Winging It

It never rains...

2012-01-27T17:39:00.001+13:00

but it pours - the microfilm of the Wing marriages for the initial period I am going to transcribe has arrived as well. While I should be able to head over to the library this weekend and take a look, I'm going to be too busy at work (i.e. my real job with real deadlines that involve real extra hours to be put in) to have much time to work on either this or the valuation book project over the next fortnight. Still, they ARE both jobs that break down into individual pages, so a little bit here and there might be manageable...

Back in business

2012-01-26T17:40:00.002+13:00

I'm back! And you didn't even know I was slacking off, did you? My computer has been ever-so-slightly not-at-all functional so has just spent several days at the hospital - hence no genealogy time for me.

It's back now though, and the images for the 1910 valuation books project have arrived. There's also some other Wing-related emails I didn't get to respond to before everything went kaput, along with some followup emails (anyone else out there with BONHAM or FOUNTAINE connections?). And if that wasn't enough to keep me more than occupied this weekend, a brand new one place study has emailed me asking to be listed on the One Place Study website - and it's in a brand new country which makes it a 1-hour job not a 5 minute one to update that website, but I'm not complaining as it's so great to hear of new studies!

Wing As It Was vol 2

2012-01-18T06:55:00.001+13:00

If anyone would like a copy of this out-of-print book, there is one currently for sale on Ebay via Buy Now: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230731947124&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:GB:1123
I'm not affiliated with the seller in any way.

This book contains various postcards and photos of Wing in the late 19th century. I have an index of names included on the website: http://www.wing-ops.org.uk/waiw2.html

Good intentions

2012-01-09T10:13:00.001+13:00

You will no doubt remember that I have spent the last week creating my project list for 2012. You may also remember that I wasn't supposed to do anything that wasn't on that list.

Downloading the 1851 eccesiastical census returns for the Leighton Buzzard registration district (free from The National Archives digital films section) and getting excited because the original returns have slightly more information than the summary I'd previously seen - not on that list.

So that's about 24 hours I lasted, then.

(I'm also downloading the letter books of the Leviathan for 1837 to 1839 - our pal William ADAMS was on that convict hulk from late 1838!)

The moving target - other targets

2012-01-08T09:00:00.000+13:00

There's some other, non-Wing genealogical goals I have this year:

Version 5 of Family Historian is due out next month. I plan to upgrade to this version. Furthermore, I plan to actually read the manual and work through any suggested tutorial material. The mailing list for this software inevitably makes me feel like a complete newbie as I simply haven't explored diagrams, queries and the like in any logical manner, and there's no point having top-class software if you aren't using it properly. 2012 is the year!

Another good idea would be to work through and update Family Historian by family so that sources and the like are consistently recorded. I have a bad habit of getting underway, then putting things to one side and returning three months later only to have no idea which family I was working on and where I might have been up to. For some reason I seem to have a mental block as far as getting a good system going for tracking that sort of thing.

I'd like to write some more articles for the One Place Studies website. While maintaining the index section of this website doesn't take too much time, I didn't add as much new content as I'd like in 2011.

I should also do some actual family history work on my own actual family tree. Poor neglected thing. I think I should just pick a couple of surnames that I haven't really worked on much (both on my Dad's side, as I 've already written up mini-books for Mum's side) and get stuck in revisiting the information I have, updating Family Historian, then expanding their stories. WILLSON of Lincolnshire and Islington, and PACKER of Sandford, Devon, step on up!

The moving target - step away from the computer

2012-01-07T18:12:00.000+13:00

The final goal for my moving target list of projects for the Wing One Place Study for 2012 is offline.

I fear that the plastic supports on the creaking in-tray of doom are permanently bowed. Time to clean out the Wing section (it's only 2 inches thick), work out what projects are actually lurking in there, make a list (ready for 2013?) then file the paperwork away with the rest of my Wing records.

Unfortunately that'll lead me to part two of this goal - I also fear that my Wing "library" might need some reorganisation. Like the in-tray of doom, it seems to have outgrown its current accommodations, so I'll need to have a bit of a reshuffle.

I think that concludes the moving target list. There's a good mix of projects on it - different physical locations to work in, different types and sizes of projects, a clear focus on getting existing projects completed (and with room for some slight deviation if something pops up that's relevant to the farms project, the biggest task), and most importantly the list is more than achievable. It does mean that you might not see an update to the website every month. But you know what? That's okay. I'll have done enough for a Mallowpuff, as we say down here.

52 weeks of abundant genealogy - week 1

2012-01-07T14:42:00.000+13:00

I have no idea how Chris Paton does it (check his profile to see what a busy boy he is) but his British GENES blog highlights pretty much everything you need to know or might be interested in as far as the UK genealogy world is concerned. It's essential blog reading - I don't always have time to keep up with everything (who does?) but I know it'll all be there in his blog. Thanks, Chris!

This blogpost is part of the 52 Weeeks of Abundant Genealogy series from Amy Coffin and geneabloggers.com

The moving target - 1798 inclosure map

2012-01-05T13:35:00.001+13:00

Last year my superstar genealogy friend Paul took photos of Wing's inclosure map for me. Inclosure took place in 1798, so the map and its key as to who was given what land-wise is pretty useful. I'm about a quarter of the way through transcribing the key, and as it will be pertinent information for the farms project I would like to get the inclosure map transcription done before resuming work on the farms. It's making the Moving Target list!

I will certainly be able to get this done this month. For those keeping track at home, I'm now expecting to be gainfully occupied for at least three-quarters of 2012 - what else might make the list?

[For background to The Moving Target series of posts, see the story so far]

Bookshelf: World War II London Bliz Diary by Ruby Thompson

2012-01-04T10:00:00.000+13:00

I recently read a book that you, my dear readers, may also be interested in so I'm interrupting my Moving Target series to bring you my review from Goodreads:

World War II London Blitz Diary: A Woman's Revelations Enduring War and Marriage by Ruby Thompson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This diary is a very illuminating look at what life during the London Blitz was like. Life-long diarist Ruby talks about both the external events of WWII and her personal experiences on a day-to-day basis living through the Blitz, as well as general family and society events and opinions. Being able to read something that was being written each day, without the benefit of hindsight as to what was historically significant, was very refreshing. The sheer repetitiveness with which the various air alerts each day are recorded gives you a real sense of what it might have been like - without going through the lack of sleep and shattered nerves, of course!

Ruby makes particular comment about how she fully intends her children to read the diaries some day so that they know a bit more about who she really was - the impact of various societal constraints meant she felt unable to truly be herself. This also gives the reader permission to experience her sometimes harsh comments about life and her husband without feeling that you are intruding.

The diaries have been edited by Ruby's great-granddaughter. She has let the content stand as is, and accordingly some comments will likely make modern readers cringe a bit, but thankfully there has been no editing to make the diary more dramatic, as a novelised version might have been. The copyediting could definitely be improved, for example there are a couple of sentences in two entries that were duplicates of other entries, and there are apostrophes where there shouldn't be. While Ruby's family members are listed at the beginning of the book, I felt it would have been more useful to the narrative to add these as footnotes or editorial parentheses as each new person (or place/issue of significance) was mentioned, to explain who they are and their significance in Ruby's life.

The content itself and the fact the diaries survive is a true gift to Ruby's descendants, and now to us as well. This is volume 1 of an intended 4-volume WWII set.

The moving target - farms

2012-01-03T10:45:00.000+13:00

In 2011 I started work on the farms project. This is a series of pages with information about the farms and farmers of Wing, organised by property into regions/hamlets of Wing. I think this is going to be one of the more significant and globally useful projects within the one-place study.

So far I've completed the hamlets of Ascott and Burcott. Still to come are Crafton, Cottesloe, and "other". For these, I have roughly collated the basic information from census records and directories. The real work is in fleshing these out with additional information, attempting to work out the location of the farm, looking for any family connections between farms, and writing each farm up into a cohesive and interesting passage. I also have to complete a summary page about the agricultural industry in Wing as a whole and what working life would have been like for our farmer/ag lab ancestors.

I've learned that these farm pages actually take a lot longer than I would have expected. It will also get more problematic from here on in as fewer of the farms are actually named. However leaving this project half-finished will make me feel guilty every time I think about it, so I definitely want to get it done. Using my estimate of 4 hours a week being the time I can commmit to the one-place study, it'll probably take me a couple of months to finish each page. Allowing a month for the valuation books project, and another month for a stint of work on marriages from the parish registers, that means it'll likely be the end of August before it's done.

Long-term, I'll be able to expand these pages as more information comes to light. I also want to incorporate much better mapping of the farms - ideally identify the fields that encompassed each individual farm over time ("time" realistically being only 1798 onwards), and overlay these onto a modern map. Even if I've been able to achieve an accurate identification of a particular farm using various historical maps and records, I don't have the technical skill to realise my vision of the final map on the website. I suspect that's another huge learning curve - and huge learning curves take time!

