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And some new Family History Records were created

Registering a death in my family

My dad, one-time Merchant Navy Purser John Bryan Thorne, and myself last year on a visit to the Cutty Sark in Greenwich.

I have been mourning the loss of my father for the last month. He was very dear to me and the rest of our family and we were sad to have lost him on the 12th of April 2019.

Immediately there was much to do in arranging the winding up of his affairs – but some of these made me realise that we were in the process of laying down some new breadcrumbs for future genealogists to follow.

Amongst the duties I had to perform was to make sure that the registering of the death got the details completely correct including the spelling of his names and place of birth. As the death certificate was produced in the registrar’s office, and printed off there and then, I realised that my name and details were now forever recorded as the person registering my father’s death. Being a family historian, I couldn’t help but wondered if sometime in the future others would use the document to trace our family line back.

Then there was the matter of placing the family notice in the local newspapers. The funeral director asked for the wording we wanted to use. I felt strongly that it should definitely include our first names when listing the near family. Again, I wanted to make sure that it was easy for future generations to determine if they were researching the correct person and to easily find out the names of his children and his granddaughter.

 

The surprise in the neighbourhood

When sorting through his meticulous filing cabinet to find his birth certificate, bank accounts and utility details I was moved to discover that he had a personal file that included my own birth certificate from 60 years ago and his Second World War service in the Merchant Navy.

 

JBT Merchant Seaman ID
John Thorne Merchant Seaman ID (National Archives)

 

There was also his 1962 marriage certificate to my stepmother in Mosley, Birmingham as well as his 1951 wedding certificate to my late mother, that had taken place in St Andrew’s Cathedral in Singapore. This last document I had never seen before and it is very precious to me as I have no idea how I would go about ordering a copy from the former British Colony and now Republic of Singapore.

 

Wedding photograph from Singapore 1951

To my utter surprise the Cathedral’s bells, that he would have heard ring out on his wedding day to my mum, were back in Loughborough at this very time for re-tuning and the addition of two extra bells to the peel. My sister had just taken a tour of John Taylor & Co. Bell Foundry and had seen them in the works just 11 or so miles away from Dad’s house. Naturally I paid them a visit with the kind help of the staff at John Taylor & Co. and was able to touch the bells that were a little part of my own family history.

 

St Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore (Wikipedia Someformofhuman. [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)])

In 1889, St Andrew’s Cathedral had received a peal of eight bells from the family of Captain J. S. H. Fraser, H.E.I.C.S. These bronze bells were cast at the John Taylor & Co. Foundry in Loughborough, England, the same bell foundry that cast the bells of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, England and then sent out to Singapore. These eight bells have been rung every Sunday for services, weddings, funerals, Easter and Christmas. You can read more on the foundry’s website here: http://taylorbells.co.uk/project/st-andrews-cathedral/

 

With life inevitably carrying on for those of us left behind, a holiday that I had booked well before he had become ill came around on my calendar. As an Architect and a Watercolour artist he had told me of the beauty of Florence and the wonder of Brunelleschi’s Dome and had been excited to hear that I was to visit it this year.

I have, therefore, just returned from a few days holiday in Florence Italy. After climbing the 463 steps to the dome I then went into the body of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore and lit a candle to remember the life of my very dear dad.

 

Votive Candle holder in Florence Cathedral, Italy (Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore)

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The Genealogist releases another batch of Poll Books

Disclosure: Please note this post contains affiliate links.*

 

Latest news:

 

TheGenealogist has just released 116,218 records into its ever growing Poll Book Database. This useful resource for family historians can be used to find ancestors residences from the period before the census collection. The newly released Poll Books range from 1705 to the 1830s, joining records covering periods between census years.

 

The database allows researchers to:

  • Discover ancestors who had the vote
  • Find where they were registered to cast their ballot
  • Discover the nature of their qualification to vote, such as possessing a Corn Warehouse, a Workshop, a House, or owning a Brewhouse
  • These Poll Books range from 1705 to the 1830s.

