27 November 2004 LostCousins Newsletter

Newsletter - November 2004

To visit the main LostCousins site please go to www.LostCousins.com

In the first three weeks of November the number of ancestors entered on the LostCousins site increased by over 50%.

Impressive? Yes, but what resulted from that growth was even more amazing. Between November 1-21 there were more ‘lost cousins’ found than in the entire history of the site! No wonder people are talking about LostCousins.

Were you one of the lucky ones? If not, just follow the tips in this newsletter!

FREE DIRECTORIES – more online at Historical Directories
ISLE OF MAN & CHANNEL ISLANDS
PASSWORDS – made easier
SITE UPDATE – latest news
REFERRALS – good for everyone
MY LINKS – a new favourite
HINTS & TIPS – how to be ‘lucky’
COMPETITION – everyone can win!

FREE DIRECTORIES

The University of Leicester’s free website (www.HistoricalDirectories.org) has recently been upgraded with (thankfully!) a much-improved search facility, and expanded with dozens of new directories added – when we last checked there were 81 for London alone! Well worth another visit.

ISLE OF MAN & THE CHANNEL ISLANDS

The censuses for the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands have always been included with England & Wales for census purposes. However, up to now we haven’t made it clear that you can enter ancestors who were living on one of the islands in 1881. The FAQs on the site have just been updated, and you can enter your ancestors from the islands now!

PASSWORDS

We’ve recently changed the log-in procedure so that passwords are no longer case-sensitive. As a result of this and associated changes problems with logging-in have been almost totally eliminated.

If you ever forget your password there’s a simple way to find out what it is. Just below the box where you enter your password to log-in, you’ll notice that it says “Forgotten your password?”. Just click on this link and enter your email address, and an email with your log-in details will be sent immediately.

Please note that to protect your privacy we can only send password information to the email address that is associated with your account. It is extremely important, therefore, that you update your email address as soon as it changes – just log-in and click on ‘My Details’. We’d also recommend that you enter your postal address now – if you haven’t already – so that we’ve got some way of contacting you if email fails. Remember, nobody else can see your personal details.

SITE UPDATE

We are gradually introducing the improvements to the site mentioned in the last newsletter. As part of this process the site may occasionally be unavailable for a short time, and we apologise for any inconvenience that this causes.

The Frequently Asked Questions page has been comprehensively revised. Anyone who is unsure whether an individual on their ‘My Ancestors’ is a direct ancestor, a blood relative, or merely related by marriage will find the new sections on ancestor relationships particularly helpful.

REFERRALS

As part of the update we’ve made it easier for you to keep track of whether the people you’ve told about the site have actually registered. In the excitement of joining LostCousins a lot of people have been forgetting to enter their referral code! As a result many of your referrals have been showing as pending, when in fact your friends and relatives had already registered.

Thanks to some clever software developed by our programming team this is much less likely to happen in future – and the status of past referrals has also been corrected as far as possible.

Telling other people about LostCousins is one of the two most important things you can do to help (the other is to enter your ancestors). If you want to find as many ‘lost cousins’ as possible, and you want to find them as soon as possible, then please do what you can to increase the member numbers.

You certainly don’t have to use your ‘My Referrals’ page to tell your friends and relatives about LostCousins, but you will find that it’s the easiest way to keep track of who you’ve told, and who you haven’t. And for your relatives there’s an enormous bonus - it allows you to ‘send’ them the ancestors that you share.

MY LINKS

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to rate the new list of sites on the ‘My Links’ page. The star of this month’s selection is ScotlandsPeople, with an average rating of 8.5 out of 10 – and it’s also the first time that the ratings have been topped by a site that isn’t free. Comments from members include “Fantastically useful”, “I love this site”, and “Brilliant if you have Scottish ancestors – England & Wales should follow the same pattern”.

The next four sites are way behind, but still with very good ratings: GRO 7.8, GENUKI 7.6, Rootsweb 7.4 and GenesReunited 7.4 – the last-named being the site that most people had visited.

The ‘Weakest Link’ is CuriousFox, which with an average score of just 4.8 is way behind the rest of the field. If you’re a fan of this site, then why not tell us the other side of the story.

The list will be changing again at the end of November, so we hope you’ll visit ‘My Links’ before then to tell us what YOU think! By the way, your ratings and comments are not deleted when we change the list of sites – so if a site reappears in the list your previous comments will be displayed.

HINTS & TIPS

Within hours of sending out our Autumn Newsletter we were receiving emails thanking us for the hints and tips. Here’s just a couple of the comments:

“I just had to write to thank you for the tip about searching the 1881
census”

“I just wanted to write and thank you for the tip you sent out in your most recent newsletter regarding searching the 1881 Census online…… You have ended a long period of frustration - I will sing your praises to everyone!”

This time we’re going to focus on how to get the most out of the LostCousins site – in other words, how to get ‘lucky’.

Statistical analysis has shown that most LostCousins members already have at least one ‘lost cousin’ amongst our membership – but that we can’t put you in contact with each other because one of you has yet to enter the key relatives that would enable us to make the connection!

So if you’ve identified relatives on the 1881 census, add them to your ‘My Ancestors’ page. It may take you a few minutes - but finding a ‘lost cousin’ could save you months of research.

TIP #1: The more relatives you enter on your ‘My Ancestors’ page, the sooner you’ll be in contact with your ‘lost cousins’.

LostCousins is all about finding people who are descended from the same ancestor. So why enter anyone other than your direct ancestors?

Let’s assume that you find your great-grandmother is on the 1881 census. Anyone who is descended from her will be a 2nd cousin of yours – that’s pretty straightforward.

Now, suppose that you also find on the census your great-grandmother’s brothers and sisters. You aren’t descended from them, nor are they descended from your great-grandmother – but they ARE descended from your great-great grandparents. So you do share a common ancestor with them, and if you work it out, their descendants are your 3rd cousins!

Now let’s go back another generation - imagine you find your great-grandmother’s cousins on the census. A moment’s thought will show that you share an ancestor with them too – your great-great-great grandparents (even though they may have died 50 years before the census). Which means that their descendants are your 4th cousins.

TIP #2: The common ancestor who links you with your ‘lost cousin’ need not have been alive in 1881 – enter anyone you find on the census who you know to be related, no matter how distant the relationship.

In Victorian times it was normal for women to take their husband’s name when they married. So finding your ancestor’s sisters and aunts on the census is usually more difficult than finding their brothers and uncles.

However, it’s amazing how often close relatives were also close neighbours. When you access the 1881 census on the FamilySearch site you can click on ‘Previous Household’ and ‘Next Household’ to find out who the neighbours were.

TIP #3: Check to see whether any of the neighbours are related - you’ll be amazed how often you discover a ‘missing’ relative.

If you’ve been researching your family history for some time you could well have identified several hundred relatives on the 1881 census. The prospect of entering all those people on your ‘My Ancestors’ page may seem more than a little daunting, so we thought you might like to know how long it’s likely to take in practice.

We recently entered many hundreds of ancestors on behalf of a disabled member – but on average it took us under 25 seconds per ancestor. So if you’ve identified 150 ancestors on the 1881 census, and have the relevant information to hand, it should take little more than an hour to key them in. Just make sure you use the ‘Add Similar’ feature when entering people in the same household – it’s a real timesaver.

TIP #4: Use ‘Add Similar’ to speed through the entry of your ancestors

If you’ve got Scottish ancestors you’ll know that the 1881 Census of Scotland is not available online on the free FamilySearch site, and that the only online option is ScotlandsPeople.

But did you know that the CD ROM set of the 1881 Census includes Scotland? For about thirty pounds you can carry out unlimited searches across England, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. And whereas the online search allows you to specify the county of birth, the CD search allows you to specify the precise location! If you’re in the UK you can order the CD ROMs from the LDS Distribution Centre on 0121-7852200.

A new way to access the 1881 Census of England & Wales is at Ancestry - if you’re a UK subscriber you can view and download the census scans. Whilst the transcription of the 1881 Census is better than most, sometimes the only way to resolve queries is to view the source document.

The 1881 index at Ancestry is the same as you’ll find at FamilySearch, with all the same errors - but the same is not true of the 1901 Census. The index at Ancestry has almost as many transcription errors as that at PRO site, but on the whole they are different errors.

TIP #5: There are often several ways to search for the same information. When at first you don’t succeed – try searching another way!

COMPETITION - REMINDER

In case you missed our last newsletter, here’s a second chance to learn about the competition that everyone can win.

All you need to do is add up three numbers, and if the answer is 50 or more, you are guaranteed free subscriber status for the whole of 2005. What could be easier?

The three numbers are the number of DIRECT ANCESTORS and the number of BLOOD RELATIVES on your ‘My Ancestors’ page, plus the number of REFERRALS shown as registered on your ‘My Referrals’ page. All these numbers are conveniently totalled on your ‘My Summary’ page, and when you reach the target you’ll see a message there confirming that you are a winner!

It doesn’t matter if most of your ancestors weren’t living in Britain in 1881. If you email us a list of their names, stating the country each was living in, we’ll allow you to count up to 30 of them towards the 50 target. (To keep things as simple as possible for our hard-working staff, please send just one email, and send it to competition@LostCousins.com – not to our usual address).

Note: only send an email if you need to add in 'overseas' ancestors to get your total up to 50. Everyone else who qualifies will be awarded free subscriber status for 2005 automatically – you don’t need to claim your prize.

The competition closes at 6pm (London time) on 15th December 2004, so you’ve got plenty time to add extra ancestors, and make more referrals.

SPECIAL OFFER - REMINDER

A reminder that 1837online have generously agreed that until 13th December 2004 any LostCousins member can get 20% more units for the same price – just by entering the special offer code LC1837 at the time of purchase. So if, for example, you choose to buy 55 credits for £5, you’ll get an extra 11 free, making 66 in all. If you’re going to be meeting up with relatives at Christmas, this could be a great opportunity to solve some of those family mysteries that just won’t go away!

AND FINALLY…….

Have you ever wondered who the people are in the photos on our home page? They are all ancestors of LostCousins members! If you’d like to see one of your ancestors on our home page just email info@LostCousins.com and include the word PHOTO in the subject line.

Best of luck in your research!

The LostCousins Team

Please do NOT copy or republish any part of this newsletter without permission - which is only granted in the most exceptional circumstances. However, you MAY link to this newsletter or any article in it without asking for permission - though why not invite other family historians to join LostCousins instead, since standard membership (which includes the newsletter), is FREE?