshirearchive. EAST AYRSHIRE LOCAL HISTORY a Burns Monument Centre, Kay Park, Kilmarnock KA3 7RU t 01563 553654 e info@eastayrshireleisure.com w tinyurl.com/east-ayr-arch The Local History Research Department at the Burns Monument Centre has reopened on an appointment-only basis, and holds newspapers, maps, historic photographs and books. NORTH AYRSHIRE HERITAGE a Irvine Townhouse, 66 High Street, Irvine KA12 0AZ t 01294 310090 e naheritage@north-ayrshire. gov.uk w tinyurl.com/north-ayr-heritage The Townhouse has census returns for Ayrshire and the Isles of Arran…

FICTION NATHAN DYLAN GOODWIN , independently published, 258 pages, £8.99 For those who don’t know family historian and prolific author Nathan Dylan Goodwin’s character Morton Farrier, let me introduce you – he’s a forensic genealogist, and although The Foundlings is the ninth book in The Forensic Genealogist Series, each story stands alone and the books can be read in any order. Morton takes on commissions, but occasionally, as a subplot, he researches his own family. The fact that he was adopted presents a number of additional challenges, and his research incorporates DNA profiling, creating skeleton trees, and various historical document repositories on the south coast. The foundlings of the title were abandoned as babies by their mother in the 1970s, and one of them is Morton’s half-aunt. I personally found…

BEYOND THE MAYFLOWER Until 16 January a Weston Gallery, University of Nottingham w lakesidearts.org.uk/exhibitions/event/5477/ beyond-the-mayflower.html In 1620 the Mayflower sailed across the Atlantic, carrying 102 passengers to America. Among the passengers was a group of religious separatists known as the Pilgrims, many of whom came from Nottinghamshire. The ‘Beyond the Mayflower’ exhibition, launched following the 400th anniversary of the voyage in 2020 and using the University of Nottingham’s archives, explores the Pilgrims’ background by tracing the history of religious dissent, power and faith in the county from the 17th century. It also looks at previous commemorations of the Mayflower story and the different ways in which it has been interpreted over time, in addition to wider issues of immigration, emigration and colonialism. The gallery is open 12pm–4pm Tuesday to Sunday.…

A University of Edinburgh project is appealing for individuals with at least two Traveller grandparents to take part in DNA testing. Traveller Genes (www.ed.ac.uk/travellergenes), which is supported by the Traveller community, aims to understand how Scottish Travellers are related to other communities, and their overall patterns of health. However, individuals with Traveller grandparents from anywhere in the UK and Ireland are eligible to take part. This includes Scottish Travellers, Irish Travellers, Romanichal or Romany, and Welsh Kale. You will be required to answer a questionnaire about your ancestry and health, and submit a saliva sample. To find out more, call 0131 651 8557 or email travellergenes@ed.ac.uk.…

A new online database commemorates 31,384 Irish soldiers who died in the First World War. The free Irish Great War Dead Archive (irelandsgreatwardead.ie) was launched by Tipperary Studies on Remembrance Day. It brings together 20 years of work by military historian Tom Burnell. The records include each man’s rank, regiment or service, date and cause of death, and place of burial. The site will be updated with further records, including those of servicemen from what is now Northern Ireland. The site also features photos such as a commemorative penny (right) and details of all of the servicemen’s gravestones in County Tipperary.…

By the time this issue goes on sale, there will be less than a month to go until the date that all family historians have been eagerly awaiting. Thursday 6 January 2022 will see the release of the 1921 census of England and Wales online and, for many of us, the arrival of the answers to long-standing family mysteries. With the 1931 and 1941 censuses having been, respectively, destroyed by fire and cancelled because of the war, the 1921 census is a vital window on the early 20th century. Findmypast was chosen by The National Archives (TNA) to complete the skilled and time-consuming task of making this census of almost 38 million people available for everyone online. Transcriptions and digital images of its pages will be free to access at…

This time last year we were lamenting the impact of Covid-19. Today, although we are still living in the shadow of the pandemic, there’s so much to look forward to. There’s the little matter of the 1921 census of England and Wales, which is being released by Findmypast and The National Archives in Kew in January; the release of the 1921 census of Scotland via ScotlandsPeople; and the ‘Beyond 2022’ project that will be launching a ‘Virtual Record Treasury’ on the centenary of the destruction of the Public Record Office of Ireland. There is also a great deal of work going on at county and specialist archives across the UK. Many are updating their online catalogues to new content-management systems, which should improve searching and widen opportunities for digitisation, access…

Curtis George Ashdown stepped forward to be knighted by George V at Buckingham Palace on 12 October 1920. He was born the son of a plumber in Deptford, Kent, with no connections or capital, so how did he manage such a meteoric rise? I was keen to discover why Curtis was bestowed with such an honour Curtis is the first cousin twice removed of Graham Ashdown, a retired pharmacist who lives in Chatham, Kent. “I had no idea that we had a knight in the family until five years ago,” Graham reveals. “A distant Canadian relative, Robert, sent some information from the Arrow Lakes Historical Society in British Columbia, Canada (alhs-archives.com). “My Great Aunt Peggy emigrated to Nakusp, a village near Arrow Lakes, after the First World War and married…

How am I related to the 2nd Earl of Essex? Q I believe that one of my ancestors is Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. I have researched as far as I can using the main sources, but am stuck. I’ve been in contact with a family member through Ancestry, and her Devereux family came over with William the Conqueror. I did a DNA test, which suggests that I’m 25 per cent French. Can you help me prove my Devereux link? Sarah Hayes A You kindly sent a chart that appears to show your descent from William Devereux (1729–1785?), who married Susanna Smyth in Norfolk on 19 August 1755. The chart shows him with a son William (born 1759) and a grandson Francis (1769–1807; baptised on 22 March 1769), but…

