#52Ancestors - Week 49 - New Horizons

New Horizons is the theme for this week, and I immediately think of those brave ancestors of mine who sailed off to new horizons as they emigrated to Australia.  For many is meant leaving their homelands and extended families forever for a strange place with strange customs, strange landscapes and strange animals.  For a few it even meant learning a new language.

What prompted these people to take such a step?  For my father's family, his parents left England within weeks of their marriage in 1907 to sail to Australia to start their married life.  Frank and Rosa (Pike) Green married 10 October 1907 and arrived in Australia 1 December 1907.  They enjoyed a much faster and safer journey than other ancestors who emigrated in earlier years.  The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 had given ships from Europe an alternative route to Australia and by the early 1900s, steamships had become the established method of transport. No longer dependent on the strong winds encountered on the 'Great Circle' route, many shipping lines by this time travelled via the Suez Canal, reducing the length of the journey to Australia to 35 or 40 days. My father's parents were lucky indeed.

For my mother's side of the family, most branches travelled to Australia in the 1840s and 1850's, a much longer and riskier voyage.  A diverse group, they came from many different places.  The Pummeroy family travelled from London to Melbourne around 1849.  The Davis family came from Kent, also to Melbourne, making the voyage in 1853 with wife Margaret tragically dying at sea giving birth to twins, neither of whom survived.  The Beseler family came from Hanover in Germany, emigrating from the port of Bremen to Adelaide in 1847 before moving overland to Ercildown, where they settled to farm.  The Flowers came from Glamorgan in Wales to Melbourne in 1863.  The Clark family came from Bristol around 1855 to settle in Port Sorrel, Tasmania for over 15 years before moving on to Melbourne, and the Mulhollands and McCraes came from Ireland in the 1850s to settle on farmland near Bright.

For all of these families, their new horizons in Australia  were permanent, with no return to their homelands so far away.  They built new lives, raised their families and spread out across their new homeland.

New Records on FamilySearch

The people at FamilySearch have been busy adding records to their database over the past few months.  Below are a selection of their new record sets.

New Australian Records

Australia, Albany, Inward Passenger Lists, 1873-1924  226,067 records

Australia, Victoria, Wills, Probate and Administration Files, 1841-1926  38,081 records

Australia, Tasmania, Civil Registration (District Registers), 1839-1938  70,861 records

Australia, Western Australia, Fremantle, Inward Passenger Lists, 1890-1911  365,185 records

New British Records

England, Gloucestershire Non-Conformist Church Records, 1642-1996  204,664 records

England, Lancashire Non-Conformist Church Records, 1647-1996  1,436,324 records

England, Surrey Parish Registers, 1536-1992  2,566,198 records

United Kingdom, Merchant Seamen Records, 1918-1941  240,481 records

England, Cheshire Bishop's Transcripts, 1598-1900  2,179,329 records

England, Warwickshire, Parish Registers, 1535-1963  2,900,867 records

England, Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539-1988  5,996,379 records

England, Derbyshire, Church of England Parish Registers, 1537-1918  2,953,523 records

England and Wales, National Index of Wills and Administrations, 1858-1957  8,572,759 records

England, Devon, Parish Registers (Devon Record Office), 1529-1974  167,845 records

England, Herefordshire Bishop's Transcripts, 1583-1898  1,603,017 records

England, Oxfordshire Parish Registers 1538-1904  103,414 records

England Deaths and Burials, 1538-1991  14,994,376 records

England Marriages, 1538–1973  12,143,153 records

England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975  46,619,345 records

England, Lincolnshire, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1574-1885  135,981 records

England and Wales Census, 1871  12,983,349 records

England, Isle of Wight Parish Registers, 1538-1983  170,353 records

Currently there are over 16 billion records searchable in the FamilySearch database, with more being added constantly, so check out what they have to offer.

#52Ancestors - Week 48 - Overlooked

A danger for any genealogist is overlooking something - an obscure resource, a hidden set of records within a bigger database, a spelling variation or change of name.  Overlooking any of these things can mean we miss vital records that could help progress our research.

Another danger for the family history researcher is overlooking facts that just don't fit.  In earlier posts I have listed some of the overlooked but quite obvious errors that I have seen all in online trees : 

• Children cannot be born before their parents. 
• Children cannot be born to a mother who is 6 years old.  Or 94 years old.  
• 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 2 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.
  

Overlooking opportunities to further our research can be another huge mistake.  The opportunity to question older relatives should not be overlooked when the chance arises - it may not happen again.  The chance to visit a cemetery or library or other place for research when travelling should also not be overlooked.  Revisiting our own research to see if we can spot overlooked errors or areas that need further investigation is another common error.

