Caro's Family Chronicles

When I was one, I had just begun ...

2011-11-20T00:24:00.001Z

So said Christopher Robin in Now We Are Six - and the same is true of this blog, which is one year old today. This first year has raced by and I feel I have only made a small start to all the things I want to write about and accomplish.

Looking at my blog statistics, I have picked out some facts, figures and highlights:

I've written 65 posts - an average of one every 5 or 6 days.
There have been 9,386 total page views - an average of about 180 per week
By far the most popular post has been Scanning Saturday - My new Flip-Pal.
The least popular was Wordless Wednesday: Beards and Longevity.
My Research Toolbox and Surnames page also get a large number of hits.
The month with the highest readership was October 2011, thanks to my Lost in London series of posts.
I have most readers in the USA and UK - just over 3,000 page views in each case. More surprisingly, I also seem to have regular readers in Russia and Slovenia.
My readers are a mainstream, even conservative, bunch when it comes to technology - 84% use Windows and 50% use Internet Explorer. Less than 4% access my blog from a mobile device (smartphone or tablet).
The main traffic sources for my blog are Google, Facebook, EOGN, Genea-Musings and my own website, Caro's Family.

I'm very grateful to all of you who have read my offerings over the past year, and especially to those who have taken the time to comment. I hope you will stick with me as this blog moves into the terrible twos!

Lest We Forget: 11/11/11

2011-11-11T11:11:00.001Z

In memory of the members of my family who gave their lives in the service of their country.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

(Lawrence Binyon, For the Fallen, 1914)

Died	Place	Rank	Name	Age	Regiment / Service

Afghan Wars

12 January 1842	Afghanistan	Captain	Edward Macleod Blair	38	Bengal Light Cavalry

Indian Mutiny

14 May 1858	India	Major	John Waterfield	40	Bengal Native Infantry

Boer War

14 February 1902	South Africa	Artificer	George Howard Clark	23	Queensland Imperial Bushmen

World War 1

25 April 1915	France	Private	Richard Michael Ryan	25	Royal Irish Fusiliers
9 May 1915	France	Corporal	Charles Mulligan	28	Black Watch
9 May 1915	France	Rifleman	Thomas Stanley Groves	31	Royal Irish Rifles
27 June 1915	Belgium	Private	John Julius Groves	32	Duke of Cornwall's Light Infy
15 September 1916	France	Gunner	Cyril William Coles	23	Tank Corps
18 October 1916	France	2nd Lieutenant	Christopher Gilbert Durant	20	Worcestershire Regiment
10 January 1917	Egypt	Captain	Duncan James Nugent Blair	34	Royal Field Artillery
26 March 1917	Palestine	Private	William Gurney	21	Middlesex Regiment
23 April 1917	France	Lance Corporal	Hubert Gurney	21	Middlesex Regiment
10 July 1917	Belgium	Lieutenant	Sanford William Shippard	21	North Lancashire Regiment
12 August 1917	Greece	Private	Ernest John Bentley	41	Durham Light Infantry
11 May 1918	France	Captain	Arthur Alexander Austen-Leigh	27	Royal Berkshire Regiment

World War 2

21 June 1940	at sea	Sub Lieutenant	Ian Reginald Winn Stileman	20	RNVR
21 May 1941	Crete	Driver	Robert George Davis	25	NZ Army Service Corps
28 October 1942	Egypt	Private	Ronald Archibald Halkett-Hay	34	Australian Infantry
3 November 1942	Egypt	Lieutenant	Nigel Aves Watson	22	Royal Hussars
13 July 1943	Italy	Lieutenant	Derek Pease Gregg	26	Glider Pilot Regiment

We are a grandmother: 1 - the name Edith

2011-11-09T17:07:00.001Z

Back in 1989 Margaret Thatcher got a lot of flak for announcing, "We are a grandmother". People thought she was using the "royal we" and had delusions of grandeur. I now understand what happened. The arrival of your first grandchild produces such a combination of anxiety, fatigue and euphoria that, for some days afterwards, you are not responsible for anything you say or do.

Starting a sentence in the plural and ending it in the singular is nothing compared to how I behaved when my own first grandchild was born last week. I was so shell-shocked that I called her by another baby's name - twice. As a peace offering to her parents, I thought I'd blog about the pretty names they have given her - Edith Anne Georgina.

According to Nameberry: "Edith was a hugely popular name a hundred years ago that's being revived among stylish parents in London". Her parents, who live in London, will be pleased with that. I think it is a lovely name and it suits our new darling girl perfectly.

Edith comes from the Old English Eadgyth, derived from the words ead, meaning 'rich, wealthy, blessed, happy', and gyð, meaning 'battle, combat, strife, war'. Experts are divided about what the combination of these two words actually means. Since Edith has always been a girl's name, I don't think it means "war is a blessing" or "war makes you rich", neither of which is a very feminine attitude. I think it is much more likely that the name means "warrior for what is blessed" i.e. someone who fights the good fight. That is what us girls spend our lives doing, after all, as we work hard to build our homes and families and fight like tigers to defend our cubs.

Edith was a very popular name in Anglo Saxon times and has some rather splendid historical connections:

Edith of England (910-946), was the granddaughter of King Alfred the Great and wife of Otto I, the Holy Roman Emperor. She was very popular in her adopted country and when she died, "the whole of the German nation mourned her with an intense grief". Edith is buried in Magdeburg Cathedral and her sarcophagus was found and opened in 2008. Tests on the remains showed that they were from a high status lady, who ate fish and rode horses, and who had spent her childhood on the chalk uplands of southern England, thereby confirming the identification of Edith.

Edith of Wilton (961-984), was a nun of royal birth, later a popular English saint. She was the daughter of the mis-named King Edgar the Peaceful, who carried her mother off by force from Wilton Abbey, near Salisbury. Edgar subsequently did penance for this crime by not wearing his crown for seven years. Edith became a nun but refused her father's offer to make her an abbess. She was greatly celebrated for her learning, beauty and piety and was canonised shortly after her death. St Edith's feast day is 16 September and there are 21 churches dedicated to her in England.

Edith the Fair (c1025-c1086), wrongly called Edith Swan Neck, was the common law wife of King Harold. She walked through the carnage of the battlefield at Hastings to identify Harold's body by markings on his chest known only to her, thus enabling the monks at Waltham Abbey to give him Christian burial.
Edith of Wessex (c1025-1075), was the wife of King Edward the Confessor and sister of King Harold. She was an educated woman who spoke several languages. She was Queen of England from 1045 to 1066. In the course of that fateful year she lost four brothers at the Battles of Stamford Bridge and Hastings. She was the only member of her family to make peace with William the Conqueror and it has been suggested that Edith was responsible for commissioning the highly subversive Bayeux Tapestry. She died, childless, at Winchester and was buried beside her husband in Westminster Abbey.

The name Edith is also associated with some inspirational ladies in more recent times:

Edith Cavell (1865-1915), was the heroic English nurse who helped Allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium during World War I and who, when caught, was shot by the Germans. She famously said, "Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone". Motivated by her strong Christian faith, she helped wounded soldiers from both sides of the conflict, saying, "I can't stop while there are lives to be saved". There is a monument to her memory at the bottom of St Martin's Lane in London, which has always been one of my favourite London memorials.

Edith Evans (1888-1976), was a British actress, created a Dame in 1946. She is most famously known for her wonderful portrayal of Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest. When I played the same role in a University production, aged just 18, I relied heavily on Dame Edith's example.

Edith Piaf (1915-1963), was a French street singer who became a worldwide cultural icon. She was named Edith in honour of Edith Cavell. She is remembered especially for her powerful renditions of the songs Milord and Non, je ne regrette rien. These two songs, released when I was aged 5 and 6, formed a powerful musical backdrop to my own childhood.

The Ancestors' Geneameme

2011-10-14T09:39:00.001+01:00

Thanks to Jill Ball of Geniaus for starting this geneameme. My list is annotated as follows:

Things I have already done or found
Things I would like to have done or found
Things I haven’t done or found

Can name my 16 great-great-grandparents (http://goo.gl/A6rcI)
Can name over 50 direct ancestors (214)
Have photographs or portraits of my 8 great-grandparents (6 so far http://goo.gl/A6rcI)
Have an ancestor who was married more than three times
Have an ancestor who was a bigamist
Met all four of my grandparents (1 died before I was born)
Met one or more of my great-grandparents (all died before I was born)
Named a child after an ancestor (my daughter's second name is Laura after my grandfather, Lawrence George Buchanan Davis http://goo.gl/Nmsw1)
Bear an ancestor's given name/s (My middle name is Mary. I have 15 ancestors with that name.)
Have an ancestor from Great Britain or Ireland (All except one)
Have an ancestor from Asia
Have an ancestor from Continental Europe (Julius Wilhelm Fritz from Bahn, Pomerania, Prussia http://goo.gl/B2SUH)
Have an ancestor from Africa
Have an ancestor who was an agricultural labourer (6)
Have an ancestor who had large land holdings
Have an ancestor who was a holy man - minister, priest, rabbi (2 great-grandfathers and 1 great great grandfather were clergymen)
Have an ancestor who was a midwife
Have an ancestor who was an author
Have an ancestor with the surname Smith, Murphy or Jones (I have three different lines called Smith)
Have an ancestor with the surname Wong, Kim, Suzuki or Ng
Have an ancestor with a surname beginning with X
Have an ancestor with a forename beginning with Z
Have an ancestor born on 25th December
Have an ancestor born on New Year's Day
Have blue blood in your family lines
Have a parent who was born in a country different from my country of birth (My mother was born in Canada http://goo.gl/ewLZj)
Have a grandparent who was born in a country different from my country of birth
Can trace a direct family line back to the eighteenth century
Can trace a direct family line back to the seventeenth century or earlier (1555 http://goo.gl/vJrF5)
Have seen copies of the signatures of some of my great-grandparents
Have ancestors who signed their marriage certificate with an X
Have a grandparent or earlier ancestor who went to university (theological college http://goo.gl/262WU)
Have an ancestor who was convicted of a criminal offence (http://goo.gl/aw4Ob)
Have an ancestor who was a victim of crime (http://goo.gl/RZ7Dm)
Have shared an ancestor's story online or in a magazine (http://cmgurney.blogspot.com)
Have published a family history online or in print (http://www.carosfamily.com)
Have visited an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries
Still have an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries in the family
Have a family bible from the 19th Century
Have a pre-19th century family bible

SNGF: Genealogy Database Statistics

2011-10-09T01:04:00.001+01:00

Tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver is:

1) If you have your family tree research in a Genealogy Management Program (GMP), whether a computer software program or an online family tree, figure out how to find how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database.

2) Tell us which GMP you use, and how many persons, places, sources, etc. are in your database(s) today.

Family Tree Maker

I use Family Tree Maker 2012 (FTM) for my genealogy research. I went to Plan > Current Tree > More to find my file statistics.

This shows me that in my database I have:

5,096 people
1,374 marriages
14 generations
1,015 surnames
1,911 places
63 sources
425 media

average lifespan 57.3 years
earliest birth date before 1555
most recent birth date 11 March 2011

My daughter is due to have her first baby two weeks today, so that last statistic will soon change.

The Next Generation

I use The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding (TNG) to publish my family history online. TNG also produces database statistics. These are slightly different from FTM because I haven't synced the two programs for a couple of days.

The TNG statistics provide me with the additional information that in my database I have:

2,576 males (50.57%)
2,499 females (49.06%)
19 unknown gender (0.37%)
total living 582
total families 1,536
average lifespan 60 years 88 days
longest lived person 106 years

The large discrepancy in the average lifespan between FTM and TNG is surprising and I must investigate that further.

Lost in London - 4: Tracing an ordinary London family

2011-10-08T20:35:00.001+01:00

To illustrate how much can be found about ordinary London families, I am including the following examples relating to my own Bluett and Fritz ancestors. They were poor Irish and German immigrants but the documents I have uncovered show that they actually lived extraordinary lives. The photographs of Mary Ann Bluett and Julius Fritz included in the family tree, above, came to me from hitherto unknown, distant cousins. We only made contact because my tree was online.

This article is from the Times of 15 May 1846. There was a family tradition that Thomas Bluett had been shot in London but the details were completely wrong. As a result, I researched without success for 18 years. Yet I found Thomas easily as soon as the Times Digital Archive came online. That one newspaper published nine separate articles about the shooting, arrest, death, autopsy, inquest and trial. There was also a classic thundering Times leader following the acquittal of the perpetrator, John Graham. Many other national and regional papers also published articles. From all this material I discovered that Thomas had been born in Ireland, whereas I had been searching for him in Devon & Cornwall for years!

This article is from the Times of 11 June 1846. It provides wonderful information about Mary Bluett, née Langley, and her daughter Mary Ann Bluett, later Fritz. The second half of this article refers to Mary's previous residence in Hong Kong and to her having returned home on a ship whose Captain was subsequently tried at the Old Bailey, with Mary Bluett giving evidence. Armed with these clues and in collaboration with a cousin, found via the internet, I researched an amazing story of travels on three continents, confidence tricks, abandonment, mutiny, celebrity and crime.

Successive censuses showed that Julius Fritz had been born in Prussia but became a British Subject. I found his naturalisation papers in the National Archives and they gave me much valuable information about his origins, family, occupation and residence. They even gave me the name of his father in Prussia - Heinrich.

Cousins I found via the internet had a tradition that Julius was a Freeman of the City of London. I was initially sceptical as there was no such story in my branch of the family. But it turned out to be true and they were able to supply me with a copy of his application for the Freedom. This also gives the name of Julius' father - but as Ferdinand -and the information that he was dead by September 1876.

17a Fetter Lane, London was the Fritz family home and the location for Julius' tailoring business and second-hand china shop. Julius also let rooms to lodgers. It was a slum and was demolished in 1887. But it had been the home of the poet John Dryden in the 17th century and so it was sketched by several artists immediately prior to its demolition. A number of these pictures were found on the internet by a cousin, using Google. Members of the family are shown at the windows in this illustration. In another, a shop sign for J Fritz, Old China Dealer, can clearly be seen.

This article is from the Times of 28 May 1878. It reports an affray involving one of the lodgers at 17a Fetter Lane, Mrs Amelia Lewis, in which Mary Ann Fritz (nee Bluett) and one of her daughters got caught up. They later gave evidence in court. Ordinary people frequently appear in police reports in this way.

Lost in London - 3: Helpful websites

2011-10-08T19:57:00.001+01:00

Access to Archives. Search by name or place across the catalogues of most London repositories including the London Metropolitan Archives, City of Westminster Archives, Corporation of London Records Office and Guildhall Library.

Ancestry. Currently their catalogue lists 30 London specific databases, including London Births and Baptisms, 1813-1906; London Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921; London Deaths and Burials, 1813-1980; and London Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812.

Black Sheep Index. It's pot luck if you find anyone. I found two young ancestors who got on a train, very drunk, and objected violently to some pious fellow passengers who tried to convert them! I also found the reason for the disappearance of my great-great grandfather, Rev Frederick Davis – he fled abroad to avoid a charge of assaulting a young woman on a train.

British Newspapers, 1800-1900. 49 local and national titles. You may be able to access this collection for free using your library card.

Charles Booth Online Archive. Street by street notebooks and maps, documenting social conditions in London between 1886 and 1903.

City of Westminster Archives Catalogue. WESTCAT contains details of the official records of the City of Westminster and the former Boroughs of Paddington and St Marylebone together with parish registers and other parish records for these areas. The collections also include records deposited by businesses, estates, schools, clubs, societies, charities, institutions and private individuals. There are also images of prints and photographs drawn from the archival and local studies collection.

Cyndi's List. Check Cyndi's pages for London and the surrounding counties for thousands of relevant links.

Deceased Online. Digitised images of burial and cremation records from the London Boroughs of Brent, Camden, Greenwich, Havering, Islington and Merton.

Docklands Ancestors. Indexes to baptisms in dockland parishes, plus resources for researching Thames watermen and lightermen and other dockland ancestors.

Find My Past. The London Collection includes the City of London Burial Index; West Middlesex Marriage Index; London Docklands Baptisms; London and West Kent Probate Indexes and participants in the 1888 Matchworkers' Strike.

GENUKI: London. Don't forget to visit the pages for Middlesex, Surrey, Kent and Essex as well.

Google. To find all instances of a search term on a website, use the search prefix "site" plus your search term, for example: "site:www.blacksheepindex.co.uk gurney". This is very useful for sites such as Black Sheep Ancestors which have multiple databases with no overall search engine.

Google Books. Search for references to ancestral names or places inside old books. Read them online or order the book from your local library on inter-library loan.

Historical Directories. Digital images of 81 London directories from 1808 to 1919.

London Ancestor. A miscellany of London links.

London Gazette. Includes bankruptcies, business failures and closures. I found a direct ancestor imprisoned in Maidstone Gaol as an "insolvent debtor".

London Jews Database. A database of names, addresses and some other information about Jews who lived in London in the first half of the nineteenth century.

London Lives, 1690-1800. A fully searchable edition of 240,000 manuscripts from eight archives and fifteen datasets, giving access to 3.35 million names.

London Metropolitan Archives. Information about collections, research leaflets and catalogue search.

London Road Name Changes. Indexed lists of the road name changes made by London County Council after 1889.

London Roll of Honour. London war memorials and rolls of honour.

Middlesex Marriage Index. Covers 31 parishes on the outskirts of London.

Old London Maps. Includes views of the city from the 16th to the 19th century.

Principal streets and places in London and its environs, 1856. Produced by the Post office, this directory gives the postal district for every street in London.

Proceedings of the Old Bailey. Pot luck again. This site has amazing detail about cases, with names, addresses and statements of victims, witnesses and perpetrators.

Society of Genealogists, City of London Resources. Includes information on the City Livery Companies, in addition to the resource categories listed for Middlesex, below.

