Welcome to the Family History Social

For those wanting to catch up on the latest family history research news from S&N Genealogy including some of their latest special offers, it's worth taking a look at their latest 'email news', now available. With news on over half a million new parish records added to TheGenealogist website and how you can also save over £400 on preserving your memorabilia, there’s also free charts and the opportunity to track down your ancestors in the USA! It can all be found at http://www.genealogysupplies.com/email_news.htm

7 ways to demolish your family history brick walls Family history research is a rewarding and addictive hobby. However, we all reach a point when get stuck or hit that genealogy ‘brick wall’. At this point, it’s helpful to consult text books, visit family history society talks and also spend some time looking at the popular family history forums frequented by fellow family historians only too happy to offer help and advice. Using this external help, I managed to discover 7 new  techniques that helped me break down some difficult brick walls in my family history research. They may help you in your search. 1.      A missing marriage record Looking in numerous sources I could not find the marriage records for ancestors in the 1700s  in my family tree. I was advised to take a look at the ‘Fleet Marriage’ record sets. Known as record set RG7 from The National Archives, they cover over 800,000 clandestine marriages conducted by unscrupulous clergy around the Fleet debtor’s prison near London. Covering the years 1667 to 1777,    it covers over half of the marriages in London at this time. 2.      County boundary changes throwing us off the scent.. Areas of England and Wales have undergone numerous county boundary changes over the years and it can throw us family historians off the scent. I was trying to trace an ancestor in the village of Cradley in Herefordshire. After struggling locating the whereabouts of my ancestor, it turns out in various census records, the village, moved between Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire through boundary changes! 3.      Overseas BMD records Looking beyond the Civil Registration records helped open a few doors for me too. The National Archives overseas records can offer a great deal of record sets that can maybe help us track down that missing ancestor. There were 3 record sets I found useful, firstly RG33- Overseas BMDs of British Subjects (covering the years 1627 to 1960), this also included Lundy Island in Devon! RG32 covers Prisoners of War and Civilian Deaths overseas and finally RG34 which details foreign marriages including during World War 1. The General Register Office (GRO) also have a number of overseas records including Marine & Army BMDs, Air Births, Informal certificates of births at sea and Consular BMDs. These records are also well worth taking a look at. I found TheGenealogist.co.uk particularly useful for records in this area. 4.      A nonconformist ancestor.. If you’re struggling to find an ancestor in the parish records, it’s worth looking at other religious denomination records that may provide the details of an ancestor you’ve been looking for. I discovered an ancestor (fortunately!) in the Quaker records of the nonconformist registers from The National Archives (series RG6). The record not only recorded immediate family from the wedding but the whole congregation!   5.      Finding missing relatives using street search As many of our ancestors often lived close to each other, it is worth taking a look at street names to track down a missing ancestor, you just may discover ancestors you weren’t aware of living in the same street! I discovered new ancestors in a search using the Street Search on www.TheGenealogist.co.uk 6.       Family forename search Using TheGenealogist website I was able to discover a selection of ancestors that had previously been eluding my best search efforts. They had moved away from their original family home and I was able to track them down using the Family forename search- inputting the first names of the family (they had a common surname of Smith), the website narrowed down my search and discovered them in the 1891 census in Grimsby!  7.       Will Records Will records are a great way of discovering more information about your ancestors that can really break down those brick walls. Many will records offer comprehensive details of our ancestors lives, what they achieved, how much they were worth, who they favoured in their immediate family and who would gain the most from the will. They can be fascinating documents and can explain a period in time in your family history you previously knew nothing about. What techniques have you used to break down brick walls? Let us know in the comments box below. 

A formal proposal to change the traditional paper census form to an online version only has been put to Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office Minister,  by the Office of National Statistics with a view to saving the government a large amount of money. After almost 200 hundred years of using a paper format census, the new proposals are controversial but the argument is with the advances of new technology, there is a chance to save hundreds of millions of pounds by going down the online route. Elderly people or those unable to use get access to the internet will be given special assistance but officials hope the plans will slash the potential cost of the next census in 2021. What do you think, should the paper version be kept or is it best to move to an online only format?

A recent new development in the world of family history research has been the introduction of a new family history tree builder app, compatible with all iOS and Android devices. The new 'TreeView' app, launched by TheGenealogist, allows the highly regarded TreeView online family tree builder to be viewed, updated and taken to family gatherings on a phone and tablet too. With the new app, you can access your family tree and your saved details on your mobile device, even when you don't have connection to the internet. TreeView is a very useful powerful tool, one I've used and would recommend. The app now gives you the ability to add, modify and view your family history via any mobile device. With the option of a variety of tree styles, you have everything available at your fingertips on the move! For more details and more information, please go to TheGenealogist website

There's a number of both free and ticketed events scheduled at The National Archives  this week. On Thursday the 27th March, there's a free talk entitled 'We may lie and die in a land of plenty..'- the Victorian poor in their own words. This talk looks at pauper letters, statements and petitions highlighting the concerns, thoughts and feelings of the poor in their own words. On the Friday, television broadcaster Jeremy Paxman explores what life was like for the British during the First World War, from politicians to newspapermen, Tommies, factory-workers, nurses, wives and children. Cost for this talk is £5. For more details and to see the other talks and workshops available, go to The National Archives website.

