Anglo-Celtic Connections

Here are the articles featured on the magazine front cover.

PARISH REGISTERS Jonathan Scott presents our six-page region-by-region guide to the essential websites for digitised parish registers, including the best free resources.

DANCE HALLS
Caroline Roberts visits the dance halls where many of our relations tripped the light fantastic on a night out.

RESEARCH ADVICE
Peter Higginbotham reveals how to make the most of the surviving records if, like Who Do You Think You Are? star Anna Maxwell Martin, you have a relative who was raised in a children’s.home or orphanage.

BEST WEBSITES
We round up the best sites for historic maps that wil provide key information about your ancestor’s home.

TECH TIPS
Nick Peers explains how to use a huge online archive to research your forebear’s service in the First World War.

RECORD MASTERCLASS
Simon Wills shares expert advice for following a naval ancestor’s career with Royal Navy ships’ musters.

EUREKA MOMENT
Danny Parrott explains how he followed his ltalian great great grandfather’s trail to the Vatican Apostolic Archive

FAMILY HERO
“My great uncle Angus Bruton Wilson served in Churchill’s secret army,” says Anna Wilson.

AROUND BRITAIN
Our complete guide to genealogical records online and in the archives for researching roots in West Sussex.

You’re fortunate if someone in your family tree is amongst the 59,221 name indexed in this collection. You get to see an image of the original one-page service file sourced from ADM 337 at The (UK) National Archives linked to the index.

These volunteers were clerks, bakers, labourers … not seafarers by trade, but they wanted to serve their country in the navy in the event of war.

MyHeritage has the same records, and a few more,  59,784.

Findmypast includes these in a more extensive British Royal Naval Reserve 1899-1930 collection which includes those in ADM 240 as well as ADM 337 for a total 81,544 records.

The records are handwritten and include abbreviations for which there is no guide, even that at TNA.

 

 

Back in February, this collection had 3,146,854 entries. Now there are 5,022,103. There’s no indication of the years or places added.

As with most large indexes on Ancestry from printed material, the index was created using text recognition software.

As a word of warning, such registers are often promoted as a way to fill in between decennial censuses. But be aware that the registers appear to have been compiled in advance. I find a great grandfather registered to vote in a place he’s known to have left the previous year.

Findmypast’s collection England & Wales, Electoral Registers 1910-1932 includes over 20 million entries for Lancashire with better supplemental material than Ancestry.

MyHeritage does not include UK electoral records.

Choose from free online events in the next five days. All times are ET except as noted. Those in red are Canadian, bolded if local to Ottawa or recommended. Assume registration in advance is required; check so you’re not disappointed.

Tuesday 2 August, 2:30 pm: Genealogy Starts with a Question:
Beginning Family History Research, by Allison DePrey Singleton for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/6971986

Tuesday 2 August, 7:30 pm: Admiral Bayfield, by David Yates for Huron Branch OGS.
https://huron.ogs.on.ca/events/huron-branch-david-yates-admiral-bayfield/

Wednesday 3 August, 7:30 pm: The Toronto Circus Riot: A True Tale of Sex, Violence, Corruption and Clowns, by Adam Bunch as the Toronto History Lecture, from Toronto Branch OGS.
https://torontofamilyhistory.org/the-toronto-history-lecture-for-2022/

Thursday 4 August, 6:30 pm: Y Chromosome (Y-DNA) Testing Basics, by Sara Allen for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/6989238

Thursday 5 August, 7:30 pm: Upper Canada Land Petitions, More Than Just Land Acquisition, by Debra Honor for OGS/Ontario Ancestors.
https://ogs.on.ca/zoom-meetings/debra-honor-upper-canada-land-petitions-more-than-just-land-acquisition/

I’d really appreciate it if you’d take a quick survey, just six questions on your public library usage. It would help me in responding to a survey by the Ottawa Public Library. Thank you.

On this date, 1 August 1942, 80 years ago, for Canadian servicemen, the focus of war action was in the air.

35 men serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force lost their lives on the day. Of those 13 were aged 20 years, including the majority of those whose age is not recorded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. That they lived they would be centenarians this year. The oldest was 29.

Six have no known grave and are commemorated at the Runnymede Memorial. The others are buried in Belgium (7), Germany (12), Netherlands (10).

BLOOMER, GEORGE TAYLOR
LLOYD, CLARENCE FRANKLIN
McLEAN, DAVID GERALD
GIBSON, RODNEY DAVID
MARTIN, ALISTAIR BRUCE
ARMSTRONG, THOMAS JAMES
CLARKE, WILFRED VICTOR
McILVEEN, ARCHIBALD EDWARD
EGAN, EDWARD BYRON
JONES, EDWARD JAMES
HUNKING, ELWIN THOMAS
IRISH, JACK WILLIAM
HANNABY, JOHN
DONAHUE, WALTER VERNARD
VAUTOUR, ALBENI CAMILLE
SZUMLINSKI, CHARLES LEONARD
ANDERSON, EDWARD ALLISON
FORD, GEORGE EDWARD
LAXDAL, HUGH LAWRENCE
CAMPBELL, JAMES BERTRAM
HARVIE, LLOYD GORDON
PENNEY, WILLIAM FRANCIS
KURTZ, DENNIS HAIG
SIMONSON, VERNON LEROY
TREADWELL, WILLIAM HENRY
MURPHY, THOMAS FRANCIS
ROBERTSON, EUGENE GARLAND
WOOF, REGINALD
PRIME, PETER
STEWART, ROBERT REGINALD
HOLMES, WILLIAM EDWARD WALL
WILLOUGHBY, EDWIN BERTRAM
KAUFMAN, WILLIAM JOHN
FROST, WILLIAM DAVID
TAIT, JOHN

Three other Canadian servicemen died on that day.

