TheGenealogist has sent out a press release that announces that they have released a brand new circa 1921 resource. This is brilliant news for those tracing their British ancestry as it is for a period that is not presently served by a census because of the 100 year rule for census releases.
The new record set covers 23 counties, and is made up of over one million records. They formpart of TheGenealogist’s Trade, Residential & Telephone collection.
The records are fully transcribed, searchable and enable researchers to:
search on forename, surname and profession
search by street, town and county
look for a business name
discover your ancestors’ addresses
find professions listed
TheGenealogist says that their 1921 directories cover the North, South, East and the West of England, the Channel Islands and reach up the country right up to Aberdeen. If you are researching your ancestors in the years around 1921, then this new release will offer a fantastic name rich resource to use.
Searching for householders within these 23 newly released county directories returns a huge number of names from that time and include a great many that are still famous today.
A number of examples that these new records allow us to discover include Harry Gordon Selfridge, founder of Selfridge’s department store; Jesse Boot, who set up the chemist chain that still carries his name; Winnie-the-Pooh’s author A. A. Milne; J.M. Barrie, who created the characters of Peter Pan and Wendy; plus the celebrated economist, John Maynard Keynes. I wrote a feature article for TheGenealogist to highlight how I found these examples and it can be found on their website at: Addressing Where They Were in 1921
The areas that have been covered in this release include:
Aberdeen
Bath
Berkshire
Bradford and Surrounding Districts
Bristol and Suburberbs
Brixton and Clapham
Buckinghamshire
Cambridgeshire
Channel Islands
Cheshire
Cumberland
Dorset
Durham
Hessle
Hull
Lincolnshire
London
London County Suburbs
Middlesbrough
Norfolk
Northumberland
Oxfordshire
Somerset
Suffolk
Westmorland
Wiltshire
Worcestershire
Yorkshire
TheGenealogist says that they will be adding further counties in the coming months.
Disclosure: Please note this post contains affiliate links.
TheGenealogist has expanded its UK Parish Records collection with the release of over 1,363,000 new records for Northumberland. These records make it easier to find your ancestors’ baptisms, marriages and burials in these fully searchable records that cover the ancient parishes of the northernmost county of England. Some of the records can take you as far back as 1560.
In this release you can find the records of:
903,314 individuals in Baptisms, 157,329 individuals in Marriages and 302,378 individuals in Burials
Use these records to find the names of ancestors, parents’ forenames (in the case of baptisms), father’s occupation (where given), abode or parish, parish that the event took place in, the date of the event, in the case of marriage records, the bride’s maiden name and the witnesses’ names.
In these records you can find Grace Horsley Darling, the famous lighthouse keeper’s daughter who saved the crew from a shipwrecked paddle steamer. She was born on 24th November 1815, at her grandfather’s cottage in Bamburgh in Northumberland and was baptised the following month.
Grace was the daughter of William and Thomasine Darling who, when only a few weeks old, was taken to live in a small cottage attached to the lighthouse on Brownsman Island, one of the Farne Islands off the coast of Northumberland.
Her father ran the lighthouse there and she is famed for participating in the rescue of survivors from the shipwrecked paddle steamer Forfarshire in 1838.
It was carrying sixty two people when it foundered on the rocks, split in two, the survivors managed to clamber onto Big Harcar a rocky island and were spotted by Grace looking from an upstairs window. She and her father rowed out in a four man boat for a distance of about a mile and between them rescued the nine survivors.
Disclosure: Please note this post contains affiliate links.
I logged into my account with LivingDNA this week and thought:
“Hang on a minute, something has changed here. I’ve got a more comprehensive way of looking at my results!”
I clicked through to see the news on their website and found out that I was right in thinking this.
The update had happened while I was busy preparing for my trip away and was posted to their own blog on the 18th June 2017 and that is why I missed it. For all those readers who may have missed it themselves I read that Living DNA users are now able to start to explore their family ancestry (Autosomal DNA) in three different ways. Their blog at https://www.livingdna.com/en/blog goes on:
We call this feature “views” as it allows you to look at your ethnic ancestry mix within different confidence ranges; Complete, Standard and Cautious.
For users who would have already received their results, they received their “Standard” view which may contain some unassigned ancestry. But now, by looking at the complete view, customers can see these unassigned areas. We’ve also added in a ‘cautions’ view which combines regions of genetically similar ancestry, providing our highest degree of certainty.
In the process of releasing views, we’ve made some small changes to our algorithms; this means that peoples results will be slightly updated, normally by around 1%, although a small number of customers may see much bigger changes in their mix.