Society of Genealogists, Middlesex Resources. Includes parish registers, marriage licences, monumental inscriptions, censuses, directories, poll books, periodicals and wills.

Times Digital Archive, 1785-1985. Information on how to gain free access and how to search. The Times is not just a source for "top people". Many ordinary people appeared in its pages, especially in reports of court cases and "human interest" stories.

Topographical Dictionary of London, 1831. "Containing descriptive and critical accounts of all the public and private buildings, offices, docks, squares, streets, lanes, wards, liberties, charitable, scholastic and other establishments, with lists of their officers, patrons, incumbents of livings, &c. in the British metropolis".

Tower Hamlets BMD. Indexes to registrations of births, marriages and deaths within the Tower Hamlets district from 1837 to date.

Victorian London A to Z Street Index.

Lost in London - 2: Research strategies

2011-10-08T17:49:00.001+01:00

General strategies

These are strategies applicable to all family history research:

Keep an open mind. Evaluate everything, assume nothing. What you think you know about dates, ages, relationships or places may be wrong and may be preventing you from looking in the right place.
Use all available sources. Never be content with just the readily available BMD and census information. More sources equal more pieces of the jigsaw.

Research related lines. Siblings share parents and first cousins share their grandparents. Work backwards through them and then come forwards down the tree again. Find living relatives. Different stories, photos and documents are passed down different lines. Distant cousins may hold vital clues. They may even help you research.
Use the internet. More and more images of primary sources are online, plus incredibly helpful indexes and search engines. The internet is an amazing tool, which has revolutionised genealogy. Use it!
Share your research. This combines the last two points. Publish your research online and watch the new cousins roll up and the brick walls tumble.

London strategies

Learn the geography.

"Mr Weller's knowledge of London was extensive and peculiar". Dickens

You need to "do the knowledge” like a London cabbie.

Learn the administrative structure. London consisted of the City of London plus parts of Middlesex, Surrey, Kent and Essex. There were different boundaries for registration districts, poor law unions, Church of England parishes and electoral wards. These overlapped in confusing ways. There were also frequent changes. During the 19th century there was repeated sub-division of Church of England parishes and, in 1889, the London County Council was created.
Study 19th century growth. London was transformed by the coming of the railways in the 1830s, leading for the first time to a divide between the inner city and the suburbs. There was new building on a massive scale, with the development of Islington, Paddington, Belgravia, Holborn, Finsbury, Shoreditch, Southwark and Lambeth.
Research street name changes. Many streets disappeared as a result of new road construction such as Kingsway in central London. Many had their names changed (sometimes more than once) to remove duplications. To track the changes you need maps. Reproductions of old Ordnance Survey maps and the A to Z of Victorian London are particularly helpful.
Consider migration routes. Identify possible routes into London from your ancestors' rural places of origin. For example, the Gurney family moved from Norfolk to Bedfordshire to Hertfordshire to North London. And remember that they didn't just travel by road. You should look at the pattern of rivers and railways as well, when trying to identify where they came from or where they went.

Understand the society

"London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained." Conan Doyle

To do this you must read, read, read. Some helpful starting points are:

Ackroyd, Peter. London: The Biography
Dickens, Charles. Any of his London based novels. See Dickensian London: A character in itself.
Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844.
Mayhew, Henry. London Labour and the London Poor.
Booth, Charles. Life and Labour of the People of London. The London School of Economics has put Booth's poverty maps and notebooks online. If you are lucky, you may find a detailed description of your ancestor’s street.

Remember the history

"If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us!" Coleridge

Your ancestors did not live in a vacuum, isolated from the great events of their day. To see the connections, superimpose a timeline of historical and/or local events on a chronological list of events in your ancestor's life. Tools to help you do this can be found in many genealogy software programs.
Are some of your male ancestors missing from the 1901 census? This baffled people when the 1901 census was first released. They had forgotten about the Boer War.
Did your ancestors appear in London out of nowhere in the 1840s/1850s? Remember the Irish Potato Famine, 1845-1852 and that Irish people did not necessarily have uniquely Irish surnames. 1848 is known as the Year of Revolution across Europe. Uprisings took place in France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Poland, and their suppression was the trigger for a wave of emigration. Many ended up in London.

Lost in London - 1: Why is London such a problem?

2011-10-08T17:27:00.001+01:00

Back in 2008 I gave a talk to the Family History Group of Thornbury U3A on the theme "Lost in London - Breaking down brick walls in London research". As my health no longer allows me to travel to give talks, I've decided to share my presentation on this blog. I've broken it into four parts for ease of reading. I hope you find it helpful.

Why is London such a problem?

"Hell is a city much like London - A populous and smoky city." Shelley

Size. By 1800 London was already the world’s largest city, with a population of 1 million. By the 1851 census, that figure had grown to 2.5 million and was 6.7 million in 1901.
Scale. The small market town where I live, Chipping Sodbury, consists of one parish and it is possible to search the whole parish register, if necessary, for one event. But there were over 100 parishes in the square mile of the City of London alone. And some of the parishes in the wider city were truly enormous. By mid century, the population of St Marylebone was over 150,000.
Range of repositories. In addition to the major collections in the London Metropolitan Archives, Guildhall Library and Westminster Archives, there are separate record offices in most London boroughs, plus numerous specialist repositories
Range of sources. The numbers of different churches, charities, directories, newspapers, books, government reports, etc. covering London make it impossible to search everything.
Difficult research period. During the early 19th century there was a decline in the number of children baptised, especially in poor urban areas, and this was prior to the start of General Registration in 1837 and the first useful census in 1841.

Why are Londoners such a problem?

"There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear—the city of London and the South Seas." Herman Melville

Extreme poverty. In "The Condition of the Working Class in England", published in 1845, Friedrich Engels described the abject condition of the London poor:
Extreme mobility. Because so many were leading a hand to mouth existence, with very little money for accommodation, renting rooms by the month, week or even by the night was common. Most poor families gave a different address at the birth registration of each child. It is not uncommon for the address to change in the few weeks between birth and baptism.
Fragmented families. The Industrial Revolution led to a huge migration of population from the countryside into the towns. People lost their rural roots and the extended family structures which went with them. Family members were scattered over wide areas of the city and children no longer supported their aged parents.
Social breakdown. People were no longer well known to their neighbours, or to the authorities, as is demonstrated in the cases cited by Engels
Official anonymity. Civil registration of births, marriages and deaths was not compulsory until 1875. There was deliberate evasion of the census takers and it was easy to cover up cohabitation, adultery and illegitimacy. One of my husband's ancestors fathered two illegitimate children whilst he was an apprentice. He and his partner were able to pass themselves off as man and wife when baptising those children in a large London parish. Once his apprenticeship ended, they went several parishes away to tie the knot quietly.

UK Genealogy News & Views: 12 September 2011

2011-09-12T01:43:00.001+01:00

Essex Ancestors Update

The planned launch of Essex Ancestors on 30 August has been put back to 3 October. This means that you have an extra month to view the digital images currently online for free, as explained in my previous post. Don't miss this opportunity whilst it is available.

Genhound - a little known resource

I read a lot of genealogy blogs and follow many genealogists on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. Some sites get mentioned repeatedly but I rarely see any reference to Genhound. That is a pity as it is full of useful content which is growing fast. Records include parish registers, monumental inscriptions, newspapers, obituaries, wills, military records, court records, land records, biographies and much more besides. You can see a complete list of databases here. At the moment there is a little bit of everything, so it's a real lucky dip. As someone who's stuck in late 17th century Scotland, I am particularly keen on the Scottish Deeds Index, which now covers the period 1675-1696. But I've also found relatives in poll books, directories and school records. Genhound is extremely reasonably priced. You can buy 60 Credits for £3 and they have no expiry date. The average record costs just 10 credits (50p) to view. Do give their search engine a try today and let me know how you get on.

New Crew List Records on Find My Past

Find My Past have recently added records from 1881 and 1891 to their database of Crew Lists, 1861-1913. This database is potentially very valuable. It contains indexes to around 33,500 lists of crew members on board British merchant vessels and around 413,500 records of individual crewmen. Information available in the index includes name, age, place of birth, rank, previous ship, current ship, dates of voyage, details of the vessel, details of the owner, master and other crew members and the reference number for the original crew list at the National Archives.

Unfortunately, the usefulness of the index is seriously undermined by the limitations of the search function and the poor quality of the indexing. It is not possible to search by the birth town, only by the birth county (usually not in the original but added by the indexers). You must select from a list of counties which covers England, Wales, two counties in Ireland - Cork and Dublin, Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man and Overseas. The database contains a large number of crew members who were born in one of the other Irish counties, or in Scotland, but it is impossible to search for them by birth county.

Birth towns have also been incorrectly allocated to counties. Whilst ploughing through 28 pages of Andersons to find my Scottish relatives, I came across Falmouth indexed in Cork instead of Cornwall, Ferryden in Overseas instead of Angus and Arundel in Norway! There are five whole pages out of the 28 where the places have not been allocated a county at all. Many of these birth places are blank, abbreviated or obscure, but others are instantly recognisable, such as Morpeth, Tipton, Halifax, Glamis, Kirkcaldy and Pontypridd.

Unlike most of the other Find My Past databases, there is no facility to submit corrections to these indexes.

Merchant Navy records: Wreck, Rescue & Racism

2011-09-06T17:52:00.001+01:00

My son in law's great grandfather, Leonard Harold Glenister, 1904-1995, was a merchant seaman. So when Find My Past released their new collection of Merchant Navy records last week I looked him up.

The records are index cards created by the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen for all those serving on British merchant navy vessels from 1918 to 1941. The front of each card contains biographical information plus a description and, if you are lucky, there is a photograph on the back, together with details of ships on which the person served.

I duly found a card for him, covering the period 1918 to 1921. He joined the merchant service as a "Deck Boy" in 1918, aged 14. He was only 4 foot 7 inches in height, with light brown hair and grey eyes. He looked very solemn and worried in his photograph.

Find My Past have included a helpful link to the Crew List Index Project, to identify the names of ships from the official numbers used on the index cards. From CLIP I learned that Leonard's first ship, which he joined on 23 January 1919, was the SS Zealandic. Constructed by Harland and Wolff in Belfast, she was launched in 1911 and owned by the White Star Line, of Titanic fame. Her home port was Liverpool. In 1917 she was commandeered by the Royal Navy for the transportation of troops and was still being used for that purpose when Leonard joined her, sailing between Liverpool and Wellington in New Zealand. Troops returning home were carried in one direction and meat from New Zealand in the other.

On 13 January 1920, Leonard moved to his second ship, SS Athenic, also owned by the White Star Line. She was a passenger liner, built in Belfast by Harland and Wolff and launched in 1901. She carried 121 passengers in first class, 117 second class and 450 third class. The ship was equipped with electric lighting and cooling chambers for the transport of frozen lamb. Like the Zealandic, she sailed on the New Zealand route.

Leonard Glenister's voyage on the Athenic turned out to be rather eventful. I have pieced together the following account of what happened from newspaper reports in the United States and New Zealand.

On her outward journey from London to Wellington, via the Panama Canal, the Athenic was carrying 500 homebound New Zealand soldiers. On 2 February they were docked in Newport News, Virginia, where an influenza epidemic was raging. The soldiers were forbidden to go ashore but 50 of them defied the order. Their commanding officer promptly reported them to the local police and they were arrested as deserters. According to the newspaper report, "They resented the charge of being deserters, but were herded back to their ship without difficulty after a brief stay in the police station". Athenic was due to sail the following day but was kept in port for a further three days by a fierce storm which brought 50 mph winds and huge waves.

The return journey was even more dramatic. On Sunday 2 May 1920, an American steamer, the SS Munamar, on a voyage from Antilla, Cuba to New York, ran aground on a reef off San Salvador Island in the Bahamas. The ship was in a very dangerous position and taking on water fast, so the passengers were all put into the lifeboats. Athenic was in the vicinity and received Munamar's SOS call about 9pm. The first Athenic's passengers knew of the incident was when her engines suddenly stopped. It was too dark to effect a rescue but fortunately it was a calm night, so the Munamar's passengers sat in their lifeboats, whilst the Athenic circled, waiting for dawn. At daybreak on 3 May the 83 passengers from the Munamar were rescued, and their baggage and the mails salvaged from the stranded ship. The whole operation took about two hours.

Athenic had a full passenger list and no empty berths, so the Captain ordered beds to be made up in the public rooms for the new arrivals. Unfortunately, this led to an ugly display of racism. 30 of the rescued passengers were black and the other Munamar passengers objected strongly to sharing accommodation with them. They "made a great many complaints" but the Captain of the Athenic stood firm. No doubt all concerned were very relieved when the Athenic landed the Munamar's passengers at Newport News, three days later. From there they made their way to New York by train.

The Munamar was eventually floated off the reef, after 2,000 bags of sugar from her cargo were thrown overboard, and taken to a dry dock in Jacksonville, Florida, for repairs. She then returned to service between Cuba and New York. Some time later, Captain Crossland of the Athenic was given a gold watch by President Warren Harding, in recognition of his ship's rescue efforts.

SNGF - Ahnentafel Roulette

2011-09-03T23:43:00.001+01:00

Tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver is:

How old would your great-grandfather be now, if he had lived? Divide this number by four and round off to a whole number. This is your "roulette number."
Use your pedigree charts to find the person with that number in your ahnentafel. Who is that person?
Tell us three facts about the person with that "roulette number."

My great-grandfather, Rev Alban Edgar Brunskill Davis, was born in 1852. Had he lived, he would be 159 years old. Dividing this number by four gives me a "roulette number" of 40.

Number 40 in my ahnentafel is my 3x great grandfather, William Eaton, 1777-1857.

My three facts about William are:

He was a carpenter in the small village of Dean in Bedfordshire and also had a side line selling beer. He was the fifth in an unbroken line of seven generations of Eatons who were carpenters in Dean, spanning the period 1679 to 1898.
He married three times.

His first wife was Elizabeth Hardwick, 1779-1814. Elizabeth was from Great Staughton in Huntingdonshire, where they married in 1801. William was two years older than Elizabeth.
His second wife was Martha Windsor, 1796-1820. They married in Dean in 1815. William was 19 years older than Martha.
His third wife was my 3x great grandmother, Elizabeth Panther, 1802-1868. William was 25 years older than Elizabeth.

As a result of these three marriages, William had 17 children over a period of 39 years, from 1803 to 1842. His last child was born when he was 65:

With Elizabeth Hardwick he had eight children:

Sarah Eaton, 1803-1803
William Eaton, 1804-1824
Thomas Eaton, 1805
Samuel Eaton, 1806
Mary Eaton, 1808
Hannah Eaton, 1809
John Eaton, 1811
Joseph Eaton, 1813-1814

With Martha Windsor he had only one child:

Elizabeth Eaton, 1816

With Elizabeth Panther he had eight children:

Robert Eaton, 1822-1898
Sarah Eaton, 1823-1832
Ann Burgess Eaton, 1825
Emma Eaton, 1828
William Eaton, 1829
Mary Eaton, 1832
Sally Burgess Eaton, 1839
Samuel Panther Eaton, 1842

UK Genealogy News & Views: 23 August 2011

2011-08-23T01:40:00.001+01:00

Only a week left to get Essex records for free

Essex Record Office currently have digital images of a number of parish registers available free via the Essex Ancestors section of their SEAX search engine. Coverage varies by date and parish - excellent for Dedham and very poor for Prittlewell, for example. From 30 August they will be offering unlimited access to Essex parish registers and wills on a newly launched Essex Ancestors website but it will be a subscription service. The charges will range from £5 for one day's access to £75 for a year. So if you have Essex ancestors, take a look to see if digital images for their parish are currently free online, before this week's window of opportunity closes.

London Confirmation Records, 1850-1921, on Ancestry

Ancestry usually add new databases quietly, a few days before they announce them publicly. I regularly check the New Collections page to see what they've sneaked in and last week I spotted the addition of London Confirmation Records, 1850-1921. I had high hopes for this collection but they were soon dashed. The new database contains records from just 25 parishes, some covering very short time periods, such as St John, Kensal Green, 1892-99 and St Jude, South Kensington, 1904-1912. There are less than 23,000 records in total. So don't get your hopes up, fellow London researchers! Oh, and St Martin, Kensal Rise, has been indexed as St John, Kensal Green!

Poor indexing of the 1851 census on Find My Past

British genealogists often complain that Ancestry make a hash of transcribing our records, as in the example above. Yesterday I found equally poor indexing of the 1851 census records on Find My Past. I was looking at the delightfully named Dorset village of Whitchurch Canonicorum and found that over 160 people born in the village had their birthplace mistranscribed as "Whitchurch and Coventry". Other gems of mistranscription included "Whitchurch Lanonicorner" and "Whitchurch Cononicorem". Given that the parish name was clearly written, in full, at the top of the first page, you'd think it would have been fairly easy to get it right! I've suggested to Find My Past that they should review their indexing of this whole section of the census.

Scottish records in English archives

People researching Scottish ancestry naturally gravitate to Scottish repositories and to websites such as Scotland's People. But don't forget that English archives also contain important Scottish records. I have struck lucky in a number of places. In the National Archives at Kew, the TS 11/1082 series of papers relating to the 1745 Jacobite rebellion contains three letters sent to one of my Scottish ancestors. I found deeds for properties in Angus, owned by my 17th century ancestors, in the Sheffield Archives, in the papers of a local aristocratic family of Scots descent. And I have been able to trace the careers of a number of Scottish relatives in the India Office Records at the British Library. The Access to Archives search engine is a good place to start looking for Scottish names and places in English archives and you should also search the National Archives online catalogue.

