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

By the time you will be reading this magazine (hopefully somewhere nice and comfy with a hot cup of tea), the 1921 census for England and Wales will be online. On page 28 we provide background to the census, but we couldn’t give any previews because even we weren’t allowed a sneaky peek before we went to press. Please do share your discoveries with us – we would love to hear what you find out about your 1920s family. This month also sees the launch of our sixth annual Transcription Tuesday event with some fascinating projects lined up (page 24). And to help you decipher some of those tricky words we have asked experienced palaeographer Judith Batchelor to share her tips on page 16. We will also be adding extra…

A new online map from the Wiener Holocaust Library in London provides access to documents and photographs telling the personal stories of refugees from Nazism. The Refugee Map (www.refugeemap.org ),created with the help of funding from Arts Council England and designed by Humap, enables researchers to explore the library’s collection of family papers on a world map, tracing their journeys across Europe and to Asia, Africa and North America. The initial launch of the map includes 100 collections from 700 family papers of refugees who came to Britain before, during and after the Second World War, with more due to be added. There are approximately 1,200 items, including handwritten diaries, photograph albums, identity and emigration papers, Red Cross telegrams, and 200 audiovisual interview clips. Lord Alf Dubs, a politician and…

New British Red Cross museum opens its doors The British Red Cross has opened a new museum at its headquarters in London. The museum features a range of items dating back to when the charity was founded in 1870, including a quilt sewn by British women interned by the Japanese in 1942, and a patient-feeding cup belonging to Queen Victoria’s daughter Helena, Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. Learn more at bit.ly/red-cross-museum and email museum@redcross.org.uk to book a visit to the museum or request a tour. Digital heritage projects share awards worth £1m The National Lottery Heritage Fund has awarded £1 million to 17 digital volunteering projects. The projects include Museum and Heritage Access 2022, which will train 30–50 volunteers from deaf, disabled and neurodivergent communities to ensure heritage websites are digitally…

Emma Markiewicz has been named the new director of the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA). She is currently head of archives sector development at The National Archives in Kew (TNA), where she leads TNA’s ‘Archives Unlocked’ development strategies. Her previous roles at TNA include head of collections and engagement, and head of programmes. Charlotte Scott and Tim Harris will remain the acting directors of LMA until Markiewicz starts her new role on 14 February.…

Letters concerning the writer’s death and burial have been acquired by Dorset History Centre (bit.ly/ dorset-hardy ) 1,762,288 The number of records from the New Jersey Geographic Birth Index for 1901–1929 that are free online thanks to Reclaim the Records (bit.ly/ arch-njgbi ) 380 The number of towns in England and Wales where detailed plans from the 19th century are free online (bit.ly/ maps-nls-os ) 2,695,074 The number of parish records from Wiltshire (1518–1990) added to family search.org 69% The proportion of users who accessed archive services remotely between 19 April and 25 July 2021 who were doing so for the first time, according to the Archives & Records Association…

Many documents written in the past will appear incomprehensible to readers today. The unfamiliar style of the handwriting, the idiosyncratic spelling and punctuation, and the heavy use of abbreviations can make them daunting to interpret. Faded ink and worn, damaged paper may also affect their legibility. Yet palaeography – the study of old handwriting – can be mastered, with practice and perseverance. It is an important skill for family historians to develop, because these name-rich old documents often contain information that will assist you greatly in your research, particularly when exploring earlier records. As your reading proficiency increases, you will find that words begin to magically form from the seeming jumble of letters in front of your eyes. THE RIGHT HAND FOR THE JOB Legal Courts hand and , also…

1 QUICK SCAN Make a quick scan of the document to get a general sense of its meaning, then number the lines you are transcribing and keep to those lines in your transcription. Also add a title that describes its content. 2 BE FAITHFUL Try not to change the punctuation and spelling, although if you wish to add letters to aid comprehension, underline them so it is clear which letters appear only in the original document. 3 ABBREVIATIONS If a word has been abbreviated, then put any letters you add in square brackets. 4 ILLEGIBLE LETTERS If you come across illegible text, use {…} with the number of dots equalling the number of illegible characters. 5 MAKE A COMPARISON If you are having difficulty making out a letter, look for…

