Innholdsfortegnelse for Apr-22 i Who Do You Think You Are?

Except for some tricky Smiths, I’m fortunate because I’ve managed to get all of my main family lines back to the 1700s (and I’m determined to crack them eventually!). But it’s in that century that most of my research grinds to a halt, so it was helpful to read Else Churchill’s guide to the main records out there for tracing 18th-century kin (see page 17). I’m also a big fan of A House Through Time, the BBC TV programme that has done for house history what Who Do You Think You Are? did for family history, and I particularly enjoyed the series based in Bristol because that’s my home town. So I was delighted to read on page 27 about the house on Guinea Street and what the consultant to…

IN PERSON (SUBJECT TO CORONAVIRUS RESTRICTIONS) ARRIVING & BELONGING Until 15 May a St Albans Museum + Gallery t 01727 864511 w stalbansmuseums.org.uk/ whats-on/arriving-belonging This exhibition, which is also available online, tells the story of St Albans’ Jewish community through personal objects and family photographs. Free. SORTING BRITAIN: THE POWER OF POSTCODES 30 March – 1 January 2023 a The Postal Museum, London t 0300 030 0700 w postalmuseum.org/event/ sorting-britain Discover the history of postcodes, dating back to the 1850s, with this exhibition. Free with the price of a ticket (£16 online, £17 on the day). Booking required to guarantee entry. ONLINE INSTITUTE OF HERALDIC AND GENEALOGICAL STUDIES Various dates w ihgs.ac.uk/eventlist The institute’s upcoming events include the tutorial ‘Exploring Your Ancestors’ Parish Church and Churchyard’ from Celia Heritage (8…

Family history website Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) has added a new collection of 125,000 digitised portraits from London’s National Portrait Gallery. The portraits date from 1547 to 2018 and include paintings and photographs of famous people such as William Shakespeare, Stephen Hawking and Malala Yousafzai. The collection also includes many portraits of ordinary people. Users of the website may be able to discover a relative among the portraits, whose image they’ll be able to add to their family tree. Simon Pearce, family history expert at Ancestry, commented, “We’re excited to be working with the National Portrait Gallery to provide wider access to some of its captivating and historically rich collection.” Ancestry is also working with the National Portrait Gallery to launch The Nation’s Family Album – a search for undiscovered portraits of…

Over the years, I have read and analysed many hundreds of sets of probate records. The earliest I’ve used date from the later Middle Ages, the most recent from only a couple of decades ago. There have been wills aplenty of course, and also many grants of administration and probate inventories, as well as the less usual types of documentation – tuition bonds, renunciations of executorship, probate accounts and much else. I have always found them of outstanding interest and importance, often very moving and never dull. With wills, especially before the 19th century, we may find unique insights into the hopes and fears, spiritual beliefs and social context of our ancestors. These are probably the only really personal record of the people concerned – the only time in their…

In the 18th century wills and administrations along with other documents such as probate inventories, accounts, curation and tuition bonds were governed by ecclesiastical courts and occasional independent jurisdictions known as peculiars. Church courts reserved the right to grant probate on wills or letters of administrations in return for charging court fees. The Archbishops’ Prerogative Courts of the Provinces of Canterbury (in the south) and York (in the north) stood above the local Bishop’s Consistory and Archdeaconry Courts. However, litigation was rife in the 18th century and wills might be appealed before higher courts, and there may be a case relating to probate in civil courts. Wills were often used as evidence by courts, local deeds registries and institutions such as the abstracts of wills used by the Bank of…

The third series of the award-winning BBC programme A House Through Time aired in 2020 and revealed the history of 10 Guinea Street, Bristol – a three-storey, end-of-terrace Queen Anne-style house built in 1718 by slave trader Edmund Saunders. We showed its fall from housing a single middle-class family with servants into multiple occupation by the 1881 census. My role as the programme’s consultant and on-screen expert is to explore the ways in which the design and material culture of the house changed through time, and how that impacted on the residents. The long-awaited release of the 1921 census of England and Wales in January by Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk) fills the gap between what we discovered about the house from the 1911 census and the 1939 Register. In 1921 most people…

