If you’ve got Irish ancestors, you might be interested in knowing that the Irish Civil Registration Indexes from 1845-1958 are now online at Family Search.

The following announcement was written by the Guild of One-Name Studies:

Prospective students can pay and enroll via the Pharos website – www.pharostutors.com at a price of £42.99. The Guild of One-Name Studies will also be offering free membership to the Guild for the remainder of the financial year for all non-Guild members who sign up for this course.

The course is suitable for all genealogists who have an interesting or unusual surname, or who wish to research their surname in greater depth.  It will also be of significant interest to existing one-namers.  

Helen Osborn, Managing Director of Pharos Teaching and Tutoring Ltd, said today

Cliff Kemball, Guild Treasurer & project mentor for Pharos courses, said today: 

Family Pursuit announced the following yesterday:

Provo, Utah, Jan. 14 – Family Pursuit, a leader in online collaborative genealogy research tools, today announced the release of Private Family Trees. Designed specifically for collaboration, this unique wiki-based website is now available for private use for the genealogist who is looking for a better way to work with others. Family Pursuit’s private family trees allow researchers to share not only conclusions, but their ongoing research, sources, extractions and theories with those invited to join the trees. They are the perfect solution for sharing research with the entire family, interacting with other family genealogists, or working within a family organization or one-name study.

Some of the collaborative tools available for private family trees include:

• Inviting an unlimited number of family members to join a private tree
• Organizing and sharing ongoing genealogy research
• Creating and assigning tasks
• Sharing research logs and extractions
• Adding living individuals
• Keeping all information about living and deceased individuals private
• Involving and mentoring family members
• Participating in family discussions
• Receiving notifications of changes made by tree users
• Rolling back and forth any change made by any user
• Advanced merging and unmerging

Along with these new private trees, Family Pursuit continues to offer its Community Tree which has been created for genealogists to share research with the genealogy community to reduce duplicate efforts, accelerate research, and network and connect with distant relatives.

“We have found that many genealogists feel more comfortable working privately with those they already know. A Private Family Tree offers this security,” said Mike Martineau, founder of Family Pursuit. “When genealogists feel confident in their research conclusions, they will be able to easily copy their conclusions to the Community Tree for others to view and add to. A Private Family Tree also allows the inexperienced genealogist to be privately mentored by more knowledgeable relatives. We are excited to offer a bridge between those who are overwhelmed by the amount of research and those who want to help but don’t know how. We look forward to continuing our progress in developing these important tools, and being a part of bringing more people into the work.”

About Family Pursuit

Started in 2004, Family Pursuit, a Provo, Utah company, provides web-based applications to accelerate family history work by providing a framework for genealogy researchers to work together in their efforts and to easily share their ideas, theories, research and conclusions. Family Pursuit enables genealogy enthusiasts to involve family members who have never engaged in family history work, bringing families together in sharing the rewarding experience of researching, exploring, and creating a personal understanding of their heritage. Visit www.familypursuit.com for more information.

For a few days over the Christmas period, FindMyPast.com in association with The National Archives made parts of the UK 1911 census available to its customers on its website www.1911census.co.uk.  This was a teasing introduction to the official launch on 13th January 2009.  

It is exciting for genealogists that this census has been made available earlier than usual but not all of the scanning of the census returns has been completed yet.  They hope it will be by the summer.

It is expected that the website will be very busy at first, and FindMyPast have taken a number of measures to make sure that as many people as possible can get their searches completed successfully including restricting some search functions and only allowing census pages to be downloaded rather than viewed directly on the site.  You will need to purchase credits to view the results of your census searches.

Counties available at launch:

Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, Derbyshire, Devon, Dorset, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, London, Middlesex, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Rutlandshire, Shropshire, Somersetshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, Worcestershire, Yorkshire West Riding

Counties not available for launch but coming soon:

England:
Durham
Cumberland 
Northumberland
Westmorland
Yorkshire – East Riding and North Riding

Wales:
Anglesey
Brecknockshire
Carnarvonshire
Cardiganshire
Carmarthenshire
Denbighshire
Flintshire
Glamorgan
Merionethshire
Montgomeryshire
Monmouthshire
Pembrokeshire
Radnorshire

Other:
Isle of Man
Channel Islands
Royal Navy
Overseas Military Establishments

About the 1911 census

The 1911 census for England and Wales was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April, 1911. The count included all individual households, plus institutions such as prisons, workhouses, naval vessels and merchant vessels, and it also attempted to make an approximate count of the homeless.

What is in the 1911 census?

In common with the censuses that preceded it, it recorded the following information:

• Where an individual lived
• Their age at the time of the census
• Who (what relatives) they were living with
• Their place of birth
• Occupation

Also, depending on an individual’s circumstances, additional information could include:

• Who their guests were on the night of the census
• The number of servants they had (if any)
• Whether they were an employee or employer
• Details of nationality
• Duration of current marriage

In response to government concerns the 1911 census also asked additional, more specific questions to each household, about fertility in marriage and occupational data.

Prior to 1911, the household schedules were destroyed once the details had been transferred into the enumerators’ summary books. But for the 1911 census both sets of records have been preserved, which means you can see the census documents filled out in your ancestor’s own hand (complete with mistakes and additional comments), in addition to the edited version in the enumerators’ summary.

At launch the household schedules (original household pages), plus their transcriptions are available. The enumerators’ summary books will go online six to eight weeks after launch.

The 1911 census and the suffragettes

Frustrated with the government’s refusal to grant women the vote, a large number of women boycotted the 1911 census by refusing to be counted.

There were two forms of protest. In the first, the women (or their husband) refused to fill in the form, often recording their protest to the enumerator. In the second, women evaded the census by staying away from their home for the whole night.

In both cases, any details relating to individual women in the households will be missing from the census.

For the family historian the active refusal to fill in the form (accompanied by a protest statement) at least registers the presence of a woman/women in the household, whereas the women who evaded the count are simply untraceable via the census.

The exact number of women who boycotted the census is not known, though some people have estimated that it may be as many as several thousand.

Ancestry UK has published The UK Medical Registers provided in association with the General Medical Council. This database contains annually published books listing all of the names of doctors who were licensed to practise in the United Kingdom and abroad from 1859-1959. Also included are foreign doctors who qualified in Britain. Although these books were published annually, registers have only been digitised on 4 year intervals.  This database contains images of original records.

Ancestry.co.uk has digitised the trade directories from 1677 to 1946 and from tonight will be available online. 

The directories were compiled by surveyors who would knock on doors to gather information and it didn’t cost anything to be listed. The directories were initially compiled for London, with the first UK-wide directories published in 1820. The English County Directories contain particularly detailed information, listing amenities such as churches, hospitals and schools as well as information on local history, industry, transport and agriculture.

Individual listings vary from the standard occupations of the day such as chimney sweeps, dress makers and greengrocers to more bizarre roles such as leech importers, weapons dealers and beast preservers.

You will be able to find many of today’s well-known names: the first shops of Charles Henry Harrod (Harrods), John Boot (Boots Chemists), William Henry Smith (WH Smiths) and John Cadbury (Cadburys) are all included as are the first outlets of Marks & Spencer, Dixons and Woolworths.

The UK City and County directories were eventually replaced by other media such as the BT Phone Books.

Olivier Van Calster, Managing Director of Ancestry.co.uk said:

‘This collection of directories is unique in that they cover 250 years of the UK’s social and commercial history and include many famous names that can still be found on the High Street today.

‘Because the collection spans most of the UK and just about everyone will be able to discover something of relevance – whether it’s what their ancestors were doing hundreds of years ago or how their hometown has changed across the centuries.’

By Emily Andrews, Daily Mail 7th January 2009

Press release from Ancestry UK:

Half of Brits have immigrant ancestry yet few of us know about it – new research from Ancestry.co.uk

• Brits unaware of foreign ancestry as world celebrates International Day of Migrants
• Most common countries of origin are Ireland, France and Germany
• Of the 30 million Brits descended from immigrants, 25 million (84 per cent) know nothing of their foreign ancestry

There may be little love lost between us Brits and our neighbours across the channel, but new research from leading family and social history website Ancestry.co.uk reveals that we are more closely related than we’d like to think.

One in 10 Brits is of French or German descent and half of us can trace our roots outside of the UK2. Yet as the world celebrates International Day of Migrants (18 December), the majority of Brits (84 per cent) admit knowing nothing of their immigrant ancestry.

And yet despite being unaware of our immigrant ancestry, we practice a variety of foreign traditions every Christmas. For example, the Germans brought us the custom of decorating the Christmas tree, feasting on Christmas Turkey originated in the United States and kissing under the mistletoe started in Scandinavia.

Our religious practices also reflect the diversity of our ancestry. In addition to Christmas, Britons celebrate 12 other holy festivals in December including the Muslim festivals of Eid al-Adha and Waqf-al-Arafa and the Jewish ‘festival of lights’, Hanukkah.

With so many oblivious to their foreign roots, Ancestry.co.uk is calling on the public to take advantage of the holiday period to research their own family stories. A wide range of historical records are now online, enabling amateur family historians and experts alike to uncover millions of stories of multi-cultural lineage, as well as fascinating histories of notable British personalities:

• Camilla Parker-Bowles – the Duchess of Cornwall is descended from a French-Canadian carpenter named Zacharie Cloutier
• Boris Johnson – the Mayor of London has uncovered a wealth of immigrant blood in his family tree, including ancestors from Turkey, France and America
• Helen Mirren – the actress famed for role as Queen of England, Helen was born Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov. Her father was from a long line of Russian Noblemen
• Victoria Beckham – the Spice Girl and style icon is descended from German immigrants who came to Britain in the 19th Century
• Winston Churchill – war hero and past Prime Minister may be the embodiment of British stiff upper lip, but was actually half American (mother’s side)
• Christopher Carandini Lee – the Lord of the Rings star is of Italian decent from his mother’s side.

Ancestry.co.uk Managing Director Olivier Van Calster comments: “So much of Britain’s cultural and political history stems from its immigrant heritage, which makes it even more staggering when we learn how few of us are actually aware of our foreign ancestry.

“For many families, Christmas is the one time in the year when they all come together, which explains why it’s one of the most active periods for family history research. If there are rumours in your family of foreign ancestry, this could be the perfect time to find out more about them.”

Britons’ foreign descendents originate from the following countries3:

1. Ireland – 23 per cent
2. France – 10 per cent
3. Germany - 9 per cent
4. Scandinavia – 6.5 per cent
5. Canada – 5 per cent

The official U.K. National Archives site for Non Parochial and Non Conformist records BMDregisters.co.uk has just added over 600,000 records of birth, baptism, marriage and burial. These have not previously been searchable online and again contain images of  birth and baptismal records. The records were previously viewable on microfilm as part of the  RG8 series.

Among the more extensive collections in this series are the registers of the British Lying-in Hospital at Holborn, these provide detailed maternity records covering the period 1749 to 1868.
The records can include the following information:-

The Date and order of admission, Woman and Husbands Name, Occupation, Woman’s Age, Parish, Time of Reckoning, Came in, Went out on leave, Returned, Delivered, Child Baptised, Woman Discharged, Recommenders Name

Below is an example from the Register of Births and Baptisms and a Register of Deaths in the British Lying-In Hospital in Endell Street, St Giles in the Fields, Holborn, Middlesex:

On the 17th June 1758, Rachel Ward wife of John a Staymaker aged 27 of the parish St Martin in the Fields was admitted. She gave birth to a boy on the 17th June who was then  baptised on the 25th June with the name Thomas. She was Discharged 5th July. Rachel Ward was recommended to the hospital by Lady Carpenter.

Both the original record of the hospital entry and the baptism images can be viewed, printed or downloaded plus the details viewed and a small tree printed.

The “Lying in” hospital records provide a level of detail that just isn’t available in parish records.

This new release also has registers of burials in the Victoria Park Cemetery, the New Burial Ground, Southwark, Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, Hackney, and the Bethnal Green Protestant Dissenters Burying Ground; registers of Chapels Royal at St James’s Palace, Whitehall and Windsor Castle.

The royal chapel records can be very interesting with diary like entries:-

“February 2nd 1684/5 Candlemas Day, being Monday Be it remembered that his majesty King Charles II was seised with a most violent fit of an apoplexy, which terminated in an intermittent fever of which he died about 12 the Friday following being February 6th. In the afternoon of which day his Royal Highness James Duke of York and Albany etc was proclaimed at Whitehall-gate at Temple Bar and at the Old Exchange in the City, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, etc.”

In addition there are further non conformist records of births and baptisms.

The rest of the series contains the archive of the Russian Orthodox Church in London, 1721-1927. The records include not only registers of births, marriages, deaths and conversions, but also comprehensive general records on the day-to-day workings of the church. The usual language is Russian, with some Greek; there are a few documents such as certificates, letters and passports in English, French and German.

These records are freely searchable on www.BMDregisters.co.uk

Over 32,000 names have been added to the London Burials Index 1538-1872 with St Leonard Shoreditch Burials.  You can search them on The Origins Network.

The London Burials Index, containing records of over 300,000 burials, combines Boyd’s London Burials, an index completed by Percival Boyd in 1934 to “a few of the burials in the London area” (in fact over 240,000), Cliff Webb’s London City Burials (over 35,000) and St Leonard Shoreditch Burials (over 32,000).

The records include the last name, first name, age, year of death and the burial ground (parish). While Boyd’s entries were restricted “as far as possible” to adult males and only occasionally show the age, the London City and St Leonard Shoreditch Burials records cover all burials – men, women and children – and nearly always show the age.

From the City of London website: