New Records on FamilySearch

Free family history website FamilySearch has added a several new collection this month.  They include 594,707 Herefordshire bishop’s transcripts (1583-1898), 109,010 Scottish Presbyterian and Protestant church records (1736-1990) and 1,125,332 records of passenger arrivals at New York City, primarily dating from 1944-48, although some cover the early years of the 20th century.

Each Church of England parish was required to create copies of its registers to send to the local bishop, known as bishop’s transcripts.  These records are therefore a good alternative source for Herefordshire baptism, marriage and burial records where the originals are lost, although there may be occasional errors.

The Scottish Presbyterian and Protestant records also cover baptisms, marriages and burials in different Scottish religious dominations.

The New York arrival records include images of the original passenger cards, potentially including the passenger’s age, place of birth, occupation, marital status, last permanent residence, destination, purpose in coming to the USA and even physical descriptions.

The Herefordshire bishop’s transcripts are transcribed from original documents at Hereford Record Office. The Scottish Presbyterian and Protestant records are from the National Records of Scotland. The New York arrival records are from the American National Archives and Records Administration.

Ancestry DNA

AncestryDNA has unveiled an updated service offering county-level ethnicity results in the UK for those who have tested with them.  As part of the update the company increased its UK Genetic Communities from 18 to 73.

AncestryDNA’s results reveal customers’ ethnicity within the past 1000 years. The new Genetic Communities technology then analyses their origins in the past 300 years, including specific groups they’re related to, where those ancestors lived and the migration paths they followed – to county level in the UK.  The results can also be cross-referenced with Ancestry’s family history records.  Genetic Communities are groups of AncestryDNA members who are most likely connected because they share fairly recent ancestors who came from the same region or culture. These groups identify areas where your ancestors may have lived more recently. Regions with a dotted circle are based on Genetic Communities.

Russell James, family historian and DNA expert at Ancestry, called Communities “an incredibly valuable tool for those wanting to discover more about their DNA and family history”.  The 55 new UK communities will automatically be added to the results of existing AncestryDNA customers.

Ancestry has also increased its global number of communities to 225, covering France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, further improving the ethnicity results for its customers.

So if you have taken an Ancestry DNA test, it might be time to revisit your results and check out all the new information that is waiting for you.  There might even be a new cousin or two!

Alice Pummeroy - Another Piece to the Puzzle

A short time ago I posted about my great aunt Alice May Pummeroy, who eluded me for some time until I discovered she had emigrated from Victoria, Australia to New Zealand where she married as May Alice to David Moorhead.  I traced her through the census in New Zealand before she moved back to Victoria with her husband, where he died in 1951.

Fellow genealogist Clare has now sent me another piece to the puzzle, with a death notice and cemetery record which shows May Alice Moorhead died 1st September 1989, age 92, in Salisbury North, South Australia.  She was cremated at Enfield Memorial Park, SA.

Why she chose to move from Melbourne, Victoria to South Australia I don't know - possibly she had children who settled there and she moved to be closer to them.  All her siblings lived and died in Victoria - she was the one who travelled away.  This just goes to show that people can change their names, move to places you don't expect, and you just need to keep looking and broaden your search if you don't find them where you expect them.

A fresh pair of eyes doesn't hurt either.  Thanks Clare!

RootsTech From Afar

I have been watching with interest the developing program for RootsTech London 2019, coming up this October.  Living in Australia, the time and cost of travelling to Salt Lake City or London for the RootsTech conferences has thus far been beyond me, and I know I will not make it to London 2019 either.  Thanks to technology, however, I have had another option to at least partially participate in these wonderful meetings by watching the videos of presentations from home.

While there really is nothing to equal actually attending these conferences - meeting fellow genealogists, chatting during breaks and visiting the exhibition hall - being able to watch a selection of the presentations at least allows me to participate, to learn about the databases, the resources available and how best to access them, and it is always exciting to hear about new developments and upcoming digitization projects.

