Family History and IT Tips

Involve your children

Lakes Mum — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 16:05:27 +0000

Church yards are wonderful family tree resources with information on the gravestones that children can help you discover:

Once they can read you can get them to hunt down any gravestones that mention members of your family.

There is lots of fascinating information on them including dates of birth and death. You can challenge your children to work out how old a person was when they died based on these dates.

So why don’t you take your children down to the churchyard? You can create a grave scavenger hunt for your family:

earliest/most recent date for burial
youngest/oldest person buried in grave yard
how many different occupations
most common surname
anyone born somewhere overseas

Just give your child a notepad and pencil and let them wander around whilst you do your own research!

#SurnameSaturday Jones

Lakes Mum — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 00:00:59 +0000

With the 6 nations show down between Wales and England today its time to celebrate my Welsh ancestry! My great grandfather Owen Evan Jones was born in the town of Trefriw in the Conwy valley in North Wales in 1875.

His father Llewelyn Robert Jones had worked in the wood yards and the iron works as well as a lime burner. It must have been a tough life in this part of Wales and Owen left sometime after 1891 as a qualified teacher. His father had disowned him for teaching English which was the only language allowed in the schools so he moved to Lancashire.

This must have been a very strange place to a young man whose family had been in Caernarvonshire and Denbighshire for generations. Luckily he found love in the form of my great grandmother Hannah Honorah Audrey Spencer and started his own family. Here they are enjoying a family trip to the beach:

Despite moving to England he was always proud of his Welsh roots and taught his grandson (my dad) how to pronounce the town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (and he can still say it!). It was partly the pull of this Welsh blood that led me to choose Swansea university and loved spending 3 years enjoying the culture and rugby!

This summer I finally got my first visit to Trefriw even though it was very brief. Some of it looked like is must have done when he was there in the 19th century. I wonder if they were church or chapel and which one of these religious buildings they used on a Sunday:

Original chapel

Parish church

Methodist church

The current school was built after my great grandfather had left but I wonder if the original school was just this house:

One day I will get back and do more research to find out more about my Jones and Roberts ancestors and my Welsh roots.. Only problem is I may have to learn Welsh to do so and so far I am struggling beyond bore da and nos da…

#SurnameSaturday: Linford

Lakes Mum — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 22:01:00 +0000

This week I am looking at my mother's side of the family and the Linford surname. At one point we thought the name was dying out in our branch of the family so I double barrelled my maiden name to include it and then gave my children it as and extra middle name. This century there have been 3 Linford boys born to the family so hopefully it will continue for some time yet.

The name means dweller at the lime tree ford and there at least five parts of the UK it could have come from. This means we could have originated from Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire or Leicestershire. As yet we haven't traced back far enough to find out which.

My grandfather Vivian Haldane Bruce Linford was born in Kilmalcolm, Renfrewshire in 1900. He was the youngest of 5 children born to Albert Wallace and Annie Mary Harrison Nash. My family seem to have the habit of using surnames as middle names and the Scottish tradition of using other family members names as well.

Tragically the eldest daughter Violet died as an infant. The others went on to either marriage and family or in the case of my great aunt Madeline a groundbreaking career as a journalist and first editor of the Guardian's women's page. There are some interesting articles on her here and on my cousin Paul Linford's blog. She also published a few novels and a biography of Mary Wollstonecraft.

Albert was a travelling salesman for a brewery and he had moved from Southampton to Scotland and then down to Manchester as he was posted to different regions. The family were very well off until he was admitted to an asylum around 1910. The former family home in Manchester is now a seminary for Catholic priests and was a substantial family home. Unfortunately medical fees used up most of his estate and my grandfather was unable to follow his siblings to university.

Albert was the only son of Henry Albert and Elizabeth Martha Forbes. He was born in Lewisham, Kent and lived in Middlesex and then at the Southwestern Hotel in Southampton which his father was the proprietor of. Albert had 7 sisters:

I haven't established how Henry went from being a clerk to running a hotel but it seems a strange career move! The hotel was built at the railway terminus from London and it was used to accommodate passengers before they embarked on a liner from the port (later on many first class passengers from the Titanic spent their last night in England at the hotel). Henry was a prominent local citizen and even spent time as mayor. Tragically he was only 56 when he died leaving his wife with children still of school age to raise alone.

He was one of 5 children born to John Thomas and Sarah Hamley Weeks in Canterbury, Kent:

John Thomas was a chemist and druggist in the city and at one point owned a shop in Burgate. His father-in-law William Weeks had been in the same business and for some years they were in business together. Things weren't always a smooth ride as John appears in bankruptcy records a couple of times. Like his son Henry he held public office and was a mayor of Canterbury in 1823.

John had been born in Vauxhall, Surrey (now London) to Samuel and Mary Butcher. Samuel was a butcher in Vauxhall and he also owned quite a few properties and had a complex will in 1832. Nothing much is known about his parents Joseph and Elizabeth Kitchinman other than their marriage in 1750 which produced three children.

Posted with Blogsy

Family History: World War One

Lakes Mum — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 21:03:24 +0000

Last month I posted about finding my great grandfather’s medal record from ancestry.co.uk in this post. When the article came to the attention of my aunt and uncle I discovered that they had the actual medals! Today I got to see them and plenty of other memorabilia from my great grandfather.

It appears he was in the forces (maybe as a reservist?) as far back as 1913 as he had some medals for 3rd places in an army shooting competition at both 300 yards and a quarter mile. Both these medals are from the 5th Battalion the Hampshire Regiment:

In 1914 he was serving at the front in the 5th London regiment as a private. The proof for this includes a letter published in the local paper in Bickerstaffe:

He also had been given a box of cigarettes and tobacco by Princess Mary and her charity for Christmas in 1914:

There are still original cigarettes and tobacco in the box! Charles was himself a pipe smoker and his pipe from the war had his friends’ names carved into it:

For his service in 1914 he would receive the 1914 Star:

At some point before his wedding in 1915 he received a rapid promotion to 2nd Lieutenant. We need to get his full records to find out more. This meant he moved from a clay dog tag to a metal one:

Whilst he was an officer he had a notebook he used to record both important information on explosives and details of the mess bills:

Apparently he helped train troops whilst recovering on sick leave and on one occasion had to act fast when a recruit pulled the pin out of a grenade but forgot to throw it…

By the end of hostilities he had earned two more service medals:

I am just bowled over to have been able to hold these precious pieces of my family history. I feel so lucky that my great grandfather came through the whole war when so many others didn’t. Now the challenge is to see if I can find out more about his service…

So go and ask your family if they have something lurking in a tin or box in the attic.

#CharityTuesday: Dogs’ Trust Poop Scoop Week

Lakes Mum — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 22:07:04 +0000

Getting fancy with photos

Lakes Mum — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:02:54 +0000

My photography has definitely been changing since I started using photographic websites such as Blipfoto and Flickr. I used to be content with a basic:

point
press
post

attitude to sharing my photographs. Now there are so many brilliant apps for the iPad and iPhone that tweaking my photos to make them more interesting is oh so easy. I just have to make sure I don’t overdo it! Here are a few of my favourite tweaked photographs:

This image of my daughter was taken on a very basic digital camera. I used Camera+ to crop, colour and used depth of field to focus in through the leaves:

For more fun photographs using Marblecam on the iPhone and iPad can have a wonderful effect on flowers etc.:

These 2 photos of me were tweaked in Instagram (left) and Camera+ (right) to use the colour tones. I then grouped them together using Nostalgio:

This is another slightly different colour effect from Camera+, I also used the Golden crop to concentrate on the important features:

Flowers can really be shown off to good effect with the tools in Camera+. These next two show chives using Miniaturisation and Depth of field respectively:

All of these apps can make an amateur photograph look at lot more professional without spending lots of money on expensive software. It also doesn’t take a lot of learning to get to use them properly. So go on experiment!

Family History Friday: Band Family of Mottram and Glossop

Lakes Mum — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 14:48:16 +0000

Today I want to look at my paternal grandmother’s maiden name. She was born in Lancashire the daughter of Charles Band and Lillie Agnes Kellett.

Charles had been born in Glossop, Derbyshire in 1885. He was the youngest of 9 children:

His sister Elizabeth went on to become a Shakesperian actress. Their father Charles Downs Band was a stone mason in Glossop who helped to build Johannesburg Post Office in South Africa. Unfortunately he never returned from this contract as he died in Africa. His widow Sarah (nee Turner) survived him by 30 years.

Charles senior had been born to Hannah Band and Humphrey Downs whilst he was still married to his first wife. This is why Charles had his father’s name as a middle name.

Hannah was the first generation of Bands born in Glossop. Her father Charles Band had moved from Mottram in Longendale, Cheshire to work in the cotton mills. He and his wife Betty had 6 children.

Not all the children followed into the mill trade and Henry became a grocer. Charles hadn’t moved far to follow his trade as Mottram is only just over the border in Cheshire. I have written something about this migration in an earlier post.

He was the third generation of Band cotton weavers in Mottram. His grandfather John had appeared there in the mid 18th century marrying into a local family the Bradley’s. There were plenty of Band children born in Mottram over the next 50 years:

Since 1767 there has been a Charles in every generation except mine and the children of Charles and Betty. I have reinstated the tradition by giving my son the middle name of Charles. One day I may find where the first Band came from, it maybe that he was named for his occupation of making cotton bands in the mill.

If you have any connections I would love to hear from you!

Ancestry app for iPad

Lakes Mum — Thu, 17 May 2012 21:56:46 +0000

I have to say that since being given an iPad I’ve discovered how good the Ancestry app is. It never really worked for me on the iPhone but on the iPad it really shines.

Once you have downloaded your family tree from Ancestry on to your iPad it then starts looking for hints for existing members of your family. When you review each hint it brings up an image of the relevant data such as census page or sheet from a church record. You can then review the information and either accept or ignore. If you accept you can then choose which items get changed on your tree. The source information is automatically added.

A very useful app but be careful as you could be on there for hours…

Ancestry.co.uk Free 1911 Census

Lakes Mum — Sat, 12 May 2012 19:14:06 +0000

I am loving the free access to the 1911 Census on Ancestry.co.uk this weekend (11-14th May). I have discovered an ancestor was a soldier and added a new 4x great grandfather to my tree.

Get on there quick!

Visiting County Record Offices

Lakes Mum — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:47:49 +0000

For most family historians with English ancestors at some point you will have to visit at least one County Record Office. So here are few tips if it will be your first time.

Plan your visit

Where is the record office?

This will be listed on the relevant county council web site. Remember county boundaries have changed over the centuries so you may need to confirm with a site like Genuki as to which record office you need. Some counties like Cumbria have more than one record office.

What records does the record office have?

There is no point travelling to the record office if it doesn’t have the records you need. This may include census records, parish registers, newspapers or other historical documents. Some of these may need to be requested in advance so check on the web site or telephone ahead.

Opening hours

The office may not be open 9-5 six days a week. This information should be on the web site too. It may be that you have to leave the building at lunch time if it closes. It may also be necessary to make an appointment if there is restricted space.

What should I take?

Identification

To join the County record office network (CARN) you need to bring along ID such as passport or driving licence. Once you have a card it makes access to all similar archives so much simpler.

Notes

Take a printout of the part of the family tree you are interested in for that visit. You may be able to take a laptop but check first. Have a list of what you are hoping to achieve – this may help you stop getting side tracked.

Equipment

You will be restricted on using pencils in the research rooms. Take more than one and a good notebook to write down your discoveries. If you want printouts of what you find then you will need some cash to pay. Anything else will probably have to be left in a locker and mobiles set to silent/turned off.

In the record office

Don’t be afraid to ask

If it’s your first visit then ask the archivist for help on finding what you need to save time. They will also show you how to use micro film readers and point out the rules of use.

Be Systematic

Start with your initial target and work your way through the records just looking at them. If anything else catches your eye note where you find it and come back later. Write down the source references so that you can double check at a later date if necessary.

Above all enjoy the records and finding out more about your ancestors.