details – Page 5 – The Nosey Genealogist's: Help Me With My Family Tree

02/06/2013

More Parish Records Find Their Way Online!

Parish Registers are one of my great favourites among all the records available to family historians. They record something about ancestors of ours that may not have managed to get themselves recorded elsewhere in their lives, or at least in records that have survived through to today.

Every time I hear about more data, making it onto the Internet, I am thankful. My reason is that it may allow someone, somewhere, to make the right connection to their past family members that they may not have done without these databases.

I’ve been a bit busy theses last couple of weeks and missed this announcement when it first came out 9 days ago, but the Family history website findmypast.co.uk has added over 450,000 new parish baptisms, marriages and burials covering the period 1538-2009 from areas as diverse as Northumberland, Durham, Ryedale, Sheffield, Wiltshire and Suffolk to make it easier than ever to trace your ancestors further back through history and further expanding what has now become the most comprehensive collection of England and Wales parish records online. Paul Nixon, Content Licensing Manager for findmypast.co.uk commented on the new release â€œThis is a tremendous step for those trying to uncover their UK ancestors, and a great resource for family historians with British roots worldwideâ€.

Full details of what this exciting record release contains are as follows:

141,525 Suffolk Baptisms 1753-1911
244,309 Wiltshire Baptisms 1538-1867
27,420 Northumberland & Durham Burials 1587-2009
22,687 Sheffield Baptisms 1837-1968
8,181 Sheffield Marriages 1824-1991
7,113 Ryedale Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1754-1999

These records are brought to you by Suffolk family history society, Wiltshire family history society, Northumberland and Durham family history society, Sheffield family history society and Ryedale family history society as a result of the ongoing partnership of findmypast.co.uk and the Federation of Family History Societies. They are available to search online now and can be viewed with PayAsYouGo credits, a Britain Full or a World subscription.

The records are available on all findmypast sites as part of a World subscription.

Disclosure: The Links in the above are Compensated Affiliate links. If you click on them then I may be rewarded by Findmypast.co.uk should you sign up for their subscriptions.

Send to Kindle

19/05/2013

Military Ancestors – Army

Many of us will find that we have a male ancestor who has served in the British Army at some point during their lives. A smaller percentage of our women forebears will also have served the country but before 1949 women are found primarily as nurses, or in the auxiliary corps, and not in the Army as they could be today.

I recently set out to look for one of my ancestors and where I began searching for him depended on whether he had been an officer or a regular soldier as the records of ‘Officers’ are generally quite separate from the sources for those soldiers of the ‘Other Ranks’.

A second consideration, to take into account, was his dates of service.

In a lesson that I am including in my Family History Researcher course I will be covering some of the key resources that a person may want to use in their research. Some of these records are available online, while for others you will have to visit the National Archives (TNA) in person at their address in Kew.

TNA have an ongoing project to make scanned copies of their documents available via their online catalogue and so it’s well worth checking whether the information that you are looking for has been digitised before making a special visit.

I read some time back that it is recommended by various military historians that once an individual’s regiment or corps has been identified a researcher’s initial approach should then be to the appropriate regimental or corps museum.

I found my ancestor served in the 17th foot Leicestershire Regiment joining in 1864 as an Ensign, or junior officer and so I paid a visit to Leicester.

You can find details of these regimental and corps museums on the Army Museums Ogilby Trust’s website at:

http://www.armymuseums.org.uk/amot-search/default.asp?Category=AMOT&Service=Museum-Search

On another visit to The National Archives I took the opportunity to take a look at their copies of Hartâ€™s Army Lists, while there, and in the 1866 edition on the pages to the 17th Foot, The Leicestershire Regiment I found the entry for my great-great grandfather Ensign Edward A Massy Hay,Â 31 May 64.

For those who want to search the Army lists online then TheGenealogist has made this possible at their website having added a useful range from 1661 to 1940.

I have decided to reopen the membership to a second tranche of students now. So if you want to join my Family History Researcher course – aimed at beginners to intermediate researchers of English and Welsh family history – then click the image below.

