Wednesday, August 25, 2021

New Record Set on FamilySearch

For those of you with Irish ancestors, you may be interested in a new collection of  prison records for Ireland from the 18th to 20th centuries which has been added to the FamilySearch website.
The new collection, which comprises 3,127,924 records, is a compilation of prison records from collections held in the National Archives of Ireland. It includes most surviving prison records from the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland. 
The records can contain the following information about individuals:
  • Name
  • Age
  • Birthplace
  • Name of prison
  • Dates of admission and release
  • Physical description
  • Next of kin
  • Details of crime and name of victim
Remember FamilySearch is a free resource for family history researchers.  To access you need to register with the website, then you have access to all their wonderful records.  To take a look and see what you can find.

Thursday, August 19, 2021

Ancestry Terms Update

Recently, Ancestry announced changes to its terms and conditions for users, and they are changes every user needs to take in and consider.  As of this change, effective 3 August 2021, any content uploaded to Ancestry by its subscribers, Ancestry can use as it sees fit, forever.

Part of Ancestry's terms and conditions no read as follows :

"By submitting User Provided Content through any of the Services, you grant Ancestry a perpetual, sublicensable, worldwide, non-revocable, royalty-free license to host, store, copy, publish, distribute, provide access to, create derivative works of, and otherwise use such User Provided Content to the extent and in the form or context we deem appropriate on or through any media or medium and with any technology or devices now known or hereafter developed or discovered. This includes the right for Ancestry to copy, display, and index your User Provided Content. Ancestry will own the indexes it creates."  (“Ownership of Your Content” in “Ancestry Terms and Conditions,” effective 3 Aug 2021, Ancestry.com)

What this means it that any content you upload into Ancestry - photos, documents, stories, etc - in essence now belong to Ancestry, forever.  They can use that content in any way they see fit, and there is no way for you to permanently remove it from their database.

Over the years that I have been a subscriber to Ancestry I have posted a number of photographs and other documents into my family tree.  I have always understood that others could copy those documents, download them, save them to their own family trees, and that even if I deleted that content from my own tree it could remain linked to other trees eternally.  I have always understood that by uploading that content, in some ways I would lose control of it forever.  According to these new terms, however, I lose even more control of any uploaded content to Ancestry itself.  I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about that.

For more information, read the truly excellent blog posts by Judy Russell, the Legal Genealogist 'One Big Change at Ancestry' about these new changes, and also her follow-up post 'Ancestry Retreats' about the subsequent addition to the new terms.

 

Tuesday, August 17, 2021

WDYTYA Magazine

The latest issue of Who Do You Think You Are magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines.

Inside this month's issue

  • Sporting ancestors Uncover the sporting achievements of your family, from enthusiastic amateurs to Olympians

  • Photo books How to bring your family photos together in a professional printed book

  • The packet service The sailors who delivered the post to the furthest reaches of the British Empire

  • Reader story Anne Padfield's relative was an unsung heroine of the suffragette movement

  • Best websites The best genealogy forums

  • Plus: Uncover Canadian censuses, finding theatrical ancestors, using trade directories and much more…

Thursday, August 12, 2021

British Court Records

During the course of our research there would be very few of us who have not found at least a couple of ancestors who ran afoul of the law and found themselves before the courts.   Many laws in England (and elsewhere) were set by the rich and landed in order to control and suppress the poor, to keep the rights and protect property of the wealthy and powerful.  By the 1800s over 200 crimes were punishable by death, usually by gallows.  Hanging crimes included things like murder, treason and piracy, but also crimes such as robbing a rabbit warren, cutting down trees, associating with gypsies and a number of other more petty crimes.

There was little understanding of, or sympathy for, the desperate social conditions which all but forced many of the poor to resort to crime in order to survive.  Criminality was seem as the result of bad blood or bad character, and punishment was set harshly as a deterrent to others.

The English justice system divided crimes into categories to be dealt with by a three-tiered criminal justice system. 

The Court of Petty Sessions 

This court was established around the 1730s because the more historic Quarter Sessions Courts were getting too busy and were meeting too infrequently.  They tried minor offences or misdemeanours such as minor theft and larceny, poaching, assault, drunkenness, vagrancy, bastardy examinations, and civil actions such as arbitration.
Courts of Petty Sessions were held when needed before a stipendiary magistrate or two or more justices of the peace who could summarily decide a case without needing to empanel a jury. Thus the cases themselves were known as summary offences.
Punishments meted out by these courts did not include death or transportation.

The Court of Quarter Sessions
These courts were called Quarter Sessions because they were held each quarter: around Epiphany (6 January - winter session); Lent/Easter (spring session); Midsummer (24 June – summer session); Michaelmas (29 September – autumn session).
They were held in each county before a 'bench' that consisted of at least two Justices of the Peace who were presided over by a chairman who sat with the empanelled jury.
Quarter Sessions Courts heard the more serious offences which required a jury and could not be disposed of 'summarily' by a magistrate. Offences that were punishable by death were usually sent to the higher Assize Courts.  The Prosecutor at the Quarter Sessions was often the victim of the crime, and if the victim didn’t have the time or money to pursue the case the perpetrator frequently got off.
The distinction between the Assize courts and the Quarter Session courts were blurry until 1842 when an Act consigned all death penalty and life imprisonment cases to the Assize Courts. 

The Court of Assizes
The Assize Courts tried more serious offences: felonies such as homicide, infanticide, serious theft, highway robbery, rape, forgery, counterfeiting, witchcraft.  Judges from the High Court travelled to the Assize Circuit Courts two or three times a year to hear the cases.
The Old Bailey, renamed the Central Criminal Court in 1834, was the trial court for most London crimes and was similar to an Assize Court.

Legislation and the Death Penalty

1823 - the Judgement of Death Act allowed judges to commute the death penalty except for the crimes of murder and treason.
1832 - the Punishment of Death Act eliminated execution as the punishment for two-thirds of what were once capital crimes including theft, forgery and counterfeiting.
1861 - the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts eliminated the death penalty for all crimes but murder, high treason, piracy with violence, and arson in the Royal Dockyards, although effectively “murder” became the only capital crime.
1868 saw the last public execution, as distaste for this 'spectator sport' grew.
1964 saw the last execution in England.

Monday, August 9, 2021

Family History in Lockdown

Well here we are again, back in lockdown.  As a Victorian, this is my sixth, and it is time to get back into organising my family history files, checking that all my research is properly recorded and filed.  The time definitely goes faster when I have a project to immerse myself in.

I expect we are all guilty of occasionally letting filing and updating get a little behind, and I have certainly got some catching up to do.  My printed family sheets, that I use when researching, are covered in scribbled notes and references to new documents I have found.  My 'new' folder of documents that I need to check are properly referenced on my family group sheets and filed in their appropriate folders is starting to bulge.  My backup files could do with updating too.  I really have a fair bit of work to do.

There has been a number of special opportunities made available to Family Historians around the world during lockdowns.  Ancestry has allowed many libraries subscribing to Ancestry Library Edition, normally only accessed on site, to be accessed from home by members.  For Campaspe Library members, go to the library homepage and click on Genealogy in the page menu, then click on Databases.  There you will find the link for Ancestry Library Edition from Home.  Follow the prompts to type in your library card number and PIN, and enjoy free access to the worldwide database from home.

Another great resource to access right now are the digital records available through the National Archives UK.  While their Reading Room access is limited due to restrictions, they have been offering all their digital records you would normally pay to obtain for free.  Registered users are able to order and download up to 10 items at a time, to a maximum of 100 items every 30 days.  And yes, registration is free as well.

If that isn't enough to keep me occupied, I still have several videos to watch from the truly excellent 'Family History Down Under' conference held earlier this year.  So many knowledgeable speakers, so much learning to do.  Then there are the many events listed for Family History Month Australasia 2021, which is held throughout August.  While I expect a number of events will be cancelled or postponed because of the current situation around the country, many were already planned to be held online and hopefully will still go ahead.

So to everyone out there who is locked down at home right now, take some time to revisit your family history, make sure all your research is up to date and backed up, and take advantage of the various free learning and researching opportunities out there.  I've only touched on a few.  There are more out there - so go find them!

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Webinars

 Legacy Family Tree webinars has announced a free of charge webinar programme, running throughout September.

You can join live for all four Fridays or just one, and if you can't, you can still enjoy the recordings at your convenience as they'll be free to view through the end of the month.

You can see the full programme at Legacy Family Tree Webinars and below are some of the highlights:

3 September

Teresa Steinkamp McMillin: CGLife, Liberty and the Pursuit of German Military Records

Anita Wills: Notes and Documents of Free Persons of Colour

10 September

Carol Baxter: British and Irish Given Names - Part 1

Debra Renard: What are the Odds? Finding Answers Using DNA Painter’s WATO Tool

17 September

Daniel Horowitz: Genealogy on the Go with the MyHeritage Mobile App

James Tanner: Researching Immigrants to New England in the Great Migration, 1620-1640

24 September

Paul Woodbury: Where Did That Come From?! Tracing the Origins of Unique Ethnicity Admixture

Lisa Toth Salinas: Beginning Hungarian Genealogy

Monday, August 2, 2021

Life In and Out of Lockdown

As several states around the country move in and out of lockdown, it is worthwhile to once again urge people to record their memories of the pandemic.  Around the country, many archives and libraries are recording for future generations people's experiences of the crisis.  As family historians, we need to do the same thing and record our own experiences of this time.

The Covid19 pandemic has been (and still is) a major historical event.  For all of us who have lived through it, there will be memories of Covid, both positive and negative, that stand out.  There are new routines, changes in how we live, work, communicate, shop, relax, learn, and more.  We all have seen stark images of police blockading state borders, empty streets at midday in our cities, supermarkets during panic buying or opening with stripped shelves.  Then there are the more personal experiences - business closures and work stand downs, learning to work from home or change our daily routines.

Then there are the positive experiences.  Teddy bears and rainbows in windows, people standing at the end of their driveways on ANZAC Day, clap for carers, support we have received from friends colleagues and neighbors, the joy of getting out and about after lockdowns ease.  For many of us the simple pleasures in life have taken on new significance as we rediscover them after the trial of lockdowns.

Here are a few questions you might consider when recording your personal experiences of Covid-19.

  • What are you most grateful for during this covid-19 crisis? 
  • What are some of the images that will stay with you of the pandemic?
  • What have you missed most during full or partial lock-down? 
  • What changes have you seen in your life over the last few months? 
  • Have you been participating in virtual gatherings with friends or family?
  • Have you taken up new hobbies during the lockdowns? 
  • Are you cooking or gardening more? 
  • How have the closures affected your local community? 
  • Have in-person meetings been replaced with virtual meetings via Zoom, Skype etc? 
  • Do you enjoy the virtual meeting format? 
  • Are you working from home instead of in your usual place of work?
  • Have you had to cancel travel plans for pleasure or family? 
  • Have you/others been wearing masks when out and about in your area?  
  • Will you change your lifestyle after this experience?