 

The records cover 18 different registers of people who were entitled to vote in between 1705 and the 1830s and covers constituencies situated in Abingdon, Bristol, Hampshire, Somerset, Suffolk, Maidstone, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Worcestershire and York.

 

These records have been transcribed by volunteers on the UKindexer.co.uk website which brings benefits to the volunteers as well as the wider family history community.

 

They join the millions of electoral resources on TheGenealogist which include Electoral registers, Voters lists and Absentee Voters.

 

Read TheGenealogist’s article: Researching Poll Books discovers how John Constable’s family voted

 

 

 

*Disclosure: Please note this post contains affiliate links. This does not mean that you pay more just that I make a percentage on the sales from my links. The payments help me pay for the cost of running the site. You may like to read this explanation here:

http://paidforadvertising.co.uk/

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How do I find my ancestors’ story from family history records?

The Nosey Genealogist at Birmingham Archives

Many researchers ask “how do I find my ancestors in the records?” and then they may want to know “how can I use these records to build a picture of my ancestor’s story?”

A point to remember is that ancestors didn’t exist in isolation and a good strategy is to build up their life story by looking at the events and people that had an effect on their lives.

Families can be complicated entities with step fathers/step mothers and sometimes unmarried parties in the equation. You may find people that married then separate and even sometimes get back together. In my own family I have an ancestor who remarried his first wife, after a period of divorce, but I hadn’t appreciated all of the story until recently. The strands came together by reviewing various records that I had gathered at different times.

Over a period we may collect various diverse search results for an ancestor, but we may not see how they fit together to build a bigger picture. It is important, for this reason, that every now and again we go back and review what we have. Sometimes this can suggest places for us to continue our research to find the story of our forebears’ life.

 

While doing some research this week I noticed a fact appeared in three completely different records. It was a town name that I had not paid much attention to having previously assumed that it was of little relevance to my ancestor’s life.

Beaumaris, in Anglesey, was where a First World War Royal Engineer officer in my family tree had been posted as he awaited being demobbed. Kingsbridge camp was on the Welsh island and I had first seen it on his service record. From the pages of this document I had gathered that my R.E. officer was suffering from shell-shock and attending medical boards in Bangor. I overlooked the importance of the town as it seemed to me that it was simply a posting where he had been sent by the Army at the end of the war.

Officer's war record
Page from a First World War officer’s service record

At a completely different research session, I had been looking at the time my ancestor spent living in Singapore and I had come across a Singapore newspaper website to aid me. Using the portal I had been able to find a snippet that gave the details of his marriage at the Presbyterian church in Singapore. In July 1921 he was reported to have wed Monica Mary.

The first thing that had struck me was I had not known that he had married this lady. In the WWI service record he had been married to a Mary Ellen, in Surrey, and family lore told me that he had been divorced from his first wife, then re-married her a few years later and they had then lived together in Singapore.  No mention of this intervening marriage had been drawn to my attention.

The family stories also said that his first wife, Mary had been lost at sea while escaping from the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in the Second World War. None of this explained me finding a marriage in Singapore to a completely different woman!

Japanese March in Singapore © IWM (HU 2787)
Japanese troops marching through Fullerton Square, Singapore. © IWM (HU 2787)

Skip forward to another period of research and I was using the Outbound Passenger Lists in order to write an article for publication. While I had the online search page open, on a whim, I typed in the first wife’s name and found Mary’s passage out to Singapore with their young daughter in February 1926.

Then turning to the second wife, whom I wrongly assumed my subject had met in Singapore, I did a search for Monica to see if I could find her going out to Singapore in the first place. I discovered her leaving London in May 1921 bound for the Straits Settlements.

Another entry had Monica and her husband visiting the U.K. in 1925, the year before his first wife and child emigrated to the colony. While I was pondering all of this I noted the entry given on the passenger list for their last address in the United Kingdom. It was a street in Beaumaris, Anglesey!