Send to Kindle

05/05/201305/05/2013

8th May The Anniversary of VE Day

The 8th May 1945 signalled the end of WWII and became VE Day – ‘day of the people’. Everybody had their own way of celebrating, and also remembering the fallen, of not just WWII, but also WWI.

Behind War Headlines and Historic Records Are People.

Behind the headlines of war and historic records are people – YOUR relations – and Forces War Records are constantly striving to help you add colour to your ancestor’s past.

I got contacted this week by the Forces War Records website reminding me that the 8th of May is the anniversary of VE Day.

They told me about how their website was evolving and how they are relentlessly adding new records and fresh information to it. It seems around 200,000 records a month! This could mean brand new insight for you – so it could be well worth visiting the site and searching their records regularly for any new information on your relatives that may have served Britain in the Second World War.

If you are short on time and would like some help with your research then you can also visit the site for details on how to conveniently hire a Forces War Records Researcher.

They promise that “As we are growing and developing we will be introducing many more educational features, medals descriptions, tips on genealogy research, and opinion led articles on the website’s blog that you can comment on and get involved with.”

The website has many other features that you may not be aware of, including a growing ‘historic documents’ library where you can view old newspaper cuttings and original periodicals from wartime such as ”The War Illustrated’. There’s really nothing quite like seeing the original material that your relatives might have read.

As you can imagine, Forces War Records are receiving interesting records, wartime books, periodicals, original newspapers, letters, pictures, and real stories all the time.

You can also visit the site for all their latest company news and offers.

I’ll leave you with a quote from the people that run the site: ” Forces War Records is not like other genealogy sites – we offer niche records and a wealth of historic information that you simply wouldn’t find anywhere else.”

Â Disclosure: The above advert is a compensated affiliate link which may mean I get rewarded should you join their website.

Send to Kindle

20/02/2013

Find Any Villains Or Victims Lurking In Your Family History

I got a Press Release today from Find My Past that I find really interesting.

Its about a new set of criminal records they are publishing on their site and I wanted to share this with you as soon as possible!

2.5 MILLION CRIMINAL RECORDS TO BE PUBLISHED ONLINE FOR FIRST TIME

FIND ANY VILLAINS OR VICTIMS LURKING IN YOUR FAMILY HISTORY

The biggest collection of historical criminal records from England and Wales is being published online for the first time by leading family history site www.findmypast.co.uk in association with The National Archives.

Over 2.5 million records dating from 1770-1934 will be easily searchable and provide a wide variety of colour, detail and fascinating social history, chronicling the fate of criminals ranging from fraudsters, counterfeiters, thieves and murderers and their victims.

They contain mugshots, court documents, appeal letters, examples of early Edwardian â€˜ASBOsâ€™- where habitual drunks were banned from pubs and entertainment venues â€“and registers from the prison â€˜hulkâ€™ ships, which were used when mainland prisons were overcrowded. One such hulk, the â€˜Dolphinâ€™, housed 6,000 prisoners between 1829 and 1835.

There are details of Victorian serial killers including Amelia Dyer, who, between 1880 and 1896, is believed to have murdered 400 babies by strangling them with ribbon and dumping them in the Thames. She was hanged at Newgate Prison in 1896 aged 57.

Another particularly gruesome murderer who appears in the Crime, Prisons and Punishment records is Catherine Webster, who killed widow Julia Martha Thomas, 55. She pushed her down the stairs, then strangled her, chopped up her body and boiled it. Juliaâ€™s head was found in David Attenboroughâ€™s garden in 2010.

Debra Chatfield, a family historian at findmypast.co.uk , said: â€œWe have been eagerly anticipating the launch of these records that provide an amazing opportunity to trace any villains and victims in your own family.

â€œWe have painstakingly published online entire registers containing mugshots of habitual drunks that feature incredible descriptions of criminalsâ€™ appearances, demeanour and identifying marks.

â€œThe newspaper articles that are available on findmypast.co.uk provide unparalleled detail and show how the crimes were reported when they were committed. This supplements the new criminal records and makes searching through as enjoyable as it is easy, whether you are researching your own family history or are interested in social history.â€

Paul Carter, Principle Modern Domestic records specialist at The National Archives added: â€œThese records span several government series and show the evolution of the criminal justice system in the nineteenth century as the country dealt with the impact of industrialisation, urbanisation and population growth.