WEBSITES ADDRESSING AUTHORITY w tinyurl.com/ address-authority Read 12 short articles by historians and literary scholars about petitioning across Europe. THE LONDON LIVES PETITIONS PROJECT w london.sharonhoward. org/llpp This digital history project created by Sharon Howard explores about 10,000 petitions from voluminous records of 18th-century sessions of the peace held in London and Middlesex. THE POWER OF PETITIONING w petitioning.history.ac.uk The website of this project transcribing petitions from c1550–1800 includes guides, a bibliography, links to collections, and short articles looking at notable examples.…

BOOKS Education and the Scottish People, 1750–1918 RD Anderson Oxford University Press, 1995 It’s worth tracking down this very useful book. Scottish Education in the Twentieth Century Lindsay Paterson Edinburgh University Press, 2003 Paterson’s account is wide-ranging and stimulating. MUSEUM SCOTLAND STREET SCHOOL MUSEUM a Scotland Street, Glasgow, G5 8QB t 0141 287 0500 e museums@glasgowlife. org.uk w tinyurl.com/scot-strt The museum holds artefacts revealing the history of education in Scotland, but is closed for refurbishment. WEBSITES HISTORY OF PROFESSIONAL TRAINING w tinyurl.com/moray-hopt The website of Edinburgh University’s Moray House School of Education and Sport shows how Scottish education and teacher-training have developed. THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL MOVEMENT IN SCOTLAND, 1780›1914 w tinyurl.com/arch-sun-scl Read Callum G Brown’s vital journal article from 1981. EMMA JOLLY is a professional genealogist based in Edinburgh and a…

The Dick Institute in Kilmarnock holds a modest-looking document on display in the South Museum. On closer inspection you’ll find it to be a handwritten inventory dating from 1819, listing items from the sale of a nearby farm. This document is the oldest item within the Johnnie Walker Archive collection, recording the sale of the family’s farm after the death of John Walker’s father. This funded the purchase of a grocery store on Kilmarnock’s High Street, which would eventually spawn the world-famous whisky manufacturer Johnnie Walker. Another archival highlight on display is a stock inventory from 1825 listing exotic teas and Jamaican spices, in addition to whisky. The county was the focal point for battles in the Wars of Independence The Johnnie Walker exhibition is currently sitting alongside the institute’s…

BRACKENRIDGE This name means fields with ridges and ferns. DICKIE This surname is widespread across Scotland, especially Ayrshire, Lanarkshire and Aberdeen. DUNLOP You can learn more about the origins of Dunlops, Dunlaps and other variants at clandunlop.com. FULTON This locational name is related to Fullerton near Ayr and Foulertoun near Forfar. HOWIE This surname is thought to have its roots in a medieval estate in Ayrshire. MAIR Loudoun, Ayrshire, and Rathven, Banffshire, had the most Mairs in the late 19th century. SLOAN This is a diminutive of the personal name Sluaghadh, meaning ‘raider’. TEMPLETON This name originated in Kilmarnock, home of the highest number of Templetons in 1891. WILSON In 1881 Ayrshire had nearly 4,000 Wilsons. WYLLIE This an ancient surname associated with the Borderlands between England and Scotland.…

His ire falls upon unaccompanied women who are drinking in pubs From the 1830s onwards, the temperance movement became increasingly popular in Britain. Concerned about the destructive social impact of drunkenness among the working classes, temperance activists sought to promote teetotalism and campaigned against the sale of alcohol. In 1875, Bradford house painter, Methodist lay preacher and temperance activist James Scurrah visited dram shops, licensed houses and beer shops on Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights, and reported on what he saw. His reports are held by West Yorkshire Archive Service, Bradford. Archive assistant Richard Brass tells us more. CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE TEMPERANCE REPORTS? James Scurrah made crude tables that note the sign of the pub that he’s coming into and the approximate time. He notes the numbers of males…

PODCAST THE FAMILY HISTORIES PODCAST familyhistoriespodcast.com Free In this series, which began in June 2021, Andrew Martin interviews fellow genealogists about their trees. Each guest (including Nathan Dylan Goodwin, the author of the book featured in this month’s ‘Reader Review’) shares an ancestor who they find interesting, as well as a brick wall that they want to break down – and listeners can get in touch and help them out. WEBSITE PALAEOGRAPHY: READING OLD HANDWRITING 1500–1800 nationalarchives.gov.uk/ palaeography Free Have you ever got stuck trying to decipher an old document? This tutorial from The National Archives at Kew could help you break through, with top tips on understanding old handwriting and 10 sample documents to practise on. You can find more advice in our February issue, which goes on sale…

JAMAICAN RECORDS The website FamilySearch (familysearch. org) contains billions of genealogical records from around the world, all of them free to access – you just need to create an account. Its collection of civil records of births, marriages and deaths in Jamaica reaches back to 1880 and can be searched at tinyurl.com/fs-jamaica-civil. Alex’s grandfather John Scott was born on 22 August 1911 in Port Antonio, and you can see the record for yourself here: tinyurl. com/fs-john-scott-1911. SLAVE REGISTERS Alex’s journey culminated in learning more about her 4x great grandfather, Robert Francis Coombs. He was a freeman of colour but also owned slaves. We found a list of the slaves he owned in Ancestry’s collection ‘Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1813–1834’ at ancestry.co.uk/search/ collections/1129 . The collection can be searched…