1 ENTER SEARCH TERMS Click the ‘Find an address…’ tab, and enter the street and the town. The wildcard St* will pick up all variations of ‘street’: st, st., str, etc. 2 REVIEW THE SEARCH RESULTS From three results, I clicked a street in Redcliff to view the individual households. There are four households at 10 Guinea Street. 3 VIEW THE TRANSCRIPT The transcript (£2.50) lists every member of the household. Additional information includes a map and a description of the area. 4 VIEW THE IMAGE The image (£3.50) includes a note by the enumerator of the number of people in the house by sex and the total number of rooms. 5 HOVER TO SEE A TRANSCRIPT Hover the cursor over an entry to view a transcript. Click ‘Extra (Address)’…

1 AUTOCLUSTERS AutoClusters automatically sorts matches into shared-match clusters. It’s a good way of doing a preliminary sort of your matches. 2 CHROMOSOME BROWSER This tool provides a visual overview of your matches and reveals which segments of your DNA you share with your genetic cousins. 3 COLOURED LABELS Use the labels to sort your matches into shared-match clusters. You can then try to identify the common ancestors for each cluster. 4 COUNTRY LIST Matches have country flags showing the place where the tester lives. You can filter by country to focus on the most relevant matches. 5 GENETIC GROUPS Genetic groups are clusters of people who share ancestry from the same region. You can filter your matches by genetic group too. 6 THEORY OF FAMILY RELATIVITY MyHeritage uses an…

COFEPOW w cofepow.org.uk If you have a relation who was a POW in the Far East during the Second World War, the research section of COFEPOW’s website includes lists of the men held in the camps, casualty lists, liberation questionnaires and medical records. It’s worth writing to the organisation if you can’t find any relevant records on the website. COMPANY RECORDS w bbprice.co.uk The BB Price archives yielded some fascinating records relating to Jeffrey’s family, and his life before and after his experiences as a POW. DISTANT RELATIONS It’s always worth contacting distant relatives – particularly older ones – who may have snippets of useful information, photos and heirlooms to help you take your research further. They might even have met someone you’re researching before they died. However, remember to…

Q I’m looking for information on William Jones. His son was Thomas Jones, who married Mary Fox Mercer in Manchester on 12 August 1875. Their sons were Frederick William Jones, who died at the Somme in 1916, Harold and Ernest Jones. After Thomas died, aged 37, Mary remarried. Can you tell me if I’m on the right track? Sarah Bednall A You have discovered that your ancestor, Frederick William Jones, was killed in action on the Somme during the First World War. Among many other fascinating details, the website 17th Battalion Manchester Regiment on the Somme located at 17thmanchesters.wordpress. com tells us that Frederick lived in Levenshulme, Manchester (tinyurl. com/WW1FWJones). You have already discovered that Frederick’s father was Thomas Jones (whom you believe to have been born in 1855) and…

Mary-Anne My great grandmother Mary-Anne Byrne (née Esherwood) migrated from Dublin to Birmingham with her husband William. Four-wheeled fun This photo shows my maternal grandfather Gordon Ladkin (centre) rollerskating at Butlin’s in 1948 with some friends and, on the far left, my great uncle, Gordon’s brother Geoffrey. Siblings side by side This photograph of my mother Lesley Elaine Ladkin, aged five years old, with her brother, my late uncle Peter Geoffrey Ladkin, aged two, was taken in Birmingham in 1959. My grandparents Bridget ‘Bridie’ Philomena Byrne (born 1931) and Gordon John Ladkin (born 1927) married in Birmingham in 1953. Alice and John Here are my maternal great grandparents Alice Eliza Howl and John George Ladkin, both born in Birmingham in 1901 and 1900 respectively. John passed away when he was…

School records can be such an enlightening source. Not only can they offer you a record of your ancestor’s education, but also provide a window onto the local community. Many schools existed as parish, Church of England or voluntary schools, and records of nonconformist churches may also contain information about schools. The website of The National Archives at Kew (TNA) forms an excellent starting point for finding out more about this subject. This very concise guide nationalarchives.gov.uk/ help-with-your-research/research-guides/teachers-and-pupils should be used in conjunction with the site’s related guides to education records, education inspectorate and teacher training. The guide has links to some of the most useful online resources, many of which are mentioned elsewhere in this article. And once you have the name of a school, an approximate date range,…

Every family historian knows the importance of getting your facts right. The Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS) requires all the facts and events we record about our ancestors to be backed up in the form of proof, from documentary evidence to personal photographs and other family memorabilia. Traditionally, family history programs place the cart before the horse: record the fact, then attach a source to it. However, source-driven data entry records the details of each source, then uses it to populate facts and events with verifiable information. This approach is embraced in the latest version of Family Historian (family-historian.co.uk; Windows only; £59.95 after a 30-day trial). Version 7 introduces source-driven data-entry tools that not only ensure the information you enter is consistent, but is then automatically used to populate relevant facts…

The annotated marriage register includes an entry for a man named Peter Whelan (entry 11). All that is known about him was that he was in Gibraltar when his son, also Peter, was born in 1865. Most likely a soldier, Peter’s marriage record opened up many doors for further research. He married Maria Costello in the Roman Catholic parish of Sandyford on 14 August 1864, although it was not registered with the civil authorities. The marriage register provided a great deal of information that helped to locate his service record and establish his birthplace. His address when he married was “Curragh, Co. Kildare”; “Curragh” was a British Army camp in County Kildare, the largest in Ireland. His parents were identified as “Jacobus and Maria”, ie James and Mary Whelan, of…

A child born out of wedlock can often create a brick wall when you’re researching your family tree. If no father’s name was given on the baptism record or birth certificate, then you may have to think laterally to tease out his identity. William Mundy has used his intuition, and the wonders of DNA testing, to solve a mystery dating back to the 1840s. This has opened up a whole new branch of his tree, and revealed an astonishing literary connection. MY BRICK WALL Years of researching my genealogy have revealed some interesting surnames. One in particular has fascinated my family for over a century: Sparrowhawk, my great great grandmother’s name. She was Edith Annie Sparrowhawk, but I now know that she wasn’t really a Sparrowhawk at all. Edith Annie…

GITTINS This variant of Gethins and Gittings is found in Montgomeryshire and Shropshire. HAVARD This surname comes from the Old English personal name Hereweard. LLOYD Lloyd is common in Mid- and North-East Wales. MEREDITH This particular surname is derived from the Welsh personal name Meredydd. MORGANS This Celtic surname comes from the Old Welsh personal name Morcant. PROSSER In 1881 this surname was relatively common in Brecknockshire and Monmouth. PRYCE The 1881 census recorded a concentration of Pryces in Montgomeryshire. PUGH This derives from ap Huw (‘son of Hugh’). ROWLANDS This is the Welsh patronymic relating to Roland/ Rowland, meaning son of Rowland. WYNNE This is a nickname from the Welsh word gwyn, meaning ‘fair’ or ‘white’.…

What inspired you to write the book? When I was writing my previous book Legacy, about my mother’s family who ran the catering empire J Lyons, I learnt that before that they owned a tobacco company called Salmon & Gluckstein. The tobacco almost certainly came from plantations in the USA worked by enslaved people. This took me to a wider inquiry about Britain’s role in slavery. I really wanted to find a story that would provide a microcosm of British slavery. That’s what took me to the British colony of Demerara, today Guyana in South America. What made the uprising the perfect topic for you to write about? I was really interested to see if it was possible to tell the story from an enslaved person’s point of view, at…

ELSE CHURCHILL Else is the genealogist at the Society of Genealogists, and leads its education programme. She shares some of her tips for getting through the 1700s on page 17. DEBORAH SUGG RYAN The on-screen expert on A House Through Time is also a professor at the University of Portsmouth. Learn what the 1921 census tells us about our relations’ homes on page 27. NICOLA MORRIS Nicola co-founded the genealogy research company Timeline, and has worked on many episodes of Who Do You Think You Are?. On page 62 she explores Catholic church records.…

Morag Wright, a PhD student at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, is researching the legalities and legacies of South Asian indentured labour in the 19th and 20th centuries, and wants to talk to people with a family history of indentured labour. She is particularly interested in learning how they came to know and be interested in their family history, and what stories have been passed down. All stories will be anonymised, and participants will have the final say on what Wright can and can’t write about, as well as her help with their family history research and contextualisation. To find out more, please email m_wright@soas.ac.uk.…

Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, has announced new partnerships to make its records available on other websites. The 4.8 million names on its Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, as well as the Pages of Testimony, in which members of the public memorialise relations and friends who were murdered during the Holocaust, are now available through the Holocaust Database on Jewish genealogy website JewishGen (jewishgen.org/databases/holocaust). Jack Kliger, the president and CEO of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York, commented, “By making available these precious records via JewishGen, the broader Jewish community can more easily research names of family and friends who were murdered during the Holocaust.” In December, the Pages of Testimony were also added to Jewish Records Indexing – Poland (jri-poland.org).…

