Welcome to the Family History Social

New Family History Show for the London area

This Sunday, 24th September 2017 sees the first Family History Show  - London

Organised by Discover Your Ancestors Magazine, the same people behind the ever successful event called The Family History Show, York it is being held at Sandown Park Racecourse between 10 am and 4:30 Watch this video of this year's York event to get a taster of what is to come... [embed]https://www.facebook.com/thefamilyhistoryshow/videos/313329735787369/[/embed]  

Free Talks throughout the day

10:00 Show Opening with Caliban's Dream, Medieval Musicians 11:00 Breaking Down Brick Walls In Your Family History Research Mark Bayley, Online Expert  Resolve stumbling blocks in your family history research using innovative search strategies and unique record sets to find those missing relatives. 12:00 Tracing Your Military Ancestors Chris Baker, Military Expert & Professional Researcher  Chris draws on his experience from researching thousands of soldiers to explore what can be found when looking for a military ancestor. 13:00 Breaking Down Brick Walls In Your Family History Research Mark Bayley, Online Expert 14:00 Tips & Tricks for Online Research Keith Gregson, Professional Researcher & Social Historian Keith shares top tips & techniques for finding elusive ancestors, illustrated by some fascinating case studies. 15:00 Breaking Down Brick Walls In Your Family History Research Mark Bayley, Online Expert   Read more at: http://thefamilyhistoryshow.com/

TheGenealogist has added over 1.1 million individuals to its parish record collection covering the county of Sussex. Published In association with The Parish Record Transcription Society, this first tranche of records will be followed by more releases in the near future. This New release covers individual records of:

• 717,000 Baptisms
• 213,000 Marriages
• 208,000 Burials

The Parish Record Transcription Society (PRTSoc) have worked with TheGenealogist and S&N to publish their records online, making over 1.1 million individuals from baptism, marriage and burial records fully searchable: "We are very pleased to be working with TheGenealogist on this major project, previously undertaken to transcribe the parish registers of West Sussex by the staff and dedicated volunteers of the PRTSoc. This will preserve these records for future generations and brings them into the online community." Peter Steward, Chairman of PRTSoc Mark Bayley, Head of Online Development at TheGenealogist, welcomed PRTSoc to the growing number family history societies on both TheGenealogist and FHS-Online saying: “We’re delighted that PRTSoc chose to publish their records through TheGenealogist and FHS-Online. This release adds to the ever expanding collection of parish records on both websites. These partnerships help fund societies whilst bringing their records to a much wider audience, through online publication.” This release joins TheGenealogist’s Sussex collection including parish records to form a major resource for the county. Read their article here: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2017/new-sussex-parish-records-reveal-a-grizzly-end-646/ If your society is interested in publishing records online, please contact Mark Bayley on 01722 717002 or see fhs-online.co.uk/about.php

TheGenealogist has enlarged its Court & Criminal Records collection so that even more black sheep ancestors can now be searched for and found on its site. With a new release of records you can unearth all sorts of ancestors who came up against the law - whether they were a victim, acquitted, convicted of a minor offence or found guilty of a major crime such as murder. These fully searchable records cover HO77 - The Home Office: Criminal Registers, England and Wales and ADM 6 - The Registers of Convicts in Prison Hulks Cumberland, Dolphin and Ganymede with indexes from The National Archives.

• Uniquely this release allows you the ability to search for victims of the crime (Over 132,000)
• Hunt for people using their name or alias, or look for an offence
• See images of the pages from the books and registers that reveal even more fascinating information about the individual

As these records cover a vast range of transgressions we are able to find men and women who stole small items such as shirts, potatoes, boots etc. We can also discover people who had married bigamously, forged money, uttered a counterfeit half-crown, burgled, murdered or were accused of many more other crimes. One example of a number of unusual offences found in TheGenealogist’s new release, is that of Christian Crane, tried in February 1811 - ‘Being a person of evil fame and a reputed thief’ was adjudged to be ‘a rogue and vagabond’. These records, joining those already available within TheGenealogist’s Court & Criminal collection, will reveal the sentence of the court handed out to our ancestors. Judgements can be seen to vary massively from a fine, a short imprisonment in Newgate, a public whipping, a longer spell inside, or the ultimate sanction of death.

