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JANUARY 2017

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 VIDEO CONTENT
FamilyTree
FamilyTree TAP HERE

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EDITORIAL from the editor

Assistant Editor -
Karen Clare
karen.c@family-tree.co.uk
Discover why now’s the perfect time to do
your family tree, and uncover what we can
Digital Editor - look forward to from the family history world

W
Rachel Bellerby
rachelb@warnersgroup.co.uk ith the hibernation season upon us, we’re perfectly placed
to hunker indoors, poring over our screens, scouring family
Senior Designer - history websites until late into the night, or absorbed by a
Nathan Ward
nathanw@warnersgroup.co.uk
genealogy book with no temptation to venture out. Hopefully
we also have the advantage of precious time to spend with family, sharing
Designers - memories and stories – and maybe gleaning clues about lives and times past.
Laura Tordoff
laura.tordoff@warnersgroup.co.uk Whether you’re just starting out with your family tree, or have many
years’ research under your belt, now’s the perfect period of the year to take
Mary Ward
maryw@warnersgroup.co.uk
stock of what you know about your ancestors – and to decide what you need
to find out next. To read about the latest things to look forward to in the
ADMINISTRATION world of genealogy, see page 12, and for an inspiring round-up of new year
resolution ideas, turn to page 16. Then all you’ll have to do is choose your
Publisher - own family history goal for 2017. Here’s to an exciting new year of family
Janet Davison
jand@warnersgroup.co.uk tree discoveries. And do let us know how you get on – we love to hear!

Associate Publisher
Matthew Hill
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Helen Tovey
Advertising - EDITOR
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lUnsolicited material: We regret that we cannot be Helen's been having fun adding Karen's been learning the family history Rachel has been exploring Castle
held responsible for any loss or damage to material sent family stories and anecdotes to behind some crockery given to her Howard near York, to discover how
to us for possible publication. It is advisable to send the 'memories' section of her grandad in the late 1950s when he was wealthy Yorkshire folk enjoyed the
copies rather than originals. Any items sent for review FamilySearch Family Tree – and it's a chef in a Norfolk seaside restaurant. festive season in years gone by
will be disposed of at our discretion, unless a specific definitely getting family involved Her dad also helped out in the kitchen
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www.family-tree.co.uk January 2017 FamilyTree 3

FamilyTree

p3WelcomeFINALish.indd 3 13/12/2016 09:31

 Inside this issue...

Contents
6 Family history news
Latest news with Karen Clare, including the
publication of the largest ever study into British
and Irish surname origins and how to access
your new free data from TheGenealogist.co.uk.
12 Explore the next 20 big things in
family history
Discover the very latest techniques and
technology to aid you in your favourite hobby with
genealogy researcher Barbara J Starmans.
16 New year, new hobby,
new resolutions!
Be inspired to start tracing your family tree as
Helen Tovey advises on the first simple steps
and Family Tree authors and experts reveal a
wealth of projects and plans for 2017.
22 Dear Tom
Get your fix of genealogical gems with Tom Wood.
26 Write up your family history
So, you’ve made a good start on tracing
your family tree and found some fascinating
ancestors, what next? Rachel Bellerby shows
you how to write up the history of your family to
share with your relatives.
28 Laying down the law
A little legal know-how can go a long way in
helping you to understand key events in your
ancestors’ lives – and may even help you
solve some family history puzzles. Legal eagle
Christine Wibberley makes her case.
33 Twiglets
With our tree-tracing diarist Gill Shaw.
34 Books
The latest family history reads with Karen Clare.
36 How to do a family history blog
Top blogger and family historian Chris Paton
explores the benefits of blogging for your
genealogical research.
41 Family Tree Subscriber Club
Subscribe to Family Tree? Don’t miss this issue’s
p30
exclusive offers and discounts.
42 A stitch in time
Get top tips for free website research as
Adèle Emm examines how the sewing
machine changed our ancestors’ lives.
47 How to find British historical
newspapers online
Read up on the rich resources of historical
newspapers in this exclusive pull-out reference JUMP TO THE
guide to key websites for the UK and Ireland,
with Ruth Symes.
ARTICLE
Tap the image to jump
straight to the article

4 FamilyTree January 2017

FamilyTree www.family-tree.co.uk

p4-5 ContentsFINALish.indd 4 13/12/2016 09:41

 January 2017 Vol 33 No 4

JUMP TO THE
ARTICLE
Tap the image to jump
straight to the article

56 Spotlight on... Cambridgeshire Family

History Society
Rachel Bellerby explores the wealth of local
knowledge, skills and records this East Anglian
society has to offer.
58 A domestic servant’s modes of dress
Learn about the clothing your domestic servant
forebears would have donned in the real Downton
Abbey with costume and photo-dating expert
Jayne Shrimpton.
64 What our ancestors ate
Simon Wills meets a researcher investigating the
impact of the Norman Conquest on our ancestors’
diet and health, 950 years after the Battle of Hastings.
66 Customising your approach
Mike Gould explains how to expand your new family
history website to make it unique to you in part four of
his series on designing a site to share your research.
68 Investigating the work and life of a
colonial officer
Join Richard Morgan on a paper trail into colonial
Kenya as he traces the story at The National Archives
of a distant cousin caught up in the dying years of
British rule.
72 Dreaded diseases and desperate cures
Get to grips with three of the main killer diseases
dreaded by family members in decades past with
Dr Ed Dutton.
78 Your Q&As: Advice
Get the best family history help from experts Jayne
Shrimpton, Mary Evans, Tim Lovering, David
Frost and guest genealogy professionals.
88 Diary dates
Family history events, talks and exhibitions
coming up in January.
Our cover image: © neirfy/Adobe Stock

90 Mailbox
p18 More lively letters and Keith Gregson’s
Snippets of War.
92 Coming next in FamilyTree
93 Your adverts
98 Thoughts on...
Diane Lindsay takes a nostalgic journey as she
starts meandering down new branches of her tree.

www.family-tree.co.uk January 2017 FamilyTree 5

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 PRESERVING THE FAMILY ARCHIVES
Karen Clare reports on the latest genealogy news. If you want to see your story featured, email it to
editorial@family-tree.co.uk or post to our Facebook page at facebook.com/familytreemaguk
IN BRIEF
FreeCEN2 looms online
The first phase of a new FreeCEN.org.
uk website, run by volunteers at Free UK
Genealogy (FreeUKGen), is being made ready
for launch. The revamped UK Census Online
project currently at www.freecen.org.uk is
called FreeCEN2 and will be similar to the
main site www.freeukgenealogy.org.uk and
its sister parish registers site FreeREG.org.uk.
FreeUKGen, a charity dedicated to providing
free online access to family history records,
also runs FreeBMD.org.uk although this has not
yet undergone a facelift. Visitors to FreeCEN2
will initially be able to use only basic search
functions, but more will be added later. For
updates, follow @FreeUKGen on Twitter or
Facebook at www.facebook.com/freeukgen
Austen’s family life revealed
The British Library and Bodleian Library are
reuniting Jane Austen’s teenage writings,
family letters and memorabilia for the first
time in 40 years to mark the bicentenary in
2017 of her death.
The archival treasures, which shed light on
the author’s personal family life, include a letter
telling of her sorrow on the death of her father
and a poem expressing joy on the birth of her
nephew. Austen’s writing desk also forms part
of the free display, Jane Austen Among Family
and Friends, which runs from 10 January to 19
February in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery
at the British Library in London.
Discover more 2017 British Library cultural
highlights at http://familytr.ee/BL2017
Preserving Scotland’s heritage
Historic Environment Scotland (HES) has
announced a ‘What’s Your Heritage?’
campaign to find out what heritage means
to Scots as part of the 2017 Year of History,
Heritage and Archaeology.
HES hopes to uncover hidden heritage gems
for future generations to enjoy; from theatres
to pubs and castles to schools, it wants to
know which buildings have made the people of
Scotland who they are.
Participants can fill in an online survey,
take part in a workshop or share ideas and
photos on social media; find out how to get
involved at www.historicenvironment.scot/
whatsyourheritage
6 Family
FamilyTree January 2017
p6-10 NewsFINALish.indd 6
80,000 VISIT SHROUDS
OF THE SOMME
Artist Rob Heard and his exhibition on display at Bristol Cathedral,
Shrouds of the Somme
A
n artist who created a
poignant WW1 exhibition
is appealing for funding
to continue after it was
visited by more than 80,000 people
in just one week.
In the Shrouds of the Somme
exhibition the 19,240 British Empire
servicemen who were killed on the
first day of Battle of the Somme, 1
July 1916, are represented by 12-inch
figures, wrapped and bound in a
hand-stitched shroud and arranged
in rows on the ground. Thousands
of visitors from across the UK
went to see the exhibition at Bristol
Cathedral’s College Green during
the week marking both Armistice
Day and the end of the Battle of the
Somme in November. Names of the
19,240 were listed on boards along
with the names of 53,000 others
killed at the Somme, and many
visitors were moved to tears.
Somerset artist Rob Heard, who
took three years to complete the
shrouds, said: ‘The response from the
public has been incredible. I really feel
this brings home the scale of the loss
to people, but still represents each
SH
NE W SF L A
The free Statistical Accounts of Scotland 1791-1845 website
has been relaunched at http://stataccscot.edina.ac.uk
INTERACTIVE
GALLERIES
SWIPE LEFT
for more images,
and TAP for a
closer look
soldier as an individual – something which
is so important to relatives, even several
generations on.’
The project relied on support from 6 Rifles,
Bristol Port Authority and BT Openreach
who provided volunteers. More than £16,000
was raised for the Bristol branch of SSAFA,
The Armed Forces Charity, which supports
servicemen, veterans and their families in
times of need. The exhibition was first held
in Exeter in July but was so popular that
organisers took it to Bristol.
The artist now hopes to raise enough
money to move on to the next phase –
creating a shroud for each of the 72,246
British servicemen killed at the Somme
whose bodies were never recovered.
If funding can be found, Rob hopes to
display the shrouds – which would cover a
quarter of a kilometre – in November 2018
to mark the centenary of Armistice Day.
‘In some small way I would like to bring
them home,’ explained Rob. He added
he hoped the expanded exhibition would
be on display ‘somewhere central where
it will be seen by hundreds of thousands
of people, reminding them of those who
made the ultimate sacrifice’.
Visit www.thesomme19240.co.uk for
more information.
www.family-tree.co.uk
13/12/2016 10:29
 Caring for your memories

45 ,600 surna m e origins

Over
revealed in UK’s largest study

F
amily historians can discover the
meanings and origins of 45,602
surnames in UK and Ireland with
the publication of a major new
study in print and online.
The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names
in Britain and Ireland, which has been
published in four volumes by Oxford
University Press, is the result of the UK’s
largest ever study into surnames. Funded
by the Arts and Humanities Research
Council (AHRC), researchers from the
University of the West of England (UWE
Bristol) studied records from the 11th
to the 19th centuries to discover the
linguistic origins, history, and geographical
distribution of 45,602 most frequent family
names in Britain and Ireland.
Farah, Twelvetrees and Li (Lee) are
among the 8,000 family names explained
for the first time, alongside corrections to
previous explanations such as Starbuck,
Hislop, Dawkins, Hawkins and Palin.
Nearly 40,000 family names are native
to Britain and Ireland, while the rest reflect
the diverse languages and cultures of
immigrants who have settled since the
16th century: from French Huguenot,
Dutch, Jewish to Indian, Muslim (Arabic),
Korean, Japanese, Chinese and African.
Professor Patrick Hanks of UWE, who
led the study team with Prof Richard
Coates, called the project ‘a huge step
forward in surname studies’. Each
entry includes the current and 1881
frequencies of the name, its main location
in Britain and Ireland, its language or
culture of origin and, wherever possible,
an explanation supported by historical
evidence. Much of this is new, drawn from
previously untapped medieval and modern
sources such as tax records, church
registers and census returns.
Prof Coates explained: ‘Some
surnames have origins that are
occupational – obvious examples are
Smith and Baker; less obvious ones are
Beadle, Rutter, and Baxter. Other names
can be linked to a place, for example
Hill or Green (which relates to a village
green). Surnames which are ‘patronymic’
are those which originally enshrined the
father’s name – such as Jackson, or
Jenkinson. There are also names where
the origin describes the original bearer
such as Brown, Short, or Thin – though
Short may in fact be an ironic “nickname”
surname for a tall person.’
Samuel Lambshead, AHRC strategy
and development manager, added: ‘The
boom in the last decade in genealogy
and the popularity of TV programmes
such as Who Do You Think You Are?
show that knowledge about the origins of
family names is so important in helping to
understand our own stories and mapping
out those of our ancestors.’
The £400 price tag means the dictionary
won’t be on every family historian’s book
shelf, but do not despair because it can
be viewed for free via UK public libraries
with subscription to the online Oxford
Reference www.oxfordreference.com
resource; ask in your local library or fill in
the request form at https://global.oup.
com/academic/library-recommend
View online
Find case studies from the project at
http://familytr.ee/FaNUKexamples and
watch the video at http://familytr.ee/
FamilyNames to find out more

New ways to search as

archive turns five
TOP AUTHOR THANKS
The British Newspaper Archive (BNA)
‘INCREDIBLE’ ARCHIVES

www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk has
reached its fifth birthday and now has
more than 17 million pages of historic
British and Irish newspapers online.
To celebrate, it has launched new search
features such as the Here and Then mobile
app and the Title Pages function, which
gives an overview of any newspaper in the
700-plus online collection. This enables
users to find out what is available for that
newspaper, sample a free ‘On this day’
issue and use the search box to look inside.
The BNA, a partnership between the
British Library and Findmypast, launched
online on 29 November 2011 with 4 million
pages. In 2017 it is focusing on digitising
newspapers for every county. Visit http://
blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/
category/website-features
B
est-selling novelist Kate Mosse
dropped into her local record office
with hundreds of well-wishers to
help celebrate its 70th anniversary.
At West Sussex Record Office’s birthday
open day and reception in Chichester,
Kate, who was born in the town, said
she had used the archives to carry out her book research. ‘Having access to these
wonderful archives – and the skilled staff who support researchers – made working
on my latest novel, The Taxidermist’s Daughter, a complete pleasure,’ she added.
‘They are an incredible local resource.’
More than 300 visitors enjoyed films, tours and a display, including the Oslac
Charter of 780AD, the oldest item in the collections.
David Barling, West Sussex County Council’s Cabinet Member for Residents’
Services, said: ‘The record office is the custodian of our history, preserving all of
these wonderful collections for us and for future generations.’
Opened in 1946 at County Hall in Chichester, the record office later moved to a
purpose-built location in Orchard Street, where it houses over eight miles of archives.
A booklet featuring 70 documents has been published to mark the anniversary,
available from the record office and local libraries. Visit www.westsussex.gov.uk/ro

www.family-tree.co.uk January 2017 Family

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 PRESERVING THE FAMILY ARCHIVES
MyHeritage launches
DNA testing service
R esearchers using genealogy website MyHeritage can now take part in its
new global integrated genetic testing service, which aims to be particularly
strong for those tracing ethnic roots.
Customers using the service will receive a home-testing kit consisting of
a simple cheek swab sample that is then mailed to MyHeritage DNA’s lab
for analysis. The user is then invited to view the results on the MyHeritage.
com website. In its initial version, two main features are provided: detailed
ethnicity reports that map the user’s ethnic and geographic origins, and
DNA Matches for finding relatives. Additional features and capabilities are
planned for the future.
Laurence Harris, MyHeritage’s Head of Genealogy (UK), said: ‘Our mass-
market home-testing kit is simple, affordable and will help millions of people
around the world uncover their ethnic origins and make new family connections.’
Test results currently only include 25 ethnicities, but MyHeritage says this
will dramatically improve thanks to its unique Founder Population project,
which involves 5,000 participants selected from its 85 million members by
virtue of their family trees exemplifying consistent ancestry from the same
region or ethnicity for many generations.
The founder project is expected to be complete in the next few months,
with DNA kits sent off to project participants from Uzbekistan to Fiji,
‘resulting in a rich DNA data set of more than 100 ethnicities that will enable
MyHeritage to show users their ancestral roots with far greater resolution
than other services’, said Mr Harris.
MyHeritage DNA is integrated with MyHeritage’s other services on all web
and mobile platforms, as well as offered on the MyHeritage DNA app.
MyHeritage Founder and CEO Gilad Japhet added: ‘DNA testing is the
future of family history. We see DNA as a natural evolution of our business
and look forward to harnessing it to reunite families, engage in new pro bono
projects, and enrich the lives of millions of users.’
MyHeritage DNA kits are available for £79 introductory offer (usually £99,
plus shipping). Users who have already tested their DNA via other providers
can for a limited time upload their DNA data to MyHeritage for no cost to
benefit from the website’s free DNA Matches; visit www.myheritagedna.com
TAP HERE
to view Map your Victorian Londoners
h’s
Charles Boot
maps
Check out the new and improved Charles
Booth’s London website at https://booth.lse.
ac.uk where you can search the catalogue of
over 450 original notebooks from the social
reformer’s Inquiry into Life and Labour in
A 93-page Stepney London (1886-1903), view 41 digitised notebooks
Union notebook from and explore poverty maps of Victorian London to
1889, giving details help trace your city ancestors.
of inmates of Poplar This free site includes police notebooks, Stepney
Workhouse Union casebooks and notebooks relating to the
Jewish community in the 1880s and 1890s. The
six Stepney Union casebooks are of particular interest to family historians
because they record detailed case histories of the inmates of Bromley and
Stepney workhouses and of ancestors who received outdoor relief from the
Union from 1889-1890. You can search the notebooks for names and ages
(or birth dates) of individuals mentioned.
Researchers can also search, compare and download high resolution
images of Booth’s poverty maps with present-day locations on the website,
run by the London School of Economics Library.
8 Family
FamilyTree January 2017
p6-10 NewsFINALish.indd 8
Fundraisers on board
for Discovery appeal
Campaigners trying to raise £40,000 in just five
weeks to kick-start vital restoration work to Captain
Robert Falcon Scott’s Antarctic exploration ship,
RRS Discovery, are celebrating after hitting their
target a day early.
Dundee Heritage Trust launched the campaign
via the Crowdfunder website at crowdfunder.co.uk
and was delighted when it was backed by 200
donors both locally and worldwide.
The Trust, which operates the iconic Antarctic
exploration ship as a visitor attraction at Discovery
Point in Dundee, received pledges from individuals,
schools, businesses, heritage groups and TV
presenter Lorraine Kelly, a Trust patron.
The money will help pay for restoration and
preservation work to the masts and rigging of RRS
Discovery, which famously took Captain Scott
and crew to the Antarctic for a voyage of scientific
exploration between 1901-1904.
Fundraising continues as the Trust requires
£350,000 in total towards the nine-month project.
To pledge support, contact Brian Kelly on
dhtdevelopment@dundeeheritage.co.uk or Paul
Jennings on paul.jennings@dundeeheritage.co.uk
or call 01382 309060. More information at
www.rrsdiscovery.com
Members and supporters of Dundee Heritage Trust
celebrate hitting the initial £40,000 target: (front, from
left) chairman Andy Lothian, operations director Mark
Munsie, curator Gill Poulter, project manager John
Watson and executive director Paul Jennings
SH
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Findmypast has opened an extra 2 million
‘closed records’ in the 1939 Register to
mark the first anniversary of this pre-war
‘census’ going online. Some 5 million
records have been added in one year and
the Register now contains 32.8 million
open records (those made public under the
terms of the 100-year rule)
www.family-tree.co.uk
13/12/2016 10:29
 INTERACTIVE
GALLERIES
Records of disbanded HOW TO USE
The NAM IrishCaring
Soldier’s Records
for your memories
SWIPE BELOW

Irish regiments
for more images

online for first time

R ecords of nearly 12,000 soldiers from Irish regiments
disbanded after the Irish War of Independence in 1922
have gone online for the first time.
The free new family history resource gives access to the
regimental enlistment books from 1920-1922 and has been
launched by the National Army Museum (NAM).
Following the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, the
five British Army regiments recruited in southern Ireland
were disbanded: they were the Royal Irish Regiment, the
Connaught Rangers, the Leinster Regiment, the Royal
Munster Fusiliers and the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. In 2006 the
regiments’ 1920-1922 enlistment books were transferred to
the NAM’s collection by the Ministry of Defence.
The records were digitised with funding from the
Heritage Lottery Fund and can be searched electronically
by unit, place of birth, place of documentation and year of
documentation at www.nam.ac.uk/soldiers-records/persons The enlistment books also record service in earlier conflicts,
In many cases, the soldiers’ fates after their discharge are such as the First World War and the Boer War.
revealed. Most of the men’s service is described as ‘exemplary’ Alastair Massie, NAM Head of Research and Academic Access,
but a few are ‘very bad’ and 99 are discharged to serve prison said: ‘When you consider that over half of First World War service
sentences. records were destroyed in the Blitz, these enlistment books take
One tragic example is James Daly of the Connaught Rangers, on even more significance. They form part of a vital record of our
who was the last soldier to be shot for mutiny by the British Army. history and we’re pleased to be making them available online
In June 1920 Daly led a company of Connaught Rangers stationed where everyone can access them.’
in Jalandhar (Punjab India) in a protest against British excesses The NAM in Chelsea, London, is currently closed for
in Ireland during the War of Independence. The authorities refurbishment but the original enlistment books will be accessible
suppressed the mutiny and Daly was executed by firing squad on for research when it reopens in March 2017.
2 November 1920.
Images: RRS Discovery by Graeme Hart © Perthshire Picture Agency; Irish enlistment book © National Army Museum; Danny Dyer © BBC; tree © Janet Smith

SH
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FamilySearch.org is celebrating 10 years of its
pioneering online indexing project, in which more
than 1.2 million volunteers from 200 countries have
made nearly 1.5 billion historical records searchable
by name; visit http://familytr.ee/10indexing
IN BRIEF
Farewell & welcome
After more than a decade working on Family Tree
and sister title Practical Family History, Digital Editor
Belinda Griffin is saying farewell, and we’d like to
thank her for her hard work in print and online and
wish her all the best for the future. We’d also like
to welcome author Rachel Bellerby (whose name
you’ll recognise from her regular columns in the
magazine) to the FT team: turn to page 26 for her
excellent feature on writing up your family history.
Acclaim for A Group Photograph
Andrew Tatham’s self-published family history book
A Group Photograph – Before, Now & In-Between
(Arvo Veritas, 2016) is number one at www.amazon.
co.uk/gp/most-wished-for/books/277007 and
William Boyd named it one of his Best Books of 2016
in The Guardian; visit www.groupphoto.co.uk
WIN A DANNY DYER STYLE FAMILY TREE!
I f you loved the beautiful hand-drawn
family tree that appeared in the first
episode of BBC’s Who Do You Think
You Are? featuring EastEnders actor
Danny Dyer, then be sure to enter our
fantastic competition!
Calligrapher Janet Smith of Family
Tree Pictures http://familytreepictures.
weebly.com has been drawing family
trees for around 10 years and was thrilled
to be asked by the show’s producers to
create Danny’s tree, which revealed he is
directly descended from Edward III.
This issue we are delighted to be able
WORTH
to give a lucky Family Tree reader one MORE THAN
of Janet’s fabulous trees – worth more
than £300 – including up to 40 of your
£ 3 0 0!
family names, with dates and location!
Simply visit the Family Tree website at
http://familytr.ee/2h9mVKa to find out
*how to enter and you could soon be the
owner of a beautiful hand-drawn family
tree of your own.
* Please note this competition closes on
31 January 2017.

www.family-tree.co.uk January 2017 Family

FamilyTree 9

p6-10 NewsFINALish.indd 9 13/12/2016 10:29

 TAP HERE
to vi ew more
PRESERVING THE FAMILY ARCHIVES
images from th
e
Letters of our
Lives gallery

LETTERS REVEAL
BRITISH LIVES
T he Royal Mail has set up an online
gallery to showcase more than
1,600 historic letters and postcards
unearthed as part of its Letters of Our
Lives campaign, which was reported in
Family Tree last spring.
The letters span more than 315 years
of UK history, with the earliest dating
as far back as 10 March 1699. The
campaign – part of the Royal Mail 500th
anniversary celebrations – asked people
to rummage in their attics, garages and
sheds for letters or postcards that give
a personal account of life in the UK,
from past to present. The letters sent in
revealed everything from heroics on the
battlefield and the worry of waiting for
news from the Front, to the challenges
of settling down in faraway lands such
as Australia in the early 1800s.
Lucy Worsley, TV historian and Chief
Curator Historic Royal Palaces, who
helped curate the letters, said: ‘It has
been a real privilege to be able to read
these little paper windows on the past
and catch a glimpse of another side to
great events of history... I’m proud to
share in the pride of the families who
Two of the
letters and
postcards
now online
in the Letters
of Our Lives
gallery
shared their stories with us. I would
urge everyone to visit the gallery and
marvel at the power of the human spirit
as told by our ancestors.’
David Gold, Director of Public Affairs
at Royal Mail, added: ‘Our original hope
was that the letters would allow us to
build a picture of how life really was
for communities throughout the ages
but they’ve revealed much more than
we could have ever imagined. They’ve
presented a new side to key moments
in history and given us a unique
insight to the thoughts and feelings of
communities over the last 300 years.’
Explore the gallery online at www.
royalmailgroup.com/lettersofourlives
New releases at
commercial sites
• New collections at Findmypast
include more than 486,000 Royal
Constabulary Service Records 1816-
1922, in association with TNA, and
Royal Irish Constabulary History
and Directories 1840-1921; NSW,
Australia, passenger lists 1828-1896
(assisted) and 1826-1900 unassisted;
British Army Scots Guards 1799-
1939; https://blog.fi ndmypast.
co.uk/latest-records
• TheGenealogist.co.uk has added
more than 2.1m searchable records
to its parish records, in partnership
with Hampshire Genealogical
Society. This database contains
1.8m baptisms 1538 -1751; 212,000
individuals from marriages 1538-
1753 and nearly 143,800 burials
1838-1865. The records are at
TheGenealogist and at sister site
Fhs-online.co.uk
• At Ancestry, new additions include
UK Royal Hospital Chelsea
Pensioner Admissions and
Discharges 1715-1925 and Soldier
Service Records, 1760-1920; www.
ancestry.co.uk/cs/recent-collections

YOUR FREE RECORDS

TIP
For clues about
military acronymns
A t Family Tree we’ve teamed up
with UK family history website
TheGenealogist.co.uk to offer you
selected free sources from their extensive
Your census search
You can also search and use the 1891 Census for London, where
you’ll find the new high resolution, greyscale images much more
legible than the black and white copies of the past.

TIP
and abbreviations see online collections of records. Read on to
http://family tr.ee/
learn about the census and Army List records How to use the records If you’re new to family
MoDabbrev history, it’s time well
you can research today... 1. To access your free records simply
spent to try these records
register at TheGenealogist.co.uk/ftfree for free, because even if your
Your Army List to study 2. To activate your content for this issue, ancestors aren’t listed you
can begin to get to grips with
Search or browse the Army List for 1929. The earliest official enter the code 206210 reading old handwriting,
Army List dates from 1740, initially annually, but quarterly 3. Once activated, content will be accessible and learn about the sorts
from 1879 to 1922, and by the time of this list (from 1923) they for a 30-day period (within 3 months of the of clues such records
reveal for your
were half-yearly. UK on sale date). ancestors’ lives

Army Lists are very useful for tracing Click through page by page to get a feel Find useful background information
the military careers of Army officer for the Army hierarchy about your ancestor’s regiment
ancestors. They list their rank, unit and
details of retirements

10 FamilyTree January 2017 www.family-tree.co.uk

p6-10 NewsFINALish.indd 10 13/12/2016 10:29

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FamilyTree 11

p011 Ads.indd 11 08/12/2016 11:21

 RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES IN THE PIPELINE

20 NEXT
BIG
THINGS
While the family history records we research and the ancestor stories we uncover
stretch back centuries, the tools of our trade remain bang up to date. Check out
this round-up of the latest techniques and innovative technology with genealogy
researcher Barbara J Starmans

I
’ve been researching my British
roots from Canada for well over 30
years. My first family tree program
ran on the Commodore 64
computer and I printed my pedigree
charts and family group sheets using
a dot matrix printer and continuous
feed paper. Back in those early days, I
wrote letters to churches and archives
overseas, waiting for the next clue
about my family story to show up in my
post box and I visited the local library,
scrolling through name and address
indexes on microfiche to find my
ancestors in the census.
Things have changed dramatically
over the last three decades and
today I do most of my research on
my computer from the comfort of
my home. I have my choice of many
excellent software programs and online
databases and I confirm my family
history findings with DNA matches.
All of my research is in digital format
on my computer, my phone and in the
cloud, accessible from anywhere, and I
no longer print out anything.
So what will the next decade bring
to family history?
The future of genealogy
Back in the 18th and 19th
centuries, our ancestors’ lives were
forever changed by the Industrial
Revolution. Just as steam power and
mechanisation brought large-scale
manufacturing to our ancestors and
revolutionised their lives, so will the
next advances in technology continue
to transform our lives. Based on the
changes we’ve already seen in the
genealogy community over the last few
years, the ways in which we pursue our
family history will undergo an exciting
transformation too.
As family historians, now and into
the future, we will need to negotiate
the thin line between the right to
privacy and accessibility of records. We
will have ‘born digital’ records such
as social media and computerised
databases to aid our discoveries and
we will continue to have new tools to
add to our genealogical toolbox.
The next frontier
One of the drivers of genealogical
advances in the last decade has been
the rapidly improving technology of
optical character recognition (OCR).
By having computers digitise and
transcribe millions of pages, the rate
at which typed records are coming
out of the dusty archives and on to the
web is increasing exponentially.
The next frontier for OCR advances
will be the ability of a computer to
transcribe handwriting and, even now,
advances are being made through the
MNIST (Mixed National Institute of
Standards and Technology) database
developed by the Courant Institute at
New York University in partnership
with Google Labs and Microsoft
Research. Such technology would
make the digitisation of handwritten
records, from parish registers to
personal papers, for instance, so
much more swift. In addition, as
cursive handwriting becomes obsolete
over the next few generations, a
breakthrough in OCR will be crucial.