1 Garrett. In the name of god amen the seaven and twentiye 2 daie of the monthe of March. And in the ye[a]r of o[u]r Lorde god 3 One thowsande fyve hundred fower score fyve. I Edith Garratt 4 of the p[ar]ishe of Yatesburye beinge of perfitt mynde and whole 5 memorye doe make and ordayne my last will and testamente in 6 mann[er] and forme followinge. First I comende my Sowle vnto 7 Almightie God, and my bode to be buryed in the church yarde 8 of Yatesburie. Imprimis I geve and bequeathe vnto my sonne 9 Willi[am] fourtie shillings. It[e]m I geve and bequeathe vnto my 10 Sonne Joh[ann]is ffourtie shillings It[e]m all the residue of my goods 11 vnbequeathed I geve and bequeathe unto my daughter Edith…

The 1921 census was the most comprehensive record made of the population of the UK at that time. Its administrators felt that a new start was needed after the cataclysmic changes of the First World War and the pandemic dubbed the ‘Spanish Flu’. The first words of the report note that “there are but few questions today upon which guidance can be sought of the last Census across the great gulf of War which lies between”. The census got off to a bumpy start. Schedules were printed and distributed for the planned date of 24 April, but industrial upheaval intervened. The Miners’ Federation planned to strike in protest at a reduction in pay, and hoped to be joined by their allies among railwaymen and transport workers in the so-called Triple…

FREE ACCESS ON SITE MANCHESTER CENTRAL LIBRARY  a St Peter’s Square, Manchester M2 5PD t 0161 234 1983 w bit.ly/manc-central-lib NATIONAL LIBRARY OF WALES a Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3BU t 01970 632800 w library.wales THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES a Kew, Richmond TW9 4DU t 020 8876 3444 w nationalarchives.gov.uk ONLINE FINDMYPAST w findmypast.co.uk Searching is free. A transcript of a record costs £2.50; an image costs £3.50. ‘Pro’ subscribers receive a 10 per cent discount.…

The sun shines down on the neat avenues in Alicante’s municipal cemetery, which are lined with gravestones and vaults holding the remains of the town’s dead. It’s a peaceful spot away from the hubbub of this popular tourist resort. But for the past 82 years, it has been hiding a dreadful secret. Last year, work began to exhume a mass grave found here dating from the Spanish Civil War that is thought to contain the remains of more than 400 people. In fact, it’s estimated that Spain has more than 2,380 such graves dating from the years of General Franco’s Fascist dictatorship. As many as 135,000 men, woman and children were killed, including Republican soldiers, Communists, trade unionists, intellectuals and their families. As the bodies are recovered and as many…

How do I trace my Brandon ancestors? QI am looking for details of my maternal great grandparents, Francis Brandon and Mary Ann Brandon (née Clarke). My grandmother, Marie Ladysmith Brandon, was born on 27 January 1900 in St Saviour, Southwark. She married Walter Manfred Carter on 28 May 1922, and her father is shown on the marriage certificate as deceased. Marie had six siblings: William, George, Fanny, Maud, Frank and Florence. I have managed to find the family in the 1881 and 1891 censuses, but not in 1901. Phil Muskett AI can help with Mary Ann Brandon’s parents. FamilySearch (familysearch. org) has a transcript of the 1891 census for the family. I used the piece and folio numbers to find the relevant image on Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk). “Essex, Loughton” is the…

Q My 4x great grandmother is listed as Christian Philips when she married William Annear in 1801 in Redruth, Cornwall. Later, they moved to St Austell where he became a mine agent, or ‘Captain’. He died in 1827. The death of “Mrs Annear, relict of the late Capt W Annear, aged 58 years” was announced in the Royal Cornwall Gazette in June 1837. I found a Catherine Annear buried around this date, but not a Christian. Were the names interchangeable? Ruth Pauli A Variations in Christian names can be confusing, especially in the west of Cornwall where English had only recently taken over from Cornish – one of my Cornish ancestors was known variously as Jennifer or Jane. I would not be surprised if Catherine was interchangeable with Christian. In…

If your photos are published in the magazine, you will receive Vivid-Pix Restore Image Improvement Software worth $49.99. To see how Vivid-Pix Restore can transform your photos and documents, visit vivid-pix.com for a free trial. Email our photos to our art editor at robbie.bennie@immediate.co.uk, using the subject line 'Family Album'. We need between eight and ten good-quality, high-resolution images. Each image should be accompanied by a caption of between 20 and 40 words.…

BOOK Land and Window Tax Assessments, 2nd Edn Jeremy Gibson, Mervyn Medlycott and Dennis Mills Federation of Family History Societies, 2004 Although currently out of print, this booklet remains the definitive guide to what documents are where. WEBSITES England Land Taxes w tinyurl.com/ fs-wikiland-tax This useful entry on the FamilySearch wiki outlines the history of the land tax and explains its limitations. The Land Tax 1692–1963 w tinyurl.com/tna-land-tax This useful PDF guide written by Mark Pearsall summarises The National Archives’ holdings.…

