Targeted searches on Ancestry

Posted on 7th Aug 2019 by English Ancestors

In a previous post we looked at the usefulness of hints as a way of finding records, as well as at the difference between Ancestry and Find My Past, in terms of the quality and focus of hints.

What I want to move on to now is searches instigated by you, the researcher. We’ll look at this over two posts, this week focusing on Ancestry, and next week on Find My Past. In each post we’ll consider searches in the following order:

A general search from an ancestor’s profile page
A general search from the top menu bar
Narrower searches, focusing on a particular category of record
Focusing right down on one particular record set.

What I’d like to draw to your attention is that, by increasingly taking control of what your search focuses on, you’re increasing the level of your own research. You’re saying ‘I already know all about X, Y and Z, but I have a gap around A and B, and this is what I want to try to find out.’ This moves you on to intermediate level genealogy.

By the way, you can follow a lot of what is written here by working through it on Ancestry even if you’re not a subscriber. Obviously, you won’t be able to see the actual records.

And finally – just to say – if you already know all about general searches and homing in on categories, skip to point 4. There might still be something new for you there. 🙂

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In Ancestry then, let’s start with the kind of search most of us do when we’re just starting out as genealogists, or indeed when we’re just starting out with a new ancestor:

1. A general search of all records from an ancestor’s profile page
To do this, simply click ‘Search’ from an ancestor’s profile. The search engine draws upon all the information you already have about your ancestor, using this as filters. However, Ancestry treats all that information as ‘approximates’, resulting in years, places and even names on suggested records that are often way off beam. It might also default to ‘Search all collections’ – including all overseas records as well as the UK ones. And if you try to tighten up the search by moving the sliding scale to the right (see image below) to confirm you really do mean this exact surname, this exact place and year, more often than not it will tell you no matching records can be found.

So, from the profile page of my GG grandfather John Groves, a standard ‘Search’ automatically incorporating the search filters shown in the box to the left, returns 93,311 possible records. Even if I change the filter from ‘All collections’ to ‘UK and Ireland’ only, I still get 34,360 possible records. And whizzing down the first page of these 34,360 records, only two of them are correct.

2. A general search from the top menu bar
Go to the top menu bar on the screen, click on Search, and select Search All Records from the drop-down menu. Sticking with John Groves, but this time typing in his name, birth year, birth place and place of residence, instead of allowing the search engine to copy over the info from his profile page, this time I’m offered a whopping 352,536 records from ‘All Collections’, or 127,706 if I amend the collections to ‘UK and Ireland’.

3. A narrower search, focusing on a particular category of record
Those first two searches have their uses, but I think we’ll all agree that a way of narrowing down would be useful. We can start to do this by focusing on a particular category of record. Again, we can do this from two places on the website:

If we’ve already started the general search by clicking through from our ancestor’s profile page, immediately below the search filters box to the left of the Ancestry screen we’ll see a list of categories. Click on any one of these categories and you’ll see further options. e.g. Click on Census and Voter Lists, and you’ll be offered a selection of decades to home in further; click on Birth, Marriage and Death, and you can select which of these three you’d like to focus on, and after that even specific record sets, and so on.

If, instead of starting with your ancestor’s profile page, you start your search with the drop-down menu at the top left of the screen (the place where we did that second type of general search, above), it works a little differently. Now, depending on which of the categories you choose from the drop-down menu, you’ll be asked to input slightly different information. For census searches you’ll be asked for name, birth, where they lived and details of family members; whereas for a military search the information required is just name, birth, death and likely years spent in military service. Even though the number of records returned is still excessive, I find these more targeted searches a useful way of getting to the right record.

4. Focusing right down on one particular record set.
But there’s an even more focused way to search, and even if you already knew all of the above, this is something you may not know about. You can actually search individual record sets. The way to access these is from the drop-down search menu on the top menu bar. Click on Search, and then from the drop-down menu select the second option up from the bottom: Card Catalogue. This is where you can really get to know Ancestry’s record collections, find the ones more likely to help you and even develop your own favourites! (Yes, I know that sounds very nerdy.)

So, you’ve clicked on Card Catalogue, and you have this screen (above) in front of you. As you see, you can still use filters (down the left) to help you home in on the record sets most likely to be of use to you. And if you know the full name of the record set you want, simply type that into the ‘Title’ box. You can then search just that record set.

But you can also use the keyword search, and this is really useful. Try typing the name of a town or city of interest to you in that box. If the town name doesn’t return any records, try the county. Or you could also try specific words, such as ‘apprentices’ or ‘railway’ or ‘prison’. Spend some time playing around and see what you can find that might be useful to you

This is one of my favourite functions on the entire Ancestry website, and some of the greatest breakthroughs in my family research have come from homing in on specific record sets and searching them to death! My two very favourite record sets are Leeds, England, Beckett Street Cemetery, 1845-1987 – which includes so much information about the deceased that I never have to buy death certificates for ancestors buried there; and West Yorkshire, England, Select Apprenticeship Records, 1627-1894 – which includes many of my ancestors from the period and gave me a lot of insights into how apprenticeships worked in Leeds at the time, as well as helping to work out extended family relationships in one of my lines. These are unlikely to become your favourite sets, of course, but wherever your ancestors were based, I hope you find something that will help you.