So if, like me, you cannot make it to RootsTech, don't despair.  Have a look at the video archive of past presentations and see what they have to interest you.  You might even like to join the discussion with others unable to attend - there is even a hashtag #notatrootstech.

Arolsen Archives

The Arolsen Archives, formerly known as the International Tracing Service, has announced a name change and the online release of over 13 million records of victims of Nazi persecution.

The free database consists of records from Second World War concentration camps, including prisoner cards and death notices.  In total, they contain the names of over 2.2 million victims from across Europe.

The Arolsen Archives are an international center on Nazi persecution with the world’s most comprehensive archive on the victims and survivors of National Socialism. The collection has information on about 17.5 million people and belongs to the UNESCO’s Memory of the World. It contains documents on the various victim groups targeted by the Nazi regime and is an important source of knowledge, especially for younger generations.

To this day, the Arolsen Archives answer inquiries about some 20,000 victims of Nazi persecution every year. For decades, clarifying fates and searching for missing persons were the central tasks of the institution, which was founded by the Allies in 1948 as the “International Tracing Service”.
Research and education are more important than ever to inform today’s society about the Holocaust, concentration camps, forced labor and the consequences of Nazi crimes. The Arolsen Archives are building up a comprehensive online archive so that people all over the world can access the documents and obtain information.

Finding Alice Pummeroy

Over the last few weeks I have finally made progress on a family history mystery that has been annoying and frustrating me for many years - the fate of my great aunt Alice May Pummeroy.

According to the Victorian Birth Index, Alice May Pummeroy was born in Carlton in 1897 to Alfred Henry Pummeroy and Eliza (Beseler).  Alice was only 3 years old when her father died of pneumonia, leaving his widow destitute with 4 young children -  Edith Margaret (who was a deaf-mute) 4, Alice May 3, Alfred Edward 2 and William Henry 4 months.  Eliza took in washing to support her family, and the local ladies benevolent society gave her 3 shillings a week in assistance.

On 8 March 1901, newspapers I located on Trove report Eliza making an appeal to the courts for help.  When asked if she wished to surrender her children to the state she refused, wanting to keep them at home.  The court described the children as clean and neatly kept, and committed the children to the Department with the recommendation they be handed over to their mother.  Eliza was granted 10 shillings from the poor box.

Eliza struggled on before surrendering her two boys to the orphanage, but kept her girls with her, and in 1911 remarried to Edward Jennion, with whom she had two more boys, Edwin and Daniel.   All the other siblings can be traced through electoral rolls and other records, but Alice disappears, and for several years I searched for her in vain.

Then came the breakthrough.  In New Zealand, I found a record for a May Alice Pummeroy marrying David James Moorhead in 1918.  Looking in New Zealand for May Moorhead, I located several electoral roll listings before she disappeared again, reappearing in Australia as May Alice Moorhead in electoral rolls from 1950 to 1980.  David James Moorhead is recorded as dying in Victoria in 1951, age 77.  His death certificate lists him as being born in Christchurch, New Zealand.

I have not located a death certificate for Alice May yet, but according to the electoral rolls she was still alive in 1980.  There is no death notice in the Ryerson Index or in the Victorian Death Index, nor can I find a will with the PROV.  I'll just have to keep looking, but at least I have her marriage, and I know she was known by her middle name.

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 RB Digital eMagazines.

Inside this month's issue

• Find parish registers
  Our essential seven-page guide to the best online sources for baptism, marriage and burial records
• D-Day discovery
  On the 75th anniversary of D-Day, Gary Sterne reveals how he discovered a lost story of heroism and sacrifice
• Reader story
  Amazing finds from Adrian Stone's 10 years of research, including a classic tale of the Windrush generation
• Taking the plunge
  Caroline Roope explains why the swimming craze had such an enormous impact on our Victorian ancestors
• Trade unions
  How to find surviving union records and trace your worker ancestors
• Plus...
  The lives of ancestors who worked as vets; how to find wills; the best websites for tracing shopkeepers; and much more...