Family history websites have begun preparations for the release of the 1950 US census. On 1 April 2022, scans and indexes of the census records will be published online for free by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA; archives.gov). The initial indexes will be created by optical character recognition (OCR), so the NARA is asking volunteers to submit name updates to make sure the indexing is accurate. Commercial family history website Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) will produce its own transcripts in partnership with free family history site FamilySearch (familysearch.org). You can sign up to help review the transcripts on FamilySearch at familysearch.org/en/info/ us-census/1950-census.…

Successfully researching our 18th-century ancestors depends very largely on their status and where they lived. Some are better documented than others. In this era most of our forebears were more likely working-class labourers and probably poor, so we might look for evidence of their migration in Poor Law records. Many men moved for work – for the harvests in other parishes or because they were called up for the militia, the Army or the Navy. Improved transport connections by turnpike and canals helped our ancestors to move, often prompted by economic opportunities in towns. It was certainly a century of change, and in the towns we see directories and newspapers being published for a growing middle class of traders and merchants. The privileges of the established Church, land ownership and…

Founded in lockdown in May 2020, the Twitter account @HouseHistoryHr is run by me and leading house historians Karen Averby, Mel Backe-Hansen, Nick Barratt, Gill Blanchard, Ellen Leslie, Keith Searle and Cathy Soughton. Every Thursday between 7pm and 8pm we take it turns to host, sometimes with a special guest. We use the hashtag #HouseHistoryHour in tweets to discuss, share and pose questions about house history. Each week takes a different theme such as looking at a specific set of records or focusing on a historic house. Our subjects have included Audrey Collins (of The National Archives) on researching houses in newspaper archives and archaeologist James Wright on timber-framed buildings. We also have a regular session on how to get started. You can catch up on the highlights of each…

BOOKS Ideal Homes, 2nd Edn Deborah Sugg Ryan Manchester University Press, 2020 Deborah’s book focuses on the interwar speculative housebuilding boom and contains an introduction to researching house history. Municipal Dreams John Boughton Verso Books, 2019 The author tells the story of council housing. His blog has a wealth of information about 1920s housing: municipaldreams.wordpress.com. The English Terraced House Stefan Muthesius Yale University Press, 1982 A digital edition can be borrowed for free from the Internet Archive: tinyurl.com/arch-muth-eth. WEBSITE CENSUS OF ENGLAND AND WALES 1921: GENERAL REPORT WITH APPENDICES w visionofbritain.org.uk/census/ EW1921GEN/4 This report was published by HMSO in 1927. Part III on buildings, rooms and families is particularly useful.…

ISOGG WIKI w isogg.org/wiki This is an excellent resource from the International Society of Genetic Genealogy. KNOWLEDGE BASE w education.myheritage.com MyHeritage’s Knowledge Base has a wealth of articles about DNA and genealogy. News is posted at blog.myheritage.com. LEGACY FAMILY TREE w familytreewebinars.com Legacy’s webinars include talks about DNA testing from many expert genetic genealogists. Also there are many free webinars exploring MyHeritage’s features, because the firm owns Legacy.…

Q A friend is looking for the orphanage where her mother Margaret and two aunts were taken to in 1938. She thinks it may have been Cliff House in Headingley. The matron and assistant matron are on the 1939 Register, but not the children. Can you help? Daphne Grinberg A The orphanage could well have been the Headingley Orphan Homes. The charity was founded in 1859 and in 1873 moved into premises on Cliff Road, Headingley. When the Second World War began, the Homes’ children were evacuated to farms and other homes in rural Nidderdale, where the 1939 Register would have recorded them on 29 September. You could try looking for Margaret and her sisters in that area in the register, but their entries might still be closed. By the…

Q This is a photograph of my grandfather, Ralph Harrison Taylor. It was taken during the First World War. I have been unable to find out what regiment he was in. His brother served in the Durham Light Infantry. Ralph lived in Shildon in County Durham. Tracey Dawes A This is a studio photograph of a Royal Artillery driver, probably taken not long after he enlisted, sometime after the start of 1916. Drivers rode the horses used to pull the artillery guns into action. There’s no service record for Ralph (it was probably destroyed in the Second World War), and although there are three Medal Index Cards (MICs) for different Ralph H Taylors, none appears to fit this uniform. There’s no pension card or Silver War Badge either. If he…

