Welcome to the Family History Social

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/

Author talk and signing at The National Archives in Kew

A talk and signing to coincide with the publication of a new popular history study on the life of King Henry VI, by Dr Lauren Johnson; author of The Arrow of Sherwood (2013) and So Great a Prince (2016).

This talk will chart the extraordinary rise and fall of the son of Henry V, who became king as an infant but who, as an adult ruler, oversaw the loss of the English claim to the throne of France, and whose inabilities sparked the Wars of the Roses in England.

Dr Lauren Johnson is a historian and costumed interpreter with a first-class degree from Oxford University. Her research for the book was completed at The National Archives and she will be providing insight into her processes as part of this fascinating talk.

Thursday, 28 March 2019  18:30 – 20:00 GMT 

at The National Archives, Bessant Drive, Richmond, TW9 4DU United Kingdom

TNA's café remains open to the public when there are evening events taking place, serving a range of speciality coffees and teas, cakes, pastries, snacks, sandwiches, beer and wine.

We run an exciting range of events and exhibitions on a wide variety of topics. For more details, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/whatson.

Map Showing the areas covered in this latest release (red) and current total coverage (green)

TheGenealogist is releasing the field books and detailed annotated maps for Kensington and Chelsea as the next part of this exciting record set, The Lloyd George Domesday Survey - a resource that can be used to find where an ancestor lived in 1910. Covering the areas of Brompton, Chelsea East, Chelsea West, Holland Park, Notting Hill East, Notting Hill West and South Kensington the newly added records contain 49,608 individuals who owned or occupied property in this upmarket part of London.

This unique online combination of detailed maps and residential data held by The National Archives is being digitised by TheGenealogist and can locate where your ancestor’s house had been on large scale (5 feet to the mile) hand annotated maps which show the outlines of property plots.

Beatrix Potter's childhood home at 2 Bolton Gardens, Kensington

Details of the Potter’s lavish family home, including 6 bedrooms, 2 dressing rooms, 3 WCs and a servants hall

Previously, researchers would often not be able to find where ancestors lived for several reasons. Road names changed over time, the Blitz saw areas bombed to destruction, developers changed sites out of all resemblance from what had stood there before and lanes and roads were extinguished to build estates and office blocks. All this means that searching for where an ancestor lived using a website linked to modern maps can be frustrating when they fail to pinpoint where the old properties had once been.

• TheGenealogist’s new release will link individual properties to extremely detailed ordnance survey maps used in 1910
• Locate an address found in a census or street directory down to a specific house
• Fully searchable by name, county, parish and street.
• The maps will zoom down to show individual properties on roads as they existed in 1910
  

Complementing the maps on TheGenealogist are the accompanying field books that will also provide researchers with information relative to the valuation of each property, including the valuation assessment number, map reference, owner, occupier, situation, description and extent.

This huge project includes over 94,500 Field Books, each having hundreds of pages to digitise with associated large scale IR121 annotated OS maps, and is therefore ongoing.

The initial releases from TheGenealogist have begun in London and will continue to expand outwards across the country with cross linked maps wherever they are available.

Find out more at: TheGenealogist.co.uk/1910Survey/

Or read the feature article: Kensington and Chelsea Lloyd George Domesday Survey finds famous authors and actors https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2019/kensington-and-chelsea-lloyd-george-domesday-survey-finds-authors-and-actors-1069/

From 1 February 2019, there will be changes to some of The National Archives (TNA) fees in the UK.

This is taken from what is written on their website:

As a government department providing a public service, TNA are able to charge for some statutory services (as defined by the Public Records Act ) on a cost recovery basis. The Fees Order, which regulates our fees, has been refreshed from the last calculation which came into effect 1 April 2017. The National Archives are maintaining the standard approach in line with the HM Treasury publication, Managing Public Money, to set charges at a level that will recover full costs, ensuring that The National Archives neither profits at the expense of consumers nor makes a loss for taxpayers to subsidise.

There are both price increases and decreases, for example a digital copy up to A3 size goes up by 10p to £1.20. Currently, TNA's research service costs £23.35 per 15 minutes, this will go up by £1.00. However, the charge for a copy of a naturalisation certificate will go down by 25p to £27.15.

As there is no legal requirement for The National Archives to digitise physical public records these services are by definition discretionary. TNA has therefore removed the following digital surrogate related lines:
• The creation of digital surrogates funded by others (for a commercial return, or to widen access)
• Reprographic charges (Production and Estimation)
• Image Library (Serviced Copies – Colour Photograph)
• Digital Downloads
• Conservation for Digitisation

In addition to, but separate from, the Fees Order changes, TNA are introducing a fee for the provision of letters of no evidence of naturalisation, in the same way that they charge for certified copies of naturalisation certificates. These will incur a fee of £27.15 which is regulated to be the cost recovery price (i.e. the cost to The National Archives doing the work).

A full list of fees can be found here

TheGenealogist is adding to its Court and Criminal Records collection with the release of almost 150,000 entries for prisoners locked up in Newgate prison along with any alias they were known by as well as the names of their victims. Sourced from the HO 26 Newgate Prison Registers held by The National Archives, these documents were created over the years 1791 to 1849.

Newgate Gaol, London from TheGenealogist’s Image Archive

The Newgate Prison Registers give family history researchers details of ancestors who were imprisoned in the fearsome building that once stood next to the Old Bailey in the City of London. The records reveal the names of prisoners, offences the prisoner had been convicted for, the date of their trial and where they were tried. The records also give the name of the victims and any alias that the criminals may have used before.