â€œThey record the intimate details of hundreds of thousands of people, beginning with judgesâ€™ recommendations for or against pardons, to petitions through which criminals and their families could offer mitigating circumstances and grounds for mercy, and later, licences containing everything from previous convictions to the state of a prisonerâ€™s health.

â€œAs well as the Georgian highway robber, the Victorian murderer and the Edwardian thief, the courts often dealt with the rural poacher, the unemployed petty food thief or the early trade unionist or Chartist. The records are a fascinating source for family, local and social historians.â€

The information in the records comes from a variety of Government departments including the Home Office, Prison Commission, Metropolitan Police, Central Criminal Court and the Admiralty. The records from 1817-1931 will be published first followed by the period 1770-1934 in the coming months.

The Crime, Prisons and Punishment records will also be available online at findmypast.ie, findmypast.com and findmypast.com.au as part of a World subscription.

Take a look now at this link:

Find My Past

Send to Kindle

20/01/2013

Merchant Navy Records for WWII have arrived!

Those of you with merchant seamen in the family are probably aware that only some records have been kept by the National Archives. Luckily for me the ones that I needed to access, for my father who had been a WWII merchant seaman, were kept there.

I was asked by my father, over Christmas, if I could find out for him exactly when it was that he went to sea, back in the second world war. He was a very young man and can remember having his first birthday, in the service, at sea one May in the 1940s.

With the passing of the years he has a sketchy recollection of his training period and can not remember exactly how long it was before he joined a merchant ship on the convoys across the Atlantic and also sailing in the Pacific to Australia and New Zealand.

The ship he joined acted as a troop ship in the war, armed with a single gun manned by an army contingent. It had been built as a passenger liner in peacetime and was fast having four screws.

In my last article I referred to my trip down to The National Archives at Kew in search of his service records where I had to wait for the staff to view the documents and blank out any personal detailsÂ before I could view a copy. The process took longer than the time I had and so they had promised to post me the copies when it had been completed.

Well the documents from TNA arrived this week and I now have my father’s merchant seaman’s’ pouch and his wartime service records as he sailed the oceans!

At Kew I had been advised to look at the series BT 382/1799 which was the Registry of Shipping and Seamen: Fifth Register of Merchant Seaman’s Service (CRS 10 forms). Part 1: European origin mainly. Series 1, mainly of European origin, mainly 1942-c1965. Thon Hans Christopher to Thorne N B. for his records.

And also to request a search for him in BT 382/2981 being Part 2: European origin mainly. Series 2, mainly of European origin, 1946-1972. Thorburn A to Thorougood J G.

This has indeed given me the dates of his engagements and discharges for each voyage and so I can now tell him the first date that he went to sea in his war service.

As to the most interesting document from my point of view? This would be his British Seaman’s Identity Card, complete with a contemporary photograph of him aged 19, from his seaman’s pouch as held by TNA.

Sign up for my free Tip of the Week and get a weekly email from me with helpful tips for English and Welsh family history research.

Send to Kindle

30/12/2012

In My Family Tree I’ve Two Marriges by Certificate!

Hope you have had a Merry Christmas and are looking forward to the new year.

I took advantage of the holiday time to take a look at the Plymouth and West Devon Parish Records on the Find My Past website. Here you can view the actual scanned documents from the archive in Plymouth if you have a subscription or buy some pay as you go credits.

Although I already have copies of the GRO certificates it is interesting to also look at the church registers and glean some extra information. I got several pieces of extra information on one set of ancestors that I had not got before, from carrying out this exercise. I’ll keep these for further article posts!

One of the interesting finds from looking at the scanned church register was that they were married according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Established Church “by Superintendent Registrar’s Certificate.

A while back, in my family history research, I came across a marriage “by certificate” in my family tree in Portsmouth.

In the year 1859 my 2x great grandfather, Henry Thorne married Ellen Malser in Portsea, Hampshire. By all accounts it was in a church of the Church of England and according to their rites, but I was mystified by the fact it was not either by banns or by licence.

My investigation at the time indicted that â€œby certificateâ€ usually meant that the ceremony was conducted by a Registrar. This being common in nonconformist church weddings and at registry offices.