Other ancestors were sentenced to be ‘transported beyond the seas’ and TheGenealogist already has many registers of convicts sent to Australia between 1787 and 1867. Joining them in this new release are the ADM 6 records for convicts who were waiting to begin their voyage to the penal colonies in Australia and were locked up on a number of Prison Hulks. You can search for your lawless ancestor at www.thegenealogist.co.uk Or see their article: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2017/criminal-records-discover-black-sheep-ancestors-621/

The August 2017 edition of Discover Your Ancestors online periodical is available now and features some great articles this month.

With regular News, Events, Books and Classifieds this month also looks at Ipswich in its Regional feature. This month's crop of articles are as follows: ‘Put it in the diary’: Ruth A Symes looks at what our ancestors’ appointment diaries can reveal What’s in a name?: Denise Bates explores the trends and traditions of Victorian forenames Changing names: Nick Thorne unravels a family of name changes and finds a black sheep exiled for his crime Here is the news: Margaret Powling surveys the history of newspapers, and remembers her own family’s role in the trade Woodcuts and witches: Jon Crabb explores how developments in publishing influenced the early modern fixation with witches History in the details: Jayne Shrimpton on underwear Regulars: News / Events / Region: Ipswich / Books / Classifieds You can get this month's edition from: http://www.discoveryourancestors.co.uk/current-issue/ Or to give as a present get a 12-month gift voucher from https://genealogysupplies.com/product/Discover-Your-Ancestors/Discover-Your-Ancestors-Online-Periodical-12-Issue-Gift-Voucher/  

Information just in from the team at TheGenealogist announces that it has extended its UK Parish Records collection with a new and exclusive release of 650,000 parish records for Nottinghamshire.  These records can be used to find your ancestors’ baptisms, marriages and burials in these fully searchable records that cover parishes from this important East Midland county of England. With records that reach back to 1633, this release includes the records of 56 parishes, including: 369,100 individuals in Baptisms, 168,000 individuals in Marriages and 112,800 individuals in Burials   You can use these transcripts to find the names of ancestors, parents’ forenames (in the case of baptisms), father’s occupation (where noted), abode or parish, parish that the event took place in, the date of the event, and in the case of marriage records the bride’s maiden name and the witnesses’ names.

Lord Byron

Amongst the notable Nottinghamshire people that can be found in these records are the infamous Lord Byron and his brilliant mathematician daughter Ada, Countess of Lovelace. Both are buried in the parish of Hucknal Torkard. As well as nobility, in this collection we also come across the baptism of Amos Hind. He was famous for playing First Class Cricket for the neighbouring county of Derbyshire between 1876 and 1877. Amos died aged 82 in 1931. TheGenealogist says "These additions bring our Nottinghamshire parish record collection to over 919,800 records." To search these records and many more see TheGenealogist.co.uk Read their article: https://www.thegenealogist.com/featuredarticles/2017/a-poet-a-mathematician-and-a-first-class-cricketer-596/ Parishes covered in this release are:

Awsworth Arnold Awsworth Balderton Barnby in the Willows Barton in Fabis Beeston Bilsthorpe Bingham Blidworth Bole Burton Joyce Calverton Car Colston Coddington Cottam Cromwell Dunham Eakring East Bridgford East Drayton East Retford Egmanton Elston Elton Epperstone Everton Farnsfield

Flawborough Fledborough Flintham Gamston Gotham Greasley Grove Hucknall Torkard Kneesall Kneeton Laneham Laxton Lowdham North Collingham Orston Owthorpe Papplewick Perlethorpe Radford Ratcliffe on Soar Rolleston Scarrington Selston Shelford Skegby Stapleford West Bridgford Woodborough

TheGenealogist has just released a new circa 1921 resource, covering 23 counties, with over one million records. These form part of the Trade, Residential & Telephone record sets on TheGenealogist covering a period currently not served by a census.  