Identifying & Dating Old Photos: Mystery Photo 1

2011-08-06T23:14:00.001+01:00

This evening I participated in an excellent webinar by Maureen Taylor, Photo Detective, on the subject of Identifying and Dating Family Photographs. It has really motivated me to get back to work on an album containing photographs of my Lowe ancestors in Coupar Angus, Scotland, which a cousin shared with me last year. See Every Picture Tells a Story for the background. Of the 96 photographs in the album, only 26 have so far been identified.

I have decided to start with this full length portrait of an unknown man because it has details of the photographer on the reverse:

Here is what I know so far, set out under headings suggested by Maureen's webinar:

Provenance of Photograph

From an album belonging to Dr John Lowe (1849-1925), and his wife, Annie Willie Cowpar. The album was subsequently taken to Canada by their son, Major Robert Lowe (1882-1955). It is now in the possession of one of his daughters, my third cousin, once removed, from whom I obtained a digital copy.

Type of Photograph

Paper print, common in England from 1858 to 1914.

Photographer

Thanks to Photo London, I know that Alexander Lamont Henderson, born in Edinburgh in 1838, had a studio at 49 King William Street, London Bridge, from 1860 until November 1887. His son gave his photographic library to the Guildhall Library in November 1907. Alas, it was destroyed during the Blitz in 1942. Otherwise I could simply have looked up the print number in the library.

Internal Evidence

The painted window, looking out on a country scene, was popular in the late 1860s.

Costume

A number of features suggest the first half of the 1860s:

Loose fitting suit
Peg top trousers, wide at the top and tapering to a close fit at the ankle
Dark jacket worn with light trousers
Shoes neither square-toed nor pointed

Genealogical Research

Most of the photographs in the album were taken in Scotland. This one suggests someone who was living in London. Between 1863 and 1872, George Lowe (1819-1915), worked in London as an engineer, first at Woolwich Arsenal and later at St Pancras. He was aged 44 to 53 during this period, which fits with the age of the man in the photograph. I have a photograph of George Lowe taken in 1902, when he was 83. Comparing the two photographs, there would seem to be a similarity in the eyes, nose, mouth and ears:

Add up all the Clues

The evidence so far suggests that this may be a photograph of George Lowe, taken when he was working in London during the 1860s.

Next Steps

George Lowe and his family emigrated first to Canada, in 1872, and then to the USA in 1873. I am in touch with one of his descendants in the USA, my fourth cousin. I shall email him to see if he, or his relatives, have any photographs of George Lowe.

Porter who told porkies had previous

2011-08-04T01:52:00.001+01:00

In Porter tells porkies to the police I wrote about how my great-grandfather, John McCarthy, lied about his age in order to join the Metropolitan Police.

Before joining the police, John had been a porter and signalman with the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. Yesterday Ancestry released a new database of Railway Employment Records, 1833-1963 and I was very pleased to find John McCarthy's service record amongst them.

The details can be briefly stated: John joined the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway as a porter at Shadwell Station in March 1880, on a salary of 16 shillings a week (about £400 today). On 13 September 1880 he was promoted to signalman and his pay went up to 22 shillings (about £550). He resigned on 25 November 1881, a month before he started his new career in the Metropolitan Police.

What intrigued me was to see that John had also lied about his age to the railway company. In March 1880 John was 16 but told them he was 19. The reason for the deception is baffling, as the records show other boys taken on as porters on the same salary as John, aged only 15. Whatever his motives, it is clear that he had "previous" when it came to pulling a fast one on the Metropolitan Police.

The staff records also reveal that he was recommended to the railway company by Hyam & Co. They were a large and very well known firm of outfitters, with headquarters in Oxford Street and branches in all the main British cities. In 1851 they advertised themselves in the official catalogue of the Great Exhibition as "the most extensive tailors and clothiers in the world". My assumption is that John McCarthy worked for them before joining the railway. Perhaps it was from them that he acquired his taste for elegant clothes, which led to his nickname: The Beau Brummell of the Yard.

SNGF: 10 Signs you have summer holiday GOCD

2011-07-30T21:31:00.001+01:00

For tonight's SNGF challenge, Randy Seaver has invited us to add to Michael John Neill's list of 10 Signs You Have Genealogy OCD.

As we are in the middle of the summer holidays, I decided to base my list on that theme:

You book your holiday accommodation in a former ancestral hometown - if possible, in a former ancestral home.
You pack your laptop, notebook and pencils but forget your swimsuit and sunblock.
You take three days to get there because of all the genealogy related stops along the way.
You spend your days in the archives / cemetery whilst your family go to the beach.
You spend one evening at the local genealogy society meeting.
You spend your other evenings researching online whilst your family watch TV.
You send reproductions of old postcards to your friends and family back home.
You buy local maps and histories as souvenirs.
You are Facebook friends with all the local genealogists by the time you leave.
All your holiday snaps are of gravestones.

SNGF: Where I'm From

2011-07-23T23:50:00.001+01:00

This week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver is to write a poem about "Where I'm From" using the template found at the website http://www.swva.net/fred1st/wif.htm.

Here is my entry:

Where I'm From

I am from toast and dripping, Hovis and honey, full cream milk and eggy soldiers.

I am from a pebble-dashed semi - coal bunker, Mabel Lucy Attwell print, ginger kitten climbing the curtains - next door to the district nurse.

I am from the rose trellis and vegetable plot, compost heap and cherry tree. Opposite the oak wood dell, pirate haven and Red Indian camp, where my brother fell from a tree.

I am from grammar school education and eccentricity, Scottish pride and London poverty. I am from upstairs and downstairs - Alban and Georgina and Viv and Alice.

I am from wanderlust and laughter, a passion for history and the gift of the gab. From "I can see a way round this" to "you get yours, mate".

I am from mixed-marriage, second-class, never quite good enough Catholics. I am from Bible believing Baptists, upwardly mobile Methodists, bells and smells Anglicans, down the pub atheists.

I am from the Surrey hills, channelling Dorset, Yorkshire, London. I am from the Braes of Atholl and from the Blarney Stone. I am from puddings - Christmas and Yorkshire - spaghetti bolognese and the Chinese chippy.

I am from the snake in Dad's tent and the flood over the library. I am from Passchendaele and Poona. From the Rector of Brympton and McCarthy of the Yard.

I am from a biscuit tin of photos, tea-time stories, Grandma's memories. I am from a crocheted cot blanket, an ivory hairbrush and a tortoiseshell mirror.

I am from strong roots in good soil.

An ancestor who fought at Waterloo

2011-06-27T18:04:00.001+01:00

Since my daughter married, two years ago, I have been tracing my son in law's ancestry. I recently discovered that his 4x great grandfather, George Stables, fought at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815.

George Stables was born at Cairnie in Aberdeenshire in December 1782, the son of George Stables, a crofter, and Jean (or Jane) Minty. George junior originally worked as a weaver but on 9 February 1807, at the age of 24, he enlisted as a Gunner in the Royal Artillery.

Unfortunately, the only part of his military service record which survives is his discharge record, so it is impossible to piece together the details of his military service prior to Waterloo. It seems highly likely, however, that he saw service during the Peninsular War (1808 to 1814).

By 1815, George Stables was a Gunner in Captain Courtenay Ilbert's Company, 5th Battalion, Royal Artillery, which formed part of Wellington's Reserve and did not see action at Waterloo. Shortly before the battle, however, a detachment of 3 Officers, 3 Bombardiers and 33 Gunners were sent from Captain Ilbert's Company to join the 2nd Company, 3rd Battalion, Royal Artillery, under the command of Brevet Major Thomas Rogers. George Stables was one of the Gunners and Lieutenant George Sylvester Maule was one of the Officers.

George Maule kept a journal which is now in the Wiltshire and Swindon Archives. I was able to purchase a transcript and commentary by Mike Robinson at 1815 Limited. I also found online a detailed presentation on the history of Rogers' Company of the Royal Artillery. From these two sources, it is possible to know what George Maule and the men under his command experienced in the three days from 15 to 18 June 1815.

On the evening of Thursday, 15 June, they were quartered at the Chateau at Foret, two and a half miles south of Brussels. They were roused from their beds at 11 pm by a courier bringing orders to march. Between 1 and 2 am on the morning of Friday 16 June they left Foret and marched to Brussels, where they waited some time for the 5th Division, of which they were part, to form up. They then departed by the Namur Gate, marching to the tune of "The British Grenadiers".

About 8 o'clock on the morning of 16 June they arrived at Waterloo and rested on either side of the road outside the village, in the Forest of Soignes. During the course of the morning they passed several places from which the inhabitants had fled, apart from some terrified old women.

At 1pm they arrived at the strategic crossroads of Quatre Bras, where Dutch and Belgian troops were already engaged in fighting the French. Rogers' Company, who were equipped with six 9-pounder guns, formed a line and were soon in action. They took part in a furious artillery duel with the French, whose guns were well hidden in a wood 600 yards in front of them, and fought off a charge of Cuirassiers and a column of enemy infantry. The Company suffered heavy losses in men and horses but kept up their steady firing. The fighting carried on until dark (which at that time of year would have been late evening) when the two armies bivouacked where they had fought.

At daybreak on Saturday 17 June they buried the dead officers and the ordinary soldiers, such as George Stables, took the opportunity to fit themselves out with new kit at the expense of their dead comrades. At 11 am they marched back they way they had come towards Waterloo, with French troops harrying them from behind. They were also caught in a dreadful storm. By 6.30 pm the whole British army had taken up its positions at the hamlet of Mont St. Jean, with the French about three quarters of a mile away, with whom they exchanged artillery fire until nightfall. Heavy rain extinguished their fires as they bivouacked for the night.

They were up and under arms before daybreak on Sunday 18 June, although the battle did not start until later in the morning. Rogers' Company were positioned in front of the infantry and were under direct orders from Wellington only to open fire on an enemy advance. The Commander of the 5th Division, Sir Thomas Picton, stationed himself next to Rogers' artillery to direct their fire on the mass of French infantry.

A present day member of Rogers' Company has described the scene:

Calmly the gunners waited with lighted portfires until the head of the French column appeared over the crest in front of the guns. At the word “fire” a tremendous salvo of grape shattered the enemy and before they could recover the British infantry charged them. A melee ensued which the gunners joined in, armed only with rammers, until the French resolve weakened and they gave way in confusion. So critical was the situation at this time that one of Rogers's guns was spiked by its Number 1 to prevent it being used by the enemy who seemed bound to capture it.

Sir Thomas Picton was killed close by the Company at this time. They then changed position twice before, down to only three guns, they took part in the final decisive action of the battle, the repulse of Napoleon's famed Imperial Guard, cutting down whole ranks with their murderous artillery fire.

Rogers' Company won a battle honour for their actions at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. Like all those who had fought in either action, George Stables received the Waterloo Medal and had 2 years added to his reckonable service for pension purposes. By 1816 he was back in Britain and stationed at the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich. On 26 October 1816 George married a Suffolk girl, Rebecca Dawson, at St Nicholas, Plumstead.

George was discharged from the 5th Battalion of the Royal Artillery on 31 January 1819. The discharge papers contain a physical description. He was 5 foot 7.5 inches, with dark brown hair, blue eyes and a dark complexion. The official reason for his discharge was "ague and debility". Ague was the old term for malaria, a disease which devastated the British forces during the Peninsular War. This reinforces the likelihood that George Stables had seen service there.

George wasted no time in returning to Scotland after his discharge, settling at Cults, near Kennethmont in Aberdeenshire, about 12 miles from his birthplace. His first known child, also George, was baptised at Kennethmont on 11 March 1819, so poor Rebecca must have travelled nearly 600 miles whilst heavily pregnant. Despite his "debility", George went on to live for another 40 years, drawing a pension of 9d a day from the army (about £30 in today's money). He also fathered eight more children with Rebecca. He died at Cults, of dropsy, on 20 December 1859, aged 77, and was buried in the kirkyard at Kennethmont.

This is the Face of Genealogy

2011-06-06T00:24:00.001+01:00

Without genealogy I would never have known that James Hudson Taylor, 1832-1905, the famous missionary to China, was my second cousin, three times removed.

This post is published in response to a request from Thomas MacEntee of GeneaBloggers.

Surname Saturday: Nippard

2011-05-14T12:07:00.001+01:00

This is the rarest surname in my family tree - so rare that it doesn't appear in the surname books and I can't find a surname website which has any information about its derivation.

I have found it spelled in a wide variety of ways - Nepard, Neppard, Neppred, Nepprod, Nipard, Niperd, Niperhed, Nippards, Nipperd, Nippered, Nippierd, Nippred, Nipprid, Nipred, Niprid, Niprod and Nypred - but Nippard seems to be the most common form.

Having searched for the surname derivation for years, I stumbled across the answer whilst doing a Google search on these variants. The name comes from a lost medieval settlement called Nypred in the parish of Tisbury, Wiltshire, the earliest reference to which dates from 1240. It was located somewhere in the area now known as Fonthill Old Park.

The earliest occurrence of the surname I have found is John de Nipred, who was one of the jurors at an Inquisition Post Mortem held in Tisbury on 16 July 1290. The earliest mention in a parish register is the burial of Katherin, daughter of Thomas Nypred, at Salisbury, Wiltshire on 20 November 1561. Salisbury is some 12 miles from Tisbury. The surname continued to be very localised to this area, being found almost exclusively in Dorset, Hampshire, Somerset and Wiltshire right up until the 19th century.

My own link to the family is my 7x great grandmother, Mary Nipperd, who married John Coles at Damerham, Wiltshire, on 20 April 1703. I have no information about her baptism or parents, so she is one of my end-of-line brick walls. However, Damerham is less than 20 miles from Tisbury, so I think there is no doubt as to where Mary's - and my - Nippard ancestors originated.

SNGF: A Genealogy Scavenger Hunt

2011-05-07T22:01:00.001+01:00

The Challenge

Tonight's challenge from Randy Seaver is:

1. For each person listed below, provide the name of the mother of the person and the genea-blogger to whom they are related.

a) Lois Velleda Dreher

b) Mary Philomene Laurent

c) Ernest Francis Sheern

d) Cecelia Jost

e) Mary Jane Sovereen

f) Bethiah Brigham

2. Tell us how you conducted this search, and what you may have learned from your searches.

The Answers

1. The mother / genea-blogger in each case is:

a) Irene Caroline Banet / Cyndi Beane Henry Mountain Genealogists

b) Olivine Marie St. Louis / Brian Zalewski Zalewski Family Genealogy

c) Ann Emily Leseure / Sheri Fenley The Educated Genealogist

d) Cecilia Kurta / Amy Coffin The We Tree Genealogy Blog

e) Eliza Putman / Randy Seaver Genea-Musings

f) Ann Richardson / Elyse Doerflinger Elyse's Genealogy Blog

2. I used Google. I have to be honest and say that I'm afraid I didn't learn anything. It was all very mechanistic - just search, copy and paste. Not my favourite challenge.

SNGF - "Problems" in your genealogy database

2011-04-30T22:06:00.001+01:00

The Challenge

Tonight's challenge from Randy Seaver is to:

Open your genealogy software program and use the Help function to determine how to make a "Problem Report" or "Data Error Report" (or something similar).
Create a "Problem Report" or "Data Error Report" in your software for the persons in your tree (either everyone in the tree, or for a selected number of generations of your ancestors).
Tell us what type of problems or errors your report found. Tell us how many errors were found. Tell us what problem or error surprised you.

The Results

I use Family Tree Maker 2011. I already know how to create a Data Errors Report in that program. Go to the Publish workspace and select Person Reports > Data Errors Report.
I ran a Data Errors Report for All Individuals. I opted to include all errors except "Birth date missing" and "Marriage date missing". I don't regard those as data errors but as research challenges.
My Data Errors Report included nine individuals:
- Two men were flagged: "The name may include a title" because their first name is Dean. These are not data errors.
- Three women were flagged: "The individual has the same last name as her husband". In all three cases the women's maiden surnames were indeed the same as their husbands' surnames. These are not data errors.
- A husband and wife were both flagged: "This individual's children's sort order may be incorrect". I checked this couple's children in the People workspace, Family view. They were indeed in the wrong sort order, with births in 1892 and 1897 followed by a birth in 1894. I clicked the button to "Sort children by birth order" and the error was corrected.
- One person was flagged: "The birth date occurs after the death date". This is a known problem in my tree. Family Search shows Steven Martin, son of Alexander Martin and Love Kingston, as having been baptised at Doulting, Somerset on 18 April 1787 but buried there on 29 March 1787. Until I am able to look at the original registers, I am keeping these contradictory dates in my tree, as I do not know which one is incorrect.
- One person was flagged: "Baptism date occurred before individual's birth date. The birth date occurred after her father was 80. The birth date occurred more than one year after her father died". This was the result of a data entry error on my part. I had entered an 1827 birth as having occurred in 1847. Correcting the birth date resolved the error.

I run this report regularly, so wasn't expecting - and didn't find - any major issues. Nonetheless, I did pick up, and was able to correct, two errors in my data. So thank you for the challenge, Randy.

Surname Saturday: Haliburton

2011-04-23T16:50:00.001+01:00

Haliburton is a Scottish surname which comes from two farms near Greenlaw in Berwickshire - Meikle and Little Haliburton. It is thought that the original name for the area was Burton, from the Norse bur, a storehouse, and dun (pronounced toon), a fort. Then a chapel was built and the area became Holy or Haly Burton.

The earliest recorded bearer of the surname was David de Halyburton who, in 1176, gave the chapel at Halyburton to the Abbey of Kelso. The Haliburtons originally held estates at Merton and Muirhouselaw near Dryburgh. In the 14th century they acquired by marriage the lordship of Dirleton, in East Lothian and, in the 15th century, the lordship of Pitcur in Angus.

