Tay Valley FHS are giving a series of free talks at Waterstones, 35 Commercial Street, Dundee:
Tuesday 26th February - The Mariners of Dundee
Thursday 13th March - Who do you think you are?
Thursday 20th March - AC Lamb, his book and his life
All talks start at 6 pm, are free of charge, and open to members and non-members alike.
Chris
Monday, 18 February 2008
Saturday, 16 February 2008
World's oldest woman
At 120 years old, Mrs Abash in Northern Israel has 410 descendants - 10 children, 120 grandchildren, 250 great-grandchildren, and 30 great-great-grandchildren.
That's a lot of birthdays to have to buy presents for...
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7247679.stm
Chris
That's a lot of birthdays to have to buy presents for...
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7247679.stm
Chris
Friday, 15 February 2008
English National Burial Index updated on Find My Past
About a million new National Burial Index entries for Somersetshire, Dorset and Essex have just been added to the Find My Past website.
For more information, visit www.findmypast.com.
Chris
For more information, visit www.findmypast.com.
Chris
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
Ulster Historical Foundation increases its prices
Well I guess you can never charge too much for a good thing...
Just discovered the following recent announcement from the AncestryIreland website:
"The Ulster Historical Foundation is an educational, not-for-profit charity that receives no public funding. We keep our costs down to a minimum, and rely upon the goodwill of our volunteers and your custom in order to provide our services.
We have conducted a review of our prices, and unfortunately have to announce an increase in our charge for accessing our online birth, marriage and death records.
From 1 February 2008, the price will be £7 (£5 for Guild members) to view up to 5 full records from a single search of a particular birth, marriage or death record database. This is only the first time we have had to raise our charges for these databases.
We believe that this remains good value, especially for those with partial information about their ancestor. We would encourage you to take advantage of current prices, and hope that you will continue to look upon us to service your ancestral research needs in the future. "
Unbelievable, in my humble and very personal opinion! It should be noted that to qualify to pay the £5 Guild rate per record, as opposed to the £7 rate, you need to pay an annual subscription of £30 to join the Guild (yes, that is in Sterling!). It should also be noted that the "five full records" literally means for five records with the same name. So if you search for William Smith, your £7 will allow you to see five birth records for a William Smith. If you find who you are looking for on your first attempt, the credits are not transferable. There is an advanced search facility that allows searches by name, date, father's name and parish. Typically however, you only gain access to this after you have already paid your £7 after a basic search involving only a name and a year. In other words, you won't know if your William Smith, son of Ebenezer from Belfast, is on the system until after you have paid up front. If he isn't there, you at least have the consolation of getting to know about five other completely unrelated Billy Smiths...
This month's Your Family Tree magazine (issue 61) carries an opinion piece that I have written on the high prices of Irish content suppliers, but you can probably see where I am going with this...!
Chris
Updated: Contrast this with the English Federation of Family History Societies online website at Family History Online. FFHS is also a non-profit making charitable company. I have just spent the last three hours doing research for a client using this site. Each index entry on the database costs in the order of pennies (eight pence for a baptism lookup, for example). So far, for the cost of £5, I have confirmed about ten events, and looked up many others that I have discounted, and I still have about £2.50 to go.
To put into context, the cost of one Irish record is a little just under a hundred times the cost of one English record accessed on a similar site.
Just discovered the following recent announcement from the AncestryIreland website:
"The Ulster Historical Foundation is an educational, not-for-profit charity that receives no public funding. We keep our costs down to a minimum, and rely upon the goodwill of our volunteers and your custom in order to provide our services.
We have conducted a review of our prices, and unfortunately have to announce an increase in our charge for accessing our online birth, marriage and death records.
From 1 February 2008, the price will be £7 (£5 for Guild members) to view up to 5 full records from a single search of a particular birth, marriage or death record database. This is only the first time we have had to raise our charges for these databases.
We believe that this remains good value, especially for those with partial information about their ancestor. We would encourage you to take advantage of current prices, and hope that you will continue to look upon us to service your ancestral research needs in the future. "
Unbelievable, in my humble and very personal opinion! It should be noted that to qualify to pay the £5 Guild rate per record, as opposed to the £7 rate, you need to pay an annual subscription of £30 to join the Guild (yes, that is in Sterling!). It should also be noted that the "five full records" literally means for five records with the same name. So if you search for William Smith, your £7 will allow you to see five birth records for a William Smith. If you find who you are looking for on your first attempt, the credits are not transferable. There is an advanced search facility that allows searches by name, date, father's name and parish. Typically however, you only gain access to this after you have already paid your £7 after a basic search involving only a name and a year. In other words, you won't know if your William Smith, son of Ebenezer from Belfast, is on the system until after you have paid up front. If he isn't there, you at least have the consolation of getting to know about five other completely unrelated Billy Smiths...
This month's Your Family Tree magazine (issue 61) carries an opinion piece that I have written on the high prices of Irish content suppliers, but you can probably see where I am going with this...!
Chris
Updated: Contrast this with the English Federation of Family History Societies online website at Family History Online. FFHS is also a non-profit making charitable company. I have just spent the last three hours doing research for a client using this site. Each index entry on the database costs in the order of pennies (eight pence for a baptism lookup, for example). So far, for the cost of £5, I have confirmed about ten events, and looked up many others that I have discounted, and I still have about £2.50 to go.
To put into context, the cost of one Irish record is a little just under a hundred times the cost of one English record accessed on a similar site.
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Freebies from TNA Kew
There's been a lot of talk about Spring coming early this year, and it certainly seems to be the case at Kew, where a major Spring clearout is currently underway.