12 Family
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1
Dusty documents to
digitised data
Improved OCR technology will
enable handwritten documents to be
transcribed by computer.
Spitting image of your
ancestors
Genetic genealogy research using
DNA has come a long way over the last
decade but new technologies will take
it even further. A project is underway
to reconstruct the DNA of Leonardo
da Vinci from trace amounts of DNA
found on his paintings. Scientists can
already produce images of people
from the past based on their DNA in a
process called phenotyping.
2
DNA detective
Currently phenotyping is
used by police forces in North
America to predict the possible
appearance of criminals using their
DNA evidence.
3
Inherited health
Medical family trees are already
on the horizon with companies
such as AncestryHealth and 23andme
leading the way. Note the ‘cause of
death’ on a death certificate to spot
re-occurring health problems.
Photo fit
Artificial intelligence (AI), just
in its infancy, will surely have a
large role to play in our future.
Even now, Microsoft’s researchers
have announced that their systems
achieved a 4.94 per cent error rate
identifying digital images, better than
the human rate of 5.1 percent, and
earlier this year, the Korean champion
of the game ‘Go’ lost against Google’s
AlphaGo (an AI computer program).
4
Do you have a mystery photo?
Technology of the future will
increasingly be able to help,
building on today’s facial recognition
software to help genealogists match
and cross refer with other photos of
the same ancestor.
Mobile matters!
With more than 66 per cent of
households having one or more
mobile devices and over half having
at least one tablet, Google announced
that in 2015, mobile use exceeded
www.family-tree.co.uk
p12-15 BarbaraStarmansFINAL.indd 13
Discover the latest techniques & technology
desktop use for the first time.
Genealogy software developers are
keeping up with that trend, getting
genealogists out of the archives and
onto their mobile devices. They
are offering platform-independent
software with Windows, Mac,
Android, iOS and even web versions
of their programs.
There is also an increasing focus
on professional genealogy practices
with easy-to-use source citations
becoming the norm and the creation
of automated source citations when
downloading a document is no longer
a far-fetched idea.
5
Best practice standards
Make use of the intuitive,
accessible tech tools offered
by your software and tree building
website to cite those sources, so that
online research is well-evidenced for
future generations.
DNA is mainstream
DNA is becoming a mainstream
genealogy tool for as the various
genetic testing companies roll out
their offerings across the globe and
testing becomes more affordable.
Where it was once necessary to test
with multiple companies to fi nd all
family matches, we now have tools
such as GEDmatch, found at www.
gedmatch.com where people who
have tested with different companies
can bring their results together to
compare and match.
New techniques such as phasing
and GEDmatch’s Lazarus tool allow
us to reconstruct the DNA of our
ancestors using our own DNA and
those of known relatives.
Image: © fgnopporn/Adobe Stock
6
Population growth
As the number of people
testing grows, your chance of
finding a match becomes greater
– and DNA becomes an ever more
useful genealogy tool. Be sure to
check out our February 2017 issue
for our DNA bumper coverage.
Genealogy do-over
In December 2014, Thomas
MacEntee of Geneabloggers shocked
his readers by posting: ‘Today
I’m making a big announcement:
Me and genealogy are parting
ways. Done. Finished. Game over.’
Thankfully, Thomas wasn’t really
giving up, he was just starting over,
thoroughly reviewing his earlier
research and many family historians
are now working through his weekly
plan to improve their research habits
and the quality of data in their
family tree.
7
Take stock
As more records continue
to become available online,
make time to review your findings
periodically, and especially to
amend your online tree should that
be necessary.
Get a good education
Even as genealogists seek to
improve their research skills, more
opportunities for education are
becoming available, particularly
in the online space. Most software
companies now offer free webinars
and online tutorials and the tables
in the exhibit halls at genealogy
conferences are packed with
vendors offering more formal
January 2017 Family
FamilyTree 13
12/12/2016 10:59
 RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES IN THE PIPELINE
courses in family history research.
Aberystwyth University in Wales
has a certificate programme
and Pharos Tutors is celebrating
its 10th anniversary of teaching
genealogy to hobbyists and budding
professional genealogists online.
The future of genealogy can only
get brighter with more education
for family historians.
8
Learn to search smarter
Take a family history course or
study from the ever-growing
number of free online tutorials and
get better at the hobby you love.
Recent changes & choices
The last few years have been
tumultuous ones for the genealogy
community when it comes to desktop
software. In 2013, FamilySearch
discontinued its popular PAF
program. A year later, The Master
Genealogist went into retirement.
Then in a major shakeup, Ancestry
announced in December 2015 that it
would stop selling the popular Family
Tree Maker software.
Since then, although Software
MacKiev, long-time developers of
the Mac version, has taken over the
Family Tree Maker software program,
Ancestry also signed an agreement
with RootsMagic to connect its
software with Ancestry by the
end of 2016. This means
TOP TIP
that users who want to
keep their genealogy
both on their desktop
and in Ancestry Take that upgrade! Keep
your software up to date
Tree will soon have
to ensure your family
a choice of two history remains easy
genealogy programs. exch ang e with fello w
researchers
9
Keep an eye out
Besides the recent
partnership with Ancestry,
RootsMagic already synchronises
with FamilySearch Family Tree
and connects to FamilySearch,
MyHeritage and Findmypast to offer
in-program web hints.
Many other genealogy software
programs such as Legacy Family Tree, demand for records that have not yet
Heredis and Family Historian also
connect to popular online genealogy
databases, a trend that will become
more powerful with time, and one
that can help streamline research,
source records and find relations.
14 Family
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p12-15 BarbaraStarmansFINAL.indd 14
10
Seamless migration
Most of the top genealogy
programs now offer
custom imports for data from other
software, ensuring better exchange
of information. It appears the days of
clumsy GEDCOM imports and data
incompatibility are quickly coming
to an end and the future holds the
promise of seamless migration and
synchronisation between programs
and online trees.
Collaboration &
crowdsourcing
In recent years, the family history
community has come together
with the major genealogy database
providers to complete mammoth
indexing projects, such as the 1940 US
Census and the Preserve the Pensions
Project for the War of 1812 records.
In addition, the FamilySearch
volunteer indexing programme is
going strong. The current statistics
show that 262,868 volunteers have
indexed almost 70 million records
this year on FamilySearch.org alone
with the grand total of community-
indexed records now exceeding
1.3 billion records! Meanwhile,
Findmypast boasts more than 8
billion records in its database and
Ancestry now has almost 33,000
record collections, each with
thousands, millions or even
billions of records and
there are currently over
3.2 billion records in
Ancestry member
family trees.
The British
to Newspaper Archive,
run by Findmypast in
collaboration with the
British Library, now has over
17 million pages from more
than 700 newspapers online.
The National Archives in the UK
has digitised more than 9 million
records of the 32 million records
in its Discovery catalogue at http://
discovery.nationalarchives.gov.
uk and is offering digitisation-on-
been scanned.
Digitisation projects, both small and
large, are underway around the world,
making even more records available in
the comfort of our own homes or on
our phones and tablets.
11
Many hands make
light work!
Volunteer to help with an
online indexing project and help
fellow researchers to find their family
history on the web.
Making it personal
Genealogy in the past was mostly a
collection of names, dates and places
but more recently, the focus has
shifted to collecting family stories
and putting the flesh on the bones of
our forebears.
Television programmes such as Who
Do You Think You Are? and The Secret
History of My Family have inspired
genealogists to enrich their pedigree
charts and family group sheets with
the narrative of their ancestors’
lives and many family historians are
now seeking to unlock the past by
exploring the social history aspects
of genealogy.
12
Make it a family affair
Genealogists are sharing
their research on
FamilySearch, Ancestry, Findmypast,
MyHeritage, The Genealogist,
WikiTree, Geni and countless other
family tree sites around the web.
Services such as Dropbox, Google
Drive, OneDrive and Evernote make
collaborating on family history simple
for everyone.
13
Telling the family story
This desire to save the family
story – not just the factual
details – is a theme here to stay.
14
Take time to be say hello
Facebook pages and groups
dedicated to genealogy
are abundant and are drawing the
younger generation into the fold and
Pinterest boards and other popular
social media websites are attracting
new family historians every day.
15
Shared ownership
It takes time, effort and
money to research your
family tree, and it’s easy to get a bit
possessive about our ancestors. But
the internet is making it easier than
ever, not only to trace our family
trees, but also to link with those of
other family historians. While we
might lose ‘ownership’ of our tree,
www.family-tree.co.uk
12/12/2016 10:59
 Discover the latest techniques & technology

Digitisation projects, both small

and large, are underway around the
world, making even more records
available from the comfort of our own
homes, on our phones and tablets

by pooling skills and resources, new data releases – something And with the 1921 Census release
hopefully everyone will benefit that we will can continue to look just five years away, there are more
(and we would always advise forward to. great records to look forward to...
keeping your own copy of your

18 20
research on your computer too, Major new data releases Over to you
of course). Commercial data How are you going
companies will continue develop your research

16
Time for a timeline
Get the family involved.
Something that Twile.
com, for instance, is all about, with
its new GEDCOM compatibility
allowing you to swiftly create a tree
to add to their vast and vital online
record collections. Sign up to their
newsletters or check out the Family Tree
news pages each issue for a round-up
of latest releases.
in the coming year? Do let us know
your plans – and if you need a spot
of inspiration, check out page 50
for a wonderful crop of New Year
resolutions.

19
(or you can start from scratch), add Government projects
photos and share with relations. 2016 has neared the year’s About the author
end with two particularly

17
Innovator showdown
Twile’s achievements
were recognised in the
RootsTech Innovator Challenge 2016 –
look out for the 3rd annual Innovator
Showdown coming to the event in
February 2017; www.rootstech.org
Data delights
For a hobby that’s all about the
past, genealogy is really in touch
with the present, with each new
week bringing developments and
exciting projects:
• the General Register Office pilot
online indexes and pdf certificate
ordering service – www.gro.gov.uk/
gro/content/certificates
• and the Republic of Ireland’s
Department of Arts, Heritage
Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht
Affairs digitised civil register
collections – https://civilrecords.
irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/
civil-search.jsp
Barbara J Starmans
is a social historian,
writer
fgfg and obsessed
genealogist living in
Richmond Hill, Ontario,
Canada and has been
doing genealogical research for 35
years. She is a graduate of the National
Institute for Genealogical Studies in
Toronto, for whom she now teaches an
intermediate course on social history.
Find Barbara’s website at
www.thesocialhistorian.com

www.family-tree.co.uk January 2017 Family

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 SPARK OFF SOME GREAT FAMILY HISTORY

New year,
new hobby,
new resolutions!
Starting your
family history
In simpl e st eps
Check out our free guides to
starting your family history on our
website. The general guide and
the 4-week research plan (you’ll be
amazed what you can accomplish
in just a few weeks) are the best
places to begin – see:

• http://familytr.ee/Howtobegin Have you been meaning to find out about your

• http://familytr.ee/Howto4weeks
From there branch out and
explore our free guides on the key
records: birth, marriage and death
certificates, and census records.
If you need a hand, just
message or post to our Facebook
page at facebook.com/
familytreemaguk and we’ll be
very happy to help you along with
ancestors and explore another chapter in their
unique stories? Read on with Helen Tovey to
discover why now is the perfect time of year to
learn more about your family’s history. Complete
with New Year resolutions from enthusiastic and
expert genealogists, find inspiration about where
to take your own research next from folk at the
top of the genie tree

I
your family history queries
n the midst of winter –
perhaps inspired by recent
essential trips to see family and
8 free websites with the Christmas chaos
subsiding – I think you’ll agree
• Familysearch.org this is a very good time to settle
• Freegen.org.uk down and do some family history.
• Genuki.org.uk Whether you’re just getting curious
• Genealogy.nationalarchives.ie about tracing your family tree,
• Nls.uk or whether genealogy research
• Llgc.org.uk is a long-time, important part of
• Cyndislist.com your life (we understand that),
• CWGC.org take advantage of the hibernation
season to hunker indoors and travel
back in time to learn about the lives
your ancestors once led.
Chilly weather outside and long
dark evenings provide the perfect
excuse for staying inside. But we’re
not encouraging idleness – far from
it. Your family history is calling you
– and there’s always something new
to learn.
Christmas and New Year are
traditionally popular times for
family gatherings, of course, so,

16 Family
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p16-20 NY ResolutionsFINAL.indd 16 12/12/2016 11:01


Chatting to relations
Talking to your family, especially
members of the older generation,
is an invaluable way to learn clues
about your family history. To make
sure your investigations get off to a
happy start, here are some hints:
• Ask to see old photos – and
you’ll soon fi nd anecdotes and
old tales flowing
given the opportunity, snap up
the chance to chat about the old
days, years gone by, loved ones
and misty-eyed memories. With
your family history detective
hat on, you may notice that
conversations such as these are
packed with precious clues about
the past – so listen up carefully!
Then, armed with new names,
dates and places to learn about, it’s
time to sneak in some screen-time:
check out the major family history
data sites and see whether they
have any New Year subscription
offers running.
And, while thinking of screens…
back on TV for an impressive
13th season, each inspiring
episode of Who Do You Think You
Are? (Thursdays, 8pm BBC One
at the time of writing) provides
unmissable tips about records
to research as we learn from the
celebrity family stories.
Don’t miss the Family Tree brand
new chat sessions running on
Facebook during the hour after
C a n y ou he l p
a ne wbie?
If you’ve got a top tip about
something you wish you’d known
when you started, which could
help someone new to the hobby,
please let us know and we’ll
share it in a future issue
www.family-tree.co.uk
p16-20 NY ResolutionsFINAL.indd 17
• Take along a blank family tree
chart and ask who can help you
fill in any of the ancestors’ names,
dates and places
• Say you’d like to record family
memories and maybe enlist a
child in the family to help you (as
we all know, they’re a dab hand
at technology, and are sure to put
the sitter at their ease)
Who Do You Think You Are? airs each
week (provisionally 9pm-10pm
GMT, but subject to change if the
TV schedule alters!).
Perhaps a genealogy query came
to mind while you were watching
the TV show, or maybe you have
a question about your own family
history, a view to share, a family
history anecdote, or expertise
that fellow family historians would
benefit from? If so, just pop along
to our Facebook page for a good
old family history chin-wag.
Penny-wise research
If you’re watching the pennies,
post-Christmas, you’ll be delighted
to hear that you can do your
family history surprisingly cheaply.
Check out the main free websites
where you’ll find plenty to discover
without parting with a penny. Each
week through January on our blog
at www.family-tree.co.uk we’ll also
be providing family historians with
top money-saving ideas on how to
do family history for free.
Save the dates for 2017
Get all your genealogy jaunts safely
jotted down on your 2017 Family
Tree Year Planner, brought to you
in association with the Society of
Genealogists. You’ll see the dates
of the Society’s talks and events
helpfully noted on the calendar,
which came free with this issue of
the magazine. These events are
open to both members and non-
members and are an excellent way
to learn more and get advice.
New year resolutions are a
Now’s the perfect time
Ne e d an
ance st or c ha
rt ?
Download a free chart from our
website at http://familytr.ee/
chartdownloads or buy a back
issue of our Christmas issue,
which comes with a family history
chart poster (while stocks last),
from our online store at
http://familytr.ee/ft-xmas16
Have a
geneal ogy
ad v e n t u r e
Before you book your holidays
and breaks this year, do some
research, and perhaps you
can tie them in with a
genealogy trip
brilliant way to fire yourself up,
and set your hobby off with a bang
(languishing gym memberships
are perhaps the best testament
to this). But don’t worry, family
history isn’t just a craze – once you
start exploring it, you’ll want to
come back to it again and again,
gradually piecing together the
clues, finding new relations, and
understanding who your ancestors
were, what their lives were like day-
to-day and even the connections
between their experiences and who
you are today and why.
We’ve gathered together new
year resolutions from well-known
genealogists and fans of family
history, each of whom has been
learning about the past for many
years, sometimes even decades,
and still have new things they
want to discover. We hope you
find their plans inspiring, and
would love to hear about your
family history wishes for 2017.
Here’s to a great new year of family
history discoveries...
January 2017 Family
FamilyTree 17
12/12/2016 11:01
 SPARK OFF SOME GREAT FAMILY HISTORY

Keith Gregson
Nearing the finishing line
with two new books...
ab o ut
I am completing two books – one by the time the tall ships Thinkingin
come to Sunderland in 2018 and the other by Remembrance bl o g g g ?
Day 2018. Both are heavy on family tree-style research.
The fi rst covers the careers of eight related Shetlanders
who served on nearly 50 Wearside-built ships, along with Giant genie blogger Chris
those who made the ships and those who owned them. I hope this will Paton will set you on the
give a microcosm of life in a British port in the late 19th century/early path to running your own
20th century. family history blog –
Similarly, my second book covers the WW1 careers of some 250 members see page 36
of Sunderland Cricket and Rugby Football Club who served in the war.
I have covered more than 200 so far and am excited at the prospect of
producing a very different piece of research as most of them served as young
junior officers. There is also fascinating crossover between the two pieces
of research, as many of the young men from the club came from families Chris Paton
involved in some shape or form with shipbuilding or shipping! Tackling
brick walls...
In 2017 I am
going to make
David Frost a specific effort
Writing great-grandfather’s life story to target some long-standing
brick walls in Invernessshire.
Back in 2014 when my great-grandfather’s house was sold One of these is my 2x great-
after 101 years in the family, I inherited all his papers from grandfather, John Brownlee
1882 to 1930 (see Family Tree September 2014). He was a MacFarlane, who was a tailor
professional yacht skipper from 1890 until 1929 and the in both Inverness and Nairn.
papers shed a fascinating light on what went on behind the I’ve never found his birth or
scenes. There was correspondence with the owners for whom he worked, baptism record in Glasgow, but
crew lists, accounts, memorabilia and much more. Despite this wealth of am hoping the poor law records
detail there was still more research to be done. I have spent nearly two in Inverness might help, as I
years in dusty archives reading magazines, books and private papers to know he had a particular set of
fill in the gaps in the archive. The research is nearly finished and my new straitened circumstances at one
year resolution is to start work on a biography. point in his life – I just need
to get to Highland Archives to
explore these!
Similarly, I think I have now
located the estate papers for
the area where my MacGillivray
Mary Evans ancestors were based, in the
All those useful websites... Invernessshire parish of Dores,
The genealogy section in my computer bookmarks located alongside Loch Ness. I
is a lengthy one, consisting as it does of all the main have discovered MacGillivray
websites such as FreeBMD, FamilySearch and the big inhabitants in two farm
subscription websites, together with many others that settlements directly adjacent
are relevant to my research. But I know all about these to my 5x great-grandfather’s
and use them regularly. farm who were involved at the
For years now I’ve been intending to make a note of all those useful Battle of Culloden. The first,
websites that I see in each issue of Family Tree and all the ones I come MacGillivray of Dunmaglass,
across almost by accident when using a search engine. They’re ones, a was a Jacobite clan chief killed
few months later, that I wish I could remember and inevitably have great at the battle, while the second
difficulty finding again. was transported as a prisoner.
This year I must start collecting these. Perhaps not in my bookmarks Was my direct line involved in
as it would become too long to be practical but maybe as a table in a the battle also? It’s about time
Word document or an Excel spreadsheet and hopefully with a useful I found out, so a trip to the
reference system. National Library of Scotland
It would save me time in the long run! is in order!

18 Family
FamilyTree January 2017 www.family-tree.co.uk

p16-20 NY ResolutionsFINAL.indd 18 12/12/2016 11:01


DON ’T MISS
Sometimes poignant,
sometimes funny, always
a gem of a genealogy
read, don’t miss Diane
Lindsay’s regular column
on page 98
Diane Lindsay
Remembering
her childhood
years
2017 has to be the year I finish
the story of my Coventry
childhood, fast slipping into
family history itself with its
bombed buildings, barrage
balloons, rationing and general
austerity, but most precious of
all, memories of family long
since gone of whom I’m the last
living trustee.
I’ve read many autobiographies,
some gripping, some intensely
dull, so I’m speaking in the first
person and present tense, showing
it happen rather than telling it,
writing episodically, like memory
itself. To bring it alive I’m adding
snatches of dialogue, in italics as I
‘hear’ it. For suspense, I’m floating
hints of things to come like little
clouds to my future readers, and
sometimes consciously leaving a
cliff-hanger while I wander off on
a tangent, to make them eager to
turn the page.
Of course I’ll make sure the
facts are true, but it’s my story,
my memories, my interpretation
of events – so I won’t allow a
stern imaginary schoolteacher
to sit on my shoulder shouting
‘spelling mistake!’ or
‘grammatical error!’. My story
is called: ‘How it Was’. It begins
like this: ‘Sun slants on the back
doorstep, workers’ playtime,
buttons and bows, me and
Grandma, shelling peas...’
E
FIND OUT MOR
Don’t miss Tom Wood’s monthly
column, page 22, for his
intriguing round-up of
genealogical oddities
www.family-tree.co.uk
p16-20 NY ResolutionsFINAL.indd 19
Now’s the perfect time
Karen Clare
Preserving precious memories
of a late friend...
A childhood friend died unexpectedly in 2016 and I am
compiling the beautiful in memoriam comments and photos
posted to her Facebook page into a book for her husband
and young children. Much of it is biographical from her
old school, university, work and other friends across the
world, so I hope it will be a treasured heirloom for her
family to remember her by in years to come.
Jayne Shrimpton
Investigating fashion history on her own
family tree...
Dare I say it... although I work in genealogy as a dress
and photo historian, I haven’t actively researched my
own family history. However, last year genealogist Celia
Heritage helped me to begin tentative investigations
into my mother’s family. I particularly wanted to
discover more about my maternal grandmother, Florence Louisa Watson
(née Hill), c1892-66, who died when I was seven. I was often told that that
she had been a court dressmaker by profession and on the 1911 Census
she is described as a ‘dressmaker’ at a ‘costumier’s’. This is very exciting,
but begs the query: was she working for a theatrical costumier (possible:
the family lived in High Holborn, ‘Theatreland’) or, as I had understood,
a court dressmaker creating high end fashions. Terminology is complex:
some sources equate ‘costumier’ with ‘court dressmaker’, although
sometimes it did refer specifically to theatrical costume. I would love to
learn more about Grandma’s career, where she worked and what kind of
garments she made, but without the name of the company that employed
her, there is little to go on. A dress history colleague at the Museum of
London has suggested a trip to the London Metropolitan Archives to see
what, if any, London costumier staff records exist: this is probably a very
long shot, but I’d like to try to pursue this in 2017.
Tom Wood
Making friends while finding family...
It was my late father’s custom on each New Year’s Eve to ask my sister and
I what our resolutions were for the coming year. And as I had just begun
to wonder who some of our ancestors were, I told him that year, that I
was planning to find out more about them. To which he replied, ‘Cousin
Will spent a lot of money years ago and got nowhere with them, so don’t
bother, it’s just a complete waste of time’. Luckily, for once, his advice was
wasted, as I did go ahead with finding out more about our ancestors, and
so made scores of great friends through our wonderful hobby. Indeed one
high point being in 1995, when as editor of the quarterly
Lincolnshire Family History Society magazine I won
the Elizabeth Simpson Award, for the best genealogical
journal that year. Nevertheless it has been the people I
have met over many years that I value most. And even
if you can’t get to family history society meetings, the
chances are that by reading Family Tree regularly, you will
also find many good friends to help you find your elusive
ancestors too.
January 2017 Family
FamilyTree 19
12/12/2016 11:01
 SPARK OFF SOME GREAT FAMILY HISTORY
Andrew Tatham
Starting a new
story...
If you’ve published
a book and want
to get more people
to read it, they say
that you need to
publish another
book. If the second one is any
good then it leads people back to
the fi rst one. So 2017 is the year
I’m going to be publishing One
Shutter Click – How a First World
War Group Photograph Took Over My
Life – the story of how I came first
across the photograph and then
only 21 years later (!) ended up
having an exhibition in a major
museum in Belgium.
As well as the many great stories
that couldn’t be included in the
first book, I’m going to have a go at
definitively answering the questions
that I get asked at the presentations
I give about my project. I’ve still got
half the writing to do and then it
will need to be knocked into shape
ready for publication.
Firstly, however, I’m taking
part in ‘Who Do You Think
They Are?’, an exhibition at the
Forum in Norwich. Following on
from a regular feature in Let’s
Talk magazine, it will be looking
at the place in family history of
old photographs and inspiring
people to make the most of them.
I am aiming to use the Forum
Gallery’s high-tech kit to project an
animation of all 1,250 photographs
I’ve got of the 46 men in my group
photograph, so that you can see
those who grow old alongside those
who grew not old.
A lifetime
labour of love
To learn about Andrew Tatham’s
WW1 project, two decades
in the making, and his book see
www.groupphoto.co.uk
To read his top tips
on publishing and publicising the
book you write, see the Family
Tree how to guides section of our
website (and see news, page 9)
20 Family
FamilyTree January 2017
p16-20 NY ResolutionsFINAL.indd 20
David Annal
Still going
strong 40
Thinking about years on...
writing your I’ve been
family history? researching my
family history for
You’ll have noticed that quite a 40 years and, as
few of our experts’ resolutions you might imagine,
involve writing. If you too are I’ve built up quite
thinking of penning the story a lot of ‘stuff’over the years, from
of your pedigree, don’t miss folders crammed full of sheets
author Rachel Bellerby’s tips of paper, research notes from
on getting this accomplished; trips made to record offices and
with two genealogy books under graveyards decades ago, to digital
her belt (Tracing Your Yorkshire folders on my laptop and a variety
Ancestors and Tracing Your of external drives and CDs.
Leeds Ancestors, both Pen & It’s all there, everything I’ve ever
Sword), hers is note-worthy discovered about my family, but
advice. See page 26 I have to confess that it’s not very
well organised and when someone
contacts me to ask me something
about the family or when I find
some time to do a bit of work on my
Rachel own research, I often struggle to
find the information that I need.
Bellerby
So the new year represents an
Fitting family excellent opportunity to begin the
history into task of rationalising it all, putting
family life... it into better order, and attempting
My mission to create something that I can leave
for 2017 is to for my children. It won’t be a short
‘focus on the journey, not job but I’m going to make a start –
the destination’ and I plan one folder at a time!
to apply this to family history
too. For me, this year’s going
to be all about fitting my
family tree research into
everyday life. So I’ll be
enlisting the help of my kids
to find heirlooms in the
attic, using their IT skills to
create an online scrapbook
project, and exploring
attractions in our local
area to discover more about
what life was like for our
fascinating forebears.
Over to you now!
From sorting out your family history files, to
setting forth on a genealogy road
trip or simply taking that first step to research
your tree, the possibilities are endless, and we’re
sure you’ll have a fascinating time tracing your
ancestors’ lives this coming year. We’ll be right
beside you every step of the way, so why not
join Family Tree magazine today and have every
issue delivered to your home? See page 46 for
details of our latest subscription offer. Enjoy!
www.family-tree.co.uk
12/12/2016 11:01
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Researching
Researching &
Researching &
Researching & Locating
Locating
Your Ancestors
Your Ancestors

& Locating
Locating Your
Howshould
How shouldyou youapproach
approachresearching
researchingyour yourancestors?
ancestors?InInthis
thiswide-
wide-
ranging but
ranging but succinct
succinct guidebook,
guidebook, professional
professional writer,
writer, lecturer
lecturer and
and

Your Ancestors
genealogistCelia
genealogist CeliaHeritage
Heritageoffers
offersexpert
expertadvice
adviceon onhowhowtotoget
getstarted
startedusing
using

Researching &
Researching & Locating
Locating
themain
the mainonline
onlineand
andoffline
offlinerecords,
records,and
andthenthentake
takeresearch
researchfurther
furtherusing
usingaa
varietyofoflesser-known
variety lesser-knownresources.
resources.InInitityou
youwill
willfind
findguidance
guidanceon onsubjects
subjects

Ancestors
including:
Your Ancestors
Ancestors
including:
• •research
researchmethodology
methodologyand
andhow
howtotorecord
recordwhat
whatyou
youfind
find Your
• •key
keyVictorian
Victorianrecords:
records:birth,
birth,marriage
marriageand
anddeath
deathcertificates,
certificates,and
andcensuses
censuses
CeliaHeritage
Celia Heritage
• •maps,
maps,tithe
titheand
andenclosure
enclosurerecords
records

Celia
Celia Heritage
• •parish
parishand
andnonconformist
nonconformistregisters
registers

Heritage
• •gravestones
gravestonesand
andmemorial
memorialinscriptions
inscriptions

• •newspapers
newspapersand
andinquest
inquestrecords
records

• •wills
willsand
andprobate
probate

• •parish
parishchest
chestand
andworkhouse
workhouserecords
records

• •occupational
occupationalrecords,
records,including
includingthe
thearmed
armedforces
forces

• •court
courtand
andmanorial
manorialrecords
records

• •school
schoolregisters.
registers.
Discover
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Your Ancestors
Ancestors

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08/12/2016 11:01
 Dea r Tom

Explore the serious,

sublime and the ridiculous
facets of family history
in this genealogical
miscellany. This issue
Tom Wood uncovers
a furry unique ancestor,
tragic Bermuda
memorials and some
royal connections...

I The Chrysogon
always welcome unusual family
history snippets from readers,
which means I never know
what will land on my desk next.

connection
This issue we return to the puzzling
female Christian name, Grisogon,
which first cropped up in November
Dear Tom when we wondered about its
origins and spelling. Monica Collins (c1627-1658), who married Colonel in these columns. Andrew Newman
of Godshill, Hampshire, kindly got Anthony Hungerford. Mike goes on to tells me his 10x great- grandmother
in touch to point out that Grisigion is say that his late cousin, the Reverend was called Chrisogona Baker. The
listed as a variant of Chrysogon in Alan Greenwaye Knapp, claimed the name daughter of Sir Richard Baker of
Bardsley’s useful reference book, First came from Grisagond – daughter of Sissinghurst, Kent, born in 1573; she
Name Variants (FFHS, 2nd ed 1996). Sir Edward Stradling, Knight – who married a Henry Lennard, Lord Dacre,
Meanwhile, Mike Tewson tells me he married Anthony Porter of Weston and died at Chevening in Kent in 1616
has a few Chrysogons and variants of Subedge in Gloucestershire. – surely the same Chrysogon Baker
this name in his ancestry, alternative Now we move on to one of those and Henry Lennard in Mike’s tree?
spellings of which include Grisagona, coincidences that occasionally turn up Moreover, Andrew tells me his research
Grissagond and Grissogan – he
believes there is no correct spelling!
Mike’s research goes back a long
way and the origins of the name
in his family (he uses Chrysogon
throughout) seem to be with a lady
called Chrysogon Gifford (1523-1563),
who married an Edward Grey. One
of their descendants was Chrysogon
Grey c1592, who later married a Sir
Moreton Brigges c1684. Next comes
a Chrysogon Baker (1573-1616), who
married Baron Henry Lennard. Mike
has a few more Chrysogon relations
in the 1600s, including his 7x great- Filius Populi baptisms of children born to single mothers in Bishop’s Stortford in
grandmother Chrysogon French 1742, sent in by Donald Brett. Note those recorded as ‘by a Dragoon’ in lieu of father

22 Family
FamilyTree January 2017 www.family-tree.co.uk

p22-24 Dear TomFINAL.indd 22 12/12/2016 11:02


has revealed she is our present Prince
William’s 12x great-grandmother! It’s
rare to come across a Dear Tom reader
claiming kinship to our current royal
family, albeit rather distantly, and now
we have two in one! What riches and
what a great way to start the New Year.
By a Dragoon...
As many readers know, I’m always
interested in unusual entries in parish
registers, especially baptisms; so when
Donald Brett dropped me a line recently,
about a register for Bishop’s Stortford,
Hertfordshire, way back in 1742, I was
all ears. Donald said his findings were
‘a remarkable crop of Filius Populi (‘son
of the people’ in Latin) christenings’
and for a short time, I wondered what
he meant. Then the penny dropped: he
was referring to the number of baptisms
of illegitimate children described as ‘Fil
Pop’ – but, even more unusual was that,
in place of a father’s name, were the
words ‘a Dragoon’! Donald has sent in
an extract from a page featuring no less
than seven entries beginning with Fil Pop
and only the mother’s name featured,
with most attributed to ‘a Dragoon’. He
adds that he likes the phrase Fil Pop:
‘It certainly sounds better than what I
have otherwise seen written by some
clergymen’. I quite agree!
No name on birth certificate
While on the subject of recording births,
regulars may recall my amazement,
late last year, at learning of English and
This intriguing birth certificate does not have space for a child’s name
www.family-tree.co.uk
p22-24 Dear TomFINAL.indd 23
Welsh birth certificates issued without a
child’s name, including in more recent
times. Following on from that, Freda
Blincoe has very kindly sent me a copy
of her husband’s birth certificate, dated
31 May 1939. It includes his date of birth
and his gender, but not his name – in
fact, there is not even a space on the
document for a name. As the certificate
was issued a few months before the start
of the Second World War, the reason can
surely not be because it was a wartime
certificate and economies had to be
made? But was it a cheap or even free
way to register a child’s birth? Oddly,
despite there being no space for a
child’s name, those of the informant
and registrar appear in full! If anyone
can shed any light on this certificate,
please do let me know.
Changing a foreign surname
Now with the First World War, Alan
Passmore has been in touch about
British people who changed their
foreign-sounding names during the
hostilities. He mentions Edith Mary
Schweder, the widow of Percy Edward
Richard Schweder, who had two grown
sons at the outbreak of the war. During
the conflict, the Schweders were
subject to some hostility because of
their German surname, despite both
boys serving with Allied forces. One
son was awarded the Military Cross for
conspicuous gallantry, then later lost
his life at the Somme in 1916. Rather
surprisingly, Edith kept her married
Genealogical miscellany
name until the war was nearly over
in 1918, when she and her surviving
son changed Schweder by deed poll
to Firth, her maiden name. There
were probably hundreds of others
who changed their foreign names
(including the Royals), but surely much
earlier than poor Edith did. I wonder if
any reverted to their original surnames
once the war was over?
Big cat diaries
Regular readers may recall my
reference in October to a gentleman
who made his living as a lion tamer in
the 19th century. I’d never come across
lion tamer ancestors before, and I was
pretty sure I wouldn’t again... until Jan
Ellis (née Newcombe) got in touch to
tell me about her 2x great-grandfather
George Newcombe (1836-1890) from
Chelmsford, who was another one!
George worked as a lion tamer in
circuses from 1852 until 1874. Jan
believes he started out at a circus called
Smiths of Drury Lane, when it was
in Chelmsford. He then moved onto
Wombwells Menagerie, and toured
all over the UK. Next he worked at
Prices Circus, and toured Europe; he
even performed a few times in front
of the king and queen of Spain. Then
he was off to the USA, where he was
employed as a lion tamer for about 18
months, before returning to England.
This time, says Jan, George signed an
agreement with Mons Rancy of Brussels
and performed across France, where I
imagine he was a big attraction. On his
return to England, he was employed
with a Mrs Edmunds, also late of
Wombwells, until 1874 when he was
badly mauled in Swindon. That was, Jan
tells me, the end of his career with lions.
I suppose he must have been a pretty
good lion tamer, having lasted for 22
years, before one of the animals got the
better of him. Jan goes on to say that
he went home to Chelmsford and took
up carpentry, which was rather more
sedate than taming lions! Sadly he died
in 1890, when aged only 54, so perhaps
his former dangerous career did catch
up with him prematurely.
A plethora of marriages
I am always keen to hear about ancestors’
multiple marriages, so I was pleased
when Chris Pattison, from Waiake,
North Shore, in Auckland, New Zealand,
dropped me a line. He has come across
January 2017 Family
FamilyTree 23
12/12/2016 11:02
 Dea r Tom
two rather interesting cases of triple
marriages on his family trees. The first
concerns a John Balfour Blythe, of
Dundee in Scotland, who married his
first wife Mary Peat in December 1825,
and they had three children before Mary
died from puerperal fever (childbirth
fever). In 1834 John married his second
wife Marjory Fergusson, and the couple
had five children, one being Chris’s
great-grandfather. However, Marjory
died in 1855 and later that year John
married for a third time, to Christina
Couttie, and fathered a further four
children. John survived into his 84th
year, before dying of senile decay,
and Chris comments, ‘with that many
children, one may not be surprised’.
Chris’s grandmother also married
three times. Her first marriage was to
someone of Irish extraction who was
apparently ‘from the wrong side of the
tracks’. Chris says her father, who was
a police inspector and mason, appears
to have frowned upon the relationship,
so much so that, upon attaining her
majority, she left for South Africa, where
she met up with her paramour and
married him. The marriage, however,
ended in divorce after one child. Chris’s
grandmother then married again in
South Africa and had one more child,
Chris’s mother. Sadly, she was widowed,
and her final husband was known to
the family as ‘Smithy’. They remained
together until parted by her death.
Another interesting thing about
her three husbands was that the first
was Catholic, the second Church of
England and the last one was Jewish.
This meant as a family they enjoyed the
usual Christian festivals but, come Easter
time, they had Matzos on the table too.
‘The diversity of our family was really
refreshing,’ adds Chris.
Making her mark
Talking of marriages, I couldn’t resist
including the following contribution
from Peter Cope. He was taken aback
to find a marriage witness in 1931, with
just ‘her mark’ against her name in the
register. Peter is puzzled because, he says,
24 Family
FamilyTree January 2017
p22-24 Dear TomFINAL.indd 24
by the 1930s, surely everyone
could write their name?
Bermuda memorials
Now here’s something
terribly sad. I am, of
course, talking about
another memorial for
children. I must begin by
thanking Hilary Tulloch, who
came across the following family
memorial while living in Bermuda,
where she recorded and transcribed
several hundred memorials in the
historic cemeteries for the Bermuda
National Trust. The island was home to
a large royal dockyard, which serviced
ships of the British North Atlantic Fleet
during the 19th century and much of
the 20th century, so many British sailors,
soldiers and civilian employees and
their families are commemorated in
Bermuda’s cemeteries. Hilary has picked
these details from a memorial placed
by the Martin family, which reads: ‘In
Memory of Harriet Anne, daughter of
John and Elizabeth Robina Martin. Born
24 October 1847, Died 9 May 1848. And
of John, their third son. Born 23 June
1845. Died 25 December 1848. Also of
William, their eldest son, who died in
Scotland 2nd September 1848, Aged
7 years and 3 months. And of James
Horsburgh, their second son, who died
in Scotland 7 December 1857. Aged 13
years 10 months. Also of Helen, their
fourth daughter, Born 31 January 1854,
Died 9 May 1858. Also of Andrew, their
fourth son. Born 10 June 1856. Died 14
September 1864. Buried at Port’s Island.’
Hilary has always thought it very sad
that five of John and Elizabeth Robina
Martin’s six children died so far from
their Scottish homeland. She also went
to the Port’s Island Cemetery and found
the grave there of the couple’s last son
Andrew (also mentioned above). His
memorial is inscribed: ‘In memory of
Andrew. Fourth son of Martin and ER
Martin. Born 10 June 1856, Died 14
December 1864.’
More inscriptions can be found in the
book, Bermuda Memorial Inscriptions by
HR and RC Tulloch (published by the
Bermuda National Trust and Bermuda
National Museum, 2011). What a
splendid record that must be.
What’s a fitterup?
Mike Casselden is hoping a fellow
reader can solve a mystery. When his 2x
The Martin family memorial in Bermuda
great-grandfather Robert Jones, an iron
moulder, married Harriet Williamson
at Manchester Cathedral in 1838, his
father, John Jones, was described as a
‘fitterup’. Mike’s struggling to discover
what this job was. Suggestions include
someone who cut cloth for a tailor;
somebody working in the leather trade,
or an individual who installed machinery
in factories, though I don’t think there
were too many of those around in 1838.
Let’s hope someone can offer an answer.
Time to go
Roy Hurst OBE has a unique tale to tell
us about his grandfather, Richard Hurst,
and his three sons, Ralph, Arthur and
Roy’s father, Harry (the youngest son),
who all died at the age of 92. Indeed,
Roy believes his father Harry, ‘switched
himself off’, as the last thing he said
Images: Illustration © Ellie Keeble for Family Tree; Bermuda memorial © Hilary Tulloch; certificate © Freda Blincoe
to his daughter was, ‘How old am I,
B(arbara)?’. She replied, ‘92, Dad’, and
his response was, ‘It’s about time I wasn’t
here’. He died two days later of ‘old
man’s friend’ (bronchial pneumonia).
I imagine it is unusual for a number
of relatives to die at the same age. Roy
wonders if he will follow the trend and
adds, ‘watch this space!’.
And on that note, wishing everyone a
healthy and happy New Year!
About the author
Tom Wood was a founder member of
Lincolnshire Family History Society and was
its first, award-winning, magazine editor. As
well as contributing to Family Tree from its
early days, Tom also edited the Federation of
Family History Societies’ magazine and wrote
An Introduction to British Civil Registration.
A member of the SoG and Guild of One-
Name Studies, he is still researching the
family names, Goldfinch and Shoebridge.
www.family-tree.co.uk
12/12/2016 11:02
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 TALES WORTH TREASURING
SIMPLE
STEPS TO A
SUCCESSFUL
STORY