McKISHNIE, FRANKLIN MURRAY
GREY, HARRY
GALBRAITH, CHARLES MACKINVEN

A total of over 5.5 million Church of England Bishop’s Transcripts records now appear on Ancestry, sourced from Diocese of Worcester holdings at the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service.

Title	Records
Worcestershire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1600-1812	3,264,925
Worcestershire, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1812-1918	1,727,188
Worcestershire, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935	120,628
Worcestershire, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1918	432,453

Bishop’s transcripts are one-step removed from the parish records. It’s good practice to check both, where available, for consistancy and additional information. For availablity check the FamilySearch Wiki and/or GenUKI Worcestershire , or, of course, the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service

 

The British Newspaper Archive now has a total of  54,783,049 pages online (53,950,371 last month).

This month 104 papers had pages added (89 in the previous month). There were 16 (15) new titles. Dates range from 1741 to 1999.

The 20 newspapers with more than 10,000 pages added are:

TITLE	DATE RANGE
Holloway Press	1872-1962
Hampstead News	1882-1961
Birmingham Weekly Mercury	1924-1926, 1928-1945, 1947-1948, 1951-1955, 1957-1958, 1961-1962, 1964-1968, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1976-1979, 1983-1985, 1993-1999
Herts and Essex Observer	1987, 1998-1999
Harrow Observer	1996, 1998
Ottawa Free Press	1903, 1905, 1907-1908, 1910, 1912, 1914, 1916
Bucks Advertiser & Aylesbury News	1836-1837, 1839-1840, 1843-1852, 1856, 1863-1868, 1870-1871, 1873, 1875-1889, 1891-1895, 1898-1910, 1913-1919, 1922, 1925-1926, 1928, 1930, 1933, 1935, 1937, 1940, 1947-1953
Kentish Express	1855-1871, 1893-1895, 1898-1973
Woodford Times	1870-1881, 1896, 1899-1915
West Kent Argus and Borough of Lewisham News	1894-1931
Aris’s Birmingham Gazette	1741-1823
Kent Messenger & Gravesend Telegraph	1913, 1919-1930, 1948, 1950, 1966-1967, 1969
Shields Daily Gazette	1898, 1905, 1907-1909, 1912-1915, 1917-1918, 1920-1945, 1953-1955
Sports Argus	1980, 1983, 1985-1986, 1989, 1992, 1995-1996
Lewisham Borough News	1892-1962
Barbados Agricultural Reporter	1896-1922
Black & White	1891-1905
Bromley Journal and West Kent Herald	1869-1885, 1887-1912
Bromley Chronicle	1891-1896, 1898-1921
Bromley and West Kent Telegraph	1868-1872, 1886-1896, 1898-1913

On this, the anniversary of the first day of the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) and the death of my Grand Uncle I’m reposting his story, as told via the MyHeritage DeepStory facility with my words, by my Grandfather.

A total of over 3.6 million Church of England parish register records have appeared on Ancestry. They are for the City and the local Yorkshire area, approximately 200 parishes.

Title	Records
York, Yorkshire, England, Church of England Marriages, 1754-1936	621,551
York, Yorkshire, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1995	251,658
York, Yorkshire, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1920	1,105,422
York, Yorkshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812	1,629,646

Sourced from the Borthwick Institute for Archives – the University of York, there are indexes with names, dates and places, and links to the original register image.

Findmypast has a collection of other records for York, including for nonconformists.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

One of several YouTube videos on London street names

BTW, Alan Ruston’s presentation Maps for Family Historians, at the BIFHSGO conference on Thursday 29 September came to mind as he puts some focus on London geography.

The 2022 Canadian Museum Crossword

The Toronto History Lecture will take place online on Wednesady 3 August 2022 at 7:30 pm. This year’s speaker will be Adam Bunch and his topic will be The Toronto Circus Riot: A True Tale of Sex, Violence. Corruption and Clowns. It’s free. For more information and advance registration at https://torontofamilyhistory.org/the-toronto-history-lecture-for-2022/

R. I. P. James Lovelock

R. I. P. Bernard CribbinsT

The Good Old Days (6th April 1973). Bernard Cribbins leads the audience in a rousing rendition of The Marrow Song.pic.twitter.com/eipSk82A6o

— Archivetvmusings (@archivetvmus71) July 28, 2022

Thanks to this week’s contributors: Anonymous, Brenda Turner, Teresa, and Unknown.

Everyone born to parents within the Republic of  Ireland and adopted at home or abroad will, from October, have access to their records previously withheld.

The legislation gives “legal entitlement to full and unrestricted access to birth certificates, birth, early life, care and medical information for any person who was adopted” or “boarded out.

Find out more from the Adoption Authority of Ireland.