You can explore the Card Catalogue even if you’re not an Ancestry subscriber. Something to bear in mind if you’re thinking of taking out a subscription and can’t decide which provider to go with.

Annie Elizabeth: marital relations masterclass continued

Posted on 19th Jun 2019 by English Ancestors

In my last post we left James having bigamously gone through a marriage ceremony with Margaret in 1872. Margaret and James were leaving Leeds for Manchester. Annie Elizabeth and her new man, John William, remain in Leeds and by 1881 there have been five more children, although four of them have died. The family provisions business in the centre of town is doing very well. However, contrary to all appearances, they are not married. Annie Elizabeth is, in fact, still married to James. And this wrankles.

Facts: divorce petition
On 22^nd February 1881 Annie Elizabeth swears an affidavit as follows: that she was married to James in 1866 and had borne his child; that in February 1872 he had gone through a second marriage ceremony with Margaret; that this pretend and illegal marriage had been consummated; that James had committed adultery on that day and on diverse occasions since; and that he had deserted her without just cause, ever since leaving her destitute. As Annie Elizabeth picks up the pen to sign this as a true version of her sworn affidavit, she is seven months pregnant with her seventh child by John William. The divorce petition is officially filed the following day.

James does not contest the charges. The Decree Nisi is awarded on 5^th July 1881 on the basis of adultery plus bigamy. The hearing, reported over the following two days in newspapers in London, Leeds and Manchester, does include the true reason for James’s absence (7 years penal servitude). However, the detail surrounding his release is economical with the truth: ‘In 1871 he was returned to Leeds, but instead of going home he went to the residence of another woman […] whom he afterwards married…’ ‘Severe comments’ are made on the conduct of James’s sister Mary Elizabeth who had been present at both marriages. The Decree becomes Final on 17^th January 1882.

Analysis
The hypocrisy, injustice and cruelty of this petition shocked me. James had a great deal to lose, and although it’s true that he had bigamously ‘married’ another woman, he did so in the knowledge that Annie Elizabeth was with another man and had a child. In other words, Annie Elizabeth had already committed adultery long before James did.

Only by understanding the contemporary grounds for divorce, was I able to make my peace with Annie Elizabeth. Until 1923 a woman could bring an action for divorce only on the grounds of adultery combined with an aggravating factor, e.g. bigamy, cruelty, desertion. Annie Elizabeth had no alternative but to cite bigamy and desertion alongside her claim of adultery. She was, even so, taking a huge risk: as petitioner for divorce her behaviour must be seen to be unblemished. Any petitioner found also to be an adulteress/ adulterer would be denied the divorce. Having by now given birth to six of John William’s children, there could be no doubt that Annie Elizabeth was also an adulteress.

The fact of having the finances to file for divorce also sits uneasily with the claim that Annie Elizabeth has been left destitute. Although the Marital Causes Act of 1857 had opened up the possibility of divorce to all, the cost of obtaining one remained out of the pocket of the vast majority of people. The location of the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Court in London meant that petitioners had to be willing and able to pay travel and living expenses for themselves, as well as respondents and any witnesses.

*****

Facts: Freedom to remarry
Annie Elizabeth and James are now divorced and free to marry. James, having not contested the divorce, does not celebrate any change in his marital status by legally marrying Margaret, although the two of them will remain together for life. It also seems there is no trial against him for bigamy.

For Annie Elizabeth and John William, however, the divorce enables them to put their life together in order. Thanks to the relative anonymity afforded by life in a large, industrialised town, it would have been easy to disguise the fact that they were unmarried. However, a marriage at this late stage might not go unnoticed. They therefore marry in Halifax, on 23^rd January 1882. Annie Elizabeth’s marital status is correctly recorded as divorced, but a Halifax address is given as her residence.

Analysis: Why is James not prosecuted?
The criminal act of bigamy (regulated by the Offences against the Person Act 1861) is dealt with separately from the citing of bigamy as grounds for divorce. By this time the granting of divorce on grounds of bigamy did not necessarily lead to a separate criminal prosecution. It is, in any event, not in Annie Elizabeth’s interest to have the facts open to further scrutiny.

*****

Facts: Domestic Violence
Back in Leeds, Annie Elizabeth and John William have had more children. By 1886, excluding George, there have been ten live births, although five of these have died. All is not champagne and roses…

In March 1887 John William is arrested and charged with having assaulted Annie Elizabeth on three occasions by striking and kicking her. On 1^st and 2^nd April, three Leeds newspapers carry reports of the hearing against him for domestic violence. John William, ‘a respectably dressed man’, is said to have recently been frequently drunk. His attitude does not endear him to the court: ‘When asked if he had anything to say, the accused replied in a flippant manner, “I have not been my own man. It’s never too late to mend, is it?”’ The magistrate grants a separation order. John William is fined £5 and ordered to pay Annie Elizabeth 15s per week.

The separation is temporary. By March 1888 Annie Elizabeth and John William are reunited, since their final baby is born 31^st December of that year. At the time of the 1991 census they are still together.