So, you’ve made a good start on tracing your family tree and found some
fascinating ancestors, what next? Rachel Bellerby shows you how to write up
the history of your family to share with your relatives
Y
ou may be lucky enough to
remember tales that your
parents or grandparents
have told you, perhaps
about their own life experiences,
or maybe of stories that have been
passed down to them from even
earlier generations. If you have some
great family anecdotes and accounts,
26 Family
FamilyTree January 2017
p26-27 NewbieFINAL.indd 26
consider writing them down for your
own descendants to enjoy.
Even if family anecdotes for your
ancestors are thin on the ground, you
can still write up your family history
by using your own memories as a
starting point.
The planning stage
Whether you’re aiming to produce
a small booklet or a complete family
record book, the basics are the same:
Layout tips
• Consider using an index to help
readers locate a particular topic
• List your sources
• Have a ‘further reading’ section
for books you found helpful
make a plan before you start to write.
First of all, who’s your intended
audience? If you’re writing for
relatives, you can stick largely to
featuring your own ancestors and
their immediate environment.
However, if you hope to appeal to a
wider readership, you might want to
include some local history.
For simplicity, it’s usually better to
concentrate on either your maternal
or paternal line. Organise your
research notes so that you can decide
on a timeframe, the number of
ancestors and different themes.
Starting to write
Before you begin, take a moment to
consider your reader. You’re going
to be taking the bare facts from
certificates, censuses, directories,
etc, and weaving these into an
appealing account. A good way to
www.family-tree.co.uk
12/12/2016 11:04
 It’s time to put pen to paper

start your story is to begin at an Expert tips

exciting moment.
Opening with words such as ‘Alice
Hemingway was born on 1 October Gill Blanchard, author of Writing Your Family History
1940’ will do little to engage your (Pen & Sword), advises:
reader. Instead, a few extra words to
put that fact into context could make
all the difference: ‘Alice Hemingway • Start by making a simple list of key events about
made her entry into the world on a particular person or event such as their birth,
1 October 1940, in a busy hospital marriage, or change of job. Next, write these facts
which was struggling to operate out as sentences or short paragraphs onto separate
during the London blitz.’ pages. This will very quickly give you a framework
You don’t have to write the story around which to write the whole story
as an exact chronology; consider
whether the tale of your ancestors • Create a timeline for each ancestor as a means of
might be better arranged into organising your research before you start writing.
themed chapters such as marriage, Note any gaps in knowledge that need following up.
childhood, working life, etc. You This will enable you to decide whether to do any
could also include details of local additional research
or national events to put the lives of
your ancestors into context. Gill runs family history e-courses at:
For example, say which monarch www.writingyourfamilyhistory.co.uk
was on the throne when an ancestor
was born, or how many people lived
in your home village at the time your
great-grandparents set up home
there. Remember, not all of your
readers will share your enthusiasm for
dates, so ‘softer’ details such as local
news, popular songs of the time and
styles of dress will enliven the text.
You could also include excerpts
from sources such as letters and
diaries – allowing your ancestors to
speak for themselves. And don’t be
afraid to include the ‘black sheep’
among your ancestors – people’s
faults and failings are another way of
bringing the story to life. Having said
that, beware of including information
which affects people who are still
alive and could be upset by the
family’s story.
Finally, don’t forget to include
information about yourself and
your family, so that the story can be
continued by your own descendants.
grammatical errors. You can then About the author
The finished product consider which illustrations would
Once you’ve completed your story, help bring the text to life. Photos, Rachel
fgfg Bellerby’s family
if possible pass it on to a friend letters, tickets and certificates can history journey began when
or relative who can check it for all help brighten up the pages and she was given a family tree
allow your reader to literally picture chart as a 10-year-old,
the family’s story. setting her off on the quest
Read up on it When you’ve printed your fi nal to discover her ancestors,
version, consider depositing a copy whose occupations range
• Writing Your Family History, Gill with your local family history society, from lady’s maid to mill architect. She is the
Blanchard (Pen & Sword, 2014) particularly if you’ve included author of Tracing Your Yorkshire Ancestors
Images: pixabay

• Write Your Life Story, Michael Oke a large number of ancestors, as and Tracing Your Leeds Ancestors (both
(Hachette UK, 2011) your work may help someone else Pen and Sword) and FT’s Digital Editor.
researching the same surname.

www.family-tree.co.uk January 2017 Family

FamilyTree 27

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 LEGAL KNOW-HOW FOR FAMILY HISTORIANS

Laying Don’t let your family history research fall

victim to a lack of knowledge of the law

down
in times gone by in England and Wales; a
little legal know-how can go a long way in
helping you to understand some of the key
happenings in your ancestors’ lives and

the law
may even help you solve some
family history puzzles. Legal eagle
Christine Wibberley makes her case

7 KEY
A
ll readers will know something about the seven chosen
topics overviewed here. What is not always realised is how

TOPIC S TO
the law, or sometimes our ancestors’ ignorance of it, had
unexpected and far reaching consequences for them

AID YOUR and their families, nor how the law


RESEARCH
changed over time.
Newspapers and the law reports are
full of instances, some quasi comical
and others downright tragic, where
lives were changed or even ruined by
the workings of the laws of the time.

1
Illegitimacy
‘The state of being born to parents not married to each other’,
has been not only frequently a social disgrace for mother and
child but had serious financial consequences. The illegitimate
child was the child of nobody and could not inherit on the
intestacy of either parent or other relatives and only his own legitimate
heirs could benefit on his intestacy.
If a testator having both legitimate and illegitimate children left a
legacy ‘to all my children’, illegitimate children were excluded and wills
including illegitimate children needed to be carefully worded.

Images: background © Sergi Moscaliuk, will © Brian Jackson both Adobe Stock; court order © Wellcome Library,
In 1916 a case (Re Homer 115 LT 703) was decided where a man,
knowing his unmarried partner with whom he had several children was
pregnant with their child, added a clause to his will leaving property to
London, copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0
any other child he and his partner might have. The child born shortly
after his death was excluded from the inheritance as paternity could
not be proved and the law prevented any enquiry about it.
Under the Legitimacy Act 1926 a mother could inherit on the
intestacy of her illegitimate child and the child on the intestacy of his
mother, but only if she had no surviving legitimate children. Progress
was made by the Family Law Act 1969 giving the illegitimate child An 1893 court order against veterinary surgeon
equal rights with his legitimate siblings to inherit on the intestacy of Joseph William Hewson, of Carlisle, to
either parent, and the father rights to inherit on the intestacy of his answer the charge that he is the father of the
illegitimate child (though this did not extend to inheritance to or from illegitimate daughter of Isabella Bowleswell
other relatives). The 1926 Act also provided for the legitimation of
illegitimate children on the marriage of their parents provided neither Read up on it
parent was married to a third party at the time of the birth. In 1959
the law was changed so that all illegitimate children became legitimate My Ancestor Was A Bastard by Ruth Paley
on the subsequent marriage of their parents. The Family Law Reform (Society of Genealogists, 2011) is an expert
Act 1987 abolished any distinction between legitimate and illegitimate guide for family historians on sources for
except in relation to claims for British citizenship and hereditary titles. illegitimacy in England and Wales

28 Family
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 Research & resolve those family scandals

2
Bigamy
The act of entering into a marriage with one person
while still legally married to another is a criminal
offence carrying a maximum term of imprisonment
of seven years in England, Wales and Scotland.
A bigamous marriage is and has always been absolutely void
and of no effect, as cruelly demonstrated by the 1753 case of
Cochrane v Campbell: a woman, married in church 30 years
earlier, on the death of her ‘husband’ found herself penniless
and her children illegitimate when a successful claim was
made by a wife who had undergone a previous secret – but
at the time valid – marriage with the deceased. While
Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753 ended the spectre of the
clandestine marriage, it was not until the Legitimacy Act 1926
that a child of a void marriage, which one or both parents
believed to be valid, was legitimate.
A bigamous marriage may not always be easy to identify, as demonstrated From 1835, it was illegal – but certainly
by a court case from June 1869, reported in the Liverpool Albion. Facing a not unheard of – for ancestors to marry a
charge of bigamy, John Miller’s successful defence was that his first wife late spouse’s sibling. Any such marriages
was his mother’s brother’s widow, and therefore, his aunt. As he was, at the could be declared null and void
time, forbidden to marry her, this first marriage was void and he escaped a
conviction for bigamy.

3
Marriage
Marriage and its records are, of course, a key source for family historians. Read up on it
However, pitfalls encountered – sometimes, it appears, unwittingly – make
for some compelling stories. • Marriage Law for Genealogists: The
Readers may have come across an incidence in their family history where Definitive Guide (revised 2nd ed, 2016)
one party to a marriage dies and the widowed party (usually the husband), marries a • Divorced, Bigamist, Bereaved?: The
sibling of the deceased. What is sometimes not realised, usually because the second family historian’s guide to marital
marriage continued until the death of one party, is that from 1835 Lord Lyndhurst’s breakdown, separation, widowhood,
Act made any such second marriage, ‘null and void’. Often such marriages appear to and remarriage: from 1600 to the
have had the blessing of families and the officiating clergyman. 1970s (2015)
On 3 July 1896 the Sheffield Daily Telegraph reported that, a no doubt startled, Mr Both by Professor Rebecca Probert;
Tom Orwell was told by a judge his divorce petition against his wife of 13 years was visit Takeaway Publishing at www.
pointless as she was the sister of the late first Mrs Orwell, and the second marriage takeawaypublishing.co.uk/genealogy
non-existent. Costs were ordered against Mr Orwell.
More tragic was the case of the wealthy Mr Book who, knowing of the prohibition,
Images: background © Sergi Moscaliuk, will © Brian Jackson both Adobe Stock; court order © Wellcome Library,

in 1850 married the sister of his late wife in Denmark, where such marriages were
permitted. After Mr and Mrs Brook died within two days of each other it was held
that, though the marriage was valid in Denmark, because the Brooks had an
London, copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0

English domicile they could not contract such a marriage; the three children of
Mr Brook’s second marriage were illegitimate and inherited nothing. (Brook v
Brook 1861, HLC 193.)
The situation changed in 1907, but only for widowers wishing to
marry their sisters-in-law. Widows wishing to marry brothers-in-law
had to wait until 1921.
Sometimes what may appear to be a minor infringement of the
law may give rise to a question as to the validity of a marriage.
In the 1924 case of a Miss Clark and Mr Roper, the Bishop of
St Albans declared their marriage void on the basis that they
were married after 3pm, being the latest time of day they could
have wed. The newlyweds were on honeymoon in Margate
when the Bishop gave his opinion. On 31 July 1924 the Lancashire
Evening Post reported they had gone through a second ceremony the
previous Saturday, three days after the original, and that the first entry
in the register of Little Heath Church had been marked ‘see below’. The
Dundee Courier had reported on 26 July the vicar had travelled to Margate, found the
honeymooners, and brought them back to Little Heath.

www.family-tree.co.uk January 2017 Family

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 LEGAL KNOW-HOW FOR FAMILY HISTORIANS

4
Change of name
QU I C K T I P
In these days where documentary proof is required for almost everything,
it is often erroneously assumed that a deed poll or declaration is required
for an individual to change their name. However, provided there is no
You can free
intention to defraud, anyone may change their name and simply use the ly search T
Gazette – th he
new name in place of the former name; the change being effected by the use of e newspap
of official p er
the name, not by making a declaration or deed poll. Researchers may therefore ublic record
for deed po –
ll no
find an individual under a new name without any evidence of the change of name, www.thegaz tices at
ette.co.uk
that is if they are lucky because, of course, one of the reasons for ‘losing’ someone
in the records is them being listed under a different name from that expected.
Given yet more luck, a record of an enrolment of a deed poll in the Supreme Court
with a consequential notice in the London Gazette, or even simply a notice in the London
Gazette or local newspaper, may be unearthed. What is unlikely to be found, unless with family
papers, is any original deed poll or declaration.

Read up on it
Researching Adoption: An essential
guide to tracing birth relatives
and ancestors by Karen Bali
(The Family History Partnership, 2015);
www.thefamilyhistorypartnership.com
5
Adoption
Before 1926, informal adoptions of a child took
place frequently. Sometimes children are indicated
in censuses as being adopted, taken in by a couple or
individual and brought up as their own. However, such
arrangements had no legal endorsement and if, as sometimes
happened, the natural parent demanded the return of the
child, the adopters were powerless to prevent it. The security or
otherwise of the arrangement depended upon the ability and
wish of the natural parent to take the child back.
The Adoption of Children Act 1926 made adoption legally
recognised as a permanent and legally binding transfer of some
aspects of parentage but did not change the inheritance rights
of the adopted child, and had no effect
on the prohibited degrees of marriage.
While legislation in the intervening
years provided safeguards for children
being placed, it was not until the
QU I C K T I P
Find out m
Adoption Act 1949 that adoption ore about tr
acing
adopted ch
as we know it today was introduced. ildren by re
the brief Nat ading
This is the concept that the adopted ional Archive
research gui s
child is treated as the natural child de at
http://family
of the adopters, save in relation to tr.ee/
adoptionsg
dispositions of property made before uide
the adoption order, and hereditary titles.

Step-by-step guide

FINDING
A WILL
Follow our easy guide to tracking down a
will after 1858 and ordering a copy online

1 Visit https://probatesearch.service.gov.
uk/#wills and choose which database to
use; input the relevant surname and year
2 Press search and scroll
through the results

of death into the search field

30 Family
FamilyTree January 2017 www.family-tree.co.uk

p28-32 WibberleyFINAL.indd 30 12/12/2016 11:05

 Research & resolve those family scandals

Where to find wills

Wills can prove a really fruitful
source for family historians. To
find probate records for people
who died in or after 1858 in
England and Wales, visit the UK
Government’s Find a Will beta
site at https://probatesearch.
service.gov.uk/#wills where
you can search copies online or
by post and they cost £10 each

QU I C K T I P to order. From here you can

also search for wills from 1996
Find out m to present, and soldiers’ wills
ore
before 1858 about wills 1850-1986.
by consultin
The Nationa g Find out more at http://
l Archives’
http://family guide; familytr.ee/willsprobate
tr.ee/TNAw
ills The National Probate Calendar
1858-1995 can also be found
on Ancestry at www.ancestry.
co.uk/cs/uk/probate

6
Inheritance
In 1925 a revolution in the law of inheritance
on intestacy was brought about with the
Administration of Estates Act, which overturned
some concepts originating in the feudal system.
Before 1925 the passing of land on intestacy was governed
by the Inheritance Rules, the basis of which was the right
of the eldest son to inherit land with variations in some
geographical areas and where a deceased had no sons.
Pre-1925 a separate set of rules applied to personal
property, that is property other than land, on intestacy
which had become enshrined in the Statute of Distributions
1760 and provided for distribution to be made as now to
both spouses and children.
Prior to 1925, the Intestates’ Estates Act 1890 provided
for a statutory legacy of £500 to widows only and the 1925
Act increased this to £1,000 for both widows and widowers.
The importance of the 1925 Act was the introduction of the
system we have today whereby real and personal property is
treated in the same way on intestacy, with the spouse or civil
partner having the first bite of the estate and, in default of
eligible relatives, the Crown having the last where an estate
is bona vacantia (see point 7).
Inheritance may also be by will, wills providing some
of the most interesting and informative sources for
family historians. By Common Law, a man could only
dispose of the whole of his personal property by will if he
had no wife or children, but the law gradually changed
until there was freedom to dispose of the whole of the
personal estate by will.
Different and complex provisions applied to land, which
could be left by will or not at different times in history
and it was not till 1540, following the Statute of Wills, that
freehold land could be left by will, though copyhold land
could not be left until 1815. The Wills Act 1837 affected the
contents (and also the form) of wills and provided that all
land, however held, could be left by will.

3 When you find the required person, fill in the details using the index
and click Add to Basket, then you can either Proceed to checkout or
go Back to search results
4 Check the details of the will you are ordering,
then Proceed to check out to purchase it for
a £10 fee. If you don’t have a user account
already, you will need to register for one

www.family-tree.co.uk January 2017 Family

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 LEGAL KNOW-HOW FOR FAMILY HISTORIANS

Read up on it
The Wills of our Ancestors:
A Guide for Family and Local Historians
by Stuart A Raymond (Pen and Sword,
2012); www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

Much like today, Acts of Parliament

7
affected key moments in our
ancestors’ lives
Bona vacantia
Latin meaning literally ‘ownerless goods’, bona
vacantia refers to unclaimed property which passes
to the Crown (or, if the property is in Cornwall
or Lancashire, to the relevant Duchy). Though
bona vacantia can arise in several ways, family historians
will usually encounter the situation in relation to the
QU I C K T I P
estates of deceased persons where there is no legal next Learn more
about claim
of kin who is entitled to the estate. The class of relations referring an ing or
unclaimed
by visiting w estate
who can claim on intestacy has changed over time but ww.gov.uk
before the Legitimacy Act of 1926 (above) the estate of an /unclaimed
-estates-
bona-vaca
intestate unmarried illegitimate person without legitimate ntia
descendants would have always passed to the Crown.
The law, as ever, could appear to operate oddly, as in
the case reported in the Yorkshire Post of 6 October 1934
concerning the estate of a Mrs Swarbrick, who had been
murdered by her son, the sole beneficiary under her will,
before he committed suicide. There were several claimants, About the author
relations of the murderer and his mother, but it was held Christine
fgfg Wibberley is
that none of them could inherit. The reasoning was that a family historian and
because the murderer had survived his mother, any claim researcher and a member
by the relatives would have been through the son. The son of AGRA. She is also a non-
could not have inherited because, as a matter of public practising solicitor and was
policy, a murderer could and cannot inherit from his victim formerly in practice for more
and it would have been against public policy for those than 35 years specialising in
claiming through the son to benefit from his crime. Family Law, Probate Disputes and
Land Law. Her website is at
http://christinewibberley.co.uk

32 Family
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DIGGING DEEPER
Twiglets
I
’m not usually one for New Year
resolutions, as my feeble attempts
rarely last beyond the middle of
January. But the arrival of Ann
Ashurst’s death certificate has sparked
an idea for one even I might be able
to stick to – treating myself to a BMD
certificate a month, or at least every
other month. Somewhere, I’ve a long list
of loose ends that need tying up, and
who knows where they might lead.
So, who is the Ann Ashurst who died
in Chorlton registration district in the
December quarter of 1840? Is it my 4x
great-grandmother? Well, the name’s
correct – ‘Ann Ashurst, late of Gay Street’
– so, as usual, my eye then goes straight
to the column for the informant of the
death. With any luck this will be her son
Samuel, my 3x great-grandfather. He’s
the one who died of cholera in 1847, but
he was living in or around Silver Street
at the start of the decade. If it’s not him,
then the informant might be one of
his three surviving sisters. I’ve even got
ahead of myself by checking out their
married names (of which more later...),
so we’re all set.
Oh. Informant: ‘The mark of Martha
Heathcote, present at the death, 42
Queen Street, Manchester.’ Who the
heck is Martha Heathcote? Please don’t
say I’ve got the wrong Ann Ashurst.
Ah no, hang on, it’s OK. Occupation
box to the rescue with ‘Widow of
Samuel Ashurst, cordwainer’. So it is
my Ann, phew!
Ann Ashurst was aged 67, and died
of dropsy on 27 November 1840. All
fine, but I’m still a bit puzzled that
none of her children registered their
mother’s death. I have a quick look for
this Martha on the 1841 Census and
find a 50-year-old Martha Heathcot ‘of
independent means’, on Queen Street,
but it sheds no light on the mystery.
Is there any more to find out about
Ann, or have we come to the end of
the road? Well, it’s a long shot, but it
would be nice to discover something
about the 30-year gap between
1810, when her husband Samuel
(cordwainer and landlord of the Blue
Bell Inn) died, and 1840.
At www.findmypast.co.uk I
www.family-tree.co.uk
p33 TwigletsFINAL.indd 33
Diarist Gill Shaw charts the rollercoaster
Caring for your memories
ride of researching her family history
input Ann Ashurst,
Manchester, no dates,
and net a mere 45
results. Many are too
early or too late to be
our Ann, but there’s a cluster of returns
between 1825 and 1834 from my old
friend the Manchester Rate Books
collection. Hmm, I wonder...
The first three years relate to an
address on Cowcell Street, the next to
Edge Street, but these make no sense
until I open up the old and new maps
of the city from http://manchester.
publicprofiler.org – aha, here’s Edge
Street (still there!), running off High
Street, and just two along from the
corner of Turner Street where the Blue
Bell pub stood.
The last three results are for 1832-
1834, and well, who’d have thought
it – Queen Street! Ann Ashurst lived at
number 29, perhaps just across the road
from Martha Heathcote. Oh wonderful,
I love it when things link up like this!
Martha, who registered Ann’s death,
was a former neighbour, probably a
friend. And Ann would have known
this area well. Queen Street runs off
Deansgate, and is just along from St
Ann’s Church where her and Samuel’s
children were baptised.
Clicking through to the rate book
images, I soon spot Ann, then a Richard
Heathcoate a few lines below. He’ll
be Martha’s husband (and there was
a 15-year-old Richard on that 1841
Census too). My death certificate
mystery is solved!
Next, I’m afraid I have to do a bit
of backtracking with regard to Ann’s
parents, the Blue Bell ‘mine hosts’
John and Elisabeth/Betty Harrop,
the lady who was buried inside
Manchester Cathedral.
I jumped the gun a couple of issues
ago, when I reckoned I’d found their
marriage at St Mary’s Prestwich in
1768. I wasn’t totally happy with it, to
be honest, as Betty Hall and John were
both from Oldham, not Manchester.
But amid my recent toing and froing
with the Harrops and Ashursts, I’ve
since come across something much
more likely.
The marriage record for John Harrop
and Betty/Elizabeth Lees/Loos at
Manchester Cathedral, 1770
The mistake I made was in looking
out for a Betty, because that was the
name given at Ann’s baptism – in fact,
it wasn’t until I found that cathedral
burial that ‘Mrs Elisabeth Harrop’
came into play at all. So I was cock-a-
hoop when I found this...
Married at the cathedral on April
Fools Day 1770 were John Harrop, a
sawyer, and ‘Betty otherwise Elizth’
Lees/Loos or, as the transcript has it,
Sees. I don’t think I’ve ever seen two
forenames and an ‘otherwise’ in a
register before, and it just adds to my
fascination with Mrs H.
I can’t quite decipher that surname
though, so suggestions welcome (see
above)! Lees would be the most obvious
(and probably the most prolific,
unfortunately) but she’s certainly worth
a search sometime I’ve a week to spare.
I’m torn now. New lines are calling,
but there are still loose ends to tie
up here. Not to mention the fact
that that trio of 4x great-aunts I
mentioned earlier – daughters of
Ann and Samuel – married men with
cracking names: John Blackshaw (OK,
that one’s pretty normal), Bradshaw
Ramsbottom (sounds like a cotton
mill worker from North and South),
and Richard Muleman Chiswell (who
sounds like he could be the mill
owner!). They might be fun, mightn’t
they? Decisions, decisions...
About the author
fgfg
Gill Shaw is editor of Dogs
Monthly magazine and former
assistant editor of Practical
Family History. She lives in
Cambridgeshire and loves
singing, walking and tracking
down elusive ancestors.
January 2017 Family
FamilyTree 33
12/12/2016 12:33
 Books
Maritime tragedies
THE WRECK OF
THE SS LONDON
by Simon Wills
The Victorians were
sadly used to frequent
news of lives lost at sea
but the sinking of the
SS London en route
to Australia from England in 1866 was
particularly shocking for the large death
toll on what was believed to be a luxury
liner. At least 234 people died, including
several well-known personalities at the
time. Prompted by his purchase from
an antique shop of a cartes de visite from
the 1860s, picturing three survivors,
maritime genealogist and Family Tree
contributor Simon Wills set about
researching the SS London’s story in
depth. Some 10 years on, the result is
this richly detailed book, published 150
years after the disaster, in which readers
are transported back to ‘the dangerous
world of Victorian ships’, when vessels of
the British Empire traversed the world’s
seas, with scant regard to safety by
shipowners, which in turn was ignored
by officialdom.
By unearthing records relating to the
disaster from across the globe, including
the crew and passenger list from
Canada’s Maritime History Archive,
Simon weaves together a comprehensive
history of the London, the tragedy, its
aftermath and many of those involved in
its long-forgotten story.
• ISBN: 9781445656540. RRP £15.99,
paperback. Amberley Publishing
THE DAY THE
NAZIS CAME
by Stephen R
Matthews
By the time he turned
seven, Stephen R
Matthews had been
bombed by the Luftwaffe and
34 Family
FamilyTree January 2017
p34-35 BooksFINAL.indd 34
THE LOST STORY
OF THE WILLIAM
& MARY
by Gill Hoffs
Still with a seafaring
theme, family history
researcher Gill Hoffs,
author of The Sinking of
RMS Tayleur, also has shipwrecks in her
sights as she investigates the bizarre tale
of the emigrant ship, William and Mary,
which was wrecked in the Bahamas while
sailing to New Orleans from Liverpool
in 1853 with 208 British, Irish and Dutch
passengers on board. The American
captain Timothy Stinson – the ship
owner’s son-in-law – and most of the crew
stole away in lifeboats, killing at least two
emigrants with a hatchet as they fled,
before reporting the ship sunk and all
on board lost. In fact, the passengers had
managed to keep the ship afloat until
being heroically rescued by wreckers
as the ship sank beneath shark-infested
waves. More than 160 years later, this
incredible story has resurfaced as Gill
Hoffs dons her detective hat to uncover
the truth of the emigrants’ terrifying
experience and the captain and
crew’s cowardice and lies, which went
unpunished. Using a variety of sources
such as contemporary newspaper
reports, letters and diaries, plus
information from descendants, she has
pieced together a remarkable tale of its
time and ours.
• ISBN: 9781473858244. RRP £19.99,
hardback. Pen & Sword
deported from his home in Nazi-
occupied Guernsey to a concentration
camp in Hitler’s Third Reich with his
family. He saw and experienced real
horror, and yet his innocent child’s
eye view of the world endured and he
discovered kindness in the unlikeliest
of places, even having his life saved by
a German deputy camp commander.
When the Matthews finally returned
to the Channel Islands, their home
had changed beyond recognition.
Yet links have been maintained over
the generations with the people
of Biberach, where the family was
interned with many others, including,
towards the end of the war, Jewish
inmates on the brink of death,
who they helped to care for. In this
life-affirming memoir, Matthews
delves into his memories, mother’s
diaries and old photos to reveal
extraordinary stories of ordinary
civilians who were forced to make a
life in a Nazi WW2 prison camp.
• ISBN: 9781786061287. RRP £7.99,
paperback. John Blake Publishing
THE MITFORD
FAMILY by
Hugh Mitford
Raymond
Discover the
colourful history
of the Mitford
family from
Northumberland, where a succession
of lords and squires from 1042 to
2002 oversaw Mitford Castle, Mitford
Manor, Mitford Hall, Mitford Church
and surrounding farmlands. Using
family archives, South African-born
Hugh Mitford Raymond – 2x great-
grandson, nephew and cousin to the
last seven Mitford squires – writes the
previously untold story of his family
and the tragic end of a dynasty.
• ISBN: 9781903506448. RRP £16.99,
hardback. Zymurgy Publishing
EPSOM AND
EWELL 100TH
ANNIVERSARY
OF THE BATTLE
OF THE SOMME
1916-2016
by Clive Gilbert
This 52-page booklet
has been produced to honour the
45 men who died at the Somme
and whose names appear on
www.family-tree.co.uk
12/12/2016 12:34

