Who Do You Think You Are 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

• Hidden ancestors
  Stuck on a family history brick wall? Simon Fowler reveals how you can reboot your research with a fresh approach
• From father to son
  Genetic genealogist Debbie Kennett explains how you can uncover your paternal line with Y-DNA testing
• Shell shocked
  Jacqueline Wadsworth on the lasting trauma for First World War veterans and their families
• Reader story
  Stephen Moore's new book uncovers Polly Button's horrific murder and remarkable legacy
• Marriage masterclass
  Rebecca Probert on the tips and tricks for uncovering and understanding your ancestors' wedding records
• Plus...
  The best websites for tracing domestic servants; uncovering military ancestors on Absent Voters lists; the pioneering women who worked as telegraph operators, and much more...
   

Around Britain

• London
  Almost all of us have ancestors who went to the capital to seek their fortune. We've picked the best resources to help you find them

UK Find a Will gets Bogged

Back in late July I posted about the new cut price of ordering post-1857 wills through the UK Government's Find a Will service.  I excitedly announced that the price of a will had been cut to just £1.50, instead of the old £10 charge.  Maybe I should have kept quiet for a bit.

I ordered several wills on 11 August, and was given an estimated online delivery date of 26 August.  We are now well into October and I am still waiting.  They are now almost 2 months overdue.

I am trying to be patient.  Really I am.  I know why the service is taking so long.  It is because of all those people (like me) who saw the price cut, cried "Oh Goody!" and inundated the site with orders.  Eager genealogists worldwide have swamped the poor people at Find A Will and buried them with their enthusiasm.

A slightly plaintive inqiry in late September - "Where are my wills??  They are a month overdue!" - elicited the response that the site had been overwhelmed by the volume of orders and mine would be dealt with as soon as possible.  Since then I have haunted my inbox, hoping for notification that my wills had been processed would soon arrive.  I have also logged onto the website (no more than once a day) to check for progress.  And I am still waiting.

It takes me back to the old days of sending off my request for records or information by 'snail mail' and waiting 6 to 8 weeks for a response through the post.  How spoilt are we today with email and downloading and instant access to online records from the comfort of our own living rooms.  Now, suddenly, I have to learn to be patient again.  It is a difficult lesson.

The Basics of Fact Checking

I am constantly amazed by some of the errors and misinformation I find in online trees.  So many people make assumptions, ignore the basics of biology and put their (clearly incorrect) family trees online for others to copy - and the copiers accept their incorrect data without questioning errors which should be clear.

So without mentioning names or pointing fingers, here are some of the more eye-popping errors I have come across that really should leap out at researchers.

• Children cannot be born before their parents.  Really.  It just isn't possible.
• Children also cannot be born to a mother who is 6 years old.  Or 94 years old.  Again, just not possible.
• Children are highly unlikely to be born to a father who is 89 years old.  While this MAY be biologically possible, it is unlikely and deserves a bit of fact checking.
• A child cannot be christened 4 months before they are born.
• A woman cannot marry 3 years after she has died.
• A man cannot enlist in the army 5 years after he has died.
• No one can die in the decade before they are born.
• Full siblings cannot be born 4 months apart.  While medical technology may be making this possible today, it really wasn't possible in the 1840s.
• Travel takes time, especially before the age of the airplane.  In 1883 a child could not be born in England and christened in Australia 5 days later.  Something in this timeline is wrong.
• Yes, people do move around.  But they will not usually have three children born on three different continents in three years.

I can hear people laughing out there at some of these errors, but I've seen each of them included in online trees.  And believe me, getting these errors corrected can be next to impossible.

So the next time you are looking at an online tree that intersects with your family, remember to treat it with a degree of skepticism.  Always be aware of the limitations of basic chronology and biology.  Families, for the most part, follow common sense arcs and exceptions are not that common.  Look for corroborating evidence - and this does not mean another online tree that has probably copied the same errors.  

Irish Lives Remembered

The Autumn 2019 issue of Irish Lives Remembered magazine is now available free to download.