Then the penny dropped. Monica was probably from Beaumaris in Wales. The R.E. camp where my ancestor had recuperated was also in Beaumaris.

By Dr. Blofeld (OpenStreetMap) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Anglesey By Dr. Blofeld (OpenStreetMap) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
I next turned to some research that I had done at The National Archives. While looking into something completely different I had taken the opportunity to order up the 1919 divorce papers for the first marriage to Mary. These revealed that he had still been a serving Royal Engineer at the time of the petition by his wife and that his address was given as… Kingsbridge Camp, Beaumaris.

So now, by drawing together various records obtained at different times, I had him posted to Beaumaris in the Service Records; Beaumaris in his divorce papers; Beaumaris as the address in the BT27 Passenger Lists where he and his second wife were visiting from Singapore in 1925.

A simple search of the 1911 census records for Monica (with her surname) in Beaumaris and I quickly found her family and could then research them back. With the review of my previous research and by now paying attention to the town that had popped up in several records, I am in a position to speculate some details to add to my ancestor’s family story.

 

I assume that while suffering from shell-shock and recovering from his war experiences in Anglesey he met Monica and fell in love. He first wife Mary filed for divorce, though not for adultery, but for the reason that he refused to return home to her in Surrey.

Demobbed my ancestor decided to try his luck in another part of the world and went out to Singapore. Within a year Monica followed and they married within months. In 1925 Monica and her husband visited her family in Beaumaris, but by the next year my ancestor’s first wife and child were on their way out to Singapore.

What happened to Monica? That is the next direction for this research to go. An article published in Singapore seems to point to her dying in 1925 but this, naturally, needs corroboration. Was she sick when they made their last visit to Wales? Perhaps a Singapore death records will reveal what she died of.

Family history research has a habit of opening up more questions just as you resolve some of the others. In answer to the question “how do I find my ancestors in the records?” and “how can I use these records to build a picture of my ancestor’s story?” my response is review what you already know. Check facts that you may have overlooked or discounted because you thought them irrelevant and see where they take you. Keep your eyes open as well as your mind.

 

Searching for clues to your ancestors’ lives?

Discover tips for breaking down your brick walls; learn techniques and tricks that good genealogists use to work their way around stumbling blocks and find records and resources to use in your research.

Here is your chance to take a one month trial of this online English/Welsh family history course! You’ll get 52 weekly modules delivered on your computer, so that you can follow them at your own speed and at the time that you want. And you are not locked in as you can cancel at any time!

Those that have already completed the course said:

“You communicate in an understandable way! Thank you for the modules that I have had so far”. P. Martin.

“I am finding the course very useful, even though I have been doing family history for many years.” Kind Regards, H. Stephens.

“I would like to thank you for the resources, which I have received weekly, they are very interesting and informative, also a big thank you for the brilliant customer service.” P. Beilby.

Check out the current offers here: English/Welsh family history course

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Murderous Madam and the Policeman

George Le Cronier's Memorial, Green Street, St.Helier.

I’ve been having a look at the S&N newsletter, that popped into my email box at the end of the week.

What caught my eye was a fascinating Victorian murder story that took place in the St Helier streets quite local to where I live. I’ve come across it before in the book The Policeman and the Brothel by Theodore Dalrymple, but this is the first time that I’ve seen it written from the family history records point of view!

It was fascinating to see the Illustrated London News report from March 7th 1846; the census records, with the tell tale blanks for the occupations of the young  prostitutes, and the criminal records showing the killer was transported for life to Van Diemens land. Also to be seen is the huge monument for the murdered policeman in Green Street cemetery, a picture of which can be searched for in TheGenealogist’s growing Volunteer Headstone Database that now includes many Jersey burials.

 

The newsletter isn’t just about this story. They begin with a look at what will be coming online from their group throughout 2015:

Parish Records, detailed County and Tithe Maps, millions of new Medals Records, more Grave Memorials from the Volunteer Headstone Project, records of Railway Workers from Pensions to Staff Movements, Jewish records, detailed Street Maps, Passenger Lists, Emigration Records and more War Memorials are all going online at TheGenealogist this year.