I sought out what Mark Herber had to say in his book, Ancestral Trails, and found the line: â€œFrom 1837 marriages could also take place before civil registrars, or in chapels licensed under the Civil Registrations Acts. The law permitted the superintendent registrar to issue a certificate (similar to an Anglican licence) authorising marriages (without banns) in licensed places of worshipâ€.

So here it was again in the 1866 marriage of another branch of my family and this time in Plymouth.

I have now found out that a Superintendent Registrar of a civil Register Office may issue a Certificate to permit a marriage to take place in an Anglican church on the following conditions.

One of the parties must have the required seven days residence within the registration district and within the parish where the marriage is to take place before applying for the Certificate.

Or the church where they wish to marry must be the usual place of worship of one or both of the parties.

The Registrar enters the details of the parties in a book which is open to public inspection and also displays a notice at the Register Office for 15 days. If no impediments are shown within the period of 15 days, a Superintendent Registrarâ€™s Certificate can be issued and so it is similar to reading banns.

A clergyman, however, is under no obligation to marry people who have chosen this preliminary, and in practice clergy will recommend banns or a Common Licence.

I have found on Barbara Dixon’s site, a tutorial regarding marriages and she indicates that a marriage “by superintendent registrars certificate” is comparatively rare. http://home.clara.net/dixons/Certificates/marriages.htm

It’s used for a Church of England marriage but instead of the banns being read in the church, notice of marriage would have been given to the superintendent registrar.

A reason for so doing could be necessitated where services were held so infrequently such as in the case of a small chapel, that it was not possible to call the banns on three successive Sundays and get married all within the three months time limit.

In later periods it was sometimes used as an expedient if for some reason the vicar did not want to make the forthcoming marriage in the church public knowledge. Banns would have required the entry in the banns book, which was open for anyone to look at.

The types of problem that could have caused this course to be taken could have been where a bride and groom were of different faiths and the vicar either didn’t want the congregation in general to know, or even the bride/grooms family to be aware especially where he feared they might try to disrupt the ceremony!

Today it is sometimes used when one of the couple is divorced and the vicar does not want it generally known that he is marrying a divorcee in his church.

So, comparatively rare or not I find I have two sets of ancestors who took advantage of the Superintendent Registrar’s Certificate.

Send to Kindle

02/12/2012

What Family History Data Sets Are You Missing?

Most users of the main genealogical subscription sites will probably use the census data sets and birth marriage and death records and pretty much nothing else.

This is a real waste of their subscriptions as there is so much else to be plumbed from these treasure troves.

I was looking at the amazing full colour pdf images of wills on TheGenealogist.co.uk this week and also at the Register of Landowners, completed in 1873, that is something like the Griffith’s Valuation lists for Ireland, but for Britain instead. In this database you can find the names of owners of, or those that rented more than an acre of land in England, Wales and Scotland.

TheGenealogist.co.uk also has a set of poll books for various counties of England and Wales, and, for those of you that wish to delve back further than the 17th century and who have landed gentry in your line, there is the heraldic Visitations.

The Poll books give names, addresses, occupations and show how people voted in the election. The Poll Books that are available on TheGenealogist pre-date the census records and go back as far as the 1700s, making them a valuable resource for family historians.

Heraldic Visitations began in 1530 and were tours of inspection undertaken by Kings of Arms in order to regulate and register the coats of arms of nobility and gentry, and to record pedigrees. By the fifteenth century many families were adopting coats of arms as symbols of wealth and power but not all had a legitimate claim to them. As surviving visitation records include pedigrees and often the evidence that was used to prove these, including family details, background and ages, their records provide important source material for genealogists.

Visitation Records are currently available for individual counties and the whole of England and Wales, with years ranging from 1530 â€“ 1921.

Another specialist set is the List of Bankrupts with Their Dividends 1786-1806.

This is just an example of a few of the data resources that can so easily be missed by the family historian, and we are talking of one example of a subscription website here!

The hundreds of other databases to be explored within the other sites such as Ancestry, findmypast, the Origins.net and so on that so many do not use, is staggering.

Take a look today!

