Who do I think I am?

View from Anderston to Govan (featuring the 'Squinty Bridge')

In 2014 I did something I have never done before, and may never do again. I paid with my own money to attend a family history fair in the UK. I have attended every Who Do You Think You Are - Live in London and Birmingham, and before that, every Society of Genealogists Fair in London, as well as a number of local and national events. I was always a volunteer for one organisation or other, and since 2003 it has been part of the day job.

This was different. 'Who Do You Think You Are - Live!' was in Glasgow, the city of my birth, and where I have at least one line of ancestry back to the 16th Century. Both my parents, all four grandparents and five of my great-grandparents were born there too. So you can understand why I was keen to go. But despite my deep roots in the city, and elsewhere in Scotland, I don't mind admitting that I am much more knowledgable about English genealogy than Scottish. I like to think I have a reasonable working knowledge of Scottish records, but it is not where my expertise lies. So when I am in Scotland I am the enthusiastic amateur, and it is actually rather enjoyable being on the other side of desk for a change!

I had a wonderful time, I could suit myself and do what I wanted without looking at my watch all the time to see when I needed to be back on duty. The location of WDYTYA - Live!, the SECC, was also a happy coincidence for me. It is in an impressive setting on the banks of the Clyde, in Anderston to be precise, a district of Glasgow that is virtually unrecognisable from even a few decades ago. My father and many of his family were born there, and from my room in the Hilton hotel I had a view across the river to Govan, where my mother was born, as were many members of her family. So I could hardly have been more at home if I tried.

I have spent most of my life in England, and have no plans to move, but I have never for a minute identified myself as English; British yes, and Scottish, yes, but not English, much as I love the place and (most of ) the natives! I guess the acid test is 'Who do you support in a sporting contest?' My answer to that is that I support a Scottish team or contestant if there is one, and if it is a contest where teams or individuals compete on behalf of the UK or GB, then I root for the British team or person. In a contest where Scotland and England are both involved, I am all for Scotland, but if (and sadly, all too often when) Scotland are out, it's 'Eng-er-land' for me! I am not one of those who support two teams, Scotland, and whoever is playing against England. If you could have heard my father screaming himself hoarse as he cheered England on to victory in the 1966 World Cup, you'd know where I get it from.

Although I haven't lived there in over 50 years, I am very much a Glaswegian - you can take the girl out of Glasgow, but you can't take Glasgow out of the girl! In many ways I feel I have more in common with people from other cities than with other parts of Scotland, although I have ancestral lines from the rural Scottish counties and the Highlands too. I was also surprised to find just how much I felt at home in Ireland the first time I visited, long before I discovered just how mush Irish ancestry I have. But perhaps that is just a characteristic of family historians in general; we are always looking for something that we can identify with in people and places everywhere, to understand them better.

As a family historian I have discovered over the years that yes, I am very interested in my own family, and families that I have some connection with. But much of the time I am equally excited by the things that I find out about other people's families too. I have always been fascinated by all things historical, an in particular the 'what people did all day' kind of history. I am keen to know about the history of the places where I have lived, and where I live now (which I will write about another time). To get the most out of your family research you want to see where your people fitted in to their time and place, their communities and the wider world. That's why I want to know about the neighbours, and what they were up to, and what was influencing their lives. Or perhaps I'm just nosy.

Hidden treasures in FamilySearch

You may use FamilySearch by typing your search terms into the inviting-looking box on the home page, and then filtering the results. I sometimes do that, but most of the time I prefer to locate a specific resource and search within it. One of the main reasons for this is that I can keep track of what I have searched, and by extension, what I haven't searched. I don't just do this on FamilySearch, it's my preferred way of doing any online research. So I usually scroll down to 'All record collections' and select one of the ten regions (count them - TEN).

Since I mainly research within British Isles records, I then go straight to 'United Kingdom and Ireland' - so far, so good, and there are about 100 record sets to choose from. But many Brits spent time out of the country, inconveniently marrying, having children or dying while overseas. Records of these events can be very hard to track down, as they might be in a variety of places (or not recorded at all). This kind of research is never going to be easy, but there are some some very useful records in FamilySearch, if you know where to look. If, instead of clicking on 'United Kingdom and Ireland' (or any other region) you go to 'All record collections' you will see, on the right, a full alphabetical listing from Alabama to Zimbabwe, and on the left under 'Place' a list of eleven regions (count them - ELEVEN).