Epsom’s Ashley Road and Ewell’s St
Mary’s Churchyard war memorials.
It includes brief biographies and
photographs along with details such
as trench maps, Pals Battalions,
Victoria Crosses and campaign
medals. Find more details at www.
epsomandewellhistoryexplorer.org.
uk/WarMemorials.html
• RRP £5 inc UK p&p (£7.50
overseas), booklet. Epsom and Ewell
Local and Family History Centre.
Available from Bourne Hall Museum
shop; email bhallmuseum@gmail.com
THE
WINCHESTER:
LEGEND OF
THE WEST by
Laura Trevelyan
New York-based BBC
journalist Laura
Trevelyan tells the
compelling story of her Winchester
and Bennett ancestors and their ties to
the extraordinary history of the iconic
American Winchester 1873 rifle, ‘the
gun that won the West’. Her shirtmaker-
turned-gun manufacturer 3x great-
grandfather Oliver Winchester founded
the hugely successful Winchester
Repeating Arms Company in the 1860s;
Trevelyan’s insight into this family
business sheds light, not only on the rise
and fall of its fortunes, but on the key
role it played in America’s pioneering
past and the enduring myth of the West
against the brutal reality of history.
This is an ordinary family whose lives
impacted not just on the story of a young
nation but on the history of the world.
• ISBN: 9781780764696. RRP £20,
hardback. IB Taurus & Co
IN THEIR OWN WORDS:
UNTOLD STORIES OF THE
FIRST WORLD WAR
by Anthony Richards
Read personal accounts of 11 people
who lived through WW1, gleaned
Data downloads
These new downloads covering
Durham parish records are available
from S&N Genealogy Supplies:
Whickham Parish Records 1579-
1812 and 1579-1812; Whorlton Parish
Registers 1626-1812 and Winston
www.family-tree.co.uk
p34-35 BooksFINAL.indd 35
Family history reads with Karen Clare
from the Imperial
War Museums’
unparalleled archives.
Stories include that
of Royal Flying Corps
pilot Herbert Ward
who, aged barely 18,
survived the shooting
down of his aircraft and being taken
prisoner by the Germans, before
spectacularly jumping from the
window of a moving train to escape.
These accounts offer gut-wrenching
insight into the war through the
eye-opening words of witnesses.
• ISBN: 9781904897538. RRP £9.99,
paperback. Imperial War Museums
Guest Reviews
THE CALL UP
by Phil Carradice
How to make a record
of something that was
to dominate years of
the lives of so many
young men from
1947 and through
the next decade-and-a-half? How to
do it readably? And, above all, how do
you remain true to the memories of
those young men? Phil Carradice has
chosen to give key factual information
and follow this with the actual words
of national servicemen telling of their
experiences in the three armed services
or, in a few cases, how they managed
to avoid the call up altogether. This
approach works splendidly. The whole
book is organised in 15 chapters
dealing with such factors the inception
of National Service as a hasty post-war
response to the imperial commitments
the Government found on its hands,
the feared basic training, when often
sadistic NCOs were free to indulge
their whims, to the end of peacetime
conscription as the 1960s opened.
We are reminded that National
Parish Registers 1572-1812.
• £6.95 each (also on CD) from
https://genealogysupplies.com
Service was not all square-bashing and
spud-bashing in Aldershot and similar
British camps. Many conscripts served
overseas and some lost their lives in wars
and conflicts like Korea, Cyprus and
Suez. For the family historian, who is
likely to have ancestors from this era or
even personal experiences from it, this
book provides a valuable way of putting
flesh on bare genealogical details.
• ISBN: 9781781555262. RRP £18.99,
hardback. Fonthill Media
Review by Raymond Humphreys
THE CRINOLINE
CHURCH,
EASTNEY
BARRACKS
by Dennis Bill
This is the first book
about a wooden
building that is
unique in Royal Marines’ history,
and we featured the author’s journey
to investigate and write about it in
the October 2015 issue of Family Tree.
It’s 40-year life as the Royal Marines’
Church in Portsmouth until 1905 was
actually it’s third incarnation, and the
author’s careful research reveals the
full story. The building had a curious
20-sided pyramid shape which earned it
the nickname of the ‘crinoline church’
because it resembled a Victorian dress.
Dennis Bill began his investigation
by transcribing the whole baptism
register from 1866 to 1905, and this is
reproduced in full in the book. Many
people with Royal Marine ancestors
will surely find their brick walls solved
here, because this information is
contained nowhere else and is not
available online. Your only other
option is to travel to The National
Archives and search the records by
hand. The author’s transcription
offers not just the usual information
on parents’ names, but additional data
such as the father’s rank.
Finally, Bill has written mini-
biographies of around 150 men
associated with the church – from a
chaplain who played in the FA cup to
the many brave Marines who earned
distinctions for bravery.
• ISBN: 9781908123138. RRP £15
(incl UK p&p), paperback. Royal
Marines Historical Society (special
publication number 44). To buy, email
RMHistoricalSociety@gmail.com
Review by Simon Wills
January 2017 Family
FamilyTree 35
12/12/2016 12:34
 ADVICE FROM A GIANT GENIE BLOGGER
Ho w t o
DO A FAMILY
HISTORY
BLOG
Top notch blogger and family historian Chris Paton explores the benefits
of blogging for genealogical research. Read on to discover how your
family history research can prosper from writing your own blog
F
or some family historians,
genealogy might seem to
be about the records –
where is that birth record,
how is somebody related
to another person, and where is the
proof? However, genealogy is not just
about the records; it is equally about
the questions that we need to ask to
find those records. Family history
research requires communication, the
ability to ask where documents are,
to ask how they might be interpreted,
and ultimately to realise how they
might help us in our pursuit. But just
as important is to establish what we
eventually want to do with the stories
that we find, and to express and share
those tales for others to digest.
The genealogical environment
within which we work has changed
dramatically in the last decade, but
perhaps nowhere more so than with
the rise of social media. In the past we
might have posted queries in society
journals and online on boards, and
waited months or years for a possible
36 Family
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p36-40 Chris PatonFINAL.indd 36
response. Today, we live in a world of
instant communication – of ‘tweets’,
‘pins’ and instant chat. But while
many forms of modern media present
an almost ‘blink and you’ll miss it’
aspect, one that can really help the
family historian to achieve a great
deal is the humble blog.
Short for ‘web log’, a blog is in fact
nothing more than an online diary, a
website platform that allows us to read
short digestible chunks of information
as conveyed by folk discussing
subjects of relevant interest, or
to express our own thoughts and
processes for the enjoyment of others.
There are many ways that ‘blogging’
can help with our research, and in
this article I will discuss how to get
started with a site of your own.
As a genealogist I have a couple
of family history themed blogs
that I contribute to with differing
frequencies. The one that is perhaps
best known is The GENES Blog –
http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk
in which I try to bring the latest news
and events to readers interested in
genealogy relating to the British
Isles. When I first established this
blog in 2007, under the title of
Scottish GENES, the main focus
was primarily on Scottish genealogy
news developments and events,
with the blog later adapting to also
cover Britain and Ireland, and more
recently again to further include their
respective diasporas.
Why did I start blogging?
So did I start out to become the new
Reuters news agency of genealogy
then? Not in the slightest! When I
created this blog it was for a very
specific purpose that was relevant to
the fact that I worked as a professional
genealogist for a living. I was
conscious that a lot of records were
being released online with increasing
frequency, and I was finding it hard
to keep on top of all the detail. I
decided therefore to have a go at
creating my own daily news platform
via a blog. This would not only inform
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12/12/2016 11:06
 Publish, share & preserve your family history online

others and provide a useful service,

but more importantly for me, it would
provide a means to effectively archive
all the relevant genealogy developments
affecting my industry. However, I had
no knowledge whatsoever about how
to create a website, and certainly had
no idea how to use programming
languages such as HTML – they didn’t
start teaching these until the year below
me at school! Fortunately, my initial
fears in going about it were soon allayed
for the very simple reason that Google
introduced a dedicated blogging
website for online Luddites like me
called Blogger – www.blogger.com

Setting up your own

blog on Blogger
Blogger is a very easy-to-learn
blogging site that is free to access
and completely intuitive to use. It
is also a platform that allows you to
easily promote your blog posts, and to
incorporate various forms of media
beyond text, such as images and video.
Before you use the Blogger site you
must first create a free Google account
at www.google.co.uk

Watch your blog evolve

Once established you will be able
to create your first blog with ease,
because Blogger is a ‘what you see
is what you get’ (WYSIWYG) site,
where you can literally see the site
evolve before you as you stipulate
the requirements you want – for
example, the background image,
the number of columns, the type
of font used, and more.

View a video guide

While it is fairly straightforward to
create a blog following Google’s
instructions if you just dive in, a
step-by-step guide on the very basics
is available at https://support.
google.com/blogger and many
video guides to the site can also be
browsed freely at YouTube
www.youtube.com

Try templates
The platform offers free design
templates to use to get started,
and will give users a free blog
website address, which in the UK
will end with ‘.blogspot.co.uk’
Don’t let worries about internet technology put you off. By using a
blog template you get started easily and jump right in with writing
about family history topics that interest you. Top to bottom: a Blogger
template; Chris Paton’s GENES blog; a WordPress template; and
Thomas MacEntee’s GeneaBloggers blog roll page

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 ADVICE FROM A GIANT GENIE BLOGGER
The uses you can put your blog to are endless. Left to right: on his Scotland’s Greatest Story blog Chris Paton indulges in things
of personal interest; the Grace and Glory blog is the home of a family historian’s family tales; to explore a list of blogs from around
the world, check out the categories on Cyndi’s List; meanwhile, to keep abreast of the latest releases from data sites, such as
Findmypast, sign up to their blogs
Customising your
Blogger blog
How the pages are customised is
completely down to the user.
On Blogger you can have a page on
which you add daily posts, and separate
web pages accessible from a main
menu with additional material that you
might wish to be easily accessible at
all times – for example, an ‘About Me’
page, with information about who you
are as the writer.
Add gadgets
One of the great functions of Blogger
is that it also allows you to add free
‘gadgets’ to your site, to allow additional
functionality. For example, if you look
at my news blog, you will see various
images on either side of the main blog
posts on the page. These are ‘Image’
gadgets, which allow me to upload
a picture and to link them to other
websites. Other gadgets include a
‘Followers’ box, which allows me to see
the names of Google account holders
who might wish to publicly show that
they follow my blog, a separate ‘Search
this Blog’ gadget, and a ‘Subscribe via
email’ box, where people can request
daily email feeds of posts that I make.
Utilise labels
A particularly useful option is the
‘Labels’ box on the right side of the
screen. If you look at a blog post, you
38 Family
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will see that I add various ‘tags’ to the
bottom of each, which allows me to
categorise them – for example using tags
such as ‘England’ or ‘military’. In the
Labels box, these tag words are listed as
hyperlinks (ie blue underlined website
links) in alphabetical order from all of
my posts. If I search for a particular word
in this section and click on the link,
then all the posts from my blog will be
presented in order which include that
tag and focus on that topic. For example,
if you wish to see every post I have
concerning First World War research,
click on the phrase ‘First World War’ and
they will all pop up in a chronological
list. You can see from this how easy it
can be to search for relevant posts from
several years of archived posts!
Writing on Wordpress
As a platform, Blogger is a very
popular tool, particularly among
those who use additional Google
services, as all can be freely accessed
from the same online account.
The site’s biggest rival, however, is
another very sturdy platform called
Wordpress. There are in fact two
‘One form of modern media that can
really help the family historian to achieve
a great deal is the humble blog’
different versions of Wordpress,
located at www.wordpress.com
and www.wordpress.org
The first of these is by far the easiest
to get started with if you have no idea
about creating websites, as the site
hosts everything online for you, and
deals with all the technical issues so
that you do not have to. Wordpress.
org is worth considering if you are a
bit more tech savvy, and perhaps wish
to retain a bit more control over your
site, and to host it on your own server.
On Wordpress I run a website with
an accompanying blog, as part of my
genealogy research services. While
the main website pages detail who I
am, what I do, and other information
about the research side of my
business, the blog itself is located as
the last menu option at
https://scotlandsgreateststory.
wordpress.com/blog
On this I share short articles about
a range of subjects to do with Scottish
and Irish genealogy. These include
photographic guides to locations as
diverse as Robert Burns’ birthplace in
Alloway and the Royal Kilmainham
www.family-tree.co.uk
12/12/2016 15:18

Hospital in Dublin, and a series of
articles on subjects raging from the
discovery of family mementoes to
complicated legal concepts in Scottish
inheritance law.
For me, this blog is more a
labour of love and a platform of
convenience, where I post updates
as and when I am good and ready
to on subjects that I personally
fi nd of interest. As with Blogger,
there are many website templates
freely available that you can use to
structure the look of your Wordpress
blog, which can be easily customised.
Being mobile friendly
One thing to be aware of is that
both Blogger and Wordpress pages
allow specific versions of blog
posts to be displayed on mobile
phones and tablets – bear in mind
that a home computer or laptop
presents a landscape-based aspect,
whereas phones tend to be held in
a portrait mode, so the shape of the
page presented will be different.
It is something to bear in mind,
particularly with Wordpress, when
considering which photographs to
add to posts, in case they display
differently on a phone compared to
a PC – for example, a key part of an
image might be missing when viewed
on the phone, as opposed to the home
computer. Fortunately, on Wordpress
you can easily preview how a page will
look when viewed on different devices.
Establishing a blog from a technical
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p36-40 Chris PatonFINAL.indd 39
Publish,
Publish, share
share &
& preserve
preserve your
your family
family history
point of view requires a small learning
curve, but the two platforms I have
described make it virtually painless.
What will your blog be for?
It takes just minutes to set up a site, but
once established, what can you use it for
in terms of your family history research?
I’ve described two basic blogs that I run
– a news site, and a site on which to post
articles – but there are of course many
other uses for a blog within the family
history world. Remember that a blog is
essentially an online diary website, and,
as with any diary, you can post about
what you want, as frequently as you wish,
and on any topic of your choosing.
Pen ancestor biogr aphies
You might wish to use your first blog
to provide biographical posts about
individual ancestors within your
family tree. Take for example Becky’s
Grace and Glory Blog at https://
beckysgraceandglory.blogspot.co.uk
– where a US-based family researcher
called Becky Jamison recounts tales
from her family past and the continuing
discoveries she makes along the way.
Share your expertise
You might wish instead to use a blog
as a platform to share your expertise
on an aspect of family history research
that can apply to everyone reading.
One of the finest genealogy blogs in
the world is another US offering, Judy
Russell’s The Legal Genealogist at
www.legalgenealogist.com, in which
history online
online
3,389
This is the current numb
er of
blogs listed on Thomas
MacEntee’s
Geneabloggers online
community.
Here you can search
the blog roll,
or look for individual blo
g posts.
Suffering from writer’s
block?
Check out the daily pro
to request that your blo
mpts. And
g be added
visit ww w.geneablogg
ers.com/
suggest-blog/
Judy uses her knowledges as a lawyer
to approach everything from how to
interpret historic records to how to
keep aware of what you are signing up
to with the terms and conditions of
various family history websites (from
a US-based legal standpoint, though
this often translates internationally).
You may operate a one-name study,
a one place study or a family history
society, and require a platform to
share news and content concerning
your area of interest, such as that of
the Catholic Family History Society at
https://catholicfhs.wordpress.com
Publicise your news
You might even be a records
provider wishing to announce your
latest holdings – large vendors
such as Ancestry, Findmypast and
TheGenealogist have their own blogs
at http://familytr.ee/Ancblog and
https://familytr.ee/fmpnewsblog
and https://familytr.ee/TGnewsblog
respectively, as does FamilySearch at
https://familytr.ee/FSnewsblog
January 2017 Family
FamilyTree 39
12/12/2016 11:07
 ADVICE FROM A GIANT GENIE BLOGGER
Jour nal your discover ies
You may even wish to use a blog for
its most basic premise – to act as a
daily or weekly diary. A good example
here is history interpreter Janet Few’s
blog at https://thehistoryinterpreter.
wordpress.com where she provides
updates on her weekly outings with
humorous observation.
Get creative with history
If you want to get really creative, you
can even re-present historic diaries and
post them in real time. A great example
here is the Voyage of the Vampire blog
at www.voyageofthevampire.org.uk
– describing the voyage in 1846 of Sir
George Henry Scott Douglas, a captain
in the 34th Regiment of Foot (The
Border Regiment), on board a vessel
called the Vampire. These suggestions
are of course just a drop in the ocean
compared to the possibilities out
there, but if you want to explore other
categories a good starting point is the
Geneabloggers website at
www.geneabloggers.com which lists
blogs from around the world, or Cyndi’s
List at www.cyndislist.com/blogs
40 Family
FamilyTree January 2017
p36-40 Chris PatonFINAL.indd 40
How to get visitors
to your blog
So having set up your blog, and
written your fi rst post, how can you
now make other folk aware that
you are all dressed up and ready to
go? There are many ways to make
your blog posts attract attention.
For example, the title of each post
should be short and contain key
words that will help them to be
picked up by search engines. Tags
within posts can also help, and if
you can include images these can
make the posts seem more visually
interesting. But by far and away the
most useful way to let people know
about your site is to use the wider
world of social media to announce
your presence. If you take a look at
the end of each post on both of the
Blogger and Wordpress based blogs
that I run you will notice that there
are options to share the content
within them by email and through
various other social networking sites.
By far the most effective of these are:
• www.twitter.com
• www.facebook.com
• https://plus.google.com
Each time I make a post I can set my
page to distribute it automatically to
my social media platforms, or I can
choose to do so manually. I can even
schedule the day and time when I might
wish to post something online, should
I be away from my computer for a few
days, by using the Schedule function on
Blogger within the Post Settings menu,
prior to clicking on Publish. If I use the
photographically-based platform
www.pinterest.com I can also share any
blog posts that contain an image with
the click of a button.
Put it up for discussion
The creation of a blog allows for
opportunities to collaborate, because
you can also facilitate the posting of
comments by readers for each post,
allowing users to react and even
enhance the content of the original
posts with additional information.
To prevent spam posts you can also
set it up so that you have to approve
any comment on your posts before
publishing them. As you become
more experienced, the analytics tools
on the blogging platforms allow you
to understand how many people are
actually reading your content, what
they are particularly interested in and
even the devices and browsers that
they are using to view your content.
As a blogger you are the creator and
master of your own ancestral domain
and there is a world out there waiting
to hear from you.
If you do decide to set up a
genealogy blog, be sure to let us know
– via helen.t@family-tree.co.uk or on
facebook.com/familytreemaguk –
and keep an eye on the useful posts at
www.family-tree.co.uk where you’ll
find free research guides and tips.
About the author
Chris Paton runs the Scotland’s
Greatest Story research service
www.scotlandsgreateststory.
co.uk – and teaches online
courses
fgfg through www.pharostutors.com
He is the author of Researching Scottish
Family History, Tracing Your Family History
On The Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family
History On The Internet and The Mount
Stewart Murder, among others, and blogs at
www.britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk
www.family-tree.co.uk
12/12/2016 11:07
MJ 297 x 210 multi_Big Issue 08/12/2016 11:51 Page 1
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Christmas 2016 Family
FamilyTree 99
09/12/2016 11:00
 HOME & WORKING LIVES
A stitch
in time
The invention of the sewing machine changed all our ancestors’ lives.
Adèle Emm picks up the thread to investigate
The Nichols and Leavitt sewing machines, from an 1855 brochure,
were produced under Elias Howe’s patent
I
n her 1861 Book of Household
Management, Victorian housewife
and mother Mrs Beeton
(1836-1865) championed the
invention of the sewing machine as
‘indispensable’ and ‘invaluable in
every home, especially to a mother of
daughters’. Novelist Elizabeth Gaskell
(1810-1865) had earlier suggested
hand sewing clothes for the family
42 Family
FamilyTree January 2017
p42-45 sewing machinesFINAL.indd 42
was a labour of love – ‘labour’ being
the appropriate word. According to
American journalist Sarah Hale (1788-
1879) in Godey’s Magazine and Lady
Book (1867), it took 10 to 14 hours to
hand-stitch a shirt. Imagine how long
it took to make an elaborate dress.
Prior to the sewing machine, what
employment options were open
to a middle class female ancestor
STUDY ING
THE FA MILY

SEA MSTRESS
who got into financial difficulties
because of the death or illness of her
husband? She didn’t have the skills or
inclination to become a servant – what
middle class woman would employ
another who’d fallen on hard times?
She also didn’t have the education to
become a governess, an indeterminate
status derided by the family and
despised by the servants.
But she could sew.
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread — 
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang The Song of the Shirt.
Extract from The Song of the Shirt by
Thomas Hood (1799-1845)
Thomas Hood’s poem was first
published anonymously in 1843 in
Punch magazine, a decade before the
invention of the sewing machine.
It is ostensibly based on the plight
of a Mrs Biddell who, in order to feed
her children, sold clothes she had
made but fell into arrears with her
employer when she couldn’t repay the
deposit for materials. She is reputed to
www.family-tree.co.uk
12/12/2016 11:09

have ended up in the workhouse.
This story achieved mythical
proportions (eventually being
discredited) but the facts behind it
were sound. The life of a seamstress/
dressmaker was difficult with
atrociously long hours and unpleasant
working conditions, often in a garret
or a sweatshop. If she worked at home,
she provided her own thread, thimble,
needle, trimmings and candles. A fire
was an unaffordable extravagance.
The rise of the machines
It’s not surprising then that there
were many attempts at inventing a
sewing machine, from Thomas Saint’s
first shot in 1790 to other (largely
unsuccessful) versions: a chronological
list appears on www.sewalot.com/
sewing_machine_history.htm
Using a lockstitch, American
Elias Howe (1819-1867) patented
the most useful sewing machine in
1846. Unable to find investors in the
States, he and his brother travelled to
England where they made their first
sale to a corset maker in London’s
Cheapside. Sadly, this partnership was
unsuccessful and, virtually penniless,
Howe scuttled back to the States.
Enter maverick American inventor
Isaac Merrit Singer (1811-1875) who
patented a rock-drilling machine,
was a failed actor, prolific father (he
acknowledged 22 children in his will,
two others died in childhood and he
may have fathered more), erstwhile
Quick t ip
If you own an old sewing machine or
an ancestor worked in a factory that
made them, you can find a handy
A-Z list of manufacturers at
http://familytr.ee/machinemakers
www.family-tree.co.uk
p42-45 sewing machinesFINAL.indd 43
stealer of patents
and founder in 1851
of eponymous IM
Singer & Co, which
became the Singer
Manufacturing
Company in 1865.
The 1850s saw
‘sewing machine wars’
between manufacturers
and by the mid-1860s
(earlier in the USA and
Germany), the price of
sewing machines for
the home market had
plummeted sufficiently
to become the middle class must-have.
Although Howe fought (and won) the
patent war, it is Singer we associate
with the sewing machine – and it was
Singer’s model that was exhibited at the
Great Exhibition of 1851.
In England, William Jones (1835-
1911) started making sewing machines
in 1859, setting up a partnership with
Thomas Chadwick in 1860.
Building sewing machines under
licence from a Howe & Wilson
design (Allan B Wilson patented his
vibrating shuttle system in 1850), they
based their factory in Ashton under
Lyne, an eminently suitable base as
Lancashire was the heart of the cotton
manufacturing industry.
By 1869, their factory was working
from nearby Guide Bridge and
advertised by 1892 as ‘The Largest
Factory in England Exclusively
The sewing revolution
Adèle’s Great-Aunt Kit (top right) and her
cousin Eva Harris (bottom right) working
in a seamstress shop in Newport Pagnell,
near Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. In
the 1911 Census, Eva was an apprentice
dressmaker. The sewing machine can
clearly be seen in the middle
Making First Class Sewing Machines’ –
see www.sewalot.com/jones_sewing_
machines.htm
This company grew like Topsy and
in 1902 achieved the distinction of an
endorsement from Princess Alexandra
after Jones’s machines were used in
her technical schools. I wonder, did
the princess take Mrs Beeton’s advice
and use them herself?
It may have been the largest
factory in England but Jones was
somewhat disingenuous.
In 1867, Singer had set up his
first factory in Glasgow, moving to
January 2017 Family
FamilyTree 43
12/12/2016 11:09
 HOME & WORKING LIVES
Kilbowie, Clydebank, in 1884. With
nearly 7,000 employees in a factory
covering almost a million square feet
(nearly 93,000 m2), an average of
13,000 machines could be produced
each week, making this the largest
sewing machine factory in the world!
Between 1884 and 1943, this
factory produced over 36 million
sewing machines and, by the 1960s, it
employed more than 16,000 people.
Sadly, it was not to last and in 1963 the
Singer clock was demolished, followed
in 1998 by the factory itself; visit
http://familytr.ee/SingerClydebank
to learn its history and watch a short
film on the Scotland on Screen site at
http://familytr.ee/Singerfi lm
The Singer brand was the world
leader and everyone aspired to owning
one; my mum and Family Tree editor
Helen Tovey’s mum both had Singers,
for example.
Life of a seamstress
So, did sewing machines improve
the lives of your female ancestors? By
hand, a woman could sew 35 stitches a
minute; a machine could stitch 3,000!
A dress shirt with intricate stitches
took 14 hours by hand and one hour,
15 minutes on a machine. A dress
taking 10 hours by hand was run-up
on a machine in one.
In the middle-class home, a wife
would, as advocated by Mrs Beeton,
make the family clothes. Consummate
showman Isaac Singer had an answer
to husbands of the day who held the
purse strings and queried their wives’
44 Family
FamilyTree January 2017
p42-45 sewing machinesFINAL.indd 44
mental capacities to operate such a
complicated new-fangled contraption:
get women to demonstrate them!
For the working class seamstress,
these machines were too expensive
for her to buy outright, so she could
either hire one on the never-never
(risking the fate of Mrs Biddell) or go
into a ‘sweatshop’.
At first, the price of clothing
dropped – even the working class
could afford more than one set of
clothes – but then seamstresses began
to lose work. Factories were set up with
rows and rows of girls all employed at
a sewing machine, running up clothes
en masse. Twenty sewing machines
could do the work of 60 women.
In the 1860s, 15,000 girls were
employed by London dressmakers
working 10-hour shifts under the same
appalling conditions. There are tales
of women locked in until quotas were
complete, supplying their own thread
and trimmings, timed for lavatory
breaks and sexually abused by male
overlookers. Hundreds of women were
employed in serried rows sewing in
silence, deafened by constant noise
from heavy industrial machines bolted
to the floor to prevent vibration.
During the Edwardian period, it was
fashionable for women to wear tightly
pleated blouses. These tucked and
elaborate blouses cost between 18 and
25 shillings each (90p and £1.25p) but
a seamstress made a dozen blouses
in a week to earn 10 shillings (50p).
Imagine how fiddly each one must
have been to make.
A shoo-in
Once a machine had been invented
to stitch clothes, it wasn’t long before
they were used in other industries.
American Lyman Reed Blake (1835-
1883) had been brought up in a
shoemaking family. While working
for Isaac Singer setting up sewing
machines in shoe factories, in 1856
he invented a machine to stitch
soles to uppers. Selling his patent to
fellow American Gordon McKay, who
perfected the machine, shoes became
quicker and cheaper to produce.
There was a show of resistance
against these machines in England.
The first was brought to Northampton
in 1857 when shoemakers, afraid of
losing their autonomy, went on strike.
Progress was inescapable and by 1864,
there were 1,500 of these machines in
the town. No longer did shoemakers
work in the ‘putting out system’
(working for an agent employing
shoemakers to make shoes for him at
home) but, like the seamstress, they
now worked in a factory.
The shoe stitching machine joined
all leather pieces for shoe uppers
(this was called ‘closing’) and the job
of closer became one traditionally
performed by women. By the 1880s,
Singer’s new Family Sewing Machine,
pictured in a brochure c1858-1859 and
reproduced in The Sewing Machine: Its
Invention and Development by Grace
Rogers Cooper (Smithsonian Institute
Press, 1976) – available to read for free
online at https://archive.org/details/
sewingmachineit00coop
www.family-tree.co.uk
12/12/2016 11:09
 VIDEO CONTENT
TAP HERE to view
the Sewing machine collection
and Singer archive
at Clydebank Museum.
Learn more about Clydebank Museum’s unique sewing machine collection, which
features an astonishing 803 machines, and its Singer Archive in this YouTube film.
shoe sewing machines achieved 600
stitches a minute.
Lyman Blake’s invention is credited
with helping the Union win the
American Civil War (1861-1865).
Union soldiers wore machine-stitched
boots whereas Confederates were
badly shod or went barefoot.
The first sewing machine for hats
was invented by Baltasar Krems in
1810 and sewed caps with a continuous
www.family-tree.co.uk
p42-45 sewing machinesFINAL.indd 45
chain stitch. It wasn’t particularly
useful or efficient.
By the 1870s, hat companies
routinely used machines similar to
those in the clothing and shoemaking
industries. The last element in hat-
making production, the trimming
department, was where women sewed
the manufacturer’s label inside the hat
and added decorations (trimmings)
like hatbands, sweatbands, bows,
The sewing revolution
Find out more
• Discover the nationally significant
sewing machine collection and
Singer Archive at Clydebank
Museum, cared for by West
Dunbartonshire Council and
including stories about the local
Singer factory and the community
that grew up around it, in this
YouTube film: http://familytr.ee/
SingerArchive
• The London Sewing Machine
Museum exhibits more than 600
machines dating from 1850-1950,
including one owned by Queen
Victoria’s eldest daughter and the
patented machine exhibited at the
Great Exhibition. Check opening
times before travelling; http://
familytr.ee/sewingmuseum
feathers and ribbons to embellish
the headwear.
About 10 years ago, noticing my
daughter had a split in her school
uniform skirt, a teacher stopped her
in the corridor and suggested I sew it
up. She laughed with disbelief when
my daughter confessed I don’t have a
sewing machine. Have I failed the Mrs
Beeton test? Maybe sewing doesn’t run
in the family after all.
About the author
Adèle Emm is the author of Tracing
your Trade and Craftsman Ancestors
(Pen & Sword) and her new book, My
Ancestors worked in Textile Mills, is
being published by the Society
of Genealogists; www.adeleemm.com
January 2017 Family
FamilyTree 45
13/12/2016 10:33
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 Web search guide
How to find
British PULL OUT
A ND K E EP
historical REFERENC


E
newspapers GUIDE

online
Historical newspapers are a rich source for family historians and more and more
titles from our ancestors’ lifetimes can be searched or accessed online.
Read up on it with Ruth A Symes to explore what’s available

M
any historic British newspapers have been
digitised and can now be accessed online
from the comfort of your own home either
free or at a low cost. Other newspapers
have been digitised by commercial companies and
have been sold as packages to libraries and institutes
of higher and further education. If you are interested
in looking at any newspapers in the latter category,
the first step would be to identify the nearest such
institutions to your home and then enquire which
resources they have. Ask if you need to be a member of
that institution to view the digitised material, or if you
can buy a special day or weekly pass that will give you
temporary access.

General papers & periodicals

1. British Newspaper Archive and Findmypast

www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
and www.fi ndmypast.co.uk

At the time of writing, the British Newspaper Archive, provided

jointly by the British Library and Findmypast, features 706
newspapers titles from across the UK and Ireland, including local, Vital statistics
national and regional titles, with some going back to the 18th • Free to search online
century. There are over 17 million pages available with more content • Pay to view online
being added regularly. • Free to view at the British Library’s Reading
Buy monthly or yearly subscriptions or Pay As You Go on the Rooms in St Pancras and Boston Spa, and
British Newspaper Archive site. The newspaper collection is included at other subscribing libraries and institutes
in a Findmypast subscription. of further and higher education

2. UK Press Archive
www.ukpressonline.co.uk

This resource includes: The Daily Mirror Vital statistics

(1903-1980); Daily Express (1900-current); • Search for free
Church Times (1863-current); The • Pay to view
Watchman (1835-1884); The Daily Worker • Available in subscribing
(1930-1945); and The South Eastern Gazette UK institutions of higher
(1852-1912) as well as more recent titles. and further education

www.family-tree.co.uk January 2017 FamilyTree 47

FamilyTree

p47-54 RuthSymesFINAL.indd 47 12/12/2016 11:10

 ANCESTORS IN THE NEWS

3. Ancestry
http://familytr.ee/Ancestryhistpapers

Ancestry’s Historical Newspapers Collection includes: The Times (1788-1833);

The Gentleman’s Magazine Library (1731-1868); Liverpool Courier (1897-1898);
Edinburgh Advertiser (sporadically 1771-1909); The Bristol Times and Mirror (1897);
Vital statistics Liverpool Daily Post (1897) and many other titles.
• Free to search online
• Pay to view online

4. TheGenealogist
www.thegenealogist.co.uk

This family history website’s searchable newspaper resources include: The Channel
Islands Monthly Review (1941-1945); Harper’s Magazine (1889); Illustrated London
News (1842-1918); Illustrated War News (1914-1916); Jewish Chronicle (1905-1908);
Vital statistics SS Great Britain Times (1865); The BEF Wipers Times and other Publications (1916-
• Free to search online 1918); The Great War (1914-1919); The Sphere (1914-1915); War Illustrated (1914-1919).
• Pay to view online

5. Internet Library of Early Journals

www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/ilej

Vital statistics
• Free to search online
• Free to view online
This project (which finished in 1999) aimed to digitise at least 20 years’ worth
of each of the following six 18th and 19th-century journals: The Annual Register;
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine; The Builder; The Gentleman’s Magazine; Notes and
Queries; Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
Each magazine can be searched individually by subject. No new material will
be added to this site.

