Welcome to the Family History Social

The Largest Family History Show in the South West

This Saturday 6 July 2019

For the first time at the University of the West of England Exhibition Centre.

With Societies and Specialist Suppliers in attendance, this show is known as the largest family history show in the South West of England. Many family history societies and companies attend each year.

Free Talks are hosted throughout the day.

Beginner or Expert? Everyone is very welcome and there is lots to see. There is plenty of parking, refreshments are available all day, and there are over 40 exhibitors.

This event is organised by family historians for family historians, they know how to put on a good show (They also run the London and York Family History Shows).

Do you really know who you are? Come and find out - you may be surprised!

Book your Tickets here: https://thefamilyhistoryshow.com/south-west/tickets/

The National Archives have had a logo make over.

This is from their news pages:

To mark our commitment to wider public engagement, we have refreshed our brand to introduce a new visual identity created by multi-disciplinary designers HemingwayDesign.

Caroline Ottaway-Searle, Director of Public Engagement at The National Archives, said: ‘Widening our audiences is a key part of The National Archives’ strategy, Archives for Everyone. To reinforce this we are introducing a new visual identity which works impactfully across channels. We chose to work with HemingwayDesign because they demonstrated an understanding of and commitment to our ambition to open up access to the archives.’

Wayne Hemingway, partner at HemingwayDesign, said: ‘Design is about improving things that matter in life and The National Archives definitely matters! It’s a national organisation of real social, historical and cultural importance; fascinating and complex. Our creative response to this was to create a new identity which is intentionally simple to allow for the content of the archives to speak for itself.’

The new identity draws upon a flexible grid system inspired by grids seen across the archival system from record slips and boxes of documents to the architecture on site at Kew – and three core typefaces which can be varied across media. The logo ‘mark’, a box with lettering within, is akin to the official ‘stamp’ marking items in The National Archives collection. The new identity can now be seen in the header and footer across most of our website, including our newly published strategy, Archives for Everyone 2019-23.

TheGenealogist has released over 100,000 individuals into their expanding Court & Criminal Records collection. With this release researchers can find the details of ancestors that had broken the law and were incarcerated in the harsh conditions of early Victorian convict prisons - including some that were only children!

Parkhurst Prison from The Illustrated London News March 13, 1847

The new data will allow the family history researcher to discover:

●     Over 100,000 individuals in records covering the years 1838 to 1875

●     Registers of prisoners inside Millbank, Parkhurst and Pentonville prisons.

●     Each prisoner's age on conviction

●     The marital status and whether the prisoner can read or write

●     The convict’s former trade

●     When and where they were convicted, their crime, sentence, where and whence received, previous offences, when removed and to where.

These fully searchable records are from the HO24 Home Office: Prison Registers and Returns 1838-1875 for Millbank, Parkhurst and Pentonville.

Read TheGenealogist’s article “Criminal records can reveal ancestors locked up in convict prisons” at:

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2019/criminal-records-can-reveal-ancestors-locked-up-in-convict-prisons-1122/

About TheGenealogist

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

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

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

 About The National Archives

The National Archives is one of the world’s most valuable resources for research and an independent research organisation in its own right. As the official archive and publisher for the UK government, and England and Wales they are the guardians of some of the UK's most iconic national documents, dating back over 1,000 years. Their role is to collect and secure the future of the government record, both digital and physical, to preserve it for generations to come, and to make it as accessible and available as possible. The National Archives brings together the skills and specialisms needed to conserve some of the oldest historic documents as well as leading digital archive practices to manage and preserve government information past, present and future.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/  http://www.legislation.gov.uk/

For the latest stories, follow the Media Team on Twitter @TNAmediaofficer

Are you going to be in York this Saturday 22 June 2019?

If you are then you should consider very stongly coming along to The Family History Show, York.

It is always well attended with lots of exhibitors from near and far including Family History Societies, the Society of Genealogists, FamilySearch, the MOD, Census Detectives, TheGenealogist and many more.

With various free talks through out the day there is also an Ask The Expert area where you can get help with your family history problems.

So the news is out!

The makers of the UK series of Who Do You Think You Are? have release the star studded line up for the 16th series and it looks exciting with some really big names.

The eight programmes set to air in 2019 will include the following personalities:

Kate Winslet, Daniel Radcliffe, Sharon Osbourne, Naomie Harris, Paul Merton, Mark Wright, Katherine Ryan and Jack Whitehall who will all be tracing their families’ histories and entertaining us along the way.

There is a run down of each  celebrity on this page here courtesy of TheGenealogist: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2019/who-do-you-think-you-are/who-do-you-think-you-are-series-16-1113/

Image: Somewhere In Toronto [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]

TheGenealogist announces the release of Islington Lloyd George Domesday Survey records. These cover land owners and occupiers in 1910-1915 with over 70,000 individuals recorded, joining the previously released data books and their associated maps for other parts of London.

This new release is the latest stage of TheGenealogist’s vast ongoing project to digitise over 94,500 Field Books, each having hundreds of pages, and linking them to large scale IR121 annotated OS maps which are now viewable in TheGenealogist’s powerful Map Explorer tool.

The records have been sourced from The National Archives and were compiled by the Valuation Office in a period that stretched from 1910-1915 in response to the Lloyd George government passing the People’s Budget 1909/1910.

This new release covers records made of property ownership and occupation in Barnsbury, Canonbury, Charterhouse, Clerkenwell, Finsbury, Glasshouse Yard, Highbury East, Highbury West, Lower Holloway, Myddelton, Old Street, Pentonville, Saint Mary, Saint Peter, Saint Sepulchre, Thornhill, Upper Holloway, Upper Holloway East and Upper Holloway West.

Collins’ Music Hall identified by TheGenealogist’s map explorer showing the plot on Lloyd George Domesday map

Family historians can use these records to:

●      Find ancestors who owned or occupied property in the Islington area of London

●      See the outlines of their houses on large scale maps from the time

●      Fade between historic and modern maps to see how the environment has changed

●      Check details of properties in the neighbourhood, by clicking the red pins

●      Locate an address from your research down to a specific house on the map

●      Search by name, parish and street to uncover ancestors’ property in 1910-1915

Complementing the maps on TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer are the accompanying Field Books which provide detailed information relative to the valuation of each property, including the valuation assessment number, map reference, owner, occupier, situation, description and extent.

For family historians looking for ancestors’ homes just before the First World War in the Islington area of London this record set is invaluable.

Read TheGenealogist’s article: Lloyd George Domesday Survey maps reveal an Islington Theatre and Dr Crippen’s house.

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2019/lloyd-george-domesday-survey-maps-reveal-an-islington-theatre-and-dr-crippens-house-1109/

About TheGenealogist

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

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

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

 About The National Archives

The National Archives is one of the world’s most valuable resources for research and an independent research organisation in its own right. As the official archive and publisher for the UK government, and England and Wales they are the guardians of some of the UK's most iconic national documents, dating back over 1,000 years. Their role is to collect and secure the future of the government record, both digital and physical, to preserve it for generations to come, and to make it as accessible and available as possible. The National Archives brings together the skills and specialisms needed to conserve some of the oldest historic documents as well as leading digital archive practices to manage and preserve government information past, present and future.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/  http://www.legislation.gov.uk/

For the latest stories, follow the Media Team on Twitter @TNAmediaofficer

While we still don't know who is in the 2019 UK series of Who Do You Think You Are? it was reported over the weekend by The Sun newspaper that one celebrity's family was just far too complex to have made it into the 16th series.

That person is Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones fame and it seems that he is descended from a huge family of gypsies, most of whom lived on canal barges. The programme researchers are not ruling out that they may be able to do something for another year, but at the moment they have been defeated getting it all into a one hour show!

The Sun says that a TV insider had told them:

“With Ronnie’s colourful relatives – who can be traced back over 300 years – there was too much to be able to work through in time for this year’s series.

“They’re still determined to see if they can bring together what they need to make a show all about the Wood clan. But if it happens it will have to be next year now.”

Ever wanted to know how much a sum of money was worth in the past?

The National Archives in the U.K. has this handy currency calculator on their website,

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/

So if you want to know how much £1 would have bought you in 1270 it reveals that it is the equivalent of £729.83 (2017 value).

But more than that you can see that your £1 would have bought you a horse, or two cows, or 7 stones of wool. If you wanted  6 quarters of wheet, then your £1 would buy you that amount. And if you were to find a skilled tradesman to employ in 1270 then for £1 he would give you 100 days of work. This shows that value of a sum of money can be very different depending on what it was used for as I doubt a skilled tradesman would work for 100 days for just shy of £730!

TheGenealogist is expanding its occupational records with over 300,000 records of Masters and Apprentices included in a nautical set of apprenticeship records.

These BT 150 records from The National Archives comprise of an index that had been compiled by the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen and its predecessor. It consists of apprentices indentured in the Merchant Navy between 1824-1910.

Family historians can use these records to:

• Find ancestors who had learned the trade of a professional merchant seaman
• Discover the age of an ancestor at the time that he went to sea and his year of birth
• Find the name of the company and the port that he was registered as an apprentice
• In some cases also learn the name of the ship that your ancestor sailed on

The index was begun as a result of an Act of the UK parliament in 1823 which introduced a law that required the Masters of British merchant ships of over 80 tons to carry a given number of indentured apprentices on their vessels. The law required that these apprentice seamen’s names were to be enrolled with the local Customs Officer.

By the middle of the 1830s, however, these provisions were extended by the Merchant Seamen Act 1835 which now made it necessary that the indentures were officially registered. In London, this was done with the General Register and Record Office of Seamen; while in “outports” (other ports around the country), the registration was made with the local Customs officers who were under orders to submit quarterly lists to the Registrar General.

Compulsory apprenticeship was abolished in 1849, though the system of registration was maintained by the authorities and the index continued to be kept. The books have now been transcribed by TheGenealogist and include colour images of the original registers to add a fascinating resource to their broad range of records which can be used to build an ancestor’s story.

Read TheGenealogist’s article for tales of apprentices who rose to take command of the Cutty Sark, some more successfully than others:

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2019/merchant-seamen-apprentices-to-captains-of-the-cutty-sark-1104/

About TheGenealogist

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

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

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

About The National Archives

The National Archives is one of the world’s most valuable resources for research and an independent research organisation in its own right. As the official archive and publisher for the UK government, and England and Wales they are the guardians of some of the UK's most iconic national documents, dating back over 1,000 years. Their role is to collect and secure the future of the government record, both digital and physical, to preserve it for generations to come, and to make it as accessible and available as possible. The National Archives brings together the skills and specialisms needed to conserve some of the oldest historic documents as well as leading digital archive practices to manage and preserve government information past, present and future.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/  http://www.legislation.gov.uk/

For the latest stories, follow the Media Team on Twitter @TNAmediaofficer

The Genealogist is expanding its Criminal Records collection with the release of over 146,000 individuals who were listed in prison records. Sourced from the PRIS 10 & PRIS 11 collections held at The National Archives, these documents contain records from 1697 to 1862 and reveal those jailed for debt or bankruptcy.  

These records will give family historians details of those imprisoned in debtors prisons including the King's Bench Prison, Queen's Prison, Fleet Prison and Marshalsea Prison. They contain commitment and discharge records, giving details of names of the debtor, creditor and attorney, along with the amount of debt.

Use these records to:

• Find ancestors who were imprisoned for debts and bankruptcy
• Discover to who debts were owed
• See when individuals were discharged
  

Within these records, we find John Dickens, father of the famous author Charles Dickens, who was in debt to baker James Karr by the sum of 40 pounds. John was brought in to custody on 20th February 1824 and was later discharged on 26th May 1824 when his mother died leaving him enough money to pay off his debts.

John Dickens’ custody record

Charles Dickens had to earn a wage from a young age and his childhood experiences affected him greatly. He used his experiences as background for the story of Little Dorrit.

Read our article here:

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2019/little-dorrit-dickens-and-dads-debts-1103/