So don't overlook the value of revisiting your research and see what you may have overlooked.

Family Histories Podcast Series 4

 Series 4 of the Family Histories Podcast is now up to episode 4, featuring Canadian professional genealogist and author, Janice Nickerson. 

Find out how she got started in genealogy, as well as her love for researching Upper Canada, the value of court records, challenges with researching her First Nations ancestors, and her ideas on how to get non-genealogists, including children, interested in your research.

For her 'Life Story' Janice has chosen her Great Grandmother, Emma Bell Chant (née Aylesworth), who was born in Newburgh, Ontario in 1873.  Whilst Janice had heard that Emma was quite a formidable and stern woman, when an aunt loaned Janice a box of consecutive letters from Emma to one of her sons spanning the period of 1918 to 1924, she discovered a whole new side to her – one of warmth, humour, and motherly advice.

For her 'Brick Wall' Janice focuses on her Grandfather, John George Carter was born in 1900 in Canada, and he is said to have become a semi-professional hockey player. After being injured during a match in the USA, John went missing for a few weeks, turning up a long way away (perhaps Florida) with some sort of amnesia or concussion – not knowing where he had been. His hockey career ended after this, with an ultimatum of ‘it’s hockey or me’ from his girlfriend, who subsequently became his wife and Janice’s Grandmother.

#52Ancestors - Week 47 - Wrong Side of the Law

Every family has them.  The black sheep.  The troublemakers.  The ones who found themselves on the wrong side of the law.  

Not all the crimes committed by our ancestors were major.  Many who were convicted of crimes were guilty of minor offences and acts of desperation.  Finding an ancestor who ended up on the wrong side of the law is something we will all face sooner or later in our research - there are no perfect families.

Often when an ancestor was found to have committed an offence, newspapers are our first source of information.  Court sessions were frequently reported in local newspapers, sometimes providing a simple summary of the cases heard and sometimes reporting in great detail.

The above article, from 22 September 1863, reports William Mothersole and James Cocksedge (who were both direct ancestors of mine) being fined for being drunk and disorderly, and reports in detail their actions and the fine they received.

On 18 July 1838, my ancestor Deborah Wordley was sentenced to 14 days goal for theft.  As far as I can discover this was her only offence and she does not appear in the newspapers again.

Court reports and newspaper articles may also name an ancestor who was the victim of a crime or who gave evidence in a court case.  While these people are not on the wrong side of the law, it is still a fascinating insight into the lives of our ancestors, seeing the impact of the wrongdoing of others has upon them.

My ancestor Daniel Green on 1 November 1777 offered a reward of two guineas for the return of the horse, with five guineas if the horse was stolen and the thief apprehended.

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 

• Scotland's 1921 census Myko Clelland reveals everything we can look forward to in the imminent release of the 1921 Scottish census
• Heirloom hunters Jo Thompson explains how genealogists like her reunite lost items with descendants of the original owners
• WW2 Christmas How our ancestors celebrated the festive season during the Blitz
• Reader story Bobbie Adams' relative was a real-life Peaky Blinder
• Plus: The best websites for researching clergy, finding burial records, creating a family photo book on Canva and more

 

#52Ancestors - Week 46 - Tombstones

Tombstones and memorial plaques can be a hugely exciting find for any genealogist, and many cemeteries today have websites where researchers can locate burial details, headstone and memorial transcriptions and even photographs of the headstones and memorials themselves.

Finding the grave of an ancestor and obtaining a photo of the tombstone can provide an extremely varied amount of information.  Some tombstones are a virtual essay of information, like the memorial plaque below for the Pike family of Gedding Mill.  It not only gives names and dates of both parents but also details of all their children, including a son killed in action in WW1.

 

Other headstones are less helpful, with scant details and weathered, unreadable script.  The grave below has no headstone as such, with the surname 'Pummeroy' simply inscribed on the border of the grave.

 

 

Sometimes one tombstone contains details of several burials, either covering a family plot or multiple burials in a single grave.  The tombstone below details several burials in a family plot, including David and Jane Mulholland and three of their children who died as children : Henry aged 4 years 8 months, Margaret aged 6 years 4 months and Thomas aged 1 year 2 months.

 

Amongst my family photos I have a number of tombstones and memorial plaques, many of which I have obtained online from cemetery sites in areas I have not been able to visit in person.  These are a huge boon for a genealogist who is mostly researching overseas with limited opportunities to travel, and it is always exciting to find another cemetery record available.