Use the Newgate Prison Registers records to:

• Find ancestors guilty of crimes ranging from theft, highway robbery, libel and murder
• Discover the victims of crime
• Uncover some of the aliases used by criminal ancestors
• See descriptions of offenders with details of their height, eye colour and complexion
• Research records covering the period 1791 - 1849

Read TheGenealogist's article about Marie Antoinette’s libeler locked up in Newgate:

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2018/find-criminal-records-of-ancestors-imprisoned-in-newgate-1007/

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 Union Castle Lines’ Pendennis Castle

TheGenealogist has just released over 4 million BT27 Outbound Passenger List records for the 1950s. These records join the ever expanding suite of Immigration, Emigration, Naturalisation and passenger list resources on TheGenealogist. With the release of this decade of records, researchers can discover ancestors who departed from the UK by ship to destinations across the globe. 

 The fully searchable BT27 records from The National Archives just released will allow researchers to:

 ●     Locate family members making a journey together using TheGenealogist’s SmartSearch. This unique system is able to recognise family members together on the same trip. In this situation it will display a family icon which allows you to view the entire family with one click.

●     Discover people sailing to the USA, Canada, India, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia and elsewhere in the Outgoing Passenger Lists  from the United Kingdom.

●     View images of the original passenger list documents compiled for the Board of Trade's Commercial and Statistical Department and its successors.

●     Discover the ages, occupations and address and where the passenger intended to make their permanent residence.

●     These fully indexed records allow family historians to search by name, year, country of departure, country of arrival, port of embarkation and port of destination.

Those family history researchers with ancestors who sailed from the UK in the 1950’s will welcome this fascinating new release from TheGenealogist, which adds to their current Emigration records that take you back to 1896.

 See their article:

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2018/the-1950s-passenger-lists-discover-celebrity-voyages-972/

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

Headline sponsor: TheGenealogist

The UK's Biggest Family History Show of 2018 is almost upon us. After last year’s hugely successful event we are back and twice the size! With even more free talks, societies and exhibitors. Come along to discover ways to delve deeper into your family tree and add more detail to your research. Dick Eastman will be giving the keynote speech on 'The Future of Genealogy' and there is a full programme of free talks to help you on your way back to the past. With free car parking and a free minibus from the train station, you won't want to miss this!

Saturday 22nd September 2018 10am to 4.30pm

Sandown Park Racecourse, Esher

You will find plenty to explore on the day:

• Double the talks - Two Large Lecture Theatres with Free Talks all day
• New This Year - Free Ask the Experts Area
• Announcing The National Archives as a new exhibitor this year
• Local Archives and Ministry of Defence stands
• Gain knowledge from the societies and organisations attending
• Advanced tickets are just 2 for £7.50

Announcing our DNA Sponsor - MyHeritage DNA

We're pleased that MyHeritage will be joining us as our DNA sponsor! They will be available throughout the day and will also be giving a talk in one of our free lecture theatres.

Free Talks throughout the day

There will be free talks throughout the day in our two large lecture theatres.

Keynote - The Future of Genealogy with Dick Eastman

Breaking down brick walls in your family history research with Mark Bayley, Online Expert

Mark describes how to resolve stumbling blocks in your family history research using innovative search strategies and unique record sets to find those missing relatives.

Tips & Tricks for Online Research with Keith Gregson, Professional Researcher & Social Historian

Keith shares top tips & techniques for finding elusive ancestors, illustrated by some fascinating case studies.

Tracing Your Military Ancestors with 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.

Photo Dating with Jayne Shrimpton, Photo Expert and Fashion Historian

Using DNA to Trace Your Ancestry with MyHeritage

5 Killer Apps for Mobile Genealogy with Graham Walter

Many of us have a smart phone with us when we are out doing our genealogy research. What are the apps that will best aid us in our pursuit?

Ask the Experts

New this year will be the Free 'Ask the Experts' section, with Jayne Shrimpton on hand to date photographs, Chris Baker to answer questions regarding Medals and Military Research and Social and Sporting Historian Keith Gregson to help break down your brick walls.

• Bring along copies of your photographs and have them dated by our expert
• Have those military queries answered
• Learn more about the social history of your family

Two Tickets for £7.50!

Buy One Get One Half Price on Tickets! Buy your tickets in advance for £5 a person or buy two for £7.50 (Price on the door will be £7 each). HURRY, this offer ends Midday 19th September!

https://thefamilyhistoryshow.com/london/tickets/

TheGenealogist is adding to its Court and Crimianal Records collection with the release of over 160,000 records of prisoners at the bar and their victims from the CRIM 9 records held by The National Archives. These documents were created by the Central Criminal Court and document the After Trial Calendar of Prisoners.  

Central Criminal Court; The Old Bailey

After Trial Calendars give family history researchers details of ancestors who were up before the Old Bailey, revealing the names of prisoners that had appeared before the court, the committing magistrates, offences the prisoner had been indicted for, the date of their trial and who they were tried before. The records give the verdict of the jury, previous convictions and the sentence or order of the court. Other information in these records are the names of the victim and the level of education or ‘Degree of Instruction’ as well as false names that the criminals may have used to try and hide their tracks from the authorities.

Use the After Trial Calendar of Prisoners records to

• Find ancestors accused of crimes ranging from stealing a matchbox to murder
• Discover people standing trial as forgers, baby farmers, German spies and more
• Uncover some of the aliases adopted by criminal ancestors
• See the occupation or trade of the offender
• Research records covering the period 1855-1915

You can read their article about the cycle thief who became a serial wife killer:

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2018/new-criminal-records-reveal-ancestors-crimes-from-petty-theft-to-murder-928/