[For background to The Moving Target series of posts, see the story so far]

The moving target - valuation books

2012-01-02T10:29:00.001+13:00

[For background to The Moving Target series of posts, see the story so far]

A project I've already committed is the 1910 valuation books project being undertaken by the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society. They are taking digital photos of the valuation books, which give information about physical buildings, and members of the BGS are transcribing them. I've volunteered for Wing and it looks like the images might be available in a month or so, so this will have top priority once they arrive.

As I'm doing this as part of the wider BGS effort which will be available for sale down the track, I won't be able to publish the Wing data on the website. However I will have that information available offline to incorporate into other Wing OPS projects where relevant. I'm hoping that these valuation books will provide some timely information about the farmhouses of Wing - more about that tomorrow!

The moving target - parish registers

2012-01-01T15:36:00.001+13:00

[For background to The Moving Target series of posts, see the story so far]

I've always found parish registers fascinating - they're an interesting read, irrespective of the individual families involved.

Wing's parish registers for the period 1546 to 1812 were transcribed in the early 1900s by local historian A. Vere Woodman and published by the Bucks Parish Register Society in 1914. I have a copy of this, and so far I have found them to be pretty reliable. Doing my own transcription of this period, particularly the earlier, more unreadable years (which likely would have been in better condition when Woodman looked at them a century or so back) would be nice but wouldn't advance the one-place study much. This means my focus should be on the 1813+ period.

I've already transcribed the burials register up until 1909, the latest date that has been filmed by the LDS and thus the latest date accessible to me in NZ. I won't be able to progress this until any subsequent images are available.

The marriages are the key area which does feel like it is currently a bit of a gap in the study. It would be nice to do these consecutively from 1813, but the extra information provided on marriage entries from 1837 makes that later period much more valuable in establishing family lines. The marriages to 1881 have been extracted in the IGI but this doesn't contain all the information recorded, and if it's anything like the baptisms there may well be omissions.

Speaking of baptisms, I have already covered off the 1813 to 1870 period. It would be lovely to extend this up to at least 1911 in the first instance, but I don't think this would add quite as much as the marriages would.

I'd worked out the number of entries involved in each register on previous times that I have ordered the various films. It looks like the marriages average out about 10 a year, less than I had expected - and while each one takes a while to transcribe, the good thing is that I can just complete and upload individual years if I wanted to, rather than completing the whole register. So I think I will go ahead and order in the LDS film of the marriages starting in 1837 and see how I go.

The moving target - census

2011-12-31T12:35:00.000+13:00

[For background to The Moving Target series of posts, see the story so far]

First up, the census records. So far I have transcribed and made available online the census for Wing for 1841, 1871, 1891, plus the enumerators summary books for 1911. That leaves 1851, 1861, 1881, 1901 and the full 1911 census.

There's a clear distinction here between what has value for me personally (in terms of ease of accessibility to the information) and what has value to other researchers who use the Wing One Place Study website. Transcribing all of these other years is still a goal. But I'm not sure it's a particularly important goal anymore.

My personal standpoint was that where a non-profit organisation, such as a family history society, was already transcribing a census year then that year isn't a priority for me. I believe that family history societies are valuable (particularly once they figure out how they will evolve in the internet age) and I'm not keen on inadvertently cutting off their sources of revenue. The Buckinghamshire Family History Society has the 1851 census available, and the Buckinghamshire Genealogical Society currently has 1861 and 1881 (and 1891 which I've already done for Wing). The 1881 census is freely available via FamilySearch. That leaves the two most recent years, 1901 and 1911, which are available commercially only. These also have the highest population numbers and the most pieces of information to be captured so they would be a very substantial job.

Hands up who likes seeing their ancestors' handwriting? Me too. So I would think any transcription of the 1911 census is somewhat redundant when any sane genealogist would have a clear preference for actually looking at the household schedule completed by their ancestor. I can't provide those, due to copyright, I can only provide transcriptions - useful for me, but you guys are going to need to fling some money at the big commercial providers to get what you want.

Something that might be worth me investing a bit of time in is updating my 1911 enumerators summary spreadsheet to add any other surnames that appear in each household. That would make that spreadsheet a more useful finding aid for me (if I'm going through looking for a surname I tend to want to grab all instances of it, rather than just one individual or a particular family group), but I'm not sure if this would be something that is useful for the website. It would only take around half a day to flick through and do this.

This leaves the 1901 census as the next census I should transcribe. That year there were 1740 individuals in Wing, with both enumeration districts completed by gentlemen with fairly readable handwriting (hurray!). If I average out 3 minutes per person for the transcribing and checking process (including the head-scratching and investigation phase for unknown place-names and the like), it should take around 87 hours. Assuming I can find 4 hours a week for this project (I work full-time and should focus more on limiting the amount of leisure time I stare at a computer), that's 22 weeks to complete, or around 5 months. I'm finding it difficult to get excited about now that I've done the numbers. I'm sure there's other things that I would find more fulfilling than this particular project right now.

I've already ended up a a different place than expected by taking this fresh look at things - previously I'd been waiting until 1 Jan 2012 when that previously-redacted infirmity column on the 1911 census becomes available so that I could get started on the 1911 census. Now I can park that project - and simply check out the infirmities of my own families instead!

The story so far

2011-12-30T17:35:00.000+13:00

[This post got a little long and cathartic. I hope that some of you will stay with me for this and follow-up posts.]

As tends to happen, this month I had a last-minute panic about what the January update to the website might be, and specifically how on earth I was going to get it ready in time once I decided what to do! I do think it's important to have an update each month but over time any kind of planning as to what that new content might be has completely gone out the window. This is not good for my stress levels, and not good for the one-place study either. So instead of an update this month I've decided to evaluate what I've achieved so far, along with what I hope to complete over the coming year.

The Wing One Place Study was "born" in late 2004. Initially it was just the 1841 census for Wing, fully transcribed the old-school way. That's typing it up while looking at the census film at the local LDS Family History Centre - yes, 2004, a time before each census was all over the internet, a time when you couldn't even purchase scans of the census on CD so work could be done in your own time at home. In short, a time when a young woman in a business suit showing up at the LDS FHC on her lunchbreak, laptop in hand, raised eyebrows. Back then, the only records otherwise available online for Wing were the 1881 census transcription and the extracts of the Wing parish registers for baptisms and marriages 1546 to 1881 (*cough* peppered with omissions) that could be found in the IGI.

In September 2005 I transferred the 1841 census and a few other bits and pieces to the study's own domain name, and kicked off things in earnest. Since then, three census years have been fully transcribed with up to 1800 people in each, 58 years of baptisms, 34 years of marriages, 127 years of burials, 23 directories, 43 wills, 56 gravestones, 13 other types of lists of landowners/residents from 1522 to 1873, 220 military men identified, 67 criminals, dozens of Wing non-conformist families, three-and-a-half key industries profiled, and various other pages of snippets of data have been collated.

The Wing OPS costs around NZ $220 a year in hosting/domain costs - that's currently around £110. However the real cost is obviously the time involved. And, honestly, the stress I create for myself from my expectation that every record should already be transcribed, every idea should already be fully realised, and every email should be able to be promptly answered without a thousand apologies for the information I might be able to provide if only I had been able to do things as completely as I should have. Being a Type A personality is not helpful sometimes.

As we head into 2012, digital scans of each census released to date along with more or more-commonly-less reliable census indices are easily accessible on each of the main commercial providers. It looks like 2012 will be the year of the parish registers race as these are also being scanned and indexed by those sites. Does this make an OPSer's efforts in fully transcribing each census and parish register somewhat redundant?

In follow-up posts I'll try and work out what the gameplan should be for the coming year - which information would add most value, what a realistic workload for the project might look like, and create a master list of all those things floating around in my head (or on my computer) that may or may not make the 2012 list. Please do leave some feedback in the comments, particularly if you have ancestors from Wing. After seven years I need an outside perspective!

Merry Christmas everyone!

2011-12-25T10:00:00.000+13:00

It's a sunny Christmas day here in NZ (well, it mostly is if I ignore the cloud that's blocking the sun as I type this), just the way we like it, the turkey (this year it's rum glazed with mango and green banana stuffing - what on earth would my ancestors have made of that) is in the oven and it's almost time to start gathering together. I hope you all get the Christmas day you are wishing for.

No December update

2011-12-01T23:59:00.000+13:00

There won't be an update to the website this month. Right now I'm on a plane between Antigua and London, spending time with current generations of the family tree. See you next month!

I've come over all lightheaded

2011-11-12T09:17:00.001+13:00

I've been hyperventilating with excitement. The British Newspaper Archive is temporarily open in beta form this weekend. You do have to pay to view actual pages rather than snippets of results (£6.95 for 1000 credits, with each newspaper page viewed being 10 credits) but with no ability to download images during the beta period. However I'll be able to access those pages I paid for once the site goes live, and you bet I'll be back!

As part of the terms and conditions of the beta period I can't share many details of the treasures I discovered - suffice to say the Bucks Herald was one of the newspapers included and there were plenty of results for Wing! One of the first things I found was the newspaper report of the theft accusation involving one JORDAN in 1836 that was a noted point of ill-will in the ADAMS murder case the following year. Also that year was the suicide of a habitually-intoxicated Wing resident, the case of the stolen cowstalls, and the sale of wheat, straw and machinery from Burcott Farm.

If you preregistered on the site you should have received an email about beta access. Have fun!

November update

2011-11-02T18:30:00.000+13:00

As promised, the update is a little late this month.

The links page now includes a a link to the TATHAM website that includes information about Wing's turn-of-the-century (19th to 20th, that is) vicar Francis Henry Tatham, and a couple of the existing links have been updated.

Servicemen HEALD and VALLENTINEs (twin brothers descended from the local farming family) have been added to the WWII and WWI military men pages respectively. They were identified via the excellent War Graves Photographic Project website and both have gravestones in All Saints churchyard.

Superstar genealogy friends

2011-10-07T19:49:00.000+13:00

Isn't it nice to have superstar genealogy friends? The kind that support what you're doing, think of you when they come across something that might be relevant for your research, and generally make you feel all warm and fuzzy about the genealogy community.

One of my superstar genealogy friends is Paul Brazell. Paul recently visited the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, and before he went he emailed me to see if there might be anything he could take a look at for me. I duly compiled a long list (you know, just in case there was some disaster that meant he might be trapped in there for days with nothing to do but photograph and scan records for me) and sent it off. And now I have photographs of the 1797 Wing inclosure map! This will be a great help to my current farm project and for general Wing research.

Did I mention that Paul had much less time at the Centre than expected, due to traffic snarlups? And that he doesn't live in the UK either?

A big public thank you to Paul, all my other superstar genealogy friends, and, indeed, everyone's superstar genealogy friends - you're awesome.

And in case you, my dear reader, find yourself at the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies with some spare time up your sleeve and would like to contribute to the Wing One Place Study, here's the rest of my list:

* any tithe maps - I believe there's one for 1851 and I think there's some others as well

* D-X1099/1 (pp 129-205 are Wing) register of farmtenants of the Earl of Chesterfield c.1760-c.1792

* D-X1099/2 (pp61-102 are Wing and hamlets) - survey including plans of farm tenants of Earlof Chesterfield and other landowners c.1778 - also onmicrofilm (M 42)

* D-X1099/3 (pp 10-39 are Wing and hamlets) - similarsurvey but in 1798

* D-X1099/4 (pp 28, 31 and 62-71) similar survey but in1810

* D 94/48 to D 94/54 documents re properties sold to theRothschilds 1752-1876

* NC 5/1 Burcott Congregational Chapel church book 1871to 1913 including admissions and baptisms

* NC 5/11 Burcott Congregational Chapel notebook by KateHELEY dated 1879-1890 "Scraps and Incidents and Notes of the Lord'sDealings" - would love someone to take a look at this and comment on the kind of things included as I'mvery curious about it!

* NMP/401 register of marriages for Church StreetPrimitive Methodist Chapel 1902-1983

* QS/W/E/234 return of dissenting places of worship 1829

October update

2011-10-02T10:35:00.001+13:00

Another month, another update - this time we turn to the farms of Burcott. I've also added links to both the Ascott and Burcott farming pages from the Industries page and, as always, all pages are accessible from the Sitemap.

The monthly update schedule will be slightly altered over the next few months. As you know, you can expect an update to the website each month on the first day of the month. However next month I'll be away at a conference around the 1st, and the following month I'll be at a family wedding, multiple international flights away and out of reach of the internet to boot! So my plan at this stage is to have a small update around 2 November, and no update for December. I'll be trying to get the next farm page ready for the January update - a big job!

Happy Birthday

2011-09-17T08:30:00.000+12:00

It's the Wing One Place Study's birthday today! Well, sort of - the website for the study was born six years ago today, while the study itself was technically around for several months before that. If you have ancestors from Wing but haven't explored the study lately then why not take a look at the sitemap for the website and see what you might have missed?

Woodland for sale in Wing

2011-09-05T07:03:00.002+12:00

Oh, how I wish I could buy this! It's a bit far for me to visit though. From the description it sounds like it is Fox Covert (or part of - I'm sure anyone with any concept of space/size could look at a map and work it out but alas I am not that person), part of the old ADAMS farm. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320754134984

September update

2011-09-04T10:24:00.001+12:00

It's a small update this month - the abstract of the will of Elizabeth FOUNTAINE who died in 1851 has been added. If anyone has wills for any of their farming ancestors in Wing that aren't already abstracted on the website, please email me as they will be useful both in their own right and to help me out with the farms pages.

September update - delayed

2011-09-01T17:07:00.001+12:00

It turns out that sore backs and the odd 12-hour working day aren't conducive to spending time at the computer on genealogy (or, indeed, anything else), so the September update will be slightly delayed. I should have something up on Sunday. Sadly it won't be the next page in the Farms series.

An intriguing ADAMS document

2011-08-13T19:15:00.000+12:00

I know I just said that I thought the ADAMS saga was over but....

I just found this intriguing record in The National Archives catalogue. Sadly it's £40 to get a digital copy so I'll likely never know what it's about. I could speculate though - perhaps some kind of dispute over Thomas ADAMS' will, with proceedings brought by his ~~murderer~~ dearly beloved son William?

Genealogical fiction - who's writing?

2011-08-02T08:36:00.001+12:00

No, by genealogical fiction I don't mean those spurious family trees scattered far and wide over the internet.

I've been toying with the idea of writing a historical novel about one of my ancestors. After much pondering (and much listening to the wonderful I Should Be Writing podcast), I've come to the conclusion that I simply don't want the novel written enough to actually write it, so I've parked the idea for now.

However, it seems that other genealogists out there have stepped up, written, and published their genealogical fiction. Here are a few that have come to my attention over the last couple of weeks:

* D.J Wiseman - A Habit Of Dying is an English murder-mystery stemming from a journal found in a box of family heirlooms.

* Steve Robinson - In The Blood features an American genealogist solving a historical murder-mystery in Cornwall.

* William Leverne Smith (aka geneablogger Dr Bill) - Back To The Homeplace and the new sequel The Homeplace Revisited are set in more recent times in the Ozarks but feature family history themes.

I've just purchased the first two (from Book Depository and Smashwords respectively) - unfortunately the last isn't available in epub format with any online retailer that will sell to NZers, so that will have to wait for now.

What else is out there? Anyone want to confess to having a work in progress?

August update

2011-08-01T06:53:00.000+12:00

The page about the Adams murder first appeared on the website in 2005 - after 6 years of occasional updates it now feels like this case is concluded. Further information about the fate of alleged murderer and convicted thief William Francis ADAMS has been unearthed and can be found on the Adams murder page, along with a new newspaper report of the murder trial, this time from the Brighton Patriot. This contains additional names and testimony of Wing folk. It also contains different forenames for a number of people when compared to the initial report I had from The Times, and one case (Edgar OLLEY/Walter RALEIGH) demonstrates how easily names can be misheard and misrecorded.

There's another important new page on the website this month - the first of the farming series. This first page covers the farms and farmers of Ascott. Over the coming months Burcott, Cottesloe, Crafton and the remainder of Wing will be added, along with a page about the farming industry in Wing in general. This is one of those big projects that can never really be concluded, so I have decided to upload the information as it is collated. If you are connected to any of these farming families and have further information to add, or have access to other maps that may help pinpoint the exact boundaries of a farm at any given point, please please get in touch.

GATES help

2011-07-22T19:36:00.004+12:00

I'm back working on the pages about the farms and farmers of Wing, hoping to have at least one hamlet ready for the August update to the website. However I need a bit of help unravelling the GATES family (specifically the line that came to Wing from Aston Abbots, i.e. the line where Baron appears as a forename) in the early 20th century. If there are any descendants or relatives out there who could share information with me, please please email me at alex@wing-ops.org.uk as I'd love to get it resolved.

July update

2011-07-01T07:06:00.003+12:00

I've been a bit quiet this month - spending more time knitting than researching! But I do have the July update up. This month it's for those researching back in the 16th century - the subsidy roll for 1524/5. This is approximately 20 years before the start of the parish registers, so if you're looking for men (or women, there are a few of those listed) around this timeframe who had assets or income of £1 or more, you may just find them being taxed - or rather, providing a subsidy to the King - in the subsidy roll.

June update

2011-06-05T08:13:00.000+12:00

Hi everyone - the June update is now up on the website. This month we have 12 new memorial inscriptions from photos provided by Maureen. Thanks, Maureen!

Still here

2011-06-02T06:51:00.003+12:00

Yes, I am still here! This month I've been very busy at work and home, as well as being sick, so haven't had time to post - or to complete this month's update, which I should get finished and uploaded this weekend. Hopefully you will forgive me just this once.

May update

2011-05-01T12:43:00.000+12:00

Hi everyone! New additions to the website this month are:

* The will of William HONNOR from 1752, provided by regular contributor Dave. This will gives an interesting insight into William as he is quite specific about his bequests. It's also interesting due to what happened next - William died within a week of making his will, swiftly followed by his wife and eldest son who were both buried within a week of William himself. This caused some problems for the execution of the will given those two were joint executors.

* New memorial inscriptions for HOUNSLOW, provided by Christine who has recently made her first visit to Wing, MALLETT and PEASE, provided by regular contribution Maureen (more to come next month).

