6 December 2005 LostCousins Newsletter
Newsletter - December 2005
CONTENTS
* Great news - Ancestry extend discount offer!
* Last chance to raise money for good causes
* Coughs and sneezes.... public information films
* Hints & tips: Using BMD indexes
* Hints & tips: family history searches using Google
* Success story: a family likeness
* Win 500 pounds cash - full competition details
* Using FamilyRelatives - a member’s experiences
* How to get your free FamilyRelatives credits
To visit the main LostCousins site please go to www.LostCousins.com
Would FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS in cash come in handy after Christmas? If the answer is “Yes”, then you’ll want to take part in our Christmas competition.
All you need to do is use your ‘My Referrals’ page to tell your friends and relatives about LostCousins. You can do this without giving us their email addresses (though you’ll find it a little easier if you do enter them).
Each one who registers at LostCousins between 3rd December and 8th January quoting the referral code will be upgraded to subscriber status for one month, absolutely free of charge, just so long as they remember to enter the referral code.
And every single one who registers will bring you a little bit closer to that prize of 500 pounds cash, which will go the member who has made the most successful referrals. There are also 50 runners-up prizes, so everyone who takes part has a chance of winning something. Full details and the ‘small print’ can be found later in this newsletter.
Why are we doing this? Because the more people who join LostCousins and enter their relatives from 1881, the more ‘lost cousins’ we’ll be able to find - which will make it a better site for everyone!
GREAT NEWS - ANCESTRY OFFER EXTENDED!
We are delighted to report that we’ve been able to persuade Ancestry.co.uk to extend the exclusive LostCousins discount offer right up to the end of 2005! You can save 20% on an Annual subscription to Ancestry.co.uk when you log-in at LostCousins, then click on the Ancestry logo at the bottom right of our home page. (If you can’t see the logo due to your settings please email info@LostCousins.com and we’ll send you a link.)
So, if you would like a year’s unlimited access to every England & Wales census from 1851-1901 (and, let’s face it, who wouldn’t?) you’ve now got a chance to persuade your family to buy you an Annual subscription as a Christmas present!
The England & Wales censuses at Ancestry.co.uk are 100% complete, and fully-indexed - and you can not only view the handwritten censuses pages, but also print them out and save them on your own computer.
There are other resources at Ancestry.co.uk, but it’s the censuses that are the ‘crown jewels’. Being able to search across 6 consecutive censuses, covering 50 years, or two generations, is a wonderful way to extend your knowledge of your family tree, and to have unlimited access for around 15p a day is a great way to keep the costs of your hobby within reasonable bounds.
LAST CHANCE TO RAISE MONEY FOR GOOD CAUSES
Thank you very much to all the members who will be helping to raise money for good causes this Christmas by sticking labels in Christmas cards. For every person who registers at LostCousins quoting the code on the label, then subscribes before next Easter, we will donate two pounds to the chosen charity.
If you’d like to participate please email us right away. The labels are free to any LostCousins member in the UK.
COUGHS AND SNEEZES - PUBLIC INFORMATION FILMS
“Coughs and sneezes spread diseases” is a phrase that most of us have come across, usually at a tender age - but did you know that it originated in a public information film from the 1940s?
At the National Archives website there are now 22 short public information films that you can watch online completely free of charge. As ever, it’s better if you have a broadband connection, but there are special versions for those of us still with steam-powered connections:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/films/
HINTS & TIPS: USING BMD INDEXES
Birth, marriages and death certificates are invaluable documents, but sometimes you can find out most of what you need to know just by searching the indexes! It’s just as well - few of us can afford to spend £7 on every certificate for every ancestor.
Since Civil Registration of births, marriages, and deaths in England & Wales began in July 1837, the General Register Office (GRO) has compiled a complete index of the births, marriages and deaths registered in each quarter. The index books can be inspected at the Family Records Centre in London, and there are microfiche copies in libraries around the country. To find out where copies are held refer to:
https://www.familyrelatives.org/treequest/jsp/customer/pre_faq1.htm#faq4
Many libraries, including the Family Records Centre, do not charge. It’s also possible to access many of the records free of charge over the Internet, at the FreeBMD site:
Although the information held at FreeBMD is incomplete, because it has been transcribed it is easy to search - and since all the transcription work is being done by volunteers (many of them LostCousins members), it’s completely free.
For the best of both worlds you need to go to the FamilyRelatives site where every single birth, marriage, and death registered in England & Wales between 1866-1920 has been fully transcribed. FamilyRelatives isn’t free, but as a LostCousins member you can get 10 free credits - which could be enough to solve 5 separate mysteries!
How might you use the BMD indexes? Here are just a few suggestions - we’re sure you can come up with many more:
- finding the index entry for a birth will give a much more accurate birth of date than using the ages shown in the censuses; you may also find out about a middle name
- after 1865 the age at death is shown in the death indexes, so you can often determine when a relative died without ordering the certificate
- finding a marriage entry will often enable you to find out the name of the spouse (and from 1912 onwards the spouse’s surname is actually shown in the index)
- you can often find out quite easily whether a particular relative ever married and if so when (but it’s usually impracticable unless the records have been transcribed, as at FreeBMD or FamilyRelatives)
- if all the children in a family were registered in the same district, then searching the indexes may enable you to find a son or daughter who isn’t recorded on any of the censuses (usually as a result of early death)
It makes sense to use free resources when you can - but because FreeBMD is an incomplete index (how complete differs from year to year and quarter to quarter - see the graphs at the FreeBMD site), you can’t be certain that an event didn’t occur just because you don’t find it. That’s when the complete indexes at FamilyRelatives, which have been fully transcribed from 1866-1920, really come into their own - and the great thing is, you don’t have to pay for searches that turn up no results!
Note: to take advantage of the FamilyRelatives offer of 10 free units for LostCousins members follow the instructions at the end of this newsletter.
HINTS & TIPS: FAMILY HISTORY SEARCHES USING GOOGLE
There are so many great family history websites that it’s easy to forget that Google can search through information from millions of websites, and might just pick up something that you’ve missed. Google is particularly useful if you’re looking for a very rare name, and typing in the name of a husband and wife can sometimes reap dividends even when the two names are individually not so rare.
Did you know that as well as Google.com there’s also Google.co.uk, and if you use the UK site you can choose to search globally, or just in the UK? (There are also local Googles in many other countries.)
Use quotation marks to find words only when they appear next to each other, but remember that often names are stored surname first. So it’s usually worth searching for “Smith John” as well as “John Smith”.
By the way, whereas Google can access the information at any number of websites, search engines can’t get access to the data you enter at LostCousins. With identity fraud becoming more of a problem, we believe that confidentiality is going to be important to an increasing number of researchers.
SUCCESS STORY - A FAMILY LIKENESS
We’re always delighted to hear from members who have found ‘lost cousins’, but an email we received from Australia yesterday underlines just how much it can mean:
“I found a Lost Cousin recently, a fourth cousin actually, since our great-great-grandfathers were brothers. He sent me some photos this week, and it is astonishing to see the family likeness down through the generations. I felt I could see myself in some of those old photos. He has also put us in touch with a closer relative here in Australia, another lost branch we had hoped to find! Thanks LostCousins!”
CHRISTMAS COMPETITION - WIN 500 POUNDS CASH!
Success in finding ‘lost cousins’ depends on how many people have joined and entered their ancestors - so our Christmas Competition this year is designed to attract more members.
All you need to do is use your ‘My Referrals’ page to tell your friends and relatives about LostCousins. Each one who registers (quoting the referral code) and activates their account (by logging-in at least once) between 3rd December 2005 and 8th January 2006 will receive one month’s free subscription to LostCousins.
We’ll be counting how many referrals each member makes, and how many of these are successful (ie the person registers and activates their account). The member who makes the most successful referrals will receive FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS IN CASH!
There are 50 runners-up prizes of a year’s subscription to LostCousins.
Referrals made before 3rd December will count if the person referred activates their account between 3rd December and 8th January. You can send a reminder to anyone you have already referred by clicking on the RESEND button opposite their name on your ‘My Referrals’ page.
In fairness to our membership as a whole we reserve the right to disqualify any member who appears to us to be unfairly manipulating the result of the competition. If you have an idea which is a little ‘out of the ordinary’ why not check with us first?
The result of the competition will be announced as soon as possible after 8th January.
Thanks to everyone who entered last month’s competition, to find the most unusual names on the 1881 Census. We’ve had so many amazing (and amusing) entries that we’ve had to delay announcing the winner until our next newsletter.
USING FAMILYRELATIVES - ONE MEMBER’S EXPERIENCES
Jenny tried out FamilyRelatives for the first time when she read about the 10 free credits for LostCousins members in our Winter newsletter. Here’s what she told us about her experiences:
“Thanks so much for putting me through to FamilyRelatives.org - SO much better than 1837online. For a relatively small amount of money I have firmed up plenty of information for the period 1866-1920 and was pleased to find out that 99.9% of what my grandmother told me, based on her mother's recollections, was correct.”
The next day she wrote to us with more news:
“I've spent some more of my hard earned dosh since I wrote that and regret not one penny. I had despaired of filling in the collateral lines for my English relations without going to London. This is a whole lot cheaper. A tip to pass on: % is the wildcard, not *.
“Another thing which is brilliant is that if you find a relation's marriage in the 1866-1920 section you can press the "match" button at the end and it will bring up the people who were married that same day in that same church. So if you know a married woman's first name but not her surname, you can usually then get the latter, with just one click and 2 units.
“If a woman married but you don't know her married name, you can sometimes still find her husband on the first click, but even with busy churches you can narrow the field down to two or three possibilities.
“I love the way it works more like Scotlandspeople, especially the fact that it saves your searches. If you use it on one tab in your browser and Familysearch on another tab, with your GEDCOM on a third you can really work well. Quote anything you like, and again, thanks! Since finding LostCousins, I have left Genes Reunited alone - it's just you and WorldConnect (Rootsweb) now. Jennie”
HOW TO GET YOUR FREE UNITS AT FAMILYRELATIVES
1. Go to http://www.FamilyRelatives.org and click on New Registration (or Login if you’re already a member).
2. Once registered or logged in go to the Purchase page
3. At the top of the page enter the Offer Code: LC2005 but leave the password box blank. There is no password for this offer.
4. Press the top Continue button to display the exclusive offer of 10 free units for LostCousins members.
5. Select 10 units and press the Continue button at the bottom of the page.
6. That’s it - the free units have been added to your account and you can start using this great site!
Note: you will need to download the free DjVu viewer if you want to view scanned pages from the indexes. Click the DjVu logo at the bottom right of the FamilyRelatives home page, or click the link below:
https://www.familyrelatives.org/treequest/jsp/customer/pre_lizardtech_djvu.htm
AND FINALLY.....
A reminder that the number of relatives you’ve entered on your ‘My Ancestors’ page determines how soon you’ll find your first ‘lost cousin’, and how many you’ll find over the longer-term.
If you’re still waiting to find your first ‘lost cousin’ why not email info@lostcousins.com for advice?
Best of luck with your research!
The LostCousins Team
http://www.LostCousins.com
info@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?