6. Gale News Vault Project

http://gale.cengage.co.uk

Digitised collections include: Daily Mail Historical Archive (1896-2004); Economist

Historical Archive (1843-2008); Financial Times Historical Archive (1888-2010);
Illustrated London News Historical Archive (1842-2003); Independent Digital Archive
(1986-2012); Listener Historical Archive (1929-1991); Picture Post Historical Archive
Vital statistics (1938-1957); Punch Historical Archive (1841-1992); Sunday Times Digital Archive
• Free to search (1821-2006); The Times Digital Archive (1785-2010).
• Free to view in subscribing UK
libraries and institutions of further
and higher education

7. The Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals (1800-

1900)
www.victorianperiodicals.com

Vital statistics
• Free to search online
• May need to visit library or
archive to view unless
online elsewhere
This is a digitised bibliography of 73,000 publications issued between 1800 and 1900,
with some earlier and later. In many cases it is indexed by topic, names, towns and
publishers’ names. Find references to the topics you are interested in and then take
your results to a library that holds back copies of the relevant publication.
The varied titles indexed include, for example, The Juvenile Review of 1817, 3rd
Volunteer Battalion of the Highland Light Infantry (1861) and Berkshire Archaeological
and Architectural Society quarterly journal (1879-1895), as well as The Babbler
(1821-1822) and the Glasgow Advertiser and Evening Intelligencer from 1783.

48 FamilyTree January 2017

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 Web search guide

8. The Burney Collection (17th and 18th centuries)

http://familytr.ee/Burney

Vital statistics
• Free to search
• Free to view in subscribing
UK libraries and institutions of
further and higher education
A joint project by the British Library and Gale Cengage Learning – see
www.bl.uk/collection-guides/burney-collection – The Burney Collection
includes 1,271 news books, newspapers, pamphlets and a variety of other news
materials published in England, Ireland and Scotland, plus papers from the
British colonies in Asia and the Americas.
The papers were originally collected by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757-
1817) and consisted of around 700 bound volumes. They have now been greatly
augmented and the data is fully searchable. Important titles included range from
the British Journal and the Daily Courant to Lloyd’s Evening Post and British Chronicle
and the London Chronicle.

9. Nineteenth-Century British Library Newspapers

http://familytr.ee/GaleBLNewspapers

Vital statistics
• Free to search online
• Free to view at subscribing
libraries and institutes of further
and higher education
Managed by Gale Cengage, this digital collection, which is in five parts, contains
more than 160 British newspapers from 1741 to 1950, including some London
national dailies and weeklies, English regional dailies and weeklies; Scottish
national, Scottish regional, Welsh, Irish and Northern Irish newspapers.
Priority for inclusion has been to newspapers that were involved in promulgating
political or social movements (such as Chartism and Irish Home Rule). Six selected
papers are available to view freely online at http://ncse-viewpoint.cch.kcl.ac.uk
– these are The Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature (1806-1837);
Northern Star (1838-1852); Leader (1850-1860); English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864);
Tomahawk (1867-1870) and Publisher’s Circular (1880-1890).

10. The Guardian (1821-2003) and Observer (1791-1923) Digital Archive

http://familytr.ee/GuardianObserver

This archive holds more than 1.2 million pages of the Guardian and the Observer
newspapers dating back to 1791, including some 13 million articles and thousands
of photographs. There is information on past world affairs such as politics, sport,
Vital statistics business, culture and science but also the important milestones in the lives of some
• Pay to search online people, including birth and wedding announcements and obituaries. You can
• Pay to view online subscribe from 24 hours to a year.

Stories behind the news

The Guardian News and Media Archive collects original

and unique documents that record the stories behind the
Guardian and Observer, including staff correspondence,
diaries, notebooks, original cartoons and photographs.
Researchers can visit the reading room in London’s King’s
Cross by appointment only (weekdays, 10am-5pm) – see
www.theguardian.com/gnm-archive

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 ANCESTORS IN THE NEWS
INTERACTIVE
GALLERIES
TAP HERE to learn how to use the
PERSI - the periodical index with more
than 2 million entries
England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland & Isle of Man
Vital statistics
• Free to search online
• Free to view online
Vital statistics
• Free to search online
• Free to view online
Vital statistics
• Free to search and view in the
National Library of Scotland
in Edinburgh
• Register and pay to view online
50 FamilyTree January 2017
FamilyTree
p47-54 RuthSymesFINAL.indd 50
1. The London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazette
www.thegazette.co.uk
The Gazette was the first official journal of record and the newspaper of the
Crown. Its website has a special feature whereby you can search by event such as
World I, World War II, Boer War 1889-1902, Great Fire of London 1666 (issue
85), First Awards of the Victoria Cross 1857 (issue 21971) and Battle of Trafalgar
1805 (issue 15858). The London Gazette has an index that is searchable from 1829
while the Edinburgh and Belfast Gazette indexes are searchable only from 2002.
2. Various local papers, England
A few historic papers from England have been digitised by volunteers in separate
small projects and are available to view freely. These include:
• The Teesdale Mercury (1855-2005, donations welcome)
www.teesdalemercuryarchive.co.uk
• The Halifax (Weekly) Courier (1914-1918)
www.calderdale.gov.uk/wtw/sources/themes/world-war-one.html
• The Slough, Eton and Windsor Observer
www.sloughhistoryonline.org.uk
3. National Library of Scotland
www.nls.uk/collections/newspapers
This digital collection includes items ranging from the earliest newspaper
printed in Scotland to modern online titles. It also includes hundreds of
broadsides, the forerunners of tabloid newspapers. It features access to the
British Newspaper Archive, which hosts such Scots titles as the Ayr Advertiser, the
Glasgow Herald and the Stirling Observer.
www.family-tree.co.uk
13/12/2016 10:57

Vital statistics
• Free to register and
search online
• Pay to view online
Vital statistics
• Free to search online
• May have to visit archives to view
Vital statistics
• Free to search online
• Register to request free
emailed copies of articles
Vital statistics
• Free to search online
• Free to view online
www.family-tree.co.uk
p47-54 RuthSymesFINAL.indd 51
Web search guide
4. The Scotsman
http://archive.scotsman.com
The Scotsman was a liberal weekly broadsheet first issued in 1817.
Searchable records go up to 1950. Subscription packages from
two days to 12 months can be purchased.
5. Guide to Scottish Newspaper Indexes
www.nls.uk/collections/newspapers/indexes/index.cfm
This searchable list provides details of 183 Scottish newspaper titles that have an
index. The indexes themselves are likely to be card indexes kept in local archives
across the country.
6. Am Baile newspapers from the Highlands and Islands of Scotland
www.ambaile.org.uk
This is a free bilingual resource in English and Gaelic. It consists of an index
to stories and articles carried in the newspapers of the Highlands and Islands
between 1800-1939. You can search by subject, such as Clubs and Societies
– Workmen’s Clubs and Emigration – New Zealand, and a summary of each
article is provided along with a reference to the issue in which it appeared.
The titles available for searching are: The Inverness Journal (1807-1849); The
John O’Groat Journal (1836-1887); The Inverness Advertiser (1849-1885); The
Scottish Highlander (1885-1898); The Inverness Courier (1879, 1898-1901,
1920-1939) and Gairm (1952-2002).
7. Welsh Newspapers Online
http://newspapers.library.wales
This fully searchable website run by the National Library of Wales features
1.1 million pages from nearly 120 newspaper titles up to 1910, including some
English as well as Welsh publications. The digital collection also features
newspaper content from The Welsh Experience of World War One Project.
The first newspaper to be published in Wales was the Cambrian from 1804 in
Swansea; this was followed by The North Wales Gazette (1808) and The Camarthen
Journal (1810). The first Welsh language weekly was Seren Gomer in 1814, which saw
itself as a national newspaper for Wales.
January 2017 FamilyTree 51
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 ANCESTORS IN THE NEWS
Read up on it
Historical Research Using British
Newspapers by Denise Bates
(Pen & Sword, 2016); read our review
http://familytr.ee/Newspapersbook
Vital statistics
• Free to search online
• Free to view brief precis of
articles, such as names and
subject matter
Vital statistics
• Free to search online
• Pay to view online
Vital statistics
• Free to search online
• Free to view online
52 FamilyTree January 2017
FamilyTree
p47-54 RuthSymesFINAL.indd 52
QU I C K T I P
For missing
years from
Welsh New the
spapers On
covered in line
The Cambri
(namely 18 an Index
47-1
printed or sc 869), request
anned imag
from Swan es
sea Central
Library for
a small fee
8. The Cambrian Index Online
Online 
www.swansea.gov.uk/cambrian
The Cambrian Index database, digitised by volunteers at Swansea Central
Library, contains some 500,000 entries from newspapers relating to people
and events occurring in an area roughly represented by the former county of
West Glamorgan, Wales (mainly 1804-1881). All the newspaper’s reported birth,
marriage and death entries are extracted and indexed, regardless of location.
Other articles are indexed by topic, such as Ships and Shipping, Disasters and
Accidents and so on.
A free downloadable research guide gives advice on how to combine your
searches with Welsh Newspapers Online.
9. Irish Newspaper Archives
www.irishnewsarchive.com
This website contains millions of newspaper pages from all over Ireland.
It includes a useful digital map so that you can see which newspapers were
published in which area. You can subscribe for one day, by month or by year.
10. 1916 Easter Rising Newspaper Archives
http://1916.irishnewsarchive.com
Search Ireland’s regional and daily newspapers during the 1916 Easter Rising.
This free portal, created by Irish Newspaper Archives, features the text of 33
contemporary newspapers including The Evening Herald, Cork Examiner and
The Irish Independent.
11. Manx National Heritage
www.imuseum.im
On this site you can search 27 Manx newspaper titles from 1792-1960. You can
subscribe to gain access from one day up to a year.
Vital statistics
• Free to search online
• Pay to view online or free access within the National Library and Archives of the Isle of
Man, Manx Museum, Douglas, after registering and obtaining a reader’s card
www.family-tree.co.uk
12/12/2016 11:11
 Web search guide

Specialist interest

1. The Stage Archive

http://archive.thestage.co.uk

The Stage Directory was founded in 1880 as a monthly paper. It previewed, reviewed,
monitored, reported and analysed performance across the UK entertainment
industry. If you had ancestors who trod the boards, this might be the place to find
Vital statistics them. You can pay for a subscription from one week to a year.
• Free to search online
• Pay to view online

2. The Tablet
http://archive.thetablet.co.uk

Vital statistics
• Free to search online
• Free to view online
This site, currently still under construction, aims to feature the entire back
catalogue of the weekly Catholic newspaper, The Tablet, from 1840 to the present
day. It includes content written by well-known Catholic writers and even some
Popes and can be searched by content, keyword, topic, location and date. You can
request missing issues to be uploaded as soon as possible.

3. Jewish Chronicle Archive

www.thejc.com

Vital statistics
• Free trial search online
• View online via pre-paid
subscription only
Access content from the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper from 1841 by clicking on
the small Archives icon listed on the top right of the home page. Trial searches
are free for everyone, but only pre-paid annual postal and newsagent subscribers
may open pages. Subscribers can pay additional costs to download pages.

 4. Last Chance to Read

www.lastchancetoread.com

This website offers a searchable collection of thousands of pages of British and

Vital statistics
• Free to search selected
sections of pages
• Pay (via Paypal) to view and
download whole pages
Irish newspapers and other publications (1710-1900). It includes some scarce
newspapers (of which very few copies were originally printed), such as Wheeler’s
Manchester Chronicle, Hue and Cry and Police Gazette and The Craftsman or Say’s
Weekly Journal.

How to access newspaper indexes About the author

Digitised newspapers can generally be searched online by keyword. However, where Ruth
fgfg A Symes has been
the texts of the newspapers are not online, there are sometimes ways of making interested in family history
a search of microfiches (or old newspapers themselves) easier. Some historic since childhood when
newspapers have been helpfully indexed by archivists and librarians, so take a look she spent hours at her
online at the library holdings in the town in which you are interested or search for them grandmother’s knee listening
using The National Archives’ Finding Archives project via the Discovery portal at to tales of past relatives. She
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk studied English literature
The detail included in indexes varies. They might, for instance, simply include at Cambridge University and has a PhD
entries for the main topics covered by the newspaper, or they might include entries in women’s history from the University of
for every name mentioned. As shown, some of these indexes have now been digitised York. After a career in academia and editing,
and can be accessed directly online (The Cambrian Index Online mentioned earlier Ruth now combines freelance writing with
is one such). Other ‘guides to indexes’ appear online for collections that may still be looking after her family. Her new book Tracing
accessed via card indexes only. For example, newspaper indexes held by Bolton Ancestors Through Letters and Personal
Library and Museum Service – www.boltonlams.co.uk – can only be accessed by Writings has been published by Pen & Sword.
visiting the Archive and Local Studies Search Room.

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 ANCESTORS IN THE NEWS

Newspapers research log

Ancestor/story/topic to be researched: ............................................................................................
Research goal: .................................................................................................................................

Research date: Name of Name of Name of Datespan Search details

newspaper: archive visited: website used: searched: (remember to include details of
negative results as well as your
successful searches so that you don’t
waste time in future)

..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
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Research summary: ........................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
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..........................................................................................................................................................
54 FamilyTree January 2017 www.family-tree.co.uk
You may copy this page as often as you wish for your personal research © Family Tree, Warners Group Publications plc

p47-54 RuthSymesFINAL.indd 54 12/12/2016 11:11

FamilyTree
Tree The place to go for family history news,
how-to guides, reviews, competitions & more

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www.family-tree.co.uk
FTOct16_pg92_Ad.indd 92 17/10/2016
22/08/2016 13:21
10:57
 THE FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY SCENE

Spotlight on…
Cambridgeshire
Family History Society
If you have Cambridgeshire ancestors, it’s well worth
exploring the services offered by Cambridgeshire Family
History Society, whose website contains more than four
million transcribed records relating to the county,
writes Rachel Bellerby

The university city

of Cambridge is the
ancient county town of

LOOK Cambridgeshire

ONLINE

Explore the
society’s website at
www.cfhs.org.uk
How to join
New members are always welcome.
The annual membership fee is £10
UK / £15 overseas, and members
receive a printed copy of the quarterly
journal. If the e-journal is preferred,
the subscription for all locations is £7
per annum.
For more information on
membership, email: membership@
cfhs.org.uk and for general enquiries:
secretary@cfhs.org.uk
N
ow in its 40th year, the
Cambridgeshire Family
History Society has more
than 1,000 members,
two-thirds of whom live outside
of the county. Members stay in
touch via a quarterly journal and a
monthly newsletter.
The newsletter recognises out-
of-county members by publicising
events of general interest that are
held by local family history societies
around the country.
It is available to members
and non-members, either as an
e-version or it can be seen on the
website: www.cfhs.org.uk
All parish records of baptism,
marriage and burial have been
transcribed, in cooperation with
Cambridgeshire Archives, as have
many Nonconformist records,
workhouse records, censuses,
Quarter and Petty Sessions and
a variety of other records. The
society offers these records on
CD or as downloads, and a price
list is available from its bookstall
(see website for address). The
income from the bookstall helps to
provide well-regarded speakers at
meetings, which are held monthly
at Cambridge Central Library and
March Library.
Research surgeries are also held
at Cambridge Central Library and
at March, Ely, Bar Hill, Cambourne
and Cottenham libraries. The

56 Family
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 Local know-how: plans, projects & people

How to find a society

The Federation of Family History
Societies has more than 180 member
societies. To find out your nearest
see www.ffhs.org.uk/members2/
contacting.php and check the listings
at www.family-tree.co.uk/clubs

#spotlightonfhs
Let us know what your society’s up
to: tweet your latest news using the
hashtag #spotlightonfhs and include
our handle @familytreemaguk so we
can share the news

Society news & events

To find more family history society
updates and events, check our news
and diary dates pages and visit
www.family-tree.co.uk/Events

society has a dedicated research

officer who can help with enquiries
by email or post.
The society’s website is a must for
researchers seeking Cambridgeshire
ancestors. The ‘Super Search’
facility contains more than four
million transcribed records, which
any member of the public can use to
see whether his/her ancestors are in
the Cambridgeshire database. This is
Cambridge © lougreenwich/Adobe Stock; fair © Karen Clare for Family Tree; other images courtesy of Cambridgeshire Family History Society

an ongoing exercise, additions being

made whenever a new CD is released.
There is also a link to Camdex
where volunteers have assisted the
staff of the Cambridgeshire County
Council Registration Service in
compiling an index of all the births,
marriages, civil partnerships and
deaths within Cambridgeshire
since 1837. Other pages include
information from the bookstall,
Cambridgeshire Archives, Facebook
and the society’s newsletter.
In 2011 the work carried out
during the society’s transcription
project was recognised with a
Dedicated Service Award from the
Cambridgeshire Association for
Local History.
Cambridgeshire Family History
Society holds an annual family and
local history fair in October and
usually around 60 tables are taken
by other family history societies and
traders. This year Family Tree had a Top to bottom: Preparing to welcome visitors to one of the society’s monthly
stand at the event. Talks by well-known meetings; the society can offer one-to-one help with researching your Cambridgeshire
speakers are given during the day. ancestors; busy stallholders at Cambridgeshire FHS Fair in October

www.family-tree.co.uk January 2017 Family

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 FASHION HISTORY A
i

A domestic servant’s
modes of dress

More of us have ancestors who lived below stairs rather than upstairs and we
may feel familiar with their dress thanks to TV shows such as Downton Abbey.
But what’s the story behind their work-wear and how can you pinpoint the years
portrayed in old photographs? Our costume historian and photo-dating expert
Jayne Shrimpton has the answers

58 FamilyTree January 2017

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 e st ors
A nc r v ice The real Downton Abbey
e
in s

D
uring the seasonal
festivities, many will be
mourning the absence of
Downton Abbey, the award-
winning TV drama that for six seasons
transported us back into early-20th-
century country house life, until the
final episode aired on Christmas Day
2015. Crackling fires, carols around a
candle-lit tree, sherry in the servants’
hall… Well-heeled families have
co-existed with their household staff
for centuries, relying on their skills
and labour especially over the festive
season, and many Family Tree readers
will have ancestors who spent the
Christmas and New Year period in
domestic service.
High-ranking households retained
numerous staff, while farmers,
professionals, businessmen, tradesmen
and so on employed fewer servants,
the lower-middle-classes often hiring
one manservant or maid-of-all work. Opposite page: This serving maid brings in the Christmas plum pudding wearing a
At Christmas in large houses, parties smart black dress with starched white collar, cuffs, cap and frilled apron typical
were organised for the servants and of the early 1900s
everyone received a present: the male
staff often a side of beef or plum Above: The London footman in the studio portrait (c1880-1888) wears formal
pudding or, later, money; female ‘fossilised’ Georgian-style livery and an anachronistic powdered wig. Most maids
servants typically a dress length of had smart uniforms from the mid-1800s; in the 1880s aprons acquired bibs, while
fabric, or choice of stockings, gloves or pop pom caps with streamers were worn in the 1890s, as in this late-1890s portrait
an umbrella.
Images: housemaid & Kinross staff © Agnes Burton; nanny © Claire Dulanty; London footman & 1890s’ maid © Ron Cosens at www.cartedevisite.co.uk

Operating in a fashionable milieu

and being expected to demonstrate
their employers’ status through their
own smart appearance, domestic
servants often received their
employers’ cast-off clothes or had
special livery suits and other work
wear provided. Georgian servants
were frequently better-dressed than
other working people; only during
the industrial era did mill, factory,
office and shop staff begin to earn
wages that enabled them to compete,
fashion-wise, with those in service and
eventually gain more leisure time for
dressing up and going out.

Upper male servants

Servants’ dress reflected their social
differences and division of labour
within the household, indicating
their respective positions within the
servant hierarchy. In large Georgian
establishments, upper male servants,
namely house stewards, butlers and
valets, followed contemporary fashion,
wearing a coat, waistcoat, ruffled shirt,
knee breeches, stockings, buckled
shoes and wig. By the late-1700s
wigs and hair powder were growing
outdated and during the 1810s
trousers came into vogue, although
the Regency valet usually wore a
queue wig and the butler retained
old-fashioned knee breeches or tight-
fitting pantaloons, until the Victorian
era, lagging respectfully behind their
In this 1772 engraving, The Jealous Maids, after John Collett, 1763, a gold-laced, masters in appearance.
expensively-liveried Georgian footman flirts with a fashionably-dressed maid From around the mid-1800s, a

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FASHION HISTORY
Left to right: This snapshot taken c1914 shows an Edinburgh housemaid wearing the
characteristic uniform of the era: dark dress, apron with V-shaped bib and white cap; this photograph
of a party for female servants demonstrates a variety of modern dresses worn with different white
aprons, dateable to the late 1920s or early 1930s
butler’s daywear typically comprised
a plain dark or striped waistcoat, dark
or pinstriped trousers and often a
black knotted tie. A blue coat with
velvet collar and metal buttons were
usual for formal evening functions,
this later evolving into a dark tail coat
and trousers, white waistcoat, shirt and
white bow tie, the butler’s white gloves
signalling servitude. These conventions
continued into the 20th century, house
stewards and butlers’ conservative
appearance conveying a studied air of
old-fashioned dignity and tradition,
contrasting with the development of
more casual everyday wear.
Valets were expected to be well-
groomed and personable and
some cultivated a smart, even natty
appearance, perks of the job including
their master’s cast-offs, gifts and tips
from visiting gentlemen, and articles
left behind by departing guests. The
role of page was gradually declining
but traditionally he was also an upper
servant, the Victorian page boy’s
uniform comprising a fitted waist-
length jacket and slender pantaloons
or long trousers, the jacket bearing
parallel rows of gilt buttons and
inspiring the appellation ‘Buttons’
(as in Cinderella). He also wore white
gloves and a top hat, until this was
replaced by a neat pillbox cap c1890.
60 Family
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e st ors
A nc r v ice
e
in s
Lower servants’ livery In some households ornate livery
The great households provided suits were worn only between noon
elaborate livery suits for their lower and evening, during social visiting
male servants – the many footmen, hours, when guests were entertained,
coachmen, grooms, postilions, and for special occasions such as
running footmen and porters on Christmas; otherwise footmen and
public display. Livery originated in other lower servants generally wore
the Middle Ages when noblemen’s plain frock coats when carrying out
retainers were arrayed in their their daily chores. They also received
lords’ heraldic colours, family crest
embroidered on the coat. In old
families long-established livery
colours firmly identified the wearers,
but the rising middle classes in the
expanding cities of late-Georgian
Britain also adopted the custom,
some devising extraordinarily
vibrant outfits for their lower
servants: a bright frock coat with
collar and cuffs of contrasting colour
and a waistcoat embellished with
expensive silver or gold lace, elegant
breeches, stockings, buckled shoes,
powdered wig and a beaver hat.
The opportunity to don such finery
appealed to many young working
men: indeed the popular 1771
novel, Humphrey Clinker, by Tobias
Smollett described how country
folk ‘... seduced by the appearance
of coxcombs in livery... swarm up
to London in hopes of getting
into service where they can live
luxuriously and wear fine clothes’.
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practical work clothes, including linen
smocks, fustian jackets and various
linen and leather aprons for tasks such
as cleaning the lamps and silver.
Male servants were more expensive
to employ than maids and over
time their number declined. From
c1800 mainly only footmen wore
extravagant silver- or gold-braided
coats, plush breeches, silk stockings
and so on, the employer’s crest, if any,
now relegated to the coat buttons.
Such attire was diverging rapidly
from regular fashion, becoming a
‘fossilised’, fanciful costume akin to
formal court dress. Powdered wigs
persisted in some households well into
the 1800s, or were replaced by hair
powder, early tricorne or bicorne hats
also becoming superseded by a top hat
bearing a rosette-like cockade.
During the Victorian era gradually
showy livery declined, being regarded
increasingly as pretentious or
distasteful, although ornate Georgian-
style suits and wigs or powder were
retained in grander residences until
the 1900s. Otherwise, footmen usually
wore a dark brass-buttoned coat, or
shortened ‘coatee’ and matching
trousers, with a striped gold-yellow and
black waistcoat and washable white
cotton ‘Berlin’ gloves; by the early-
1900s a dark tail coat, plain or striped
waistcoat and white bow tie were
the usual attire. Modest households
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employing one or two unclassified
male servants did not supply livery as
such, although provision of winter and
summer clothing, except underwear
and shoes, was usually included in the
hiring agreement.
A country manservant might
wear traditional knee breeches
and stockings well beyond their
fashionable life, with a modest coat,
although dress varied with his duties,
for the same man might function as
groom and gardener in the morning
and footman and butler after noon.
When serving indoors, a general
manservant of the late 19th- and early
20th centuries usually dressed like the
butler in larger houses: a formal jacket
or tail coat, dark trousers and white
apron for waiting at table.
Female staff
The head of the female staff in a
large residence was the housekeeper,
usually a mature woman who
represented the mistress of the house
and supervised the housemaids, a
heavy chatelaine of keys suspended
from her waist, symbolising her
authority. Georgian housekeepers
generally dressed like most women
indoors, wearing a white linen or
muslin day cap, with a neckerchief
and an apron over the gown;
however, when aprons and caps grew
unfashionable, becoming a badge of
servitude by the mid-1800s, they were
sometimes discarded.
The Victorian or
Edwardian housekeeper’s
formal appearance aimed
to distinguish her from
her subordinates, her dress
fashioned from sober black
silk or wool reflecting her
position. Younger housekeepers
sometimes followed fashion,
raising their dress hemlines in
the mid-1910s, although elderly
This Edwardian butler wearing
black trousers, characteristic striped
waistcoat and his bibbed apron for
light cleaning duties, greets a new
housemaid in the hall, 1906
When dressing his master, the
Edwardian valet, an upper servant,
sometimes wore a striped waistcoat
and bibbed apron, as seen in this
humorous postcard, 1910
The real Downton Abbey
housekeepers often favoured stately
floor-length garments until the
interwar period.
In Georgian Britain female
maidservants were numerous, but
weren’t always as visible as male
servants. Maids’ wages were lower,
yet they weren’t issued with livery
and most had to buy or make their
own clothes, often receiving a ‘loan’
on arrival then having regular sums
deducted from their wages to cover
the expense. However, some maids
received hand-me-downs and since
domestic work wear was not usually
closely prescribed during the 1700s,
reportedly fashionably-dressed female
servants were easily mistaken for the
lady of the house in her informal
indoor attire, especially stylish city
maids wearing a good gown, quilted
petticoat (skirt), neat white apron,
muslin kerchief and prettily-trimmed
cap. Conversely, the maid-of-all-work
in a modest residence or a country
maidservant might wear a humble
ankle-length petticoat with a jacket
or working overdress (‘bedgown’),
checked half-apron, colourful tucker
and mob cap. In general, by about
1800 a plain-coloured or printed
calico or linen washing-dress was
considered appropriate, worn with a
neckerchief, half-apron and mob cap.
Steadily, more females entered
service, assuming specific roles in
large households, or performing
multiple duties alone or with one or
two others, as general maids-of-all-
work. By the early-Victorian era a
washable cotton dress was customary,
often plain-coloured or, occasionally,
tartan or striped fabric. Although
work dresses might be worn shorter
than ladies’ gowns, their style followed
fashion and evidently some servants
adopted the cumbersome crinoline
frame in the late 1850s and early to
mid-1860s. Clothing could vary with
the task and aprons were changed
between different duties, for example
after blacking the grates and before
making beds. Linen caps usually
covered the head, the white day cap
now a clear symbol of servitude.
As the growing Victorian middle-
classes demanded more female
dining-room and drawing-room
staff, in many households maids
changed from their morning work
wear into more formal outfits for the
January 2017 Family
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12/12/2016 11:13
 FASHION HISTORY
afternoons, when they may have to
answer the front door or serve tea
to visitors: sturdy black stockings,
workaday cotton dresses and coarse
aprons were exchanged after lunch
for finer stockings, a smart dark gown
and white apron and cap.
As Victorian servants’ lives grew
increasingly regulated, more
standardised outfits developed for
housemaids, uniforms that clearly
demonstrated their position. A black
or dark dress was the usual uniform
for parlour, chamber and ‘in-between’
maids, worn with starched white
cuffs, collar, apron and cap. Early on,
half-aprons were usual, but during
the 1880s aprons acquired a bib and
caps grew tall c1885-1890, following
A lady’s maid wearing fashionable
high-waist Regency gown with apron,
tucker and cap attends her mistress in
The Progress of the Toilet: The Stays by
James Gillray (1810)
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Left to right: Nannies and nursery maids wore uniforms similar to other servants. This
nanny, pictured in 1913, wears a feminine starched apron over a dark dress with neat
cap; kitchen staff rarely ventured upstairs and often wore coarse aprons or overalls,
although this Kinross cook and kitchen maids dressed well for their photo, c1919-1922
fashion. During the 1890s maids’
uniforms became more frivolous,
dresses featuring modish puffed
‘leg-o’-mutton’ sleeves, the apron
bib narrowing, developing frills and
shoulder straps crossing at the back.
The cap was now a pert ‘pom pom’
headdress perched on the head, worn
with long streamers for afternoons.
In the early 1900s morning work
garments included a plain or print
dress and traditional mob cap, but
afternoon uniforms continually
evolved, gaining dainty caps worn far
back on the head and delicate aprons
with a V-shaped bib. Dress hemlines
grew shorter from the mid-1910s and
between the wars hemlines rose to just
below the knee, many uniforms of the
1920s and 1930s being fashioned from
modern blue or green rayon fabric.
A lady’s personal maid enjoyed a
more elevated position: ideally young,
she was expected to understand
fashion and be skilled in dressing
hair and sewing, many ladies’
maids being former dressmakers.
Usually the first to receive their
mistress’s cast-offs, they often
appeared well-dressed, although
images demonstrate that some wore
a white cap and apron. Georgian
nannies and nursery maids also wore
fashionable dress, with appropriate
accessories, but later developed a
uniform, like other Victorian servants.
Mrs Beeton recommended grey in
Household Management (1861) and
later, between the wars, the Astors’
nanny at Clivedon wore a white blouse
and grey skirt in the mornings and
dark grey dress for afternoons. Dark
gowns were usual, although nannies
trained at the prestigious Norland
College (established 1892) wore
distinctive light brown uniforms with
embroidered ‘N’ motif. When teamed
with an outdoor cape, starched cap
and bibbed apron, the uniform of the
late-Victorian and Edwardian nanny
resembled that of nurses.
The cook and her kitchen and
scullery maids, who rarely ventured
above stairs, generally wore a plain
or printed cotton dress with short
sleeves, or donned washable protective
sleeves and coarse aprons for cooking
or rough work. An overall covering
the whole dress was sometimes worn
by Victorian and Edwardian cooks,
but strictly in the kitchen. After
the Great War, ladies struggling to
hire staff in a fast-changing world
resorted to advertisements offering
attractive perks, including provision
of chic modern uniforms. Gradually
the status of domestic staff changed:
many worked as daily helps who didn’t
live in, so more of our 20th-century
servant forebears would have enjoyed
Christmas and New Year at home with
their own families.
www.family-tree.co.uk
12/12/2016 11:13
 JA N U A R Y S A L E !

50% OFF
ALL BOOKS

Visit our website to view all books:

www.family-tree.co.uk
www.family-tree.co.uk January 2017 FamilyTree 63
Hurry, while stock lasts!

p63 Book shop offer.indd 63 12/12/2016 15:27

 research
LIFESTYLE & HEALTH zone

Simon Wills meets a researcher

investigating the impact of
the Norman Conquest on our
ancestors’ diet and health, 950
years after the Battle of Hastings

I
n the December issue of Family
Tree, we reported on a new
project that aims to discover
how the Norman invasion
affected what ordinary people at
the time ate, and the impact this had
on their health. Cardiff University
researcher Dr Ben Jervis is leading
the team behind the study, which
involves examining human and
animal remains and pottery from
pre- and post-conquest Oxford. I
asked him to tell us more.
brought changes to both, so diet
offers a really important insight
into how the Conquest might have
affected people across society.
We’ve been fortunate enough to
obtain funding from The Society of
Antiquaries of London, The Royal
Archaeological Institute and the
Society for Medieval Archaeology to
explore this subject.
Q Will you be able to differentiate
between the diet of both the
conquerors (Normans) and the
England after 1066. Our project
is focusing on the study of human
remains. We know from the use
of scientific dating whether the
individuals that we are studying
were living before, after or during
the conquest.
Q How does analysing bones and
teeth tell us about our diet?
A What we eat has impact upon
the composition of our bones,
so by using a technique called stable
isotope analysis, we are able to

Q Why is the history of diet so

important?
conquered (Anglo-Saxons)?