From Pitcur there developed a strong Angus branch of the family in and around the parish of Kettins, where Hallyburton House and Forest remain to this day. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Angus branch of the Haliburtons were also active as merchants and writers (solicitors) in Dundee and in Edinburgh.

Sir Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott was descended from the Haliburtons of Dryburgh through his mother. In 1820 he published a book called Memorials of the Haliburtons which is now available to read online at the Internet Archive.

Battle of Killiecrankie, 1689

One of the Haliburton lairds of Pitcur was killed at the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689, fighting on the Jacobite side under John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee. He is mentioned in the folk song The Braes of Killiecrankie: "The bauld [bold] Pitcur fell in a furr [ditch]:

My Haliburton ancestry

My own Haliburton ancestors come from the same period of Scottish history. I've traced them back to the early 17th century in the parishes of Kettins and Newtyle. My family were tenants of land belonging to the Haliburtons of Pitcur, so are likely to be related in some way, but at present I do not know how.

Name	Father	Mother	Spouse	Marriage	Place	Death
John Haliburton						aft 26 Aug 1622
George Haliburton	John Haliburton		Susanna Halden	bef 30 Sep 1664
James Haliburton	George Haliburton	Susanna Halden	Agnes Smith	9 Jul 1677		bet 1698 & 1700
Jean Haliburton	James Haliburton	Agnes Smith	Charles Hay	8 Jul 1720	Coupar Angus, Perthshire	aft 22 May 1753

Parishmouse: Old books, parish registers & photos

2011-04-22T21:35:00.001+01:00

Parishmouse is a blog which "contains free transcriptions of historical books and parish registers for England and Wales and a large collection of photos of churches and graves and illustrations from the old books".

The transcriptions cover many counties but Parishmouse is a particularly rich source of information for Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. Most, but not all, of the old books seem to be directories.

I only came across Parishmouse yesterday and I've already obtained two important nuggets of information from it:

about a Baptist minister who lived in our house in the late 18th century
about the school in Tardebigge, Worcestershire where Frederick and Charlotte Davis taught in the 1850s

This is the kind of website where you never know what you will find until you look and the range is so wide you are almost bound to find something. There is a comprehensive list of records under Categories plus a built in Google site search. Multiple transcriptions are being added each day, so this is a site you'll want to either follow or bookmark and revisit. Do let me know if you find anything. Happy hunting!

FTM 2011 + 6 months Ancestry sub for £19

2011-04-01T22:00:00.001+01:00

Calling all genealogists who have a Tesco Clubcard. You can currently get the Platinum version of Family Tree Maker 2011 for £19 worth of Clubcard vouchers. The software includes a free 6 month Premium subscription to Ancestry, worth £77.70.

This is a very good deal, as the same package is currently £61.27 on Ancestry and £35.99 on Amazon.

Blogger - Five New Ways to View Blogs

2011-03-31T22:17:00.001+01:00

Blogger have today launched 5 new ways to view their blogs. Simply add "/view" to the URL of the blog to access them.

Flipcard View

Mosaic View

Timeslide View

Sidebar View

Snapshot View

I like this view best of all but, unfortunately, I can't get it to load for my own blog.

Census Night: Looking back - Part 2

2011-03-29T01:46:00.001+01:00

You can read the first part of this post here.

Please click on each of the images below to see a larger version.

3 April 1881 - A family divided by tragedy

This is the 1881 census entry for my husband's 2x great grandfather, Mark Gurney. He was living in the village of Martock, near Yeovil, in Somerset, with his three youngest children, Frances, (Ada) Charlotte and (George) Edward.

Sadly, Mark's wife Frances, nee Heale, was not with them. She can be found in the 1881 census in the Somerset and Bath Asylum in Wells, described as a lunatic. She had first been admitted there with mental illness in July 1874. Her admission notes stated that she had been ill for two weeks. She could answer questions rationally and said that she did not approve of doctors. If anything was done contrary to her wishes she got excited and used threatening language.

At the time of her admission, Frances was about 12 weeks pregnant with her fifth child, Kathleen, who was born in the Asylum in February 1875. Frances was discharged shortly after the birth but by June her baby was dead.

Her next admission was in June 1878, when George Edward was nine months old. Discharged on Boxing Day 1878, she was, as we have seen, back in the Asylum for the 1881 census. In November 1882 her oldest son died and in May 1884 she lost her husband, Mark.

By February 1885 she was back in the Asylum with "mania", described as suicidal and dangerous. She gave her next of kin as the son who had been dead for two years. Discharged in June 1885 she went to London, where she was admitted to a workhouse in poverty and then despatched back to Somerset. At that point poor Frances vanishes from the records, with no further appearances in the Asylum or the censuses and no death certificate found.

5 April 1891 - Orphans boarded out with a nurse

This is the 1891 census entry for my grandfather, Lawrence George Buchanan Davis, and his twin sister, Georgina Alicia Davis (Georgie). They were both 11 months old and were living in Earle Street, Yeovil, Somerset in the household of Thomas Woodward, a naval pensioner, and his wife, Elizabeth, who was a nurse. (The Woodward family are shown on the previous page of the census.)

Lawrence and Georgie were the children of Rev Alban Edgar Brunskill Davis, Rector of Brympton d'Evercy, Somerset, and his wife, Georgina, nee Lowe. They were born in the Rectory at Brympton on 3 May 1890 and on 11 May their mother, Georgina, died from metroperitonitis (inflammation around the uterus). The informant on Georgina's death certificate was Elizabeth Woodward of Earle Street, Yeovil, who had been present at the death.

It would seem that Elizabeth Woodward, having nursed Georgina Davis at the time of her death, then took over responsibility for the week old twins, who spent at least their first year of life boarded out in her household. She was probably also their wet nurse.

31 March 1901 - The housemaid

This is the 1901 census entry for my grandmother, Alice Eaton. She was a 20 year old housemaid in the household of Joseph Rock, an East India Export Agent, at 13 The Downs, Wimbledon, Surrey.

This was a real Upstairs, Downstairs household consisting of Joseph, his wife, eight children, a grandchild and five servants. There were also a coachman and his wife living over the coach house next door.

Although not shown in the census, I know from my grandmother's stories that the household also employed a butler, who used to pour an entire bottle of port into a huge whole round of Stilton at Christmas time.

Alice went into service with the Rocks as an under housemaid at the age of 14. Her duties included getting up at dawn to lay the fires in the grates. By the time of the 1901 census she had been promoted to housemaid but was still second to bottom in the pecking order of servants.

She stayed with the family until her marriage to my grandfather, Vivian Macaulay Bentley, in July 1904. For her big day, the Rock family gave Alice the use of their coach and coachman for her journey to and from the church. It was a kindness which Alice never forgot and she always talked about the Rock family with affection.

2 April 1911 - So much information

This is the 1911 census entry for my great grandparents, John and Agnes McCarthy, nee Fritz. They were living at 66 Salford Road, Streatham Hill, London, with their three daughters, Edith, Dora and Sheila, and a general servant.

This census provides unique information, not available in any of the previous censuses. For the first time, the form was filled in by the head of household, not the enumerator. So this document shows me John McCarthy's own handwriting and signature. It also reveals that the house had eight rooms, counting the kitchen but not including the bathroom. Most importantly, it provides details about the marriage and the number of children born and surviving.

John and Agnes had been married 23 years (they married on 21 July 1887) and the marriage had produced six living children, of whom three had died. My mother, who lived with the McCarthy family as a child, was able to give me the names of those three children. Agnes, born in 1888, died of typhoid in Le Havre, France, in 1891. Edith's twin, John, died as a one year old baby and Richard, born in the gap between Dora and Sheila, died of bronchitis, aged 9 months.

This census also gives more information about employment than any previous one. As well as a person's occupation it also gives the industry or service sector in which they worked. John McCarthy is listed as a Chief Inspector in the Criminal Investigation Department of the Metropolitan Police, it being the year before his promotion to Superintendent. His two elder daughters were both out at work, reflecting the increasing economic participation of women in the Edwardian era. Both were working as shorthand typists, Edith for an insurance company and Dora, my grandmother, for a firm of sanitary engineers.

Census Night: Looking back - Part 1

2011-03-28T01:14:00.001+01:00

Having just submitted the census returns online for our household and my mother's, I thought it would be fun to look back at how some of my ancestors were recorded in the eight censuses from 1841 to 1911 which are now in the public domain. The examples I have chosen show how important census information is in tracing family history.

Please click on each of the images below to see a larger version.

6 June 1841 - Reaching right back to the 18th century

This 1841 census entry is for my 4x great grandparents, James and Elizabeth Snelling (nee Toop). They were living in East Lulworth, Dorset, the village where they had both been born.

James, who was baptised in October 1757 was 83, and Elizabeth, who was baptised in July 1764, was 76. The census enumerator correctly rounded both their ages down to the nearest 5 years, as 80 and 75 respectively.

Because of their ages, this census enabled me to jump right back to the parish registers of the mid 18th century. Sadly, their extreme old age seems to have reduced them to want, as James' "profession, trade or employment" is given as "pauper". This reminds me that I must look at the local Poor Law records to see if James and Elizabeth were being given any form of outdoor relief.

30 March 1851 - A wealth of information, some of it misleading

This 1851 census entry is for my 2x great grandparents, Frederick and Charlotte Davis (nee Aves). They were living at Toll End, Tipton, Staffordshire. They were the schoolmaster and mistress at the church school in the newly created parish of St Mark's, Ocker Hill.

There is a lot of useful information here. The birthplaces of the children show how the family had moved around since Frederick and Charlotte married in 1842. Frederick's grandmother is living with them. There are two pupil teachers, one of whom had clearly been brought with them from their previous school in Willingale, Essex. Also in the household is the curate of the parish, Rev Joseph Brunskill, after whom two of Frederick and Charlotte's sons were named.

But there are also inaccuracies. Frederick was not born in the parish of St John, Westminster, Charlotte was actually 32 and it is highly likely that Frederick's grandmother was in fact his mother. Don't believe everything you read in the census.

7 April 1861 - Crucial information about employment and birthplaces

This 1861 census entry is for my 3x great grandparents, George and Susannah Rayman (nee Lee). They were living at 16 Bovingdon Street, Hoxton, in the East End of London.

This census has proved absolutely crucial in tracing back both sides of the family. In 1851 George and Susannah only gave their county of birth. By 1871 they were both dead. Without this census, specifying the parishes of Ewell, Surrey, and White Roothing, Essex, I would have had no idea of where to look for their births. As it is, armed with this information, I have been able to find baptisms for both of them and the names of their parents.

In the two previous censuses, George's occupation was simply given as "warehouseman" but the 1861 census shows where he was employed - as a foreman at London's East and West India Docks. The records of these companies are preserved at the Museum of London Docklands and I am hoping they may include employment records for George.

2 April 1871 - A thriving business

This is the 1871 census entry for my 2x great-grandparents, William and Harriet Munden (nee Coles). They were living in Christchurch Street, Ringwood, Hampshire, with their four youngest children and a general servant.

William had made a remarkable rise from humble origins, as the son of a labourer and decoyman, to become a highly successful millwright and engineer. This census shows him when his business was at its peak. He was employing 30 men and 5 boys at his engineering works, which made all types of agricultural machinery, as well as supplying local mills with their mill wheels and other gear.

William's old workshops are now the premises of the Ringwood Brewery. The 1873 Return of Owners of Land shows that they covered almost 2 acres. When William died in 1900 he was described as a "gentleman" and left an estate worth around £1 million in today's money.

You can read the second part of this post here.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Many Surnames?

2011-03-26T21:09:00.001Z

Tonight's challenge from Randy Seaver is to:

1) Go into your Genealogy Management Program (GMP; either software on your computer, or an online family tree) and figure out how to count how many surnames you have in your family tree database.

2) Tell us which GMP you're using and how you did this task.

3) Tell us how many surnames, and if possible, which surname has the most entries. If this excites you, tell us which surnames are in the top 5!

4) Write about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a status or comment on Facebook.

My preferred genealogy program is Family Tree Maker 2011 (FTM 2011). I used the Surname Report, found in the Publish workspace under Person Reports.

The Surname Report is a new feature in FTM 2011 and I had never used it before tonight, so I found this week's challenge particularly interesting.

From the Surname Report Options, I selected the options:

All Individuals
Sort by surname count
Show divider between surnames

This report gave me 27 pages containing 35 surnames, plus a 28th page containing 24. (35 X 27) + 24 = 969, so I have a total of 969 surnames in my database of 4,859 people.

The most common surname in my database is my maiden name, Bentley. The table below shows the top ten surnames, including the breakdown between males and females and the earliest and most recent dates for each surname:

John McCarthy: A taciturn giant in Canada

2011-03-26T16:32:00.001Z

Last November I took out a subscription to the US newspaper website Genealogy Bank. I did so as part of my search for Captain John Winn. I haven't found him yet but the subscription has paid for itself in an unexpected way. It seems US newspapers in the early 20th century were fascinated by the workings of Scotland Yard and I have found many articles which mention my great grandfather, John McCarthy.

Last night I came across a real gem - an article written following John McCarthy's appointment as Superintendent in charge of CID at Scotland Yard in 1912. It appeared in The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, dated 18 October 1912, in a gossip column with the extraordinary title: "Gossip Of Europe. Marquise De Fontenoy's Budget of Old World Celebrities".

After paying tribute to John McCarthy's predecessor in the job, Superintendent Froest, the article goes on to describe the new appointee:

I shall have to ask my mother, who lived with him as a child, whether he was really "a giant in stature and strength" and "exceedingly silent and taciturn". The latter seems an unlikely description of any Irishman.

The information about John McCarthy accompanying the Prince of Wales (later George V) on a tour of Canada was new to me. It adds yet another dimension to my family's relationship with the country of which I have recently become a citizen.

Good old Wikipedia provided me with a detailed itinerary, in an article on Royal tours of Canada:

As modern modes of transportations allowed for easier travel across the oceans, more of the Royal Family came to tour the King's northern Dominion. The first since Queen Victoria's death was the son of the reigning king, Prince George (later King George V) and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall and York, who arrived in Canada in 1901. The royal party – which consisted of 22 people, including the Duchess' brother Prince Alexander of Teck – landed at Quebec City on 16 September, from where the group then travelled to Montreal – where separate Francophone and Anglophone welcoming committees caused confusion – and then on to Ottawa, where the Duke watched the lacrosse final for the Minto Cup, which he enjoyed so much he kept the ball that was used. They then shot the timber slide at the Chaudière River, watched canoe races, and picnicked in Rockcliffe woods, near Ottawa. They passed through Ontario, creating "incredible excitement seldom seen since the visit of his father in 1860." Amongst other duties, the Prince dedicated the Alexandra Bridge in Ottawa, in honour of Queen Alexandra.

The Duke and Duchess moved on to Manitoba where the former opened the new science building at the University of Manitoba, and then to Regina in the Northwest Territories. In Calgary, they met with First Nations chiefs and viewed exhibitions. Westward, they ended up in Vancouver and Victoria, to turn back again towards Banff, where the Duchess went to Tunnel Mountain and Lake Louise while the Duke went to Poplar Point. After passing back through Regina, they reunited in Toronto, welcomed by the Mendelssohn Choir, and attended concerts at Massey Hall. It was then around southern Ontario and back to Montreal again, where the Duke opened the newly rebuilt Victoria Bridge. The tour ended with a trip through Saint John, Halifax, and then out of Canada to the then still separate Newfoundland.

I also found on YouTube an old film of the royal party in Montreal and Quebec. Unfortunately, I cannot spot John McCarthy in any of the footage but, no doubt, an important part of being a royal bodyguard is to be discreet and keep out of the limelight.

John McCarthy's youngest daughter, Sheila, was born on 30 September 1901, whilst he was away in Canada with the royal couple. I don't suppose that made him very popular with his wife, my great grandmother, Agnes McCarthy nee Fritz. Sheila was given the second name Mary - hardly surprising in a good Catholic family - but I wonder whether it may also have been in honour of Princess Mary, with whom he was travelling when the baby was born.

Fearless Females: A Mother

2011-03-25T22:41:00.001Z

In honour of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist has created Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.

March 25 — Tell how a female ancestor interacted with her children. Was she loving or supportive? A disciplinarian? A bit of both?

This is a poem which Rev Frederick William Davis wrote about his mother (and my direct ancestor) Charlotte Davis, nee Aves, the wife of Rev Frederick Davis. She died of tuberculosis, aged 40, in 1858, when Frederick William was 15 years old.

I don't know when the poem was written but it was published in the women's magazine "Hearth & Home" on 30 September 1897, almost 40 years after Charlotte's death. I think it answers all of the questions in Lisa's blogging prompt.

Ancestors who died of tuberculosis

2011-03-24T23:15:00.001Z

Today is World Tuberculosis Day. It commemorates 24 March 1882, the day on which Dr Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis - the bacillus Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis has been with us since antiquity. Tubercular decay has been found in the spines of Egyptian mummies and the famous Greek physician, Hippocrates, described it as the most prevalent disease of his day. In the 19th century, as people crowded into cities following the Industrial Revolution, living in overcrowded and insanitary conditions, it became the particular scourge of the urban poor.

Effective treatment only became possible after 1946, with the development of the antibiotic streptomycin. However, hopes that tuberculosis could be eradicated have been dashed, following the emergence of antibiotic resistant strains of the disease. In fact, tuberculosis is once again on the rise in all parts of the world, including the developed nations. According to Wikipedia, one third of the world's population is thought to be infected with the disease and new infections occur at a rate of about one per second.