Due to the relocation of records from the Family Record Centre in London to Kew, TNA has identified a series of microfilms and fiche that are now surplus to requirement, which they are offering to give away for free. Included are census returns, wills from the PCC, and much more.
You will not be able to apply for them until Feb 28th, but if interested, it is worth a look at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/stories/182.htm
Good luck!
Chris
Due to the relocation of records from the Family Record Centre in London to Kew, TNA has identified a series of microfilms and fiche that are now surplus to requirement, which they are offering to give away for free. Included are census returns, wills from the PCC, and much more.
You will not be able to apply for them until Feb 28th, but if interested, it is worth a look at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/stories/182.htm
Good luck!
Chris
Monday, 11 February 2008
Practical Family History March 2008
The March edition of Practical Family History magazine has just gone on sale today in the UK and is packed with many great articles, including finding forebears in Bedfordshire, irregular and clandestine marriages, the Mechanised Transport Corps, the IGI, and much more.
Also included is the third and final part of my series on family history courses, which this month looks at acedemic courses, including the courses run by both Dundee and Strathclyde universities; and on the Scottish front, there is also news on the Scotland Online takeover of Find My Past and the new Dundee based family history centre.
That's issue 123 (March 2008) of Practical Family History, £3.30, from all God fearing news vendors...
Chris
Also included is the third and final part of my series on family history courses, which this month looks at acedemic courses, including the courses run by both Dundee and Strathclyde universities; and on the Scottish front, there is also news on the Scotland Online takeover of Find My Past and the new Dundee based family history centre.
That's issue 123 (March 2008) of Practical Family History, £3.30, from all God fearing news vendors...
Chris
Thursday, 7 February 2008
Women's Royal Air Force (1918) records go online
The National Archives has just placed the service records for 30,000 members of the Women's Royal Air Force online at their Documents Online site. The WRAF was formed on 1st April 1918, with many women signing up to serve as drivers and mechanics in France and Germany. This release covers those who served in 1918 only.
For more information, visit http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/ww1airwomen.asp
Chris
For more information, visit http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/ww1airwomen.asp
Chris
Fred's dead baby. Fred's dead...
When I was a kid, I wrote a song with a friend of mine called "My Dog was Dead". It was never destined to win awards, or for that matter, the respect of my peers, but it did have a great catchy wee tune. The chorus went like this:
My dog was dead
My dog was dead
Goodbye Fred,
Cos Fred was dead.
It then went on for about twenty versus, in classic country and western style, cataloguing in terrible detail the poor end met by this mythical dog, and it is probably because of this one effort that I never became a songwriter.
However, somebody else who has seen the potential of a 'dead Fred' is the creator of the website, www.DeadFred.com. The idea of Dead Fred was to create a site for posting and locating identified and unidentified photos. Right now the site lists 14,521 surnames, with 75,245 photos, and 1,212 photo reunions.
If nothing else, it's a fun site to browse, so well worth a look!
Chris
My dog was dead
My dog was dead
Goodbye Fred,
Cos Fred was dead.
It then went on for about twenty versus, in classic country and western style, cataloguing in terrible detail the poor end met by this mythical dog, and it is probably because of this one effort that I never became a songwriter.
However, somebody else who has seen the potential of a 'dead Fred' is the creator of the website, www.DeadFred.com. The idea of Dead Fred was to create a site for posting and locating identified and unidentified photos. Right now the site lists 14,521 surnames, with 75,245 photos, and 1,212 photo reunions.
If nothing else, it's a fun site to browse, so well worth a look!
Chris
Sunday, 3 February 2008
End of free online access to The Times
If you have been using the Bedfordshire Virtual Library's online access to The Times newspaper, the bad news is that the game is up!!! As of tomorrow (Mon 4 FEB), the library will no longer be giving access to its online Times collection, the Infotrac newspaper and journals collection, and the Gale Virtual Reference Library, unless you are a resident in Bedfordshire. This is because it has been brought to the library's attention that by giving universal access to its site to non-Bedfordshire residents, the library has actually been in breach of its licensing agreement with Cengage, the supplier.
Many local authorities have their own version of such an agreement, and so it is worth contacting your local library to see whether thay may have access. Alternatively, digitised editions of the Times from 1785 tto 1820 can be accessed for a premium at Footnote.
Chris
Many local authorities have their own version of such an agreement, and so it is worth contacting your local library to see whether thay may have access. Alternatively, digitised editions of the Times from 1785 tto 1820 can be accessed for a premium at Footnote.
Chris
Saturday, 2 February 2008
Scottish Women Chartists
Sue John, of the Women's Library in Glasgow, has made available online a list of women known to have been members of the Chartist movement in Scotland between 1838 and 1852.
Millions of people signed the three great Chartist petitions of 1839 to 1848, with thousands active in the campaign to win the vote, secret ballots, and other democratic rights that we now take for granted. A significant proportion were women, but they were seldom recorded in the media of the day. Sue has trawled many newspapers to find those that did make it into print, and her results can now be seen at the ChartistAncestors website, at http://www.chartists.net/scottish-women-chartists.htm
Chris
Millions of people signed the three great Chartist petitions of 1839 to 1848, with thousands active in the campaign to win the vote, secret ballots, and other democratic rights that we now take for granted. A significant proportion were women, but they were seldom recorded in the media of the day. Sue has trawled many newspapers to find those that did make it into print, and her results can now be seen at the ChartistAncestors website, at http://www.chartists.net/scottish-women-chartists.htm
Chris
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