Between 2014 and 2018 the Dorset town of Blandford Forum (known as Blandford) came together to mark its links to the First World War, via a series of exhibitions and a monthly column in local magazine Forum Focus commemorating those who died. In total 431 men are mentioned on Blandford Rural District memorials. In addition, the town was home to Blandford Camp, which was used as a training ground for the Dorset Yeomanry, the Royal Naval Division and the Royal Flying Corps, and there were also four internment camps nearby for German prisoners of war. Niall has shared the results of his research with the men’s relations When the commemorations were coming to an end, Forum Focus  editor Nicci Brown proposed collating the research in a book. “I had all…

EDUCATION RECORDS w tinyurl.com/nrs-guide-education This National Records of Scotland guide explains how to research Scottish records, and the Virtual Vault on the website of the defunct Scottish Archive Network project (scan.org.uk) includes a headteacher’s logbook from Pitsligo School. FAMILY AND COMMUNITY HISTORICAL RESEARCH SOCIETY w fachrs.com The society has run research projects into schoolmistresses and school logbooks. HIDDEN LIVES REVEALED w hiddenlives.org.uk Explore the lives and schooling of children in the care of the Children’s Society (formerly the Waifs and Strays’ Society) from 1881. HISTORY OF EDUCATION SOCIETY w historyofeducation.org.uk The society’s twice-yearly bulletin includes a digest of major accessions to UK repositories. MANCHESTER HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS ARCHIVE w mhsgarchive.org Search letters, governors’ minutes, newspaper cuttings, programmes, magazines and reports from this progressive school, founded in 1874. RADLEY COLLEGE…

CATHOLIC PARISH REGISTERS AT THE NLI w registers.nli.ie This free site hosts images of parish registers from the library’s microfilm collection. It includes a national map of all Catholic parishes and the NLI microfilm number. IRISH GENEALOGY w irishgenealogy.ie This free Irish government website has indexed Roman Catholic records for Dublin City, Kerry and part of Cork, and includes some images of the original records. ROOTSIRELAND w rootsireland.ie This subscription website offers an extensive database of Irish Catholic parish records. Although the entries are transcripts only, many link to the NLI’s collection of images.…

1 FOREBEARS w forebears.io Find out how many people worldwide share your surname and where they have gathered. According to this website, there are just 525 people with the surname Sparrowhawk, mostly in England. 2 GUILD OF ONE-NAME STUDIES w one-name.org Explore the meaning and origins of your surname at this fascinating website. You can also make connections with other family historians across the world who share your name. 3 NAMED w named.publicprofiler.org Use this website’s map tool to find out where people with your surname have clustered in the UK. Sparrowhawks feature largely in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.…

ARCHIVE THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES a Kew, Richmond TW9 4DU t 020 8876 3444 w nationalarchives.gov.uk TNA has a broad collection of postcards on a variety of themes. BOOKS A History of Postcards Martin Willoughby Studio Editions, 1992 Willoughby’s reference book is worth tracking down. British Postcards of the First World War Peter Doyle Shire Publications, 2010 Doyle examines the wartime history of the postcard. MUSEUMS DONALD McGILL MUSEUM a Royal Victoria Arcade, Union Street, Ryde, Isle of Wight PO33 2LQ t 01983 717435 w saucyseasidepostcards.com The museum is open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. THE POSTAL MUSEUM a 15–20 Phoenix Place, London WC1X 0DA t 0300 030 0700 w postalmuseum.org The museum’s website has several articles on the topic. WEBSITES BRITISH NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE w britishnewspaperarchive. co.uk The collection includes readers’ letters…

CRIMINAL RECORDS w crimeandpunishment. library.wales Search information about crimes, criminals and punishments in gaol files from the Court of Great Sessions in Wales from 1730 until its abolition in 1830. NORTH WALES BMDS w northwalesbmd.org.uk/ index.php Genealogical groups covering Clwyd, Gwynedd and Montgomeryshire contribute to this transcription project. WILLS w tinyurl.com/nlw-wills Search wills proved in the Welsh ecclesiastical courts before 1858 on the National Library of Wales’ site. MARINERS’ RECORDS  w welshmariners.org.uk Search a database of 23,758 merchant masters, mates and engineers, most born in the coastal villages and towns of West Wales between Amlwch in Anglesey and Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire. TITHE MAPS w places.library. wales View high-resolution tithe maps from across Wales, with accompanying apportionment documents. You can search by parish, landowner, farm or field name, or use…