Analysis
The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1878 enabled magistrates to grant protection orders to women who were victims of violence from their husbands. These protection orders differed from ‘judicial separations’, which were granted in the High Court. However, they amounted to the same thing, giving the woman custody of the children, and frequently including a requirement that the husband pay a regular sum of money to the wife.

*****

I hope this has helped you to see how, by reading around the subject, using the two books by Rebecca Probert, I was able to make sense of this very complicated series of situations Annie Elizabeth found herself in. I wouldn’t do this amount of work for all my ancestors, but as I’m sure you’ve found for yourself, some of them leap out as having more to say.

As for Annie Elizabeth, John William dies in 1898, leaving her a further 28 years in which she seems, sensibly, to have decided enough is enough. No more marital relations!

Annie Elizabeth & James: a marital relations masterclass

Posted on 12th Jun 2019 by English Ancestors

In this post and the next we have a case study in two parts: a sort of marital relations masterclass courtesy of my ill-starred biological GG grandparents. I used Rebecca Probert’s books Marriage Law for Genealogists and Divorced, Bigamist, Bereaved to help me clarify the legalities. I hope it will help you to look at any marital inconsistencies with fresh eyes. You’ll also see how understanding the law and context of events can (sometimes!) help you see them from the viewpoint of your ancestors.

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The marriage
15^th Jan 1866: James and Annie Elizabeth are married at St Peter’s church, Leeds. It’s likely they have known each other only a few weeks: James is not long out of prison, having been sentenced in April 1865 to 8 months for larceny. Both give their age as 18, but Annie Elizabeth is not quite 15½. Their only witness is James’s older sister, Mary Elizabeth. James and Mary Elizabeth sign; Annie Elizabeth (who we shall see from later documents is literate) only makes her mark.

Analysis: Is the marriage legal?
From the perspective of age?
Yes. Until the Marriage Act 1929 the minimum age for marriage was 12 for girls and 14 for boys. (After that Act it was raised to 16 for both.)

From the perspective of lack of parental approval?
Being under 21, both Annie Elizabeth and James were minors. Not until 1970 would the age of majority be reduced to 18. However, marriage after banns did not require an active, public statement of parental approval. Rather the dissent of parents during the three-week period of the publishing of the banns would prevent the ceremony from going ahead. Here, there was no voiced dissent, therefore the marriage was not invalidated by lack of consent.

From the perspective of elements of deceit?
What if James thought Annie Elizabeth was 18? What about the fact that Annie Elizabeth was able to sign and yet didn’t? The issue here would seem to be around the concept of ‘knowingly and wilfully’ failing to comply with the law, a concept introduced by the 1823 Marriage Act. However, if it wasn’t a problem in the eyes of the law that Annie Elizabeth was just 15, then it’s likely that even if James thought otherwise this would not be an issue. Similarly, although Annie Elizabeth may have been trying to distance herself in some way from the event by not adding her signature to the paperwork when she could have, a ‘mark’ was sufficient for the law. In any case, we don’t know if Annie Elizabeth did deceive James; and even if she did, the fact remains that the marriage was not contested. It is therefore valid.

*****

Two lots of nine months
4^th June 1866: James is brought before magistrates at Dewsbury, charged with stealing a horse. He is also ‘wanted’ in Leeds for another similar crime. On 4th July he is found guilty and sentenced to seven years penal servitude.
At the time of the arrest Annie Elizabeth is about 4 months pregnant. The baby, George, is born in November 1866. By this time, James is serving an initial nine months under the ‘Separate’ system at Wakefield Convict Prison. Designed to ‘break’ new prisoners, this involved keeping the individual in solitary confinement, allowing them to see and speak with only the prison warders. Possibly he doesn’t even know he has a son.
By the time George is baptised in July 1867, James’s nine months under the Separate system are over and he has moved south for the next stage of his sentence. Meanwhile, aged just 16, Annie Elizabeth is facing life as a single parent with no support, alongside the expectation that she respect the sanctity of her condition as a married woman.

Analysis: What are Annie Elizabeth’s options?
Could the marriage be annulled on the grounds of the falsifications?
No. And to attempt to rely on them now could be an admission of perjury.

Might she have considered remarriage?
There was great confusion at the time about the seven-year rule under which if, after a period of seven years of no contact the abandoned partner genuinely believed their spouse was dead, the marriage could be considered at an end. Many focused only on the ‘seven years’ aspect of this rule, believing they were safe to marry after seven years living apart. But a remarriage in such circumstances is always bigamous. It would not have been a legal option for Annie Elizabeth.

*****

2^nd April 1871: the census
James is an inmate at Chatham Public Works Prison.
Meanwhile, back in Leeds:
Little George has a new surname and is listed with his aunt Mary Elizabeth (she who witnessed the marriage) and husband.
Annie Elizabeth is eight months pregnant and listed as the wife of John William. When their baby is born the following month, she will be baptised as the illegitimate daughter of Ann Elizabeth whose ‘absent husband was transported 5 years ago’.

Analysis: adoption and adultery
At some point between George’s baptism in July 1867 and the census of April 1871, George has been adopted by Mary Elizabeth and her husband. This suggests he was given up by his mother either because she couldn’t support him, or because the new man in her life refused to support the child of another man. Prior to The Adoption of Children Act of 1926, such informal adoptions in England and Wales were the norm.

Has Annie Elizabeth committed a crime?
Not so many decades earlier, Annie Elizabeth and John William would have been hauled before the church courts and punished severely for adultery and fornication. However, they have not gone through a marriage ceremony, therefore their relationship is not bigamous, and therefore no criminal act has occurred.

*****

James returns
14th December 1871: A Licence is signed for James’s early release: a reduction of 19 months for good behaviour. He returns to Leeds. Does he believe Annie Elizabeth will be waiting for him? Is he shocked to find her with another man and new baby? Or perhaps the last 5½ years have provided time enough for James to reflect on past errors, and he now wishes to move on with his life?

Analysis: What are James’s options?
Legally, James and Annie Elizabeth are still married. However, it’s complicated: their son is now settled as the child of his sister and her husband, while Annie Elizabeth is living with another man, with whom she has a baby. James has two legal options: to ask Annie Elizabeth to return to him, and presumably to accept her child as his own, or to divorce her.

Since 1858 (Matrimonial Causes Act 1857) divorce has been available in England and Wales. From the perspective of the husband, the only ground for divorce is adultery, which in this case can easily be proven. On the other hand, petitioning for divorce is far too costly for a labouring man, newly released from prison. It is out of the question.

*****

What James actually does
14th February 1872: James marries Margaret. Given the time lapse since his release from prison, they cannot have known each other more than a few weeks. James gives a false name for his father. The address given for both on the marriage certificate is Mary Elizabeth’s, where little George, now aged five, also lives. No doubt James is aware of George’s true identity.
After the ceremony James and Margaret move to Manchester.

Analysis: What crimes has James now committed?
Legally, James has not remarried; rather he has ‘gone through a second marriage ceremony’. It is that which is the definition of bigamy. The ‘marriage’ to Margaret has no legal standing at all, and children born of that marriage will be illegitimate.

However, in ‘going through a second marriage ceremony’, James has not only committed the crime of bigamy; he has also violated the conditions of his Licence, which stipulate that he ‘abstain from any Violation of the Law’. Any violation would result, in addition to any new sentence, in reimprisonment for the remaining months of the original sentence.

*****

The story continues next week…

Marriage Law for Genealogists

Posted on 5th Jun 2019 by English Ancestors

Last month I reviewed Rebecca Probert’s book Divorced, Bigamist, Bereaved. Today’s book, Marriage Law for Genealogists, is by the same author. The contents are pretty much summed up in the subtitle: ‘What everyone tracing their family history needs to know about where, when, who and how their English and Welsh ancestors married.’ Dealing with marriage law from 1600 to the present day, it applies to our English and Welsh ancestors only because English law doesn’t extend to other parts of the United Kingdom.

The first edition of this book pre-dated Divorced, Bigamist and Bereaved, and you might think it would have made sense for me to read and review them in that order too. However, I had urgent divorce and bigamy knowledge requirements (which I will outline in next week’s post, a sort of marital relations masterclass provided courtesy of my natural GG grandparents…)

Rebecca Probert is a rare thing: a Professor of Law, the leading authority on the history of the marriage laws of England and Wales, and also a keen genealogist. She is therefore able to debunk a number of common misunderstandings relating to marriage that have been published in other genealogy texts, and she does that in the first chapter.

One of the most important things I’ll take away from this book is the central point that the authorities actively wanted couples who wished to marry to be so. There were indeed severe punishments for ‘fornication’, including excommunication (not to mention the eternal punishment in the hereafter), fines, the stocks and whipping. Marriage was also central to the operation of the Poor Law, in the sense that a wife and all legitimate children took their father’s settlement rights at birth. Illegitimate children, on the other hand, took the settlement not of their mother, but of the parish in which they were born. A destitute, unmarried family, therefore – even if the father were present – could be resettled in (i.e. sent back to) several different parishes – the father to his, the mother to the parish of her birth, and the children each to the parish in which they were born. Legitimacy of children was also an important factor if there was property to be shared out after the death of the parents: illegitimate children (even if the parents remained together) would not inherit. Younger, legitimate offspring would easily succeed in an action preventing the passing of a share of an inheritance to an older child born before the parents’ wedding. It wasn’t until 1926 that children could be legitimised retrospectively by the eventual marriage of their parents.

So they are the downsides of not marrying; but what I hadn’t realised was that the Law would bend over as far backwards as possible to ensure that those who did go through a marriage ceremony would indeed be considered married, even if the ceremony fell short of certain statutory requirements. These are dealt with over four chapters:
Who your ancestors married – including mental capacity, bigamy, divorce, same-sex marriage and the ‘prohibited degrees’;
How they married – including banns, licences, civil marriages and non-Anglican religious marriages;
When they married – including age restrictions, parental consent, and restrictions/ preferences for time of day, year and days of the week;
Where they married – including ‘clandestine’ marriages, with reasons for marrying in another parish, marriages at The Fleet, and marriage of English/Welsh nationals in other parts of the world.