Disclosure: The Links in the above are Compensated Affiliate links. If you click on them then I may be rewarded by The Genealogist.co.uk should you sign up for any of their subscriptions.

Send to Kindle

25/11/201224/09/2014

Browsing Old Newspapers for Ancestors

I’ve been browsing old newspapers online for ancestors this week with some success and some disappointments.

In previous posts, here, I have mentioned my luck in finding useful leads from articles written about the death of an ancestor of mine who, on sailing to Alderney from Weymouth aboard his yacht, went ashore for a social visit to the Garrison there, and fell to his death on the way back to the breakwater.

The British Newspaper Archive presented me with access to details from various newspapers reporting the “melancholy death” of my ancestor and revealed facts about his family that I was not previously aware of. For example, by the mentioning of his late father as being “of Hay, Merricks and Company” I was then able to find out something of the nature of that ancestor’s business in making gunpowder.

This week I was searching for a completely different line and regretfully I have had no luck with finding any newspaper articles related to this research. As the project, to add newspapers to the archive website, is ongoing I shall simply keep on returning and running the same search again and again. This is in the hope that new titles, that have been scanned in the intervening period, will become available with a relevant article to my research.

So, having not got a hit on the current project, I then started browsing for other ancestors, before leaving the site.

Members of my maternal line spent some of the 1850s in Cheltenham and would seem to have been comfortably well off. It was with some amusement, then, that I came across their names in the Cheltenham Looker-On featuring mainly in the Arrivals and Departures page.

I can not imagine that today the wealthy residents of Cheltenham, or any other town for that matter, would wish all and sundry to be made aware of when they were not in residence, or to where they have “removed” themselves to, but in those days it was socially acceptable.

The Looker-On mixed social news and literary contributions and was known for expressing Conservative opinions in its writings, though I am not sure that these were the views of my Cheltenham resident ancestors from other research I have done!

The British Newspaper Archive is a partner of the British Library and set up to digitise their collection of over 300 years of newspapers. Now accessible to the public, with market leading search functionality, it offers access to over 4 million pages of historical newspapers. A great source for hobby historians, students, reporters and editors – what will you discover?

Now you can also access pages from The British Newspaper Archives via their sister site findmypast.co.uk when you take out membership of Find My Past.

Disclosure: The Links in the above are Compensated Affiliate links. If you click on them then I may be rewarded by Findmypast.co.uk or The British Newspaper Archive.co.uk should you sign up for their subscriptions.

Send to Kindle

11/11/2012

Family History Sites Mark Rememberence Day

To coincide with Remembrance Day, UK family history site, www.GenesReunited.co.uk
has released a variety of military records taking its collection to 8.5 million.

The British Army Service Records are just one of the latest records added to the site and they include the Chelsea Pensioners British Army Service records from 1760-1913. These records are an important resource for family historians as they provide rich information on the soldierâ€™s name, place of birth, regiment and the dates of service within the British Army.

New WW1 and WW11 Prisoner of War records have also been added to Genes Reunited. These records hold vital information; the Prisoner of War 1939 â€“ 1945 records detail the prisonerâ€™s name, rank, regiment, camp number, camp type and camp location.

Rhoda Breakell, Head of Genes Reunited, comments: â€œFrom the Harold Gillies Archive to the Military Nurses 1856 â€“ 1940 weâ€™ve released a huge variety of records. These new records will be an invaluable resource for people wanting an insight into the lives of their ancestors. â€

From today people interested in tracking down their ancestors can visit www.genesreunited.co.uk and search the latest records listed below:

Â· WWII Escapers and Evaders

Â· Military Nurses 1856 – 1940

Â· Army Reserve of England and Wales 1803

Â· 1st Foot Guards attestations 1775-1817

Â· Regimental Indexes 1806

Â· Manchester Roll of Honour 1914-1916

Â· Manchester City Battalions 1914-1916

Â· Royal Artillery Military Medals 1916-1991

Â· Royal Artillery Honours & Awards 1939-1946

Â· Harold Gillies Archive

Â· Royal Red Cross Register

Â· British Officers taken Prisoner of War between August 1914 and November 1918

Â· Prisoners of War – Naval & Air Forces of Great Britain & Empire – 1939-1945

Â· Prisoners of War – Armies and land Forces of the British Empire 1939-1945

Â· Oldham Pals 1914-1916

Â· Oldham Roll of Honour 1914-1916

Â· Prison Hulk Registers 1811-1843

Â· Ted Beard – RAF Nominal Roll 1918

Â· British Army Service Records 1760-1915 [WO 96 and WO 97]