Do you have something similar you could contribute to the website? Email me. Photos of gravestones in All Saint's churchyard are particularly welcome since I don't live in the UK so can't get there myself. If you are taking photos specially for me, then the higher the resolution/filesize the better (I'm happy to accept all formats including RAW).

War Memorial - restoration in progress

2011-04-18T17:51:00.000+12:00

Maureen has kindly provided this photo taken just after you walk through the lychgate at All Saints Church, looking down the path towards the Wing War Memorial - now resplendent with scaffolding.

Memorial inscriptions

2011-04-11T06:54:00.006+12:00

Do you have photos of any of the gravestones in Wing's churchyard? If so, please email them in to me so I can add them to the pages of memorial inscriptions. I understand that the passage of time and lack of care is causing the inevitable decay of the existing gravestones, and recording those memorials while they are still whole and readable is a lovely gift to pass on to future generations.

War Memorial restoration underway

2011-04-09T07:24:00.002+12:00

Wonderful news from Wing - on Saturday the scaffolding will go up and work will commence on the repair of the War Memorial. Fundraising for this has been undertaken for several years and now this project can be brought to fruition.

April update

2011-04-01T18:37:00.000+13:00

I have several new 17th century marriage strays this month (BREEDON, KEENE, MORTIMER, ROBINSON, STRUPOR, WIGG). Whenever I learn about a new genealogical website or database I tend to use Wing Bucks/Buckinghamshire as my test search string to see what pops up, and I found these entries within books at Internet Archive using the Mocavo genealogical search engine. I won't comment further on Mocavo as it's brand new.

By the same method I came across a will of a Benjamin FEN senior from Milford Connecticut. He had inherited land in Wing from Agnes SEARE, and in turn passed this land on to one of his sons when he died. I must locate Agnes' will and find out what the connection was between the two.

Behind the scenes I'm trying to get my pages on the farms of Wing ready. This is a big big job!

Once, Twice, Three Times A Lovely Blog

2011-03-14T18:09:00.000+13:00

Kisses to Sharon, Ros and Fi, who think I'm a Lovely Blog. Right back at ya, darlings!

After four-and-a-half years of blogging (which is 27 web-years according to footnoteMaven), I must confess I'm a bit old and jaded when it comes to these blog awards. However it hasn't escaped my notice that there seems to be quite a few UK geneablogs popping up lately, so I'll wave my walking stick towards these bright-eyed young whippersnappers and wish them the best of luck on their blogging journeys.....

Elizabeth at Your Local History

Beth at Walking With Ancestors

Claire at MahoganyBox

March update

2011-03-01T06:54:00.000+13:00

This month I've added one more military man - or have I? Arthur Ernest Fountain has a record in the WO97 military pensions series, and while I haven't viewed that record yet I have gone ahead and listed him. He may or may not be the same "A Fountaine, an old soldier" who died in 1916 - watch this space!

The second addition this month is another newspaper report on the coroner's inquest of baby Jane Bowden in 1857. This particular report has detailed quotes from the evidence of a number of Wing residents, but as this crime was a particularly sad one readers may find the report upsetting.

No census for you

2011-02-25T17:56:00.001+13:00

We all know the pain of discovering that there is no census for us. No, our ancestors lived in jurisdictions that didn't keep their census returns, like Ireland or New Zealand. Or the census was either never taken, like England in 1941, or their records were collateral damage in wartime. Sometimes even we just get desperately unlucky and find our ancestors were living in the small pockets around the country where the census records for that year have perished or are inexplicably missing.

Our knowledge and understanding of our ancestors' lives are enriched by these records - a happy byproduct of the original purpose of the census, to gather statistical data for future planning. As genealogists we actually get excited about completing our modern-day census returns, contributing to this process and leaving behind this official record, just as our ancestors did.

The New Zealand 2011 census has been cancelled in the wake of the latest earthquake to devastate the city of Christchurch. There is no census for us. I'll be completing my forms anyway (I had been looking forward to doing this online, but the old-fashioned way will suffice), and filing them away along with a copy of this article announcing the cancellation. It's a pretty sad relic of this year to leave behind.

When chickens come home to roost

2011-02-20T09:38:00.000+13:00

This week NZ booksellers Whitcoulls and Borders (both now part of the same Australian group) were placed into voluntary administration. Whitcoulls and its predecessor firms have been around for more than 100 years, so this is sad news. I worked for Whitcoulls for three years while attending university so I was predisposed to give them the benefit of the doubt when I experienced problems with their e-book retailing attempts since they launched this nine months ago. They've done a pretty good job of destroying all that goodwill though - here's a sample of my experiences:

* Inability to consolidate the two email addresses Whitcoulls held for me without going into a physical store and getting them to put in a manual request
* Inability to edit or remove an expired credit card attached to my account
* Inability to add a second credit card so that I could actually buy books after my original card expired
* Purchasing e-books that then never showed up in my eLibrary so that I could access them
* Purchasing e-books that then didn't have the advertised epub format
* Support requests being closed as "fixed" without notifying me that they had been closed or, indeed, actually fixing the problem
* Removal of some of the very useful functionality that the kobobooks.com platform has (the same platform that Whitcoulls adopted for their website)
* In-store display models of the Sony Reader with no books on them (because why would you actually want to see what it's like to read a book on it before purchasing one??)

Here's hoping the future for Whitcoulls involves new management that have a clue.

In the related realm of print marketing, this time specifically genealogical, could someone out there fill me in on why UK genealogical magazines arrive in NZ with entirely different names? Your Family Tree is on our shelves with a cover proclaiming it to be Your Family History. All the inside pages are still branded as Your Family Tree. Meanwhile, the magazine actually called Your Family History is on the shelves as Tracing Family History (again, the inside pages all show as the original name). These covers are clearly not specifically printed for the NZ/AU region as the pricing still shows in pounds. If it hadn't have been for the "from Nick Barratt and his team" on the cover of "Tracing Family History" raising my suspicions, I would never have realised that this was in fact the very magazine I'd been keen to see for months. Genealogical magazines tend to have confusingly-similar names anyway, so why oh why are publishers allowing this dilution of their brand?

To explore strange new worlds

2011-02-10T17:39:00.004+13:00

I'm going to be seeking out new life and new civilizations, and boldly going where I haven't gone before - to Ireland! Not literally, just genealogically. I have signed up for the National Institute of Genealogical Studies "Research: Irish Ancestors" four-week course.

I wanted to do a course in something I knew as little as possible about, and Ireland certainly fits the bill. The couple of formal genealogical courses I have done to date covered topics I already knew quite a lot about (after the best part of a decade researching you do pick up a thing or two), so I wanted to stretch myself this time round. And I had a discount to do another course through the National Institute, so..........

I recently visited my aunt who has an Irish husband, which gives me a line to practice my skills on - should be interesting to see how things differ from my traditional stomping ground of England.

Those Places Thursday - Wing Buckinghamshire

2011-02-03T17:37:00.000+13:00

It's Thursday!

It occurs to me (somewhat belatedly) that you may have been eagerly anticipating my own contribution to Those Places Thursday. Sadly I haven't actually written one for the occasion. As always, you are welcome to peruse the main website at http://www.wing-ops.org.uk/ (this blog is a sideline, so if you have ancestors from Wing and haven't visited the main site, prepare to get excited!) - the pages in the Industries section and the Miscellany are probably the most informative and amusing if you don't actually have a connection to Wing.

You should also check out the page of photos of All Saints Church, because I have some news to report about it. Wing is a great example of how you can take a 10th century Saxon church and modernise it from time to time, and this time the roof is the centre of attention. Solar panels were recently installed as part of the Church of England's Shrinking The Footprint iniative. There's an article and nice photo of the panels here, and if you live anywhere nearby you should definitely head along to the seminar at the Church on Saturday 5 March to learn more about renewable energy options for churches.

I'm so proud - well done, Wing!

February update

2011-02-01T06:49:00.000+13:00

This month we have:

* an update to the DORMER family tree - Ursula, at the head of the tree, has been correctly named as Alice Collingridge. Thanks to Charani, who is undertaking a one-name-study of Collingridge, for the heads-up on the surname.

* two more newspaper articles about the murder of baby Jane BOWDEN in 1856. These expand, and in some cases differ slightly from, the information reported in the trial. I do have some further articles on this case to get typed up, and also have some further articles on the Adams murder.

* Frederick CORKETT has been added to the list of WW1 military men from Wing. In Fred's case I hadn't previously located him in the WO363 records as his birthplace hadn't been indexed and his residence was London at the time he signed up. This is probably quite common as this generation did head London-ward, so there will be more men out there that I haven't identified yet - if your man served but is not listed, do let me know.

A challenge for you

2011-01-31T09:01:00.005+13:00

Got a blog? Got an ancestor? Tell us about their ancestral place.

One of the blogging themes at Geneabloggers.com is Those Places Thursday. Every genealogist should have a basic profile of each of their ancestral places, so this week why don't you pick one of those places, do a bit of research, and report back this Thursday on what you find?

There's a nice example here where Jen's looked at Herencia in Spain, learned a bit about its geography and history, thought about how that may have influenced her ancestor Nicanor's life, and identified what aspects of Herencia she'd need to know more about to round out Nicanor's ancestral story.

And lo, the archetypal ancestor smiles beatifically upon me

2011-01-25T19:35:00.000+13:00

Or maybe not.

Nevertheless, I have been blessed by the current round of Ancestor Approved awards. Thanks to Geniaus and Mike - mwah! Go check their blogs out!

As long-time readers will know, I'm not one for playing by the official rules on these things, and I don't have any cider today. Boooo! I do have a sugar-rush though, so here's a surprising thing I learned about one of my ancestors this week (mostly to name-drop, you understand).

James POULTER (1809-1873) from Farnham, Surrey, somehow managed to progress from ag lab to farmer sometime between 1843 and 1847. Odd, no? Firstly, how did he get the money? Didn't inherit any, his daddy hadn't popped off yet and he was only an ag lab too. Secondly, what's someone as posh as a farmer doing hanging out in my family tree? You're making my hundreds of ag labs feel bad. Thirdly - dude, you were a farmer. How can you have no will? For several brief, shining days, I lived in hope that when the time came to check the probate index, there you'd be, but no. For shame, James.

And now to pass it on....if your genealogy blog is feeling sad and neglected without the Beatific Ancestor glaring at you, then go ahead, plug your blog in the comments, and she can come and live with you.

National Institute for Genealogical Studies

2011-01-22T08:28:00.005+13:00

Hi everyone! No, I haven't dropped off the face of the planet, but it has been summer holidays here in NZ and the computer is not so appealing then. I did do two genealogical things of note though.

The first was the introductory course (Methodology part 1) at National Institute for Genealogical Studies based in Canada. Louise from the National Institute spoke at the History and Genealogy Roadshow I attended here back in November (and apparently never blogged about), and I signed up then for this freebie course. I was curious to see how an alternative online genealogical education provider handled things, and I was just as pleased with this one as I was with Pharos. The materials were excellent, albeit they didn't really tread any new ground for me but that was hardly the course's fault, just a factor of my experience. The interactivity of the course didn't seem as high as Pharos which was definitely more fun to do. Once you have completed one module within your National Institute course you are given access to the next module, so you don't have to wait for the next week for the materials to be given out as you do with Pharos - the flipside to that is that you don't get the same sense of camaraderie with your classmates as you do with Pharos when you are all working with the same material at the same time. Each course from the National Institute is offered more frequently (generally every two months) than Pharos at present, which is handy to know if you feel the need to upskill quickly on an area. I won't comment on value for money, as the actual cost for you may well be dependent on the exchange rate at the time, as it is for me.

The second was a vist to my aunt, who lives too far away for regular visiting, but doesn't live so far away that I should leave it so many years between visits - she's in the same country, for goodness sake! She's also interested in the family tree so I took down trees of the four branches for her grandparents based on what I've done so far (and had a crash course on diagrams in Family Historian in the process). I hope to make enough progress on that side this year to be able to write it up and share it with the family properly. While down that part of the country I also got to meet my cousin's newish baby - another leaf on the tree!

January update - Happy New Year

2011-01-01T08:25:00.000+13:00

Welcome to 2011, everyone! There are updates scattered all over the website this month.

There's several new military men picked up from the WO97 military pensions series. Most of these are for pre-1900 service and are from the ASHPOOL, BIRCH, BRAND, DUNCOMBE, ESSEX, GATES, GUTTERIDGE, HOUNSLOW, NEWENS, ROGERS, SHRIMPTON and WOODEARDS families.

Private Joseph DUNCOMBE was Wesleyan Methodist, so he's been added to the Methodist page.

I received a transcript of the will of George TRUEMAN thanks to Alan Jones - as well as the will itself, George was a major benefactor to the Congregational Union Church and a key player in the brickmaking business in Wing, and the will contained important information on both those areas. See those pages for further elaboration.

I've done a general tidy up of external links as well.

Dear Santa

2010-12-29T17:41:00.003+13:00

On the offchance you've won the lottery since Christmas Day and are trying to find that perfect extra gift for me, might I suggest this?

Ascott Cup 1887

RIP IGI

2010-12-16T18:02:00.004+13:00

A few days ago FamilySearch switched over their beta site to their main site - if you haven't been over that way in a while, go and scare yourself. A perusal of the Adjustment Guide confirms the following things:

The International Genealogical Index is dead - or, at least, no longer part of the main site, so as good as. The Guide admits that those patron-submitted records with no sources were of "limited value" (yes, those are the precise words we all used too, aren't they?) and deserved to be jettisoned - we're right there with you. RIP IGI, I suspect we will remember you more fondly than your flaws deserve.

The free Personal Ancestral File (PAF) software is also banished from the main site. PAF's retirement has been coming for a long time - farewell, our elderly friend!

RIP batch numbers - gone too are the good old days when you could run a search specifying a particular batch number for a particular place. This is distressing news (no, I don't want to search the behemoth that is the 68-million-and-counting England Births and Christenings database, I'd actually like to narrow it down a lot first, and by the way births and christenings are two very different things), so I guess we must learn to have faith in FamilySearch's new-and-improved Place field.

The 1881 census is only temporarily AWOL - phew!

I actually found the Guide helpful, not so much from the "where is it" perspective but for the clear insight it gave along the way into the fundamental principles behind the changes. I was pleasantly surprised by how eminently reasonable it all sounded.

However I shall ~~bite my tongue and rant on the inside~~ wait until I've had more time to fairly evaluate the other aspects of the changes before commenting. Some of these are most definitely improvements, lest you think I'm not super-excited about scanned original source records being available online for free, because I can't get enough of that action. More, more, cries the greedy genealogist!

Why indeed

2010-12-12T07:12:00.000+13:00

Amy of the We Tree Genealogy Blog periodically publishes Fun With Search Terms, a very entertaining look at some of the phrases that bring people to her blog. The search phrases that bring people to my website are invariably on-topic and thus not quite as amusing, but over November people out there pondered:

* why did they build Wing Buckinghamshire (why, indeed, I'm just happy they did)

* "gommon recipes" and "partridges larded" (I'm more intrigued by a kid with a pudding in his belly myself - what kind of pudding? Incidentally, I now have this cookbook as a ebook on my Kobo so I shall look it up and find out)

* effects of over plaiting (depends on whether you mean hair or straw, apparently pregnancy is a side-effect for the latter)

* compare hamlet and an extract from the office for receivers (?)

Who are you?

2010-12-11T06:34:00.004+13:00

The following photos were provided by Linda, a descendent of the BOLTON family. Can anyone identify anyone in these photos?

Update - the cap features the badge of the Royal Warwickshire Regt.

Family Historian - data conversion comments

2010-12-08T06:15:00.001+13:00

Now that I have "real" genealogy software, I had to convert my existing data. The initial steps were relatively simple - export from PAF to GEDCOM, import GEDCOM into Family Historian, hope for the best. Unless a really obvious error is flagged by the import process, you can only look to see that everything looks approximately okay (because we all have photographic memories and can remember all the details of the hundreds or thousands of people in our family tree off the top of our heads, right?), then look at some sample individuals you do know well to see exactly how everything has translated across into the new software.

First comment: I really should have some official sources for myself, my brother and my parents. My dad was the only one with an external source - look, I can prove he exists as I have a copy of the birth announcement in The Times (London). Turns out I (or, rather, my genealogy software a.k.a. my other brain) even know what hospital he was born in!

Second comment: for census records I had previously been adding two separate events/attributes in PAF, one for the census and one for the residence(assuming the address was more specific than just the name of the village). Family Historian enables you to attach both a place AND an address to any fact, so I would now need to go through and consolidate the census information together into one fact. Also on the address front, there's a nice feature to list all the places in your database, identify the near-duplicates, check out which records they are attached to, and tidy them up so they are recorded exactly the same if appropriate - nice!

Third comment: I use the Notes field in PAF to record the research process for that person, search terms I used, records I know exist and might be useful but that I can't access, general comments or snippets about that person, and more. This has come across a single note for each person but can now be split up into different types of notes in Family Historian (including notes that apply to the family group rather than the individual).

Fourth comment: I seem to be avoiding looking into the whole source citation area - I suspect there is some cleanup required on this part of the conversion. A perfect time to tidy up all those sources, but possibly a big job. I'll ease into it by reading the chapter in the Family Historian guidebook first!

A Christmas present for me

2010-12-05T13:32:00.003+13:00

I've finally done it - I've purchased genealogy software. After almost a decade of genealogy in my life, it was certainly time! No longer will I putter along in PAF (although I'm sure it will continue to sit on my USB drive in case I ever need to refer to it while out and about), I have a shiny new copy of Family Historian to use instead.

Of course, timing not being my strong point, I chose to purchase this now knowing full well I'm going to be reformatting the computer in a few weeks time so will have to reinstall it. But, on the other hand, shiny Christmas present for me!

When the shiny present feeling has worn off, I'll be sure to post on the trials and tribulations of converting and checking my PAF data.

Mastering MyMaps

2010-12-03T06:50:00.001+13:00

The first custom map I created using Google MyMaps shows the location of mills in Wing. Over at the One Place Studies website I created a map showing the location of each one place study listed. This was intended to make it easier to identify neighbouring one place studies, which of course could be across county or country borders. I hit a small snag, though, when I got to the 201st study - after 200 markers Google MyMaps paginates the list of markers. The impact of this is that when looking at the embedded map you don't see any markers on the map that aren't on the first page of the marker listings (or, rather, aren't on the same page as the page I happened to be sitting on when I created the link to embed a particular view of the map). This was really disappointing as it destroyed the whole purpose of the maps.

After much wailing, this has now been fixed, and in case I ever have the same problem (or anyone else out there has the same problem) I thought I would document the process. I figured this out thanks to helpful posts on the Google MyMaps support forum which lead me to here and here.

Firstly, I had to combine the two existing maps I had created, England and non-England, back into a single map. For those wrestling with their own MyMaps, you need to Edit the source map you want to copy from, right-click on the View In Google Earth link and copy the link location, then go into the destination map, Edit and Import.

Secondly, I had to re-order the markers on the newly combined map back in the order I wanted them in and save the new map. Random isn't such a good option going forward should I ever need to find and edit a marker!

Thirdly, Edit the new map and copy the Google Earth link location for it, then paste that into the Search Maps box up the top and click on Search Maps. What this essentially does is enable you to see a virtual dynamic copy of your original map, without paginating the markers, that automatically updates when your underlying saved MyMap is updated.

Fourthly, while you have the virtual map open (and without saving it), you can then use the usual Link options to create the link to embed the desired map view into your webpage. Should you need to create any new embedded links at a future date you can repeat the third and fourth step to access the virtual map again.

The really good news is that doing all that seems to have fixed the glitch whereby the links in most of the markers weren't opening up in the whole webpage - but now they do! This problem was quite frustrating as it meant that anyone using those links weren't actually getting to the website they wanted to visit and could only view it in a comparatively small window. It also gave the impression that the information in those studies was part of the One Place Studies index site which was the last thing I wanted - everyone working on a one place study deserves their due credit for their hard work in providing that resource!

If you haven't checked out the One Place Studies website yet, take a look and see if anyone is working on a study for any of your ancestral places. If you have your own genealogy website, how might Google MyMaps help illustrate what you are doing?

December update

2010-12-01T18:15:00.001+13:00

Last month I found a photograph of a WILLIS gravestone on Flickr, and the photographer Keith has given me permission to include it on the website. So there is an update to the Memorial Inscriptions section, a new page for the Willis family.

Also updated is the straw plaiting page, with mention of a cholera outbreak affecting the straw plait school in 1871.

Desperately Seeking Sacky

2010-11-25T17:52:00.004+13:00

Anyone know who 'Sacky' Hounslow of Wing, as featured in these photographs from the 1940s, was? Enquiring minds want to know!

http://apps1.buckscc.gov.uk/eforms2005/photolibrary/photoDetail.aspx?id=21846

http://apps1.buckscc.gov.uk/eforms2005/photolibrary/photoDetail.aspx?id=21844

One Place Studies website

2010-11-08T07:12:00.000+13:00

Today I'm proud to announce the launch of the One Place Studies website. The Index of One Place Studies previously maintained by John Palmer of the Wirksworth OPS has been updated and expanded, and the website has a range of resources to help those of us undertaking one place studies. These resources will grow over time (it's a bit lean at the moment!) as we all contribute to the pool of knowledge.

I'd like to thank the following who provided elements of the site:

* My old friends Katrina and Michael Thompson of katproductions who provided the webspace for this project - thanks, guys!
* Arcsin for the website template
* phpBB for the open-source software for the forums, and A1ex (no, not me) for the SkyBlue style template used
* Google Maps
* http://www.buttonshut.com/ for the social media buttons

If you're interested in one place studies, please come over, check it out, and get chatting on the forums. If you're interested in genealogy (and you know you are), see if there's a study for any of your ancestors' places. And spread the word!

Forget-me-not

2010-11-06T07:27:00.003+13:00

Nana
17 July 1927 - 6 November 1990

Happy Blogiversary to me!

2010-11-04T06:50:00.000+13:00

Today I am four years old! And this year I remembered my blogiversary!

This blog isn't my main online presence (that would be here. And here. And from next week, here. What can I say, these things happen!) so I don't have time for it to be as fabulous as some other genealogy blogs (you know who you are - yes, you!), but I hope you enjoy popping by all the same (plus there are ~~bribes~~ goodie bags at my blogiversary party, filled with warm fuzzies, RAOGKs, and climbing gear for those brick walls). Enjoy, and thanks for coming!^*

* Yes, I have abused the exclamation mark just a leeetle bit in this post. But I'm four! I'm allowed!

November update

2010-11-02T18:45:00.001+13:00

It's November so I'm pleased to announce another addition to the list of Wing military men serving in WW1, Archibald Pitchford.

I was alerted to Archie by an email from a relative. This does demonstrate that there will be men from Wing who served in WW1 or other conflicts that I don't yet have listed, most likely because I can only easily find them in records that are searchable by birthplace. This can be difficult if the birthplace was stated in the underlying record but not extracted and included in the index I was using, which was the case with Archie's record in the WO363 series. You may have identified a serviceman's record where the birthplace isn't stated at all but you know from other information that it's definitely a Wing man, or a serviceman who wasn't born in Wing but lived in Wing! Please do check to make sure your father/grandfather/their siblings from Wing that served are included in my list, and if they're missing send me an email with their details.

We will remember them.

One Place Studies

2010-10-17T17:09:00.003+13:00

Are you undertaking a one-place-study and haven't spoken (emailed/posted) to me about this in the last moonth?

I am taking over maintaining the One Place Study Index (currently found on John Palmer's Wirksworth site) and giving it its own website. Along with the index of studies will be articles and networking opportunities to help out those of us working on a one-place-study. The existing Index is getting a big revamp as part of this as many sites/emails have changed and there are many more out there to discover, so please do get in touch if you'd like to be listed.

The new website should be live in early November and I'll be sure to show her off to you then!

Many colours of the rainbow

2010-10-09T07:13:00.004+13:00

Inspired by Sussex boy John over at The Wandering Genealogist, I present a statistical representation of the birthplaces of my 3xgreat-grandparents.

It makes for a particularly unattractive graph colour-wise, no? Nonetheless, I shall embrace my diversity, as it turns out not every road leads to Buckinghamshire.

Still here

2010-10-09T06:37:00.001+13:00

I am still here, just being very quiet. I'm hard at work on a new one-place-study-related project - see you in November!

October update

2010-10-01T07:06:00.000+13:00

It's poll month this month! The Wing folk from the 1831 Buckinghamshire poll have been added, along with Wing residents who owned land and voted in the 1807 Bedfordshire poll. I've also expanded the 1784 Buckinghamshire poll entries so you can see who everyone voted for. Enjoy!

Can you help? Poll books

2010-09-21T19:30:00.001+12:00

Wing residents from several years' polling in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire are currently listed on the website. I'm aware of the following years of Buckinghamshire poll books that survive but that I don't yet have - do you have access to them (available at Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies and other places), and if so can you get me scans or photocopies of the page for Wing? To be complete, I'd also like a copy of the title page, and as a bonus, details of any Wing residents listed in other parishes - unfortunately I don't think these will be nicely indexed for you though!

1685 - 1700 - 1701 - 1702 - 1710 - 1713 - 1734

From 1841 to 1890 almost a complete run exists of the annual electoral registers - these registers list those eligible to vote, rather than recording actual votes cast as the poll books do.

Falling in love

2010-09-19T07:27:00.004+12:00

I'm just finishing up on the three-week One Place Studies course I'm taking with Pharos Tutors. This has been a very interesting experience - as well as high quality course materials there certainly is a lot of value in being able to interact with a group of fellow genealogists, all intelligent, committed to the course subject and from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. Lots of fun and knowledge to be gained by bouncing ideas and results off each other! Check out Pharos Tutors to see if there's an upcoming course that interests you.

Here in NZ, Rabobank advertises using the slogan "your significant other bank". It turns out I may have a significant other one-place-study (as well as a Top Secret Genealogy Project that you will hear about later). I'm a little bit in love with the hamlet of Tilford in Farnham, Surrey, now. I tell you, places are addictive!

Twiglet on the tree

2010-09-06T07:12:00.004+12:00

I'm an aunty!

September update

2010-09-01T06:50:00.000+12:00

This month I've done a bit more housekeeping, adding notes on the usage of old-style versus new-style dates where appropriate, along with details of the administrative boundaries of Wing to the gazetteers page.

New to the wills page is the will of William RICKARD, "late of Slapton and now of Stanbridge" who owned property in Wing and elsewhere when he died in early 1841. William evidently didn't have children, so many brothers, nephews, nieces and other individuals received bequests. If you're connected to RICKARD, BONE, PRICE, BUCKMASTER, or FOUNTAINE in Wing or surrounding parishes this will is worth a look.

Milton Keynes Heritage Open Days

2010-08-26T09:42:00.000+12:00

If you're in the Beds/Bucks area in early September, check out the Milton Keynes Heritage Open Days. There's a variety of events of interest to genealogists and historians, not just in Milton Keynes itself.

In Imaginary Land, where I have unlimited time and money to be there, you'll see me at:

* Reading Old Handwriting workshop
* Old Fashioned Games at Bradwell Windmill (in costume!)
* Bees, Hives and Honey with the North Bucks Beekeepers Association
* The Loneliest Church In Bucks - Tattenhoe Monument and Howe Park Wood

and probably many more - these things are easy to schedule in Imaginary Land!

Note that All Saints Church at Wing is participating in the Historic Churches Ride & Stride event. This is a sponsored event to raise funds for the Historic Churches Trust and the church of your choice - All Saints, perhaps?

What's in your inbox?

2010-08-18T17:38:00.004+12:00

I'm still here, honestly, I'm just very quiet online this month! I've been very busy at work (the day job, not genealogy), so the month is flying by very quickly. Any spare snippets of genealogy time I've had have been devoted to my WHITEs of Dorset and the LATHWELL one-name-study.

Some interesting genealogical emails have also come my way this month. The first was an enquiry about the likely location of the Royal Oak pub in Ascott, which I was able to answer thanks to some previous information provided by David. The second was a possible candidate for John BULL who appears on the Wing War Memorial for WWII - there's a chance a single marriage certificate might be enough to prove or disprove the connection, if only I had unlimited funds to look into such leads! And the last was an email from someone researching the history of their home in Deddington Oxfordshire - one of the earliest owners in the mid-17th century was a JAKEMAN, which is my family, but it's 40 years or so earlier than my own research currently goes back. I must find time for a library visit to relook at the OFHS parish register transcripts and see if the link can be made....

Has anyone else had any interesting genealogical emails lately?

August update

2010-08-01T10:35:00.000+12:00

This month I've added the names of some more Wing people with wills held at the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies. The surnames involved are

BAKER
BURCOTT (from 1556 - perhaps the namesame of the hamlet?)
COLES
CRAFTON
STEVENS

While paging through the entries for Wing in the CBS online index I noticed quite a variety of interesting spellings (eg Folentyne and Wuster), so do watch out for this if you are searching for your own families there.

Train my geneabrain!

2010-07-27T17:16:00.004+12:00

In my continuing quest to bite off more than I can chew (at least, more than I have time for), I've just taken two steps towards training my geneabrain.

I've signed up for the One Place Study course at Pharos. Pharos is affiliated with the Society of Genealogists and offers online courses on a wide variety of general and UK-specific genealogical subjects. I'm hoping to pick up some fresh perspectives and, dare I say it, a more rigorous methodology to my madness? Secretly I'd love to do the assessed certificate but unfortunately I appear to be short the £450 I'd need. If you're interested in one place studies, why don't you join me on the course? It starts 31 August and is £33.

To keep me entertained over the next month until the course starts, I've purchased a copy of Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills. This book has sections on the fundamentals of evidence analysis and the fundamentals of citation, followed by extensive discussions and examples of the different types and forms of historical records we are likely to encounter and how to correctly cite them in our genealogical software and writing. It's a relatively expensive reference book in physical form, but the first edition can be purchased online in PDF form at Footnote.com for a much more affordable USD25. I'm already casting an aghast eye at some of my webpages, so expect to see some tweaks being made to get them ship-shape.

Picture perfect

2010-07-24T08:08:00.001+12:00

Seen the new-look Google Image Search yet? It hasn't yet been rolled out to google.co.uk or google.co.nz but is operational on google.com.

In a nutshell it's prettier (particularly if your ancestors were from West Lulworth in Dorset and you were searching for photos of that particularly stunning location!), has a lot more images on the first results page, has a pop-up box as you mouse over images to give you more information about the image, and has better filters including image size and predominant colour palette.

I can't help thinking that all this ease of use may lead to increased copyright breaches - remember to ask permission to use any photos you find on the internet unless they are clearly tagged with a Creative Commons licence or similar, and follow any attribution or other rules attached to the image.

Note that I haven't bothered hyperlinking to Google in this post as your browser will probably auto-direct you to your local version of Google - if this isn't google.com you should have a link on the local version page whereby you can "Go to Google.com".

As in the past, the search function may bring up some not-so-accurate images based on the words surrounding the image - I found a familiar image when searching for Wing Buckinghamshire...

NZ Family History Fair 2010

2010-07-19T08:18:00.000+12:00

From what I saw attending on the one day only, the organisation and execution of the first NZ Family History Fair was excellent. One of the seminars I attended was by the newly-elected-President of the NZ Society of Genealogists Fiona Brooker, who seemed particularly lovely and has awesome digital scrapbooking skills! I'm part-way through a project to name my grandad's photos by loading them into Photoshop Elements pages, looks like I must try harder...

My impression of the seminar list before going, that these weren't targeted at or that useful for the more experienced genealogist, was probably correct based on the sessions I attended (which were mostly from the Sharing My Past For the Future stream rather than the more-obviously-beginner streams). It would be interesting to see what the experience levels of attendees were - most people seemed to be NZSG members attending for the whole weekend so you would think that there would be a reasonable level of experience there. While the seminars were okay, I don't know that I would go out of my way in future. I also didn't purchase anything from exhibitors/retailers as there wasn't much that was relevant to my area of interest - one of the problems of living in one country and researching solely in another.

Meeting some online people in real life was worth the trip to Hamilton though - I met up with Brett, the Photo-Sleuth at lunch, after a false start where we thought we were in the same seminar in the morning. I was therefore smiling optimistically at every lone male entering my seminar, but then it turned out Brett was in an entirely different room....

I was also able to meet Seonaid Lewis, the family history librarian from the Auckland City Library - I'll be sure to pop into the library again sometime soon.

I do think that I can learn more about my ancestors and their lives (and how to research my ancestors and their lives) by doing what I've been doing on my own, rather than being a member of NZSG or attending any generic genealogical education events, and I definitely get more energy, enthusiasm and ideas from the geneablogging and tweeting community. So I'll keep on doing what I'm doing, starting today when I have the day off work!

Bookshelf: Village Sketches by Whitehead

2010-07-16T18:37:00.000+12:00

Village Sketches descriptive of club and school festivals and other village gatherings and institutions
By TC Whitehead, M.A., Incumbent of Gawcott, Buckinghamshire
Published by Bosworth & Harrison (London) 1861
Available on Google Books

As I have an interest in 19th-century Buckinghamshire (ahem) this was a must-read. Thomas Clark Whitehead had been resident in Gawcott for a decade when he wrote this outline of his various initiatives to improve the lot of the residents.

One problem that has echoed through the ages has been the difficulty of keeping teenage boys out of mischief. In the time Whitehead was writing, boys would leave school at around the age of eight, and have a surplus of energy and nothing constructive to do with it after their day's work in the fields was over. In summer cricket was very popular (one chapter describes the big event of a match between Gawcott and "the small town of W____ about 7 miles off" - sadly this is not Wing, I suspect it may be Winslow as it does have a "Bell" pub as mentioned in this text) but in winter the boys were problematic. A Night Club was introduced whereby the boys could use the schoolroom for whatever they wanted, and it turns out what they wanted most, once they had been taught how, was to play chess!

Another fascinating snippet was the description of the boys attending astronomy lectures, followed by the use of a borrowed telescope to gaze up at the night sky. This is certainly not something I had envisaged our rural ancestors doing either.

Other chapters cover the children's lending library, the village tea party (just how did you manage hot water for cups of tea for 230 people?) and school "treat" day which was an outdoor picnic with games, a penny bank, friendly clubs, and the village school.

I must confess I took the liberty of skipping the sermons at the end of the book. However the remainder of this book was an illuminating look into a rural Buckinghamshire village in the mid-19th century and I was surprised by how much I learned from it.

There are plenty of wonderful out-of-copyright books freely available online that can give you insight into the lives of your ancestors - what treasures have you found lately? Please post a comment and let me know.

Off to NZ Family History Fair 2010

2010-07-14T17:55:00.001+12:00

My ancestry chart is printed, my totebag is packed, my very-limited-edition geneacards are ready (click on the pic to see the larger version - I promise to devote the next twelve months to nurturing any graphic design skills I may have buried deep deep deep down, so next year's effort can do footnoteMaven proud - this year I will just pretend that a streamlined text-only look was what I was going for), my netbook and cellphone are fully charged - on Sunday I'll be at the first NZ Family History Fair for the day. Most of the time I'll be in seminars, hoping to pick up useful tidbits, but I'll also be meeting fellow blogger Photo-Sleuth Brett, and Seonaid the Auckland City Library genebrarian. Watch for my report on Monday!

What was your grandmother's occupation?

2010-07-11T19:05:00.004+12:00

Dick Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter had a wee gem in it this weekend that I hadn't seen before - check this out. I look forward to seeing what WDYTYA discovers about Alexander Armstrong's real family tree!

