Irish Genealogy Update

For those with Irish family roots, the following post from IrishGenealogy may be of interest.

The state-managed IrishGenealogy.ie database has received its annual rolling years update. The additions are civil records of Births for the year 1923; Marriages for 1948; and Deaths in 1973.

Disappointingly, register images for deaths recorded from 1864 to 1870 have still not been uploaded; this is the long-awaited update most Irish genealogists would prefer to see.

Here, then, is a summary of the records available, free of charge, at IrishGenealogy.ie:

Births:
1864-1921 – index and register images, all-island
1922-1923 – index and register images, Republic of Ireland only

Marriages:
1845/1864*-1921 – index and register images, all-island
1922-1948 – index and register images, Republic of Ireland only

Deaths:
1864-1870 – index only, all-island
1871-1921 – index and register images, all-island
1922-1973 – index and register images, Republic of Ireland only

Civil BMD records registered in Northern Ireland from 1922 are available online via the General Register Office in Northern Ireland (GRONI), subject to the 100-75-50-year rule. Details.

*Civil registration of non-Catholic marriages started in 1845 across the island. Catholic marriages were added to the civil registers from 1864. 

Posted by Claire Santry, Irish Genealogy News 

Week 6 (Feb. 5-11): Earning a Living

Back when I first began researching my family history, I was fortunate to be able to have several long chats with relatives about their lives.  Several chat were with my Great Uncle Russell Clark, and below is a transcription of a conversation we had about his early working life.

At the age of 14 I gained my “Merit Certificate” and that gave me the opportunity to take on a full time job. Frank Marriott, a vegetable grower in Centre Road, Bentleigh offered me one and so I went working in his garden. Fifty six hours per week, milk a cow night and morning before breakfast, mow a large lawn Saturday afternoon before being allowed to go home for the weekend. Ten shillings a week and my keep. I had a hut away from the main house and near the large shed where horses were kept and chaff etc. stored. I had a “crystal set” which was a wireless but in order to get any stations one had to have a long aerial suspended from something high. I was lucky because I ran a wire from the top of the double story feed shed down to my hut. With the crystal set right I could get both 3DB and 3LO. I was made!!!! I spent four years with Frank. I had my 18^th Birthday there and my Mother purchased a bicycle for me. I believe she paid five pounds for it. From then on I was able to ride home on occasions and later on again I rode to work every morning and I kept wonderfully fit. Hurlingham Park was next door to where we lived and I played football there for the Brighton Vale Football Club and actually captained the side for a season.

My brother Lennie (one year older) was apprenticed to a butcher. Meekhams was their name and they had a shop on the Nepean Road near Union Street from memory. As time went by I used to do some part time work for them. I would unfold “Heralds” and “Suns” (newspapers) place them flat in a pile then roll them up and tie a string around them. They were used in the shop to wrap the meat. I got threepence an hour for that, not much but enough to get me into a matinee at the Brighton Theatre on a Saturday afternoon.

However I eventually left that job at Marriott’s garden and started work at the “Metropolitan Gas Company” where I remained until the outbreak of the Second World War. I then rode my bike from Brighton to South Melbourne, riding along Nepean Highway to Elsternwick, down towards Elwood and across to St Kilda, along the beach to nigh on Port Melbourne where the Gasworks were located. Those days we worked on a Saturday morning so a long ride on the bike six days a week. I used to also get some overtime working some evenings and again on a Saturday afternoon to earn a little extra. At the age of 21 years I was earning the princely sum of four pounds six shillings and eight pence per week. To supplement this payment I had by then joined the Militia and when I was due for annual holidays (one week per year, later to become two weeks) I arranged for my holidays to coincide with an annual Military Camp at the Mobilization Stores at Seymour. This was also a paid job. So I would have my break from the Gas Company and spend that time “under canvass” doing a supplementary paid job. This was all to earn extra income.

Week 5 (Jan. 29-Feb. 4): Influencer

The prompt for Week 5 of #52Ancestors is 'Influencer', and it brings to me the influence of family.  I believe that the influence of family in how we each develop as individuals cannot be underestimated.  Spending the first few years of my life on an isolated sheep station with the only other child being my older sister has had a huge influence on my life, and increased the influence of my parents on me.

My parents always spoke to us in adult language - no baby talk for us - and took questions seriously.  If we asked, obviously we were interested and deserved a serious answer.  Having little opportunity for education themselves, my parents truly valued learning and as a child I can recall my parents slowly paying off a children's encyclopedia for us. 

Then we moved to the town of Moama, one of our first stops was the local library.  Both my parents loved to read and taught my sister and I to love books and reading from a very early age.  A Sunday morning tradition as young children was to spend time snuggled in our parents bed being read to before getting up for breakfast.  We always had books around, and we knew we had been truly naughty if our parents took away the book we kept beside our beds to read quietly if we woke up early. Throughout my childhood and into my teens in the evenings if there was nothing we specifically wanted to watch on TV we would sit together, each with puzzles or handcraft projects, taking turns to read aloud to each other.  I can recall being about 12 years old at a sleepover with friends when I first realised not all families read aloud to each other like this!

my sister and I both arrived at primary school already well able to read ourselves, and while our peers were learning their letters my sister and I were already independently reading for ourselves.  Fortunately our teachers were quite happy for us to visit the school library to borrow more advanced books rather than limiting us to the readers in our classrooms.  It is hardly surprising that this early influence resilted in my choosing to become a librarian as my career.

Family Tree UK Magazine

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 : 

• MyHeritage becomes the first family history company to use conversational AI for genealogy
• Almost 400,000 individuals available to search on the 1939 Register
• Ready for RootsTech 2024!
• Petition to save the wills
• 80 million people added to the world’s largest family tree at FamilySearch
• Discovering a whole new heritage via DNA
• New online genealogy encyclopaedia with the release of MyHeritage Wiki
• 1931 Census of Canada available to explore for free at FamilySearch
• Medieval Ancestors with Chris Paton
• Enhance your family history with Maps, photos & tax records
• And more...
  

 

The Family Histories Podcasts Series 6

Series Six of The Family Histories Podcast is now complete.  The series began with a trailer on 31st October 2023, followed by 7 regular episodes weekly from 7th November, with a bonus episode on 24th December 2023.

The series saw guests cover topics ranging from fraud, slavery, oral history, family rumours, injustices, and seriously dodgy family trees. Each guest will also pitch their own research brick wall, in a hope that a listener could help them make a break-through.

Series 6 featured the following quests;

• Episode 1: ‘The Quilter’ with Phyllis Biffle Elmore

• Episode 2: ‘The Antiquarian’ with Rick Glanvill

• Episode 3: ‘The Nurse’ with Clare Kirk

• Episode 4: ‘The Accused’ with Sven Grewel

• Episode 5: ‘The Churchwarden’ with Jackie Depelle

• Episode 6: ‘The Runaway’ with Teresa Vega

• Episode 7: ‘The Loyalist’ with James Danter

 

Week 4 (Jan. 22-28): Witness to History

Just as we research our ancestors, one day (hopefully) our descendants will research us.  What do we have to tell them?

Over the past few years we have all lived through historic times.  Have you recorded your feelings and impressions?

The Covid19 pandemic has been 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.

There have also been 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? 

Locally, I have also experienced a historic flood that heavily impacted my local community.  Many homes in the district were flooded, businesses closed, people evacuated, roads cut.  The community pulled together magnificently to help each other sandbag and protect properties whenever they could.  The impact was still enormous, especially in the small community of Rochester which saw the majority of homes and businesses flooded.  15 months later a significant proportion of residents are still living in caravans and temporary accommodation as they struggle to complete repairs to their homes.  Again, the memories of this disaster need to be recorded. 

We have all been witness to history, and we should all be considering how we will record our memories and reactions to these events.

Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753

Hardwicke's Marriage Act 1753 was also titled ‘An Act for the better preventing of Clandestine Marriages’ and was the first statutory legislation in England and Wales to require a formal ceremony of marriage and to require that formal ceremony to be conducted in the Church of England Parish Church. It was also a requirement of Hardwicke's Marriage Act that the union was registered by a parson.

During the 1740s, out of the approximately 47,000 marriages taking place in England, 6,000 took place outside of a parish church, and so it was felt that marriages should be regulated in order to prevent so many clandestine marriages from taking place.

Prior to Hardwicke's Marriage Act, the canon law of the Church of England stipulated that banns should be called (which gave people the opportunity to raise objections to the marriage) or a marriage licence should be obtained before a marriage took place.  Obtaining a marriage licence meant banns did not need to be called.  It is worth noting that prior to the 1753 Act this was not compulsory and a marriage was still considered valid even if it was not celebrated in church.  

The Act came into force on 25th March 1754 and was read out in churches and chapels on Sundays in 1753, 1754 and 1755 because a lot of people could not read or write. 

The main points of Hardwickes Marriage Act 1753

• Before a couple could get married, banns had to be read out on three consecutive Sundays or a marriage licence had to be obtained.
• If a person was under the age of 21, they required parental consent before they could legally marry
• Marriages should be recorded in separate books which had numbered and ruled pages so that no fraudulent entries could be made to the register.
• The entry should be signed by the minister, the couple and two witnesses.

If your ancestors were nonconformists (Methodists, Baptists, etc) they had to marry in a Church of England ceremony or their marriage would not be recognized legally and their children considered illegitimate.  Quakers and Jews were exempt from this ruling and could marry in their own places of worship.  Members of the British Royal Family were also exempt.  

If a member of the clergy was found to be breaking the Act’s new law, they could be sentenced to transportation for 14 years.

The stipulations laid down by Hardwicke's Marriage Act 1753 meant that many couples chose to marry in Gretna Green or other places in Scotland in order to get around the Act.  The law was different in Scotland where couples only had to declare their intent to marry in the presence of two witnesses. This loophole was not closed in Scotland until the Act of 1856 which that declared that a couple could not marry in Gretna Green (or elsewhere in Scotland) unless they had resided in the country for three weeks prior to the date of the marriage.

Hardwicke's Marriage Act was repealed in 1849.