Tag: person

Posted on

WDYTYA? LIVE Stand That Caught My Eye: Drawing On The Past

Drawing on Past smile.MOV_000001868Another fascinating stand at the Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE show this year was one run by Anne Daniels for her Drawing On The Past business.

She creates totally unique artwork using photographs of your ancestors and incorporating both hand drawn and digital imaging techniques, the finished design is then printed using a high quality fine art printing process.

Anne says that when you commission a piece of work from Drawing On The Past you can be assured of receiving a unique artwork, drawn from your own personal history.

I was really impressed by the finished articles. If this is something that would appeal to you then contact her via her website at:

http://drawingonthepast.co.uk/

Finally, here are a couple of examples of her work. Click on the images to see them up close!

drawingonthepast 

Screen shot 2013-02-11 at 14.24.04

Send to Kindle
Posted on

I Once Lived Near Richard III’s Grave

Like many, I have been fascinated by the reports in the media lately regarding the finding of Richard III’s remains in the former Greyfriars Church in Leicester.

I was a student in Leicester in the early 1980’s. So it was that I walked past the rather nondescript area where King Richard III was buried on a daily basis on my way to and from lectures and never for one instance thinking of the historical importance of the church that had stood there before.

On my most recent visit to the city, back in January, I was aware of the excitement that was building around the find at Greyfriars car park and picked up some leaflets at the tourist office on the subject. Then this week the world’s media covered the announcement that it was “beyond reasonable doubt” the skeleton of the monarch.

100_0051

From my point of view, as a family historian, one of the really interesting things was the use of DNA from a descendent of the dead king’s sister to reach this conclusion.

The team from Leicester University had turned to the historian and author John Ashdown-Hill. Back in 2004 he had been able to tracked down the late Joy Ibsen, a direct descendant of Richard’s sister Anne of York and from her to the Canadian born Michael Ibsen, a cabinet maker in London.

 

Again, of interest to us family historians, is what John Ashdown-Hill said on the BBC’s Radio 4 “Today” programme

“An enormous family tree grew on my computer. You have to trace every possible line of descent because you don’t know which one will die out in 1745 and which one will carry on to the present day – you have to trace them all.”

On the Who Do You Think You Are Magazine’s website it is reported that the team did not rely on just the one line from Anne of York down to Joy Ibsen, as is the impression gained from some of the media reports this week.

Not only did the genealogists find documentary evidence for each ‘link’ of the chain between Anne of York and the late Joy Ibsen, but they were able to make contact with a second maternal line descendant – who wishes remain anonymous – whose DNA was used to confirm a match between genetic material extracted from the skeleton and a swab provided by Joy’s son, Michael.

 

“Right from the start of the project, we did not want to rely entirely on the DNA between Michael and the skeleton. We always wanted to triangulate that wherever possible,” explains Professor Schürer. “We set about trying to secure a second maternal line, and after several weeks of research we actually did discover this person. The documentary evidence again is there to support this.”

Source: http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/news/genealogists-help-confirm-identity-leicesters-royal-remains

In a couple of weeks the Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE show will be at Olympia and already they have moved the talk by Dr Turi King called “Discovering Richard III” from a smaller area to now be held in the Celebrity Theatre / SOG studio 1 on Saturday, 1.00pm – 1.45pm.

It is billed as telling the story of the research project undertaken at the University of Leicester to discover the burial place of Richard III and the related work to scientifically identify the skeletal remains.

Personally I can’t wait for this year’s WDYTYA? LIVE as I missed last year due to fog disrupting my travel plans!

 

Sign up now for my FREE English and Welsh family history tips by email..

Send to Kindle
Posted on

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.

 Merchant Seaman's Records

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 details  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
Posted on

My Ancestor was a Tide Waiter!

Last week I was writing about my findings from a search for one of my ancestors who married in South Devon in 1866. I had taken a look at the Church Register for The New Parish of Christ Church Plymouth and found my ancestor Samuel Stephens marrying Mary Ann Westlake on the 16th December.

What took my interest was that his father, Robert Stephens, was noted under Rank or Profession as being a Tide Waiter. He also lived in Plymouth being born in1805 and to his death.

Tide Waiter Ancestor at www.NoseyGenealogist.comAs many of us pursuing our family history have no doubt found, some of our ancestors had jobs that have disappeared or are now known by different names today.

I immediately wondered what type of occupation this Tide Waiter was, as previously I had seen him mentioned in the census as an “Extra Gent”.

What an ancestor’s occupation was can often give us a greater insight into their life. It is also a useful way of distinguishing between two people who happen to have the same name and between whom you are trying to work out which one belongs to your family tree and which one does not.

We can be interested in a forebear’s occupation for the reason that it may have some relevance in determining a person’s social status, political affiliation, or migration pattern.

Skilled trades were often passed down from father to son and so having regard to an ancestor’s occupation may also be a useful tool in identifying a family relationship with others of the same name. Now Samuel and his father Robert did not seem to share a trade here, but it is important to remember that people could change their occupation over their life.

One of these gentlemen’s descendants changed from being a gunsmith to working in a pawn brokers and another who changed from being a cordwainer (shoemaker) to being a boatman on the river over their working life.

Names for old or unfamiliar local occupations have the potential to cause us to stumble if they are poorly legible in the record we are consulting. I can think of the example of the similarity between the words ostler (a keeper of horses) and a hostler (an innkeeper) that is easily confused.

If you are ever in this position then remember that you too can look for occupational data in several places. It may be found in the records of occupational licenses, tax assessments, the membership records of professional organisations to which our ancestors belonged, trade, city and town directories, census returns, and civil registration vital records.

There are a number of websites available that explain many of the obscure and archaic
trades, here are two that I have found:

http://www.rmhh.co.uk/occup/index.html

or

http://www.occupationalinfo.org/dot_index.html#MENU

So what was my Tide Waiter forebear? He was a Customs Officer who went aboard ships to search them for the revenue. This is made plain on the birth certificate for Samuel as his occupation is simply recorded as Customs Officer.

I found the scanned image of the marriage record in the Parish Records from Plymouth and West Devon at Find My Past.


Disclosure: The Link in the above box is a Compensated Affiliate link. If you click on the ad then I may be rewarded by Findmypast.co.uk should you sign up for any of their subscriptions.

 

Send to Kindle
Posted on

Would you like some free credits at Find My Past?

Start Your Family Tree Week is back from  26 Dec 2012 – 1 Jan 2013 with special offers on accessing some search sites!

Hope you had a lovely Christmas day yesterday. At this time of year, when we are visiting or calling family, that we can often make a break through in our family tree research by simply talking to our relatives.

But now some of the family tree research websites are also making it easier for some of us to participate with special Christmas holiday offers. For example Find My Past has 50 free credits available to use for a short time.

Due to the past success of the Start Your Family Tree Week it is back for its third year.  From today, the 26th December to the 1st January, Genes Reunited and findmypast.co.uk will be helping members start their family trees with special offers, free getting started guides, discounts and competitions for the chance to win fantastic prizes!

Genes Reunited has some great prizes on offer during the week, competitions will be posted on the message boards and Facebook page.  To see the Genes Reunited getting started guides, visit www.genesreunited.co.uk/static.page/syftw

Findmypast.co.uk will be offering 50 free credits to get involved with the fun and to start searching records, coupled with quiz questions, guides and templates that make getting started as simple as can be! Experts are by no means left out in the cold either, with more advanced questions alongside beginners’ tasks and a “brick wall challenge day” will be held on Facebook and Twitter on the 31st December! The entire week’s calendar of activities can be found at http://www.findmypast.co.uk/content/start-your-family-tree-week/index

 

And here is another little present for you!The British Newspaper Archive online

For a limited time there is an offer of an exclusive 10% off the 12 Month Package to the British Newspaper Archive!

You will need to use this link to the British Newspaper Archive.
And then use the voucher code: fHmTenYtR (to be entered at the point of checkout, stage 1)

You then get:
o A 12 Month package
o Validity: 26 Dec 2012 – 31 Jan 2013
o Available in the UK Only

What do customers get with a 12 Month Package to the British Newspaper Archive?

o Unlimited credits / page views
o Access to all digitised newspaper pages dating back 300+ years
o Access to ‘My Research’ – a personal area to keep track of searches, add notes and bookmark viewed items into folders

 

So happy holidays and good luck with your research!



British Newspaper Archive


ancestor, ancestry, family tree, family history, r

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

Send to Kindle
Posted on

Family History Sites Mark Rememberence Day


ancestor, ancestry, family tree, family history, r

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 soldier’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 – 1945 records detail the prisoner’s name, rank, regiment, camp number, camp type and camp location.

Rhoda Breakell, Head of Genes Reunited, comments: “From the Harold Gillies Archive to the Military Nurses 1856 – 1940 we’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. ”

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

· WWII Escapers and Evaders

· Military Nurses 1856 – 1940

· Army Reserve of England and Wales 1803

· 1st Foot Guards attestations 1775-1817

· Regimental Indexes 1806

· Manchester Roll of Honour 1914-1916

· Manchester City Battalions 1914-1916

· Royal Artillery Military Medals 1916-1991

· Royal Artillery Honours & Awards 1939-1946

· Harold Gillies Archive

· Royal Red Cross Register

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

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

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

· Oldham Pals 1914-1916

· Oldham Roll of Honour 1914-1916

· Prison Hulk Registers 1811-1843

· Ted Beard – RAF Nominal Roll 1918

· 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…

The Genealogist - UK census, BMDs and more online

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 – 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
Posted on

Genes Reunited Launches Unique KEEPSAFE


ancestor, ancestry, family tree, family history, r
This week the family history website Genes Reunited: www.GenesReunited.co.uk have added some interesting new and innovative features to their website.

One that has particularly interested me is what they term a Keepsafe. It’s purpose is for digitally storing all of your family records, photos and memories and Relation Profiles, where you can view and edit details about each individual in your tree. This latest addition comes after genesreunited.co.uk recently refreshed its appearance with a new, and easy to navigate redesign.

The Keepsafe, they tell us, is a unique and organised way for us to collate our family history and is a place for their members to safely store and share documents, from photos and certificates to maps and letters. Being made available to all levels of membership at www.GenesReunited.co.uk, who’ll be given the option to open their images to the public, keep them private or to share them with other members, their family and their friends. They’ll even be able to share their Keepsafe on facebook. At launch today there are over 2.7 million private images already uploaded to Keepsafe.

 

Relation Profiles are automatically created for each relation Genes Reunited members add to their family trees. It includes a clear timeline, notes section and immediate family tree. There’s also a section that prompts their members on what they can do next to take their research on to the next stage. Users are able to edit the details and then these changes will be reflected in their tree on the site. It is possible to also view any photos or records that are attached to the person too. Genesreunited allows members to print out the profile, so they can share their discoveries with their families.

The Genes Reunited site automatically creates ‘Hot Matches’ where members who have the same relations in their family tree are matched with each other. It is said that many of their members have collected rich data on their relatives and having the option to share this with other members can be very beneficial to their research. At launch there will be over 260 million profiles already created, that’s equivalent to over 4 records for every man, woman and child in the UK .

Rhoda Breakell, Head of Genes Reunited, comments: “Imagine being able to find out more information about your ancestors than you could have ever hoped for. Stories, timelines and more besides….Relation Profiles are a place where our members can store all of this information and then share it with each other. Who knows what anecdotes someone else might have written about your ancestors?”

 

Interesting!

 

The Keepsafe and Relation Profile pages are available online at www.GenesReunited.co.uk for all members.


Discover your ancestors at Genes Reunited.co.uk

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

 

Send to Kindle
Posted on

New Speedier Search for Family History Research

All in one search for family history

I’ve been away for the last three weeks, some of which was spent on tracking down my ancestors and some of which was spent talking to living relatives and gathering more family history stories together.

While I was away my scheduled updates of this blog seemed to have gone awry. Here is one that should have gone out last weekend!

One of subscription sites that I use personally is TheGenealogist.co.uk and I see it has launched a brand new all-in-one search feature. This allows users to do a single search across the entire website, which is a valuable extra dimension in my opinion.

The all-in-one interface now also incorporates their keyword search, and they are pretty excited about this being the first time that these two features have been brought together to aid family history research.

With this great feature you are now able to instantly display all the records for a particular ancestor, whilst filtering out all the other irrelevant results from the search.

The press release tells us that.. No other genealogical website currently produces such quick and relevant results for your ancestor search and has the flexibility to produce results for a number of different generations saving an enormous amount of time for researchers. Instead of offering search results that cast the net wide, like most genealogy websites, TheGenealogist segments the data down offering more accurate and relevant results – no more wasted time sifting through lots of irrelevant records to find the person you need.

The Genealogist claims Accurate and reliable results in a fraction of the time explaining that for the first time you are able to enter an ancestor’s name into a search along with an approximate year for their birth and the option of keywords that can then trace an ancestors life through the records, from birth to census, marriage and more.

What is more is that Address Lists are also included, thus allowing the family history researcher to view other residents and view any other potential family links.

Mark Bayley, Head of the Online Division at TheGenealogist, feels the new search facility is an exciting new development in the world of online research:

‘Customers will get a much deeper insight into their ancestors in a fraction of the time. They’ll be able to find everything we know about someone almost instantly with a single linked master search.

