Plenty of Tech, what about the Roots?

Rootstech 2012 is only a few weeks away, and I am one of (doubtless) thousands of people planning to attend. Rootstech 2011 was an amazing event, and expectations were running high for the next one, bu then came news of a bizarre decision by the organisers to exclude booksellers and other non-tech vendors from the exhibit hall.

I first became aware of this through a posting on Leland Meitzler's GenealogyBlog where he quotes from a message he received from the Exhibit Hall Co-ordinator:

RootsTech exhibit hall is for technically related products and services. We are purposefully not accepting applications from genealogical studies, book publishers, book resellers or arts and crafts dealers.
Please call to discuss if you like.

I am as puzzled as anyone at the reasoning behind this announcement. First of all, I'm not alone in believing that the point of Rootstech was to bring together genealogy and technology, so restricting the Exhibit Hall to technology exhibitors only is bizarre, to say the least.  There might be some justification if space were at a premium, but this is definitely not the case where the Salt Palace Convention Center is concerned. One of the ways to make an event successful is to have vendors that appeal to your attendees' demographic, even if their goods or services are not directly related to the event; for example, vendors at Who Do You Think You Are? Live have included conservation charities, travel agents and further education providers as well as family history organisations and vendors. Furthermore, it is a basic retail principle that half of the battle is getting people through the door in the first place; if you want to entice nervous or reluctant technology users to the shining path of the digital future, it's a good idea to lure them in with something from their comfort zone.

At the same time, the smart vendor will tailor their pitch to the expected audience so that those who only sells books will go heavy on technology-related titles, and those who also deal in gadgets and software will adjust their selection accordingly. Who knows, seeing at first hand the appetite for technology in the genealogy market might encourage encourage 'old-fashioned' booksellers to expand into e-publishing or software, for example. Win-win, surely?  

Then there is the matter of simple courtesy. If the Rootstech organisers want to exercise their undoubted right to exclude certain kinds of vendors (wrongly, in my opinion), then they have chosen the wrong way to go about it. You only have to look at Leland's blog and the comments posted on it to understand the unfairness of the short notice given to potential exhibitors, leaving aside any questions of tact and diplomacy. You have to plan a long way in advance to attend as a delegate, let alone a vendor. Hotels have to be booked well in advance and often pre-paid to get the best deals (the main Rootstech hotels sold out ages ago), and possibly and inventory needs to be ordered. Many vendors will have applied for their booths as soon as they could, and already invested time and money in preparation for the biggest genealogical gathering of the year. They stand to suffer real financial losses as a result of this high-handed pronouncement.

Two of the Rootstech Official Bloggers responded promptly to the news with a combination of disbelief and condemnation, Dear Myrtle and Genealogy's Star. Since I started writing this, I have seen further posts from  We Tree, Geneabloggers (two more of Rootstech's Official Bloggers) and Paula's Genealogical Eclectica, and doubtless other that I haven't picked up yet. The message is loud and clear - Think again, Rootstech. It seems that they have now undertaken to 'revisit the issue'. I should think so too.

I am saddened by this episode, since everything about Rootstech 2011 was so positive, and a sour note has now been injected into what should have been an even greater event. Still, there is time for Rootstech organisers to retrieve the situation. We all make mistakes, and shouldn't be ashamed to admit them and learn from them. I hope that in a couple of months we will look back on this as a temporary blip, or even better, have forgotten about it in the excitement of a second Rootstech even more successful than the first.

I am not one of the Official Bloggers, but as a Rootstech presenter I have received a complimentary registration for the event. I would have attended anyway, and I agree wholeheartedly with Paula
Stuart-Warren who entitled her blog post 'Don't boycott Rootstech 2012'. I hope we are participating in a practical demonstration of how massed ranks of genealogists can use social media to great effect. 'Occupy Rootstech', perhaps?

Shopping Saturday - 'Death in the pot'

We shop today in supermarkets, but many of us remember with fondness shopping from an earlier age; going to the local greengrocer, the butcher, the ironmonger and so on. Perhaps too much food now is processed and packaged. On reflection, drop the 'perhaps'. There is no doubt that much that is good has been lost as our shopping habits have changed. But the supposed good old days that our ancestors knew as they passed the time of day with cheery shopkeepers was not an entirely sunny picture.

Modern mass-produced processed food may be dull, but if you buy a packet of flour you can reasonably expect it to contain flour, not chalk, and that your tea will not be used leaves dried and re-sold as new. We take for granted all the consumer law that protects us from inferior or even harmful ingredients in our food, but this was not always so.

One of the first investigators to conduct a detailed study into the adulteration of food and drink was the chemist Friedrich Accum, who published ‘A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons Exhibiting the Fraudulent Sophistications of Bread, Beer, Wine, Spiritous Liquors, Tea, Coffee, Cream, Confectionery, Vinegar, Mustard, Pepper, Cheese, Olive Oil, Pickles, and Other Articles Employed in Domestic Economy and methods of detecting them’ in 1820. Snappy title. Although these practices were widespread, they were hard to detect since techniques of chemical analysis were not sufficiently developed. The next really significant contribution was the work of Arthur Hill Hassall, whose research in the 1850s continued what Accum had begun, starting with an examination of coffee samples. He also showed that the microscope was a serious research tool, particularly useful in identifying foreign vegetable matter, and insects, living and dead. Where Accum had published the names of vendors who were prosecuted for selling adulterated goods, Hassall went one stage further and published the names of everyone from whom he had bought samples, and whether or not they proved to be contaminated. It is interesting to note that none of the offenders succeeded in suing him. 

