20 May 2006 LostCousins Late May newsletter

Newsletter - Late May 2006

CONTENTS

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

Thanks to everyone who has told friends and relatives about LostCousins, or posted positive messages on forums. More members mean more 'lost cousins', which is great news for existing members!

HOW TIME HAS CHANGED

Before 1924, when the BBC began broadcasting time 'pips' on the radio, accurate time was a scarce commodity - and earlier this year a BBC radio programme told the amazing tale of "The Greenwich Time Lady".

From 1892 until 1940 Ruth Belville would call at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich each morning, set her chronometer, then go around London dispensing accurate time to her regular clients. She was in her late 80's when she finally retired!

Ruth had taken over the job from her mother Maria, who in turn had inherited it from her husband, John Henry Belville, who died in 1856. It's an interesting story that you can still hear if you go to the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/02/2006_08_fri.shtml

When we started doing some research of our own we made an amazing discovery. Whilst Ruth and her mother performed this important role for 84 years, there's not a hint of this on any of the published censuses!

In the 1861 Census Maria Belville is shown as a tutor; in 1871 and 1881 as a school mistress. Was she ashamed of her other work, or was there some commercial reason why she kept it a secret?

By 1891 Maria was 79, and no occupation at all was shown - whilst Ruth appears as a Professor of French & Music. In 1901 Maria had died, but Ruth is shown as 'living on own means' (surely 'living on borrowed time' would have been more appropriate?).

This unusual story might easily have been lost in the mists of time had a curator at the Royal Observatory not discovered a file of letters and press cuttings while preparing the new Time Galleries - we're glad he did.

Have you every made an intriguing discovery about your ancestors? Do let us know!

LAST CHANCE TO SEARCH THE 1861 CENSUS

Sunday 21st May is the last day of the exclusive offer we've arranged with Ancestry.co.uk - unlimited free searches of the 1861 England & Wales Census index.

Although you can't view the handwritten census pages, you can discover who else was living in the same household: click on 'View record' then 'View other family members'. It's a great way to fill in some of the gaps on your family tree.

Click the Ancestry logo on our home page - but be quick, this offer ends on Sunday.

FREE - 7 CENSUSES, 14 DAYS!

Although the 1861 offer is ending, there's an opportunity to take advantage of the hundreds of millions of British records at Ancestry.co.uk

Ancestry.co.uk are offering a 14-DAY FREE TRIAL which gives unlimited access to their British records, including ALL the England & Wales censuses! You'll be able to search every census from 1841-1901 and view scans of the handwritten schedules.

Of course, with an offer as good as this there has to be a catch - you WILL be asked to provide your credit/debit card details, and if you don't cancel, then when the trial ends your card will be debited with 69.95, the cost of an Annual subscription.

But at any time during the 14 day trial you can cancel by phoning 0800 404 9723 (which is a free number if you're calling from a British landline). If you cancel, your card will NOT be charged, no matter how much searching you've done during the trial.

To take advantage of this trial, click the link below, which will take you to a special page on the Ancestry.co.uk site:

http://tinyurl.com/jwu2j

DID SHE MARRY?

Tracing female relatives is usually more difficult - because they would have changed their name when they married.

If there was a marriage, you may find it at the FreeBMD site (which has partial indexes of births, marriages and deaths in England & Wales from 1837 to 1910).

One very useful feature of FreeBMD is that you can see which other names were on the same register page - which will include the name of the groom. However, because it's a partial index it is possible that the groom's details haven't been transcribed yet.

At FamilyRelatives.org there is a complete and fully searchable index of marriages in England & Wales from 1866-1920, and whilst the site isn't free, it can be very cost-effective if you use your units wisely.

But there's also a chance of finding out the married name at the LostCousins site.

The Index of Maiden Names has 60,000 maiden names of married women who were recorded on the 1881 Census. That's only a fraction of the total, of course, but since it only takes a few seconds to search, why not have a go?

1881 CENSUS - FOR BEGINNERS

FamilySearch (http://www.FamilySearch.org) is one of the most useful sites for family historians - and it’s completely free! But it isn’t that easy for newcomers to find their way around the site, nor is it easy to figure how to make the best use of it.

On your My Ancestors page at LostCousins there’s an 1881 Census link at the top.

Click this and it will take you to a page headed “Search the 1881 Census” which has some brief instructions and a link (‘Goto FamilySearch.org’) that will take you direct to the Census Search at the FamilySearch site.

Alternatively, if you start at the FamilySearch home page, click the ‘Search’ tab at the top, then on Census in the left-hand menu. Don’t use the ‘All Resources’ search - you’ll save time and get far better results if you search each resource separately.

On the Census Search page select ‘1881 British Census’ from the drop-down menu. Note that whilst it says ‘British’ you won’t find the Scotland census at FamilySearch: the only online source is Scotlandspeople, which is a pay-per-view site.

The Search form has numerous boxes that you can fill in, but we’d recommend that all you enter is the First Name, Last Name, and approximate Birth Year of the person you’re looking for (choose ‘+ or - 2 years’ as the Birth Year Range).

Only if you get far too many results should you aim to be more specific. Whenever you're searching you'll generally get the best results by entering the minimum of information.

One of the great things about searching the census at the FamilySearch site is that it is very tolerant of spelling variations. Enumerators often wrote down what they heard without checking (and there are transcription errors too).

If you search for ‘Shepherd’ you’ll get results for ‘Shepheard’, ‘Sheppard’, ‘Shepard’ and so on, which is just as well because even though you may know precisely how your ancestors spelt their names, the enumerator probably didn’t!

So whilst there is an option to search for a precise spelling, it isn’t usually a good idea to tick this box.

There’s another reason too why you shouldn’t tick the ‘Use exact spelling’ box. If you do, then unless the forenames you’ve entered precisely match what appears on the census, you won’t find the person you’re looking for.

For example, if you tick the box then search for ‘Thomas Shepherd’, you won’t find ‘Thos Shepherd’ or ‘Thomas J Shepherd’.

Should you specify where the person was born, or where they were living at the time of the census?

In practice it’s often easier to leave these open and scan through the results looking for the most likely people. By being too precise you’ll often fail to find the very person you’re looking for.

One last tip - when you have found the right person in the census, click on their name to display the Individual Record, and then click on the word ‘Household’ (at the right, near the top) to display the Household Record.

This shows the information for everyone in the household, including the references that you need when entering them on your ‘My Ancestors’ page.

AND FINALLY......

A reminder that, as with so many things in life, what you get out of LostCousins depends on what you put in! The more relatives from 1881 that you enter, the more opportunities there are to find 'lost cousins'.

If you need help finding some of your relatives on the 1881 Census just email info@LostCousins.com and we'll do our very best.

The LostCousins Team
http://www.LostCousins.com
info@LostCousins.com

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?