Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i Family Tree UK

The French company, managed by its employees, develops genealogy software for Windows and Mac, iOS and Android, as well as other products. Recently, it has also started offering genealogical services for research in France. Its co-managing director Audrey Cavalier said: ‘During the Covid-19 pandemic, we suddenly had a lot of requests from our French customers who were stuck with their research and turned to us for help. That led us to the idea of developing a specific genealogical service and offering it not only to French-speaking genealogists, but also to all English- and German-speaking genealogists to help them with their research in France.’ Website: www.heredis.com/en/help-withyour-research/…

On September 8th 2022, our beloved Queen Elizabeth II died after 70 years on the throne. I found myself crying from shock and sorrow that we no longer have her as the anchor of the ship of state. We enter a period of change. We have a new reign, King Charles III. We must say as those forefathers before us in centuries past said, “The Queen is dead, Long Live the King”. To witness history in the making I’ve journeyed twice to London to see the procession of her coffin travelling by gun carriage from Buckingham Palace down the Mall and across Horseguards Parade to Westminster Hall, and then again to file past her coffin Lying in State. I look in my purse and see the Queen’s face on familiar…

We all wear clothes, for warmth, protection and decency: indeed, assembling wearable outfits has been fundamental to human existence down the generations, but the ways in which we acquire dress items has changed considerably. Here we look back at the 1600s to early-1800s – the pre- and early-industrial age, when the population was mainly agrarian and our ancestors quite likely made or sold cloth or clothes, as well as using them. Domestic textile production Until mechanised mills and factories began large-scale manufacturing of British cotton textiles from imported raw cotton in the late-1700s, the most widely-used woven materials were linen and wool. The creation of useful fabrics from flax plants or sheep’s fleeces each involved various processes, some – like fulling (woollen cleansing and shrinking) – requiring skill and dedicated…

Birth records represent the first element of that essential research triumvirate – births, marriages and deaths – a group of records so important to what we do that they’ve earned the right to be referred to by their initials: BMDs. But what do we actually mean when we talk about birth records? After all, many of the records that we routinely use in the course of our research provide us with information about our ancestors’ births. Census returns, for example, tell us where they were born and (approximately) when; military service records might give us similar details and we can even get useful information about their origins from records relating to their deaths, in the shape of burial registers, monumental inscriptions and newspaper obituaries. Have a go! Look out for…

Who has been indexed? Everyone! The team behind the NDFHS probate index project have meticulously indexed each person mentioned on the probate records: administrators, beneficiaries, bondsmen, bondswomen, creditors, debtors, executors, intestates, testators, witnesses. The fields indexed for each person, where details were included on the probate records, include: surname, forename, description (e.g. ‘son of…’), relationship (e.g. relationship to the testator/intestate), residence (usually just a place), and type of probate record (will W, codicil Co, inventory Inv, letter or bond of administration A). Which area does the index cover? The index covers the Diocese of Durham, incorporating the whole of County Durham and Northumberland (excluding the Hexhamshire Peculiars held at York), and includes Allertonshire Peculiars and strays from the rest of Great Britain and the world. How to access the NDFHS…

Hitler’s Aristocrats: the secret power players in Britain and America who supported the Nazis, 1923-41 by Susan Ronald An intriguing study of the male and female ‘influencers and enablers’ who actively worked towards blinding Britain, the US and even Germany to what Adolf Hitler and his accomplices were planning, and enacting, in the years before and during World War Two. To Hitler, propaganda was a powerful tool in his arsenal, a means by which he could work to convince the world that he was a man of peace. But he wasn’t working alone, enrolled to his cause was an ‘army’ of aristocrats and international industrialists who became his eyes and ears in drawing rooms and cocktail lounges across the continent . Author Susan Ronald paints a vivid and detailed portrait…

QWhich local newspapers cover the Chippenham and Bradford areas in Wiltshire before the 20th century and if one’s ancestors were not prominent, how likely is it that they would be mentioned? A Local papers can be a very valuable source of family information. It depends on your definition of ‘prominent’ but there’s always a fair chance that an ancestor who might not be prominent in the social sense applicable at the time could appear in the press, or even be a contributor. Crime, whether as perpetrator or victim, always features. It’s a rural area so farming and farmers would always get a mention and you’d find some fascinating information about livestock, wool and grain prices at the local market. Dog shows, flower shows, local fairs, sporting events and the like…

The next Study Club meeting will be held at 6.30pm GMT on Monday 3rd April and will last precisely one hour. Topic: House History with Karen Averby (NOTE: this is the first Monday of the month, not the second, due to Easter Monday). 3EXCLUSIVE MONTHLY ENEWSLETTER Study Club Meetings | Exclusive Enewsletter | Video Library Save on Family Tree courses & publications The Study Club is included as part of your subscription to Family Tree magazine (print or digital edition). Join us on Zoom on the second Monday of the month, 6.30pm – you will need to log in to www.family-tree.co.uk to obtain the Zoom link. To find the link, once you are logged in, click ‘Study Club’ from the menu bar. From here you will be able to get…

Storied is a rebrand of World Archives and aims to combine stories with the billions of family history records accessible to Storied users. FT editor Helen Tovey spoke to Kendall Hulet CEO and Brandon Camp CMO at Storied, focusing on how we can use stories to put the lives of our ancestors into context: www.family-tree.co.uk/news/discoverstoried-and-gain-a-connection-to-something-bigger/…

I first met Audrey in the early 1990s when we were both working in London as independent researchers. We would regularly bump into each other in the reading rooms at St Catherine’s House, Somerset House, Chancery Lane and Portugal Street and our polite small talk soon grew into a discovery of shared interests in areas such as music, literature, alternative comedy and politics. We also discovered that we had the same thoughts about how family history research should be carried out and that we were both fascinated by the finer points of civil registration and the UK’s census returns. After I went to work for the National Archives at the Family Records Centre (FRC), I continued to see Audrey as a regular researcher there, and then, in November 2002, Audrey…

In researching my paternal Ludlam line, I found it interesting to note that my forebears were either ‘in service’, served customers easy to follow. The furthest back I can get on this line before I hit a brick wall is to William Ludlam. In the 1841 Census he is described as a labourer living whether in shops or pubs, or served in the Army. In the 1851 Census John was described as a groom but in 1866 he was to die in an accident, which was reported in the Sheffield and Rotherham Times I have been fortunate in that my father had an unusual surname which made it quite with his wife, Ann, and seven children at Wollaton Lodge in Nottinghamshire. Unfortunately, he died two years later of erysipelas, a…

CLICK HERE TO WATCH Phil Isherwood Note taking examples I like to be organised. In all things. In my case it stems from having a poor memory. I’ve compensated (over compensated, according to my wife) by developing good organisational habits. So, when I commenced my family history research around twenty years ago, I began with the very best of intentions. I wanted to organise and manage all the information I collected in a clean, clear “system”. But over time the volume and variety of material I collected has defied all my instincts to impose order. I was managing: • Emails • Word documents • Excel documents • PDF documents • Web favourites • Books (physical & digital) • Photographs (physical & digital) • Family history course notes, homework & assignments…

Greenock, Renfrewshire, August 1871, and my widowed 2x greatgrandmother Emma Susannah Riboldi has just tied the knot again, four days short of her 30th birthday. Her new husband is a 31-year-old ship steward called Jan de Neef. Well, I say de Neef, but what is it with my family and ‘interesting’ names? I thought Riboldi was tricky enough, but I have a sneaking suspicion de Neef might give it a run for its money… Off to an easy start But let’s not jump the gun, because at Findmypast one key result pops up easy as pie. It’s a transcript of the 1881 Scotland Census showing John de Neef, 41, occupation ‘Agent ships store’, living with his 39-year-old wife Emma S de Neef, born in England. As for John, his birthplace…

Istumbled upon the story of Olive Kemp quite by accident some years ago and was immediately captivated by what I was told about her, and it left me determined to find out more because Olive, as you will see, was a fearless trailblazer and by all accounts quite the character whose exploits covered many decades and made headlines in both local and national newspapers. Olive was born on 30 September 1922 and was the only daughter of Edward and Susannah Kemp. The family lived at 6 The Wharf Cottage, Great Linford, Buckinghamshire. Her father worked for many years as a French polisher at the railway works in Wolverton and her brother Edward was a painter and sign writer. The England and Wales 1939 Register lists Olive’s occupation as ‘Domestic Duties’…

Deborah Cameron writes: I inherited this family photo, which at first seemed like shiny laminate or plastic but later it got stuck to the magnet closure on my iPad, so has it been developed on some sort of iron-based material? It was in an album that my mother-in-law left us, along with other ordinary photos. I wonder what is going on here and whether this photo is connected to the branch of the family that were “comedians”. The occupation first shows up in the 1841 census: Duff Fisher (65), his wife Jane, daughter Rosalia, and son, Alfred. The first three all put “comedian” as occupation and it was also Duff’s occupation on his daughter’s baptismal entry. I found a book that mentions Duff and his wife and the possibility that…

QMy great-grandparents were Frederick (born 19 January 1849, Finningham, Suffolk) and Emma Woods (born 1844, Suffolk - maiden name Bloice/ Blois plus various other spellings). They married by certificate at the Baptist Church, Mendlesham, Suffolk on 27 December 1869. Their first-born, a boy, named Walter, came into the world a couple of weeks later on 10 January 1870 only to die 19 days later. This couple went on to have 12 more children in quick succession but only 8 children survived over the age of 18 months. They were: • Zillah Althea born 1 December 1870, Finningham • Sarah Ann born 8 March 1872, Finningham • Florence Christina born 30 April 1874, Westhorpe • Maria Naomi born 17 April 1880, Finningham • Herbert Walter born 28 August 1881, Finningham •…

In lieu of a lull in my own discoveries, there’s nothing I like more than a spot of knotty research for a friend. I love trawling round other folk’s family trees, especially when I’m pretty sure I can help. Meeting their ancestors is a pleasure once you get a picture in your mind. Both genealogists and writers must step easily into other peoples’ shoes, and I soon find I’m sitting down to tea for a cosy chat with someone’s else’s great-grandma or greeting their distant granddad with a cheeky kiss on the cheek. It helps make searches more personal, enabling me to follow productive hunches. The current family I’m waltzing around with are rather musical, and sometimes, highly placed because of it. I’m amazed how certain skills and talents crop…

Foundations of Family History part 1: getting started, and part 2: next steps have no formal start date and you are not in a class with other students, so you can work entirely at your own pace. Part one of the course provides you with the tools and know-how to confidently find ancestors and record results found in commonly used records in England and Wales. In part two, you build on your methodology skills and add in two additional fundamental sources for family history research: parish registers and probate records. Find out more at https://www.pharostutors.com/ anytime.php#030…

TheGenealogist has announced the addition of over 2.4 million fully searchable RAF records to its military collections The records, from RAF Operation Record Books, cover the day-to-day operations in the sky and on airbases from 1911 through to the 1960s. Reproduced from original data AIR 27 Air Ministry and successors: Operations Record Books, Squadrons at The UK National Archives, these diary-like, officially compiled documents tell the stories of aircrew in wartime and peace. Diamond subscribers at TheGenealogist can use the collection to follow an airman’s experiences which cover various Royal Air Force, Dominion and Allied Air Force squadrons that came under British Command. Search the collection at www.thegenealogist.co.uk/ search/advanced/military/airforce-operations/…

Elizabeth Waight: A quiet country lady with an amazing achievement Sometimes when we are researching our family history we stumble across a rather unique story and Colyn Storer and Lynn Plumer found exactly that, when they looked into the remarkable life of Elizabeth Waight. Elizabeth was born on 27 December 1840 at the Rutland Arms public house, Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire. She was the fourth child of Benjamin Waight and his wife Ann (née Beecham) and was baptised at St James’ Church, Woolsthorpe on 24 January 1841. Her siblings were William, Mary, Frances, Tryphena and Jane, who later married George Pearson. Elizabeth’s grandfather Joseph Waight’s date and place of birth is uncertain. Elizabeth’s memory was that he was given the licence of the Rutland Arms by the Duke of Rutland, after…

YOUR IDEAS If you have an idea you’d like to share, or a topic you’d like to see covered, please email helen.t@family-tree.co.uk with the details. WINDOWS HEREDIS 2023 We mentioned the latest version of Heredis (2023) a few months ago, and here are a few details about the new features. New features include: • a research journal within Heredis 23 • family tree charts displaying birth origins in colour-coded wheels • Find Duplicates – duplicate records cleanup tool • GEDCOM 7 import • PDF reader Price: Free demo version; full version Windows US$39.95; Mac US$69.98. The Heredis app costs £8.49 (Android) and £7.99 (iOS), and can be used as a standalone program or in conjunction with the desktop program Heredis 23. Heredis has a free trial version that can be…

Who’s secret is this to tell ...or NOT tell? QJ (not shown on the tree, page 69) was aware of a family story that our great-grandfather (B) ‘married’ his own daughter (D) and had children with her. I also have a robust paper trail that supports this. Now we have a situation where both J and myself are in touch with H, the grandson on the incestuous relationship, but, as you can imagine, neither of us feel comfortable about sharing this information with H. So we are pondering the issue of “who’s secret is this?”. J and myself have the information, but it is H who would be most impacted. How would I feel? I’m not sure. I have encountered other disturbing matters on my family tree and have never…

Right page, right time Reading Janet Few’s article (FT February), I thought you might like to hear how I managed to trace my father’s family tree back to 1580 (before the great invention of the Internet) and which involved an edition of Family Tree Magazine from 1988! I started my family tree quest on the birth of my eldest son Mathew. My father died young of lung cancer aged 44 in 1962 (in Canada, emigrated from UK in 1947); I was 5 years old when he died. His ashes were sent back to the UK and were interred in his parents’ grave. My mother was also interred in the same grave 4 years ago when she died at the age of 93. She was 37 when my father died and…