Proposal to Destroy Original Wills Overturned

The British government has announced it will not proceed with controversial proposals to digitise all copies of post-1858 wills in England and Wales and destroy the originals.

The proposal was introduced by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) under the previous Conservative administration in December 2023, stating that the move was necessary to address the £4.5 million a year cost of storing the 110 million will documents.

The proposals were widely condemned by historians and genealogists. A petition to Parliament opposing them was signed by 15,793 people.

The MoJ has now published the results of its public consultation into the proposals.  It said that the consultation received almost 1600 responses, of which “The large majority of responses vehemently opposed any destruction of original wills”.

In its response, the MoJ said: “The Government is very grateful to everyone who responded to the consultation. It was very clear from the large number of responses and the very heartfelt nature of those responses that the issue was one which engaged high levels of public interest and concern.

“There was strong opposition to any destruction of original wills or other documents. This was for a variety of reasons in terms of both a national historical resource and also for individual legal challenges. There was also a strong emotional response to the consultation, typified in the comments received on the unique nature of wills as a record of a living person’s wishes for the distribution of their assets.”

“The Government accepts the compelling case that has been made by respondents… and has therefore determined not to proceed with any reforms that involve the destruction of original wills and supporting documents currently designated for permanent preservation.”

However, it noted that the decision to preserve the wills “does not address the concerns about the large and increasing costs of preserving the very extensive original will archive”.

It therefore warned that the government will “be giving further consideration to the fees charged for copies of wills and grants of probate”, particularly the current £1.50 cost of ordering a copy of a will.

This is very welcome news to family historians and we will be watching to see if any changes are made to the access or cost of ordering copies of wills.

Trove Tuesday - Death Notice of William Pummeroy 1889

It is sometimes amazing just how much information can be included in the few lines of a death notice when you pull it apart.

The notice below was for the death of my great great grandfather William Pummeroy, who died 6 October 1889.  The notice was published in the Melbourne Leader on Saturday 12 October 1889 and The Age on Monday 7 October 1889.  Both are available through Trove.

These few lines tell me so much about William and his family.  Firstly, it gives me his address, providing a head start on researching the house history.  It names all his surviving children, the sons and unmarried daughter by their first names and his married daughters by their married names - which in turn helps me confirm the marriages of his daughters.  It notes that William is the grandfather of 53 (!!)  It then gives his age, allowing me to calculate his approximate year of birth - if he is aged 71 in 1889 then he was born around 1818.  Finally, the notice states he was a colonist of 41 years.  This not only tells me William was not born in Australia, it also tells me he arrived in the colony in about 1848, at the age of 30.

So much information in just a few short lines.

Historic Graves Ireland

 
The Historic Graves project is a community focused grassroots heritage project. Local community groups are trained in low-cost high-tech field survey of historic graveyards and recording of their own oral histories. They build a multi-media online record of the historic graves in their own areas and unite to form a national resource. The project outlines a system and sequence which helps to co-ordinate and standardise an historic graveyard survey.

• Community groups are trained to use digital cameras and smartphones to survey historic graveyards.
• Both new and old survey records are combined with locally recorded audio and video stories to form a multi media record of a graveyard.
• By curating and publishing the survey records centrally the individual community graveyard surveys combine to form a national resource where the value of each survey is compounded by its association with others.
• The website allows visitors from Ireland and across the globe to freely explore and search the growing database of multimedia records and stories.
• It allows communities to self publish historic graveyard surveys and the related multimedia stories.
• The surveys are being funded by a number of Local Development Partnerships through LEADER funds and are supported by Local Heritage Officers, County Archaeologists and Local Authorities.

 The project currently focuses mainly on Ireland, although it also lists a few locations elsewhere in Britain, such as St Chad in Manchester and the Necropolis in Glasgow.

Family Tree UK

The latest issue of Family Tree UK magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines.

Inside this month's issue :

• 1921 Census now on Ancestry
• Hull City Council Records now available on Deceased Online
• New general manager at FamilyTreeDNA
• Introducing the Archives Liaison Officer, the new role at the Family History Federation
• DNA news
• New National Trust paint laboratory
• Finding Your Way with Historical Maps (part 1)
• Beyond Irish birth records
• DNA workshop
• The search for George : evidence in the Parish Registers
• Where was my ancestor finally laid to rest?
• Exploring a treasure trove of family letters
• Photo corner
• Six things I wish I’d known then 
• And more...

Family Tree Talk

Family Tree Talk is a series of podcasts by Family Tree UK magazine.

 

The website describes the series :

"Nathan knows nothing about his ancestors. Helen knows almost everything about family history. Join them as they delve into Nate’s family’s past. Will there be any skeletons in his cupboard?

Join us for genealogical facts, figures and how-to information, heavily laced with speculation, surmise, stories and waffle as Family Tree Designer Nathan Ward embarks on his family history journey aided and abetted by Family Tree Editor Helen Tovey. 99% family history guaranteed."

New episodes of Family Tree Talk go live every Monday and the podcasts are available on all major platforms.

Week 3 (Jan. 15-21): Nickname

Nicknames might be one of the most difficult snippets of information to discover about our ancestors, especially is there is no one left alive to tell us about them.

My father's second eldest brother Ernest was known to all as Squib.  Long before this nickname described someone born to wizard parents lacking magical abilities (Harry Potter), a squib was a type of firecracker, or a person who is scared to take a risk or backs out of a challenge.  I'm not sure how Ernest gained the nickname Squib - Dad would never tell me, and as he was 16 years younger may not actually have known himself - but I never heard any of the siblings refer to their brother by any other name, and only learned his actual name when I began my family history research.