Articles: 

• Steve Coogan’s Maternal Great-Great-Grandparents: Their Fight for Tenant Rights in Nineteenth Century Mayo by Fiona Fitzsimons;
• The Solar Boat at Knowth (County Meath) by Eamonn 'Ned' Kelly;
• Finding Your Birth Family through DNA can be an Emotional Rollercoaster by Maurice Gleeson;
• The Barry Surname by Paul MacCotter;
• Ricardo Wall y Devereux: The Power behind the Throne by Nathan Mannion;
• Money, Mountain Dew, and Murder: Illicit Poitín Distillation in Ireland During the 1920s. PART 3. “The Gharda would be unworthy of any confidence if they failed to make use of every method to rid Ireland of this curse” by Stephen Peirce;
• When does a Genealogist become a ‘Professional’ Genealogist? by Penny Walters; 
• England’s ‘Cheddar Man’ Revealed by DNA. Relevant to the Ancient Irish? by Hannah O'Sullivan.
• Defending Trinity College Dublin, 1916, Anzacs and the Rising - Excerpt and Synopsis of Rory Sweetman's new book - Published by Four Courts Press.

 

Regular columns: 

• Dear Genie (Our Genealogists help you with your research block)
• Photodetective (Jayne Shrimpton analyses one of your family photos)
• Patrick's Page (Patrick Roycroft deals with a client at the Irish Family History Centre)
• FMP Roundup (Niall Cullen lets us know of the new Irish genealogy records that have been added to Findmypast)

New Irish Records on FamilySearch

FamilySearch has added two new collections of Irish records – ‘Diocesan and Prerogative Wills & Administrations Indexes, 1595-1858’ (with 364,122 records) and ‘Diocesan and Prerogative Marriage License Bonds Indexes, 1623-1866’ (with 218,434 records).

Probate refers to the process of ‘proving’ a person’s will after their death by seeing that the administration of their bequests was carried out correctly. Civil probate was introduced in 1858. Previously, it was the responsibility of the church authorities. In Ireland, this was the ecclesiastical courts of the Anglican Church of Ireland, despite the fact that the majority of the population were Catholic. The indexes reveal the date your ancestor died and the place where the record was proved.

Marriage licence bonds were an alternative to marriage bonds. They allowed a couple to go to the ecclesiastical court and pay a sum to sign a witnessed declaration that the marriage was free to go ahead. The records include the names of the spouses and the date and place where they obtained the licence.

The records are taken from indexes compiled by the Dublin Public Record Office. Many of the original records were destroyed when the Public Record Office burned down in the Irish Civil War in 1922, so the indexes are all that remain.

New WW1 Pension Records on Ancestry

Ancestry has added to its collection ‘WWI Pension Ledgers and Index Cards, 1914-1923’. These records had already included the Naval Ledgers, Merchant Marine Cards and PRC Ledgers.  The new trance of records, ‘Other Ranks Died’, covers men below the rank of officer who died while serving in the army, navy and air force.

This set of records, amounting to approximately one million cards, relate to pensions claimed from the British Ministry of Pensions for 'other ranks' (not officers) who were killed or died in the Great War.  This constitutes a full set of records and has not been subject to any weeding (as has been the case in other records preserved by the Ministry of Defence). Therefore a card should exist for every soldier, sailor or airman who died in the war provided his next of kin claimed a pension. If there was no pension claim, no card will exist.  The website also notes that pensions of men who survived the conflict will be part of a later release.

The cards enable the identification of individual servicemen via reference to either (1) his dependent/next of kin (for example wife/parents) and/or (2) a home address. Therefore, for servicemen with common names (for example Smith and Jones) researchers can now identify the relative they are looking for, as these extra details will give certainty where none existed with other archived records, such as the Medal Index Cards.

You may be able to find the following information (where available):

• Name
• Gender
• Date of Birth
• Date of Death
• Date of Injury
• Details of dependents or next of kin
• Date of Marriage
• Place of residence
• Rank
• Ship
• Regimental Number
• Regiment or unit

Who Do You Think You Are 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

• Register offices revealed
  Are certificate services failing family historians? Don't miss our exclusive investigation of the best and worst local councils
• Navy board records ahoy!
  The hidden history of the Navy is uncovered thanks to volunteers at The National Archives
• The beast from the East
  130 years ago, the Russian flu killed thousands across Britain. Did your ancestor die in the forgotten pandemic?
• Family hero
  How Rachel Thomas' great uncle survived months in a lifeboat, only to become a prisoner of war
• Workhouse records
  Peter Higginbotham explains how you can trace ancestors who fell into poverty
• Plus...
  The best DNA test services; uncovering Merchant Navy crew lists; the lives of potters, and much more...
   

Around Britain

• Somerset
  We catch up with the county's new archive services - and the free websites you can use to find your family