Genealogists do not have to read many death certificates before they come across an ancestor who died of tuberculosis. The disease may be described in a number of ways, the most common being consumption, phthisis and TB. To mark the day, I thought I would list the known victims from my own family tree, whose deaths spanned a period of nearly 100 years:

21 January 1856: Elizabeth McWilliams, nee McCarry, aged 39, Dundee.

5 October 1858: Charlotte Davis nee Aves, aged 40, Cornwall.

2 August 1867: Frederick Thomas Rayman, aged 28, London.

1 April 1880: William Bluett, aged 26, London.

20 March 1883: Ann Hay Clark, aged 17, France.

20 April 1888: Cecilia Rayman, nee Baldwin, aged 54, London.

22 January 1895: Ada Charlotte Gurney, aged 23, London.

16 March 1898: Christian Robb, aged 66, Aberdeenshire.

15 July 1899: Robert Lowe, aged 35, USA.

12 May 1902: Mary Bunch, aged 71, Dundee.

8 September 1912: Matilda Anderson, nee Gall, aged 63, Dundee.

29 October 1940: Ida Blanche Bentley, nee Wreford, aged 29, London.

15 July 1948: Reginald Vivian Bentley, aged 39, London.

The last name in the list is the most tragic of all, my father's beloved brother, Reg. The preceding name is that of his wife Ida, whom he married in 1936. He knew that she was suffering from TB, and that he risked catching it from her, but his love for her was such that he married her anyway.

Reg died in 1948, two years after the first successful trials with streptomycin, but before treatment with the drug had become widespread. The wonderful new medical breakthrough with antibiotics came just too late to save him from this cruel disease.

He was long mourned and sadly missed by his whole family. I was born after his death but my father often spoke of his sunny personality, generosity and wonderful sense of humour.

RIP Uncle Reg.

Fearless Females: Timeline for Charlotte Aves

2011-03-23T23:44:00.001Z

In honour of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist has created Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.

March 23 — Create a timeline for a female ancestor using your favourite software program.

This timeline for my great great grandmother was created using Family Tree Maker 2011.

Genealogisms

2011-03-20T02:49:00.001Z

This week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver was to make up new words or phrases - "genealogisms" - that deal with some aspect of genealogy.

Here are my suggestions:

Cititis - severe form of OCD, when you spend more time composing source citations than doing research

Microphilmia - a love of doing research

Sourcophobia - an irrational fear of reading anything by Elizabeth Shown Mills

Namerology - collecting and adding as many names as possible to a family tree

Samerology - copying someone else's family tree

Beyond the Pond - tracing your immigrant ancestors back to the old country

The Evidencia - professional genealogy mafia, over concerned with the placement of commas

Geneasnob - someone who wants to trace their ancestry back to royalty

Geneaslob - anyone who doesn't bother to cite their sources

Geneabug - addiction to genealogy

Geneaplug - TV advert for Ancestry or Find My Past

Geneameet - a genealogy conference

Geneatweet - publicising your genealogy on Twitter

Tree Rage - extreme anger brought on by finding your ancestors have been wrongly added to someone else's tree

Tree Envy - wishing you could swap your ag labs for someone else's aristocrats

Teenealogist - younger than average family historian

Greenealogist - someone who cycles to the record office and takes notes on a solar powered laptop; someone who only has Irish ancestry

Meanealogist - a person who only uses free genealogy websites

Hasbeenealogist - a person who no longer gets asked to speak at conferences

Ancestors Anonymous - support organisation for genealogy addicts

A Genealogist's View of the 2011 Census

2011-03-13T19:15:00.001Z

This afternoon I filled in the 2011 Census forms online for our household and that of my 91 year old mother. The actual census date is 27 March 2011 but you can fill in the information online now and save it, then go back and make any necessary changes on the night of 27 March, before finally pressing Submit.

These are my thoughts on the process, as a citizen and a genealogist:

It is much easier to fill in the online form than the paper one, with its daunting 32 pages.
The form only asks for one first name but I filled in all our first names, for the sake of future genealogists. The online form only allows a limited number of characters, so I only had room to enter the last initial for my husband, who has three Christian names.
The form asks for place of birth at country level only. If you use the paper form there is nothing to stop you writing the actual place of birth next to this box. The information will then be recorded for future researchers. (According to Annie Barnes at Hibbitt Family History, digital copies of the forms will be preserved.) This is quite important if your name is a common one.

The question which made me really stop and think was the one about national identity, where you are allowed to tick multiple boxes if you wish:

I am a citizen of the United Kingdom and, as a diplomat and civil servant, have served the whole country in my work in Whitehall, at international conferences, and in British Embassies overseas. I see myself as British and would hate to see the break up of the United Kingdom into its component nations.
I feel this even more strongly because my ancestry is a mixture of all the different nationalities of these Isles - English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh. When I go to Scotland, in particular, I feel my ties to that country very strongly, having traced my ancestry there back to the 16th century. I never want to have to show a passport at the border.
On the other hand, I was born and raised in England, have lived nowhere else in the UK, and I supported England against Scotland in the rugby this afternoon (we won 22-16). I feel that England should enjoy the same autonomy and self-government as the other constituent nations and strongly object to their MPs voting on purely English affairs in Parliament. I also hated the militant "anyone but England" attitude of some Scots during the World Cup. As a result, I feel more English identity and nationalism now than at any previous time of my life.
I decided that my recent acquisition of Canadian citizenship, backdated to birth, as one of the generation of Lost Canadians, was a complication too far for this particular exercise.
In the end, I ticked both British and English.

Wordless Wednesday - Maidstone Gaol

2011-02-23T23:36:00.001Z

A picture of the Gaol, Maidstone, Kent in 1829. My 3x great-grandfather, John Baldwin, a journeyman tailor, was imprisoned for debt there in 1841.

Postcard from the Past

2011-02-20T20:57:00.001Z

From time to time I buy old postcards of ancestral places on eBay. They are usually very cheap and provide windows into a vanished world.

My latest purchase is a postcard of Coupar Angus, Perthshire, dating from 1917. My family has had a long association with the town, from the 17th century to the 1950s. Some of the names I am researching there are Clark, Fife, Gibb, Haliburton, Hay, Hood, Lowe, Malcolm and Smyth.

When my postcard arrived I turned it over, expecting to see the usual few lines, scrawled by a holidaymaker. Imagine my surprise at finding the following information instead:

I'm a genealogist so, naturally, I started to research R Bingham Adams. So far I've been able to piece together the following facts:

Richard Bingham Adams was born in Portsmouth in 1873 and married Violet Plater there in 1897. They had two children - Violet Plater Adams, born in 1898, and Dorothy Plater Adams, born in 1901. Richard appears in the 1891 census as a solicitor's clerk in Portsmouth. In the 1901 and 1911 censuses he was working for an insurance company, first in Horsham, then back in Portsmouth. During the First World War he served in five different units, including the Labour Corps. After the war he continued to serve in the Territorial Army, which awarded him the Territorial Efficiency Medal in 1928. His Medal Card gives the details of his previous service:

Richard died in Portsmouth in 1956, aged 82. His elder daughter, Violet, married Alfred Tree in Portsmouth in 1922. They had a son, Kenneth, who was born and died in 1924, and a daughter, Olive Violet, born in 1925. According to a well-sourced family tree on Ancestry, she is still alive.

I also did some research on Richard Bingham Adams' ancestry. His father, James Lewis Adams, was a pilot who worked for the Colonial Service in Port Louis, Mauritius, and all of Richard's siblings were born there. James himself was born in the then new town of Anglesey in the parish of Alverstoke, now part of Gosport, in 1833. His father was the wonderfully named Balthazar Bowman Adams, who was a ship's carpenter in the Royal Navy.

Balthazar's father, also Balthazar, was the son of Henry Adams, the Master Shipbuilder at Bucklers Hard, who built many famous ships of the Royal Navy. These included Nelson's favourite, HMS Agamemnon, and two other ships which saw action at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Balthazar Adams senior and his brother, Edward, inherited the thriving business when their father died that same year, but they over-extended themselves and by 1811 they were bankrupt.

Waitangi Day - Thomas Bluett, Wellington, 1841

2011-02-06T03:09:00.001Z

February 6th is Waitangi Day, New Zealand's national day, which commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi on 6 February 1840. To mark the day, the Auckland Research Centre have issued an invitation to blog about New Zealand ancestors.

My 3x great grandfather, Thomas Bluett, was born around 1819. On 4 December 1836 he married Mary Langley at St Mary, Lambeth, Surrey. Mary had been born in Ireland around 1813, the daughter of Thomas Langley. Thomas and Mary had two known children. Their first child was a son, Thomas, whose birth has not yet been traced. Their second was a daughter, Mary Ann, who was born at 34 Little Pulteney Street, Westminster, on 3 March 1839. It is through her that I am descended. Mary Ann's birth certificate states that Thomas was a printer and we know from other sources that, at this time, he was employed as a lithographic printer by Day and Haghe of London, the country's leading lithographic printing firm.

On 17 September 1840, Thomas Bluett's name was entered in the New Zealand Company's register of emigrant labourers applying for free passage to New Zealand. He gave his age as 21 and his occupation as smith and bellhanger. Thomas was said to be married, with a wife aged 25, boy aged three and a girl aged eleven months, and the family were living at 50 St Clement's Lane, Strand, London.

On 27 September 1840, there was another Bluett application. Adam Bluett was registered as a smith, living at 18 Union Place, Sloane Square, Chelsea. He was aged 30, with a wife aged 29, boy aged 12 and girl aged 10. On 20 October 1840, there were two further applications. Another Adam Bluett, differentiated from the first by the designation senior, was a locksmith and bell hanger, resident at 50 St Clement's Lane, Strand. He was married, aged 40, with a wife aged 38. Immediately after him in the register came an application from Peter Langley, an unmarried labourer, aged 21 and also resident at 50 St Clement's Lane.

After seven years' research, the relationship between these various groups of people is still unclear but, from the coincidence of names, occupations and addresses, it can hardly be doubted that there is one. Some of the information given in the applications is false - Thomas' occupation and Mary Ann's age were probably altered in order to qualify for free passage - but much has been proved accurate from other sources.

Thomas Bluett and his family were originally booked to sail on the Lady Nugent, which left England on 21 October 1840, but they delayed their departure, presumably in order to travel on the same ship as the others. At some point Adam Bluett junior and his family decided not to travel. He and his wife, Catherine (nee Sweeney), plus Adam's two children from a previous marriage, William and Betsy, can be found in the 1841 census living in Henrietta Street, Marylebone. So it was a party of seven which finally set sail on the barque Olympus from Gravesend on 9 December 1840, as steerage passengers bound for New Zealand. The passenger list notes that Thomas Bluett acted as cook for the voyage.

The Olympus arrived at Port Nicholson (the harbour of Wellington) on 20 April 1841. Thomas Bluett lost no time in getting to work but not as a smith and bellhanger. For he had brought with him in the hold of the Olympus the first lithographic printing press to reach New Zealand. Moreover, one of the cabin passengers on the Olympus was a lithographic artist, Jacob William Jones. It seems highly improbable that this was a coincidence. On 1 May 1841, the New Zealand Gazette announced:

On 29 May, Jones and Bluett produced a chart of Port Nicholson, the first printed map in New Zealand:

By 12 June they had added a plan of Wadestown and a view of Lambton Harbour & Mount Victoria from Tinakore:

By 17 July the Gazette was selling their plans of the town:

But then it all began to go wrong. 16 September 1841 saw the publication in Wellington of the first, and only surviving, edition of an extraordinary newspaper, the Victoria Times. It was a lithographic print of a handwritten original and the publisher was Thomas Bluett, whose address was given as the Lithographic Printing Office, Wellington Terrace.

As was the custom, the first page consisted of advertisements, including one promoting Thomas Bluett's lithographic services on "very moderate" terms and another seeking "a steady and respectable lad as an apprentice to the lithographic business". The second and third pages were devoted to an editorial in the form of an extended diatribe against the Gazette. The fourth page reprinted the Jones and Bluett plan of Wellington:

From the plan, it can be seen that the Lithographic Printing Office was situated on land owned by Jacob William Jones. But, having alienated the Gazette, which had previously sold - and praised - his lithographic prints, Thomas now went on to alienate his collaborator and patron. The last mention of Thomas in New Zealand is an advertisement which appeared in the Gazette on 10 and 13 November 1841:

By the end of the year, Thomas Bluett and his family had left New Zealand for Australia. Their many adventures thereafter, culminating in Thomas' headline-making death back in London in 1846, must be the subject of future blog posts.

As for their travelling companions on the Olympus, I can find no reference at all to them in New Zealand following their arrival. Peter Langley simply vanishes without trace but Adam Bluett senior and his wife, another Catherine, reappear in England. On 16 August 1849 they were convicted at the Wiltshire County Assizes of uttering counterfeit coin and each sentenced to one year's imprisonment. Adam died in the Workhouse in the parish of St Giles, London, and was buried in Victoria Park Cemetery, Hackney, on 27 December 1858, aged 59.

Surname Saturday - Panther

2011-02-05T19:27:00.001Z

One of my ancestors was a Panther! Elizabeth Panther was born in Finedon, Northamptonshire, around 1802 and married William Eaton in Dean, Bedfordshire, on 30 March 1821.

William was a carpenter, aged 44. He had been married twice before and had nine children, eight of whom were still living, aged four to sixteen. His second wife had only been dead six months when he married the nineteen year old Elizabeth. No doubt he needed to provide a stepmother for his brood but Elizabeth clearly had her own attractions. William went on to have a further eight children with her, the youngest born when he was aged 65. William died in 1857, aged 80, and Elizabeth only survived him by a decade. She died at Dean on 14 August 1868, aged 66. Raising sixteen children clearly wore her out a lot faster than fathering seventeen of them did him!

Sadly, the surname Panther has nothing to do with big cats. It is a variant of Panter, which is an occupational surname. The panter was an officer in a medieval household, who supplied the bread and had charge of the pantry. The panter in a monastery also distributed loaves to the poor. The word is derived from the Old French panieter, via Anglo-French paneter.

The earliest occurrence of the surname cited by Reaney & Wilson in their Dictionary of English Surnames is Reginald le Paneter in Kent in 1200. In later centuries, when the original derivation had long been forgotten, the name probably began to be spelled as Panther because of the association with the animal.

The surname Panter is rare today and its variant Panther even rarer. The distribution is extremely localised to Northamptonshire and its surrounding counties. In 2002 I did a study comparing the occurrence of the surname Panther in the 1881 census to the entries in the modern British phonebooks. In 1881 there were 302 people with the surname Panther, of whom 52% were living in Northamptonshire, with a further 9% in the surrounding counties. 61% of all the Panthers in the 1881 census were born in Northamptonshire. In 2002, the surname Panther appeared in significant numbers only in the Northampton phonebook.

Amanuensis Monday - A strong Dorset accent

2011-01-31T19:47:00.001Z

This is the will of my 8x great grandfather, Richard Keats or Cates, (1648-1698), who lived at East Lulworth, about three miles from the famous Lulworth Cove, in Dorset. The spellings are idiosyncratic, not to say bizarre, and seem to be the direct transliteration of a strong Dorset accent.

July ye 18th 1697

In ye name of God amen I richard Caetes of East lullworth Being veary sheke & weacke of bodey but of good & parfecket Memory doth commit my bodey to ye earth & my sole into ye handes of God all Mitey & my bodey to be Bueried in ye Churchyard of East Lullworth

Imprimis I gave to my daftar anne ye wiufe of willam peney ye some of on shilling It I gave to my sone willam caetes all ye colle bages It I gave to my sone Richard Cates ye some of on shilling It I gave to my daftar Rachell ye some of one shilling It I gave to my sone tomas cates ye some of one shilling It I gave to my daftar sushana ye some of one shilling Itam I gave to my sone Edward cates ye some of one shilling

Imprimis I gave unto my sone James Ceates all my goodes & Cheles & Leses & stocke & goodes with thien & without that I dey prosest of home I make my sole Executar of this mey Laste will & testment & all bondes & billes & deptes

I desiear my good frinde home I make & desiear to be my trostee of this my Laste will & teste ... Dunning to stand frinde to my pooear Chidren home I shall Leave in ye handes of my Execter

The marcke of Richard (R) Ceates

sined & delivered in ye presentes of us

Edward Dunning

the Marcke of Marey Whamey

21o May 1698o
Juirat fuit Extor
Qod Nobis
Car Sloper

(Dorset Record Office: MIC/R/188 DA 1698 23)

If you are not familiar with the Dorset accent, this recitation of Thomas Hardy's "At Lulworth Cove a Century Back" will give you a good idea of how it sounds. The poem is about John Keats, who last set foot on English soil at Lulworth Cove in September 1820. He was on board a ship bound for Italy which was becalmed in the Channel and Keats and his friend, Joseph Severn, took the opportunity to go ashore. Keats told Severn it was "a part [of England] he already knew". This has led to speculation that the origins of the poet's family, which he deliberately obscured, may have been in that area of Dorset, where the Keats surname is common. How fascinating to think that John Keats might be my distant cousin.

Update: 10 January 2012

Unfortunately, You Tube have removed the video of Thomas Hardy's poem because the person who posted it on You Tube did not have the right to do so. You may therefore want to listen to this recording, made by the British Drama League during the 1930s, to get an idea of how the Dorset accent sounded.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - The Date I Was Born

2011-01-30T00:31:00.001Z

Another Saturday night, another fun challenge from Randy Seaver:

1) What day of the week were you born? Tell us how you found out.

I was born on a Tuesday. My Mum told me that when I was very small. She used to quote from the old rhyme, "Tuesday's child is full of grace". Just to make sure I hadn't got it wrong, I checked my birthdate in the calendar in The Master Genealogist (TMG). It agrees that I was born on a Tuesday.

2) What has happened in recorded history on your birth date (day and month)? Tell us how you found out, and list five events.