I was impressed with the breakdown as it gives me clues where I should research for ancestors that appear in my family tree, but I know not from where they came. This is because they married into my identified line, but before census or BMD records and so they didn’t reveal which part of the world they hailed from!
Now I will redouble my efforts to find them in the records of the regions that share similar DNA.
Check out the LivingDNA website as they have a limited time special offer on at the time of writing!
Disclosure: Links above are compensated affiliate links.
I was in The National Archives this week and I thought I’d pop over to the London FamilySearch Centre that is located inside the reading room at TNA in Kew.
On the desk, in front of the LDS staff was an announcement to the effect that FamilySearch is discontinuing their microfilm lending service on September 1, 2017 across the world.
They have announced that “the change is the result of significant progress in FamilySearch’s microfilm digitization efforts and the obsolescence of microfilm technology. Digital imaging has made it easier to find ancestors through the internet, mobile, and other technologies.”
So what this means for family history researchers across the globe is that very soon we will no longer be able to borrow microfilmed genealogical records from the Family History Library. The last day researchers can place an order for delivery to your local Family History Centre/Center is August 31, 2017.
It is true that the majority of the Family History Library’s microfilm vault has already been digitized and is online – or will be within a short time and they say that they hope to finish digitizing the records that they have permission to digitize, in 2020. This still means, however, that some of the films we will not be digitized because they fall foul of either contractual limitations, data privacy, or some other reason.
This is sad news for family historians who had used this rich resource.
Entrance to the FamilySearch vault in Salt Lake City
Just as we were all snoozing in the summer sun the BBC suddenly announced that the ever popular genealogy TV series is back. The surprise is that according to the Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine the fourteenth series kicks off in less than two weeks time!
This is what the BBC say at their Media Centre pages on their website.
The BAFTA award-winning genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are? is back for a fourteenth series with a brand new star studded line-up from the worlds of TV, sport, music, comedy and dance.
The show, produced by Wall to Wall (a Warner Bros Television Production UK Ltd company), will return to BBC One this summer.
Actor Charles Dance, sports broadcaster Clare Balding, presenter Emma Willis, Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood, actor Noel Clarke, popstar Lulu, EastEnders actress Lisa Hammond, Citizen Khan comedian Adil Ray, presenter Fearne Cotton, and actress and comedian Ruby Wax all delve into their past in this year’s series.
The series will follow actor Charles Dance’s extraordinary journey as he uncovers the true story of the father he never knew, Craig Revel Horwood traces his Australian roots and discovers he’s not the first dancer in the family, while Clare Balding explores her great grandfather’s deep and possibly romantic relationship with a male artist. From the Australian gold rush to baking powder, from prisoners of war to African royalty, from long lost relatives to vanishing fortunes, our celebrities uncover the remarkable and compelling stories of their ancestors.
In this highly anticipated new series viewers can expect tears, laughter, shocking discoveries, emotional revelations and some intriguing surprises as our celebrities explore their family trees and delve back centuries into their ancestry.
Executive Producer for Wall to Wall Colette Flight says: “Who Do You Think You Are? returns with another fantastic line-up. Our ten celebrities set off on the trail of their ancestors, their journeys taking them to all corners of the globe and places the series has never been before, from a remote Caribbean island to a kingdom in Uganda. The stories they unearth in their family trees are affecting, revelatory, and always fascinating.”
Tom McDonald, BBC Head of Commissioning, Natural History and Specialist Factual, says: “Following its recent BAFTA success, this new series of Who Do You Think You Are? promises fascinating revelations from some of the UK’s best-loved actors, performers and presenters. The series continues to be our most watched history series across the BBC – and I know viewers are in for a real treat.”
Disclosure: Please note this post contains affiliate links.
TheGenealogist has announced the release of the City of York and AinstyColour Tithe Maps, plus another significant batch of Yorkshire directories released in time for the Yorkshire Family History Show at York Racecourse.
To coincide with the return of one of the largest family history events in England, at the Knavesmire Exhibition Centre at the York Racecourse on the 24th of June and which is sponsored by TheGenealogist, today sees the release of a set of new records for York.
TheGenealogist has just added the colour tithe maps that cover the City of York and Ainsty to its National Tithe Records collection to compliment the gray scale maps and apportionment books that are already live. In addition it has released another 23 residential and commercial directory books to its ever expanding collection of Trade, Residential and Telephone Directories to help those with Yorkshire ancestors find their addresses.
The fully searchable records released online will allow researchers to:
Find plots of land owned or occupied by ancestors in early Victorian York and Ainsty on colour maps
See where your forebears lived, farmed or perhaps occupied a small cottage or a massive estate.