This page from the 27 December 1927 edition of the Manchester Evening News has been digitised and is available at Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk). It is also available at the British Newspaper Archive (britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) 1 GOLDEN WEDDINGS Significant wedding anniversaries were celebrated more publicly from the 1920s onwards. This page also includes a “Roll of Honour, Births, Marriages, and Deaths”. 2 PHOTOS You may come across photographs of your ancestors in early 20th-century papers. 3 HARD FACTS The notice about the Shawcrosses includes the date and address of the church in which they married, their home address, their occupations, his employer’s name, his length of service, and his date of retirement. 4 HIDDEN LINK The Shawcross and Hardcastle husbands worked in the same occupation and business, and married at roughly the same…

BOOKS Historical Research Using British Newspapers Denise Bates Pen and Sword, 2016 Find out the pros and cons of using newspapers to research historical events. Local Newspapers 1750–1920, 3rd Edition Jeremy Gibson, Brett Langston and Brenda W Smith The Family History Partnership, 2011 This guide describes by area what titles were published and when in England and Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Read All About It! Kevin Williams Routledge, 2009 Williams’ history of British newspapers reveals how their form, style, content and relationship with the Government have changed since their inception. LIBRARY BRITISH LIBRARY a Boston Spa, Wetherby, West Yorkshire LS23 7BQ t 0330 333 1144 w bl.uk/visit/reading-rooms/ boston-spa This is the physical home of the national newspaper collection. Historic papers can be read here, and…

Merseyside, officially brought into being in 1974, encompasses the metropolitan area centred on the banks of the Mersey Estuary. Alongside the city of Liverpool, this includes the boroughs of Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral, and takes bites out of historic Lancashire and Cheshire. A new website, thearchivegroup. org, will help you quickly get to grips with the wealth of archives and specialist repositories in the region. It details not only the main county and borough collections, but also the likes of the Unilever Archives (unileverarchives.com), and the collections held by the Archives Centre at the Maritime Museum (liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ archives-centre). The latter encompass a collection of merchant-shipping records that document Liverpool’s history as a slave-trading port – including merchants’ papers, correspondence with ship captains and Caribbean agents, sales accounts, and…

CAMIDGE This derives from the French village of Gamaches. DAWBER This is an occupational surname relating to builders using wattle and daub: a woven lattice of wooden strips daubed with sticky material. FORWOOD There are concentrations of this name found in both Lancashire and Kent. KEHOE This is a variant of the Irish surname Keogh, from Mac Eochaidh meaning ‘son of Eochaidh’. MELLING This is found frequently in Preston and Wigan. MOLYNEUX In the 1881 census Knowsley, Wigan and Toxteth Park were all Molyneux hotspots. NICKSON This relationship name comes from the Middle English personal name Nikke. RIMMER In 1881 many Rimmers were recorded in Birkdale, Everton, Formby, Liverpool and North Meols. SHARPLES This name derives from Sharples Hall near Bolton. TYRER This was an Anglo-Saxon nickname for someone who…

For centuries, higher education in England and Wales was only available at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and restricted to young men from wealthy backgrounds. More universities were founded in the 1400s and 1500s, and from the 19th century there were greater opportunities for working- and middle-class students of both sexes. De Montfort University began as the Leicester School of Art in 1870. Katharine Short, the university library’s Special Collections manager, explains how a register from the opening of the school sheds light on student life. CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE STUDENT REGISTER? The register was started in March 1870 when classes first began at the Leicester School of Art, and contains entries until 1901. It looks quite unassuming: a ledger of a standard size bound in blue cloth-board with…

THE 1851 CENSUS Joe found Robert Wilkinson in the 1851 census of England and Wales living with his grandparents in the place of his birth, St Ives in Cambridgeshire. Although he was only 10 years old we know that he had already started work because he is listed as a chimney sweep. Census returns are available on all of the major genealogical websites; the exception is the newly released 1921 census of England and Wales, which is exclusive to Findmypast (see page 28). We found Robert’s return on TheGenealogist (thegenealogist.co. uk), and subscribers to the website can view the record here: tinyurl.com/the genealogist-1851-wilkinson . ROYAL MARINES SERVICE RECORD By 1861 Robert was in the Royal Marines. He served from 1858 to 1871, which included going to China to fight in…

An array of roses, stocks, verbena and sweet Williams filled the air with scent at Hokitika horticultural show in 1895. This town on New Zealand’s South Island was home to many European settlers, who must have relished such joyful occasions. Star of the show was Annie Clery, awarded trophies for her roses and first prizes for outdoor cut blooms and hand bouquets. This bucolic scene was all a far cry from the challenging and precarious life into which Annie had been born. Her great great granddaughter Karen Bowmer has been able to chart her life via old newspaper articles. “Annie was an early Kiwi, born in Whanganui on the North Island in 1846,” Karen explains. “Her British parents, John and Martha Handley, had emigrated in 1841. They already had four…

JUDITH BATCHELOR Judith is a professional genealogist and teacher in the art of reading old handwriting. See her tips on how to master this skill on page 16, and visit her blog at genealogyjude.com. JAD ADAMS The historian and author has written extensively about the census for previous issues of the magazine, and this month Jad turns his attention to 1921 – see page 28. RUTH A SYMES A regular contributor to our ‘Q&A’ pages, this month Ruth explains how newspapers can transform your family history research. Turn to page 63 for her unmissable advice.…

IN PERSON TREASURES FROM MEDIEVAL CORNWALL Until 22 January a Kresen Kernow, Redruth w tinyurl.com/med-cornwall Admire some of Cornwall’s medieval manuscript treasures, including the Bodmin Gospels and Pascon agan Arluth, the oldest surviving complete text in the Cornish language. Free. PRINCESS CATHERINE Until 26 February a Ancient House Museum, Thetford, Norfolk w tinyurl.com/princess-catherine Marking what would have been the 150th birthday of Princess Catherine Duleep Singh, this exhibition tells the extraordinary story of the daughter of the last maharajah of the Sikh Empire, who grew up in England and became a pioneering suffragist. Museum admission £5.10. LONDON: PORTRAIT OF A CITY Until 6 April a London Metropolitan Archives w cityoflondon.gov.uk/events/ london-portrait-of-a-city-1 This exhibition delves into LMA’s collections to examine representations of the capital by artists and surveyors from the 11th…

A register of memorial boards containing the names of Jewish soldiers who were killed during the First World War has been published online at jewsfww.uk/memorial-boards.php. The register has been created by ‘We Were There Too’, a research project dedicated to the contributions of Britain’s Jewish communities during the war. It currently lists 29 memorial boards in cities including London, Bristol and Blackpool, and details of more boards will be added in the future. The register can be searched by name, with about 1,000 names listed. Where available, the search results link to additional research into the soldier’s life that the project has carried out. Senior project consultant Alan Fell explained that the database was introduced because many of the boards are made of wood and are deteriorating rapidly. He added…

Nearly 400 years of parish registers and probate records from Hampshire will be digitised on Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk), thanks to an agreement between the family history website and Hampshire County Council. The Hampshire Archives and Local Studies team will work alongside Ancestry to digitise the baptism, marriage and burial records for Hampshire parishes in the Winchester Diocese dating from 1536–1921. The records include events in the lives of famous figures, such as the baptism of Jane Austen. The agreement also covers probate records of the church courts of the Winchester Diocese for 1500–1858. Transcriptions of the records are already available on the free site FamilySearch (familysearch. org), although the images are only available at Family History Centers and Affiliate Libraries. The first tranche of records are scheduled to be released at…

A person’s individual style of penmanship is their handwriting. In an age of mass illiteracy, handwriting was an art and a mark of one’s education. Students would use copybooks to practise their letters. Most documents that we see today were written with a quill pen, usually made from the wing feathers of geese or sometimes from swans or other large birds. The left wing was preferred because it was curved in the appropriate direction for right-hand use. When writing with a quill, downstrokes would usually be heavier, due to the pen scratching against the surface, while the upward strokes were lighter. To get a fine point, the end of the quill had to be regularly trimmed and sharpened with a small penknife. It wasn’t until the 1830s that a pen…

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY w english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc The university offers free online instruction in English handwriting, 1500–1700, which includes some 30 transcription exercises, graded by level of difficulty. EXETER UNIVERSITY w tinyurl.com/exeter-depo View 80 digitised and fully transcribed depositions relating to 20 cases that were heard in the church courts and quarter sessions between 1556 and 1694 across the counties of Devon, Hampshire, Somerset and Wiltshire. NATIONAL RECORDS OF SCOTLAND w scottishhandwriting.com This online tutorial based on Scottish documents includes many examples and transcriptions, plus there is a weekly poser for fun to help you to improve your palaeography skills. THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES w nationalarchives.gov.uk/ palaeography The website of The National Archives at Kew has a practical online tutorial on reading old handwriting , 1500–1800. There is also a useful introduction to reading…

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was born on 1 April 1875 at 7 Ashburnham Grove, Greenwich, the illegitimate son of two actors. Fostered by a fish porter’s family in Billingsgate, he left school at 12 to sell newspapers on a corner of Fleet Street. In 1894, Wallace joined the Army, and it was on service in South Africa that he started writing, contributing articles to the local press. He reported on the Second Boer War (1899–1902) and, leaving the Army, became the Daily Mail’s correspondent; on his return to England he worked for that newspaper as a reporter. Wallace’s first novel, Four Just Men (1905), marked the start of a prolific writing career. He penned adventures, science fiction and romance, but was best known for his thrillers. In total he wrote…

DOCUMENTATION CENTRE OF HISTORICAL MEMORY w politicasdelamemoria.org/en The Documentation Centre of Historical Memory in Salamanca is a rich source of material relating to the civil war, including about the mass graves. Visit in person or contact archivists via the English-language website for information. There may be a small fee for research services. FACEBOOK w facebook.com Facebook has plenty of member groups for family historians, including our own facebook. com/groups/wdytyareadergroup. A member of a group focusing on Alicante took a photograph of Leila’s great grandfather’s place of burial for her. FAMILYSEARCH w familysearch.org The vast free site has Spanish parish records going back centuries. You can even see scans of record books from the church. The entries include the date and time of birth, parents’ and grandparents’ names, and marriage details…

QI live in the Netherlands. Last year my grandfather passed away at the age of 103, and left us a lot of old pictures, including this one. Could you help me to date it? The photographer is Adolf Héron, who had shops in Rotterdam, France and Belgium. Nathalie Schouten A Portrait photography advanced along similar lines throughout the developed world. Relatively few households owned personal cameras until at least the start of the First World War; therefore most family pictures originating in the 1800s and early 1900s are professional studio portraits, the work of commercial photographers across the globe. Many are card-mounted prints like this example, which apparently represents a universally recognised format: a carte de visite (CDV) or larger cabinet portrait. The cream colour of the card and font…

Q My partner did a DNA test through Ancestry (ancestry. co.uk/dna), and we uploaded the results onto the MyHeritage site (myheritage.com). The closest three matches had the surname Chaplin. Two were Charlie Chaplin’s children and the other his granddaughter. The strongest match was 6.8 per cent. In his autobiography Charlie states that he had a half-brother, from a relationship between his father and a lady called Louise. He also states that Louise was admitted to a workhouse and died shortly after his father (in 1901); the boy, we understand, was also placed in a workhouse. Having looked at all of the alternatives, we believe that this boy might be my partner’s grandfather, and had an affair with her grandmother. Can you help us to identify him? Tom Winter ACharlie Chaplin’s…

The Anglo Boer War website (angloboerwar.com) was created in 2004 by Dr David Biggins, a prolific author on the conflict, and his late brother Chris. The aim of the free-to-use site is to make available information on the Second Boer War (1899–1902) and other conflicts in South Africa between 1779 and 1906, and to provide a forum for discussion about the many aspects of these conflicts. The website contains large amounts of data, medal records, books, articles and discussion pages, with contributions from experts in various fields of study. I am one of the contributors, but the site is also my first stop when I am conducting research into regimental histories of the battalions (Regular, Militia, Volunteer and Colonial) that took part in the Second Boer War. The website features…

To give your research the once-over, you can’t do much better than the fabulous, free Family Tree Analyzer (ftanalyzer.com), available for Windows and Mac via their respective app stores (search for ‘FTAnalyzer’). The last time we examined the program, back in issue 139 (June 2018), we focused on its tools for finding war veterans and missing census records. This time we’re going to examine its tools for helping you spot both potential errors and gaps in your research. Note: the Mac format is a cut-down version of its Windows equivalent, but supports many of the tools covered here. FTAnalyzer works with the universal GEDCOM format, so to start you’ll need to convert your research file from your current program. Look for an ‘Export’ option – under the ‘File’ menu in…