The fully transcribed, searchable records released today will allow researchers to:

• search on forename, surname and profession
• search by street, town and county
• look for a business name
• discover your ancestors’ addresses
• find professions listed

  These 1921 directories cover the North, South, East and the West of England, the Channel Islands and as far up the country as Aberdeen. If you have ancestors who you are tracing in 1921, this new release from TheGenealogist adds a fantastic name rich resource to your family history research armoury. Searching for householders within these 23 newly released county directories returns a good number of names from that time, including many that are still famous today. For example, in these new records we can find Harry Gordon Selfridge, founder of Selfridge's department store; Jesse Boot, who was behind the chemist chain that still carries his name; Winnie-the-Pooh’s author A. A. Milne; J.M. Barrie, who created the characters of Peter Pan and Wendy; plus the celebrated economist, John Maynard Keynes. You can read more about finding them in the records in our featured article at: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2017/addressing-where-they-were-in-1921-571/ The areas covered in this release include:

• Aberdeen
• Bath
• Berkshire
• Bradford and Surrounding Districts
• Bristol and Suburberbs
• Brixton and Clapham
• Buckinghamshire
• Cambridgeshire
• Channel Islands
• Cheshire
• Cumberland
• Dorset
• Durham
• Hessle
• Hull
• Lincolnshire
• London
• London County Suburbs
• Middlesbrough
• Norfolk
• Northumberland
• Oxfordshire
• Somerset
• Suffolk
• Westmorland
• Wiltshire
• Worcestershire
• Yorkshire

TheGenealogist says that they will be adding further counties in the coming months.

The BBC's much loved genealogy programme has  returned to our screens with some fascinating new programmes for this season. Split into two batches, the first half has started with some great stories from Charles Dance, Craig Revel Horwood, Clare Balding, Adil Ray, and Emma Willis to air next Thursday. If you have missed the programmes they are available to watch on the BBC iPlayer for a short period of time. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007t575

 

  TheGenealogist has expanded its UK Parish Records collection with the release of over 1,363,000 new records for Northumberland.  These records make it easier to find your ancestors’ baptisms, marriages and burials in these fully searchable records that cover the ancient parishes of the northernmost county of England. Some of the records can take you as far back as 1560. In this release you can find the records of: 903,314 individuals in Baptisms, 157,329 individuals in Marriages and 302,378 individuals in Burials   Use these records to find the names of ancestors, parents’ forenames (in the case of baptisms), father’s occupation (where given), abode or parish, parish that the event took place in, the date of the event, in the case of marriage records, the bride’s maiden name and the witnesses’ names. In these records you can find Grace Horsley Darling, the famous lighthouse keeper’s daughter who saved the crew from a shipwrecked paddle steamer. She was born on 24th November 1815, at her grandfather's cottage in Bamburgh in Northumberland and was baptised the following month. Grace was the daughter of William and Thomasine Darling who, when only a few weeks old, was taken to live in a small cottage attached to the lighthouse on Brownsman Island, one of the Farne Islands off the coast of Northumberland. Her father ran the lighthouse there and she is famed for participating in the rescue of survivors from the shipwrecked paddle steamer Forfarshire in 1838. It was carrying sixty two people when it foundered on the rocks, split in two, the survivors managed to clamber onto Big Harcar a rocky island and were spotted by Grace looking from an upstairs window. She and her father rowed out in a four man boat for a distance of about a mile and between them rescued the nine survivors.

  Search these and millions of other records on https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk

This weekend is going to be great for family historians in the area of York!