I Googled "on this day 6 July" which produced 393 million results. Forced to choose only five events, I decided on:

6 July 1189: Richard I (Richard the Lionheart) became King of England, Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou, on the death of his father, Henry II. I saw Richard's beautifully decorated tomb when I visited the Abbey of Fontevraud in France in 2008. (Source: Wikipedia)

July 1535: Sir Thomas More was executed for treason, having refused to take the Oath of Supremacy, acknowledging Henry VIII as Supreme Governor of the Church in England. On the scaffold he declared that he died, "The King's good servant, but God's first". (Source: Wikipedia)
6 July 1785: The United States Congress unanimously: "Resolved, That the money unit of the United States be one dollar.” (Source: The Freeman)
6 July 1942: Anne Frank and her family went into hiding in the "Secret Annexe", a sealed-off area above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse. The day before, Anne's older sister, Margot, had received a call-up notice to be deported to a Nazi "work camp." Anne was 13 when they went into hiding. (Source: History Channel & Wikipedia)

6 July 1964: The Beatles' first film, "A Hard Day's Night," premiered in London. Perhaps they chose the day because it was exactly seven years after John Lennon and Paul McCartney were first introduced to each other, on 6 July 1957. (Source: On This Day).

3) What famous people have been born on your birth date? Tell us how you found out, and list five of them.

As for (2) above, I Googled "on this day 6 July" and found:

6 July 1747: John Paul Jones, American naval commander. On 23 April 1778, Jones attacked the port of Whitehaven in Cumberland. Today there is a pub named after him in the town, which I visited in 2009. (Source: Wikipedia).
6 July 1781: Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore. I lived in Singapore from 1965 to 1968. (Source: Wikipedia).
6 July 1939: Jet Harris, bassist with Cliff Richard's backing group, The Shadows. As a child I had a huge crush on Jet and his quiff! (Source: Jet Harris)
6 July 1946: George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States - and Sylvester Stallone on the same day. (Source: Wikipedia)
6 July 1907: Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter. I love her naive, folk art style paintings. (Source: Frida Kahlo).

Hey, kids, look what I've just found out about Grandad!

2011-01-29T20:52:00.001Z

Thomas MacEntee recently suggested on Facebook that we should talk to our children about genealogy. I've been talking to my children about genealogy since 1985. Their eyes glaze over at the mere mention of the word. They believe compulsory childhood tours of graveyards were a form of child abuse. I may soon be arrested!

My husband shows his love by recognising my need to share family history stories and accepting that he will be the main audience. But even when the stories are about his own ancestors he sets firm time limits. Exceed ten minutes and he adopts the strategy of the 1950s People reporter: "I made my excuses and left". On our very first journey together I took him to Tipton, of all places. Whilst I photographed a gravestone, he made the unwelcome acquaintance of an old man in a ginger wig. He is still traumatised by the experience.

My husband and son also speak bitterly of the time I booked a holiday in Scotland and forgot to tell them it was an old ancestral stamping ground. They didn't seem to appreciate that the holiday cottage was on an estate once owned by my family. Surely that made up for the owner being a control freak, personally trained by the Stasi? And I truly believe that, in amongst all the touristy stuff, one teeny graveyard visit a day was not excessive. The two hours I spent in the graveyard in Broughty Ferry were an aberration. They didn't have to wait lunch for me. And in any case they were in a pub. Since when did British men complain about spending two hours in a pub?

The family member with the most interest in genealogy is my dear mother. She implanted my love of history when I was tiny. She told me all the family stories over tea time toast and honey. In the early days we even shared research trips to London. But now, aged 91, even she has her limits. If I witter on too much after Sunday lunch, I can see she is thinking longingly about her nap.

Which is where the distant cousins come in, bless them. Those wonderful souls who have also inherited the recessive genealogical gene. Those co-addicts who would rather spend their days with a microfilm reader than visit the sights of London or Edinburgh. We email each other with discoveries in the middle of the night. We compete to follow up on a new research lead. We argue over possible ancestral motivation and bond over shared ancestral secrets. And, when we finally meet, we always have something to talk about.

Australia Day: Gateway to a new and better life

2011-01-26T03:09:00.001Z

It was the evening of Friday, 30 June 1837 and William Tomlin was outside his house at Newcastle Coal Wharf, Limehouse, London. William was a prosperous, self-made man, the owner of a fleet of lighters and barges which transported coal and timber from ships in the Thames at Limehouse up the Regent's Canal.

Being high summer, it was still very light when, around 8pm, William saw four youths sitting on a grassy bank about 100 yards away. They were pointing at William's house excitedly, in a way which aroused his suspicions. He watched them for nearly an hour and called his wife and son to take a look at them, saying that, if his house was broken into, these young men would be the people to do it. They did not realise they were under observation, because William and his family were hidden by some trees.

When William went to bed at 11pm, he made sure that he locked up well. Nevertheless, sometime after midnight the youths managed to break into the house through the kitchen window, using a knife to dig out the putty so that they could partially remove the glass and undo the catch. They then reached their hands over the top of the shutters to unfasten them. Once in the house they stole:

a £20 banknote;
two silver table-spoons, five tea-spoons and a mustard-spoon, valued at £2 12s;
two pairs of spectacles, valued at £2;
a coat, valued at £1 10s;
three silk handkerchiefs, valued at 9s;
a pair of shoes, valued at 5s;
a silver thimble, valued at 1s; and
two fourpenny pieces.

The total value of £26 17s 8d would be the equivalent of over £2,000 today.

William Tomlin was woken around 3am on Saturday, 1 July, and found the desk from his sitting room lying outside on the Wharf. It had been broken open with two chisels which lay nearby. Several papers, the £20 bank-note and the two fourpenny pieces were missing from it. One of the fourpenny pieces was very distinctive because William had bored a hole through it with a drill, in an attempt to place it on a ring.

Meanwhile, the burglars had not gone far with their haul. At about 4.30 am a brick maker found the four of them asleep in the straw in his brickfield, a short distance from William Tomlin's house. He threw them out and, in leaving, two of them made the mistake of passing close to the scene of the crime. They were recognised by William, who gave chase and caught up with them about 400 yards away, in Salmon Lane, Limehouse. He pointed them out to a policeman and they were arrested.

The two were John Burton, aged 17, and George Williamson, aged 18. Samuel Weatherstone, aged 16, a known associate of Burton and Williamson, was arrested on Monday, 3 July, having been spotted loitering outside the police station. The police found these three in possession of most of the stolen property. Burton had a table spoon up each sleeve, the handkerchiefs under his shirt and the shoes on his feet. Williamson had the two pairs of spectacles and the silver thimble and he was wearing the coat under his own clothes. Weatherstone had 14s in his pocket and the fourpenny piece with the hole in it on a scarlet ribbon round his neck. The fourth accomplice was never traced.

Weatherstone, Burton and Williamson were brought up before the magistrates for examination on Tuesday, 4 July. According to a reporter from the Times:

The three were tried for burglary at the Old Bailey the next day, Wednesday 5 July 1837. The evidence against them was overwhelming but, in order to avoid the death penalty for burglary, the jury found them guilty of the lesser charge of breaking and entering. All three were sentenced to be transported for life.

Samuel George Weatherstone sailed on the convict ship Earl Grey from Portsmouth on 27 July 1838, arriving in New South Wales in November. He was granted a ticket of leave in 1846 and pardoned in 1849. He remained in Australia, where he married Letitia Doherty and had six children. He died in Grafton, New South Wales, in 1888, aged 70. By the time of his death he and his family owned considerable amounts of land and cattle.

George Williamson was transported on the ship Lord William Bentinck, departing from Portsmouth on 14 April 1838. He arrived in Tasmania on 26 August. His transportation documents record that he was tattooed with a mermaid and anchor, which suggests he was a sailor. In 1841 he was working for Mr J McArthur in Launceston, Tasmania. By 1846 he had a ticket of leave and by 1849 he had been granted a conditional pardon. He married a fellow convict, Hannah Tillotson, in Launceston in October 1846. According to a descendant, George and Hannah "settled down, raised a family and became good, solid citizens".

John Burton, who was lame, had his life sentence commuted to seven years. He was transported on the convict ship Asia, departing from London on 25 April 1840 and arriving in Tasmania on 6 August. In 1841 he was working in a party of convicts at Southport in the extreme south of Tasmania. By 1846 he was free on a certificate.

From the mistakes they made before and after their crime, it is hard to believe these three were the professional thieves that Weatherstone, at least, was made out to be. Almost certainly they were driven to steal by extreme poverty. Today they would not even be sent to prison for a first offence of this nature, yet in 1837 these three young men only escaped the gallows because of the clemency of the jury.

Life in the hulks during the long months waiting for transportation must have been utterly ghastly. Penal servitude probably only slightly less so. Yet, following their release, two at least were successful in the new, young country of Australia. Their punishment was unbelievably harsh but it removed them from the squalor and misery of poverty in London's East End and, in the end, turned out to be the gateway to a new and better life.

Postscript

My connection to these three young men is that William Tomlin was my husband's 4x great grandfather. William died in London on 15 June 1850, survived by 10 of his 11 children. He left nearly £45,000 in his will - at a conservative estimate, the equivalent of over £4 million today.

I initially learned about this case from a report in the Times dated 5 July 1837, which I found online in the Times Digital Archive. I then found the report of the Old Bailey trial at the Old Bailey Online website. I found information about the transportation and subsequent lives of the three young men on Ancestry, in both the historical records and the member trees.

I wish all my Australian cousins a very happy Australia Day. Here in the UK our thoughts and prayers are very much with you in the aftermath of the recent terrible floods.

Every Picture Tells A Story

2011-01-25T20:36:00.001Z

Last November a cousin in Canada emailed me with exciting news – her sister had found an old photo album containing photographs of our Lowe ancestors in Coupar Angus, Scotland, dating from the 19th century.

My cousin sent me a copy of a picture from that album showing five young girls – the daughters of my 2x great grandfather John Lowe, a Coupar Angus solicitor, and his wife Cecilia, nee Malcolm. The girls were Georgina (my great grandmother) b. 1853, Marjory b. 1855, Cecilia Anne (Annie) b. 1857, Catherine (Kate) b. 1860 and Maria b. 1863.

I was thrilled to have this photograph. Georgina died in May 1890, one week after giving birth to my grandfather, Lawrence, and his twin sister, Georgina. Only one photograph of her had passed down to us, dating from the time of her marriage in 1876. I had never seen any photographs of her sisters.

Judging by the girls’ apparent ages in the photograph, I guessed it was probably taken in the second half of the 1860s. Looking more closely, I realised that all the girls were dressed entirely in black and had black ribbons in their hair. They were also wearing crosses on black ribbons or necklaces round their necks. Clearly they were in mourning.

That sent me scurrying back to the family tree to try and identify a family death in the late 1860s. The one that seemed most likely was the death of the girls’ older brother, John James Lowe, in September 1867. I had his death date from a gravestone in the Kirkyard of the Abbey Church, Coupar Angus, so had never bothered to purchase his death certificate. Now I decided it was time to do so.

I quickly found the death certificate for John James Lowe on the Scotland’s People website. Reading it pulled me up with a start.

John James died at 4.10 pm on the afternoon of 9 September 1867 at the General Railway Station in Perth. His death was certified by Dr George W Absolom who had entered the cause of death as “Probably Heart Disease?”. It looked like John James had dropped dead from a heart attack or heart failure in the railway station.

My next stop was the family's local newspaper, the Dundee Courier. Fortunately for family historians, the British Library has put a large number of 19th century newspapers online, including several from Scotland. And I am one of the lucky people who has free access to this database from home, courtesy of my library’s subscription.

I found a death notice, published on 11 September 1867, which confirmed that John James had died suddenly. Sadly, there was no other report - probably because, as the death certificate shows, there was no inquest. There certainly would be today, if an apparently healthy 16 year old dropped down dead in a railway station. The death also took place at a time when a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science was taking place in Dundee. The columns of the Dundee Courier were so full of the doings of the eminent visiting scientists that there was little space for anything else.

However, the Dundee Courier did provide me with an unexpected bonus in the shape of a railway timetable for September 1867. This shows that the Highland Railway train from Dundee arrived at Perth Station at 4.10 pm - the time of death given on the death certificate. It would seem that poor John James died as he got out of the train.

The informant on the death certificate was John James' 17 year old cousin, Henry James Lowe, who registered the death at Perth on 11 September. Since he gave his place of residence as Coupar Angus, I can think of no reason for him to be in Perth, registering the death, other than that he was John James' travelling companion on the ill-fated train journey. He must have been in a state of shock, as he could not remember his aunt's first name.

The moral of this tale is, of course, that one should always purchase the death certificate - particularly for deaths in Scotland, where the certificates are so informative. Had I not done so, John James would have remained just a name on a gravestone.

A footnote for those familiar with Scottish research - Henry James Lowe went on to work as a clerk in the Register House in Edinburgh, up until his own untimely death in 1886. Now that's another certificate I must buy.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Do Some Random Research

2011-01-23T03:47:00.001Z

I decided to take up Randy Seaver's Saturday night genealogy challenge to do some random research.

I went to The Random Name Generator and obtained the random name Cornelia Dalton.
I searched for the name at Ancestry.co.uk
The results showed only one Cornelia Dalton, who appeared in the 1881, 1891 and 1901 censuses.
Using various sources (see below), I put together the following research report:

Cornelia Chisholm Neale Dalton was born on 2 December 1875 at Stewkley, Buckinghamshire, England. Her parents were Rev William Edward Dalton (1841-1928) and Matilda Harriet nee Chisholm.

She came from a distinguished family. Her uncle, Rev John Neale Dalton, was chaplain to Queen Victoria and personal tutor to the future King George V. Her first cousin, Hugh Dalton, would later become Chancellor of the Exchequer. Her brother, Llewellyn, became Chief Justice of Tanganyika.

Cornelia was recorded in the census on 3 April 1881 at Eye, Suffolk, where her father was the curate of the parish church. In 1890 he became vicar of Glynde, two miles east of Lewes in Sussex. The living was in the gift of the Dean and Canons of Windsor and gave him an income of £180 a year, plus 12 acres of glebe land in addition to the vicarage. In the census of 5 April 1891 Cornelia was recorded as a pupil at school in Albion House, Albion Street, Lewes.

She was recorded in the census on 3 March 1901 as a nurse at St George's Hospital, London. It was probably there that she met her husband, Frederick William Longhurst, a consultant anaesthetist, whom she married on 3 August 1907 at Lewes.

Their son, Geoffrey Dalton Longhurst, was born in the June quarter of 1909 in London.

Frederic, Cornelia and Geoffrey were recorded in the 1911 census at 4 Hobart Place, London SW1.

Geoffrey married Patience Mary Gaubert in Calcutta, India, on 30 June 1947. At the time of the marriage, Frederic and Cornelia were living at Shalford, Surrey.

Frederick died on 19 April 1955 at their home in Fowey, Cornwall. His obituary appeared in the British Medical Journal on 14 May 1955.

Cornelia died in the June quarter of 1958 at Eastbourne, Sussex.

Sources

1881 Census, RG11/1855; Folio 84; Page 6, William E Dalton & family

1891 Census, RG12/798; Folio 36; Page 32, Cornelia C Dalton

1901 Census, RG13/90; Folio 165; Page 24, Cornelia Chisholm Neale Dalton

1911 Census, RG14PN436, Frederic William Longhurst & family

Andrews Newspaper Index Cards, 1790-1976, Geoffrey Dalton Longhurst, 1947 marriage, www.ancestry.co.uk

British Medical Journal, 14 May 1955, page 1225, Frederic William Longhurst obituary, http://goo.gl/bAg2w

GRO Births, 1876 Q1, Winslow 3a 601, Cornelia Chisholm Dalton

GRO Marriages, 1907 Q3, Lewes 2b 395, Cornelia Chisholm Dalton, Frederic William Longhurst

GRO Deaths, 1955 Q2, St Austell 7a 165, Frederic W Longhurst

GRO Deaths, 1958 Q2, Eastbourne 5h 260, Cornelia C Longhurst

Kelly's Directory of Sussex, 1899, www.ancestry.co.uk

Barker, G. F. Russell, comp. The Record of Old Westminsters, 1927, Chiswick Press, London, 1928, volume 2, page 590, Frederick William Longhurst, www.ancestry.co.uk

Wikipedia, John Neale Dalton, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Neale_Dalton

Wikipedia, Hugh Dalton, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Dalton

Wikipedia, Sir Llewellyn Chisholm Dalton, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llewelyn_Dalton

Scanning Saturday - My new Flip-Pal

2011-01-22T22:39:00.001Z

Yesterday I received my new Flip-Pal scanner, thanks to the kindness of a friend in the United States. For those who haven't yet come across this gadget, it is a small, portable, battery operated scanner that can be used to scan a wide variety of objects.

Small photos and documents can be placed inside the scanner in the usual way. With the lid removed and the scanner "flipped", it can also scan photographs whilst still in their albums, pictures in their frames, fabrics, wallpaper and three dimensional objects such as medals, coins and jewellery. There is even this You Tube video of someone scanning a bottle of water by rolling it under the Flip-Pal:

For any object larger than the Flip-Pal's 10.25″ x 6.5″ dimensions, the scanner comes with software which will stitch together a large image from a series of smaller, overlapping scans. This is ideal for scanning old maps or deeds which are larger than the traditional flat bed scanner.

I have been experimenting with the scanner for the past 24 hours and thought I would share some of the results with you.