WO 96 – Militia

WO 97 – Pensions 1760-1913

WO 119 – Kilmainham Pensions

WO 121 – CHEPS discharges

WO 122 – CHEPS discharges (foreign regiments)

WO 128 – Imperial Yeomanry

WO 131 – CHEPS deferred pensions 1838-1896

The newly added military records can be viewed on a pay-per-view basis or Platinum members can choose to add on the record set to their package for a low cost. The military records have been added to the existing military additional features package.

Meanwhile, over at TheGenealogist.co.uk…

As we remember those who fought and fell in the Great War, TheGenealogist website is adding new military records to help you discover the role your ancestor played in the conflict. For example…

Hart’s Army List, 1908

Army List, July 1910

Army List, February 1917

Navy Lists

Navy List, December 1914

Navy List, February 1938

and at Ancestry.co.uk…

More than 67,000 British military POW records published online â€“ Ancestry.co.uk

Records contain details of British military personnel imprisoned during WWI and WWII

Famous pilot POWs Douglas Bader and William Ash are listed in the records

More than 14 million war records available to view free online at Ancestry.co.uk this Remembrance Day

Ancestry.co.uk, the family history website, recently launched online the UK Prisoner of War Records, 1914-1945, a collection spanning both World Wars and detailing the names of more than 67,000 British military POWs.

During WWI and WWII, thousands of servicemen were taken prisoner and forced to endure the harsh conditions of POW camps. These records detail the name, rank and regiment of these British military personnel as well their camp location, date of capture and release date.

Most of these newly digitalised records (59,000) pertain to WWII and pilot POWs are included for the very first time. The RAF and its pilots played a vital role in WWII both protecting UK airspace and attacking enemy ships, airbases and other industries key to the German war effort.

Send to Kindle

21/10/2012

Family History Can Be Frustrating Looking For A Breakthrough

I’ve hit many brick walls with the research into my Great Uncle and then today a little breakthrough gives me the confidence to go on.

I am sure that there are many of you that have had the same experience. You open up a genealogy search site and enter your ancestor’s name and some details into the search fields. You hit the Search button and hope that the next page will reveal your kin. Back come the results and depressingly none of them seem to be your man or woman.

Well this has been what I have been experiencing recently, after the initial decision to explore more about Harold Perring Matthews, who married my Great Aunt Winnie. He joined the RAF and gained rapid promotion and honours in WWII. To find out more I will probably have to send off for his service record, but at present I just want to establish the main vital records for him.

I had already found Harold’s birth registered in the GRO indexes for 1901 and he appeared in the 1901 census as being 1 month old on census night. I’d also found his marriage in the indexes in the 4th quarter of 1936, but could I find his death or anything else? No I could not!

I use a variety of genealogical subscription sites when doing my research and two of the main ones were not giving me any details of his death. I was wondering whether to just put him on the back burner and turn to someone else, when I fired up findmypast and noticed that there was one record for an Overseas Death reported to the GRO.

Eureka! Great Uncle Harold died in 1969 in Palma, Mallorca aged 68, and his death was reported by the consular authorities to the GRO in England. So it is that he appears in their Deaths Abroad Indices and not in the normal GRO index.

Think laterally and try more than one search site!

Find My Past has Overseas Death Records 1818-2005 amongst many other data sets.

Disclosure: The Links in the above are Compensated Affiliate links. If you click on them then I may be rewarded by Findmypast.co.uk should you sign up for their subscriptions.

Send to Kindle

Tag: details

More Parish Records Find Their Way Online!

Like this:

Merchant Navy Records for WWII have arrived!

Like this:

In My Family Tree I’ve Two Marriges by Certificate!

Like this:

Family History Can Be Frustrating Looking For A Breakthrough

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: