News – The Nosey Genealogist's: Help Me With My Family Tree

04/07/202003/07/2020

TheGenealogist Launches New Parish Records

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Tracing Your Scottish Family History On the Internet

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NEW BOOK:

I have just received a copy of Chris Paton’s latest guide for family historians and it is an extremely useful work of reference for any of us that have Scottish ancestors or are researching people from Scotland.

Tracing Your Scottish Family History On The Internet published by Pen & Sword (ISBN 9781526768384) is packed with information about where to find records to help you research ancestors who came from this beautiful land. Covering many types of records and resources, both national as well as local.

The author has also very comprehensively covered the offerings from national institutions, commercial sites and those family history societies, etc that have online presences. There are chapters on Gateways and institutions, the important website of ScotlandsPeople and what can be found on it, other sources for researching Scots forbears, occupations of ancestors, county by county records and Scotland’s Diaspora. Chris Paton explains how these sources can be used by a family history researcher, as well as looking at many unique collections for this country that may help in your quest to find out more about your Scottish Ancestors.

I particularly liked being able to turn to chapters dealing with those online resources for each Scottish county. In my own case most of my Scots ancestors were from the Lothians as well as Fife and Perthshire and so I could consult those pages to get some important leads on where to go online.

Tracing Your Scottish Family History On the Internet by Chris Paton is a valuable addition to my bookshelf and will no doubt be regularly consulted when trying to find out more about my own Scots ancestors.

https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Tracing-Your-Scottish-Family-History-on-the-Internet/p/17717

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21/06/202021/06/2020

TheGenealogist adds nearly 53,000 new Headstone records

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NEWS: Press Release from TheGenealogist

This week TheGenealogist has expanded its growing International Headstone Collection with some interesting new additions that allow researchers to see details that have been carved on stone about their ancestors and commemorated in various churches and cemeteries. The headstone records released cover 71 new cemeteries from the English and Welsh counties of Buckinghamshire, Cheshire, Conwy, Denbighshire, Devon, Dorset, Essex, Flintshire, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lancashire, Merionethshire, Merseyside, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Warwickshire, West Midlands, Wiltshire and Worcestershire.

The International Headstone Collection is an ongoing project where every stone photographed or transcribed earns volunteers credits, which they can spend on subscriptions at TheGenealogist.co.uk or products from GenealogySupplies.com. If you would like to join, you can find out more about the scheme at: https://ukindexer.co.uk/headstone/

A simple headstone for the Earl St Maur the Eldest Son of Edward Adolphus 12th Duke of Somerset — A simple headstone for the Earl St Maur, Eldest Son of Edward Adolphus 12th Duke of Somerset

One of a number of headstones and plaques for the Dukes of Somerset and their family in All Saints Church Street_ Maiden Bradley_ Wiltshire — One of a number of headstones and plaques for the Dukes of Somerset and their family in All Saints, Church Street, Maiden Bradley, Wiltshire

These new records are all available as part of the Diamond Subscription at TheGenealogist.

You can read TheGenealogist’s article: Headstone Collection reveals the family history of the owners and staff of one of the most famous house and gardens in England

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13/06/2020

Visit the upcoming Online Family History Show

While, in these unprecedented times, we are not going to be able to meet as usual at York in England during this month for the customary Family History Show at the racecourse, the good news is that we are still going to be able to safely enjoy access to many of the usual features of the show. The Family History Show has announced that it will be coming to you as an online event on the 20th of June featuring a wide range of virtual stalls from family history societies to archives and genealogical suppliers.

The online event gives benefits other than safety, those from distant shores and those that have disabilities that make it difficult to attend, can now visit with relative ease.

Family History Show Online screenshot

The Family History Show – Online will, mirroring the format of the very successful live shows, feature an online lecture theatre, the popular ‘Ask the expert’ area – where you can put questions forward to their specialists – as well as a whole host of stalls where you can ask for advice as well as buy genealogical products.

The Family History Show Online home page

Q&A Expert Session

Attendees are invited to submit questions via the website and a selection will be put forward to the panel in a multiuser Zoom session that is streamed on a linked video channel for the show.

To make this online experience as useful to family historians as attending the physical show would have been, you can “visit” a stall in the virtual exhibition hall. With over 85 present there will be a wide variety of societies and companies.

Built into the website is the ability to talk to some of the stallholders by text, audio or video from the comfort of your own home. With this facility, you can ask them for advice regarding their family history society/business and also purchase from their online stall various downloadable and physical products to help you with your research.

In the virtual lecture theatre, there will also be the chance to watch talks premiered on the show’s Youtube channel from the same expert lecturers who would have been at the physical event and are on the ‘Ask the Expert’ panel. These presentations will cover a wide variety of family history topics.

Tickets to attend the online Family History Show are available for just £5.50 each. All ticket holders will also receive a digital Goody Bag worth over £10 on the day.

To find out more about The Family History Show – Online, and buy your ticket visit https://thefamilyhistoryshow.com/online/

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06/06/2020

New Historical Medical Professionals added to the occupational records on TheGenealogist

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NEWS:

Just released records covering ancestor Doctors, Midwives, Opticians and medics in British India

At this time when we are all so very conscious of the work of our medical professionals in the face of the pandemic, TheGenealogist has released a set of new records for our medical ancestors who treated others in the course of their occupations in the time before the creation of the National Health Service.

Press-Release-TG-image-st-mary-abbots-hospital-kensington-W8-ward-3 St Mary Abbot’s Hospital, Kensington W8, ward 3

It would have been a very different world from today in which these men and women worked. Before 1948 and the founding of the NHS, medical professionals were in private practice. The poorer members of society depended on charity and being assessed for what financial contribution they could make to their treatment.

TheGenealogist has added to its occupational records with a fascinating release that has a medical theme. From the time from before the NHS came into being, these name rich records covering Doctors, Midwives and Opticians can be searched by name and keywords. All of these practitioners would have been working at the time when the wealthy could afford the best treatment, while the poor went to hospital with the added shame that this held as these institutions were where the poor were predominantly treated.

Use these records to:

- Add details to the lives of your medical ancestors
- Discover Doctors etc. who served in India in The Madras Medical Register 1934
- Find Medical Ancestors in The Medical Who’s Who 1912
- Seek out midwives in The Midwives Roll 1905
- See optometrists names in the Institute of Ophthalmic Opticians, Official Directory, 1927

This latest release expands TheGenealogist’s extensive Occupational records collection that includes actors, apprentices, clergy, crew lists, directors, flight, freemen, law, railway, sports, teachers and biographies as well as other medical registers.

You can read the article, ‘Medical ancestors from before the NHS began’ here.

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30/05/2020

A House Through Time returned this week to TV

NEWS

This week it was so good to see the return to BBC TV of the popular house history programme A House Through Time for its third series.

I remember walking that street (Guinea Street) a few years back while I was attending a training session for the company I once worked for at the nearby Hotel Mercure Bristol Holland House. From watching the first programme in the series it looks like it will be compulsive viewing for me over the next few weeks as David Olusoga takes us through the various eras and the occupants that made it their home.

On a slight tangent… If you are interested in house history then one of the speakers at the forthcoming online Family History Show on June 20th is Gill Blanchard the House Historian and Genealogist whose talk is on Tracing Your House History. Well worth getting a ticket for if you are interested in the subject here.

A House Through Time Series 3

Here, however, is the announcement about the BBC TV programme that aired the first episode this week and can still be seen in catch up in the UK on the iPlayer…

Twenty Twenty’s award-winning history format A House Through Time is returning to BBC Two for a third series in 2020, this time in Bristol.

Using painstaking detective work – genealogical records, contemporary documents, and the help of expert witnesses – David Olusoga will trace the lives of the occupants of a single house, getting to know individual characters and following their stories wherever they lead.

The search for a new house in Bristol has already begun, and with the city’s rich maritime history, connections to the slave trade and industrial and technological heritage, the team expect to find no shortage of drama for series 3.

Commissioning Editor, Simon Young, says: “This series has swiftly become a treasured part of the schedule on BBC Two. It’s a vitally important returning series for us, perfectly reflecting our ambition for history programmes that connect the bigger sweeps of our nation’s story to individual lives lived all over the country. Having visited houses in Liverpool and Newcastle in the first two series, I’m thrilled that David will delve into Bristol’s rich history next.”