This is a tiny photograph, measuring 2¼ by 3¼ inches, given to me by my mother. On the back she noted that they were on holiday in her father's taxi, in the late 1920s:

The scan quality was so good that I was able to enlarge a section of the picture to see the number plate of the taxi and the people inside - my grandfather behind the wheel, wearing a driving helmet, with my mother in a straw hat beside him and my grandmother in the back:

I used a picture of my grandmother which is larger than the scanner to test the photo stitching software. I scanned it in six overlapping sections, which I cropped to eliminate all traces of the background on which the photo was lying:

I then used the stitching software which comes with the scanner to put the photograph back together. I think you'll agree that the result is amazing:

Finally, I used a free photo editing program, PhotoScape, to trim the jagged edges and auto level the colours. The resulting photograph looks as good as the day it was taken:

For my last experiment, I tested the Flip-Pal colour restoration software on the most faded picture in my album. This is an even smaller photograph - only 1¾ by 2¾ - and has lost so much colour that it is almost impossible to make out the subject with the naked eye. I was delighted that the initial scan enabled me to see quite a lot of the detail:

Then I used the automatic colour restoration program which comes with the scanner. The result was so much clearer that I immediately recognised the location - St James' Park, London - from the government buildings behind the line of trees in the background:

The last step was to apply auto level and noise reduction in PhotoScape:

I think the picture is of my grandmother with my mother on her knee and must have been taken in the spring of 1921. I shall ask my mother when she comes to lunch tomorrow!

Wordless Wednesday: Names

2011-01-19T13:48:00.000Z

The names I am researching, as seen by Wordle

Strange sources and freakish footnotes

2011-01-19T02:59:00.001Z

Family history information can be found in the oddest places. The strangest source I've used is The Book of Duck Decoys: Their Construction, Management and History, written by Sir Ralph William Frankland-Payne-Gallwey (you couldn't make that name up) and published in 1886¹.

According to Sir Ralph:

A Decoy is a cunning and clever combination of water, nets, and screens, by means of which wildfowl, such as Wigeon, Mallard, and Teal, are caught alive. A Decoyman is the man who works and manages the Decoy, and who by his art, as well as by his knowledge of the birds and their surroundings when in the waters of the Decoy, entraps them.

In 1831, my 3x great grandfather, James Munden (1790-1855), was employed as a decoyman on the Charborough Park estate at Morden, Dorset, owned by the Drax family. Sir Ralph's book contains a map of the decoy where James worked:

He also provides some useful information about the demise of the decoy:

Morden, 6 miles N. of Wareham, on the property of Miss Drax of Charborough Park. There used to be a Decoy here until 1856, when it ceased to be worked, and since then the shooting around it having been let, the place has been too much disturbed to admit of the Decoy being successfully carried on.

Today the old decoy pond is part of the Morden Bog National Nature Reserve. The curved arms of the pond can still clearly be seen in this beautiful photograph:

This is a landscape immortalised by Thomas Hardy as Egdon Heath in novels such as The Return of the Native and The Mayor of Casterbridge. It must have looked much the same in James Munden's time as it does today, though the wild people of Hardy's novels have been replaced by the wild creatures living on this Site of Special Scientific Interest:

Near the pond there is a Grade II listed building, called the Decoy House. It is described in the listing as:

Detached cottage. Late C18-early C19. Brick walls, thatched roof with brick parapets to west gable, brick stacks. One storey and attics. Ground floor has central casement window with glazing bars - replacing original door, and 2 C20 metal windows. Attic has 2 dormers with casements with glazing bars. Cl9 single-storey wing on west, of brick with slate roof. 2 ledged doors, 2 casement windows with glazing bars and one C20 metal window. Internally, main ground floor room has large open fireplace with timber lintel. Possibly the Decoy Keeper's cottage.

If this was the decoyman's cottage, then James, his wife Elizabeth (nee Snelling) and nine children would have been living there in 1831.

And the freakish footnote? If I shared the genealogy world's obsession with "correct" citation, it might look something like this:

1. Frankland-Payne-Gallwey, Sir Ralph William, "The Book of Duck Decoys: Their Construction, Management and History," Decoymans.co.uk (Online: John Norris, 1999) [originally published as The Book of Duck Decoys: Their Construction, Management and History, London: J Van Voorst, 1886], page 73, <http://www.decoymans.co.uk/>, accessed 19 January 2011.

But I don't - and that's a subject for another post.

Amanuensis Monday - A letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury

2011-01-17T21:56:00.001Z

A letter which my 2x great grandfather, Rev Frederick Davis, wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Archibald Campbell Tait. It illustrates the many obstacles to becoming a clergyman in the mid 19th century, for someone without wealth or connections:

The Manor House
Northfleet
Kent

30 August 1875

My Lord Archbishop,

Two years since, I took the duty of ministering in the fields to the hop pickers at Ospringe, at the instance of Canon Griffin. On that occasion Mr G promised that he would always in future look to me first for such assistance, I having given him & his parishioners complete satisfaction. I was, then, surprized the other day to see him advertizing for such help, & wrote to him. His reply was the enclosed¹.

Now my Lord, for 12 years I have ministered in your diocese, with acceptance to clergy & people alike, in several cases with your Grace's written permission, & never have I given offence but once – to the Churchwarden ² at Offham, where I officiated for 4 months – by simply determining to do my duty & obey the law. At the death of the late Rector he desired me to make changes. This I positively refused to do, saying that, as a mere locum tenens, I had neither right nor authority to do so. He then quarrelled with me, and wrote me several ungentlemanly letters.

When in charge of Thurnham last year, I wrote to your Grace, asking you to renew your permission to me to officiate in your diocese, as your former permission had lapsed. Your reply was that I must first produce certain papers, which I could not clearly understand. The ordinary papers for the past three years I could certainly procure when necessary. But it seems to me that your lordship required papers from the diocese in which I was ordained, & from the Bishop thereof.

As I had then only one or two Sundays more employment in your diocese, & I knew not when I should be called upon to officiate therin again – for it has only been at long & distant intervals I have been so – I determined not to trouble your Grace, nor my friends, for papers till occasion should arise requiring them. Had then Canon Griffin sought my services I should certainly have at once complied with your Grace's requirements with great cheerfulness.

I now write to say that I can certainly procure the ordinary papers required by law, which I respectfully imagine are all your Grace can require. But papers from the diocese where I was ordained I cannot obtain for very satisfactory reasons, though I can send you a letter from the Bishop who ordained me, who though being dead yet speaketh. I send you herewith printed papers, the originals of which I can furnish if necessary, which will show you my history, & prove the truth of my allegations.

After serving to the best of my powers the Church, both in my own person & in those of my whole family, for many years, I was strongly recommended for ordination to the late Bishop of Exeter, who ordained & licensed me to the Curacy of S. John's Torquay. At this place I was living, keeping a school. I was a widower with eight children – but doing well with the school. I was to receive no stipend for my curacy – but the Incumbent sent me some half dozen scholars before my ordination on the ground that I trained them as choristers taking them to Church on all occasions.

After my ordination he refused to pay me as before for the scholars holding that I was now as Curate bound to teach & train them. Added to this he was appointed Chaplain to the Cemetery and then insisted upon me taking nearly all the funerals. At Torquay, my Lord, these are, as probably you know, very numerous³ & I can say truly, that nearly every day of my life, Sundays not excepted, I had to walk three miles to the place, & three miles back so that in addition to taking the service, & often waiting, the half of every day was occupied. This naturally told upon my school which descended below paying point.

Having proceeded more than 12 months, & fearing that by getting into pecuniary difficulties I should bring disgrace upon the Church & myself, I petitioned the Bishop, who went thoroughly into the matter, to allow me to leave the diocese to come here, where there was an opening for a school & a prospect of success. With some hesitation, because he desired to make my Incumbent comply with his wishes, he released me giving me the enclosed letter. I was told by the Bishop's chaplain that that letter would satisfy any bishop, which it certainly did Bishop Wigram, when twelve years ago I showed it to him.

Now, my Lord, that Vicar of mine was obliged soon after my leaving him to resign the living, & is now non-est; the senior Curate seceded to Rome, & is now a Romish Priest in that neighbourhood, one Churchwarden is dead, & the other removed to where I cannot find him. Your Grace will now see that I can do no more than send you the letter of the late illustrious bishop.

Why I did not proceed to priest's orders is easily explained. When I came here I had no dependence but a small uncertain school to depend upon for the maintenance of myself & eight children. I was obliged to ? myself heartily with work interests to keep so many persons. Bishop Wigram offered to ordain me priest, if I could get the necessary title⁴. The title I was offered by several - but they could offer no stipend &, moreover, I must reside. Under the circumstances neither would suit, so I went on from that time to the present attending to my work here, & employing my Sundays as you will find from my printed papers.

The school was given up by me after several years in favour of keeping a Temperance Establishment², which I was asked to undertake as being a man likely to carry it on successfully. This has gone well and I have now six inebriates of noble families & lineage. Hence – my Lord – being now 60 years of age⁵, with a great & responsible work upon my shoulders, I have not time to prepare for priest's orders & don't intend to seek them.

But being strong & able, I desire to serve the Church as I have always done, on Sundays, & with such views I seek canonical authority. I remain idle, & to cease officiating somewhere, or somehow, is utterly impossible; therefore, since I am entirely independent of the income I receive from the Church, which has never been more than an average of £50 in my life, I do hope & trust that your Grace will not force me to consider my position & duty in regard to doing God's work by refusing me the lawful & proper authority. I have never done anything to forfeit it, & I always conform to what is the rule of the Church to which I am called.

I would mention that I have two sons clergymen, another to be ordained in September, another at College with a view to orders; a son in law who was an officer in the army, now about to be ordained, that my daughters have been trained to be deaconesses, & that my wife, as the Bishop of Oxford ⁶ will tell you, died in doing the Church's work.

With the above before me I must, with all humility, maintain that I have a right to work, with authority, in & for the Church I have so long laboured – & it will be a source of great thankfulness & pleasure to me to receive your Grace's license. If refused, the greatest stumbling block & discouragement of my life will be placed in my way, & I cannot yet see the result.

I write thus strongly because I am hurt by the writing of your Lordship's secretary to Canon Griffin.

I remain, my Lord, your faithful servant,

Frederick Davis

Source

Lambeth Palace Archives, Tait 207, Folio 206.

Notes

1. Now lost.

2. See previous post.

3. Torquay was evidently then, as now, popular with elderly retired people.

4. Appointment to an ecclesiastical living or benefice.

5. He was actually 54!

6. Frederick and his wife, Charlotte, had run the church school in the parish of Tardebigge, Worcestershire during the 1850s, whilst John Mackarness was vicar there.

Googling for Grandma - Old News is Good News

2011-01-16T05:31:00.001Z

Newspapers are my favourite sources. They put flesh on the bones of our ancestors, turning dry and dusty genealogy into living, breathing family history. They cover all aspects of society and all areas of the globe and you are as likely to find a dustman as a duke in their pages.

Newspapers find their stories wherever there is human interest. With far less access to information than today, newspapers in the past frequently copied material from each other, and this practice crossed international boundaries. So although my family history is focused on the British Isles, I have found gems of information in papers in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. In the case of newspapers, it really does pay to "search outside the box" - and this is where Google comes in.

In 2008 Google launched an initiative to digitise historic news archives and make them searchable and accessible online. Content is drawn from global media such as the BBC, Guardian, Time Magazine and the New York Times but also from hundreds of small local publications. The period covered by each news archive varies - some only cover recent years, whilst the New York Times goes all the way back to 1851 - but all this information can be accessed in one place using Google News Archive Search.

I have had particularly good results when searching for my policeman great grandfather, John McCarthy. His promotion to be head of the CID got a good deal of coverage. My favourite is this article from a Newfoundland newspaper, the Harbor Grace Standard, dated 21 August 1912. The details are delightful:

Nobody who has met John McCarthy grudges him his promotion. He is a man without enemies, unless they be some of those desperate international criminals whom he has tracked down and arrested ... this jolly looking man with something of the farmer squire about his appearance ... Tall and broad shouldered he is built on a generous frame above the average in physique. He has the twinkling blue eyes of the Irishman ... Latterly he was busy with the suffragette agitations, and such was his charm of manner and courtesy that the women agreed that it was a pleasure to be arrested by Mr McCarthy.

But I learned from another newspaper that John had been tempted to jump ship at an earlier stage in his career. The St John Sun of New Brunswick reported on 1 April 1907:

During a visit to England, King Alfonso XIII was apparently so impressed by Scotland Yard detectives that he decided to revolutionise Spanish police methods. John McCarthy was offered the job of heading the new CID in Madrid, on a salary of $5,000 a year plus expenses. According to the newspaper, he was reluctantly obliged to decline the offer because he had been specially chosen to protect King Edward VII.

Of course, these articles concern a man in a prominent position in public life but I have had equal success finding information about more obscure family members. My great grandfather's brother, Clement Lawrence Scott Davis, disappears from the English records after the 1871 census. A handwritten family tree records that he ended up in the Nokomai region of New Zealand, prospecting for gold. The Google News Archive includes material from Papers Past in New Zealand and a search on Davis and Nokomai turned up an article he had written for the Otago Witness in 1886, describing a prospecting expedition:

Shortly after writing this, Clement disappeared on another prospecting trip in the mountains. A young man in his 30s, he left no family, no photographs and few details of his life have come down to us. This lengthy newspaper article is the only link we have to the man and his personality.

Follow Friday: Audrey and Annie

2011-01-15T00:04:00.001Z

My favourite reading over the past week has been "The Family Recorder", written by Audrey Collins of The National Archives (TNA):

Saturday: a post about old houses in Fetter Lane. Fascinating for me because my 2x great grandfather, Julius William Fritz, lived in Fetter Lane from 1865 to 1887.
Sunday: an excellent piece examining the new Family Search website from the point of view of British researchers.
Monday: a beautifully drawn map of an enumerator's route, found amongst the 1861 census returns for Marylebone - to which a 20th century hand has added a stick figure saying "oh!" Since the stick figure is on the site of Lord's cricket ground, he really should be saying "howzat!".
Tuesday: an introduction to Wordle.net, which generates amazing pictures from the most frequently used words in your blog.

Two weeks ago, Annie Barnes of www.hibbitt.org.uk left a comment on my post about Rev Frederick Davis. Last night I finally found time to check out her website - and what a treat it is. It has to be one of the best designed family history sites I've seen. I was so impressed that I searched the site to see what software she used - and so came across her Follow Friday post last week about GED-GEN.

GED-GEN is a program which creates family group sheets for your website from a GEDCOM file and is sophisticated enough to offer all sorts of customisations. I was so taken with Annie's site that I downloaded the free trial and, after a couple of hours playing with it, I bought the registered version. At only $20 I thought it a bargain. When registering my purchase I mentioned some trouble I was having with the non-standard GEDCOM file produced by Family Tree Maker 2011 and received an instant, helpful response from Mike Voisin of GED-GEN. I sent him my GEDCOM and he again responded very quickly and positively today. I am seriously impressed with both the program and the customer service. Thank you so much for the introduction, Annie.

10 things my ancestors did to annoy me

2011-01-10T19:46:00.001Z

The Society of Genealogists sells a booklet called "My Ancestor was a Bastard". I have to admit that is often the way I feel about my own kin.

Here are 10 things they did to annoy me:

They settled where three counties meet. That way they could get married in one county, baptise their children in a second and be buried in a third, all without travelling more than a few miles from home. But I have to travel to three different record offices, miles apart, to have any hope of tracing their complicated genealogy.
Namesake cousins married namesake girls. I am either descended from John Coles and Mary Holloway, who married at Damerham, Wiltshire on 23 October 1737, or from John Coles and Mary Holloway, who married at Damerham, Wiltshire on 16 December 1738. I bet they are all having a good laugh about that one at the great family reunion in the sky.
They were not wise children and did not know their own fathers. Mary Ann Baldwin gave her maiden name as Blakey but her father's name as William Clayton. It took years to find the marriage of Susannah Blakey and William Clayton which proved he was her step-father. William Prebble Barnes invented a bank manager called George Barnes as his father. It took decades to find his illegitimate birth to Elizabeth Prebble.
They moved around. Joseph Bentley served as a Methodist minister in 17 different places. Frederick Davis lived in nine different counties and three different countries.
They baptised their children in batches, in a place remote from where they were born. Susannah Baldwin was born in Portsmouth and baptised four years later in Gravesend. Thomas Heale baptised his first four children as babies but made the last two wait over twenty years until he had died.
They left the country at census time. Thomas Bluett went all the way to New Zealand to avoid an entry in the 1841 census which would have told me whether or not he was born in Ireland.
They lied about their ages. Frederick Rayman claimed to be 23 when, aged just 15, he married his pregnant 21 year old bride. Catherine McCarthy stayed 40 for two successive censuses. Alice Wiles was 55 in one census and 72 in the next.
They kept just off the page of any printed pedigree. The Red Book of Perthshire contains detailed family trees for the Haldanes, Haliburtons, Reids and Stewarts which stop just short of connecting with my own proven research. Douglas' Baronage of Scotland mentions two of the children of John Smith of Glasswall, but not the daughter through whom I am descended.
They disappeared. John Winn sailed to North America, where he vanished. Clement Davis went out prospecting in the Nevis mountains of New Zealand and never came back.
They spent all the money. When William Winn died in 1891 he left £82,446 12s 9d, the equivalent of £5.5 million today. His son, William, inherited one quarter. By the time he died in 1906 it was all gone. In the space of 15 years he had squandered the equivalent of over one million pounds on yachts and gold plated taps.

Googling for Grandma

2011-01-08T17:57:00.001Z

Googling for Grandma was the title of a lecture by the incomparable Cyndi Howells which I attended on the 2007 Wholly Genes Genealogy Conference and Cruise. Cyndi's excellent lecture equipped me with many new and exciting Google tools for extending my family research into the nooks and crannies of the internet.

In time, I became proficient enough to give my own talk on the subject to our local U3A Family History Group. I hope Cyndi will forgive me for stealing her catchy title. At the end of my talk I invited members of the audience to give me family history subjects, about which they would like to find more information, for me to Google then and there.

The first request was from a lady who had recently discovered that her ancestor, William Cooksley, ran a factory in Bristol. Would there be anything about him or his factory online? A Google search on <+Cooksley +factory +Bristol> immediately threw up a hit which stunned us all. William Cooksley's modest Bristol nail making business was mentioned in the pages of Karl Marx's "Das Kapital":

In my experience, this kind of spectacular result is far from unique. I have already blogged about my black sheep ancestor Rev Frederick Davis and his unlicensed lunatic asylum. I first became aware of this story because of Google Books. A search on <"Manor House" +Northfleet +Davis> led me to an article from the German psychiatry magazine Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie und psychisch-gerichtliche Medizin, Volume 35, 1879. (Google Translate tells me that this is the General journal of psychiatry and psycho-forensic medicine.)

Only a "snippet view" of the article was shown but it was enough to inform me that Frederick had appeared before the magistrates at Rochester, Kent on Friday 29 June to face a charge by the Lunacy Commissioners under the Lunacy Act. From this, I was able to do further research.

Last Wednesday marked a further stage in my Google education, as I attended a webinar by the equally awesome Thomas MacEntee on Google for Genealogists. It is Thomas' fault that I have not blogged since then - I have been too busy trying out all the new Google toys he gave me to play with. But chatting with Cyndi and Thomas after the webinar gave me the idea for a series of blog posts about how Google has helped my genealogy research, of which this is the first. I hope that, as the series goes on, you will learn some new tips and tricks and make some new research discoveries of your own. Please let me know if you do.

Black Sheep Sunday - Rev Frederick Davis

2010-12-19T22:39:00.003Z

Black sheep embarrass the family whilst they are alive but they make wonderful ancestors. Brushes with the law, financial peccadilloes and sex scandals are the lifeblood of newspapers. Ancestors who got into serious trouble usually got plenty of column inches and those old newspaper articles are gold dust for the family historian.

My favourite black sheep ancestor is my 2x great-grandfather, Rev Frederick Davis. Not just a bad boy but a clergyman to boot - some years ago a cousin christened him "the pervy vicar" and I'm afraid the naughty nickname has stuck.

Frederick was born in Lambeth, Surrey, in 1821. One family story suggests that his father was wealthy but disowned him after an argument. Frederick was certainly well educated but struggled for the rest of his life to establish a financially secure career.

At first he worked as a warehouseman. In 1842 he married a schoolmistress, Charlotte Aves, and by 1848 Frederick had also become a schoolmaster, following teacher training at the Church of England National Society's Training Institution in Westminster.

Frederick and Charlotte worked as a husband and wife team in a succession of church schools in East London, Essex, Staffordshire and Worcestershire. By 1858 they were running the parish school in St Columb Major, Cornwall, when tragedy struck. Charlotte died of tuberculosis, aged 40, leaving Frederick with eight children aged two to fifteen.

Headstone on the grave of Charlotte Davis, Colan, Cornwall

With Charlotte's death the family lost stability. Frederick initially put his daughters into an orphanage run by Anglican nuns at Wymering, near Portsmouth. By 1862 he had moved to Torquay in Devon where, for the first time, he set up his own private school rather than being employed by the Church. On the recommendation of clerical friends, he was also ordained deacon by the Bishop of Exeter and appointed curate of St John's, Torquay.

This proved disastrous. The curacy was poorly paid but so busy as to prevent him running his school properly. He lost pupils, fell out with the vicar and, within six months found himself in precarious financial circumstances. Although supposed to remain in the diocese until he was ordained priest, Frederick petitioned the Bishop to allow him to leave his curacy and move to Northfleet in Kent, to take over a private preparatory school based in the old Manor House.

The Manor House, Northfleet, Kent

Frederick rebranded the school as Northfleet Grammar School, later the Collegiate School, and advertised his willingness to coach young men for entry to the Universities and the armed forces. Some pupils came (two of them later married two of his daughters) but the school struggled and Frederick supplemented his income by covering for clergy absences in various Kent parishes, not telling them that he was only in deacon's orders.

In 1874 the churchwarden of one of those parishes wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury about Frederick:

Having been prompted to make enquiry concerning his private character in consequence of his having most persistently and impudently attempted to extort more money (to the extent of 4 guineas) than he was entitled to according to my agreement with him, I have ascertained from a most reliable source that he is inhibited by the Bishop of Rochester from doing duty in his diocese.

... Dr Claughton would not have inhibited him, unless there were good and weighty reasons for so doing. I have heard what those reasons are, but would rather not commit them to writing as they are of a most serious and damaging nature. No doubt if Your Grace orders inquiry to be made in the neighbourhood in which he lives quite sufficient cause will be found, to induce Your Grace to take immediate steps to prevent the possibility of his ever performing the duty of a clergyman of the Church of England again.

Archibald Campbell Tait, 1811-1882
Archbishop of Canterbury

The Bishop of Rochester added his own disapprobation:

I have not actually inhibited Mr Davis ... but I do not approve of him. He behaves extremely ill to the Clergyman of his Parish.

Thomas Legh Claughton, 1808-1892
Bishop of Rochester

By 1875 Frederick had given up his school in favour of running a home for six wealthy dipsomaniacs (alcoholics). Following complaints that a lady was being detained against her will, the Lunacy Commissioners paid a visit and discovered that one of his patients was mentally ill. In the summer of 1877 he was prosecuted for running an unlicensed lunatic asylum and fined £50.

The Archbishop had reluctantly allowed Frederick to continue officiating in neighbouring parishes. On Sunday 16 December 1877 he was returning from taking services when, on a train between Strood and Gravesend, he was alleged to have indecently assaulted a 17 year old servant girl called Rosina Webb. When the case came up for trial in January 1878 Frederick did not appear. Instead, one of his sons wrote a letter maintaining his father's innocence but saying that, as he feared his word would not be believed, he had gone abroad.

A warrant was issued for Frederick's arrest and an advertisement in the Police Gazette gives us a description of the man, for whom no known photograph exists:

The Police Gazette, 4 February 1878

When Frederick fled abroad he left behind him a second wife. Her existence only came to light because her birth and death dates, minus a name, were recorded on a family gravestone in Northfleet churchyard. The gravestone was destroyed in the 1960s but, thankfully, it had been carefully transcribed by an antiquarian in the 1900s. The death date led to the discovery of the name Harriet Davis in the Northfleet burial registers. Her death certificate revealed that she was the wife of Frederick Davis and that she had died of apoplexy in October 1878, aged 60. No record of their marriage has yet been found.

Frederick went first to Bruges in Belgium before settling in Dinard on the coast of Brittany in France. Both places had substantial numbers of affluent English residents, so Frederick was probably able to earn a living as a tutor. There was an Anglican church at Dinard and the incumbent, Rev Anthony Francis Thomson, was the father of one of Frederick's old pupils, Anthony Standidge Thomson, later to be his son-in-law. Frederick lived in the pretty seaside resort - no doubt helping out with services - until his death in 1883.

The Quay at Dinard, Ethel Carrick Fox

Porter tells porkies to the police

2010-12-18T22:23:00.002Z

My great grandfather, John McCarthy, was born at Erith in Kent on 27th October 1863, the son of Richard McCarthy and his wife Catherine (nee Brien).

Richard and Catherine (known as Kitty) came from Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland. They were both born about 1834 and probably came to England as part of the mass emigration resulting from the Potato Famine in the late 1840s. They were married at St George's RC Cathedral in Southwark on 22 June 1856.

Richard was illiterate and unskilled. He worked as a labourer, on a farm and in a factory, before settling in Bermondsey where he became a glue maker, using the by-products of the local leather and tanning industry.

Richard McCarthy

John McCarthy was educated at St Joseph's Academy, Kennington Park Road, a grammar school run by the De La Salle Brothers as an extension of their work at St Joseph's College in Clapham (now at Beulah Hill). Obituaries described him as "a man of good education" and "a capital linguist" fluent in both French and Spanish.

In the autumn of 1878, aged 15, John went to work for Edward Henry Waterworth at 147 Houndsditch in the City of London. Waterworth was a commission agent and dealer in china, earthenware and glass. In March 1880 John changed jobs to work for the London Brighton and South Coast Railway at Shadwell Station, first as a porter and later as a signalman.

Shadwell Station 1910

His ambition, however, was to join the Metropolitan Police. Regulations required candidates to be over the age of 20 but John was too impatient to wait that long. In August 1881, with his 18th birthday approaching, he wrote to the Metropolitan Police Commissioners, boldly stating that he was about to turn 20 and asking to be considered as a candidate.

Various background checks were carried out but, fortunately, he was not asked to produce his birth certificate. Probably unaware of his deception, three "respectable housekeepers" vouched for his honesty, sobriety and good temper, as did his parish priest, Father Patrick O'Donnell of the Church of the English Martyrs, Great Prescot Street, Tower Hill.

Church of the English Martyrs, Tower Hill

On 27 December 1881, John was appointed PC 66140 in N Division, based in Islington. His starting pay was 24 shillings per week plus uniform. The terms and conditions of service which he signed on entry stated that: "Every police constable in the force may hope to rise, by activity, intelligence, and good conduct, to the superior stations" and that is precisely what he did.

* "Porkies" is rhyming slang for lies, from pork pies = lies.

Wordless Wednesday - The Ark, Prince Rupert, BC

2010-12-15T20:53:00.002Z

The house in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada, where my mother was born in 1919. For obvious reasons, it was known to the family as "the Ark".

UPDATE

The legendary Cyndi Howells asked me why the house was built that way. As taught by Cyndi herself, I did a targeted Google search on "Prince Rupert" +houses +stilts. Up popped a result from Google Books - an article from Popular Mechanics magazine dated July 1922. It contains another photograph of the house:

The article explains that:

The city of Prince Rupert, BC, is situated on very hilly ground, and in some instances houses were built before the grading operations were completed, which has led to many unusual sights. In one case a house was built with the first floor level with the street, but the ground was so far below the street level that it was necessary to support the basement on long timbers. A narrow wooden bridge leads from the sidewalk to the first floor of the house.

As it happens, I have a photograph of my grandmother, holding my mother in her arms, standing on that narrow wooden bridge:

I think this story illustrates three important genealogy lessons:

Sharing your research in a website or blog leads directly to new discoveries.
There is a good reason why professional genealogists like Cyndi teach us to ask the "who, what, where, when, why" questions about our research.
It is simply amazing what you can find on Google Books.

Carols and Capers

2010-12-11T23:22:00.001Z

[This is my entry for this year's Blog Caroling at Footnote Maven]

What is more natural than that a love of history should be accompanied by a love of folk music? Especially when that music is played on traditional instruments.

One of my favourite groups is The Carnival Band, accompanied by the wonderful voice of Maddy Prior of Steeleye Span, the doyenne of English folk singers.

I first came across their music with their 1987 album A Tapestry of Carols, recorded at the Quaker Meeting House, Frenchay, a short distance from my home. The album is a collection of ancient carols from across Europe, played on Renaissance instruments. Reviews on Amazon describe it as "bouncy", "merry", "heartwarming" and "joyful". It is all those things. It also makes you want to dance and worship at the same time (why not?), then invite your neighbours in out of the snow to join you in a wassail in front of a roaring log fire.

The album proved so popular that Maddy and the Carnival Band now do an annual tour of Christmas concerts around the country, called Carols and Capers. I'm hoping to see this year's show for myself when they visit Bristol next Monday evening. In 2004 they recorded a DVD of their performances in Oxford and Salisbury and some of the songs are on You Tube.

I was hard put to choose my favourite for this year's Blog Caroling but decided in the end to share their glorious rendition of God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen. A traditional carol, which probably dates back to the 16th century, it is the Christmas carol mentioned by Dickens in the first chapter of A Christmas Carol. The beautiful words powerfully proclaim the "comfort and joy" of the Christmas message. Maddy's singing is a delight, the band's playing is superb and the icing on the cake is the delicious bass sound of the curtal. If this doesn't put you in the mood for Christmas, nothing will.

Thrifty Thursday - Save £££ using a Library

2010-12-09T17:37:00.001Z

I've been a bookworm ever since I learned to read. I've been a library user for almost as long. Aged 10, I was given special permission to use the adult library because I'd read everything in the children's section. I cried when I realised there were more books in the world than I would ever be able to read.

My love for books carries over to my family history research - they are amongst my most valuable sources of information. Since Cyndi Howells first taught me how to do well targeted searches using Google, I have regularly trawled Google Books for family information. I rarely come away empty handed. I found an article about a British ancestor's unlicensed lunatic asylum in a German psychiatry magazine and have traced the career of a 19th century King's Messenger entirely through books found online. I even found The Boating Man's Vade Mecum, written by my husband's great grandfather, William Winn.

For books still in copyright, Google Books only provides a snippet view - or sometimes no preview at all. This can be very frustrating. No-one wants to buy an expensive book just to obtain the nugget of genealogy information contained in a footnote on page 169. Fortunately, there is no need to do so, if you belong to a library.

When I find a book of interest, my first stop is the website of my local library consortium - Libraries West. Using their online catalogue, I can search for the book in over 100 libraries in a region extending from the Cotswolds to Exmoor, including major public libraries in the cities of Bath and Bristol. Obscure books can be found in the most unlikely places. I located a book about an East India Company family which had been placed into storage by the Somerset County Library service - it had last been borrowed in the 1960s. A book about London's worst Victorian slum was gathering dust on the sleepy shelves of a library in a Gloucestershire market town.

If I find the book in the Libraries West catalogue, I can reserve it for collection at my local library, 100 yards from my front door, for the princely sum of 90p. If I do not find it, all is not lost. I next turn to WorldCat to locate the nearest library with a copy. WorldCat covers institutional libraries as well as the public library service. I recently found a rare book very close to my home in the library of my old alma mater, Bristol University. Armed with details of the holding library, and the call number of the book I require, I go back to the Libraries West website and put in a request for an inter-library loan. The fee for this service is higher, at £2.20 per book, but still much cheaper than buying my own copy - cheaper even than the postage on my own copy.

And inter-library loans are not restricted to published books. In my time I have borrowed a typed manuscript from a library in the Orkneys and even borrowed microfilm copies of an ancestor's journals from the Hudson's Bay Company Archives in Winnipeg, Canada. For £2.20, that has to be the bargain of a lifetime.

Sunday's Obituary: Rev Joseph Bentley, 1840-1903

2010-11-28T22:29:00.001Z

Rev Joseph Bentley was my great grandfather. He was born near Barnsley, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in 1840 and died in Wimbledon, Surrey, in 1903. Joseph was a Wesleyan Methodist minister for 36 years. During this time he served Methodist communities in 17 different places in England, from Durham to Cornwall. The constant upheaval of moving from place to place must have made life very difficult for his wife, Emma, and seven children.

Joseph's obituary appeared in the 1904 Minutes and Yearbook of the Methodist Conference:

JOSEPH BENTLEY: born in August, 1840. He was converted at the age of eighteen, entered the ministry in 1864, and died on August 7th 1903. His life was chiefly spent in the Circuits of rural Methodism, where he laboured with much energy and zeal. He was loyal to our discipline, and endeavoured to inculcate that spirit among the people to whom he ministered. His preaching was generally appreciated, and his genial disposition won him many friends. The end of his life was shadowed by failing eyesight, which created much depression, but his faith in God and his trust in the atonement of Christ were unfailing.

All the nice girls love a sailor - 2

2010-11-26T01:17:00.001Z

In Part 1 of this post I wrote about my husband's great great grandfather, Captain John Winn, a master mariner who disappeared in "North America" sometime between 1830 and 1848.

In trying to crack this major brick wall I have pursued many different lines of research. I began by reading this book, published by the Society of Genealogists:

I then explored the following sources:

Censuses

I cannot find John Winn in the 1841 or 1851 British censuses, the 1840 or 1850 US Federal censuses or the 1851 Canadian census.

Lloyds Registers of Shipping

These annual lists can be fully viewed on Google Books. I have extracted the names of all merchant ships with a captain or owner called Winn between 1807 and 1865. I have eliminated those vessels where I have been able to discover the captain's first name and it is not John. I've also eliminated those still sailing from British ports after 1848.

This leaves me with six captains & vessels:

1811-12, Thirsk, J Winn, Hull coaster
1822, Holland, Winn, Exeter coaster
1830-33, Legatus, Winn, Sunderland, Bristol, Montreal
1832-33, Kate, Winn, New Brunswick, London, Halifax
1836-40, George Canning, Winn, Newcastle, Halifax, Bombay
1841-44, Rainbow, Winn, London, Cape of Good Hope

Passenger Lists

There are three masters called Winn on the Ship's List website but, from the names of their ships, I have eliminated all three as being different people. The captain of the Legatus is also mentioned there, spelled Wynn. Using One-Step Webpages I turned up a John Winn, ship master, aged 35 years & 4 months, who arrived in New York from the Turks on board the schooner "Deposit" on 23 August 1836. However, he is described as US born & resident.

Probate

I can find no will, and no action by the family to have him declared dead.

Records of Merchant Seamen

There are no records of merchant navy officers in the UK before 1845. I spent a day trawling through seamen's records and crew lists at the National Archives. There were many John Winns, all ordinary seamen, but nothing to identify my man.

Newspapers

I can find no reference to him (such as a missing person advert) in the British Library's 19th century newspaper collection.

Genealogy Bank turns up various references in US newspapers in the 1830s to John D Winn, captain of the Eliza from Salem, Massachusetts.

Wrecks

I can't find him listed as the captain of a ship that went down at any of the websites devoted to wrecks.

Where should I go next? Please leave your suggestions in the comments. I'll use them to draw up a future research strategy for Part 3 of this post.

Wordless Wednesday: Beards and Longevity

2010-11-24T20:44:00.001Z

Dr John Lowe (1781-1866)

and sons


Dr Robert Lowe (1812-1907)	George Lowe (1819-1915)

Thomas Lowe (1824-1912)	James Lowe (1830-1879)