Dad himself was nicknamed 'Bluey' by his siblings, because of his bright red hair as a child.  As dad was mostly bald and what hair he had was grey when I was a child, the knowledge that he had red hair came as quite a surprise when I overheard one of my aunts use the nickname.

While perhaps not quite a nickname, one of dad's sisters, Muriel Phyllis Argent Green was always known by her second name, Phyllis.  It was several years into my family history research that I learned her real first name was Muriel.

On my mother's side, several of my great aunts were known by nicknames, or truncated versions of their real names.  Priscilla was known as Illa, Elizabeth as Peggy and Thelma as Lalla.  Also on my maternal side, I noted in this week's Trove Tuesday post that my German ancestor, Carl Friedrich Beseler, was known in Australia as Frederick Beseler.

While most official records used their correct names, other sources did not, so knowing the name people were commonly known by can be essential to finding all the available information about them you can.

Rippling Effects of the Great Irish Famine - Lecture Series

 
Do you have Irish ancestry?  Would you like to know more about the effects of the Great Irish Famine on your ancestors?  Commencing Thursday 30^th January 2025 for 5 weeks, this free online lecture series may be for you.  Delivered by the Armagh City Banbridge & Craigavon Borough Council, each lecture will be recorded and uploaded to Councils YouTube channel to accommodate those unable to attend live.

Each lecture is described on the website as follows :

30^th January @ 7pm (GMT)
“Children in Irish workhouses during and after the Great Famine”.
Dr Simon Gallaher
Dr Simon Gallaher is a historian of childhood and deprivation. His doctoral thesis, completed in 2020 at the University of Cambridge, is entitled ‘Children and Childhood under the Irish Poor Law, c. 1850-1914’.  He has written on various aspects of the Irish workhouse system, including the composition of families, the long-term effect of the Great Famine on children’s experiences in the institution, and on the cultural imaginings of the workhouse child. 

6^th February @ 7pm (GMT)
“Of Monsters and ogres: Evicting the poor during Ireland’s Great Famine”.
Dr Ciarán Reilly – Maynooth University.
Dr Ciarán Reilly is a historian of nineteenth and twentieth century Irish social history at the Department of History, Maynooth University with a special interest in The Great Irish Famine.  He is also Assistant Director of the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses & Estates at the Department of History.  Ciarán is the author of several books including The Irish Land Agent (2014); Strokestown and the Great Irish Famine (2014) and John Plunket Joly and the Great Famine in King’s County (2012) and was co-editor of Dublin and the Great Irish Famine (2022).

13^th February @ 7pm (GMT)
“Popular piety in Ireland the pre-Famine and post-Famine periods”.
Prof. Salvador Ryan – St. Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth.
Salvador Ryan Professor of Ecclesiastical History, St Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth where he writes on religious and cultural history from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Other published titles include Death and the Irish, Marriage and the Irish, and Birth and the Irish (2016-21); Northern European Reformations: Transnational Perspectives (2020); Material Cultures of Devotion in the Age of Reformations (2022) and Reforming the Church: Global Perspectives (2023).

“Rippling Effects of The Great Irish Famine: Separated from family by crime and transportation”.
Dr Perry McIntyre AM – Visiting Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales, Australia.
Dr Perry McIntyre has been involved in genealogical research for over 40 years which is where her interest in emigration from Ireland began. She has served on the council of the Society of Australian Genealogists (20 years) as well as the Royal Australian Historical Society, the Catholic Historical Society, the History Council of NSW including being chair for 2 years and other local societies such her local Mosman Historical Society. Perry’s PhD was on reunion of convict with their families, published by Irish Academic Press as Free Passage: The Reunion of Irish Convicts and their Families in Australia 1788-1852 (2011). In 2021 Perry was awarded an order of Australia (AM) for services to history and genealogy. Her current research is the workhouse orphan emigration scheme during the Famine years 1848-1850.  She is currently a Visiting Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales.

20^th February @ 7pm (GMT)
“The Great Famine on the Powerscourt Estate (Benburb district) and along the Blackwater, 1845-52”.
Dr Dónal McAnallen – National Museums Northern Ireland
Dr Dónal is Library and Archives Manager for National Museums NI, based at Cultra, where he has recently devised Irish-language and Ulster-Scots-themed trails of Ulster Folk Museum. He is current Editor of Dúiche Néill: the Journal of the Ó Neill Country Historical Society. This talk is based on research initiated by his late father on the subject of The Great Famine in the Benburb district, Co. Tyrone.  

27^th February @ 7pm (GMT)
“Mothering and infant feeding in the workhouse during the Great Irish Famine”.
Judy Bolger – Trinity College Dublin
Judy Bolger is a PhD candidate at Trinity College, Dublin. Her PhD examined the social discourse surrounding impoverished mothers and women’s experiences of maternity and motherhood in Irish workhouses during the late nineteenth-century. The research was funded by the Trinity College, Dublin 1252 Postgraduate Research Scholarship. She has published works on mothers and the workhouse in Salvador Ryan (ed.), Birth and the Irish: a Miscellany (2021) and in Historical Studies, vol. 19 (2019). Judy works in the Academic Resource Office of Carlow College, St Patrick and is the Book Review Editor for the Women’s History Association of Ireland. She has a keen interest in the history of poverty, motherhood, and infant care. Her M.Phil. thesis research examined the social history of Irish breastfeeding during the nineteenth century.

I'm looking forward to listening in on this lecture series and learning more about the Famine and its impact on my Irish ancestors.