As a result of Hassall’s work, a Parliamentary Commission of Enquiry was set up and the first Food Adulteration Act was passed in 1860. This was revised and greatly strengthened by a further Act in 1872. However, like Accum before him, Hassall did not have universal support; the publishers of ‘Enquire Within Upon Everything’ accused him of exaggerating and scaremongering, for example. Others agreed, and pointed out that most adulterants were not actually harmful in themselves, such as water and flour in milk. This is true enough, but the consequences could still be devastating if it was fed to babies. In 1856 Chambers’ Journal pointed out that some of the responsibility must lie with the consumer who demanded cheap and varied food, with no questions asked. In general, however, the tide of opinion was with him, and food became somewhat safer as a result. One of the best illustrations of this is that manufacturers began to appeal to the public desire for pure and wholesome food through their advertisements. Many claimed that their products were endorsed by Dr Hassall, which may or may not have been true, and emphasised the virtues of their uniform production and packaging, of the ‘None genuine without this signature’ variety.

There is a detailed article on the subject on the Royal Society of Chemistry site, and Accum's 1820 book can be downloaded from Google Books.

 

Those places Thursday - Collins Illustrated Guide to London

This is one of my favourite books, and one of my best bargains - it cost me £4.50 more than ten years ago. It contains some good illustrations, which I always like to see, and some gems of information for the tourist in the 1890s (the book isn't dated, but from the contents I have inferred that it must have been published around then).

Descriptions of the main tourist attractions make up most of the book, but there are sections on transport, including fares, suggestions for daily itineraries, and numerous appendices. These list hotels, lodgings, restaurants, picture galleries, theatres, music halls, concert rooms, billiard rooms, chess rooms and other places of interest.

There is also a long list of public baths, and the addresses of the embassies and consulates of various foreign countries, and the rates of exchange between their currencies and the £ Sterling. A dollar was worth 4s 2d, the equivalent of nearly $5 to the £ (if only!). The dollar in question could be from the US, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Chile, Peru or the West Indies, they were all worth the same.

The frontispiece is this general view of Westminster, showing the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, but most of the illustrations inside are of individual buildings or monuments. Most of the attractions listed are still popular with visitors today, like the British Museum, Kew Gardens the National Gallery and the great cathedrals. Others have disappeared, notably the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, destroyed by fire in the 1930s, while others still exist, but no longer fulfil their original function, such as Covent Garden market and the Record Office. This last is one of two entries that may be of interest to the genealogist:

'The search rooms are open from 10 to 4, on Saturday from 10 to 2, every week-day, except Christmas-day to New Years-day inclusive, Good Friday and the following day, Easter Monday and Tuesday, Whit Monday and Tuesday, the Queen's Birthday and Coronation-day, and days appointed for public fasts and thanksgivings. Every visitor must write his name and address in a book kept for that purpose.'

The other place of interest is Somerset House:

'In Somerset House are several Government Offices, among which is the Registrar-General's department, where are recorded all the births, deaths and marriages that occur in the kingdom. These may be searched over any period not exceeding five years on payment of a fee of 1s, and a certified copy of any entry supplied for an extra fee of 2s 7d. The collection of wills has been removed hither from Doctors' Commons any one of which may be perused on payment of a fee of 1s.'

Smithfield Market

 

Shopping Saturday - an advent calendar

Just in case you don't have enough online advent calendars to play with already, here's another one, this time with a retail theme. It's from the House of Fraser archive at the University of Glasgow.

The archives will be launching a new online catalogue to the House of Fraser collection after Christmas, so we have a retail event to look forward to that doesn't involve either venturing to the shops or spending money. Can't be bad.

 

Cause papers 1300-1858: disputes in the north of England

Cause papers in the diocesan courts in the Archbishopric of York, 1300-1858 is a searchable catalogue of more than five centuries' worth of papers relating to cases in the church courts. The Advanced Search allows you to search by name, place, type of case, occupation and more. The cases dealt with in the church courts included matrimonial and testamentary disputes, defamation and matters of moral conduct. They also heard cases regarding church affairs such as tithes, church rights and benefices.

York Minster

The database includes the names of everyone involved in each case, witnesses, proctors (ecclesiastical lawyers) as well as the parties in dispute, and even the names of the testators in disputed will cases. Occupation or status is also given, and in the case of witnesses, their ages too. Sometimes there is a brief abstract of the case, or, even better, you can view and download scanned images of the papers themselves. If there are no images to download, you can order copies from the Borthwick Institute, where the records are held. you are also encouraged to contribute to this ongoing project by adding abstracts of the cases or by editing existing ones.

These records are a terrific source for family and local historians. not only are they full of names, they also give a glimpse into the daily lives of people who may be otherwise unrecorded beyond their baptisms, marriages and burials. Some of the cases involve large numbers of people, such as the 1753 case involving brawling in church at Newark on Trent, Nottinghamshire; Edward Grave, the churchwarden, brought the case against John Atkinson, a fellmonger, and no less than 17 witnesses were called. There are 43 pages of proceedings to download and read, which are fortunately very legible - some of the earlier ones present more of a challenge, but there is plenty of help to be had, such as The National Archives resources for Reading old documents.

All the places referred to in the cases are indexed, and they extend well beyond area over which the diocesan courts of the Archbishopric of York had jurisdiction. For example, the case of Edward Bailey, colonel in the West Middlesex Militia in 1812, includes many references to addresses in London. All places referred to in the cases are indexed, and they can be very detailed indeed, right down to street addresses in towns and field names in the countryside.

This is a site that is well worth exploring, especially if your ancestral interests lie in England's northern counties. Even if there are no cases of specific interest, it gives you an indication of just how detailed and interesting court records can be. They are largely unexplored because there are not many name indexes, without which you would have no inkling that an ancestor was ever involved in a court case.