25 February 2005 LostCousins Newsletter
Newsletter - February 2005
CONTENTS
To visit the main LostCousins site please go to www.LostCousins.com
THIS NEWSLETTER WAS SENT TO EXISTING MEMBERS EARLIER THIS MONTH
January was one of our busiest months ever - so busy, in fact, that we were only able to send one newsletter to members, instead of the usual two.
Many thanks to everyone who has recommended the site to friends and relatives, or posted messages on forums and mailing lists. That LostCousins membership continues to grow, and the number of ‘lost cousins’ just keeps on rising, is a tribute to your efforts.
Over the next three months we will be extensively updating the LostCousins site. We’ll let you know about the major changes as they occur, but there will also be numerous minor improvements designed to make it quicker and easier to use the site.
As ever, many of the improvements we are making have been suggested by members – so please do keep writing to us with your suggestions.
SURNAME INDEX – FIND THOSE ELUSIVE ANCESTORS
We’ll shortly be adding a very useful new feature to the LostCousins site, an index to incorrectly spelt (or incorrectly transcribed) surnames in the 1881 Census, based on the ‘Corrected surname’ entries that members have input.
As with so many of the improvements we make to the site, this great new feature was suggested by a LostCousins member. Let’s face it, if you’ve struggled to find one of your ancestors on the census, you certainly don’t want your ‘lost cousins’ to have the same problem – they may not be as persistent as you.
We’ll be creating the initial Surname Index on Valentine’s Day (February 14), and updating it several times a year. If there are any corrections that you have not yet entered, now would be a very good time to add them to your ‘My Ancestors’ page. It’s really easy to amend the information for one of your ancestors – just go to ‘My Ancestors’, click on their name, and select ‘Edit’.
Are you prepared to invest 60 seconds of your time? We have set ourselves a challenging target – to treble the LostCousins membership over the next three months! But we can’t reach our target without YOUR help!
We’d like you to recommend the LostCousins site to three people that you know, either friends or relatives, using your ‘My Referrals’ page. It’s easy – just log-in at http://www.LostCousins.com and click on ‘My Referrals’, then ‘Make a new referral’.
As an incentive for you to help, we guarantee that you’ll have FREE subscriber status until the end of June, provided you make at least three referrals before the end of February.
(Of course, if you were one of the winners of our Christmas Competition you’ll already have qualified for a free subscription for 2005 - but we hope you’ll help out anyway.)
Trebling the LostCousins membership will mean that nearly 10 times as many ‘lost cousins’ are found – which translates into thousands of extra emails going out to lucky LostCousins members, all beginning with those glorious words “We think we’ve found a cousin of yours…….”
Queen Victoria would definitely not have been amused if she had known how difficult it would be for the subjects of her great-great granddaughter to find her on the 1881 Census!
You won’t find her by searching for ‘Queen Victoria’, ‘The Queen’, ‘Her Majesty’, or any number of other possibilities. In fact she is indexed as ‘Queen The’ (and you’ll need to enter those words as the ‘Last Name’ when you search at the FamilySearch site).
But when you do eventually locate Queen Victoria, who was staying at Windsor Castle (one of the many royal residences) at the time, it’s perfectly fascinating. Her occupation is shown modestly as “Queen of Great Britain and Ireland” - no mention of the rest of her Empire, which at that time spanned the globe (indeed, only four years previously she had been declared “Empress of India”).
The Royal Household was full of princes and princesses: Prince Leopold and Princess Beatrice were living with their mother, and there were four grandchildren, the Prince and Princesses of Edinburgh. A distinguished visitor at the time of the census was Napoleon III’s widow Eugenie, described as Ex-Empress of the French.
For those who have seen the film “Mrs Brown” the sight of the name John Brown will bring back many memories. Described as the Queen’s personal Servant he appears well down the list, long after the Lords and Ladies in Waiting. Alas, this was the last census on which he would be recorded, for he died almost exactly two years later.
To find out who was living at one of the other royal palaces, Hampton Court, try searching for Frederica (First Name) Princess of Hanover (Last Name). You’ll also discover who was living in the many grace-and-favour apartments there.
Moving from royalty to the nobility, a search for Randolph Churchill reveals Lord and Lady Churchill with their 6 year-old son Master Winston living at 29 St James’s Place in London. Next door, at Spencer House, you can find the 5th Earl Spencer, whose younger brother (the 6th Earl) was the great-grandfather of one Diana Frances Spencer, better known as Princess Diana.
If you haven’t yet traced your own ancestors on the 1881 census, tracking down some of these famous Victorians is a good way to become familiar with the FamilySearch site. Just go to http://www.FamilySearch.org and click on the Search tab, then select Census – it’s really easy!
When you go to FamilySearch it’s very tempting to use the main Search screen (the one that’s headed up “SEARCH FOR ANCESTORS – ALL RESOURCES”). But it will rarely bring you the best results!
That’s because there are many restrictions as to the information you can and can’t enter – for example, if you name England as the country, you can’t then enter the county. However, if instead you specifically search the IGI, or the 1881 Census, then you can!
TIP #1: Don’t use the All Resources Search – you’ll get much better results if you search each resource separately.
The IGI (or International Genealogical Index) is a wonderful resource, which in the case of the British Isles records many millions of parish register entries, mainly from England & Wales. It’s the first place to go when you’re trying to trace ancestors who were born before Civil Registration commenced in 1837.
Many of the entries were made by volunteers as part of a systematic transcription of the registers by the LDS church – and these records are extremely reliable (though there are occasional errors). However other records have been entered by individuals, sometimes based on nothing more than a guess, and should therefore be checked against the register.
In any case, you’ll usually find out more information when you check the register entry, whether it’s the names of witnesses to a marriage, the fact that your ancestor could (or couldn’t) sign his own name, or the occupation of a father whose child was baptised.
TIP #2: Finding an entry in the IGI is just the start – if you don’t check the register entry you won’t know what you’re missing.
Parish registers often contain all sorts of additional snippets of information, from the putative fathers of illegitimate children, to comments about the plague. Nevertheless it’s always a good idea to start by searching the IGI, as this will often help to identify the parish in which you should be looking.
But what do you do when the IGI doesn’t come up with the baptism or marriage you’re searching for? Surely the IGI is of no use in this situation?
On the contrary - if you know where not to look, the time you spend peering at microfilm or microfiche will be that much more rewarding – because you can focus on those parishes who records are not on the IGI. First you need to know which parish records are included in the IGI – and an excellent guide is found on the website of Hugh Wallis at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~hughwallis/
TIP #3: What you don’t find can be almost as useful as what you do find!
The primary purpose of Hugh Wallis’s site is to identify the ‘IGI Batch Numbers’ associated with each parish. When the parish records were entered onto the IGI the records were batched by parish, and so the easiest way to search records for a specific parish is to find out the batch number(s) for that parish.
By the way, if you have a batch number you can even search without entering a name – for example, you might want to see all the baptisms in a particular church between 1795 and 1805.
TIP #4: Searching the IGI using batch numbers allows you to target a specific parish.
Often you won’t know the names of the parishes in the area you’re searching. You may find the information on the Internet, possibly on the website for the local records office. But there’s a very useful free program called Parish Locator (or ParLoc) which you can download from the Dave Bennett’s site at http://www.parloc.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
ParLoc will identify all the parishes within a given radius of a chosen parish – and tell you how far apart they are. It’s particular useful when the ancestors you’re researching lived close a county boundary, because it will scan the surrounding counties.
TIP #5: Even in the 18th and 19th centuries people moved around. If you don’t find the baptism or marriage you’re seeking in one parish, look in the adjoining parishes.
If you’ve got a photograph of an ancestor who was recorded on the 1881 Census we’d be delighted to feature it on the LostCousins home page. Just email a scan of the photograph to info@LostCousins.com and include the full name of your ancestor, year of birth, and year of death (where known). The photographs that appear on the home page vary, and are chosen randomly from all those submitted by members.
AND FINALLY………..
Don’t forget that we can only find your ‘lost cousins’ if you enter your relatives from the 1881 Census on your ‘My Ancestors’ page. The more relatives you enter, the sooner we’ll find your first ‘lost cousin’ – so just ask for help if you’re having trouble finding your ancestors on the census. We’ve got a great team of ‘buddies’ waiting to help you.
Best of luck with your research!
The LostCousins Team
© Copyright 2005 Peter Calver & Lost Cousins Ltd
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?