3 March 2005 LostCousins Newsletter

Newsletter - March 2005

 

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

Most of the time we’re helping people to find their distant cousins – but recently we had an email from a member who, thanks to a clue that we spotted (and which two professional researchers had missed), had just met her mother for the very first time!

Tracking down long-dead ancestors can be rewarding, but finding a living relative is an unbelievable experience! That’s why we do what we can to help our members find their ‘lost cousins’ – with the help of our great team of ‘buddies’.

This newsletter begins with news of the latest improvements to the LostCousins website. It’s well worth logging-on to see the new look ‘My Ancestors’ page, and when you do, why not take a look at the other changes we’ve made?

But there’s one thing that hasn’t changed – LostCousins is still completely FREE (and basic membership will remain free indefinitely)!

THE BIG CHANGE

We’re constantly trying to match the people on your ‘My Ancestors’ page with those of other members, and you may have noticed that as our membership has grown, the site has gradually become slightly slower. On a typical day we carry out hundreds of millions of checks, and were we to make no changes, the numbers would soon be in the billions.

To find your ‘lost cousins’ we need to continue growing – and so we’ve come up with a new way of checking for matches which whilst just as effective, will considerably reduce the computing demands. A side benefit is that your ‘My Ancestors’ page is soon going to get a lot more interesting! Here’s how…….

THE SEARCH BUTTON

When you visit your ‘My Ancestors’ page you’ll see that we’ve added a Search button that you can press at any time. When you click Search we immediately run a check to see whether any of the relatives you’ve entered on your ‘My Ancestors’ page match with those entered by other members, and if so, we then work out whether the two of you are related.

It won’t take more than a few seconds to run the search, and when it’s complete any relatives that you share with another member will be marked with a tick. Click on one of those ticks and you’ll be shown the names of the other members who share that relative – your cousins. (Note: the name of a new cousin won’t appear until you have made contact with them through your ‘My Cousins’ page – this protects your privacy as well as theirs).

IMPROVED ACCURACY = MORE MATCHES

As part of the search process we carry out automated checks on the information that you’ve entered in order to identify possible inaccuracies. After clicking Search you may find that some of your relatives are marked with a red ! symbol – if so, these should be checked to ensure that the details are exactly the same as appear in the census transcript. (Remember that even when you know the census to be wrong you should still enter precisely what is shown on the transcript.)

The ! symbol does not necessarily indicate that the information you have entered for your relative is wrong, only that we’d like you to check it against the census transcript. If you’re unable to do this for any reason, please let us know so that we can check it on your behalf.

To check your entry click on your relative’s name using the left mouse button - this will display the information currently recorded. You can then select Edit (to correct any mistakes), Remove (if you’ve inadvertently entered the same person twice and need to delete one of the entries), or Confirm (when you’re 100% certain that the information is correct). The ! symbol will disappear the next time you click Search.

Remember, we can’t match your ancestors with those entered by other members if the information you enter differs from the census.

ANY QUESTIONS?

There is a much expanded Help section on your ‘My Ancestors’ page, and we’d suggest that you read that before contacting us with any questions. However, as we don’t want to confuse new members, the Help information doesn’t compare the new system with the old one – so here are answers to some of the questions that we think existing members might want to ask:

Q What happens if I don’t log on to the LostCousins website regularly – will that mean that I won’t find any ‘lost cousins’?

A We will continue to search for matches at regular intervals, we just won’t be doing it constantly as we are at the moment. This may mean that you’ll get to hear about your ‘lost cousin’ a day or two later than you would have done under the old system. If you want to be completely up-to-date just log-in, go to ‘My Ancestors’ and click Search.

Q How do I contact my cousin?

A The system hasn’t changed. To contact someone who we have identified as a cousin go to your ‘My Cousins’ page. If both of you agree you can exchange email addresses at any time.

Q If I realise that one of my cousins hasn’t listed all of the relatives that I have on my ‘My Ancestors’ page is there any way that I can ‘send’ them the information, to save my cousin having to retype it?

A If you use ‘Refer a Relative’ to invite a relative to join LostCousins you can automatically send them the details of the ancestors that you share. However, there is currently no way of sending additional ancestors once your relative has joined. This is a feature that we are planning to add later this year.

WHAT ELSE HAS CHANGED?

As you may recall from our last newsletter, as part of this update we’re adding an ‘Index of Incorrect Surnames’. This is a partial index of surnames that are shown incorrectly on the 1881 Census transcript, based on the ‘Corrected surname’ entries that our members have made in respect of their relatives.

Although it is only a partial index, it is 20 times the size of the only similar index we have been able to find, and will continue to grow as more ancestors are entered. By the way, this improvement - like so many others - was suggested by one of our members. Access the index by clicking on ‘Index of incorrect names’ in the Tools menu.

Many other minor improvements that have been made during this update, although many of them will only be seen by new users - for example, the first time a new members logs on a message is displayed explaining how to change the password.

OTHER NEWS

1861 CENSUS NOW AT 1837ONLINE

The 1861 Census of England is now on the net at 1837online. Counties already available include London, Kent, Middlesex and Surrey – and the next counties to be added will be Essex, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Worcestershire. It’s free to search the index, but it costs 3 units to view the original census page, and another 3 units for a transcript (units cost between 5p and 10p each, so this is considerably cheaper than the 1901 Census site). The quality of the images is not quite as good as at other sites, probably because the files are more compact – on the other hand they download a lot more quickly (and when we complained about a particularly bad image our units were refunded).

Here at LostCousins we’ve already extended our own family trees thanks to the availability of this new census – so congratulations to 1837online for taking the initiative!

MARRIAGES INDEX NOW AT ANCESTRY

Ancestry subscribers can now search an index of marriages in England and Wales between 1984 and 2000 (an index of deaths from 1984-2002 has been available at Ancestry for some time). These indexes are not easy to find on the site, but you can get to them by clicking on the “all databases” link on the home page, then choosing ‘E’ from the alphabetical list. The same indexes are also available at the new FamilyRelatives.org site, but only on a pay-per-view basis.

OFFER EXTENDED

We are continuing our free subscription offer for the time being. It’s very simple – just use your ‘My Referrals’ page to tell three friends or relatives about the LostCousins site, and we’ll guarantee you free subscriber access to LostCousins until the end of June 2005.

Of course, even when we do introduce a subscription option, it will be exactly that – an option. Basic membership of LostCousins won’t cost a penny! But why not make sure that you have full access to the site by making those referrals – and play your part in growing the LostCousins membership. After all, the more people join, the more ‘lost cousins’ will be found!

FREE ANCESTOR CHART!

Don’t forget that you can download and print out a free Ancestor Chart by clicking on the link on the LostCousins home page. Or click here:

http://www.lostcousins.com/pages/info/lostcousins_chart.pdf

Please note that to fill out the chart you have to print it out – you can’t complete it on screen.

RELATIONSHIPS – GET THEM RIGHT!

It’s very important that your ‘My Ancestors’ page shows the correct relationships – otherwise we can’t be sure of finding your ‘lost cousins’. But if you’ve found this part a little confusing, don’t worry – you’re not the only one!

Here’s how you can be sure of getting it right, in three easy steps.

(1) DIRECT ANCESTORS

Print a copy of the Ancestor Chart (see above) and fill in the names of your ancestors. Anyone who appears on this chart is a ‘direct ancestor’, and if you’ve found them on the 1881 Census they should be shown as direct ancestors on your ‘My Ancestors’ page. We’d strongly recommend that you also enter the ‘ancestor number’ (shown in the top left corner of each box), for whilst ancestor numbers are not currently used as part of the matching process, this is likely to change as the site develops.

(2) BLOOD RELATIVES

Anyone who was the brother or sister of one of your direct ancestors is a ‘blood relative’ of yours. Anyone who was the child, grandchild, or great-grandchild of one of your direct ancestors, OR of one of your blood relatives, is also a blood relative of yours. In fact most of the people on your family tree are blood relatives of yours – all that’s necessary is that you share a common ancestor (and that ancestor need not have been alive in 1881).

(3) MARRIAGE

The ‘marriage’ classification is typically used for someone who married one of your blood relatives (anyone married to one of your direct ancestors would usually be a direct ancestor themselves). Whereas the children of the marriage are blood relatives of yours, the spouse is not.

Whilst anyone who is a relative of your spouse is also related to you by marriage, we don’t recommend you add them to your ‘My Ancestors' page - your spouse should have their own LostCousins account.

AND FINALLY……………

Can we remind you that we can only find your ‘lost cousins’ if you enter your relatives from the 1881 Census! If you need assistance finding your ancestors on the census just email info@LostCousins.com with details (include the words ‘Help wanted’ in the subject line).

If we can’t help you ourselves we’ll pass your problem on to one of our experienced ‘buddies’ (without revealing your identity or email address). They really are wonderful!

Best of luck with your research,

The LostCousins Team
http://www.lostcousins.com

© 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?