With the launch of over 11 million new Tithe Records now available on TheGenealogist, it's now possible to discover more details on our ancestors before the census record years. Available online for the first time, TheGenealogist, in partnership with The National Archives, has released these unique records, which show life in England and Wales from the 1830s. Amongst the new discoveries,  the ancestors of Monty Python legends, John Cleese and Eric Idle are found in the Tithe records, as can the shared ancestor of Prince Harry and his girlfriend, Cressida Bonas. Both are related to Richard William Penn Curzon-Howe (1st Earl Howe). Earl Howe owned a substantial amount  of land in both Suffolk and Buckinghamshire (the family ancestral home). Here is a copy of Earl Howe and his details in the Tithe Apportionment record now available to view online.

The shared family tree of Harry and Cressida can be found on TreeView. The great great Grandfather of John Cleese was a grocer, and is discovered in the Tithe Records living in a cottage in Westbury-upon-Trym. The father of John Cleese, Reginald, changed the family name from Cheese to Cleese before he joined the army in World War One. The Cheese/Cleese family tree is listed here.  Fellow Python Eric Idle's ancestors hail from Lower Soothill in Yorkshire. Eric's three times great Grandfather was a blanket maker by profession and lived with his family in a cottage and shop with gardens as found in the tithe records. The Idle family tree can also be found here on TreeView. Other discoveries in the Tithe records include the ancestors of Lord Seb Coe, former athlete, whose relative, Robert Coe, a school headmaster, is  found on the Tithe records in Durham. See the family history of Lord Coe onTreeView . The Tithe Maps are to be added to TheGenealogist later in 2014. The Maps were the graphical representation of who owned or occupied the land and property in England and Wales. The second phase of the project will link images of microfilm maps with the plot references. Launch is due Spring 2014. The third phase will digitise the large original maps in colour for each county at high resolution to enhance this unique resource. Launch due for this is 2015. Mark Bayley, Head of Online Content at TheGenealogist concludes: “This has been an exciting, major project for us. The records touch upon the lives of every family so they really are a must–have for every family historian!”

The Tithe Records now available on TheGenealogist have been mentioned in a number of British newspapers including The Sunday Times, The Daily Express and The Telegraph.  

This Saturday (15th March), sees the Dorset (Family History Society) Family History Day.  It's being held at Parkstone Grammar School, Sopers Lane, Poole from 10am to 4pm. This family history fair has free admission and free parking and a number of exhibitors, including TheGenealogist and S&N Genealogy Supplies will be present.  There's also a seleciotn of quality talks including one from Peter Hart of the Imperial War Museum, who will be presenting a talk on "Life in the Trenches on the Western Front". It promises to be a great event. Will you be going? There's more details on the Dorset Family History Society website.

 

Latest news from TheGenealogist is the release of over 1.5 million parish records, covering the counties of Essex, Worcestershire, Wiltshire and Somerset. Combined with the new record releases is a new look search layout making it easy to use on all devices. The records cover the period from the mid 1500s to the early 1900s. The parish record collection can be searched by name, spouse's name, father's name, mother's name, birth date, baptism date, marriage date, burial date and by parish using the SmartSearch features available on TheGenealogist. For more details please go to TheGenealogist website.

The following is a plea from Shirley Williams of the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum in Caernarfon. We at the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum in Caernarfon are starting the mammoth task of looking for photos of individual soldiers from the RWF who were killed in the Great War. We are trying to put each man’s name on display on a screen on the centenary of his death and would dearly love to be able to add a photograph of each man to go with his name. It is a huge undertaking as there were over 10,400 men from the RWF that were killed. But even if we only get a fraction of the photographs we believe it is worth doing. Many of the RWF were from all over so we are asking please could you help? You can help us by circulating our plea to anybody who is interested. Many families have photographs tucked away so this might prompt them to seek them out. We accept scans or copies and any that appeared in newspapers, which often carried obituaries including photographs. We need as much information as possible to go with the photo to make sure we fit the right photo to the right man – but sometimes a name and date of death might be all we need. Email us on [email protected] for more details or to send us a photo. You can also follow our progress on Twitter, Pinterest, Flickr and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Royal-Welch-Fusiliers-Museum/146060182083938

In a flash the major family history show of 2014 has been and gone. Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2014 at London Olympia (and its new opening days of Thursday to Saturday) seemed to generate a healthy number of visitors. Attendees were steady although it was felt not exceeding the levels of previous years. However, there was a healthy number of exhibitors and as expected a focus on the commemorations of the start of The Great War, with the Imperial War Museum present. All the usual main family history websites were present in what was as ever, a very enjoyable family history exhibition. Did you attend or exhibit, let us know what you thought of Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2014!