ARCHIVES AND LIBRARIES CEREDIGION ARCHIVES a Old Town Hall, Queen’s Square, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 2EB t 01970 633697/633698 e archives@ceredigion.gov.uk w archifdy-ceredigion.org.uk The archive has parish registers and census returns on microfilm, as well as nonconformist records, indexes of memorial inscriptions, records of quarter and petty sessions, Poor Law material, and school and hospital records. You’ll also find registers of ships in the port of Aberystwyth, including logbooks and crew agreements. GWYNEDD ARCHIVES a Caernarfon Record Office, Gwynedd Council, Caernarfon, Gwynedd LL55 1SH a Meirionnydd Record Office, Gwynedd Council, Ffordd y Bala, Meirionnydd, Dolgellau LL40 2YF t 01286 679095/01341 424682 e archifau@gwynedd.llyw.cymru w gwynedd.gov.uk/archives The service runs two regional record offices. There’s a useful list online detailing the collections held by each branch. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF WALES a Aberystwyth, Ceredigion…

TONY ROBINSON’S HISTORY OF BRITAIN Channel 5 and My5 Streaming now This social history series dropped into the schedules late, but it’s well worth seeking out if you missed it. In each episode, Tony Robinson looks at the lives of ordinary people in a specific era. A highlight is the show that deals with the 1950s, which begins with the story of a young Irishwoman, Mary Powell, who joins the National Health Service and is determined to become a nurse. It’s a story of someone finding independence and rebelling in the process, notably when Mary marries her boyfriend – a decision that outrages her parents. THE MUSEUMS THAT MAKE US BBC Radio 4 Monday 7 March, 1.45pm As a global city, London is home to world-famous cultural institutions, such as…

It may not be a genealogy series per se, but Long Lost Family – produced by Wall to Wall, the production company that makes Who Do You Think You Are? – employs many of the same techniques used in drawing up a family tree. Except here, of course, the hook is that people are no longer in touch with the relatives they so long to find. It often makes for emotional viewing as people are reunited with siblings or parents, or even meet them for the first time. At the time of going to press, there were 17 episodes available to stream, plus four episodes of the follow-up series Long Lost Family: What Happened Next, and three episodes of spin-off Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace, which follows the stories…

My interest in genealogy was sparked in my early teens, when I found a family Bible that had names in it,” says Anne Kidson. “I remember my mother telling me that we had a schoolmaster in the family, who taught at Rivington Grammar School in Lancashire.” In 2010, Anne decided to find out more about this intriguing character. “My great great grandfather William had a brother called Septimus Tebay, who became a schoolmaster. He earned a title bestowed upon the highest-scoring students in the year “He was born in 1820, the son of a publican in Ellel, near Lancaster. Septimus became a notable character in Preston, where his family moved to in the 1830s. Peter Smith’s blog prestonhistory.com has given me invaluable insight into his life.” Some reports say that…

Many thanks for Paul Blake’s article on name changes in the March issue. When I started researching my mother’s family I found her mother, Elizabeth Barnes, on the 1901 census, with her parents, John and Sarah Ann Barnes, and three brothers in Godley, Hyde, Cheshire. However, I could not go back any further. A conversation with an elderly uncle explained why. Firstly, John Barnes, my mother’s grandfather, was actually born and brought up as John Bee. I was then able to find that he married Sarah Ann Millray as John Bee, and that my grandmother and her three brothers were registered as Bees, all in the Barrow/Ulverston area. The youngest son, Harold, was born in 1898. Some time between then and 1901 the family moved to Cheshire and changed their…

A major upgrade of Find a Will (probatesearch. service.gov.uk/#wills), the government website for accessing English and Welsh probate records, has been condemned by family historians as an “absolute shambles”. Find a Will allows family historians to purchase copies of probate records from 1858, when the present system of civil probate was introduced, for £1.50 each. The website was down from 24 January, with an error message saying that it was “under maintenance”. On 8 February the site was restored, and featured a slightly different design and functionality. On social media, family historians with pre-existing accounts complained that the new version of the site rejected their password and forced them to set up a new one. Also, probate records they’d previously purchased were not available to view, and records that they…