‘This is a powerful tool not currently available elsewhere. TheGenealogist is all about user-friendly searches, not just records and this new feature further enhances what we offer. We aim to make searches as useful as possible, we have our unique keywords searches that can scan our records quickly and it is now quicker and easier than ever with our new All-In-One Search.’

With its new search tool and using just the basic information, TheGenealogist, can narrow searches down to the specific and allow the researcher the ability to generate successful accurate results. Ideal for all professional and amateur family historians. To take a look go to TheGenealogist.co.uk

The Genealogist - UK census, BMDs and more online

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 one of their subscriptions.

Send to Kindle
Posted on

Some New British Family History Data Online

Directories1869 at TheGenealogist.co.ukThis week I’ve been looking at some of the new data that has found its way online at some of the websites that I regularly use.

At Find My Past anyone with ancestors who were captured and became prisoners of war in the first and second world wars may want to take a look at some 170,000 records that have been added to this website recently.

Starting with the First World War, the data is for 7,700 British Army officers who between 1914 and 1918 were PoWs and comes from the records of a bank! It would seem that a missing cheque could very often be the first indication that an officer had been captured and so Messrs Cox & Co recorded the information at that time about their clients.

Data that you may be able to obtain from this list includes name, rank, service, section, date that the officer went missing and the date that they were repatriated or date of death in captivity.

For the Second World War the collection is of 107,000 records of Army personnel held by the Germans. These records will usually give you the name, rank, regiment, army number, camp number, PoW number, together with the type and location of the camp.

Over at TheGenealogist nearly half a million more parish records have been added to the site for subscribers of their Diamond package. Included are more than 130,000 records for Worcestershire, 100,000 for Cornwall, 81,000 for Northumberland plus many more for other counties.

The same website has boosted their trade directories, a data set I always enjoy using to find tradesmen listed or the address of their gentry clients. To be noted are the East India Company Register and Directory for 1820 and 1834.

If you are reading this before the end of September 2012 then TheGenealogist are still offering £50 off their Diamond subscription package as a celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. To obtain this sizeable discount all you need to do is use the code SUMMERSAVER when signing up to the site!

The websites that I often use myself are Find My Past and The Genealogist.co.uk. To take your family history further I certainly recommend that you to consider a subscription to these websites. Take a look now and see what great data sets they have to offer including those I have highlighted above:

 

The Genealogist - UK census, BMDs and more online


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 Genealogist.co.uk should you sign up for their subscriptions.

 

Send to Kindle
Posted on

Census Substitutes

Directories1869 at TheGenealogist.co.uk

I am sure that, like me, you have found an ancestor that doesn’t appear in the census collection for some reason or another.

The case, that I’ve been looking at this week, seems to have been absent from the country on more than one occasion when the census was being taken. In fact I only found him as a schoolboy, when he was enumerated in his parent’s home at the time. From other documents (in my ancestor’s case it was Hart’s Army Lists) you may be able to find a reason why your person is absent from the country and indeed I was able to pick mine up on findmypast’s passport applications, even though a passport was not a required document for people to travel with, as it has become today.

It would seem that my great-great uncle returned to the country at various times, resigning from the East India Company’s army, joining the British Army as a junior officer before resigning again after 2 years.

I was able to use the resources of post office directories on www.thegenealogist.co.uk to locate my ancestor and you may be lucky to find yours there, or in one of the ones available at www.historicaldirectories.org.

The outgoing ships passenger lists at Find My Past cover 1890 to 1960 and is another resource I’ve used to pin down my forebears with itchy feet.

A trip to the local county record office can provide you with the opportunity to take a look at Electoral Registers. If your ancestor was in business then you may well find that they had the vote not only in the ward where they lived, but also in the place where they carried out their business! This was the situation up until 1948 and university students could also vote at home as well as at their university address.

Other means of finding ancestors places of abode have been from birth, marriage and death certificates. I have tracked one ancestor’s house from the address he gave when reporting the death of his parent.

So just because a forebear doesn’t appear in the census doesn’t mean you can’t necessarily track them down and pin them on a map.

 

 

The websites that I use the most are Findmypast.co.uk and TheGenealogist.co.uk. Take your family history further by considering a subscription to these websites:

 

The Genealogist - UK census, BMDs and more online

 

 



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 Genealogist.co.uk should you sign up for their subscriptions.

 

 

Send to Kindle