Discover addresses of ancestors before, between and after the years covered by the census in the Trade, Residential and Telephone Directories. (1735-1937)
Uncover details of the neighbourhood and understand communication links to other towns where your stray ancestor may have moved to.
For anyone with Yorkshire ancestors this new release from TheGenealogist adds colour to the story of where their family lived. To search these and the vast number of other records covering the country see more at https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk
DNA image by Nogas1974 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Are you confused by what DNA testing can offer the family history researcher? I know that I have been!
Do you wonder how DNA test results can help you to break down your brick walls in your ancestor research? Or perhaps you are not sure what or who to believe?
I read an excellent article this week that I really think is worth drawing attention to. If you don’t already belong to Peter Calver’s LostCousins then you may not have seen this week’s LostCousins Newsletter
The article explains why we can’t afford to ignore DNA evidence in doing our research; what test you should consider taking; who should do the test and an independent opinion on which company to test with.
You will also learn what the DNA test can’t tell you; what you will find using DNA and how it could help you break down your brick walls.
I can’t recommend this piece more highly as it well written and easy to understand. This is not the first article that Peter Calver has written on this subject, so if you want some answers to the questions that many of us have about DNA and how it can be used in family history research then why not join his LostCousins membership? Standard membership (which includes the newsletter), is FREE.
If you join the LostCousins website and share your ancestors it can help you to find living relatives and so help you to discover more about your family tree. LostCousins say on their website that it ‘is all about bringing people together, not just people who share an interest in family history, but people with a shared interest in the same families, people who share the same DNA.’
If you want to find more cousins and get Peter Calver’s interesting newsletters read more at: https://www.lostcousins.com/
Disclosure: Please note this post contains affiliate links.
Departure of the RMS Campania from Liverpool
TheGenealogist keeps on adding records for its subscribers and this week it has just uploaded online another four and a half million BT27 records for the 1920s. This tranche of Outbound Passenger Lists are really quite fascinating for the variety of people that can be found departing by sea from British ports in the years between 1920 and 1929. TheGenealogist already boasts a strong Immigration,Emigration, Naturalisation and passenger list resource on its site and by adding this decade of records TheGenealogist have been significantly expanded its offering for those of us looking to find our ancestors’ travels.
The fully searchable records that they have released will allow researchers to:
Identifypotential family members travelling together by using their clever SmartSearch. TheGenealogist has a unique system that is able to recognise family members travelling together on the same voyage. In the case of several people with the same surname on the same boat journey then it will display a family icon which then allows you the researcher to view the entire family with just a single click.
Find people travelling to America, Canada, India, New Zealand, Australia and elsewhere in the Passenger lists of people leaving from the United Kingdom by sea.
See images of the original documents which were kept by the Board of Trade’s Commercial and Statistical Department and its successors.
Discover the ages, last address and where the passenger intended to make their permanent residence.
These fully indexed records enable family historians to search by name, year, country of departure, country of arrival, port of embarkation and port of destination.
Those family history researchers who have ancestors that may have travelled from the British Isles will welcome this terrific new release from TheGenealogist. It certainly adds an interesting decade, after the First World War, to their Immigration and Emigration collection. These records, which are already online, include passenger lists that go back as far as 1896 as well as the valuable Naturalisation and Denization records that researchers can use to find ancestors who came to this country and made their home here.
Below is an article that I wrote for TheGenealogist highlighting some of the well known names that can be found taking a passage on a liner in the 1920s
The 1920s decade of Outbound Passenger Lists reveal our ancestors’ travels, as well as those of many famous individuals.
Records that chart our ancestors international journeys can be really useful for building the stories of their lives. The documents can help explain where an ancestor has gone when we can’t find them in the records at home, and it was certainly not just the top echelons of society that will appear in passenger lists. In the past all sorts of people booked passages on ships for a variety of reasons. Perhaps they were emigrating for a better life or travelling abroad on business? For this reason we can find the voyages of our ancestors ranging from Labourers to Lords and Artisans to Authors.
TheGenealogist has just added another decade of the always intriguing BT27 records to its growing number of Passenger Lists. These fully searchable records were originally kept by the Board of Trade and listed the details of outbound passengers from U.K. ports. With this release we can now find voyages going across the Atlantic to North America and to the countries of the Empire and beyond. A search of these records can reveal our forebears departing from this country and in amongst their numbers are also included a large number of famous names from the past.
This new release has the likes of Master Douglas Fairbanks Jr, aged 13, who became a famous film star, returning to the United States from a visit to England and travelling on the White Star Line’s ship the Celtic. He is travelling with James and Betty Sally Evans. This appears to be a misrecording of his mother’s name, Anna Beth Sully Evans and James is his stepfather. They were on a 21 day passage to New York departing from Liverpool on the 11th June 1921. We can glean from the passenger lists the ages of passengers, who they were travelling with, and the country of their intended permanent residence – all of which can be useful to our family history research when we find an ancestor in the results.
Douglas Fairbanks Jr travelling with his mother and stepfather 11 June 1921
Researching in the passenger lists of this 1920s period of sea travel throws up many other famous names of the times. The 25 year old Harry G. Selfridge Jr, son of the founder of the London department store Selfridges, is one. We can also find the war poet Siegfried L. Sassoon and from the top ranks of the British Army there is Field Marshal Haig and Lt General Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts. Turning to the world of politics we come across David Lloyd George, the Liberal politician who became the wartime Prime Minister. Here he is travelling with his wife, Dame Margaret and their daughter Megan who would herself go on to become the first female M.P. for a Welsh constituency. By using TheGenealogist’s unique SmartSearch feature we can identify the family members travelling together on a voyage by clicking on the family icon.
On a voyage to Gibraltar in April 1927 we can find the 63 year old widow, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, the one time leader of the Suffragette movement. Without Mrs Pankhurst and her fellow suffragettes campaigning for the right for women to have the vote, then Megan Lloyd George would not have even been able to cast her ballot, let alone have had the right to stand for election to the House of Commons.
David Lloyd George MP travelling with his wife, Dame Margaret and daughter, Megan, to Rio De Janeiro 21st December 1927Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst London to Gibraltar 8th April 1927 on the P&O ship Naldera
There are numerous authors to be found in these records. In February 1926 Hilaire Belloc, who was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century, made the short hop across the channel from Southampton to Cherbourg. The 55 year old was onboard the Orduna, a vessel of The Royal Mail Steam Packet company on its way to New York. Belloc gave his address as The Reform Club SW1, but for others the passenger lists can reveal the details of an ancestor’s home address before they travelled – information which can be very useful when there is no census to consult for the time period in question. For example, the entry for the 21 year old Noel Coward, travelling on the Southampton to New York run of Cunard’s Aquitania that left on the 4th June 1921 – Coward gave his address as 111 Ebury Street London. This was the premises that his parents ran as a lodging house and it was where he kept a room while he travelled abroad. It was also the address where he wrote The Vortex, his first notable successful play. His occupation on the passenger list for June 1921 was that of an Actor. In later transatlantic crossings, however, he is sometimes recorded as a Dramatist, an Author and as a Playwright.
Noel Coward’s home address was 111 Elbury Street, London
Searching for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s sea voyages in this decade of BT27 Passenger Lists released by TheGenealogist, we see that the creator of Sherlock Holmes gives his address as 15 Buckingham Palace Mansions. This was actually the flat that the famous author and his second wife kept opposite the entrance to Victoria Station, although their main home was in Sussex and in other trips that address is recorded in the passenger lists.
Browsing the names of his fellow first class passengers we can see that the Literary agent Eric Seabrooke Pinker was also onboard and we can wonder if the two men mixed on the voyage. The arts were well represented on this trip as also travelling on the same ship was the artist Augustus John. John was a Welsh painter, draughtsman and etcher who had been an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in the United Kingdom for a short time around 1910 and by the 1920s Augustus John was Britain’s leading portrait painter.
Arthur Conan Doyle and family travelling on the Olympic to New York 28 March 1923
Passenger lists are certainly fascinating documents that can reveal our ancestors overseas voyages and so help add detail to the stories of their lives. They can also be used to clarify where people have gone when we can’t find them in the records at home, as it is all levels of society that can be found in these records. This particular decade seems also to be very rich in the names of the famous as they departed from U.K. ports on their overseas travels.
See these and many more engaging family history records at TheGenealogist.
It seems that The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (https://rcahmw.gov.uk) has created two digital geospatial layered maps using late-medieval sources and historic parish boundaries to recreate the boundaries of the commotes (cymydau) and cantrefs (cantrefi) of medieval Wales.
They go on to say that ‘future developments will examine how these boundaries have changed over time and map them in further detail.’
What is great is that it is a free resource that they have made available to the public as an aid to encouraging research.
Earlier this month The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales also recently launched the The List of Historic Place Names of Wales. This is, as they say ‘a ground-breaking website that provides a fascinating insight into the land use, archaeology and history of Wales. Over 300,000 place names are included in the List, reflecting the various forms and spellings used historically, and revealing the often forgotten or overlooked legacies of buildings, people, archaeological or topographical features in our landscapes.’ For more on this visit https://rcahmw.gov.uk/list-of-historic-place-names-now-live/.
Disclosure: Please note this post contains affiliate links.
Press Release:
TheGenealogist has expanded its Newspaper and Magazine collection with the release of The Sphere that cover August 1914 to June 1919.
Using the Historical newspapers and magazines resource on TheGenealogist enables researchers to follow current affairs that may have affected or concerned our ancestors at the time. Because the articles were written as events were occurring, they provide contemporary accounts of the world that our ancestors lived in and can furnish us with great insights into opinions of the time. In the case of the First World War years, covered by this release of The Sphere, we can gain information about individuals or read about situations that are similar to ones that our ancestors may have found themselves in.
The Sphere was an illustrated paper founded by Clement Shorter (1857-1926) who was also responsible for establishing the Tatler and itcovered general news stories from the UK and around the world.
War Memorials collection
Also being released at this time by TheGenealogist are another 116 War Memorials containing 10,795 names. Included in this batch are a number of Boer War memorials as well as those for the First World War. With this addition the total figure for memorials on
TheGenealogist has now reached 1,540 with 363,838 names.
The Sphere, providing insights into your ancestor’s lives.
I wrote this piece for TheGenealogist to show how I used the Newspaper and Magazines collection to better understand conditions in World War I.
The Sphere December 12 1914
I have been looking a little closer into the war exploits of my step-grandfather. I knew that he had joined the Royal Engineers Special Reserve Motor Cyclist Division as a despatch rider but, like many of his generation that fought in the First World War, he didn’t talk much about his experiences. What I did know was that he had found it ‘quite exciting’ to ride his despatches from headquarters to the front and back on a motorbike. He never expanded on this and certainly didn’t tell us stories about his escapades, nor what it was like to be a soldier on two wheels.
With the recent release of copies of The Sphere, on TheGenealogist, I was thus fascinated to come across the December 12 1914 edition of the publication. Here was an article about motorcycle despatch riders from the early part of the war. This day’s publication featured a double page evocative image of a motor-cycle despatch rider on his machine fleeing with the enemy on his tail. As I knew that my step-grandfather was in his late twenties at the time and a keen motorcycle rider I could imagine him reading pieces such as this and wanting to join up to the R.E. Motor Cyclists to ‘do his bit’.
I know that Grandpa also served in the western theatre of war and so this image and the report that followed, resonated with me. I could now imagine him in similar situations as had been described and pictured in the newspaper. In this particular article from the newly released records, the rider telling his story suffers a whole lot of problems: ‘On returning I take the wrong road and my machine gives trouble, and whilst repairing same I suddenly find myself surrounded by Uhlans.’ This narrator is captured, has his hands bound behind his back and he feigns illness. When his guard goes to fetch a doctor the British Tommy escapes by rolling into a ditch. This episode makes me realise that when my step-grandfather said it was ‘quite exciting’ this was probably a bit of an understatement. Their duties were certainly not a simple ride in the countryside.
The Sphere 12 Dec 1914
The British Army in World War I would often used Douglas or Triumph Motorcycles for despatch riding duties which only had between 2 and 5 hp engines. Some riders, however, brought their own machines along when they joined up. These motorbikes would have to be inspected by the military to make sure that they were suitable for the purpose; but in the early days, when many of the men were volunteers, this would have meant that this section of the Royal Engineers Signals would have been up and running quickly. In my step-grandfather’s case, however, looking at his attestation papers I can see that this part had been scored through – indicating that he would have had to be issued with an army bike.
Later in the First World War Grandpa was wounded and by reading other articles, such as that published on the 9th January 1915 about the RAMC work at the front, I got an understanding for how injured men were transferred in motorised omnibuses and ambulances that were also subject to breakdowns of their own.
Resources such as The Sphere, The War Illustrated, The Great War, The Illustrated London News, plus the other historical newspapers and magazines already found on TheGenealogist are great for building a picture of situations that our ancestors may have found themselves in. In some cases we may be lucky enough to find an ancestor actually named in a report – but even when that doesn’t happen we can find write-ups that provide us with an understanding of the wider conditions in which our ancestors worked, played or went to war in.
Another use that we can make of this resource is where we have an ancestor who was unfortunate enough to have lost their lives, while serving as an officer in the First World War. In many editions of The Sphere Rolls of Honour were published. In these we are able to find a picture along with a few lines recording their loss. The Newspaper and Magazine collection is available to all Diamond subscribers of TheGenealogist.
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