And then we hear that this month they’ve released more War Memorials, Parish Records and have now added the 1911 census for all Starter and Gold Subscribers! You can make the most of this with £30 cash back on an Annual Gold Subscription, making it just £48.95 for the first year!

There’s no better way, they suggest, to start the new year than with some special offers – you can claim £50 cashback on a Diamond Subscription to TheGenealogist, and save £££s in their New Year Sale over at S&N Genealogy Supplies. The news letter also takes a look at 2014 in a review.

Finally, there is that interesting article I’ve already drawn you attention to above about Ancestors that fell foul of the law. As the S&N team write in the email, these are always fascinating subjects for family history research and I would say none more than a Victorian murder story of a notorious Madam who escaped the hangman’s noose!

 

The Genealogist - UK census, BMDs and more online

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New Family History Audio Tutorials Launched

 

Parish Church

The greater the knowledge that we have about a subject, then the more tools we have at our disposal to explore it.

In family history, the more we understand the records and resources, then the better we are able to locate our ancestors hidden in the documents.

Today I am really excited to announce the launch of yet more help for those people researching their English/Welsh family roots.

I’ve listened to your feedback and acted on it.

Some of you told me that you’d like to buy tutorials on certain specific areas for a very modest outlay of under a couple of pounds.

For those of you who asked for this quality information, so as to increase your knowledge of the family history records and resources, then here are the initial four tutorials being released today. I am making them available for the first time as MP3 downloads for £1.99 (or $3.30) so that they really are affordable to all.

Whether you want to listen to them on your computer, or transfer them to your MP3 player, then these programmes in my new Nosey Genealogist’s Master Mind Audio Series explain what the records are, where to find them and how to use them.

I know that many satisfied family history researchers have passed through my Family History Researcher Course of 52 written lessons – downloaded in pdf format to their computer each week. I have received compliments on the content and the accessible style and it gives me great pleasure that many of you really enjoy receiving a weekly module from my Family History Researcher Course. (If you have not joined yet, but are interested in this written course then check out the special offer which is currently a £1 trial for 2 weeks http://www.familyhistoryresearcher.com/trialoffer/)

But I also understand that some of you just wanted to listen to an audio programme on certain specific subjects and so that is what I have done for you today.

The first four Master Mind Audio Series Modules are:

  • Apprentices
  • Tithe records
  • The Parish Chest
  • Illegitimate Ancestors

Watch this space as I record and release more audio downloads in the near future.

 

To listen to a sample taken from the podcast go now to www.NoseyGenealogist.com/mastermind  or click on the image below…

Master Mind Page

 

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Handwritten Lincolnshire Registers now online

findmypast searchA few years back and it was impossible to find any English Church Registers online,  but gradually more and more are appearing now and I take my hat off to the various family history websites that are entering partnerships with County Record Offices to bring us more and more of these very special records. Well done Findmypast and Ancestry to name two!

This week it was findmypast.co.uk that made available online records showing the life and times of some of the most famous figures in the largest county in east England, Lincolnshire, following a new project with Lincolnshire Archives  to create the Lincolnshire Collection.

 

The handwritten registers date back to 1538 and span more than 300 years; they provide insight into baptisms, marriages and burials from 103 parishes across Lincolnshire, from Laughton to Gedney Hill.

 

Some of the incredible details include information on the baptisms of scientist Isaac Newton and poet Lord Tennyson, famous for the Lincoln inspired Victorian ballad, ‘The Lady of Shallot’. The records also include information on the burial of famous hangman William Marwood, renowned for inventing the ‘long drop’ technique that ensured the prisoner’s neck was broken instantly at the end of the drop, considered to be a kinder way to be executed.