A We can certainly differentiate

understand what people were eating
for a snapshot of their lives while

A Food is something that is

central to all of our lives, and
it provides information about both
our economy, but also our culture.
We know that the Norman Conquest
between diet before and
after the conquest, although
sadly we won’t be able to say if the
individuals that we are studying
were already here or came to
that part of the body was growing.
We will be able to explore, for
example, whether people had more
meat, fi sh or vegetables in their diet.
Previous research has shown that

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Left: In this scene from the Bayeux Tapestry, Bishop
Odo blesses the first banquet that the conquering Duke
William and the Norman Barons held in England
Above: Lizzy Nicholson, from the project team, prepares
bone sample for analysis
Right: Dr Ben Jervis is leading the project
the elite were eating more pig, a
trait of elite diet in Normandy at this
time, but the kinds of meat eaten by
ordinary folk changed very little, so
it will be interesting to see if they
were eating more or less of it.
We are also using an exciting new
technique called incremental dental
isotope analysis. This requires us to
take a series of samples from along
a single tooth, to allow us to see
how diet changed over the period
of months across which the tooth
was developing. This provides really
important information of health,
that we haven’t been able to access
before. Importantly, this analysis
could reveal whether the period
around 1066 was characterised by
dietary stress, or allowed people to
access a wider range of foodstuffs
and enjoy a more nutritious diet. We
are also combining this analysis with
the study of the bones themselves,
to identify medical conditions which
might be related to diet, such as
signs of malnutrition.
This adds a level of detail to our
understanding that the analysis
of food remains in isolation can’t
provide us. It’s like comparing
what we can learn from looking
at the food waste dumped by an
entire street over a period of a
year, with what we can learn from
studying what was eaten by each
person living along that street every
day. By understanding diet at this
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p64-65Research zoneFINAL.indd 65
level of resolution we can begin to
explore whether diet was affected
in a uniform way, or if particular
households may have had different
experiences of the conquest.
Q Are you looking at cooking and
food preparation techniques as
well as diet?
A Yes, as well as studying human
remains our project is analysing
food remains that have absorbed into
the walls of ceramic cooking pots.
This analysis allows us to understand
what was cooked in these vessels and
also, potentially, to identify mixtures
of food. For example, some previous
analysis of Anglo-Saxon cooking pots
from Southampton showed that fish
was being cooked in milk or cream,
in a similar way to how we might
make a fish pie today.
Q Have any conquest-era recipes
or cook books survived?
A Sadly not, although we do have
some documentary evidence
which gives some insight. From
the Anglo-Saxon period there are
a series of documents called the
Leechdoms, which are really medical
texts but provide some information
about cooking practices, including
the method of cooking fi sh that
we identified through residue
analysis. We also know that cooking
in France was different to cooking
in England and that some high
Food for thought
status households sent their cooks
to France to learn to cook in the
French style. From the 12th century
we have a document called Urbanus
Magnus, which details rules of
etiquette in elite households, for
example stating that it is important
to exercise restraint in conversation
and bodily emissions at the table!
This also has some information on
appropriate fl avourings for different
foodstuffs, for example suggesting
that beef should be cooked with
garlic and lamb with cumin.
Q When will the research be
completed?
A We have been working hard over
the summer and will hopefully
have the first set of isotope analysis
Images: Bayeux Tapestry scene by Myrabella via Wikimedia Commons; other images © Dr Ben Jervis
data ready early in 2017. The analysis
of pottery will take a little longer, but
we hope to have some results to share
later in 2017.
About the author
Dr Simon Wills is a
fgfg
genealogist and author
with more than 25 years’
experience of researching
his ancestors. He has a particular
interest in maritime history and his latest
book is The Wreck of the SS London
(Amberley). He is also author of Voyages
from the Past, How Our Ancestors Died
and a novel, Lifeboatmen.
January 2017 Family
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 HOW TO PUBLICISE YOUR FAMILY TREE ONLINE
CUSTOMISING
YOUR APPROACH
This issue, in his series on how to design a family history website, Mike Gould
looks at how to expand your site, so that it covers the subjects you wish to and
has your individuality built into it
B
egin by thinking about why
you want to create a website...
Present a simple story
Perhaps you simply want to preserve
in story form the lives of your
ancestors for future generations to
read. If this satisfies your needs,
then ‘simple is best’ should be your
motto, and generic website creator
programs, such as those provided
by 1and1.co.uk and wix.com, can
provide a good start point for your
website. You can choose a template
from a wide variety of samples.
You will start by designing those
general aspects that will be present
on all or most pages, then move on
to the design of individual pages.
I do need to add a word of caution
All in the style...
Think about how you want your
website to look:
• Historical?
• Artistic?
• Scientific?
• Professional?
• Commercial?
• Other?
66 Family
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p66-67 MikeGould FINALish.indd 66
PAR T 4 :
here. You will find it easier if you
follow the template and allow it to
guide your design. If you want to
branch out and make the design
your own, then you will need to
learn more about the techniques
of web design, including HTML
(hypertext markup language) and
CSS (cascading style sheets).
Although there are good articles
about website design on the
web, I recommend either taking
an evening class in the subject
or reading recently published
‘introduction’ books, or both!
Think about syncing your
research & your site
If your website is mainly concerned
with stories from your family
history, the templated approach
will probably suit you well. If,
on the other hand, you want to
include reports generated from a
family history program, such as
RootsMagic, Family Historian, and
so forth, then this will require more
effort. Again, I need to sound a
note of caution. If your research is
in a state of f lux and you are forever
updating it, the effort of keeping
the website ‘in sync’ with all your
updates may be significant. There
are various ways of handling this,
TOP TIP
Bear in mind that you
do not
need to worry about
similar code languag
JavaScript and
es unless you want
to implement interacti
ve web pages.
Even then, some featur
es can still be
implemented just wit
h HTML and CSS.
If you stick with the ba
sic templated
approach that I outlin
e at the
beginning of this article
, you may
not even have to get
to grips
with these
but all require careful thought and
planning. You may wish to update
the website only occasionally, in
which case make sure you know
which pages have changed. If you
are an experienced programmer,
you may elect to write a program
to auto-generate web pages from a
GEDCOM file, but be warned – this
can be challenging!
The approach I take, which I
outlined last month, is to use a
spreadsheet to generate the HTML,
having previously pasted a report
in from my family history program.
This is a compromise between the
fully manual approach and one
which is completely automated.
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 Start your research on the web

Examples of website technology

Add interactive elements
If you want your website to be Here are examples of the technologies I have mentioned
interactive, such as allowing the
reader to be able to sort and filter
tables of information, then you
will need to venture into the world
of ‘scripts’. In this case, you need
to add JavaScript to your list of
technologies to learn.

Use a code library

You may find that writing some web
code is unavoidable, but don’t worry –
help is at hand.
These days, no-one writes all their
code from scratch. Many of the
common web page elements can be
provided from code libraries. One of
the best, and most popular, is jQuery
Again, a learning curve is inevitable
and there is no substitute for a good
book on the subject. In all these
technical subjects, the book that
is best for you will depend on your
previous experience, so read the book
descriptions and other reader reviews.
Will it last?
If one of your reasons for creating
a website is to preserve your family
stories for future generations, then
one issue that you need to address is
that of making your creation last.
This is not a simple matter.
Questions to consider include:
HTML
If these are completely new
to you, you can nevertheless
see that the HTML example is
concerned with structure and
content, by its structured layout
and, to some extent, readable
text. This example of HTML for
a navigation menu is based on
Murach’s HTML5 & CSS3
CSS
When we move on to the CSS
example, you can probably
guess from terms like position,
color and border that this is about
the layout and style of the page
JavaScript & jQuery code
By the time we get to JavaScript
and jQuery, this is now looking
like – to use a technical term –
gobbledegook!

• who will pay the website hosting

fees in the future?
• who will ensure that any advanced
features continue to function
correctly?
• who will correct any errors that
subsequently become evident?
About the author
Mike
fgfg Gould is a retired
systems engineering
manager. He has been
researching his family history
for nearly two decades
and is also chairman of his
village local history group.
His website Tales My Ancestors Told Me at
www.talesmyancestorstoldme.org reflects
his approach to family history, finding the
tales that our ancestors can tell us by the
records that they leave behind!
You may want to consider further
measures to safeguard your
research for the future, such as:
• sending out copies of your
material on usb memory sticks
• copying your material to the
‘cloud’ and circulating access
permissions to your family
• printing out ‘hard copies’ and
circulating to family members
• circulating your website access
details to trusted family members
with technical know-how
• creating and sharing copies of
a GEDCOM file, which has the
advantage that it is simply pure
text and is therefore likely to be
readable by software in the future.
None of the above measures
are foolproof, but at least if you
take precautions like these, your
descendants will have a good chance
of perpetuating your hard work
– you will just need to rely on the
cooperation of those descendants!
I hope those of you with
programming skills, or who wish to
acquire them, will use some of the
advanced techniques that I have
listed, but for the rest of you, don’t be
put off by the fear of new technology.
Stick to the simpler approaches that
I have outlined – the main aim is to
share your family history research.
Next issue, I’ll delve further into
some of the advanced techniques, so
please join me then.

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 DISTANT FAMILY CONNECTIONS TO KENYA

Investigating the
work & life of a
Colonial
Officer
A chance discovery in Who’s Who about a distant cousin encouraged
Richard Morgan to investigate further. Following the paper trail he
learned of events from the mundane to the murderous, in the dying
years of Britain’s colonial involvement in Kenya

M
y distant cousin, whom I
E
TAP HER R
will call Peter, was born in
1904 and died in 1976. He
OSE
joined the Colonial Service, FOR A CL T
first in Kenya and then in Swaziland. LOOK A
The present article deals only with his
career in Kenya. So what did he do and
THE MAP
what was life like in that sort of job?

Searching official
printed sources
Get the bones of a
Government career
My starting point was his entry in
Who’s Who. It is very brief, the relevant
part is: District Officer, Kenya 1926:
Dep. Provincial Commissioner, 1945;
Provincial Commissioner, 1947-51.
Kenya had been created out of the
old East African Protectorate in 1920
and came directly under the British
Colonial Office. Most Government
organisations (armed forces as well as
civil service) publish annual lists of their
members; the Colonial Office was no
exception, and copies of the Dominions
Office and Colonial Office List (from 1946
just Colonial Office List) are available on
open shelves in the Search Room at The
National Archives in Kew.
There is a helpful description of each
colony (history, geography, etc) with a
map in earlier editions. It gives details
of where each district and province was
When researching a place you’re unfamiliar with, a map
can really help to clarify the lie of the land
(provinces kept getting reorganised),
and also the officers and their ranks and
salaries, but not the districts or provinces
where they served.
From this we find Peter’s career as:
• Cadet 1926 £350 pa
• District Officer 1936 £400-920 pa
• Deputy Provincial Commissioner
1946 £1,100 pa
• Provincial Commissioner 1949
£1,350 pa.
The third official printed source is
the Kenya Gazette. Most readers will be
familiar with the London Gazette (and its
siblings the Edinburgh Gazette, the Dublin
Gazette and the Belfast Gazette), which
publishes Government notices of all
kinds and is available online free at www.
thegazette.co.uk. Similar publications
existed in Britain’s overseas possessions
including a Kenya Gazette, which
mercifully is available through Google
Books at https://books.google.co.uk
This shows promotions in the
administration. A typical entry is:
‘February 22 1949 p93; Appointments;

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Place names are invaluable in family history research, and are also useful when
searching for an ancestor if looking for them by personal name proves fruitless. For
instance, Richard’s search in discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk on the place name
Kolloa led him to records that covered his distant relative’s work
Peter …, to be Provincial Commissioner,
Rift Valley Province, with effect from 15
February, 1949.’
It will be noted that this date is at
variance with what we were told in Who’s
Who. Entries there of course were written
by the individuals themselves who did
not always have to hand the documents
they needed to describe their career, and
so sometimes got things wrong.
The Kenya Gazette also shows many
other things: details of arrivals and
departures (when Peter went on UK
leave), and his administrative duties such
as appointing chiefs or headmen, liquor
licensing, money lender licensing, roads
committees, township committees and
‘local native councils’. In all I found some
70 items relating to Peter’s Kenya career.
From all these sources we can
reconstruct his career in terms of
promotion and places:
• Assistant District Commissioner
(Cadet), Machakos District, Ukamba
Province, 1926
• District Commissioner, Turkana,
Rift Valley Province 1934; North
Kavirondo, Nyanza Province 1935;
Mombasa, Coast Province alternating
with N Nyeri, Kikuyu Province 1941
• Acting Provincial Commissioner, Rift
Valley Province, 1946
• Provincial Commissioner, Rift Valley
Province, 1949-1951.
All this gives the bones of Peter’s
career in terms of his rank, the district/
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Researching a story at The National Archives
province he was working in, and his
salary. But what was his job actually like?
Reading round the subject
Learn about the daily realities
of life in the job
I am a great believer in reading round
a new subject so as to get a feel for
how it works. I started with a general
history, Kenya by A Marshall MacPhee,
published in 1968 and available on
Google Books, though I might have
chosen from many other titles. This
described the general set-up for British
administration, and alerted me to
events in Kenya during 1926-1951.
But I also wanted to know about the
life of colonial officers. I looked at two
books in libraries, both by ex-colonial
officers: Charles Chenevix Trench’s Men
who ruled Kenya: The Kenya Administration
1892-1963, London 1993 (on Google
Books), and RO Hennings’ African
Morning, London 1951 (available fairly
cheaply from Amazon, AbeBooks, etc).
The first of these was the more
WHO’S WHO? – USE WITH CAUTION
The entries are written by the individuals themselves and their memories
may be at fault or they may not have had relevant papers beside them
useful. The author wrote in a lively
style about his erstwhile colleagues and
the problems they had to overcome,
describing the life and duties of
an officer of Peter’s time. As DO
(district officer) he would have been
at the beck and call of his DC (district
commissioner). DO and DC had to rely
on strength of character, being backed
only by a few Tribal Police (not to be
confused with the less localised Kenya
Police). His daily round is described as
starting with a walk or ride round the
territory, inspection of Tribal Police,
paper work, magistracy work, receiving
petitions and complaints (collectively
called shauris), meetings of the local
council, and committees on such things
as health, education, etc.
Hennings is also good on Kenyan
administration: a DO’s duties were a
mix of safari (ie tour of inspection) –
often in the early days on foot – and
office work. This mix contributed
greatly to the charm of life at an
outstation. Safaris might be for the
purposes of surveying for a road,
collecting tax, enforcing grazing or
other regulations, apprehending
offenders, dispensing justice, inspecting
schools, or simply holding a baraza
– a meeting with the local people to
discuss local issues and learn their
interests and concerns. All this was
in addition to keeping an eye out
for anything unusual. (When Peter
became Provincial Commissioner in
the late 1940s he got his DCs to submit
Intelligence Reports beginning with the
heading ‘Rumour and Public Gossip’!)
Hennings makes it clear that an
intelligent officer could find much of
interest in the job from the spectacular
scenery, the study of wildlife, the
languages and ethnography of the
different tribes, including the contrast
and tension between nomadic
pastoralists like the Suk and Masai, and
more or less settled agriculturalists like
the Kikuyu, etc. Chenevix Trench too
shows how officers became attached
to the tribes in their area or district,
learned their language and grew to
appreciate the culture.
January 2017 Family
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 DISTANT FAMILY CONNECTIONS TO KENYA
To search a remarkable collection of maps covering many locations
globally visit www.oldmapsonline.org
Visiting the archives
Step 1: Search the online catalogue
Armed with this, I turned to The
National Archives (TNA) as the
repository of old UK Government
documents. All documents from
British rule in Kenya ought to be there.
I searched in the online catalogue
discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk for
‘Kenya’ and his surname for the period
after 1925. I got 13 results; three were
dated after Peter’s retirement and none
seemed to refer to him. I searched
for him in conjunction with Kenyan
districts or provinces he served in.
Surname plus ‘Machakos’, ‘Kavirondo’,
‘Kitui’ and ‘Rift Valley’ produced
no hits at all. ‘Mombasa’ found one
document about a man with a different
first name in 1916. ‘Nyanza’ got me
seven hits – all to do with a steamer
called the Nyanza in World War I.
So, what to do next? Well this is where
I had a stroke of luck. Chenevix Trench
mentions Peter by name only once, in
connection with an incident in 1949,
at a place called Kolloa in Rift Valley
70 Family
FamilyTree January 2017
p68-71 Richard MorganFINAL.indd 70
TAP HERE
FOR A CLOSER
LOOK AT
THE MAP
Province. I put ‘Kolloa’ into TNA’s search
engine and immediately got some hits,
headed by ‘Report of a Commission
of Enquiry into an Affray at Kolloa,
Baringo, Kenya’ (TNA CO 822/615).
This gave me what I wanted and I
had no difficulty in digging out other
documents about this. Searching just
for other place names between the
relevant dates was also fruitful. In
the end I found six substantial files
mentioning Peter’s work in Kenya.
Step 2: Explore the paper files
Peter’s role at Kolloa was marginal, but
it is worth describing the events there
as an example of what treasures TNA
can provide. In Rift Valley Province,
an organisation calling itself Dini ya
Msambwa or Religion of the Spirits of the
Departed was headed by an extremist
called Lukas Kipkoech. He had been
educated at a mission, and his cult was
a mixture of paganism, Old Testament
Christianity and anti-European
sentiment. There were warnings as to
his behaviour in 1948, and Lukas was
captured and sentenced for sedition,
but escaped in 1949. He now claimed
to have been killed by the Government
and to have been resurrected as the
Son of God. His hold on Suk tribesman
was described:
‘… Lukas possessed a double-
barrelled shot-gun with which he gave
demonstrations to his followers. One
barrel was loaded with S.S.G. or large
bird-shot and the other with a cartridge
from which the shot had been extracted
and possibly mud substituted. The first
barrel was then fired at a suitable target
with a true explanation that it was a
normal cartridge. The second was then
fired with no damage to the target and
Lukas explained that police bullets
would act likewise, if people believed in,
followed, and obeyed HIM implicitly.’
At the time one DC, AB Simpson,
was in the process of handing over to
his successor DC, AJ Stevens, when
he received disquieting news from a
missionary called Collins who knew
the Suk well. He reported that Lukas
was present and the Suk were behaving
strangely and threateningly. It was
agreed that a body of tribal police, 35
Kenya police led by a superintendent
and assistant inspector, together with
the two DCs would go out to deal with
Lukas and the Suk warriors. Peter as
provincial commissioner arrived at the
base camp at Nginyang. The matter was
discussed beforehand with him, and he
told Simpson that he must settle with the
police that he, Simpson, would give the
order for any shooting.
Some 200-300 Suk warriors under
Lukas met Simpson’s force at Kolloa,
Baringo, on 24 April 1950. Most of the
ammunition had not been handed out
before the confrontation. Simpson
refused to give the order to fire until
his force was attacked. Simpson
survived, but a tribal police corporal
and one Kenya policeman were both
killed as well as Stevens and the two
senior police officers. Some 29 Suk
died. Lukas was also killed.
The shock was palpable.
There was an enquiry into the Kolloa
incident, headed by Sir Claud Seton, a
retired Attorney-General of Fiji, who by
good fortune lived in Kenya. The report
was published in November 1951.
Part I gives a succinct account of the
rise of Dini ya Msambwa and Lukas, and
the nature of Suk culture and beliefs.
Part II focuses on the actual events:
the information as to unusual Suk
behaviour, which prompted Simpson
to go out to confront the tribesmen,
www.family-tree.co.uk
13/12/2016 14:05

and the clear agreement beforehand
that Simpson would give any order to
fire, not Taylor – a decision approved
by Peter when he arrived at the base
camp the evening before. The reasons
for the loss of life were analysed. Part III
describes the aftermath.
No one was reprimanded in the report
and the recommendations were fairly
simple: better intelligence; collective
fines for subversive meetings; economic
development of resources in the area;
meetings with the local people; more
frequent barazas; missionaries should
supervise their schools better; local
DCs were still needed; the DC in
Baringo needed an assistant.
Step 3: Seek out an ancestor’s
own words
Peter made his own report on the
matter. First he spoke with affection of
the Suk: ‘A conservative, remote and
to all intents and purposes a peaceful,
law abiding people. The East Suk have
been thought by the administration as
probably the best section of the Baringo
District, and signs of progress and the
will to go ahead were beginning to be
apparent. Cattle sales were starting and
it was becoming clear that the people
were prepared to co-operate financially
in furthering any schemes for the
improvement of water supplies. … a
pleasant and likeable tribe.’
As to remedial action he suggested two
INTERACTIVE
GALLERIES
SWIPE BELOW
for more images, and
TAP for a closer look
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READING
M ATERIAL
SOURCE IT
FREE ONLIN
Use publishe E
d books
for backgrou
nd (Google
Books, Intern
et Archive,
Amazon, Ab
eBo
etc or local lib oks
raries)
additional DOs in the area to keep
closely in touch with the people
– ‘foot safaris will be the rule
rather than the exception’. He also
recommended better intelligence.
Administration should not be
squeamish about paying for it.
At a baraza Peter told the
tribesmen the unwelcome news that
Government had brought askaris
[local police] to the district, and,
for a start, they would live here for a year
and the whole of their costs would be
borne by the Suk…
‘It would take between 4,000 and 5,000
head of cattle to pay for these forces and
money would not be paid back to the
Suk but go to the Government.’
There was also a programme of public
works to which the Suk would have to
assist, and the handing in of spears.
Meanwhile, efforts were made to
counter Dini ya Msambwa propaganda.
Peter reported to the Chief Native
Commissioner (CNC) a DC’s comments:
‘The operations performed by Mr
MacKelvie – the Government Eye
Specialist East Suk – have proved 100%
successful and the reaction of the
patients, their relatives and friends had
been astounding. It is considered that
the work performed by Mr MacKelvie
has contributed more towards the
rehabilitation of the East Suk than
all other efforts combined during the
Search Google Books for digitised copies
of published Lists, which can provide
useful career details for Government
officials. Below: Note the archive
reference numbers for use in locating the
records when you visit TNA at Kew
past few months.’
Peter added: ‘I cannot think of a better
reply to DYM propaganda than the
beneficial results which can be obtained
by a second and more prolonged visit
to East Suk by Dr MacKelvie. Lukas
promised to restore sight but failed to do
so and the Suk now realize this. I believe
that the large scale treatment envisaged
by Mr MacKelvie would be of enormous
value in the campaign of restoring the
morale and faith in Government of the
Suk people.’ The CNC agreed.
I found this research extremely
rewarding, exploring the chance
discovery of a distant relative’s colonial
employment overseas and the insight it
shows to the tumultuous nature of life
in such a situation as the decades of the
British Empire were drawing to a close.
About the author
Richard
fgfg Morgan is editor of two
diaries, The Diary of a Bedfordshire
Squire (Beds Historical Record
Society, vol 66, 1987) and The
Diary of an Indian Cavalry Officer (Pagoda
Tree Press, 2003), as well as Life Runneth
as the Brooks – the Brooks family in
Bedfordshire (Pagoda Tree Press, 2011) and
British Ships in Indian Waters (www.fibis.org,
2012, 2nd edition out in 2017). He has written
several articles on Indian and other history,
and is also the author of books on IT Law.
January 2017 Family
FamilyTree 71
13/12/2016 14:06
 FEARED KILLERS OF BYGONE DAYS INTERACTIVE
GALLERIES
TAP HERE for more images

Dreaded diseases
& desperate cures
Our ancestors’ times are well-known for high numbers of childhood deaths, and
illnesses that swept people from this world in a matter of days. Dr Ed Dutton
looks at just three of the many diseases that our family members would have
dreaded in decades past: tuberculosis, polio and typhoid

I
n 1921, my great-grandmother,
Sarah Gell, came down with
tuberculosis. It would have begun
with nothing more than a cough.
But it would be a cough that wouldn’t
go away. After a few weeks, she’d have
noticed she was coughing up blood in
her phlegm. She’d have developed fever,
night sweats, extreme tiredness and
complete loss of appetite.
Sarah, who’d had a baby just over a
year earlier, was taken from her home
in Chiswick to a hospital in Kensington
to isolate her and let her rest. But she
died there, of TB, aged just 36. Sarah
left behind four children, ranging in age
from 10 to just one. Her widower, tram-
driver Walter Gell (1885-1942), couldn’t
cope. He had to put the baby boy,
Uncle Ron, into a home for motherless
children, until he got back on his feet.
As we delve back into our family
histories, the impact of tuberculosis –
and other conditions which have died
out due to better hygiene or medication
– is hard to overestimate. TB is spread
by microscopic droplets released into
the air when someone coughs, sneezes
or just talks. The first antibiotic that was
truly effective against tuberculosis was
not developed until 1944 and the drug
Isoniazid, which could treat both latent
and active TB, was not pioneered until

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 Our ancestors’ illnesses & medical treatment

Left to right: Tonics were popular among our ancestors,

desperate to combat debilitating illnesses such as consumption;
children from the Lord Mayor Treloar Cripples Hospital and
College, Alton, Hampshire, 1937

1952. Prior to that, ‘consumption’ was
just a horrible fact of life which you could
catch at any time, but you were much
more likely to catch it if you were poor.
The killer of a quarter
of Londoners
The Industrial Revolution of the
18th and 19th centuries, heralding
the enormous growth of cities,
led to a spike in the prevalence of
tuberculosis. Suddenly, the minimum
population density to permit
epidemics had been reached and
those who lived in dirty, cramped,
poorly ventilated conditions would
bear the brunt of it. The bacterium
would always find a host; always stay in
the population.
In London, at the beginning of the
18th century, about 15 per cent of deaths
were due to consumption. By, the start
of the 19th century, this had surged to
almost 25 per cent.
Noxious smells &
miracle cures
Until 1882, when German physician
Robert Koch (1843-1910) isolated
the bacterium behind TB, nobody
understood what caused it. Well into the
20th century, the average person had
no comprehension of bacteria at all.
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), along
with most other Victorians, believed
illness was caused by ‘miasma’ – an
unpleasant, unhealthy smell or vapour.
That was why, they reasoned, poverty
was associated with illness. It smelt bad
where the poor lived and this made them
sick. The hot summer of 1858 led to the
‘Great Stink,’ in which the stench from
the Thames – pumped full of untreated
human and industrial waste – was so gut-
wrenching that the health of MPs was
genuinely feared for.
Charles Dickens wrote at the time
that, ‘I can certify that the offensive
smells, even in that short whiff, have
been of a most head-and-stomach-
distending nature.’
Desperate for a cure, people turned
to quack doctors, many of whom made
fortunes from their dubious medicines.
Back in 1822, John St John Long
(1798-1834), an Irishman, turned up in
London, making money from Bible-
inspired paintings. By 1827, despite
no medical training, he’d turned to
anatomy – based on his experience
of life drawing – and had developed a
‘miraculous cure’ for consumption. Now
set up in Harley Street, in 1830, he stood
trial at the Old Bailey for manslaughter.
St John Long had attempted to cure
the daughter of the wealthy ‘Mrs Cashin’
of consumption by applying egg-yolk,
vinegar and turpentine to her back and
shoulders. She died of her wounds but St
John Long was fined just £250, which he
could easily pay. He continued marketing
his cure for another year, dying, some
historians say, of consumption.

Blighted lives Sanatoria & spitting

In the 1870s, many doctors believed
that consumption was hereditary.
On the St Helier Memories website at www.heliermemories.org.uk a former But as it became clear, in the 1880s,
resident, who grew up on the south London estate around the 1930s, recalls being that TB was contagious, it was made a
struck down by TB: ‘All my teenage years were taken up – I was at home in bed ‘notifiable disease,’ cases of which had
for 18 months, then I went away for 18 months. I went to Milford Sanatorium near to be reported to the authorities. Those
Guildford way... They caught it in the early stages but bed rest didn’t do the trick who were infected were pressured to
so I had to go away to get treatment. They collapsed your lungs and they pushed enter sanatoria, which varied hugely
in air every week to keep the lungs down. Then when I came home I still carried on in standard according to how much
going up the hospital to have that done... So my teenage years weren’t like other you could pay. Normally located in the
youngsters’.’ The lungs were collapsed – sometimes by removing ribs – so they countryside, it was believed that the fresh
could rest and so the oxygen supply could be cut off to the bacteria. Even once you air, rest, and sunlight sanatoria provided
were cured, some people avoided you, because they knew you’d had TB and they helped to cure the disease and people
were afraid of catching it. This terrible stigma led to some survivors moving house would spend years in them recovering.
But even in sanatoria, the death rate

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 FEARED KILLERS OF BYGONE DAYS TAP HERE
TO VIEW A
OF SANATOMAP
AND HOSP RIA
IT
– after five years – was around 50 per
IN ENGLANALS
cent in 1916. In most cases, it would take D
many years to die slowly of TB.
There were also public health
campaigns against spitting; reflected
in old signposts surviving to this day
imploring people not to spit or even
declaring it illegal to spit in public.
The first TB vaccine wasn’t developed
until 1921 and it wasn’t popularised until
the 1940s. This, combined with other
cures and the rolling out of X-rays in
the 1950s, meant that the TB death rate
collapsed from 46,200 deaths in 1918
(135.8 deaths per 100,000 people) to just
2,450 deaths (5.4/100,000) in 1960.

A new epidemic
And just as TB began to decline, the
prevalence of polio actually increased.
Polio epidemics were unknown in the
UK before about 1900, but thereafter
they would strike almost every summer.
There were 8,000 cases in 1947: 10 times
the normal average figure. Like TB,
polio had reached epidemic levels due to
the growth of cities.
Polio is spread from person to person,
usually due to virus-infected faecal
matter – often from food – entering
the mouth, though it can be spread by
saliva. Symptoms can include a flu-like
illness and vomiting. In more severe
cases, people lose the ability to breathe
and, by the 1950s, some hospitals would
be lined with sufferers in ‘iron lungs’,
which enabled them to respire. However,
the virus can lead to severely weakened
muscles and paralysis.
A vaccine was developed in the mid-
1950s, but by then polio had wreaked
havoc on so many lives. The pop singer
Ian Dury (1942-2000), of Hit Me With Angier’s Emulsion advertisement, and the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
Your Rhythm Stick fame, contracted polio dating from 1907, and published by The Just William author Richmal
aged seven, likely from a swimming pool the Angier Chemical Co Crompton (1890-1969) was a school
in Southend-on-Sea during the 1949 teacher in 1923 when she caught polio
epidemic. Dury was left with wasted and the author of The Hippopotamus Song, and lost the use of her right leg. Finding
and weakened limbs. Michael Flanders contracted polio in 1943 while serving it too physically demanding to teach, she
(1922-1975), who was one half of the in the Navy. It wasn’t diagnosed quickly turned to writing, producing her much-
1950s-1960s duo Flanders and Swann enough. He spent a year in an iron lung, loved children’s stories. The well-known
historian David Starkey (born 1945)
started school in callipers due to his
No respecter of fame attack of ‘infantile paralysis’.

Many prominent 20th century British figures died of consumption. DH Lawrence Unhygenic habits
(1885-1930) was killed by it, as was the composer Ivor Gurney (1890-1937). George Typhoid was a product of poor hygiene
Orwell (1903-1950) caught it in the late 1930s and it eventually took his life. The practices. At the beginning of the 20th
actress Vivien Leigh (1913-1967) was diagnosed in the mid-1940s, ultimately losing century, many people still found the idea
her battle against it. Survivors include the singer Sir Tom Jones (born 1940), who that we were surrounded by tiny invisible,
was diagnosed aged 12 and spent two years recovering. Certain forms of TB, dangerous microbes to be laughable.
especially tuberculosis of the bones, could leave survivors severely disabled This being so, why on earth would you

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need to wash your hands after going to
the loo or before preparing food? The
first week of typhoid involves fever and
severe coughing. In week two, there was
also delirium and diarrhoea. Week three
saw mild intestinal and brain damage
and respiratory problems and, in week
four, if you were strong enough, the
typhoid fever would subside. Typhoid will
only spread where human faeces or urine
has come into contact with food or water.
An effective vaccine against it – first
used on soldiers – was developed in
1896, and treating household water has
also had a huge effect on reducing the
illness’s prevalence. The novelist Arnold
Bennett (1867-1931) succumbed to the
disease two months after drinking a glass
of tap water in a Paris restaurant to prove
it was safe.
The most infamous outbreak of
typhoid centred around Mary Mallon
(1869-1938). Originally from Ireland,
over the course of her career in New
York as a cook, she infected 51 people,
of whom three died. ‘Typhoid Mary’
was discovered by scientist George
Soper (1870-1948) to have been at the
centre of three outbreaks, at wealthy
households where she was a cook,
between 1900 and 1906, despite being
perfectly healthy herself.
While she was quarantined, between
1907 and 1910, Soper found that
she had a form of latent typhoid –
asymptomatic typhoid – which meant
she could live quite healthily but pass
typhoid on no matter how clean she
was. She was released and found work
– initially as a laundress. However,
in 1915, when there was a typhoid
outbreak at a New York hospital, Mary
was found to be working there as a
cook. Always extremely aggressive and
uncooperative, she was quarantined
on North Brother Island for the
remainder of her life.
With tuberculosis rife in the industrial cities of the
19th century, spitting was severely discouraged and
the use of spitoons, which had even been
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p72-75 DuttonFINAL.indd 75
Our ancestors’ illnesses & medical treatment
A sign from a railway carriage in the early 20th century asking people to stop spitting
The last serious outbreak of typhoid
in Britain was in 1964 in Aberdeen.
The 400 (non-fatal) cases it led to were
traced to contaminated South American
corned beef from a supermarket.
Fragile childhoods
As we trace our way back to the 19th
century, child mortality rates grow
dramatically. Often, those born in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries would
have had a sibling who died as a child.
The move to the cities meant that the
child mortality rate actually increased
towards the end of the 19th century,
when 150 out of every 1,000 births died
under the age of one year. In 2013, this
was just 3.8 births per 1,000. In the
1890s, 30 per 1,000 births died between
the ages of one and four.
Most children who got to the age of
four would tend to survive until they
were at least 14. Measles was one of the
biggest causes of child death until the
first successful vaccine was developed in
1963. Often, children would survive it,
but in some cases it would overwhelm
them. And this impacted one of the
country’s greatest children’s authors.
In November 1962, Roald Dahl’s
seven-year-old daughter, Olivia, caught
measles. Writing in 1986, he recalled:
popular in pubs, fell from favour.
This one, made by Spode, dates
from the early 1800s. Instead
sputum bottles came to be
used by tuberculosis
patients to contain the
bacteria in their spit
‘As the illness took its usual course I can
remember reading to her often in bed
and not feeling particularly alarmed
about it.’ Then one morning, when she
seemed to be getting better, Dahl was
sitting on Olivia’s bed, showing her how
to make animals out of pipe cleaners.
When it came to Olivia’s turn, she
couldn’t co-ordinate her hands. ‘“Are
you feeling all right?” I asked her. “I feel
Images: spitoon and sign © Science Museum, London, Wellcome Images; other images © Wellcome Library, London, published under the Creative Commons licence 4.0
all sleepy”, she said. In an hour, she was
unconscious. In twelve hours she was
dead. The measles had turned into a
terrible thing called measles encephalitis
and there was nothing the doctors could
do to save her.’ Dahl dedicated The BFG
to Olivia’s memory.
Long may modern medicine
help us
For even our recent ancestors, life was –
compared to ours – shorter, more fragile;
more tragic. And a big reason for this
was that they had to deal with illnesses
that modern science has banished to
oblivion. Uncle Ron, always jovial despite
the poignant start in life, exemplified
this change. He lived to almost 96 and
the worst thing he had to cope with was
increasing deafness.
About the author
Dr
fgfgEdward Dutton runs
Dutton’s Genealogy
at DuttonsGenealogy.
wordpress.com and is
the author of The Ruler of
Cheshire: Sir Piers Dutton,
Tudor Gangland and the
Violent Politics of the Palatine
(Leonie Press, 2015).
January 2017 Family
FamilyTree 75
13/12/2016 11:53
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Pharos 1/4.indd 1 15/08/2016 16:38

Discover your
family’s story.
D O YO U H AV E J E R S E Y A N C E S TO R S ?
Until now, many archive documents have only been
viewable by visiting Jersey Archive.
With the launch of the Archives and Collections online,
you can now easily view and download more than 310,000
images of some of our most popular collections from your
computer. There’s never been a better time to delve into
your family’s history and Jersey’s fascinating past.