Director of Programmes and Executive Producer, Maxine Watson, says: “The series is hugely popular with viewers and shows just how much we want to know what happened to people just like us in the past. It’s truly a series about and for the people and we are absolutely delighted to be coming back with a new series next year.”

A House Through Time is a 4×60’ part series by Twenty Twenty (part of Warner Bros. International TV Production) for BBC Two. The series has been commissioned by Patrick Holland, Controller BBC Two and Tom McDonald, Head of Commissioning, Natural History and Specialist Factual and the BBC Commissioning Editor is Simon Young.

It was created by Twenty Twenty Managing Director Emma Willis, the Executive Producer is Maxine Watson and the Series Producer is Mary Crisp.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2019/house-through-time-s3

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22/05/202022/05/2020

Over One Million RAF Operations Record Books released on TheGenealogist

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NEWS:

TheGenealogist has expanded its unique collection of searchable RAF Operations Record Books with the addition of 1.2 Million new records for aircrew operations.

WW2 airmen planning their next mission

Airmen – planning their next mission. Public domain

Operations Record Books (ORBs) are official air force documents chronicling an air force unit from the time of its formation. They were intended to be an accurate daily record of the operations that the squadron carried out in peace and at war. The ORBs are for squadrons primarily after the First World War, but there are a few early squadron records from 1911 to 1918. TheGenealogist uniquely has made the Operations Record Books fully searchable by name, year and keywords.

This collection also includes some record books for Dominion Air Forces (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa) as well as Allied Air Force squadrons under British Command and can be used to find the stories of brave aircrew, giving insights into the operations that they carried out. The ORBs follow a daily diary format giving summaries of events and can reveal the death of aircrews, crashes, as well as less disquieting entries such as the weather for flying, promotions and the decorations men of the squadron received. ORBs also detail the areas that the fighter planes patrolled, or the bombers targeted, as well as where the squadrons were based as the war wore on. These duties and assignments include bombing the enemy, patrolling the skies, convoy escorts, submarine hunts, attacking docks & shipping, dive bombing raids, and more.

As aircrew personnel are named in these reports, those wanting to follow where an ancestor had been posted to and what may have happened to them will find these records extremely informative.

Use these records to:

- Add details to an aircrewman’s story
- Study the war movements of personnel in air force units
- Discover if a pilot, navigator, radio operator or gunner is mentioned in the action
- Note dates airman received promotions, medals, or other honours
- See the names of squadron members wounded, killed, or who did not return
- Easily search the transcribed records and images licensed from The National Archives

This latest release expands TheGenealogist’s extensive Military records collection and is available to all Diamond subscribers.

You can read my article about a famous fighter ace and a bomber pilot who flew more than 120 operations: Searching for a famous fighter ace and a Pathfinder from Bomber Command

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17/05/2020

Oxford Surname Dictionary FREE for this week!

FREE ACCESS to The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names – for a short time only!

For the next week, researchers are able to use the Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland for free. This should be useful for people wanting to know where their surnames, or those of ancestors in their family tree came from.

You need to be quick as this is only for this next week until 21st May 2020

This dictionary is considered to be the ultimate reference work on family names of the British Isles, covering those from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Cornwall, Channel Islands as well as immigrant surnames. It includes every surname that currently has more than 100 bearers, and also those names that had more than 20 bearers in the 1881 census when it was taken.

It’s being made accessible to all to help bring families separated by Covid-19 closer together at this time.

Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine points out that the print version of the dictionary is 3,136 pages long and costs £400, and that the online edition is only normally available via subscribing institutions, so this is a unique opportunity to access information about over 45,000 surnames.

Sarah Williams, editor of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine, said: “The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland is the most authoritative resource for anyone wanting to understand the origin of their family name.

“Having free access to this huge body of research will delight family historians across the globe.”

https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199677764.001.0001/acref-9780199677764

Oxford Dictionary of Family Names special access May 2020

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09/05/2020

TheGenealogist adds extra tithe maps to Map Explorer™

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NEWS:

Powerful new map tool now helps trace ancestors land or property with further additions of Tithe Maps

TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™ which can help researchers find an ancestor’s property and watch the landscape change over time has now been enhanced by the addition of georeferenced black and white Tithe Maps for Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire and Oxfordshire.

- Total number of maps in this release is 927
- Total number of Tithe maps in Map Explorer™ is 3,317
- Map Explorer™ has over two million selectable records shown using Map Pins

Joining the georeferenced Lloyd George Data Layer, Headstones, War Memorials, and colour Tithe Maps for a number of counties, the new additions to the ever-expanding Map Explorer™ allow researchers to trace property from Victorian times to the modern era.

Great Coxwell Tithe Barn

Great Coxwell Tithe Barn Oxfordshire (was Berkshire) used to store original tithe contributions of crops. Photo by Motacilla / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™ displays maps for historical periods up to the modern day.
Various colour and black and white Tithe maps have now been added to this innovative tool and linked to the apportionment books, enabling researchers to locate where their ancestors lived or worked.

The addition to the Map Explorer™ of the black and white tithe maps for Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire and Oxfordshire linked to the apportionment books will enable researchers to find the details of the plots, their owners and their occupiers at the time that the survey was taken in Victorian times while also identifying the plots on the maps. By using the Map Explorer™ controls the researcher can then see how the landscape changes over time with the aid of the georeferenced historical and modern map layers. Tithe maps and records were drawn up from 1836 to the 1850s, with additional altered apportionments in later years when property was sold or divided. Tithes usefully record all levels of society from large estate owners to occupiers of small plots such as a homestead or a cottage.

The Map Explorer™ now features colour tithe maps for the counties of Buckinghamshire, Cumberland, Essex, Huntingdonshire, Middlesex, Northumberland, Rutland, Surrey, Westmorland, the City of York as well as North and East Ridings of Yorkshire plus black and white maps for Berkshire, Cambridge, Leicestershire and Oxfordshire.

See my article: Tithe Maps on Map Explorer

Find out more at TheGenealogist.co.uk/maps/

About TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist is an award-winning online family history website, who put a wealth of information at the fingertips of family historians. Their approach is to bring hard to use physical records to life online with easy to use interfaces such as their Tithe and newly released Lloyd George Domesday collections.

TheGenealogist’s innovative SmartSearch technology links records together to help you find your ancestors more easily. TheGenealogist is one of the leading providers of online family history records. Along with the standard Birth, Marriage, Death and Census records, they also have significant collections of Parish and Nonconformist records, PCC Will Records, Irish Records, Military records, Occupations, Newspaper record collections amongst many others.

TheGenealogist uses the latest technology to help you bring your family history to life. Use TheGenealogist to find your ancestors today!

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02/05/2020

Scottish Civil Registration Research – Here is a useful video tutorial

If you have Scottish ancestors then I am sure that you will find this YouTube video by Chris Paton really useful. The video gives us a great overview of the historic civil registration system in Scotland in a clear way. If you are researching your Scots ancestors then you will learn a lot from this as it covers Births, Marriages, Deaths, the Registers of Corrected Entries (some readers may not even know about these!), Still births, Adoption and Divorce. I was particularly interested in the Book of Scottish Connections that is for people who live overseas but who have a Scottish connection that they can verify – I had not heard of this before I watched this video!

Chris is a professional genealogist who specialises in Scottish and Irish research and is the author of a number of books that I have no hesitation in recommending including Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church & State Records and for those of you with Irish ancestors Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet.

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Category: News

TheGenealogist Launches New Parish Records

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Tracing Your Scottish Family History On the Internet

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TheGenealogist adds nearly 53,000 new Headstone records

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Visit the upcoming Online Family History Show

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New Historical Medical Professionals added to the occupational records on TheGenealogist

Just released records covering ancestor Doctors, Midwives, Opticians and medics in British India

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A House Through Time returned this week to TV

A House Through Time Series 3

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Over One Million RAF Operations Record Books released on TheGenealogist

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Oxford Surname Dictionary FREE for this week!

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TheGenealogist adds extra tithe maps to Map Explorer™

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Scottish Civil Registration Research – Here is a useful video tutorial

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Just released records covering ancestor Doctors, Midwives, Opticians and medics in British India

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A House Through Time Series 3

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