Before the technology was invented to include photographs in newspapers, editors relied on drawings produced from wood engravings. One of the most prolific newspaper artists was John Gilbert, born in Blackheath, Surrey, in 1817. Gilbert’s first job as an estate agent did not suit him at all. He spent every spare minute drawing and painting in watercolours and oils, chiefly copying prints from books. His skills were such that by 1836 he was exhibiting at the Society of British Artists, followed by the Royal Academy a couple of years later. Gilbert subsequently developed a talent for wood engraving which resulted in commissions from Punch , but he produced far more illustrations for the press after newsagent and printer Herbert Ingram commissioned woodcut images on the subject of a royal masquerade…

During the First World War, at least 2.4 million prisoners of war were captured by German forces. Many carried out hard labour in camps where disease was rife and food was scarce. Maxine Foley Speakman discovered that one of her relatives had been a POW from 1914 to 1918. She also found touching newspaper reports from the time, which tell of the love he received from family and friends. MY BRICK WALL My story begins in Warrington, which was a hub of the textile industry during the 19th century. In 1869, my great great grandmother Elizabeth Ellen Taylor was born there; she became a handweaver. Her sister, Jane, married a man called William Bolton; this introduced a side of the family about which I knew nothing. I began tracing the…

1715 The first commercial wet dock in the world, built by civil engineer Thomas Steers, opens in Liverpool. It closes in 1826. 1824 William Laird opens a boiler works on Wallasey Pool. The firm’s shipyards later move to the Mersey shore, and in 1903 amalgamate with Cammell. 1829 George Stephenson’s Rocket wins a competition at Rainhill to test locomotives for the nearly completed Liverpool and Manchester Railway. 1845 The White Star Line is founded in Liverpool by partners John Pilkington and Henry Wilson. 1847 Morpeth and Egerton Dock in Birkenhead opens three years after the foundation stone is laid. 1893 An amateur football match is played between the teams of Liverpool and Everton. The first recognised Merseyside Derby takes place the following year. 1940 John Lennon is born at Liverpool…

BOY SOLDIERS OF THE GREAT WAR THE FULLY REVISED FINAL EDITION Although boy soldiers had served in the British Army long before 1914, the wave of patriotic fervour that swept Britain at the outbreak of the First World War saw many thousands of underage boys enlist to fight for their country. By the time the war ended, as many as 400,000 may have served during the conflict, according to historian Richard van Emden. Many boys lied about their age upon joining the Army. Not all joined up for patriotic reasons. Some looked to escape the grim existence of their lives at home. Others longed for adventure that they simply could never experience in civilian life. Most probably enlisted for a mix of reasons. Some were even assisted by their own…

POLISH RESEARCH My father was a Polish Second World War veteran who never said a word about the war to me. After his death, I was astonished to discover that he had received Poland’s highest military decoration for heroism – the Virtuti Militari. This chance discovery came about when I ran a Google search on my last name – Rupniak – and found a website naming my father as a war hero. I contacted the curator of the website to ask how I could verify that the entry in his database was my father. He advised me to request my dad’s military service records from the Ministry of Defence, and to write to the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London to ask whether they had any records about his…

The history project ‘People’s Voices in a People’s War: Aberystwyth 1939–1945’ (aberystwythatwarww2.blogspot. com) is looking for stories about the Second World War from the Aberystwyth area. The project began in May 2020 and is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and hosted at the Department of History and Welsh History at Aberystwyth University. It aims to research and collect people’s experiences and retell them through exhibitions, presentations, drama and music. Copies of family photographs, letters, mementos and memories will be preserved in the project archives, featured on its blog, and captured as oral history. If you can help, email Dr Sian Nicholas on shn@aber.ac.uk .…

The National Archives in Kew has created a free online collection of 40 key documents from the life of Elizabeth I. The documents have all been digitised and are accompanied by transcripts and audio recordings. They are available at nationalarchives.gov. uk/education/resources/elizabeth-monarchy/. They include letters Elizabeth wrote to and received from her stepmother the Dowager Queen Katherine, her cousin Mary Queen of Scots and her favourite Robert Dudley; copies of her speeches; a translation she made of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae (The Consolations of Philosophy); and a photograph of her Great Seal. The documents also include references to the wider culture, including a 1597 certificate for outstanding taxes in London that is one of the few written records of William Shakespeare.…

Hints – those ‘helpful’ messages telling us of potentially interesting links with the people in our online family trees. Where would we be without them? The answer is probably, for most of us, more or less where we were already. In a typical week I receive four or five emails from subscription-access genealogical sites, excitedly reporting that they have found information that might be helpful to me in my research. However, when I glance at what’s on offer, I am invariably disappointed. There’s the American subscription site for digitised newspapers. I signed up for a brief period when I was researching local papers in Wyoming and Los Angeles in the early 20th century; it was invaluable, proving much about a close relative and enabling me to contact an adoptive second…

Parchment, a very durable writing material, was used for most legal documents. It was made from sheepskin or goatskin that was scraped and dried on a frame after the wool was removed. It was an expensive material because it was a laborious process to dehair the skin, whiten it and smooth it with pumice stone. As a result handwriting tended to be small to save space, with words crammed on the page and many abbreviations used. There was always the possibility of holes in the parchment due to the stretching process, or because of the bites of warble flies. Scribes would therefore write to the edge of the hole and then continue onto the other side, although in time it became more usual to patch the parchment. The highest-quality material,…

ASCENDER The part of a letter that rises above the main line. CONTRACTION A type of abbreviation used when letters are missing from the middle of the word. DESCENDER The part of a letter that drops as a tail beneath the main line. MINIM A vertical stroke in letters such as m, n, u and i. SUSPENSION A type of abbreviation used when letters are missing from the end of the word. TILDE A horizontal straight or wavy line above a word used to indicate that it has been abbreviated.…

Here at Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine we can barely believe that this is our sixth Transcription Tuesday. We launched our annual volunteer event in 2017, and every year since then we’ve been amazed by the dedication and generosity of our readers. People from all over the world give up their time to transcribe historic records for nonprofit projects. Together, we’ve reached some remarkable accomplishments – for example, in 2021 our volunteers transcribed over 100,000 records in a single day. In 2021 our volunteers transcribed over 100,000 records in a single day The concept behind transcription is simple. Important historic records are scanned and published online. Volunteers then type up the text that they see in the images, creating searchable records that will make them easier to access…

At the time of the census in Britain in 1921, Ireland was in tumult. In January 1919, the Dublin parliament established by pro-independence party Sinn Féin had declared Irish independence and the establishment of the Irish Republic. The Irish War of Independence that followed pitted republican forces against the British Army and loyalist supporters. A ceasefire began in July 1921, and British rule in Ireland ended in December. After a transitional period, the Irish Free State was created in 1922 as a dominion within the British Empire, and a loyalist-majority six-county area in the north-east was partitioned to create Northern Ireland, which remained part of the UK. The conflict that made taking the 1921 census in Ireland impracticable was followed by the Irish Civil War of 1922–1923 – between nationalists…

1 CHROMOSOME MAPPING Here you can assign DNA segments to ancestors and generate a map to help you understand how autosomal DNA is inherited. 2 GENETIC ANCESTORS This colourful chart allows you to mark the genetic ancestors on your family tree that you have verified through DNA matches. 3 SHARED CM PROJECT See at a glance the ranges for relationships. Click through to view histograms showing the underlying data from the Shared cM Project. 4 SHARED CM TOOL Enter the amount of DNA shared to see a table showing the possible relationships and the probabilities for each relationship. 5 TREE COMPLETENESS See how complete your tree is and how much work still needs to be done. View the results as a table, a fan chart or a pedigree chart. 6…

High flyer My mother, Margery, with her brother, Henry, who trained as a fighter pilot towards the end of the Second World War. Blossoming family This photograph of the Ellis family was taken in their garden in Beeston, Leeds, in 1901. My maternal grandmother, Lillie, is at the back, behind her parents and six younger siblings. DNA discovery I thought that Robert Pigg (front row, second from left) was my biological grandfather until I had a DNA test. The only thing I know about my real biological grandfather is his Cornish ancestry. Mum’s military service Mum joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) during the Second World War. In this photograph of a Bomber Command squadron she is standing seventh from the left in the second row from the front.…

BRITISH CONCENTRATION CAMPS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR w www2.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd Search a database relating to British concentration camps of the Second Boer War. BRITISH MEDALS FORUM w britishmedalforum.com Visit this forum if you’re having difficulty identifying a medal, clasp or other piece of militaria. Registration is required but free. IRREGULAR CORRESPONDENCE w sites.google.com/site/laurieletters/home This site collects some 276 letters from the Crimea, India, Hong Kong and Nova Scotia between 1855 and 1865. LIVES OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE w chargeofthelightbrigade.com Explore details of men who fought with the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. REGISTER OF THE SECOND ANGLO-BOER WAR 1899›1902 w casus-belli.co.uk This pay-per-view database lists more than 370,000 people involved in the conflict. SECOND ANGLO-AFGHAN WAR w garenewing.co.uk/angloafghanwar This site focuses on the conflict fought between 1878 and 1880.…