Discover your family history today: www.jerseyheritage.org/ACO

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p076 Ads.indd 76 12/12/2016 12:36

 JERSEY WILLS & TESTAMENTS 1660-1949 Advertising feature

Three centuries of TAP HERE

wills online FOR A CLOSER

LOOK AT THE
DOCUMENTS

The Jersey Archive, with the most generous support from the Jersey Heritage
Patron’s Fund, has recently finished its latest digitisation project – of all the Wills
and Testaments of moveable property between 1660 and 1949

P
rior to this impressive project
anyone wishing to consult
these documents needed to
view them at the archive in
person or order copies remotely. Now
the 16,000 documents can be viewed
online as part of the archive’s initiative
to allow greater online access to its many
important collections.
Wills and Testaments can be a very
valuable source of information for the
family historian by revealing details such
as addresses, names and relationships of
family members, place of burial and lists
of family belongings and treasures.
The wills in Jersey are written Wills in the Jersey collection were written in English or French depending on the
in French or English and are native tongue of the person making the will
predominantly handwritten until the
introduction of the typed word in the Up to the 19th century these To see if your ancestor has a record
20th century. documents nearly always record the among this collection search here:
father of the testator and the parish www.jerseyheritage.org/aco
of origin, which can be very helpful in Type the person’s name in the
identifying your ancestor. ‘Simple’ or ‘Advanced Search’ boxes
Women who are married or widowed and if they have a will of personal
are generally recorded by their maiden property it will be listed. Online
name with the name of their husband subscribers can view or download
also included. This means that if you any digitised will as part of their
are looking to find a will for them subscription. Non-subscribers can
you can search under their maiden or purchase these documents online
married surname. In Jersey you will find through the pay-per-view option.
that women’s maiden names are used in At the present time wills from 1949
legal documents. onwards can be viewed in person
The archive holds wills for a number at the archive or copies can be
of famous people including Samuel ordered by emailing Jersey Archive at
Curtis, English botanist and publisher, archives@jerseyheritage.org
Sir James Knott, businessman, Wills involving immoveable property,
shipbuilder and MP, and Jesse Boot, 1st ie houses and land, can be found in the
This is the will of Jesse Boot, owner of Lord Trent, owner of Boots the Chemist, public registry records, which also can
Boots the Chemist businessman and philanthropist. be obtained by contacting the archive.

www.family-tree.co.uk January 2017 Family

FamilyTree 77

p77 Jersey AdvertorialFINAL.indd 77 13/12/2016 12:00

also
YOUR Q&A
ADVICE...
Q&A)
with our experts DAVID ANNAL, MARY EVANS,
SIMON WILLS, TIM LOVERING, DEBBIE
KENNETT, JAYNE SHRIMPTON
AND DAVID FROST
Scrapbook memories
Q I love Family Tree. It is very
informative and I enjoy reading
it each month. My query is
regarding a beautiful leather-bound
scrapbook bought in New Zealand at an
antique store in 2005. It is generously
filled with 42 double-sided pages
containing greeting cards, other cards
and photos dating from 1897 to 1905,
and is simply stunning and delightful.
I know the book was made by Violet
Florence Harvey who was born in
Bayswater, England in 1880 and died in
1951 in London, a spinster. Violet made
the book for Maria Amelia Sawyer, born
in Berlin about 1855 and died in London
in 1936. She was the wife of George S
Sawyer, born in Massachusetts, USA in
1845 and who died in London in 1926.
He was the General European Manager
of White Sewing Machine Company
and he and Maria arrived in London
around 1880, remaining there until
their deaths. I have been unable
to find a marriage certificate
for George and Maria and
am almost sure they had no
children but I have worked
out a little of George’s
78 FamilyTree January 2017
p78-85 Q&As FINAL.indd 78
background – parents, siblings etc and
there is a photo of the home where he
was born in the book.
I have tried to touch base with people
who have him in their family tree on
Ancestry, but haven’t had much luck.
Interestingly, many of the cards refer to
‘mamma’ or ‘papa’ but I’m 99 per cent
sure Violet wasn’t their child. The 1901
Census says Violet is a visitor and the
1911 Census says she ‘assists the wife
in keeping house’ and she is listed as
a ‘domestic help’. I would love to make
contact with someone from the family.
Jilly Innes
jillyinnes@bigpond.com
A
Here is a fine example of a
late-Victorian/early Edwardian
scrapbook. We recently featured
scrapbooks (see FT Christmas) and saw
how popular scrapbooking was by the
later 19th century. Compiling albums
containing greetings cards, photographs
and other items of personal interest was
a fashionable pastime within the leisured
classes, particularly among girls and
ladies. Ornamental scrapbooks, like
photograph albums, also made ideal gifts
and, as we see from the manuscript note
HOW TO GET IN TOUCH...
@
We welcome your family
history queries, and try
to answer as many as
possible. To contact us:
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l FACEBOOK
& TWITTER
Post a query on our
Facebook page,
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or tweet us
@familytreemaguk
in the front, Violet gave this book to the
lady she called ‘Mama’ at Christmas 1905.
Decorated in the latest trends
As far as I can tell from the scans
provided, each page has been
individually decorated by hand,
although I have wondered whether
some pages might perhaps have
been pre-printed around the edges
with fi gural, fl oral and other popular
motifs, leaving large blank areas for the
addition of other material: you will of
course be able to tell from the original.
Certainly many, if not all, of the small
coloured pictures that border the pages
and fill any gaps appear to have been
cut out, perhaps from books, cards or
magazines. Although stylised, the human
figures indicate a late-19th century date
for their creation: for example, a number
of children occur, dressed in picturesque
styles reminiscent of Kate Greenaway
characters, their clothing broadly
dateable to the later 1880s and 1890s.
Other figures appear to be Japanese and/
or Chinese, expressing the passion for
things Japanese in late-Victorian Britain
following the London première of The
Mikado by Gilbert & Sullivan in 1885.
www.family-tree.co.uk
12/12/2016 11:20

The language of flowers
Other motifs include birds, butterflies,
shells and flowers, demonstrating the
love of colourful botanical subjects in
the late-1800s and early-1900s. There
was an accepted ‘language’ of flowers,
with different blooms, plants and herbs
having religious, mythical and symbolic
meanings: for example, in general a lily
symbolised beauty; a rose love; and
a violet affection, although different
colours of flowers had further complex
meanings, which were almost certainly
well understood at the time.
Popular sentiments
Among the main items displayed in
the album are commercially produced
greetings cards including several
‘Good Luck’, ‘Merry Christmas’ and
‘Remembrance’ cards, and others
bearing more general ‘Good Wishes’,
‘Fondest Thoughts’, ‘Kind Wishes’ –
polite, sentimental greetings of the kind
so admired at the time. These ornamental
cards, works of art in themselves, were
often kept for their intrinsic beauty, as
well as the message within, so we can
reasonably assume that these cards
had been received by Violet and/or the
www.family-tree.co.uk
p78-85 Q&As FINAL.indd 79
Your questions answered
household over a period of years, and/
or they gave them to one another, as
you have intimated. They must have all
been carefully preserved prior to Violet
commencing the scrapbook – or possibly
she added the cards gradually as they
were given and received.
Did they Thomas Cook it?
Of great interest are the photographs
and postcards of foreign locations,
particularly those of the Pyramids, Sphinx
and so on in Cairo that commemorate a
special trip that Violet and the Sawyers
evidently took in 1898. Modern tourism to
Egypt commenced following the opening
of the Suez Canal in 1869, with Thomas
Cook arranging the first package holidays
to visit the classical sights of Egypt that
bordered the River Nile. Perhaps Violet
and the Sawyers took a Thomas Cook
tour, or they may possibly have travelled wide-ranging connections to Berlin,
independently. The pictures seem to be America, London and New Zealand and,
commercial postcards or photographs: as we have noted, also contains material
unfortunately there are no snapshot relating to Egypt. The Sawyers were
photographs of the family, so it is unlikely evidently financially comfortably placed,
that the Sawyers owned a camera at due presumably to George’s senior sales
that time, despite the late-Victorian/ position with the American-based White
Edwardian rise in amateur photography, Sewing Machine Company at a time
mainly among the middle classes. when sales of domestic sewing machines
were soaring (see pages 42-45 this
Much-loved companion issue), the company history outlined here:
You have already done considerable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_
research into the people who were Sewing_Machine_Company Perhaps
closely involved with this scrapbook. George was away frequently on business:
Judging from your comments, especially if so, no doubt Maria was pleased to have
your belief that Maria and George Sawyer Violet’s company and this may partly
had no children of their own, it seems explain her presence in their household.
likely that over a period of time they There are still questions to be
unofficially ‘adopted’ Violet as a surrogate answered: for instance, how did this
daughter: certainly by the time of the album from London end up in New
scrapbook she seems to have looked on Zealand? Fortunately, by sharing details
them fondly as her parents. Described as of your wonderful find in Family Tree
a ‘visitor’ in 1901 and assisting with the magazine you will reach a wide audience.
housekeeping in 1911, clearly she was Please would readers get in touch if they
not a blood relative and may have been recognise the above names or can help in
a domestic of sorts, but was surely also any other way. JS
a much-loved companion. Interestingly,
she was born in 1880, exactly around
the time the Sawyers arrived in London,
so it is interesting to speculate how long
they had known her: possibly they knew
her from babyhood or childhood: if you
haven’t already done so, it would be
worthwhile checking the 1881 and 1891
Censuses too.
International connections
This scrapbook is fascinating on so
many levels: apart from its immediate
visual appeal, it has extraordinarily
January 2017 Family
FamilyTree 79
Photo 3: This group scene is quite possibly a 12/12/2016 11:20
 YOUR Q&A
PASS IT ON
ARE THESE YOUR
ANCESTORS’ BOOKS?
I have a passion for buying old books
which bear inscriptions, with the
intention of researching the past
owner and reuniting the book with
living descendants – and I have had
several such successful reunions.
If you do spot a connection, please
email me with details of your family
tie (in case I receive more than one
request for the same book) and all I
ask for is the cost of postage.
• Harriet Ekin – prize for attendance,
Adderley Green Sunday School,
1894 (born Caversewall, Staffs)
• John Knapton – Rawmarsh Hall
(born 1808)
• Harold Busby – 1st prize, St Peter’s
Sunday School Redcar 1896 (born
1887 Darlington)
• James Green – Alsagers Bank
Sunday School 1879 (born Audley,
Staffs, 1872)
• Lizzie Mills – regularity and good
conduct in Sunday School, Backford
1883 (born Chorlton by Backford 1872)
• Annie Hawkins – prize Clay Cross
School 1879 (born 1867)
• Fredk W Biddle – (born Marylebone
1850)
• Alfred (Robert) Mountford –
Knutsford Street Sunday School
Mystery man in uniform
Q We found this photo with my
great-aunt’s belongings and
have no idea who he is. The
photograph was taken by a London
photographer called Arthur Weston,
based in 16 Poultry, and has the
reference number of 79405. I think it
was photographed c1910?
I belong to a Facebook group,
‘Memories of Brentwood and
surrounding area’, and posted it on
there. Various comments are that this
gentleman was in the City of London
police, he has two medals which
someone has identified as maybe the
Queen’s Jubilee Medal of 1887 and
Coronation Medal of 1902.
The photograph is mounted on card
and seems to have meant something to
80 FamilyTree January 2017
p78-85 Q&As FINAL.indd 80
1897 (born Balsall Heath 1884)
• Maria Sarah Marsden – from her
sister Mary, August 1846 (born
Skipton 1835)
• Elizabeth (Caroline) Parkinson – prize
awarded, Christ Church National
School, Somerstown (born St
Pancras 1870)
• Daisy Lydia Beeching – from her
mother, 6 September 1911 (born
Guestling Sussex 1898)
• John C Hughes – best wishes from
his affectionate sister Hannah
Hughes, 25 December 1883 – (born
Birmingham 1872)
• Elizabeth J Swarbrick – age 17 1899
by her sincere friend Walter Pickup
(born Kirkham 1882)
• Maria Dodd – 95 Oxton Road,
Birkenhead. 27 February 1881 (born
1854)
• Master J Wilfred Bircher – November
1893 (born Newton Regis 1882)
• Frances (Emily) Scales – 5 May 1893
(born Stoke Newington 1880)
• Percy G(eorge) Ryder – with his
father’s fondest love, 9 March 1900
(born Clevedon, Somerset 1889)
Ann Carter
albanann@lutzcarter.eclipse.co.uk
my great-aunt as it was kept with all her
papers. We would be grateful for any
help in tracking down information about
this man.
Viv Dunn
viv.dunn@btinternet.com
A
The most likely explanation is
that this man worked for the
City of London, because his cap
badge bears a very close resemblance
to the City’s coat of arms – right down
to the dragon wing above the cross of
St George. However, the full version
has an erect dragon standing on
either side. This would tie in with the
photographer, who was based in the
heart of the City, and was active at this
address between 1900 and 1915 – see
www.photolondon.org.uk
The Guildhall Library in London
houses the City of London Police
Museum. You could try contacting
it for advice, although it has only
just relocated: http://familytr.ee/
CityLonPoliceMus
While one explanation is that this
man worked for the City of London
police, another is that he served in
some other official capacity for the City.
For example, given his age, he may
have had a senior role with the City of
London Volunteer Corps in the First
World War. These men were either too
old to fight on the Front or served in
protected professions, but they patrolled
the capital and protected key points of
strategic importance. They were not
supposed to wear formal uniforms, but
many did. SW
A ceremonial uniform? The jacket, with
its rope-like ‘frogging’ across the chest,
is of a military style which could be a
police ceremonial uniform
The medals that Viv tentatively
identifies may well be correct (Queen’s
Jubilee Medal 1887 and Coronation
Medal 1902). It’s difficult to be certain
from this copy of the photo, but the
ribbons seem to match. Special police
versions were issued of both medals
With a lens, can you see a portrait of
the relevant monarch’s head? The ribbon
on the left (Victoria’s coronation) has a
thick rectangular ‘block’ at the bottom.
This is probably a clasp indicating that the
recipient was at the 1887 Jubilee as well as
the 1897 one
www.family-tree.co.uk
12/12/2016 15:28

BRICKWALL
SPECIAL
Paternal line puzzle
Q I’m having real issues trying to
trace my father’s paternal line.
My father was William James
Harrold, born 28 September 1923 to
William Harrold and Rose (née Mee).
His father, I believe, was illegitimate.
There is no marriage information
that I can find, and I also know that
my grandfather was the only one of
several children in the family with the
Harrold surname and that his father
died young.
His mother, Elizabeth Harvey, was
married three times, firstly to Henry
William Barnard, then it appears she
lived with my great-grandfather for
a while c1899-1902, then returned to
Henry William (as all the other children
have the Barnard surname) then
returned to William Harrold when the
1911 Census was produced. William
Harrold died in 1913 in Woolwich. I
believe she married Henry Jones, but
am unsure of the date.
As my grandfather is the only
Harrold I seem to be the only person
trying to trace his ancestry. I have
contacted a couple of people who
are interested in Elizabeth Harvey
but they can’t help me so I am now
at a loss as to how to proceed. I have
also put in the birth years of 1877 to
1882 in FreeBMD.org.uk but it would
appear that there are no births around
London for those years. Ancestry has
one or two but I couldn’t confidently
identify him. Your assistance would
be greatly appreciated.
Lorraine Robinson
lorri007@talktalk.net
A
There are several threads here
that need to be woven together.
Your father’s parents, William
Harrold and Rose Mee, were married
in the September quarter of 1923 in
West Ham. You don’t say whether
you have this certificate but it would
be interesting to see who he gives
as his father. I suspect it will be
William Harrold.
If you are certain that Elizabeth
Harvey was William’s mother then I’m
www.family-tree.co.uk
p78-85 Q&As FINAL.indd 81
This short birth
certificate
doesn’t name
parents, unlike
a full certificate
sure that you have
the right birth
certificate. The
child’s first names
are William
Harold with the surname Harvey so the
middle name certainly suggests that
William Harrold was the father. The date
of birth on this certificate is a perfect
match for the school entry record,
which shows the father of this child to
be William Harrold. The address on the
birth certificate also matches the 1901
Census entry for 22-year-old William
Harrold, his 20-year-old wife, Elizabeth,
and eight-month-old William, their son.
Elizabeth’s first marriage was to
Henry William Barnard in November
1897. You mention that she then
appeared to live with your great-
grandfather c1899-1902 then returned
to Henry William Barnard ‘as all the
other children have the Barnard
surname’ before returning to William
Harrold for the 1911 Census. But I don’t
think that this is the case.
She was clearly with your great-
grandfather c1899-1901 as your
grandfather was born in August 1900
and in 1901 she is recorded with
William Harrold at the same address as
on your grandfather’s birth certificate.
By 1911 the household consists of
William and Elizabeth with sons William,
11, and George, 4, and daughters Jane,
7, Annie, 5, Christina, 2, and Lillian, 1, all
with the surname Harrold.
There is no sign of a marriage
between an Elizabeth Harvey/Barnard
and a William Harrold. When your
grandfather was born Elizabeth had
clearly left Henry William Barnard and
had reverted to her maiden surname of
Harvey but by 1901 she was recorded
as Harrold and was still so in 1911.
But what about those children
born 1901-1911? Their births are
Your questions answered
indeed registered as Barnard but
I’m pretty sure that they were all
William Harrold’s children. Elizabeth
was still officially Barnard and the
children are registered as such.
However, when it comes to baptisms
it’s a different story. The online
baptisms finish in 1906 but Annie,
born in 1905, was baptised as Annie
Harold in Woolwich. It’s definitely
the right baptism as the address,
4 Collingwood Street, matches the
school entry record for William just a
few months earlier.
To take this further, I looked
for Henry William Barnard in the
censuses. In 1901 he is a visitor in the
Alvin household, recording himself as
single, and in 1911 he is back home
with his parents, again as unmarried.
I think it is most unlikely that Elizabeth
returned to him and I don’t think the
children are his.
Annie’s baptism records her birthdate
as 23 July 1905. You could obtain
her birth certificate and see how her
parents are recorded!
After William died in 1913 I think
Elizabeth’s third marriage is registered
in the September quarter of 1917
when an Elizabeth Barnard married
Harry Jones.
The next step is to identify your
great-grandfather, William Harrold. The
1901 and 1911 Censuses and his death
record birth years of c1878-1881. Have
you investigated the 1881 Census entry
in Woolwich Arsenal for a four-year-
old William Harrold who seems to be
the illegitimate son of the unmarried
21-year-old Alice Harrold, both born
Deptford? ME
January 2017 Family
FamilyTree 81
12/12/2016 11:20
 YOUR Q&A
This register of men enlisting in the Tank Corps can be found on Findmypast.co.uk
20th-century tank man
Q I am having difficulty tracing my
late uncle. To me, he is a mystery
man of the family. His name was
Edgar Plews Smales and he was born on
25 September 1893 at Leeming Bar, North
Yorkshire, to George Edward Smales and
Annie (née Plews). The details I do know
are from family and are rather limited: he
enlisted in the Army in 1919; was married
in 1921 to Nellie Brudenell at Wareham,
Dorset; and died in 1959 at Dover, Kent,
but I can’t find any details of this.
An elderly family member said that
Edgar was in the Army 1919-1944, and,
she thinks, was either a CSM or RSM
of the Royal Tank Corps. If that is true, I
Military clues to tracing a
marriage
Q I’m tracing one pair of my 3x
great-grandparents, Philip
Baalham and Mary Steward.
Philip was born at Polstead in Suffolk
in 1792 or 1794 and joined the Army
in Colchester in 1809. The most likely
Philip Baalham was the son of Benjamin
Baalham and Ann Hazell, christened 18
March 1794. I don’t have full details of his
service record, but I expect it was pretty
eventful as he was in the 20th Regiment of
Foot who fought all through the Peninsular
War, possibly also at Waterloo! He ended
up in Dublin and was discharged there
on 27 October 1819. He married Mary,
daughter of James Steward, at some
point and they had a daughter Ann born
in Dublin in 1819. The family appear in
a record on The National Archives site
as on 19 April 1821 Philip, Mary and two
daughters were served with a Vagrancy
Order in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, and
transported to Philip’s home parish of
Polstead! I have searched the internet for
details of the 20th Foot’s movements after
the Battle of Vitoria in 1813, but there are
82 FamilyTree January 2017
p78-85 Q&As FINAL.indd 82
would love to know what happened to him
between those years, but the last trace
I have of him is in the 1911 Census for
Thornaby-on-Tees.
John Vincent
jayvee104@yahoo.co.uk
A
Researching our 20th-century
ancestors is a much tougher
task than you might imagine; in
many respects, it’s actually easier to tell
the stories of the lives of our Victorian
forebears. Many of the 20th century
records are still closed or access to them
is restricted so we might have to work a bit
harder and we’ll definitely need to spend a
bit of money!
no details of a move to Ireland.
Alan Fraser
alan.fraser2@ntlworld.com
A
As you probably know, the 20th
(East Devonshire) Regiment of Foot
became the Lancashire Fusiliers in
1881. Happily, A History of the Lancashire
Fusiliers (formerly XX Regiment) written by
Benjamin Smyth in 1903, is available to
read for free at www.archive.org (volume
1 provides a very detailed history of the
regiment between 1688 and 1821).
The history shows that the 20th Foot
Edgar Plews Smales did indeed join
the Tank Corps (later known as the Royal
Tank Corps). A register recording details
of the men who enlisted between 1919
and 1934 is held by the Tank Museum
and has been made available online
by Findmypast. This shows that Edgar
enlisted on 1 November 1919 and was
discharged on 17 February 1944. It also
tells us that he married Nellie Maud
Brudenhell [sic] in Wareham on 21 June
1921 and that he had two children; Joyce
Margaret (1922) and Betty Mary (1927).
His full service record will be held by the
Ministry of Defence. You can apply for his
record at www.gov.uk/guidance/requests-
for-personal-data-and-service-records
for which a fee of £30 is payable.
Edgar was employed as an iron moulder,
which was a ‘reserved’ occupation, so he
would have been spared active service
actually during World War I. He more than
made up for this by serving with the Royal
Tank Corps for nearly 25 years.
As you say, Edgar died in Dover in
1959 (registered Sep quarter). His death
certificate will give his cause of death along
with other useful information. You can get a
copy from the General Register Office, by
using its online ordering service at www.
gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates DA
R E SEAR C H t ip
Read a regimental history to
learn about the events during
your ancestor’s military years
This certificate
shows a subsequent
marriage for Mary
Baalham, widow, in
1840, indicating that
husband Philip
had died
sailed for Ireland from ‘Polliack’ (Polak
just north of Toulouse on the Garonne
River) on 22 June 1814, disembarking
at Monkstown just south of Cork on 7
July. They marched to Cork that night,
and then marched on to Mallow where
they stayed until 21 July. They then
marched to Waterford, arriving on 1
August. Here the regiment was involved
in suppressing meetings, enforcing
payment of rents and seizing illicit
whiskey stills. The regiment remained
here until 22 March 1816, when they
marched in two separate detachments
www.family-tree.co.uk
12/12/2016 11:20

for Sligo and Boyle. From there smaller
detachments were posted out to
various locations. The whole regiment
converged on Dublin about 15 June
1818, being stationed at Dublin Castle
Barracks, though detachments were
stationed at Naas and Wicklow. The
regiment finally marched from Dublin
for Fermoy in December 1818, and
eventually sailed from Cork to garrison
the island of St Helena in June 1819.
Philip must, therefore, have been
DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE QUEEN’S PARDON OF 1887?
My errant Dragoon
Q My problem is not so
much a brick wall – more
a 100ft windowless tower,
surrounded by a water-filled moat and
no drawbridge. Having extracted my
errant ancestor’s military record from
WO 97, it was noted that the remarks
section contained the comment
‘this man seems to have previously
served’. Although the enlistment form
warned that there were penalties for
concealing previous service, no action
seems to have been taken and he
enlisted at Aldershot on 2 June 1881 in
the 7th Dragoon Guards at age 19 —
using the name ‘John Smith’!
On 17 June 1887 a Royal
Proclamation was issued in
connection with the celebrations
for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee,
offering a pardon to soldiers who had
deserted or fraudulently enlisted and
‘John’s’ record states that he had
‘claimed the benefit of the Queen’s
pardon having confessed to having
fraudulently enlisted’.
The Proclamation gave specific
instructions which, in this case, were
to apply by letter within three months
of the date of the proclamation to the
Officer Commanding, Cavalry Depot,
Canterbury, stating full details of the
previous service.
‘John’ seems to have made great
efforts to conceal his true identity;
later records state alternative places
of birth, father’s name and occupation
and the next of kin on the record
showed a non-existent address.
It would seem that this letter to
the Cavalry Depot might be the only
means of establishing his identity. The
www.family-tree.co.uk
p78-85 Q&As FINAL.indd 83
detached from the 20th at some point
in 1819, possibly when they were first
ordered for St Helena in December 1818.
While awaiting discharge, he would most
likely have been attached to another
regiment stationed in Dublin. If you wish
to follow William’s service in detail you
may wish to consult the muster books of
the 20th Foot covering Philip’s service,
which are available in person at The
National Archives in Kew (reference WO
12/3687 to WO 12/3691). TL
Depot appears to have closed in about
1926 when presumably the Officer
Commanding would have received
instructions as to how the records in his
custody should be dealt with. As by this
time the use of horses in war situations
would have been discontinued, the
likely destination of the records would
seem to be the War Office.
I consulted TNA at Kew and,
although as helpful as possible, it was
of the opinion that the survival of such
letters was unlikely. However, it was
suggested that I search Discovery
using keywords such as ‘pardon’ and
dates. This is unfamiliar territory to me
and could be beyond my capabilities.
I understand that fraudulent
enlistment was not a rare occurrence
so it seemed possible that other people
could have been faced with a similar
problem and I wondered whether
anyone had been able to find an answer.
Mrs June Hackwill
1 Gannets Mead, Spetisbury, Blandford
Forum, Dorset DT11 9DJ
A
Fraudulent enlistment in the form
of desertion and reenlistment in
another unit does seem to have
been fairly common in the 19th century.
The motivation for this would typically
have been to claim a second enlistment
bounty, but might also have been, for
example, to avoid embarking on an
undesirable overseas posting. Before
the age of National Insurance numbers
and electronic databases, this was not a
particularly difficult thing to do.
As a starting point, if the details of
John’s previous service were to be
captured anywhere, it would likely be
in his personal file. Obviously, we know
Your questions answered
PASS IT ON
I have a complete run of back issues of
Family Tree, from its introductory issue
(November-December 1984) right through
to the April 2000 issue (ie 174 issues), with
every issue being in pristine condition.
I am very happy to pass them on to a
new owner for the cost of p&p.
Please email me if interested.
John C Algar
john@powditch.plus.com
that this is not the case, as this file is
the source of your information. The
fact that details of his earlier service do
not appear here tends to suggest that
they have not survived. Information is
generally recorded for a reason, and
in this case the purpose of protecting
John from prosecution was met by the
simple addition of the statement that he
had ‘claimed the benefit of the Queen’s
pardon’. As he had enlisted fraudulently,
his previous service would not have
counted towards his pension, so may not
have been considered worth recording.
We know that John must have sent a
letter to the Cavalry Depot because the
information about the pardon appears
in his record. This letter would probably
have been received and maintained
as part of the Depot commander’s
general correspondence. Because of
this, I think it is rather unlikely a search
for ‘pardon’ would reveal the letter in
an archive, as in the late-19th century
it would have been filed or bound in
date order with other Cavalry Depot
letters. If this material still existed when
the Cavalry Depot closed, it should
indeed have been transferred to the
War Office. Unfortunately for family
historians, the vast majority of War
Office and other Government records
were not transferred to TNA, and
correspondence received by military
units is among the material that is not
routinely retained.
I carried out a search on Discovery
(which includes the National Register
of Archives), and found that there
were only four records relating to
the Cavalry Depot held outside TNA.
Unfortunately, none of these
is relevant. TL
January 2017 Family
FamilyTree 83
12/12/2016 11:20
 YOUR Q&A
How do I have this
haplogroup?