I must admit that as I was reading this, at times I wondered what to do with the information I now had. My concern is with the life and times of my ancestors, not with the impropriety or voidability of a happy union. Take as an example the section on ‘prohibited degrees of kinship’ (chapter 3). Contrary to popular belief, English Law has never forbidden marriage between cousins. However, other close relatives have fallen within the ‘prohibited degrees’, and of course some still do. These include siblings, parent/child, grandparent/grandchild and marriages between uncle/aunt and nephew/niece. But prior to the first half of the 20^th century the rule didn’t stop there: historically in the eyes of the church, upon marriage a husband and wife became ‘one flesh’. Consequently, the in-laws were as much a part of one’s family as one’s own parents, siblings, etc. Therefore in the event of the death of a spouse, remarriage to one of the in-laws from the above categories was also considered incestuous. Whether such a marriage would be void, voidable or even valid, depended on the year in which the marriage took place – the rules changed several times over the centuries. As it happens I do have at least two marriages in my tree that fall within the prohibited degrees on account of remarriage after the death of the first spouse to an in-law. In one of these, I took the fact of being prepared to marry for a second time within the same family as evidence of a good relationship between my great grandmother and her mother-in-law, particularly as my grandmother was named after that mother-in-law (my GG grandmother). So a happy thing. I now understand that legally these marriages were void – as though they never happened, and any children of the union were illegitimate. However, it seems no-one realised, and they died still ‘married’ and probably blissfully unaware that they had been living in sin these past decades. Really, then – what difference does it make, other than as a saucy bit of gossip – which doesn’t interest me anyway?

I then realised I was looking at this the wrong way. The usefulness of knowing about such rules is to help us to troubleshoot. Yes, these two couples in my tree ‘got away with it’ and no harm was done. But what if your 4xG grandfather Robert marries Sarah and then six months later marries Mary? No possibility of divorce, no burial record showing for Sarah. Is Robert a bigamist? He may be, and it’s also possible that Sarah’s burial record has been lost or mis-transcribed. But this book gives us the information to be able to think of other possibilities – an annulment, perhaps? If we know of the rules around void and voidable marriages, when we see something that doesn’t sit easily, we can use our knowledge to start to explore what might have happened. In this example we could look to see if the marriage might have been within the prohibited degrees, or perhaps there was another reason for an annulment.

One thing I’ll now be exploring is the possibility that some of my missing marriages may have taken place in a different part of the country. Evidence presented in chapter 6 shows that a surprising number of couples married out of their county of residence, or at the very least in a different parish, perhaps because of a family connection with that parish.

So, to conclude, this is a very useful book, but one you have to work at, and not aimed at beginners. Not only is it a harder read than Divorce, Bigamist, Bereaved, but also following through on the information presented will require a fair bit of research and thinking outside the box. That said, it has already resolved a few questions for me; and with an idea of what to look out for, it will be a useful addition to my bookshelf when I need to consult for the detail.

Click the book cover image to find the book on Amazon.co.uk
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1752: the year the calendar changed

Posted on 29th May 2019 by English Ancestors

The Julian calendar was introduced in 45BC by Julius Caesar. Based on a solar year, it had twelve months, but a miscalculation of 11 minutes resulted in a leap year formula that overcompensated to the extent that every 128 years, a whole day was added. By the 16^th century, astronomical events such as the equinoxes and solstices were falling ten days early, and since the timing of Easter was linked to the vernal equinox, it was increasingly becoming removed from its proper season. To overcome these problems, in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII introduced the ‘Gregorian’ or ‘New Style’ Calendar. Not all countries followed suit immediately. In fact it wasn’t until 1927 when Turkey finally made the switch, that everyone was on board. However, since the change-over involved cutting ten days from one month in the first year of adoption of the new calendar, countries that didn’t change over were ten days ahead of those that did.

It was in 1751-52, following the Calendar (New Style) Act of 1750, that the UK (and British dominions) adopted the Gregorian calendar. By this time the UK calendar was eleven days out of sync with the astronomical events and seasons, and these days were removed in one fell swoop in September 1752. In that year, September 2^nd was followed by September 14^th. Many of our ancestors were distinctly unhappy about the loss of eleven days. There was a genuine fear that their lives would be shortened by that number of days. They were also concerned at the interference with the Church calendar, particularly with the moving of Easter, and on top of all that they objected to the imposition of what they viewed as the ‘popish’ calendar. This may or may not have resulted in the ‘English Calendar Riots’ of 1752. Many historians today view them as a sort of Georgian urban myth.

However, the removal of the eleven days was not the only important change to flow from the Act of 1750, and it is this other aspect that impacts upon us as genealogists. Prior to 1752 the English year began on 25^th March. This was Lady Day, one of the four Quarter Days, the others being Midsummers Day (24^th June), Michaelmas Day (29^th September) and Christmas Day (25^th December). I first learned of Lady Day while studying Tess of the d’Urbervilles for English Literature A-level – it was the day tenancies changed and rents were due; and Tess, with her recently widowed mother and siblings, were evicted from their cottage.

Before 1752, then, December 31^st and the next day, January 1^st were in the same year. The year continued until March 24^th after which, on March 25^th, the new year would begin.
The 1750 Act provided for a changeover involving the following series of steps:

31^st December 1750 was followed (as usual) by 1^st January 1750, and 24^th March 1750 was followed by 25^th March 1751.
1751 was a short year, running from 25^th March to 31^st December, then December 31^st 1751 was followed by January 1^st 1752.
Finally, with the removal of the eleven days in September 1752, September 2^nd of that year was followed by September 14^th.