You may be only a few keystrokes away from finding out much more about the events, incidents and background of your ancestor’s life. That’s because one of the easiest ways of enriching your knowledge about your family in the past is by looking at accounts in newspapers. And, today, there are many online sources that give you the opportunity to access some of these papers quickly and cheaply (and sometimes even for free) from the comfort of your own home. References in newspapers to individual forebears might include announcements of births, marriages or deaths as well as obituaries. More excitingly, he or she might have been hailed a local hero for some reason or another, fined for a misdemeanour, imprisoned for a crime, or injured in an accident. A relative’s…

STEP ONE Visit findmypast.co.uk and select ‘Search’ and ‘Newspapers and periodicals’. Type your ancestor’s first name and surname into the search box(es). You will probably see a large number of results – in this case 17. STEP TWO Reduce the number of results by choosing one or more of the available filters, eg type of article, region, place, the name of the newspaper, access (free to view, or paid for), and – as here – date range. STEP THREE Reading through the brief details of each result should allow you to identify those that are most likely to refer to your relation. Click to read the full article (you may need to subscribe/pay for access).…

1 FORCES WAR RECORDS w forces-war-records.co.uk/ wwiprisoners-of-war-in-germany Search for your military ancestor in a database of POWs held in Germany and Turkey during the First World War. 2 IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM w iwm.org.uk/history/ voices-of-the-first-world-war-prisoners-of-war Read first-hand accounts from British prisoners of exhaustion, dreadful cold and starvation rations. 3 FINDMYPAST POW COLLECTION w search.findmypast.co.uk/ search-world-records/prisoners-ofwar-1715-1945 This expansive collection was compiled in association with The National Archives.…

ARTICLE Charity Scandals as a Catalyst of Legal Change and Literary Imagination in Nineteenth Century England w core.ac.uk/download/ pdf/46714475.pdf This paper examines in detail examples of mismanagement in almshouse charities and how these were portrayed in fiction. BOOKS Almshouses: A Social and Architectural History Brian Howson The History Press, 2008 This detailed exploration of the history of almshouses from medieval to Victorian times is illustrated throughout with photographs and architectural plans, and lists notable almshouses across the UK. The British Almshouse: New Perspectives on Philanthropy ca 1400–1914 Nigel Goose, Helen Caffrey and Anne Langley (editors) FACHRS Publications, 2016 This book explores various aspects of life in almshouses including the community, benefits, clothing and gardens. MUSEUM MUSEUM OF THE HOME a 136 Kingsland Road, London E2 8EA t 020 7739 9893…

BMDS w lancashirebmd.org.uk Search indexes to civil records of births, marriages and deaths in Lancashire. BURIALS w stjamescemetery.co.uk Search an incomplete database of burials in St James’ Cemetery, Liverpool – 57,839 people were buried here. PARISH REGISTERS w lan-opc.org.uk View transcriptions of parish registers from across the historic county of Lancashire, as well as details of where the originals are held. WAR MEMORIALS w seftonwarmemorials. org Search names recorded on 11 war memorials across the borough. DIRECTORIES w tinyurl.com/lancs-direct The University of Leicester’s site Special Collections Online includes directories for Cheshire and Lancashire, as well as city volumes for Liverpool.…

PODCAST POOR LAW, SETTLEMENT RECORDS AND WORKHOUSES AGRA Free Join our editor Sarah Williams as she talks to experts from the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives about the records left behind by our poor relations and what they can tell you. Out from 6 February, this is the last in a series of six podcasts covering a range of topics chaired by guest hosts. WATCH GENEALOGY TV  youtube.com/c/GenealogyTV/ featured Free Connie Knox presents this YouTube channel featuring a range of guides in themed playlists exploring different aspects of family history research and genealogy news. Although quite US-focused, it does look at widely used family history resources and techniques including Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk), FamilySearch (familysearch. org) and DNA testing. WEBSITE NEWPORT 360  newport360.co.uk Free Launched by the Newport High Street…

Many of us don’t now watch TV ‘live’. Instead, we bingewatch favourite series or catch up with much-loved programmes at a convenient time. Reflecting this, we plan to highlight a genealogy-related series every issue going forward, and where else could we begin than with Who Do You Think You Are?. There’s an enormous archive of episodes to explore on BBC iPlayer, an archive that ran to 53 episodes as we went to press. The earliest of these dates from series 12 (2015), when Paul Hollywood, Gareth Malone, Anne Reid, Derek Jacobi and Anita Rani were among the celebrities tracing their family histories.…