As well as the geographical groupings that you saw on the home page, there is also a category called 'Other'. I just love categories called 'other', 'miscellaneous' or 'supplementary' and so on. They are just begging to be explored, you never know what you are going to find there. In this case you will see the Family Group Records Collection, Archives Section 1942-1969', the old IGI and three 'World Miscellaneous'collections - Births and Baptisms, Deaths and Burials,and Marriages. Not only 'Other' but 'Miscellaneous' too! Unfortunately there is no easy way of finding out what registers or record sets are included, as each description contains the customary 'Only a few localities are included and the time period varies by locality.' If you follow the 'Learn more' link there is a coverage list which gives a little more detail. This varies from 'Connecticut, New London' to 'China', but still leaves over 300,000 entries under 'World miscellaneous'.

Lacking any more helpful detail, I used my fall-back tactic of searching for a common name to see where the results come from. Predictably, there are quite a lot of Smiths, more than 2500 results, in fact. The results on the first page are from China, New Zealand and Romania. Some of the China entries contain the useful extra descriptive information 'British Consulate', but to find out the actual source you need to dig a little deeper. If you expand an entry you  may find some extra details, but the really useful one is the 'source film number', right at the bottom. This is enough to locate the  film you need at a FamilySearch Centre (or Center, depending on your continent) or the Family History Library but you want to know what you are going to be looking at, right?

You can find this out using the Library Catalog (or Catalogue, depending...etc) and I usually have this open in another window or tab to save time. Under 'Search for' select 'Film numbers' and away you go. I searched for film number 1494353 from a 1904 baptism entry in Bucarest,

There are two registers on this film, here is the full description of the second one, Consulate Registers 1851-1948:

By now you have done an awful lot of clicking, but it is well worth it, for any entry on FamilySearch, not just the 'Others'. The Notes section tells you where the original is held, and in this case it also gives the document reference. This is what you should include in your source citation, noting of course that at this stage you have looked at a (partial) transcript, and not the original. As I expected, these registers are in the Public Record Office - now The National Archives (TNA). The document references are helpful, FO 625/2-4, 6 if you want to view the originals at The National Archives,which may be more convenient for you than a FamilySearch Centre (it is for me, but then I work there!). I you are unfamiliar with the referencing system, the above is not a single reference but four - FO 625/2, FO 625/3 and so on. 

A number of Consulate Registers are indexed in FamilySearch, though by no means all of them, but I haven't figured out a sure-fire way of working out exactly which ones are included. The 'search-by-Smith' technique isn't guaranteed to find everything. I found these records by accident because I like exploring, and although you might find an entry for your ancestors using the 'Search everything then filter' method, you might not. 

Apart from the Consulate Registers there are some other useful resources for the British overseas, or at sea in these World Miscellaneous collections. There are lots of entries from the major collection of Church of England overseas chaplaincy registers, formerly held at Guildhall Library, but now at the London Metropolitan Archives  and much more besides. Why not have a look, who knows what you might find?    

Isles of Wonder - some connections

I don't know what other countries made of Friday's Olympic opening ceremony, but we Brits loved it (well, most of us did). It was full of surprises, it was funny, crazy, and very British. Naturally I was pleased that there was so much history in it, and I liked it when the tone was set by Ken Branagh (from Northern Ireland, but has an English accent) quoted Shakespeare (English, but set an awful lot of his plays in Italy) while dressed as Isambard Kingdom Brunel (a Great British Icon who was half French).



From The Girl's Own Paper 1894

 The ceremony celebrated, among other things, our National Health Service, of which we are very proud. In particular it featured Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) the world-famous hospital for sick children. Founded in 1852 is almost a century older than the National Health Service which dates only from 1948. It was the first hospital in the English-speaking world devoted entirely to the treatment of children, and its history is well-recorded, not least in its own museum and archive (open by appointment only) and The complete history of GOSH on its own website. Since 1929 it has benefited from the copyright of J M Barrie's 'Peter Pan', published in 1911 in book form and in 1926 as a play, donated to the hospital by the author during his lifetime.

According to the Hospital Records Database most of Great Ormond Street's records are held in its own Museum and archives services with a small number at the London Metropolitan Archives. However, for family historians the most useful records are the Admission and Discharge Registers which are online as part of the excellent Historic Hospitals Admission Records Project which also includes the records of the Evelina Hospital, the Alexandra Hospital for Children with Hip Disease (both in London), and Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Glasgow. This database is well worth searching, and if you register you can use a number of advanced search features. Best of all, it is completely FREE!

Some thoughts on the 1940 census

The release of a new census is always an exciting event. Even if it another country's census you can still join in the excitement. Like many other Brits I have 'cousins' in the USA, so I had a personal interest in the 1940 census, as well as my general interest in all things genealogical.

There are some interesting comparisons to be made between US and British census records, but the first thing that struck me was that the (near) instant availability of images with no indexes was rather a good thing. There have been so many advances in recent decades in the way that records are made available to us that it can make your head spin; so much basic genealogical source material is not only online but name-indexed that we can easily take it for granted.

When I started doing family history research the way to find someone in the census was to establish the address where you hoped they would be on census night, and search there. If you didn't find them there, you trawled the surrounding area until you found them (or not). There were place indexes but not many name indexes. Do I want to go back to those days? Of course not. But there was one big advantage of doing it the hard way; you had no choice but to look at the town or village where your ancestors lived. You might notice in passing some other family members that you wouldn't have gone looking for, and you get a sense of the ancestors' immediate surroundings. In short, you see your family in context. Looking for people in 1940 is a little bit like that, where you can find someone if you know where they were living then and are prepared to take the trouble .

Millions of people certainly tried, and I could tell from messages on Twitter and in blogs that at least some of them succeeded. It wasn't really surprising that not everyone could get through or view images in the first few hours. This always happens when there is a really big online release. The demand is always huge in the first hours or days, well in excess of the number of the hits  the site will get on a daily basis after that. It strikes me that if a site was equipped to accommodate everyone who tried to use it on day one, it would be massively over-resourced as soon as the initial rush subsided; rather like cities that have hosted the Olympics and then find themselves with an oversized airport and too many hotels. Frustrating as it may have been, the fact that some people were able to find and download pages, rather than sites crashing altogether has to be encouraging.

Like many other people I had to give it a try on 2 April, and like many of them I couldn't get through to the image I wanted. I had another go early next morning (GMT) while most of America was asleep, and it worked like a charm! I found great-great-great-uncle Robert in the small town in Minnesota where I knew he'd be. When America woke up again things seemed to have calmed down, and since then people have been finding people at a furious pace. All the images are online, on one site or another, and the first indexes have appeared. Pretty impressive for a country the size of the USA, and in less than a week.

We can get awfully impatient, we 21st century people, but as genealogists who deal in decades and centuries we should be capable of taking a more long-term view, we really should. Amy Coffin (whose We Tree blog is always worth reading) hit the nail on the head when she said on Twitter 'Ok people, you're allowed 3 complaint tweets about the #1940census, then you have to take a chill pill. Pretty generous if you ask me.' (Also well worth following on Twitter @ACoffin).

Having found my own relative in the 1940 census, and a few others I am interested in, I started making my contribution to the common good by logging on to FamilySearch Indexing and transcribing some pages. This is a novel feature of this census, that it is the subject of a massive collaborative project between NARA, Archives.com, FamilySearch and Findmypast.com. This is feasible with American records because the images are freely available for anyone to use, unlike in the UK where the images are Crown Copyright. So you can also find the 1940 census images on other sites, Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.com (who produced the first online index, for Bristol County, Rhode Island). The race is on, and it's fascinating to watch.    

 

England and Britain are not the same - and why it matters

St George's Day is a good day to remind the world (including England) about this. The terms 'England' 'Britain' and 'UK' are often used interchangeably, but be warned, this can lead you into all kinds of problems. And I don't mean the risk of incurring the wrath of the Scots, Welsh, Irish, Manx and Channel Islanders.


For the genealogist, or any other researcher using British records, it is really important to know the difference, or you could be looking in the wrong place, or failing to look in the right one, which is just as bad. If you are not from the British Isles you may find this confusing; you are not alone. It's not just that some English people say England when they mean the UK, and vice-versa (and I have even heard history professors do this, and they really should know better).