For us as genealogists it’s the period between 1^st January and 31^st March in each year before 1752 that can confuse. If you look at any parish register before this time you’ll see for yourself that the recording year did indeed start on 25^th March and end on the 24^th. So if your ancestors married on 1^st April 1632 and their first child was born on 1^st February 1632, that child was born ten months after the marriage, not two months before it! You might also have come across unlikely coincidences in record sets such as the birth of Elizabeth to parents James and Mary on 15^th January 1732, and another Elizabeth to the same parents on 15^th January 1733. What really happened is that one transcriber amended the date to the Gregorian calendar and the other didn’t.

Historians and genealogists can get around this confusion by using a technique called ‘double dating’. Any date after 25^th March is recorded as usual (e.g. 1^st April 1632). However, any date from 1^st January to 24^th March is recorded in a way that recognises its position both within the Julian and the Gregorian calendars: e.g. 1^st February 1632-33, or 1^st February 1632/3. If you’ve already got your research back to these earlier parish registers, you may decide to use this system. However!!!! the online trees find it difficult to cope with. After asking you repeatedly if you’re sure this date is correct, it will accept it but only show the earlier of the two years in the person’s profile. Be strong! It’s your tree! 😀

One final aside….
There’s another important side-effect of these changes, and one that remains with us today. Formerly, being the start of the year as well as the first Quarter Day on which rents were due, Lady Day was also the start of the English tax year. However, with the loss of the eleven days in September 1752, it was deemed appropriate to delay the collection of taxes to April 5^th, thereby avoiding the loss of eleven days of tax revenue. That’s why, following another tweak to the calendar in 1800, the UK tax year starts on the surprising date of 6^th April. And after a quick revision online, I now see that the date in Tess of the d’Urbevilles is ‘Old Lady Day’: 6^th April. Is this an indication that a hundred years after the event, rural England hadn’t fully embraced the new calendar, or did landlords move the day rents were due to coincide with the new tax year…?

Finding Registration Districts and Parishes

Posted on 22nd May 2019 by English Ancestors

In my last post I wrote about the different records produced by parishes and Registration Districts (RDs) in relation to births/baptisms, marriages and death/burials.

We’ve talked about parishes in recent posts, and the importance of their secular role alongside the spiritual. We’ve also noted the existence of RDs in several past posts. But what exactly is a Registration District?

In England and Wales, RDs came into being on 1^st July 1837. Until 1930 they were responsible for the registration of births, marriages and deaths. The RDs didn’t always coincide with county boundaries, so they were grouped into ‘Registration Counties’. This 1888 map of England and Wales shows counties, Registration Counties and Registration Districts.

If your ancestor lived in a big town or city, the RD might be quite obvious, e.g. Norwich. However, some very large towns and cities were too big for just one RD. What we think of as Leeds, for example, comprised several RDs over the period 1837-1930.

Since the introduction of civil registration closely followed the creation of Poor Law Unions, established by the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, it was the boundaries of the Unions that became the boundaries for the Registration Districts. For a while the RDs even included the word ‘Union’, so you may come across an ancestor’s BMD registration at e.g. ‘Sevenoaks Union’ or ‘Dudley Union’. This does not mean your ancestor was born or died in the workhouse. The ‘Union’ part was dropped in relation to civil registration around 1860. In fact this apparent link to the ‘Poor Law’ had deterred many people from taking advantage of the new possibilities for civil marriage in the Register Office. RDs and Poor Law Unions were all abolished in 1930, by the Local Government Act 1929, and their responsibilities transferred to the county councils and county boroughs.

You can find Registration District boundaries very easily, on the UKBMD website.
Click on the county of interest, e.g. Yorkshire West Riding.
Then on the RD, e.g. Hunslet.
At the top of the page you’ll see information about when this RD was created, the area it covers and where the registers are now held.

I’ve chosen Hunslet for a reason… It has to be said that some of the boundaries appear to have been drawn up by crazy people! For a brief period, from 1845-1861, Hunslet seems to have been created as a sort of ‘miscellaneous Registration District’, including many unlikely villages that were later thankfully reorganised to more suitable RDs. You can see all the changes in a table at the bottom of the page. I was completely thrown on one occasion by a birth that seemed to have taken place simultaneously in Hunslet and Horsforth. Shortly after the time of that birth, Horsforth was, very sensibly, passed to the Wharfedale RD. It was this UKBMD web page that helped me untangle it all.

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So now you know where to look for RD boundaries, you might also appreciate a similar resource for parish boundaries. There’s an excellent map resource available through FamilySearch.
Enter a location in the search box, e.g. Bilston
If there’s more than one place of that name, all will appear. Click on the one you need, e.g. Bilston Staffordshire.
The parish will be pinpointed on the map, showing its boundaries, and an Info box lists other places within that parish, the dates from which Parish Registers and Bishop’s Transcripts are available, etc.
Jurisdictions provides information relating to the County, Diocese, ecclesiastical Province, etc that Bilston falls/ has come within. You’ll also see that the RD and Poor Law Union are shown, which in this case are Wolverhampton. So we now know that BMDs will be registered there in Woverhampton, not at Bilston.
Options suggests other things you can do on this page, e.g. obtain a list of neighbouring parishes.

A very useful source, I think you’ll agree, particularly as our research takes us further back in time. Note though, that the jurisdictions given are as at 1851. We already know that some RDs changed their boundaries after this time (e.g. Hunslet). Other changes included the creation of new parishes as populations increased. E.g. Killingworth, mentioned in my last post as the burial place of Jonah Shepherd, was still part of the parish of Longbenton in 1851, only becoming a parish in its own right in 1865, following the development of the local coal mining industry. So always remember – Google is also your friend!

Untangling places, parishes and Registration Districts

Posted on 15th May 2019 by English Ancestors

Jonah Shepherd was born in Yorkshire but in the late 1850s moved with wife Alice and daughter Jane to Germany. They were still in Germany in 1872 when Jane married. However, around 1873, Jane and her new German husband moved, first to London and then to Northumberland, after which their lives are well-documented. Jonah’s German-born son, Christopher, is also to be found in Northumberland, in records from 1881 onwards. But Jonah and Alice seem to disappear. The only (online) indication that Jonah may have returned to England is several death records in Northumberland in 1889.

Bearing in mind that the last positive placing of Jonah was 17 years earlier in Germany, my only reason for thinking he may be in Northumberland is that his adult children are there. The search is complicated by the fact that the series of death records I see are all in the same year but in different places: Tynemouth, Killingworth, Longbenton. Could any of these be the man I was looking for, and if so, which one?

The answer is that they are all correct. Killingworth (St John) is the church where Jonah was buried. Before 1837 (pre-civil BMDs) the parish would have been the only place where his death (burial) was recorded. But since 1837 the death is officially recorded at the relevant Registration District, and in this case that was Tynemouth. Longbenton was the actual place of death given on public online trees by other people researching this family, but without further information I still couldn’t be sure this was my man. Hoping that a known family member would be recorded as the informant, I sent for the death certificate, and I was in luck: Jonah’s son Christopher registered the death. But I had another surprise too: Jonah actually died in yet another place: Dudley, which falls within the Longbenton sub-Registration District (where the death was actually registered), the Killingworth ecclesiastical parish and the Tynemouth Registration District!

One person, one death, four places of death; and all of them correct, depending on the focus of the record.

You may be absolutely certain that your ancestors lived in Village ‘X’, but the actual parish may be centred on an adjacent village ‘Y’, and it is here that, prior to 1837, the main BMB (Baptism, Marriage, Burial) record will be recorded. Of course, even after 1837, people were still baptised, married and buried in churches, so you’ll still need to be aware of the connection between your ancestor’s abode and the nearest parish. However, any such religious rites will now form a (very useful!) secondary record: since 1837 the introduction of civil BMDs means that the official record of all Births, Marriages and Deaths will be under the Registration District within which the event took place.

So which place should we record? I record them all, but in slightly different places. This is how I do it:

For civil birth and death registrations after 1837:
I copy the information directly from the General Register Office website. I then paste this into the notes section of the birth or death event on that person’s profile page, amending it by inserting the word ‘age’ for deaths, and the phrase ‘mother’s maiden name’ for births. So this is what it says for Jonah:
SHEPHARD, JONAH, age 60. GRO Reference: 1889 M Quarter in TYNEMOUTH Volume 10B Page 147

However, if I do buy the certificate or if, through any other means (e.g. cemetery record, family documents), I know the actual residence at time of birth/death, I record that as the person’s place of birth/death. For Jonah this is ‘Dudley’, or ‘Dudley, Longbenton’.

Parish records:
These generate a new event relating to a religious rite:

a baptism, which is not the same as the birth,
a marriage (plus banns),
a burial, which is not the same as death.
(Note: If you’re lucky, the vicar will also have recorded the actual date of birth or death, and you can insert these into the appropriate place on your ancestor’s profile.)

For these BMBs, I record the place where the event took place, and below that, in the event notes, I record any other information to be found on the relevant record. For example:

Joseph Lucas was baptised at Mill Hill Chapel in Leeds in 1754. That’s the place I record on the baptism event, and it would be tempting to record ‘Leeds’ as place of birth. However, the record itself reads: ‘Joseph ye son of Nathaniel Lucas and Sarah, of Woodhouse’. I transcribe this and add it to the notes for the baptism. This now also becomes evidence for Joseph’s actual place of birth, which is not Leeds as the baptism record set might have us believe, but Woodhouse (now very much part of Leeds, but in 1754 this was a separate village). Woodhouse and Leeds are less than a mile apart, and some might think this is splitting hairs, but having this exact place of birth information for Joseph helped me solve a mystery relating to his origins and later apprenticeship and marriage.

All this applies whether the parish record is dated before or after 1837. After that year you might use a combination of these parish and civil records to end up with several places, as I did with Jonah, but the basic fact remains that they can all be separated out:

Joseph’s place of birth was Woodhouse, and his place of baptism was Leeds, Mill Hill Chapel.
Jonah’s place of death was ‘Dudley’ or ‘Dudley, Longbenton’, his place of burial was Killingworth Saint John, Northumberland, and his death was officially recorded at Tynemouth.

In my next post I’ll share some really useful online resources to help you find parishes and Registration Districts, and to work out their boundaries.

The many historic parishes of Norwich (and other fine cities)

Posted on 24th Apr 2019 by English Ancestors

Years ago, someone told me Norwich had 52 churches (one for each Sunday of the year) and 365 pubs (one for each day of the year). An interesting fact I probably would have thought no more of, had it not been for discovering my own ancestral roots in that beautiful city.

My 3xG grandfather, Thomas, was from Norwich, and it was there that he met and married my 3xG grandmother (not a local). They had five children before moving to Yorkshire, where a further nine children would follow. In the 1861 census their daughter Emily, now in Leeds, gave what at first I considered a strange response to the question about place of birth: ‘Norfolk St Martin Norwich’. A church…? Why on earth would she give as her birthplace the name of the church where, presumably, she was baptised?

I suspect some of you will already know the answer – particularly if you have ancestral or other connections to historic towns like Winchester, York and Exeter. But to me it was a puzzle; and to find the explanation we first have to go back to the 11^th century. It seems towns which developed at that time tend to have many small parishes, while those developing just 100 years later are more likely to have one large parish.

Norwich dates from Saxon times. At the time of the Norman Conquest it was one of the largest towns in England with a population of over 5,000. When the city walls were built (1280-1340), enclosing an area a little over one square mile, the population had increased to 10,000 people. And yet, records show that there were around 58 churches – far more than required to accommodate the worshipping needs of a population that size. A fascinating map, created using contemporary documents, shows the original churches of Norwich existing during the 13^th century or earlier.

This was of course before the English Reformation. The Church of Rome had taken hold, but the old ways of thinking were not yet forgotten. This preference for many parishes may be explained by the practice of cults of specific saints, each bringing protection in the event of specific circumstances. Hence the greater the number of saints venerated, the greater the protection. Note too, the number of churches dedicated to Anglo Saxon or Celtic saints – e.g. Edmund, Etheldreda and Ethelbert (actually East Anglian), Cuthbert, Swithun. There is comfort and strength in familiarity.

Those pre-13^th century churches are not the same buildings that exist today. Their present-day counterparts were mostly built in the 15th century. I’ll say more about them in a later post, but an 1819 map shows that they were built on the same sites and tended to retain the same dedications. As you can see, as at 1819, only 36 churches are shown. Several had been demolished in the 16^th century. Prior to that there had at one time or other been as many as 63. The number of pubs given in that old local saying is inaccurate too: there were, at one time, more than 500. So, for balance, I give you an 1892 Drinker’s Map!

Of course none of this explains why my 3xG aunt Emily felt the need to record the scene of her baptism on the census.

The answer is all connected with the topic of my last post: the parish. If I had only known it back then, Emily was flagging up that, at the time of her birth – 1829 – it was the parish that had responsibility for recording the population, and in so doing it exercised not only spiritual but also secular control. In Norwich, as in Lincoln and York (47 parishes each), Oxford (20 parishes), Exeter (29), Thetford (22), Winchester (57), Canterbury (17) and the City of London (a whopping 126 parishes in the square mile!) it really would have mattered which parish you had been born in, or had in some other way since birth achieved legal ‘settled’ status. It was the parish where you had settlement rights that had a duty to provide if you fell on hard times. Even though my 3xG aunt Emily had long since left Norwich, it would have been natural to think of her origins not in the city as a whole but in the Norwich parish of St Martin at Oak.

That list of towns in the paragraph above is not exhaustive. You may have ancestral ties to another town with a similar parish arrangement; and if so, what follows applies to your research too.

For us as genealogists, there are two points to come out of this:
The first is a bit of a pain. It was the individual parishes that kept records, and these records are still arranged at county record offices by parish. Therefore if you find yourself in the local archives looking for 18^th century records relating to an ancestor from Norwich, York, Lincoln, Exeter, London, etc you may have to look through many sets of parish records before you find them. (I do indeed have an ancestor known only to have been born in ‘London, Middlesex’, circa 1816….. horrors!) Even if you have information, if your ancestor moved around within the city, you may have to look at the records of several parishes.

The second point is much nicer. Clearly, these parishes covered a very small, if densely populated, geographical area. In the absence of records with street names and addresses, through these various sets of parish records we can see more or less where our ancestors lived at different stages of their lives. Hence I can use baptism, marriage and burial records to see that my 4xG grandmother, Hannah, was born in Norwich in St James Pockthorpe, was living in St Peter Mancroft when she married, and thereafter lived in a total of five parishes all within a quarter of a mile of that, eventually dying in the parish of All Saints.

One final point – and maybe it’s just me – but I love the names of these old churches! They tell us so much about the history of the place, from the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic saints outlined above; to St Mary Unbrent: properly called ‘St Mary in combusto loco’, or ‘in that part of the city burnt in the great fire of 1004’; to St John Maddermarket – one of my favourites, since it refers to the market selling madder and other natural dyestuffs for use in the local production of woollen cloth.

PS. I’ve started a new category with this post: Intermediate genealogy skills, since I think if you get to the stage of researching parish records in the county archives you’ve definitely moved on from Beginner. Whatever stage you’re at in your family research – happy hunting!