The War of 1812 - from the British side

Today is the anniversary of day the British Army marched into Washington DC and burned a lot of it, including the White House. The War of 1812 is an important milestone in American history, but doesn't f eature so prominently on this side of the Atlantic (sorry USA, but Britain was more concerned with the Napoleon, the enemy on the doorstep).

Proper historians in the USA, Canada and the UK have researched the events of 1812-1815 and written plenty of books about it. I can't compete with them, but a couple of weeks ago I gave a talk about some of the records of the war that can help genealogists. To be more precise, I was talking about records held in The National Archives, and there are lots of them, including plenty about the men who fought on the American side, not just the British.

The podcast of the talk was uploaded to the website earlier today - how's that for timing? I illustrated it with some documents, including the one below, the service of record of John Adams, an American from Philadelphia who served in the British Army.

From his physical description (on the second extract) it looks as though he was an African American. There are a few more of these, but most of the records relating to Americans are about the several thousand who were taken prisoner. Most of these are lists of names, some with more detail than others. This one is a list of American prisoners who were fever patients, taken from a Royal Navy surgeon's journal.

In a few cases you might find a detailed account of a poor American soldier or sailor who was not only unlucky enough to be captured, but was sick as well.

Many American genealogists are unaware of these records, but when they do see them they are pretty impressed. Better still, the names of the American prisoners from 1812 to 1815 are name-indexed, although unfortunately the index is not online. Oh well, maybe one day.

Shopping Saturday - Fortnum and Mason

This seemed like an appropriate choice for 'Shopping Saturday' this week, since the podcast of Selling history: the role of the past at Fortnum and Mason has just gone live on The National Archives website. The talk was given by the company's archivist, Dr Andrea Tanner, who has researched Fortnum's history extensively. Fortnum's is one of several businesses that can claim to be the oldest department store. Their foundation date of 1707 certainly beats all comers with regard to date, but it traded as a high-class grocer for more than three centuries, only adding clothing and household departments in 1925.

Of course, the first this the genealogist wants to know is 'Are there any staff records?', and, sadly, the answer is no. This is not particularly unusual, as you may already know if you have ancestors who worked in the retail trade; it is much easier to find out about the kind of work they did than the details of any individual person's service. But shops and shopping have always been a part of everyday life for everyone, or at least for someone in their family, so we all have some connection with shops. Realistically more of us are likely to be descended from the servants or employees of Fortnum's customers than from the customers themselves - it is a little on the exclusive side.

If you are in London the distinctive building on Piccadilly is worth a visit - even if you don't go inside, the building's exterior is very attractive, and when the magnificent clock chimes the hour, the figures of Mr Fortnum and Mr Mason come out, give each other a dignified bow, and then retire. You will find a brief history of Fortnum and Mason on their website, where you will learn that they were the first British retailer to stock Mr Heinz's exciting new product - baked beans! You can also see a video of Fortnum's world record-breaking scotch egg, and follow the progress of the Fortnum's bees in their roof-top hive via the Bee-cam.
 
 

Rootstech - this is what it was like

Rootstech was all about using technology, and you might think that this would mean that no-one would need to meet in person any more. Well the 3000 people who attended last month thought it was worth the trip, and my journey from London wasn't the longest by any means. Some of the sessions were streamed live, but if you missed them, you can now catch up by viewing some of the recordings online, courtesy of the Middle Peninsula African-American Genealogical & Historical Society of Virginia. Handy for those of us who were there too, because there were lots of sessions to choose from, and the technology hasn't been developed yet that permits us to be in two places at once. It should give you some idea of what it was like to be there.

Another way to get a flavour of Rootstech is to listen to the latest Genealogy Guys podcast. While he was at Rootstech, Drew Smith recorded interviews with a few people there, and the first three of these have been released so far. These do come with a health warning, though, because I will be featured in a future edition. You have been warned.

Enjoy 

Follow Friday - Podcasts

About a year and a half ago, I succumbed to the lure of Apple, and bought an iPod Touch. My old MP3 player was past its best, and I didn't use it much because the battery kept losing the will to live. I downloaded the iTunes software and started loading up my music (Note to Apple - if you want to convert non-Apple users,  iTunes software isn't the way to do it. Of all the Apple products I have come across, this is the least appealing). I thought I would listen to lots of music again, but then I discovered podcasts.

It's not that I didn't know about them before, I've even recorded quite a few - you can find a long list of podcasts, including mine, on The National Archives site. But I hadn't taken much notice of them before, and I had only listened to the occasional podcast on a computer, rather than downloading them. OK, this is one thing that iTunes does do quite well, although it's not the only way to download or subscribe to them.

These are my two favourites, first The Genealogy Guys podcast 'the longest-running, regularly produced genealogy podcast in the world'. George Morgan and Drew Smith produce a mixture of news, opinion and answers to listeners' questions every month, with occasional interviews, and sometimes they record a whole Q & A session with an audience.

For British genealogy, there is an occasional series on BBC Scotland 'Digging up your roots' with resident genealogist Dr Bruce Durie, Course Director, Genealogical Studies, at the University of Strathclyde.

But these are just two from about 50 podcasts that I subscribe to. Having acquired a taste for the medium, I wondered what else was on offer, and goodness, there's a lot! I subscribe to the podcast versions of BBC radio shows although not all 282 of them! Other radio and TV stations have their own selections, as do a number of newspapers. The obvious category to look for is history, but there are all kinds of other options - it's a good way of learning or practising a language that your ancestors spoke, but you don't. I have found some interesting city guides produced by my newspaper of choice The Guardian, which also has a weekly technology podcast, some of which I understand!

I have tried not to make this a commercial for iTunes, but it has a useful feature that shows you similar kinds of podcasts to any that you download, along the lines of 'If you liked this, you might also enjoy...' It also has a separate area called iTunes U, where you can download university lectures, and even whole courses. I have found some great stuff here, and have used it to fill the gaps in my historical knowledge. I particularly enjoy BackStory with the American History Guys, who have just produced a feature on the history of the American census, and the University of Warwick's Georgian Britain

There is a whole lot more out there to be discovered, and I haven't even begun to look at videocasts yet. They wouldn't be such a good idea while I'm driving, though!