Q My cousin Ann and I visited a

family history show in Glasgow
and took the chance to have
our DNA tested with ScotlandsDNA.
As our mothers were sisters and we of
course had the same granny we were
assured the results would be the same.
We are of the Haplogroup Levantine.
As we were assured, the results for
both Ann and I are the same but our
red hair variant is different. I am now
keen to find how this DNA landed up in
the North of Scotland when my oldest
known granny claimed parish relief
as Roman Catholic. I know there was
trade in the area at that time. Many
ships were built on the Spey, where
this line of my family were, and my
‘grandpas’ were shipyard workers (the
oldest of whom that I know of was
probably born about 1612 – Elshoner,
Scottish for Alexander, Winster). But Getting an understanding on
these are men so how did the women haplogroups and subclades will help you
get there? Perhaps I have my own little understand DNA distribution maps
episode of Outlander going on here.
Elisabeth Brown
eab.clock@yahoo.co.uk
DEEP RESEARCH
A TIPS FOR DNA
The ScotlandsDNA test you 26,000 years, and the subgroup K1b1a1c
have taken is a deep ancestry is around 3,500 years old, though there
test which includes an is huge uncertainty over these dates
analysis of mitochondrial DNA but is and there are very wide confidence
not specifi cally relevant for precise intervals (Behar 2012). Haplogroup K has Read on to further your
genealogy. mtDNA is passed on from a broad distribution all across Europe knowledge about DNA
a mother to her male and female but is also found in Asia and Africa. The
children, and traces an all-female line subgroups can sometimes have distinct • http://phylotree.org –
of inheritance. The ScotlandsDNA geographical distribution patterns. The mtDNA tree
test provides a scan of around 20 per The mtDNA tree has been updated • http://haplogroup.org –
cent of the mtDNA genome which is since Elisabeth tested and her mutations The mtDNA encyclopedia of
suffi cient to assign a placement on the now place her in K1b1a1c1, which is a human origins
mtDNA tree. The branches of the tree new branch discovered in 2014. • http://isogg.org/wiki/
are known as haplogroups and these It is interesting to note that one Mitochondrial_DNA_tests –
are denoted by letters of the alphabet. of the two samples used to define ISOGG Wiki page on mtDNA tests
The haplogroups can be further broken branch K1b1a1c1 came from Scotland. • American Journal of Human Genetics
down into subgroups. Elisabeth has Little is known about the distribution – ‘A “Copernican” reassessment of
been placed in haplogroup K and her of K1b1a1c1, but there is nothing the human mitochondrial DNA tree
subgroup is K1b1a1c. which would lead us to suppose that from its root’, 90(4):675-684
The company has given haplogroup Elisabeth’s matrilineal ancestors arrived by Behar et al (2012)
K the nickname Levantine based on a from another country in recent times. • Nature Communications –
presumed origin in the Levant. However, Other subclades of haplogroup K – ‘A substantial prehistoric European
our knowledge of the distribution of K1a1b1a, K1a9 and K2a2a1 – are mostly ancestry amongst Ashkenazi
mtDNA haplogroups is based on tests found in Ashkenazi Jews (Costa 2013). maternal lineages’, 4:2543 by Costa
on living people. Migration has been a In order to use mtDNA testing et al (2013)
constant throughout human history. It is for genealogical purposes ideally
not possible to make inferences about one should take a full mitochondrial See our bumper guide to DNA
distant haplogroup origins from present- sequence test where results can be in the February issue, in
day populations, though ancient DNA is compared in a matching database. shops from 18 January
now providing new insights. Family Tree DNA is currently the only
Haplogroup K dates back around company that offers such a test. DK

84 FamilyTree January 2017 www.family-tree.co.uk

p78-85 Q&As FINAL.indd 84 12/12/2016 15:29


HMS Birmingham, on which Francis Smith served, sustained damage at Jutland
My Navy deserter
Q
I wonder if you can help me find
what my great-uncle did on or
around 24 April 1917. He was
Francis Smith born on 20 August 1897 in
Liverpool. On 20 August 1915 he joined
the Royal Navy for a 12-year engagement
but prior to this he was a boy sailor on
HMS Powerful. He also served on HMS
Birmingham at the battle of Jutland.
After this he was drafted to HMS Doris
but on 24 April 1917 his record states
he had Run. I believe that must mean
that went AWOL. Asking older members
of the family makes it even more
mysterious as they say he emigrated but
no one knows for sure. I have searched
Ancestry for some time but have hit the
wall, and wonder if you could give me
some pointers to finding more about him.
One last query, could there be naval
records other than those on Ancestry,
if so how much would it cost to get
them, and would the MoD give medals
to a deserter as he only did three years
of a 12-year engagement before he
went missing?
Ed Moran
edmoran@hotmail.co.uk
A
HMS Doris was an Eclipse class
cruiser built in 1896 and sold for
breaking up at Bombay in 1919.
She had an eventful service career having
served in the Boer War and later in the
Dardanelles campaign. She appears to
have been a Devonport-based ship and
I guess would have been there when
Francis joined her in January 1917. She
www.family-tree.co.uk
p78-85 Q&As FINAL.indd 85
was sent to the East Indies station in
March 1917. Here she appears to have
been involved in patrol and convoy work
in the Indian Ocean.
You can get more details of her
movements in April 1917 from her log
which is in TNA at ADM 53/40084.
The R in his documents, as you
correctly identify, means Run – the naval
terminology for desertion. My guess is
that when you look at the log you will
find that Doris was in Australia on 24
April 1917, possibly Freemantle. Sailors
frequently deserted in Australia in search
of a new life. The family story that he
emigrated is, in a sense, true.
You will need to continue your research
in Australian records but bear in mind
he may have changed his name to avoid
detection as a deserter. I think it unlikely
that Francis received any medals. These
were normally forfeit on desertion and, in
any case, he deserted before they could
be sent to him. The information you have
from Ancestry is probably about as much
as you are likely to get by way of official
records but it’s just possible TNA has
something else. DF
CAN
YOU HEanswered
Your questions LP?
Lesley Watson Walker would like to
get in touch with Bob Rogers re his
article on page 61 FT August 2015 as
she feels certain they are related and
she can help him to take his family
tree even further back – three more
generations to the time of Thomas
a Beckett. Please can Bob email
helen.t@family-tree.co.uk
for Lesley’s details
About our experts
Jayne Shrimpton is a professional dress
historian, portrait specialist and ‘photo
detective’. She is photograph consultant
for TV series Who Do You Think You Are?
and her latest books include Tracing Your
Ancestors Through Family Photographs,
Fashion in the 1940s and Victorian
Fashion. Find her online at
fgfg
www.jayneshrimpton.co.uk
Tim Lovering has worked widely as
an archivist and historical researcher,
and developed an interest in genealogy
through his archive work. He has had a
lifelong interest in British military history
David Frost’s interest in genealogy was
sparked by the unexpected appearance
of an illegitimate and distinctly dodgy
family member in 1967. He’s been
writing on genealogy topics since 1991
Mary Evans has been researching
her family tree for more than 30 years,
contributed to research on TV series
Who Do You Think You Are? and Julian
Fellowes’ ‘Great Houses’, and is a
regular contributor to Family Tree
Debbie Kennett is an Honorary
Research Associate in the Department
of Genetics, Evolution and Environment
at University College London. She wrote
DNA and Social Networking (2011) and
The Surnames Handbook (2012), both
published by The History Press. She
writes about genetic genealogy and her
Cruwys one-name study on her blog,
cruwys.blogspot.co.uk
David Annal has been involved in the
family history world for more than 30
years and is a former principal family
history specialist at The National
Archives. He is an experienced lecturer
and the author of a number of best-
selling family history books, including
Easy Family History and (with Peter
Christian) Census: The Family Historian’s
Guide. David now runs his own family history
research business, Lifelines Research
R E SEAR C H t ip
Find out more about ships’ logs at
http://familytr.ee/ShipsLogsGuide
Logs are kept mainly for navigational
purposes and it is uncommon to
find individuals mentioned
January 2017 Family
FamilyTree 85
12/12/2016 11:21
 Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill,
KG, OM, CH, TD, DL, FRS, RA is one
of the most famous British statesmen
who was also well known for being
a writer, and artist. Prime Minister
of the United Kingdom from 1940 to
1945 and again from 1951 to 1955,
Churchill was the son of an aristocrat
and his American heiress wife.
Winston Churchill married the equally
aristocratic Clementine Ogilvy Hozier,
the daughter of Lady Henrietta Blanche
and Col Henry Hozier, though questions
about her paternity have often been
raised over the years. What is known
is that the Hoziers divorced when
Clementine was only six. From the Who’s
Who 1897 records on TheGenealogist
we can find that Clementine’s mother
was the daughter of the Earl of Airlie.
Lady Henrietta Blanche Ogilvy also
appears in several of the volumes
of the Blood Royal from within the
Peerage, Gentry & Royalty collections
on TheGenealogist site as well as in
their Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage
of the British Empire 1880 records.
The announcement of Clementine’s
wedding to Winston was looked down on
by many in British high society; former
British Prime Minister Lord Rosebery
had reputedly given the marriage six
months. Searching the Marriages index
records on TheGenealogist we are able
to see that the couple married in the
St George, Hanover Square district of
London in the 3rd quarter of 1908.
in Oxfordshire. This was
the seat of his illustrious
grandfather, the 7th Duke of
Marlborough; his father, Lord
Randolph Spencer-Churchill,
being the Duke’s third son.
If we use the census
collection on TheGenelogist
to find the family at the time
of the 1881 count, we can
see that they were at St
James’s Place in Westminster.
The six year old Winston
is, unsurprisingly, a Scholar Churchill in the Harrow school register
while his father, Lord Randolph, was Churchill who, at that time, was a member
a Member of Parliament. His mother’s of the Press and was going out to report
roots, as an American heiress, are on the start of the Second Boer War.
recorded in the census by her place of
birth being put down as New York. Two days before his ship’s departure
the war had broken out between
School days Britain and the Boer Republic. At the
The young Spencer-Churchill, as he was news of this conflict Mr Churchill had
known then, entered Harrow School obtained a commission to act as a
in 17 April 1888. By searching the war correspondent for the Morning
Educational records on TheGenealogist Post newspaper. In return he was to
we are able to find his entry in the be paid £250 a month for his services,
Harrow School Registers. This gives making him one of the best remunerated
us many pointers to his military in this profession at that time.
and subsequent political career.
What it doesn’t reveal is that after
Churchill left Harrow in 1893, he applied
to attend the Royal Military College,
Sandhurst. He showed his bulldog
determination after failing twice before
finally passing the entrance exam.

Clementine Churchill’s Mother, Lady Winston the War Correspondent

Henrietta, is listed in the 1897 edition of
Who’s Who
Born in a palace
Winston, we can find in the BMD records,
was born in 1874 and using the details
provided on TheGenealogist we could
go on to purchase a copy of his birth
certificate from the GRO. His actual birth
took place on the 30 November 1874, in a
bedroom in Blenheim Palace, Woodstock
86 Family
FamilyTree January 2017
The school register does point us
towards a period in his life when Winston
Churchill was captured, but escaped
while working as a War Correspondent
for the Morning Post. To add to this story
we can look within the passenger lists,
on TheGenealogist. There we can find
the passage of the Dunottar Castle from
Southampton to Cape Town in South
Africa on the 14 October 1899. One of
the passengers was the young Winston
Churchill’s record of passage to South Africa
on the Castle Line’s RMS Dunottar Castle
Captured
After spending a number of weeks in the
Colony Winston managed to get himself
onto an armoured train, loaded with
British soldiers, performing a reconnoitre
between Frere and Chieveley in the
British Natal Colony during November
1899. A Boer commando force, however,
www.family-tree.co.uk

p086-87.indd 86 12/12/2016 12:57

 Cabinet position room in the same office for Churchill,
of First Lord of the First Lord of the Admiralty and
the Admiralty. Lord Fisher, who was the head of the
Looking at the Permanent Administration in the Admiralty
census of 1911 Board. The two men, once friends,
we can find him were no longer able to work together
and Clementine and Mr Asquith the Prime Minister
at 33 Eccleston was forced to reshuffle his Cabinet.
Square in
Belgravia. His Within a few months of that year, Winston
occupation took the next step and resigned from
is recorded the Cabinet altogether. He was reported
there as One of as not wanting to accept a position of
His Majesty’s responsibility for war policy without any
Principal influence on its shaping or control. Being
Secretaries blamed as one of the architects of the
of State. disastrous Gallipoli fiasco he left the
As would be government and rejoined his regiment.
expected for
someone of such The Illustrated
prominence, London News
Winston appears recorded his
in many articles departure to join
published the front with
at the time. a photograph
TheGenealogist of him leaving
has an extensive his house on
collection of the morning
newspapers and of Thursday,
magazines for November
The First Lord with his two highest researchers to search within. One such 18 1915
executive officers newspaper is The Sphere for May 22nd to catch a train to his regiment.
had placed a big boulder on the track 1915 which reveals, however, that not
and the train crashed into it. The Boers, all was plain sailing for the great man There are a wealth of record sets on
having succeeded in stopping the train, as he moved in the corridors of power. TheGenealogist to enable researchers
then opened up with their field guns and The paper reports that there was no discover more about their ancestors.
rifle fire from a vantage position. There While not all our
was a fight and a number of the British forebears will
were taken prisoner, including Churchill. have been as well
After being held captive for about four recorded as Sir
weeks in a POW camp in Pretoria, he Winston and Lady
escaped on the evening of 12 December Churchill there
1899 by vaulting over the wall to the are many record
neighbouring property and taking flight. sets to explore on
TheGenealogist
Rise and fall from Government that can reveal
We know from the timeline in the Harrow more about your
School Register that Winston became an own ancestor’s
MP rising to become the Home Secretary life story.
by 1910. In 1911 he would take the The Sphere May 22 1915 on TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist are offering

readers of Family Tree magazine
£20 off a Diamond package
that includes a free gift. Go to:
TheGenealogist.co.uk/FTADVP20
to take advantage of
this special offer.

www.family-tree.co.uk January 2017 Family

FamilyTree 87
The 1911 census shows Churchill, now in the cabinet, living in Belgravia

p086-87.indd 87 12/12/2016 12:57

 DIARY DATES INTERACTIVE
GALLERIES
TAP HERE
for more images
List your diary dates at
www.family-tree.co.uk/Events
for FREE or email them to
editorial@family-tree.co.uk

JANUARY 2017
From 4 January e-courses
Online. Pharos Tutors’ e-courses this month
include: Church and Community, Selected
records 1540-1800 with Emma Jolly (from
4 Jan, 4 weeks, £62/£76); Introduction to
Medieval Genealogy with Gillian Waters (from
9 Jan, 5 weeks, £62/£76); Introduction to
One-Name Studies with Helen Osborn (from

Step into
11 Jan, 5 weeks, £49.99); Discovering Your
British Family and Local Community in the

England’s
early 20th Century with Janet Few (from
17 Jan, 5 weeks, £49.99);
• Book your place at pharostutors.com

4, 10 & 21 January Talks slave trade

Buckinghamshire. This month’s talks at
Bucks FHS are: Steeple Claydon: Before story
And After Enclosure in which Julian Hunt
talks 18th-century enclosure, including
the personalities involved from the Verney,
Busby and Hubbard families (4 Jan, 7.30pm, Tricked into slavery: Prince William Ansah Sessarakoo in 1749 and
Bletchley); Middle-Class Ancestors with (inset) the Royal African Company coat of arms

Michael Gandy (10 Jan, 7.45pm, Bourne
End) and New Year And Its Celebrations with
Colin Oakes (21 Jan, 2pm, Aylesbury).
• All talks free (non-members welcome;
a small donation is appreciated);
www.bucksfhs.org.uk/meetings
9 January Talk
East Sussex. Family Tree’s photo-dating
expert Jayne Shrimpton is giving a Power
Point presentation at the Uckfield branch
of Sussex Family History Group entitled
Family Wedding Pictures and Bridal
Fashions, 1830-1950.
• 7.30pm, Bridge Cottage, High Street,
Uckfield, East Sussex TN22 1AZ;
www.sfhg.org.uk/uckfieldprog.html
and visit www.jayneshrimpton.co.uk
for more details of Jayne’s talks.
WDY T YA?
A
free new exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands
is exploring the history of London’s slave trade during the
17th and 18th centuries.
The Royal African tells the story of an African prince wrongly
sold into slavery and his connection to one of the largest companies
involved in the slave trade at the time, the Royal African Company.
Founded in 1672 as a joint venture between the Duke of York, who was
to become King James II, and leading merchants in London, the Royal
African Company held a monopoly over the slave trade in West Africa.
The company shipped cloth, guns and alcohol to West Africa in exchange
for enslaved Africans who were then transported to Barbados and
Jamaica. The company shipped nearly 150,000 enslaved Africans – more
than any other English organisation during the entire slave trade period.
This exhibition tells the story of an African prince, William
Sessarakoo, otherwise known as ‘The Royal African’. William was the
son of the head of a leading family in West Africa, and grew up in the
Royal African Company’s fort at Annamaboe, in present-day Ghana.
William was sent by his father to London to be educated but he was
tricked and sold into slavery in Barbados in 1744. He spent about four years
in slavery until he was freed by the Royal African Company, who wanted to
keep good relations with his father, and brought him to London.
The exhibition is displayed in the London, Sugar and Slavery

LIVE!
gallery at the museum in West India Quay, east London. Co-curator
Dr William Pettigrew said: ‘The Royal African Company was London’s
diary for most important contribution to the slave trade. Visitors to this display
Get the dates in your
tain ’s big ges t fam ily history show will discover how the Government used the Royal African Company
Bri
Are? Live to develop the trade in enslaved African human beings and how
Who Do You Think You
min gh am NE C fro m 6-8 April Londoners led the parliamentary campaign to end the Royal African
at Bir
rea st of the latest
2017. Keep ab Company’s monopoly over the slave trade.’
off ers by sig nin g up to
news and • Open daily 10am-6pm until June 2017.
our eNew sle tte r at
tter Free; www.museumofl ondon.org.uk
familytr.ee/ftrenewsle

88 FamilyTree January 2017

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p88-89 Diary datesFINAL.indd 88 13/12/2016 12:10

 INTERACTIVE
GALLERIES
TAP HERE
for more images
28 January Tutorial
West Yorkshire. Craft tutor Mandy Williams
will be running regular Scrapbooking for
Family Historians tutorial days again this year
for family history event organisers Your Fair
Ladies in Pudsey, near Leeds. Scrapbooking
is perfect for collecting and safe storage
of precious family history memorabilia and
nostalgic items and recording personal
stories. Sessions include guidance on specific
techniques such as heat embossing, iris
folding and stencils. Perfect for beginners and
those with a little more experience.
• 10.30am to 3pm. £13pp. Reserve your
place by emailing Jackie Depelle at
depellejg@aol.com; more details at
http://yourfairladies.ning.com/events/
scrapbooking-17
28 January Seminar
London. The Federation of Family History
NEW EXHIBITIONS
Until 25 February
Jacobite artefacts
Perth. Bonnie Prince Charlie
keepsakes make up a
Jacobite exhibition at Perth
Museum and Art Gallery.
Images: William Sessarakoo © National Portrait Gallery, London; coat of arms © Museum of London; Bonnie Prince Charlie targe © National Museums Scotland;
DID YOU
You
KNOW?
can find family his
tory
events for the co
ming
months on our we
bsite at
www.family-tree
.co.uk
/Events
Societies (FFHS) is holding a Marketing
Seminar for family history societies to learn Research your agricultural labourers at
how best to promote their organisations the Society of Genealogists this month
and boost membership numbers.
Marketing professional Carenza Black,
SOCIETY OF GENEALOGISTS
who is commercial project manager for
Northamptonshire Archive and Heritage
Service, will present a programme 14 January 2-5pm My Ancestor was an
concentrating on topics ranging from Agricultural Labourer – most of us will
identifying your audience to plan of action. have an ‘ag lab’ or two in our family
• 10.30am-4.30pm. Free for FFHS member trees; this session will look at the many
societies. Wesley’s Chapel and Leysian and varied records that enable us to
Mission, 49 City Road, London EC1Y 1AU. piece together their lives, with Ian Waller
Places limited, so book early; http://familytr. FSG (£20)
ee/FFHSmarketingseminar
21 January 10.30am-1pm Getting the
Most from the Ancestry Website –
with John Hanson FSG (£20)
21 January 2-5pm Using Parish
Registers and Parish Chest Records –
learn more about finding and using
parish registers and parish chest records
for family history research, with Celia

The Gifts for a Jacobite Heritage (£20)

Prince highlight tour features
a unique sword and targe 25 January 2-3pm Family History
belonging to Bonnie Prince Sources at the Tower Hamlets Local
Charlie. Touring ahead of History Library and Archives – this
the major Bonnie Prince wonderful library and archive covers the
Charlie and the Jacobites area of present-day Tower Hamlets, the
exhibition coming to the original East End of London which, until
National Museum of Scotland 1965, comprised of the boroughs of
in Edinburgh this summer, the Bethnal Green, Poplar and Stepney, with
sword and targe or Highland Malcolm Barr-Hamilton (£8)
shield were probably gifted
to Prince Charles Edward Bonnie Prince Charlie’s intricately decorated targe 28 January 10.30am-1pm Making
Stuart – better known as Contact: Surnames and Pedigrees –
Bonnie Prince Charlie – by James, 3rd Duke of Perth, a committed supporter of a look at the sources for making contact
the Jacobite cause. The targe was rescued from Culloden battlefield in 1746 by with others who share surname interests
Jacobite colonel Ewan MacPherson of Cluny and remained in his family until the or ancestry, including the Guild of One-
20th century. Name Studies, with Barbara Harvey and
The display also features Jacobite objects and archival material from the Peter Christian (£20)
Collections and Archive of Perth and Kinross Council. The exhibition forms part
of a season of events entitled Perth and Kinross Remembers, including Art of War 28 January 2-5pm My Ancestor was
agricultural labourers © The Society of Genealogists

and Next of Kin (both ending in February). Scottish – a look at birth, marriage and
• Free. More details at http://familytr.ee/CulturePerthandKinross death records in Scotland, and how to
locate them, as well as church records,
Until 1 March Maps census and what is available on the
London. Maps and the 20th Century: Drawing the Line is the British Library’s internet, with Alan Stewart (£20).
new exhibition exploring 100 years of mapping history. From the original sketch • The Society of Genealogists, 14
of today’s London Underground to satellite imagery of the 1990s, see how maps Charterhouse Buildings, Goswell Road,
have shaped our world. London EC1M 7BA. To book, email
• Tickets from £5-£12, Friends and under-18s free. PACCAR Gallery, The British events@sog.org.uk, call 020 7553 3290
Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB; www.bl.uk/events or visit www.sog.org.uk

www.family-tree.co.uk January 2017 FamilyTree 89

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p01FT_Jan

Seeking Charles II’s sermon still survives today and Charles II, I would also like to learn
chaplain & sermon writer whether it might be possible to obtain more about this role.
My interest has been aroused by a a copy of the same. IJ Ironside
reference in the Oxford Dictionary of Gilbert Ironside the younger is one Correspondence via the
National Biography which states that of my ancestors from the line of my magazine please
Gilbert Ironside – the younger 1631- 8x great-grandfather Ralph Ironside Editor: Mr Ironside would love to hear
1701 (late) Bishop of Bristol/Hereford (1550-1629) who was the first (pioneer!) from anyone who can help him trace his
– preached a sermon before Charles II family member to migrate from the ancestor’s sermons – can you shed any
at Whitehall on 23 November 1684, and family home in Houghton le Spring light? Incidentally, readers may like to
that it was published and survived! (Durham) and head south to Oxford know you can enjoy audio biographies
It seems that the sermon was alleged where he was the first member to on the ODNB website at global.oup.
to have been quite a ‘violent attack on attend Oxford University. On learning com/oxforddnb/info/freeodnb/
the idea of religious tolerance’. that Gilbert was appointed ‘Chaplain pod/#wartime – there are 250 available
I am now wondering whether this in Ordinary’ within the royal court of to listen to, each one lasting 10-30 mins

A diagram to which was alongside the Thames at the

show pedigree point of the collision and sinking. The
collapse (ie accident was the most talked about topic
when relations for many weeks, I am sure.
marry, therefore Julie Goddard
impacting the 2juliegoddard@gmail.com
number of direct Editor: Thank you for this
ancestors on a recommendation, and it was interesting
family tree) to hear why you have read it

London street search tips

E Rothman’s search for George Yard
(FT November, page 84) caught my
eye as I have cowkeepers among my
Mathematical error Mike Gould ancestors. David and Mary Williams
I was interested to read the ‘Key mike.gould@ndirect.co.uk were Welsh and Welsh-speaking
facts & dates for family historians’ Editor: I am sorry about my maths and cowkeepers in Shadwell, east of the
pull-out guide in December’s Family apologise for any confusion caused Tower of London.
Tree, but I think you made a mistake Some years ago I downloaded
in your example of pedigree collapse. Princess Alice disaster Lockie’s Topography of London of 1810
The principle is fine, but the example Re FT December, page 79, and Jean and Elmes Topographical Dictionary
you give of your granny marrying her Douglas’s ‘Examining tales untold’ in of London and its Environs and I now
first cousin means that the great- which she mentions the pleasure steamer searched these for George Yard
grandparent generation will have two Princess Alice sinking in the Thames Aldgate, but unusually couldn’t find
people who are siblings, not who are in 1878 when it collided with the much it in there either. However, when I
the same person. The collapse comes bigger collier, Bywell Castle. Almost 650 searched my similarly downloaded
at the generation above (2x great- passengers died. There is a useful book copy of the 1841 London Post Offi ce
grandparents), where two people will on the subject by Joan Lock, The Princess Street Directory I soon found about a
indeed feature twice, reducing the Alice Disaster, with a list of the names dozen George Yards – ‘George Yard
number of ancestors at that generation of those whose bodies were identified, between Aldgate and Fenchurch Street’
by two. My diagram may clarify which readers could consult if they think and there listed ‘Nelms Mary (Mrs),
this. The number of great 8x great- an ancestor may have been involved. I dairy, 1 George Yard, Aldgate’. I also
grandparents then becomes 896, have been looking at this disaster as two found this George Yard on my copy of
not 776. ancestors worked at Woolwich Arsenal, ‘The Godfrey Edition reprint of the Old

90 Family
FamilyTree January 2017 www.family-tree.co.uk

p90-91 LettersFINAL.indd 90 12/12/2016 11:35

 Have your say

Ordnance Survey Map for Whitechapel,
Spitalfi elds & The Bank 1873’. It is also
listed in the very useful ‘West Surrey
Family History Society General Index to
Old Ordnance Survey Maps of London
for North East London’.
So I would recommend to E Rothman
and any other reader interested in
London street locations to obtain
copies of these maps and the index
as well as to search online for the old
street directories and download them.
I did this at no cost in my local library,
copying them onto a memory stick
and transferring them into my laptop at
home – and if I can do it, anyone can!
On a separate matter, may I also
recommend to Mr PJ Sands of
Eastbourne that he makes use of the
free access to Ancestry, Findmypast
and the British Newspaper Archive
available in East Sussex Libraries to
search for more information about his
Pocock ancestors. If he is not familiar
with computers then the library can
arrange help and guidance. Once again,
if I can do it, anyone can!
Peter Cope
peterfcope@hotmail.co.uk
Editor: Many thanks for these useful leads
and reminder to make use of our libraries
A Gael born in 1876 in Kinbrace in the
Strath of Kildonan, Sutherlandshire,
Scotland, he left home aged 19 to enlist
in the British Army and never returned
to live in the Highlands.
In his later years he made his home
with my parents and me in Motherwell
in the industrial heartland of Scotland.
He would, in moments of quiet
refl ection, say ‘Sellar, Sellar’ followed
by a few words in the Gaelic language,
which I did not understand.
One day I asked him who or what
was Sellar. He then told me that he was
speaking of Patrick Sellar.
Grandfather went on to explain about
the Highland Clearances and that Patrick
Sellar was the factor for the Duke and
Duchess of Sutherland who decided
to clear the land of people and to put
sheep to graze on the area, because
sheep were seen by them to be more
profitable than the tenant farmers.
Sellar’s methods of eviction included
setting fire to the roof of the cottage
of William Chisholm and his family,
including his mother-in-law Margaret
MacKay, aged 67 and an invalid. The
old lady was rescued from the burning
home but died a few days later from
her injuries.
Editor: It always amazes me how far back
in time family memories can take us –
whether fi rst-hand accounts or passed
down the generations. Thank you for
sharing this important, if not happy, one
From our Facebook page
I am pleased to have a copy of FT
October to scan through the ‘20
Facebook Favourites’ recommended
because some I had not heard of and a
few may be very signifi cant. You asked
for any favourites from us – and having
London interests, I enjoy receiving
posts from http://familytr.ee/LonPR1
Karen Harvey
via Facebook
HOW TO GET IN TOUCH...
Share your views with fellow readers
on the FT letters pages. To contact us:
POST
Letters, Family Tree at the
address on page 3
EMAIL
helen.t@family-tree.co.uk

FACEBOOK & TWITTER

@
Patrick Sellar was put on trial at Get in touch on our
Highland Clearances Inverness in 1816 accused of arson and Facebook page,
Reading the piece on the Highland culpable homicide but was acquitted on facebook.com/
Clearances in Chris Paton’s article 24 April 1816. Sellar died in 1851 and is familytreemaguk,
‘Ancestors in the Queen’s Empire’, (FT buried in Elgin Cathedral. or tweet us
Christmas 2016) brought back fond Dorothy Macready @familytreemaguk
memories of my maternal grandfather. dorothy@lucky-town.co.uk

A sad individual tale Snippets

Pipe, pen, wristwatch and guard – Keith Gregson ponders on of war
a poignant list of effects, as left by a young man shot in WW1
James Harry Edwards, the young 1st XV scrum half for Sunderland relation to his fitness – either emotional
1st XV during the 1913/14 season, was killed by a sniper 100 years or physical. Saddest of all is the list of
ago. Although his death on 7 January 1917 is recorded in the club’s effects returned to his family, namely a
minute book for the period, it is only recently that the full sadness pocket book, a pipe, a fountain pen, a
of James’ death has been brought home – thanks to the discovery wristwatch and guard, snapshots, extra
of his officer’s file in The National Archives (WO 339/2170). Such wristwatch guard, officer’s advance
records are immensely helpful to family historians with First World book, letters, cheque book, four tubes
War officers in the family. James was only 18 when he played for pipe, three pencils and an iodine Killed by a sniper:
for Sunderland’s 1st XV and 22 when he died. He was a second ampule. All this is food for thought. James Edwards (left)
lieutenant in the Durham Light Infantry and had already been
buried and unconscious for 24 hours due to a bomb landing on Keith’s research
his trench in September 1915. His medical records show that he Keith has now completed over 200 of the 250 case studies of
suffered terribly mentally and physically as a result but after months members of Sunderland Cricket and (Rugby) Football Club who
of treatment at home under constant medical observation, he was served and will publish his findings as a book in November 2018.
returned to duty, only to be caught out by a sniper. Few modern His book A Tommy in The Family – First World War Family History
readers of his records would concur with the medics’ conclusion in and Research (The History Press, 2014) is still on sale.

www.family-tree.co.uk January 2017 Family

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www.family-tree.co.uk January 2017 FamilyTree 77
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email: rogerwhitworth1@btconnect.com
● YORKSHIRE ancestry research. All enquiries welcome.
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● WALES See Sovereign Ancestry, LINCOLNSHIRE
● WARWICKSHIRE Including Modern Records Centre,
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tel: 01527 877714; email: research@writingthepast.co.uk;
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● WEST COUNTRY ANCESTORS John Campbell,
Family Historian, Queensbridge, Ash Priors, Taunton
TA43NA Tel:01823 433498; email: jar.campbell@gmail.com;
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● YORKSHIRE ANCESTORS (est 1998) Yorkshire
Family History Research. All enquiries welcome, from
a single look-up to a full Family Tree. We visit North, East
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Email: enquiries@yorkshireancestors.net,
website: www.yorkshireancestors.net. Tel: Katie Sleightholme
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Road, Pickering, North Yorkshire YO18 8NH
● YORKSHIRE – Researcher for Who Do You Think You Are!
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website: www.yorkshirefamilyhistory.org;
email: research@yorkshirefamilyhistory.org

96 Family
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FamilyTree 97

p93-97 Lineage.indd 97 12/12/2016 14:00

 THOUGHTS ON...
New roots, happy travels
Diane Lindsay
begins the new year
by travelling down
side branches of
her tree, which
she finds glowing
with the warmth
of nostalgia
N
ew Year, new
challenges: how
I long for them,
having used up
so many of my own and
squashed my poor thinking
cap to a pulp on brick walls
that won’t budge. This
year, I’m going to put my
mainstream research to one
side for a while and revisit
the heady thrill of tracing
some families from scratch,
chasing them back and
sideways down the centuries.
For me, the detective work
of family history has always
been the most exciting part,
followed closely by social
history. I know people who
grow pale and wan at the
thought of squinting at a
single spidery word on a
dusty document in the hope
of adding a small splinter
to the family tree. In fact,
and I say this in a whisper,
I know people who are not
at all interested in their
family origins. I have no
concept of this. When I have
a family to pursue there’s an
adrenalin tingle similar to
the buying of shoes, except
no one says ‘But you already
have X (insert ridiculous
number) pairs of shoes
already’, and neither, when
flashing the facts to a largely
uninterested audience, do I
have to confess that actually
they hurt my feet and I
would have been better off
with a pair of boots.
98 Family
FamilyTree January 2017
p98 Diane columnFINAL.indd 98
Every cornfield filled with poppies becomes
a Narnia, especially to a small girl used to
factory hooters and bombed buildings
Speaking of boots, I’m
currently walking just such
a delectable trail, tracing,
ostensibly for a cousin, a
family in Aylesham, Kent,
with whom I spent several
delightful summers as a
child, courtesy of my aunt
and uncle. I was a bit peaky
in those days and it was
thought the fresh air would
help. And it did. A wonderful
thing about childhood is
that every big new family
that takes you to its heart
becomes your family and
every cornfield filled with
poppies becomes Narnia,
especially to a small girl more
used to factory hooters and
bombed buildings.
I have to confess, it was
years afterwards that I
realised this was a new
village, built in the 1920s
to house coal miners from
all over who came to work
the Kent coal mines. To this
day, although I probably
wouldn’t recognise a Kent
accent if it yelled in my ear,
I love the Geordie sound,
and the prefabs my new
‘relatives’ lived in seemed
vastly superior to our cold
three-storey old terrace in
Coventry. As it was childhood
and close to the coast, I also
believed it basked in eternal
sunshine. And there were so
many children! At least 10
in the family, some of whom
mothered me, some of whom
teased me, and at least one
who taught me the rudest
word my young mind had
never dreamed existed.
Aylesham, Canterbury,
Dover, Margate, Ramsgate
and Folkestone: these are
names that fill me still with
such a good feeling, places
I can scarcely remember,
given a cowboy hat and a
packet of caps, a stick of rock
and a seaside donkey or two,
Mapping wider family
a terrified slide down the
Helter Skelter in Dreamland
and a panic on Ramsgate
beach being sought by
loud hailer. I’ve never been
back, which is perhaps as
well, because I fear much
has vanished, along with so
many other warm and kindly
mining communities and
jolly Kiss me Quick seaside
towns like them.
But now here’s something
that shows the sheer joy
of our hobby. Here was I,
journeying nostalgically to
Kent, totally unaware that
before one day’s research
was out, not only would I
have photographs to mull
over, but my trip would
have turned back up the
map to Gateshead and then
even further down again
to Cornwall. To tin miners;
Poldark country in fact! And
I’ve only reached the 1850s.
Being nervous behind the
wheel, I recently ‘drove’ to a
distant shopping centre by
Google Earth before setting
out. I have few navigational
skills and my husband, who
could use a loud hailer
himself, often wonders why
I do so well at geography on
quiz shows. My answer’s a
bit like the song: ‘I’ve been
everywhere man, I’ve been
everywhere.’ And that was
only today!
About the author
Diane Lindsay
discovered her twin
passions of family
history and English
(and her sense of humour)
Illustration: © Ellie Keeble for Family Tree
while training as a teacher
and bringing up three small
children in the 1970s. She’s
a writer and local and family
historian and, although
retired, still teaches anything
to anyone who will listen.
www.family-tree.co.uk
12/12/2016 11:38