One of the largest family history shows in the UK

With exhibitors coming from all over Britain and Ireland, this family history show is probably the largest event of its kind in England. Every year the fair is well attended by family history societies and companies plus there is lots of local history from the York area as well. The organiser's website says: 'You don't have to have Yorkshire Ancestors to come to this fair - they can be from anywhere at all! Everyone is very welcome and there is lots to see. There is plenty of parking and refreshments are available all day. There are several lifts to take you to the upper levels, and the whole place is wheelchair friendly. Do you really know who you are? Come and find out - you may be surprised!' Yorkshire Family History Fair Saturday 24th June 2017 10am to 4.30pm The Knavesmire Exhibition Centre, The Racecourse, York, YO23 1EX Admission: Adults £4.80, Children under 14 FREE   To get a great deal on tickets take a look at their website now: http://yorkshirefamilyhistoryfair.com/index.php

 

Press Release from TheGenealogist

 

TheGenealogist releases York Colour Tithe Maps and Yorkshire Directories.

For example, if we wanted to find the plot where one William Gibb lived in the parish of St Cuthbert during 1845 we can do this by selecting Tithe & Landowner on TheGenealogist and then enter his name into the Master Search. In William’s case he was the occupier while his landlady was Ann Wilson and we can see from the description in the Apportionment book that he rented a house and gardens from her. The value is small and the Rector is only entitled to 6d tithe rent from the plot. This is in contrast to another example that we can find in the York tithes.

We are able to see an image of the apportionment book and this reveals in the description that the land is ‘Part of Knavesmire a stinted pasture’. A 'stint' or 'gait' being a pasture that is limited to a certain number of animals. A person who has the right to graze their sheep or cattle on the stinted pasture may allow a fixed number of their livestock to feed there. Each grazier holds a certain number of stints and a formula will be in force that calculates the different value of each type of livestock. So one stint could equal one ewe with her lamb, while four stints may equal one horse.

Anyone visiting the racecourse, whether it is for the family history show or to watch the races, can’t help but notice the old Terry’s Chocolate Factory next door. This art deco style facility, which no longer manufactures chocolate, was built in 1926. The company has, however, a long and rich history connected to York and by searching within one of the twenty three Yorkshire Trade, Residential and Telephone directories that have also been released by TheGenealogist this month, we can find the listing for the company. If an ancestor had a business then the commerical listings in the directory can help us find where they may have worked. In the 1897 Kelly’s York Directory we can find Joseph Terry & Sons Limited, manufacturing confectioners and see that at that time they had factories at Clementhorpe and at St Helen’s Square in York. The later address being where the family business had started and Clementhorpe was the factory on the River Ouse that allowed them to better distribute their products and import the raw materials - this move allowed Terry’s to really take off as a confectioner. We can, likewise, find the competing company of H.J. Rowntree & Co. within the same directory. It shows us that Rowntree’s had their business premises at Haxley Road and Tanner’s Moat.   Directories can also be useful to find the addresses of residents, the railways that served the area and read about communications links to other towns. These may be of help to the family historian who has ‘lost’ an ancestor as they could suggest where a person may have travelled and can be a great compliment to a census record. In the case of a head of the household we may be able to find an address different from that recorded in the decennial census. This may help fill in the gaps of where a stray ancestor moved to between the census. It can also add to our understanding of the place where our ancestors lived. Sir Joseph Terry had been the Lord Mayor of York and in the year of this directory, 1897, he is still listed as an alderman and a magistrate. Similarly, John Stephenson Rowntree had been a past Lord Mayor and he too was an alderman and magistrate in this year. The 1897 Kelly’s York Directory reveals that they both lived at Mount Villas on The Mount; from this we can work out that they were close neighbours in York. The racecourse is also listed in this publication as having an address of Knavesmire, The Mount and so in the same area of the city.

TheGenealogist’s National Tithe Record Collection covers all counties of England and Wales and so can be used to find where your English and Welsh ancestors lived at the time that this great survey took place between 1837 and the mid 1850s. The Trade, Residential & Telephone directories also encompass the whole country and can be useful both as research tool and as a valuable insight into the lives of our ancestors. They are a useful resource for tracing ancestors, particularly if they had a distinctive trade and can be used as a census substitute for the years prior to 1841 or after 1911 and also to provide information on their whereabouts between census years. To search for your ancestors using these and the enormous number of other records on TheGenealogist read more at https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk