Trade and Street Directories

About a year ago, I blogged about street directories produced both by the Post Office and their availability online at the National Library of Scotland and as maps at AddressingHistory. 

Trade and street directories are useful in confirming information found in the census or as an alternative to valuation rolls.

My recommendation in our Kith and Kin columns in the Border Telegraph and Peeblesshire News newspapers was a collection of freely downloadable Scottish directories , however there’s an easier source on the National Library’s page of Post Office directories, (for Borders localities, choose Scotland).

I’ve now discovered another useful website that contains local and trade directories for England and Wales between 1750 to 1919. You can search by decade (1850s to 1910s), by location or by keywords (a combination of location, decade, and other details) and the directories are free to read and print, however you can print only one page at a time.

Petition to Release Historic English and Welsh Birth, Marriage, and Death Certificates for Viewing Online

Most of us in the UK have family members or ancestors who were born, got married, or died in England or Wales.

Unlike Scottish certificates, which can be viewed online at Scotland's People, only the indexes to English and Welsh births, marriages, and deaths can be viewed online.

To view the details of births, marriages and deaths registered in England and Wales since 1837, one is forced to buy certified copies of the entries from the General Register Office at £9.25 each. There's no reason why at least the older certificates could not be transferred to The National Archives, scanned and made available for viewing online on payment of a modest fee.

We don't need expensive legally certified copies; especially as we may need to see the details of many to help us decide which is the correct one.

If you're a UK citizen and / or a UK resident, there's an e-petition to Release historic Birth, Marriage, and Death certificates for viewing online - please have a look and if you agree, sign the petition.
It needs at least 100,000 signatures to be eligible for debate in the House of Commons.

There's a long way to go, at the time of writing there were only 222 signatures.

Bygone Borderlands - Family and Local History Weekend

Bygone Borderlands - Family and Local History Weekend will take place on Saturday 14th May (10am to 4pm) and Sunday 15th May (11am to 4pm)  at The Guildhall, Berwick Upon Tweed, England, TD15 1BN.


This is a free event for anyone interested in finding out more about their family history and the local area. Several local history societies will be putting on displays about their village or town and there will be volunteers available to assist with family history queries. There will also be bookstalls and talks on the subjects.

Don’t think this event is just for adults ! Activities for children are also planned !

The last time a similar event was held a record number of visitors attended. Please don’t miss this great opportunity!

Borders Family History Society will be there, though if there's anything you especially want to see, please contact Mary Thomson on our Contacts page using the contact type Order for Publications.
For further information contact Linda Bankier, Archivist, Berwick Record Office

Free Access to the Census on 27th March

If you're in the United Kingdom, no doubt you'll have received your census form ready to be completed on Census Day, 27th March.

To celebrate Census Day 2011, Ancestry is providing free access to all of its UK (England, Wales and Scotland) census collections from 1841-1901 for 24 hours.

More details on the ancestry.co.uk blog.

Old Films of Berwick-on-Tweed, England

On Friday 18 March 2011 at 7pm there will be a special showing of archive
films of Berwick and district at The Maltings, Berwick. This is a unique
opportunity to see old films from 1911 to the 1980's, many of which have
never been shown before.

This event has been arranged by Berwick Record
Office to celebrate its 30th anniversary.

Tickets are only £5.
Book now on 01289 330999 !

Pinkie Cleugh Battlefield Walk

To accompany the Edinburgh, Lothians and Borders Archaeology Conference 2010 there is a guided walk around the battlefield of Pinkie Cleugh on Sunday 21st November just outside Musselburgh. The battle of Pinkie Cleugh was fought on 10 September 1547 along the banks of the River Esk near Musselburgh and was part of Henry VIII's ‘Rough Wooing’ for the hand of Queen Mary in marriage to his son, Edward VI, and thus unification of England and Scotland; and a disaster for Scotland caused by the use of naval artillery by the English for the first time in a land battle in Scotland. More information from Andrew Coulson on 0131 665 3779.

LostCousins Free until Sunday, September 5th 2010

Thanks to Marjorie Gavin for forwarding an email about this.

I hadn't heard of LostCousins before, which is odd in a way, as I'm in touch with very few of my cousins, so there are a lot of lost cousins out there.

The concept of the site is that you enter details of any ancestors and their siblings on the website, and if any two or more people enter the same person, they can be connected, and you'll find lost cousins. It covers only these censuses: England & Wales 1841, US 1880, Canada 1881, England & Wales 1881,  Scotland 1881, England & Wales 1911, Ireland 1911, but they warn that their greatest coverage is of people in the 1881 census. They've chosen these censuses on the basis that most of them are available for free on the FamilySearch site, or can be accessed free at subscription sites.

Apparently the automated matching process is virtually 100% accurate, you won't waste your time corresponding with people who turn out not to be related - nor will you run the risk of allowing someone who is unrelated to have access to your family tree. What makes all this possible is that every LostCousins member is taking information from the same online censuses.

The accuracy of the matching process depends on the unique information about the census that you need to add for each person, the piece, book, folio, page
numbers from censuses in England & Wales; the volume (or registration number), enumeration district, page for Scottish censuses.

But there's the disadvantage, at least for me. I've found my ancestors and siblings on the censuses, taken a print of the info, but not all the information needed by LostCousins. For example, although I know that Robert Munro was in Belton Rd, Whitchurch on the 1901 census, it never occurred to me that it would be useful to write down the reference numbers; and it would be a pain to go through it all again. The second problem is that they want you to take the references from online censuses, whereas I researched my info from microfilms. Additionally, my ancestral families left Ireland before 1911, or arrived in the USA and Canada after 1900.

LostCousins is a great idea, however, I think that they haven't made it as user-friendly and usable as possible.

In their shoes, I'd have offered less accuracy without the census reference information, and/or after entry of a person's name, offered a list of census entries to select, and I've made these suggestions to them.

Perhaps you're think I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, or perhaps you think it would be worth searching the online censuses to get the required info.
If you do, or you have any other comments, please let me know by clicking the 'comments' link below.

Talk - Local Families of Ancient Origin by Gregory Lauder-Frost, FSA (Scot)

This is the first talk on the Society's syllabus of talks held in 2010/2011, and will be held at Foulden Village Hall, Foulden, Berwickshire, TD15 1UH, Scotland on Sunday, 26 September 2010.

When the Foulden Mordington and Lamberton Community Council were granted Arms by Scotland's Lord Lyon, three of the quarters contained armorial bearings representing those families with the most ancient connexions with those parishes: Ramsay, Lauder, and Renton, and who had the longest periods of unbroken tenure. Gregory will look at this history as well as touching upon other longstanding families such as the Arnot, Wilkie, and Jeffrey families.

Doors open at 2pm. Talk starts at 2.30pm.

We warmly invite you to attend the talk whether you are a member or not. There is no admission charge.

We'll have a range of family history publications available to buy.

Light refreshments available after the talk.

If you have a problem with your family history, please discuss it (no charge) with one of our volunteers.

Book a seat.

New Monumental Inscriptions for Duns, Berwickshire

We’re delighted to announce the publication of our new Monumental Inscriptions volume for the parish of Duns. The parish of Duns is based very largely on the town of Duns, formerly Dunse.

The church at Duns can trace its history back to at least 1165 when someone by the name of Patrick is recorded as parson.
The town was granted a Charter of Burgh of Barony by King James IV of Scotland in 1490, conferring a number of privileges particularly in regard to trade to the feudal superior, initially George and John Hume of Ayton, subsequently the Hays of Drumelzier. Among other things the feudal superior set up a Barony Court to provide for the collection of tolls, the regulation of trade, the settlement of civil disputes and to deal with minor criminal offences. The records, which have been transcribed by the Society for the years 1753 to 1800 and contain a wealth of detailed personal information, are available as an A4 size book, at a cost of £7.50 plus postage.

The town was probably originally situated on the slopes of Duns Law in an area now known as The Bruntons (or burnt town) but moved to its present location after being put to the torch in the English raids of 1544, 1545 and 1558.
Duns held a strategic position overlooking the Merse and the Cheviots and being very close to the border with England, was attacked and garrisoned by English armies until comparatively late on.  The town prospered during the 18th and 19th centuries as a market town for the surrounding farms with the hiring fairs being regular events until the early 20th century. The Hearth Tax of 1694 lists over 40 occupations in the parish, and over 100 years later, 40 occupations can still be found in the Militia Lists.

This volume on CD also includes lists of the ministers of various churches, the monumental inscriptions of the parish church burial ground and memorial plaques, Christ Church (in Teindhillgreen) burial ground and war memorials, Duns War Memorial, War Memorial 1914 -1919, Roll of Honour, and indexes to the surnames in the inscriptions for both the burial grounds.

There are over 430 different surnames included in the inscriptions on the gravestones, and they are: Affleck, Ainslie, Aitcheson, Aitchison, Aitken, Allan, Allison, Allport, Ancrum, Anderson, Atchison, Atkinson, Attenborough, Bailie, Baird, Bairnsfather, Barber, Barclay, Bate, Bates, Baynham, Beale, Belches, Bell, Bellwood, Bertram, Bews, Binny, Bird, Black, Blackadder, Blackhall, Blackie, Blaikie, Blair, Bonne, Boog, Boston, Bowlby, Bowmaker, Boyd, Braidie, Branford, Braydon, Bretton, Bron, Brooks, Broun, Brown, Buchan, Burdon, Burgoin, Burn, Burnett, Burton, Cairns, Calder, Campbell, Carruthers, Carss, Cassy, Cathcart, Caverhill, Chalmers, Chapman, Chirnside, Clarke, Clements, Clerk, Cockburn, Cockshott, Colquhoun, Colson, Colvin, Coombe, Cooper, Cossar, Cosser, Coultman, Cow, Cowlie, Cox, Craig, Craik, Craw, Crawford, Crease, Crichton, Crombie, Crowder, Cruikshanks, Cumine, Cunningham, Curre, Curry, Cuttler, Darling, Davidson, Dawson, Daykins, Deas, Dempster, Dewar, Dick, Dickieson, Dickinson, Dickison, Dickson, Dixon, Dodds, Dods, Donaldson, Doubleday, Douglas, Drysdale, Duggan, Dunbar, Duncan, Duns, Dunse, Eccles, Edgar, Edgley, Edington, Elliot, Erskine, Everett, Ewart, Ewing, Fair, Fairbairn, Falconer, Farnington, Farrow, Ferguson, Fielding, Fife, Fleming, Flint, Forbes, Ford, Foreman, Forrest, Forsyth, Fraser, Frater, Frazer, Frost, Fulton, Galbraith, Gardiner, Garstin, Garven, Gaskell, Gavin, Gibb, Gibson, Gilbert, Gillie, Gillies, Golightly, Gopel, Gordon, Graham, Gray, Greak, Greene, Greenlaw, Grieve, Guthrie, Haig, Hair, Hall, Hamilton, Hastie, Hatelie, Hately, Hay, Heatley, Heatlie, Henderson, Henry, Heron, Hewit, Hill, Hillston, Hislop, Hogg, Holiwell, Hollis, Holyday, Holywell, Home, Hood, Horn, Houlison, Houliston, Houston, Howe, Howman, Hudson, Hume, Hunter, Hurst, Idington, Imhof, Ingles, Inglis, Irvine, Jack, Jaffery, Jameson, Jamieson, Jeffery, Jeffrey, Jeffreys, Johns, Johnson, Johnston, Kay, Ker, Kerr, King, Kinghorn, Kirkwood, Kitson, Knight, Knox, Lackenby, Lamb, Lamont, Landale, Landells, Landels, Landles, Lauder, Laurie, Lawrie, Lawson, Learmonth, Leitch, Leith, Leslie, Liddel, Liddell, Liddle, Lidster, Liel, Lillie, Lilly, Lisney, Lockie, Logan, Longstaff, Lorain, Lorrain, Lowrey, Lugton, Luke, Lunan, Lynn, Mabbott, Mabon, Machin, Mack, Mackenzie, Maddison, Mann, Marshall, Martin, Masey, Mason, Mavin, Maxwell, May, Mccrie, Mccullagh, Mcfarlane, Mcguffog, Mcleod, Mcwatt, Meiklejohn, Melrose, Menzies, Merlet, Mickle, Middlemiss, Millar, Miller, Milliken, Mitchelson, Mitchill, Moffat, Moffet, Moncrieff, Montgomerie, Moore, Morris, Morson, Moscrop, Mundie, Murray, Neilson, Newbigging, Nicholson, Nicolson, Nisbet, Nitsche, Norris, Ogg, Oliver, Ord, Park, Paterson, Patterson, Paxton, Peacock, Pearson, Peat, Penny, Pirie, Pottinger, Preston, Pringle, Proverbs, Purves, Queen, Rae, Ralston, Rankin, Readdie, Redford, Redpath, Renton, Richardson, Robertson, Robinson, Romain, Ross, Rouen, Russel, Russell, Rutherford, Sanderson, Sandilands, Sandys-lumsdaine, Scarth, Scott, Scoular, Sedgley, Seton, Sharp, Shaw, Shearman, Sheffeild, Shelton, Shiel, Sidey, Simenton, Simpson, Sligh, Smith, Snodgrass, Spence, Spencer, Spiers, Squire, Stanley, Steel, Steep, Stenson, Stephenson, Stevenson, Steveson, Stevinson, Stewart, Stirling, Stivenson, Stodart, Stoddart, Storey, Strachen, Sunderland, Swan, Swine, Symington, Tait, Taylor, Thatcher, Thompson, Thomson, Tibes, Tipper, Tod, Todd, Took, Tooney, Torrie, Trench, Trotter, Tuck, Turnbull, Utterson, Vallentyne, Virtue, Waddel, Wait, Waite, Waldie, Walkinshaw, Wate, Watherston, Watson, Watt, Weatherburn, Weatherhead, Webster, Weir, Wells, White, Whitehead, Whitelaw, Whitsom, Wight, Wigton, Wilkinson, Wilson, Winter, Wishart, Wolfe, Wood, Wyber, Yeoman, Young.

We are indebted to earlier writers without whose efforts; many inscriptions and descriptions of stones would have been lost. Many of the stones erected before 1855 at the parish church were recorded in 1970 but have worn extensively and some have completely disappeared.

Much of the recording work was done on a training weekend held in Duns last summer, and we thank all those volunteers for their efforts.

The CD costs £9 plus postage. To buy a copy of this CD or the Dunse Barony Records book, please contact Mary Thomson on our Contacts page using the contact type Order for Publications.



To comment on this article, please click the 'comments' link below. 

findmypast.co.uk Announces Fully Indexed Birth Records for England and Wales

In today's newsletter from findmypast.co.uk, they announced that we can now search fully indexed birth records for 1837 to 2006 on findmypast.co.uk.

This is a great improvement in looking through all those index pages and brings births from England and Wales nearly up to the Scottish standard.

You can search the complete set of birth records in one go or by one or more counties at a time.

I found that searching for a common name sometimes resulted in the website failing to respond so perhaps they're having teething problems or they're just overloaded.

You can choose whether you want to search for variants of first names and surnames, search for a range of years, by mother's maiden name.

There are a few oddities.
I searched for a double barrelled surname Zentler-Gordon with first name Robert (no variants) born between 1940 and 1950, which produced 86 results  including lots with the surname of Gordon by itself. Searching for Zentler with first name Robert (no variants) born between 1940 and 1950 produced just 1 result of Robert Zentler-Gordon.

I searched for first name Voltaire surname Lowe (no variants on either), which produced 399 results but all 8 pages listed un-named male and female Lowes.
I changed the surname on this search to Praseodymium-Lowe, and got the same 399 results which seems to indicate that the first part is being ignored.
As I expected there are no people with the surname Praseodymium.

They're in the process of fully indexing the marriage and death records too, and expect to complete that by the end of the year.

To comment on this article, please click the 'comments' link below. 

When England play, you don't pay at www.findmypast.co.uk !

There's a wonderful offer for those of you trying to avoid the World Cup over the next four weeks – www.findmypast.co.uk is offering free access to almost all of their records every time England are playing. That includes census records up to 1911, births, baptisms, marriages, deaths and burials, the Chelsea Pensioner collection - all for England and Wales only.

If, like me, you've been dreading the prospect of hours of football this summer, you now have the chance to use the time to take your family tree further thanks to this offer. For 90 minutes on each day that England play in the competition, the website will be providing free access to its extensive collection of records.

To take advantage of the offer you need to make sure you are registered on the website no later than midnight the day before the match (don't register again if you have done so already).

On the day of the match, your free trial will last for 90 minutes from the moment you log on, so you could even watch the match as well.
You can log on anytime between 9am on the day of the match and 9am the following day.

There's also the chance to win a year's full membership during each England game.

The games that England have to play are:
 England v Algeria - Friday 18 June, 7.30pm

 England v Slovenia - Wednesday 23 June, 3pm

but let's hope that England get through to the final, to give us even more time to search for free.

To comment on this article, please click the 'comments' link below. 

Facades of the Fifties

Berwick Record Office has organised an exhibition of photographs and films of Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland, England in the 1950s and it will be held in the Guildhall at Berwick, TD15 1 BN on
Saturday 15th May from 10am-4pm and Sunday 16th May 11am-4pm.

Everyone welcome.

Free admission.
Map.

Book Review - Tracing Your Criminal Ancestors - A Guide for Family Historians

Tracing Your Criminal Ancestors - A Guide for Family Historians
by Stephen Wade
176 pp. Glossy card covers. Illustrations. ISBN 978 1 84884 057 7 : Pen & Sword Books : £12.99
Available from Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 47 Church St, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England, S20 2AS

If you had criminal ancestors in England, Wales, or Ireland, or people that were involved in court cases (as witnesses or victims) and want to find more about them, then this is the book for you.

The conditions in which they lived, crimes they committed, and the criminal justice system are all described in this very readable book, and there are a number of interesting illustrations.

The author begins with a look at the sources, different types of document, the different courts, with suggestions of the research process that should be followed.
Subsequent chapters deal in detail with the different types of offences: homicide, other crimes against the person, social protest, theft and robbery, rural crime, fraud and deception, sexual offences, and treason.

Each chapter describes the offences in detail, gives examples of punishments, suggests where you should look for records and sometimes provides references to records. As well as this research process there is a detailed review of one or more cases in the Case Studies section at the end of each chapter. Some of the cases are rather gruesome.

Chapter 9 deals with the destinations of the convicted criminal; prisons, asylums, hulks and transportation.

The last chapter is a survey of the relevant sources; however there is also a bibliography, a list of websites, a short glossary, and an index.

Very oddly, the author almost totally ignores Scotland, and does not make it clear whether his text includes conditions, offences, courts, processes, or records in Scotland. Apart from a few references to Glasgow, it's only on page 156 that he mentions the Scottish Legal System, and that it has different terms, functions, and processes to that of England.

This seems a strange omission in an otherwise comprehensive and easy to read book.

The only other gripe I have is that there are a number of typos in the text, as if it hadn't been properly proof-read.

All in all, if your ancestors were criminals, debtors, or drunks, or otherwise involved in a court case in England or Wales, then I strongly recommend this book.

To comment on this article, please click the 'comments' link below.