Oral History Conference - the NHS (July 2008)

WHO CARED? ORAL HISTORY, CARING, HEALTH AND ILLNESS:
Marking 60 years of the National Health Service

4th - 5th July 2008

Oral History Society Annual Conference, in association with the Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Birmingham, to be held at the University of Birmingham.
Abstracts (200 words) should be submitted by 18 January 2008 to:
Belinda Waterman, Department of History, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ. Email: belinda@essex.ac.uk


NB: For more information, it's worth keeping an eye on the Oral History Society's website at www.ohs.org.uk

Chris

New toy from Ancestry!

Ancestry works great as an online respository for records - now they're letting us have a bit of fun! A new feature, Family Facts, allows you to check out some information regarding your surname, such as place of origin, meaning of the name, occupations in the 1881 census etc. For example, keying in my surname and asking for a breakdown of occupations worked at, as recorded in the 1881 census, revelaed the astonishing "fact" that 4% of the British Patons worked as miners, with another 4% as farmers. None of this will take account of surname variants etc, but nevertheless, it is actually quite fun to potter about with it!

See http://www.ancestry.co.uk/learn/facts/default.aspx for more information.

Also of note, Australian records will now be included in Ancestry's world subscription package.

Chris

Ancestry update

This week's Ancestry updates include New York Passenger Lists from 1820 to 1957, including many records from both Castle Garden and Ellis Island immigration processing centres. The names found in the index are linked to actual images of the passenger lists, copied from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) microfilm, M237, rolls 1-675 and T715, rolls 1-8892.

Also available is a new database on US passport applications, containing applications from 1795-1925, including emergency passport applications (passports issued abroad) from 1877-1907. It also contains passport application registers for 1810-1817, 1830-1831, and 1834-1906. Passport applications often include information regarding an applicant's family status, date and place of birth, residence, naturalization (if foreign-born), and other biographical information. Twentieth-century applications often include marriage and family information as well as dates, places, and names of ships used for travel.

Chris

New book on post-war Oscar Marzaroli photos

A new book by Oscar Marzaroli, famous for his iconic images of Glasgow's Gorbals community in the 1960s, is to be released. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7172126.stm

Chris

Stirling Family History Conference 2009

2009 – The Year of Homecoming

‘Routes to Your Stirling Roots’ : 3-day Family History Conference run by Stirling Council Library and Archives Department

Dates: Friday 19th – Sunday 21st June


Friday 19th June: Routes to Your Stirling Roots

Venue: The Albert Halls, Dumbarton Road, Stirling

Today’s lectures will focus on locally-held resources, those in the morning being given by members of staff in the Registrar’s Office, the Cemetery Office, the Reference Library, and the Archives. The afternoon speakers will discuss resources held by the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum, the University of Stirling Special Collections Department, and the Museum of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

Saturday 20th June: ‘Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor…’
Venue: The Albert Halls, Dumbarton Road, Stirling

Saturday’s lectures will examine Stirling’s less well-known records but also will show the way for those with forebears in similar occupations elsewhere.

Saturday 20th June (evening)
Venue: Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum
Buffet supper with ‘Travellers’ Tales and Song’.

Sunday 21st June: ‘A Fine and Private Place…’
Venue: The Albert Halls, Dumbarton Road, Stirling

The final day of the Conference will examine the importance of graveyards to the family historian, culminating in guided walks through the Old Town Cemetery in the afternoon.

For further details please contact:
Elma Lindsay
Local History Officer
Central Library
Corn Exchange Road
Stirling
FK8 2HX

Tel: 01786 432107
Email:lindsaye@stirling.gov.uk

Please note: for the moment, this is a provisional programme. In the event of any speaker being unable to come every effort will be made to provide an alternative speaker of a similar quality.

Online Index to the Statistics of the Annexed Estates 1755-56

Gordon Johnson has just uploaded an index to the people listed in "Statistics of the Annexed Estates, 1755/1756". As as result of the 1745 rebellion, some major landowners had their estates confiscated by the crown, with agents sent in to establish the facts, and this ended up (in part) in a collection of data relating to each estate, the baronies within, and the farms, etc. Much of the area was in Perthshire, so is worth perusing for relatives.

Gordon's index, along with others of genealogical interest, can be accessed at http://www.kinhelp.co.uk/KinHelp/genealogical-indices .

Chris

Scotlands Family

A useful resource for Scottish researchers is the Scotlands Family portal at http://www.scotlandsfamily.com which acts as a gateway to many sites of genealogical interest. Highlights include the collated list of birth, marriage and death records, the pages listing Scottish maps and gazetteers, and the various Scots language resources. Well worth a visit!

Chris

Digging Up Your Roots - Jan 6th 2008

The first of six new editions of Digging Up Your Roots, presented by Claire White, begins on BBC Radio Scotland on Sunday 6th January 2008 at 11.05am, concluding at 12.00.

The series website is at http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/radioscotland/programmes/diggingupyourroots&

There is a listen again facility through the website, and also through the BBC iPlayer (on the bbc.co.uk home page, "Listen to shows you've missed").

Chris

Inverness to London flights stopped

If you are planning a trip from the Highlands to visit the many archives based in London, life is about to get a little harder, with BMI cancelling the only flight between Inverness and Heathrow after March 29th 2008.

For more, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/7169480.stm

Chris

The Ruhleben Story - update

In the last week I have added the names of approximately 250 British civilian prisoners of war, known to have been held in the First World War civilian POW camp at Ruhleben in Germany, to The Ruhleben Story website at http://ruhleben.tripod.com. This brings the total to well over 1700, out of approximately 5500 internees believed to have been held in the camp, almost a third.

Also, Matthew Stibbe's long awaited book "British Civilian Internees in Germany: The Ruhleben Camp, 1914-1918" is due to be published by Manchester University Press on May 1st 2008. The hardback edition of this book can be pre-ordered through www.amazon.co.uk at a price of £55, and the paperback edition for £14.24.

Chris