I found a file among Home Office Correspondence in The National Archives (ref: HO 45/7928) which contained a petition, together with the official response. I transcribed both documents and placed them on the Your Archives wiki site, so you can read A Protest against The Name England being imposed upon the United Kingdom for yourself. See what you think.

A century and a half on, confusion still reigns. I am trying to do my bit, and in a couple of weeks I shall be delivering my talk 'What is Britain' at the NGS Conference in Charleston, South Carolina. I have previously given it in Florida, Massachusetts, Virginia and Utah, so after Charleston that will only leave 45 states to go...

I am being sponsored by FamilySearch to deliver this and another talk, and I am very grateful for their support. I have also recorded a shortened version of 'What is Britain' which can be viewed on the Research Courses page. At the risk of biting the hand that feeds me, I see they have filed it under 'England Research', presumably because there is no 'UK' or 'British Isles' Research section. Oh well. I have commented on this before in my earlier posts on the way that FamilySearch now describes records from the British Isles.

I won't go into any more detail here, but for a good online account see Uniting the Kingdoms.

I enjoyed seeing the flag of St George around London today. I think it looks better on a flagpole or a building than draped around tubby shaven-headed young men with lots of tattoos and no neck, but that's just my opinion.  

New FamilySearch, a view from the British Isles Part Three

Great Seal of Queen Anne 1707, commemorating the Act of Union of England and Scotland

Since my last post on this subject, I have been taking another close look at the collections in new FamilySearch that were formerly categorised as 'British Isles'. The fundamental problem with these records is that the place filters simply do not work. Unless this is sorted out, it will be very difficult for anyone searching British Isles records - England, Scotland, Ireland (North and South), Channel Islands, Isle of Man, or United Kingdom - to find what they are looking for, or even to know what is there to be searched in the first place. Some of the issues I have raised relate to this region, the one that I know best, but could apply equally to others; you can't filter by US state or Canadian province, which is just as bad as not being able to filter by county within the British Isles. But the way that the records here have been categorised is unique.

These lists don't match!

On the home page, scroll down to 'Browse by location' and select 'Europe'. You will see a list of 'countries' on the left, and a list of record collections on the right, in country order. The list of the left corresponds with the list on the right - up to a point. The list of countries on the left reads: Austria, Belgium, Channel Islands, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France ...and so on. The record collections mirror this exactly as far as Denmark, then the next collections are not from Finland, but England, which does not appear at all in the left-hand list.

The list on the left continues...Germany, Gibraltar, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland...but the right-hand list has Germany, Gibraltar, Great Britain, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy...etc. More record collections, this time for 'Great Britain' which have no counterpart on the left. The two lists continue in step almost to the bottom, where the last four countries listed on the left are Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom and Wales. Now if you look to the right-hand list of record collections, there is only Switzerland, Ukraine and Wales, the 'United Kingdom' record having been distributed, inaccurately, between England and Great Britain.

This discrepancy between countries and record collections ONLY occurs in relation to the British Isles records, and nowhere else in the whole of the Historical Records collections.

Collections in the wrong place

I have already mentioned some of the anomalies in my earlier posts, New FamilySearch, a view from the British Isles Part One and Part Two. There is a filter for Wales, but it contains only Probate Abstracts 1773-1780; the major collections of Wales, Births and Baptisms, Wales, Marriages, and Wales, Deaths and Burials are found within the United Kingdom filter. Also within the United Kingdom are the Great Britain collections: Great Britain Births and Baptisms, Great Britain Marriages and Great Britain Deaths and Burials. I had looked at these before, and found that they included some Irish records - all of Ireland used to be part of the United Kingdom, and part of it still is, but it has NEVER been part of Great Britain. The Irish Sea is in the way! Great Britain is the geographical term for 'the other island' as one of my Irish friends calls it.

Further investigation shows that the baptism register of St Peter's, Athlone and Drum, Roscommon, is included in Great Britain Births and Baptisms, which contains the baptism register of the Immaculate Conception Chapel, South Orange, Essex New Jersey! I also found a number of entries there from the Irish Civil Registration indexes. Naturally, I have reported this using the Feedback facility.

Overseas Records

There are in fact many more records classified as 'Great Britain' which do not belong there. These are not records that have been mistakenly put in the wrong place by someone with an imperfect understanding of British geography. These come from substantial collections of records which are held in London, but whose whole point is that they record events that took place OUTSIDE the British Isles. These comprise many thousands of events recorded in British churches and chapels overseas, or registered with British consulates, embassies and legations abroad. The original records are held at The National Archives in either the Foreign Office or General Register Office collections, or in the Bishop of London's 'International Memoranda' at the London Metropolitan Archives. A further large  collection of births, marriages and deaths at sea, held at The National Archives, is also included in 'Great Britain' by FamilySearch.

These records are not just relevant to researchers with British Isles ancestry; they include people from all nations, particularly the 'At Sea' records which include many records of foreign nationals who were passengers or crew on British-registered ships. They may be included here because they are held in British archives, but records from the India Office Collection, held at the British Library, are correctly indexed by FamilySearch under India, so we know it can be done. Time to hit the Feedback button again...

New FamilySearch, a view from the British Isles Part One

I don’t wish to be an old stick-in-the-mud, but when something new comes along, it isn’t always an improvement. Having said that, there are lots of good features in new FamilySearch, but sadly, there are quite a few flaws too. The optimist in me thinks that it should be possible to tweak and amend it so that more of the good features of old FamilySearch are re-introduced, or even improved on. We shall see.

There have been some very useful comments and observations from other bloggers; if you don’t already subscribe, I’d strongly recommend The Ancestry Insider as one of the best on this subject. I agree with much that has already been said, but I want to add some observations of my own from a British Isles perspective.

You will notice that I said British Isles, and not just ‘British’, and this is deliberate. Many people use the terms ‘British’ and ‘English’ interchangeably, but they are not the same, and it’s important to know the difference. It’s not just a question of courtesy to the Scots (most of me), the Irish (the rest of me), the Welsh, Manx and the Channel Islanders; if you are looking for records of your ancestors, it saves time if you look in the right country, it really does.

One of the most useful features of old FamilySearch is the way you can filter searches by place, and much of this has carried over to the new site BUT for this corner of the world it has become much worse.

Old FamilySearch

You need to select the IGI search page for this (you can only filter down to Country level from the All Resources page)

Region: British Isles

Country: England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Isle of Man or Channel Islands, or you can leave it at 'All countries'

County: you can select a county, or 'All counties' or 'county unknown', except for the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, which are very small to start with

New FamilySearch

Under Historical Records, 'Browse by location'

Region: Europe

Country: Channel Islands, Ireland, Isle of Man, Scotland, United Kingdom, Wales (There is no collective British Isles category)

County: 'No further place filters found'

There are a number of obvious problems with this. First of all, there is no option called 'England', and no way to search all of the British Isles records at once, you have to search each one separately. If you look closely, the databases in 'United Kingdom' are mostly from England, but they include 'Wales Births and Baptisms.1541-1907', 'Wales Deaths and Burials 1586-1885' and 'Wales Marriages 1541-1900'. Wales has its own country category, but this only contains 'Wales Probate Abstracts 1771-1780'. If you then explore the actual databases listed within the 'United Kingdom' category, there are three (apart from the Welsh ones I have just described) that are not excplicitly English, these are the 'Great Britain' categories for Births and Baptisms, Marriages, and for Deaths and Burials. These, as you might expect, contain mostly events in England, but there are also a great many events which took place abroad or at sea - go to 'Great Britain Births and Baptisms 1571-1977', enter 'Florence' in the Place box and you will see what I mean. I have also found a number of Irish baptisms in the same category. Incidentally, 'Great Britain' is not the same as either 'England' or 'United Kingdom', and definitely does not include Ireland.

I will return to this subject again, but this is enough for now. I am still trying out the new site and there are features that I haven't explored properly yet. I have used the Feedback button to report my comments, and I do have some positive things to say about new FamilySearch too, but my first concern is with these place filters. FamilySearch as an organisation has been kind enough to sponsor me to speak at this year's NGS Conference in Charleston South Carolina in May; one of the sessions they have asked me to deliver is a favourite of mine called 'What is Britain?' It would be nice to think that some of the software engineers might pay attention to what I have to say.