Marker discovered for descendants of Bruce clan A distinct genetic marker, carried by descendants of Robert the Bruce’s close relations, has been identified by researchers at the University of Strathclyde. The researchers found genetic marker FTB15831 on the Y-DNA of two modern-day descendants of Robert Bruce, 2nd Baron of Clackmannan, who died in 1403. Robert Bruce was known to be a close relative of Robert the Bruce, who was king of Scots from 1306 to his death in 1329. Black Cultural Archives announces its new chair The Black Cultural Archives in London has announced that Dr Yvonne Thompson CBE is its new chair, and Lisa Anderson is its new interim managing director. Dr Thompson, an award-winning businesswoman, activist and founder of WinTrade Global Network, commented, “Working with the new MD…

Family history website Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk) has added a set of 4,500 manumission of slave records from Jamaica, from 1747–1779. The registers contain deeds of freedom for former enslaved people. They are free to search and include details such as the enslaved person’s name, the date they were freed, and the name and residence of their former owner. The database links to the original documents on the British Library’s website at eap.bl. uk/collection/EAP148-3-1 .…

Queen’s University Belfast has been awarded the contract to transcribe the 1921 Scottish census by the National Records of Scotland (NRS). An announcement published on 25 January on the website BidStats (bidstats.uk) says that the NRS has awarded a contract for “Creation of Transcriptions (Electronic Indexes) of the Historic 1921 Scotland’s Census Handwritten Records” to the university. The contract is worth £438,366. The contract includes the option for two extensions each lasting six months at the discretion of the purchaser. It also specifies that the accuracy of the data transcribed must be at least 98 per cent. Under privacy laws, the 1921 census cannot be released to the general public until at least 100 years have passed. The 1921 census for England and Wales was published on family history site…

BOOKS My Ancestor Was a Gentleman Stuart Raymond SOG, 2012 Learn how to research the English and Welsh gentry. Tracing Your Ancestors in County Records Stuart Raymond Pen & Sword, 2016 Find out about records created by justices of the peace and other county officials. Tracing Your Georgian Ancestors, 1714–1837 John Wintrip Pen & Sword, 2018 Wintrip explains the available records for the Georgian period. Tracing Your Pre-Victorian Ancestors John Wintrip Pen & Sword, 2017 Find out how to take your tree back before civil registration. WEBSITES ANCESTRY w ancestry.co.uk Ancestry has many indexes and transcripts of records from local archives, especially the London Metropolitan Archives. FINDMYPAST w findmypast.co.uk This is a good place to look for probate records and indexes to apprenticeship records. SOCIETY OF GENEALOGISTS w sog.org.uk SOG’s…

What I discovered shocked me. I didn’t realise I had so many military relations On 15 February 1942 the Japanese captured Singapore, a strategic British military defence post during the Second World War. Its loss was a significant blow. Soldiers – many of them British – were rounded up and sent to one of the notorious Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. Many of them were to die there or while building the 258-mile Burma Railway as forced labour. This year marks 80 years since the fall of Singapore – something WDYTYA? Magazine reader Thomas Price is keenly aware of. He is the grounds and gardens team leader at the National Memorial Arboretum near Lichfield in Staffordshire, and frequently works with both staff and volunteer team members to maintain the area of the…

What regiment was George Godfrey in? Q My mum passed away recently and I found this photograph among her things, along with First World War medals in the name GM Godfrey. George Godfrey is one of my maternal great grandfathers, and I believe it is him in the photo. The medals suggest he was in the East Surrey Regiment, but the badges in the photograph aren’t East Surrey. There were some other badges in a tin, including, I think, the one from the photograph. I’d love to get to the bottom of this. Perhaps he changed regiments? David Jackson A It appears from the military items and photograph that George served in two regiments during the First World War. There’s a Medal Index Card (MIC) for George M Godfrey, number…

Q I’m trying to find out more about my nan’s great grandfather, Joseph Joslin, and his parents Benjamin Joslin and Mary Fletcher (1801–1847). They were from Chelmsford in Essex. Benjamin (1798–1860) was baptised in Braintree (Rayne), his father was called Benjamin too, and was described as a gentleman. Can you tell me any more about the Joslins? Jolene Clarke A Censuses, parish registers, newspapers, wills and trade directories all provided useful information about the Joslin family. In 1841 Joseph was living in Chelmsford, the youngest of Benjamin and Mary Joslin’s eight children. The 1851 census of Peckham, South London, states that he was born at Chelmsford in about 1837. Although Essex baptisms are indexed on Ancestry (ancestry.co.uk) and Findmypast (findmypast.co.uk), I could not find Joseph’s baptism; however, there is a…