 

Debra Chatfield, a family historian at findmypast.co.uk, said: ‘The Lincolnshire parish records include fascinating information about some of our most noteworthy and infamous figures, not just from Lincolnshire’s history, but the whole of British history.

 

‘Publishing them online so that people can find their ancestors and see whether they are related to Sir Isaac Newton or one of the other celebrities we’ve uncovered, such as poet Lord Tennyson, polar explorer John Franklin, or mathematician George Boole, is really exciting.’

 

Councillor Nick Worth, executive member for libraries and culture, said: “Lincolnshire has a rich cultural heritage, and the county council has long sought to celebrate and enhance this through digital access.  The partnership with findmypast.co.uk is a very positive development that will help bring these records to a wider, global audience, and hopefully encourage people to explore more of the county’s vibrant history.”

 

At present I am yet to find any of my own ancestors came from Lincolnshire, but as I go on researching I am always surprised when someone from outside of the county marries into my family tree and sets me off researching a new line  in a part of the country that I never knew I had kin from. Perhaps one day I will find a forebear from Lincolnshire, but in the meantime I recommend this data collection to any of you that have ancestors from there.

The records are now part of the online parish record collection at findmypast.co.uk and 1.6 billion family history records including censuses, military, newspaper and crime records and can be browsed at http://www.findmypast.co.uk/search/life-events-bmds/lincolnshire/browse-images/.

 

Many resources available on findmypast.co.uk can be accessed for free in Lincolnshire’s libraries.

 Disclosure: The links in this post are compensated affiliate links that may mean I am rewarded by Findmypast should you sign up for their services or products.



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No Fog! I’m in London for Who Do You Think You Are? Live

No fog this year to mess up my travel arrangements and keep me away from the 2013 Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE show at Olympia like it did last year when my plane was grounded in Jersey for days!

I can’t wait until tomorrow to take my first look around.

Watch this space for an update!

In the mean time I’ve found this offer for my readers from GenesReunited.

Save 15% on membership between 22 & 28 February using promo code WDYTYA13. Search over 580 million family history records and start connecting with family – past and present – on Genes Reunited.

 

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When Ancestors Dissapear from the Records

I was pretty confident of this ancestor search. I thought it was going to be a breeze to find the family history records for this family group. I had located the family in the 1881 census through a combination of knowing the names of the parents and the birth dates of the father and mother.

So next box to tick was to find them in the 1891, 1901 and 1911 census for England & Wales, or at least those parties that had survived as there is always the possibility that some may have passed away between censuses.

But straight away the 1891 census proved a problem for me. I search using the head of the household, then his wife and then the children. Nothing!

I wondered if the surname had been poorly transcribed and so I used the option to search on a name that would have been similar, with no result. I then went back to the 1881 and took a look at the street name and town with the intention of seeing if they had stayed put in the ten years between the census being taken but their surname had been incorrectly gathered. This is a top tip that I was given some time back and on www.thegenealogist.co.uk there is a useful tool that allows researchers to search the census by street name. I’ve used this in the past with success, but the whole lane seemed to have been missed out, or had changed its name in the intervening period.

There is also the facility on www.findmypast.co.uk to do an address search and so I tried using that and quickly identified the road as it had been listed slightly differently in the later census. This shows up the beauty of using more than one site to do your research with. If you can’t find a record in one subscription site’s records then remember this tip is to try using another site, because each company will have used different transcribers to produce their indexes and so you may get lucky with your brick wall.

On thegenealogist.co.uk there is another tool called the family forename search that allows researchers to enter a number of the first names from a family.

This is a fantastic way of digging out difficult to find families in the census. With this feature you are able to search for a family that you have not been able to locate using the surname – possibly because of some unexpected spelling variation. You can use the forenames only as a group search and the results can be refined by adding or subtracting a surname or family members.

As many families had a large number of children, the odds of another family in the same county being an exact match is quite remote. It is possible to narrow the search by year and county, if required, and enter up to 6 possible forenames that you would be expecting to find within a family group.

Hope these tips help.

Census on Computer Screen

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