17 April 2006 LostCousins Easter newsletter
Newsletter - Easter 2006
CONTENTS
* What 'Your Family Tree' thinks about us
* Tracing living relatives - Traceline
* Are you researching your spouse's ancestors?
* Is YOUR cousin waiting for a reply?
To visit the main LostCousins site please go to www.LostCousins.com
At the end of the month the Society of Genealogists will be holding the annual Family History Show in London. We'll be there handing out leaflets to people in the queues outside - and we look forward to meeting you there.
Full details are can be found here:
http://www.sog.org.uk/events/fair.html
Make sure you log-in at LostCousins on May 1st, our second birthday! We'll be celebrating with all sorts of great offers - but they will last for one day only, so make a note in your diary right now!
WHAT 'YOUR FAMILY TREE' THINKS ABOUT US
In the May 2006 issue of 'Your Family Tree' there's an excellent survey of genealogy websites entitled "The Best of the Web". Free sites are rated for their usefulness, other sites on the basis of value-for-money.
The top rating awarded to any site was 4* and we're delighted to say that LostCousins was one of the handful given 4* - others included Ancestry, FamilySearch (for the 1881 Census), and Scotlandspeople.
When we read what they'd written about us we positively blushed!
"This is the best concept anyone has come up with for a website sharing information between researchers. There are no dodgy matches here, as long as you can accurately trace your ancestry back to the 1881 Census....
"You won't get as many emails telling you about the latest batch of hot matches, but you will find genuine cousins to help with your research."
Our big competitor (he-who-must-not-be-named) got a lowly 1* rating!
LostCousins is a great way of finding living relatives who you don't know about. But if you're looking for a specific living relative, and you know their name, there are other ways to go about it.
The most commonly utilised resources are the phone directory (free at http://www.bt.com), the Electoral Roll (by subscription at http://www.192.com), and the Friends Reunited site (by subscription). But often the person you're seeking won't be listed.
Traceline is a national service operated by the General Register Office that can track down a named relative using doctors' records - not medical records, but the lists of who is registered with each general practitioner in Britain.
We understand that they can find married women, even if you only have their maiden name!
The basic cost is 30 pounds for a search; then, if Traceline finds the person you're seeking, there's an additional charge of 25 pounds to forward a letter to them via their doctor.
Each year Traceline carries out a search for around 3500 people; unfortunately they don't publish any statistics on their success rate, but we'd expect it to be high.
http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/research/traceline
It's almost 2 years since the LostCousins site first opened on a trial basis (the official launch was in September 2004), and we've got a great offer to celebrate our birthday on May 1st.
We're giving away a year's free subscription to every member who during April uses their My Referrals page to tell their friends and relatives about LostCousins - provided one or more of them joins and finds a 'lost cousin' by May 1st.
Around half of all 'lost cousins' are found by new members, so this is an excellent opportunity to earn yourself a free upgrade to subscriber status, just by passing on the good news about LostCousins.
To enter go to My Referrals and click on 'Make a new referral'. If you wish you can refer your friends and relatives without giving us their email address (though you can be certain we won't misuse the information - we have a strict privacy policy).
To claim your prize just send an email to competition@LostCousins.com quoting the referral code of the friend or relative who has found a 'lost cousin'. The closing date for claims is May 7th.
You probably knew that the 1960s singer Marianne Faithfull was the daughter of a Hungarian baroness, but did you know that on her father's side she is related to the actress Joanna Lumley?
Cecilia Grantham Faithfull (1816-96), who married not one, but two vicars (her son was also a vicar), was Marianne Faithfull's great-great grandmother. She was also the second cousin of Clara Faithfull, Joanna Lumley's great-grandmother.
On the 1881 Census you'll find Cecilia recorded as Cecilia G Storr, living in the Vicarage at Brenchley, Kent with her second husband Francis Storr. Her first husband, Richard Davies, was also vicar of Brenchley.
The family later dropped the Davies name in favour of Faithfull.
ARE YOU RESEARCHING YOUR SPOUSE'S ANCESTORS?
If you're researching your husband's (or wife's) family tree don't forget that you'll need a separate LostCousins account.
If you've missed our advice in the past and inadvertently entered your spouse's relatives on your account, don't worry - we can tell you how to move them across to a new account.
There's a special deal for couples who belong to LostCousins - a joint subscription costs little more than a single subscription. To take advantage of this concession make sure that you enter your spouse's Personal Code on your My Details page.
IS YOUR COUSIN WAITING FOR A REPLY?
Did you know that you don't need to be a subscriber to respond to a contact from another member?
If there's an entry in the 'New contacts' section of your My Cousins page, just click on Reply (if nothing seems to happen, try again, but this time hold down the Ctrl key).
Alternatively, if you've tried to contact a cousin but haven't had a response, please email info@LostCousins.com so that we can follow it up. Unfortunately there's so much junk mail around these days that sometimes important emails get missed.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST.......
You can help us to help you! The more relatives you enter from the 1881 Census, the more chance you have of finding 'lost cousins'.
Once you've entered all the relatives you can find in the 1881 Census, why not ask for our help in tracing the rest? Just email info@LostCousins.com with the words 'Help wanted' as the subject.
Don't forget our birthday on May 1st - we hope you'll visit us on the day to collect your reward!
The LostCousins Team
http://www.LostCousins.com
info@LostCousins.com
© Copyright 2006 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?