WEBSITES BOARD OF TRADE WRECK INQUIRIES w tinyurl.com/ board-trade-wrecks Discover the names of people lost in shipwrecks after 1876, how a ship was lost, and who was to blame in this website from Southampton Archives. MARITIME MEMORIALS w memorials.rmg.co.uk Discover whether your ancestor is named on a UK maritime memorial, or if there’s a monument to the ship they died on. WRECKSITE w wrecksite.eu This enormous database contains information about named individual shipwrecks as far back as medieval times.…

CATHOLICIRELAND w catholicireland.net This resource can be used to locate contact information for parish offices where registers may be held in local custody. FAMILYSEARCH w tinyurl.com/ fs-wikiirish-cath This informative entry about Irish Catholic records in the FamilySearch wiki includes a link to another entry that explains Latin terms. IRISH ANCESTORS w johngrenham.com John Grenham’s website provides an introduction to researching Irish Catholic parish registers and a guide to locating the correct parish. IRISH GENEALOGY TOOLKIT w tinyurl.com/ igt-irishchurch Claire Santry’s site has an excellent guide to identifying and researching Irish church records, which also includes translations of Latin terms. NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF IRELAND w nationalarchives.ie NAI offers a free genealogy advisory service and can guide you through researching Irish parish records. Email query@ nationalarchives.ie.…

Don’t get me started on favourites,” says Ceredigion Archives’ Helen Palmer. “We have so many!” Y Canolbarth, or the Midlands, is the green heart of Wales, sandwiched between the border and the ocean. To the west is Ceredigion (historically known as Cardiganshire), north of that lies Meirionnydd, now part of modern Gwynedd, and the landlocked Powys is made up of the historic counties of Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire, most of Brecknockshire (Breconshire) and part of Denbighshire. If all that sounds rather complicated, don’t worry. There’s a small but perfectly formed band of archives for all of your genealogical needs. And if that’s not enough, Mid-Wales is also home to the unrivalled treasures housed within the National Library of Wales (NLW) in Aberystwyth. Because we love food we’re very fond of the recipe…

The diary is a valuable example of the average experience for a Royal Engineer The Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 was one of the smaller-scale conflicts that involved Victorian Britain, but lives on in films such as Zulu (1964). For those of us with ancestors who fought in the war, finding out about their lives can be difficult. Fortunately, the Royal Engineers Museum in Kent holds a diary that provides a rare eyewitness account, as assistant curator Sam Jolley explains. CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE DIARY TO OUR READERS? The diary was written by a soldier in the 5th Field Company of the Royal Engineers during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. The museum purchased the diary via the auction house Bonhams with help from the Arts Council/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the…

WEBSITE MAPS FOR RESEARCHING HOUSE AND BUILDING HISTORY maps.nls.uk/guides/houses Free The National Library of Scotland’s maps website is a fantastic resource for tracing family, house and local history. This new guide, mainly focusing on Scottish maps, sheds more detail on the different map sets from the 16th to 20th centuries, and how they can be used. It’s a must if you enjoyed Deborah Sugg Ryan’s article on house history and the 1921 census (see page 27). PODCAST GENEALOGY ADVENTURES genealogyadventures.net Free US genealogists Brian Sheffey and Donya Williams present this podcast focused on African-American genealogy, but of interest to historians of all backgrounds. They discuss the research uncovering histories that have often been suppressed, including tracing the surviving records and bringing slave cabins to life using holographic technology. WATCH HERITAGE…

1861 JERSEY CENSUS Joe discovered Albert’s occupation and Jersey roots by searching census returns. The 1861 Channel Islands census is available via the main subscription websites. We found Albert living in St Helier in 1861 with the rest of his family, and Ancestry members can view the image at tinyurl.com/anc-channel-albert. JERSEY BURIAL RECORDS Ancestry also has the collection ‘Jersey, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813–1940’. Here we were able to find the death of Albert’s father Thomas on 10 October 1870 from phthisis (tuberculosis), which swept through the family: tinyurl. com/anc-jersthomas. HEARTH-TAX RECORDS Joe also investigated the family line of his maternal grandfather Richard Chapman, and learnt that his 10x great grandfather John Austen was a wealthy jeweller in London towards the end of the 17th century. The evidence…