What I Do

2010-07-09T18:30:00.001+12:00

Thomas at Geneabloggers has suggested that we post some info about the power under the hood, the technology that we use to support our genealogy activities. So, just this once, I'll play along with the rest of the meme-rs. I can't help it, it's the tech geek in me coming out, although I'll cut it short as I'm under orders to locate some dinner....

* Hardware: The desktop computer's pretty elderly now but it runs an AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core processor at 3.02GHz, 4Gb RAM, with Vista Ultimate 64-bit. The baby computer is an Acer Aspire One netbook.

* External storage: Seagate 500Gb external desktop drive for backups (lives offsite, under my desk at work).

* Online storage: don't use. Those with NZ broadband costs/speeds/datacaps will understand why.

* Backup: GFI Backup 2009 Home Edition (freeware!)

* Virus protection: AVG (freeware!)

* Mobile media: iPod Nano (blue - if I'd bought it myself it would have been a (Product) Red - you did need to know the colour, right?) on which I can listen to the various genealogy podcasts

* eBook Reader: Kobo (I'll be blogging regularly about my genealogy/history finds for this)

* Browser: Firefox. There is no other.

* Blog: Blogger.

* RSS: I read blog feeds using the Blogger Dashboard, and other RSS feeds direct in Firefox

* FTP: FireFTP (extension for Firefox) gets my website updates where they need to be

* Accounting: you don't really want to go there with an accountant, do you?

* PDF generator: doPDF

* Genealogy database: PAF - yes, I know. The only full genealogy program I've seen that I liked is Family Historian, but it just doesn't work at all on a netbook screen so I haven't been able to justify the price (refer: Accounting).

* Genealogy tools: key tools off the top of my head are Transcript, Genopro, and Parloc

Outlook for genealogy

2010-07-09T17:40:00.001+12:00

Recently I was chatting to @OutlookChick on Twitter about using Microsoft Outlook for genealogy. Long story short, I've just guest-blogged on her Arrow Tips Outlook blog about it - check it out and let us know what you think.

Neighbouring Stewkley

2010-07-02T17:33:00.005+12:00

Did your Wing folk wander over to neighbouring Stewkley? If so, you might be interested in this wee book on Ebay.

History of Stewkley by Mayne and Capp - good local names, those!

I have no affiliation with the seller (that I know of - I see they live in Wing), and they also have a copy of the 1951 Guide to Ascott House listed if that takes your fancy.

(I'm on an Ebay budget, in case you were wondering - well, more of a fast than a budget, things mount up quickly when you have to factor in overseas postage so I'm trying to resist temptation)

July update

2010-07-01T07:01:00.000+12:00

Drumroll please......I have transcribed the 1911 census enumerator summary books for Wing and they are now on the website. These are NOT the detailed pages for each household. The summary books only have a single line of information for each household, showing the surname of the head-of-household and a breakdown of the males vs females in the household.

Given that some of the information from the 1911 census has been redacted (specifically the infirmity column), I'm not planning on transcribing the individual households until that last piece of information becomes available in 2012. My philosophy has always been that any transcription I make available on the website should represent a full and complete transcription of the underlying document, and obviously that couldn't be the case here yet.

Bookshelf: Village Sketches

2010-06-17T18:03:00.003+12:00

In my quest to find interesting genealogical or historical reading for my new Kobo e-reader, I've just come across this potential treasure in Google Books.

"Village Sketches descriptive of club and school festivals and other village gatherings and institutions" by TC Whitehead of Gawcott, Buckinghamshire, published in 1861

I may have squealed just a little when I saw it was Buckinghamshire-related. And now to download and read it!

Find My Past - free access during England games

2010-06-12T09:37:00.003+12:00

If you're not a football fan, then you'll appreciate this offer of free access to Find My Past while England games are being played.

If you are a football fan, then hopefully you have a laptop to perch in front of the TV with. Genealogists, multitask!

NZ Family History Fair

2010-06-08T18:25:00.005+12:00

New Zealand is having its first Family History Fair! No longer will I cast envious sideways looks at bloggers reporting back from Who Do You Think You Are in London, or Jamboree in California (have fun this weekend, you guys), now I can be one of them......

I'll just be heading down to Hamilton for the Sunday. After perusing the seminar line-up, discarding those specific to NZ or Australian research and those that look like they might be targeted more at the beginner, I've chosen the following:

* Genealogy Privacy Issues
* Researching in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (mainly to see if they mention one-place-studies as a valuable resource!)
* Digitally Publishing Your Family Story
* Digital Photography - Blessing or Curse?
* Organising and Preserving Your Research

This will hopefully leave enough time to check out the exhibitors - more of the overseas big names are attending than I would have expected.

If you're in NZ, are you going?

(Updated to add - must brush up on Amy's Rock Star's Guide To Genealogy Conferences!)

June update

2010-06-01T17:59:00.003+12:00

As you might expect given my lack of genea-time (and genea-inclination) over the last few weeks, this month's update is a little lean. There are two new WW1 military men - WILLIS and YATES. And that's all this time round.

In other news, I've just bought a Kobo eReader (first one officially available in NZ - for some unknown reason we are very behind the rest of the world on this) and of course I'm looking to fill it with good books of all centuries! Feel free to post recommendations, be they the e-pub version of a good genealogy resource, or a public-domain treasure that sends us back to English days gone by.

Blue moon

2010-05-26T16:43:00.004+12:00

It's been a relatively genealogy-free month for me this month. One week of that was because I was overseas, on holiday at Trinity Beach in Queensland Australia. So lovely.....

Towards the end of our trip we discovered Blue Moon Grill. If you are ever in the area (or not, it's worth going significantly out of your way for), stop in for a meal - I had fish of the day, which was more like fish of a lifetime! The food is amazing and the staff are hilarious - do download their menu and make sure you read the fine print!

The Rothschilds

2010-05-12T17:29:00.003+12:00

Is anyone else out there too busy for much genealogy this month? The one thing I have done is read "Rothschild: A Story of Wealth and Power" by Derek Wilson, which didn't have as much mention of the Wing branch of the family as I would have liked but was quite interesting all the same, particularly the early years in Europe and England. I've also read "The Rothschilds At Waddesdon Manor" by Mrs James de Rothschild, which was obviously about Waddesdon rather than Ascott - this had some great photos and descriptions of the construction of Waddesdon Manor.

A task of military precision

2010-05-02T07:00:00.000+12:00

I've now gathered as many medal roll index cards as I can find for the Wing men who served in WW1 (as listed on the WW1 page, obviously there will be more as-yet-unidentified men). This means that for most of those men I now have at least two separate documents or records of their military service - on my computer there's 10 subdirectories for the different sources I've used.

I need to spend some time revisiting those documents and cross-checking the information contained in them. In some cases there will be additions or corrections to the information on the WW1 page. I'm not planning to extend the information online at this stage though - it's intended to be more of an index, listing basic information about these men's service and the documents I'm aware of that exist for them, so that you have the necessary information to research further as required. Extended profiles of at least one of those men may well appear here on the blog though, so that you can see the kinds of things you might find in those records.

I'm toying with implementing a formal structure to this cross-checking process by picking up some of the ideas from Mark Tucker's Research Documents, in particular the research analysis document. How many of us document the process and resulting "facts" of our research in such a comprehensive way? I found these templates really valuable when looking for the burial of one of my COLES ancestors, and captured within them a lot of useful information about potential burial locations, who holds the burial records, and how easy (or not) it is for me to access those records from NZ - when I next decide to look at it, I'll know exactly what I've ruled out and where to go to see how the necessary digitisation projects are progressing. I think the Research Analysis document, with a little customisation, will be ideal to consolidate each serviceman's records.

The genealogical in-tray (should I call it the GIT for short? it has a certain ring to it, no?) has now officially reached overflow proportions, and this military task will take up some time. If only I didn't keep dreaming up new projects for myself!

May update

2010-05-01T14:18:00.002+12:00

I'm very excited to announce an unusual contribution to the website this month. Ken Bandy has been working on a dictionary of phrases unique (more or less) to Wing and has kindly agreed to share this with us all. So clar over to the website and and get chopsing!

Also new this month is a transcription of the plaques at the entrance to Evelyn Close - this street is itself a war memorial. You can see these plaques at the Military page. Thanks to Lynn for the photos.

The cancellation button

2010-04-25T17:15:00.000+12:00

I really did it, I followed through on my decision to cancel my Ancestry.co.uk subscription.

Incidentally, the good folks at Ancestry must keep an eye on the blogosphere as they spotted my initial post and lodged an incident report offering to check on my renewal quote as the prices apparently haven't increased in the last year. I've checked that the amount I was quoted for my renewal was the correct current price, so that suggests I might have been undercharged for some reason last year (I have the confirmation emails for each year from 2006 onwards so I know exactly what I was charged each year). So I shall count my blessings for the enjoyment I've had over the last year, and move on to focus on other resources in the coming year.

Some other websites that I didn't mention last time that also offer a range of
online English records are:
* British Origins who offer a reasonable 72-hour access package. In the past I've found their various indices never provide quite enough information in the index to be sure it's my own family member, but I may well do another 72-hour stint at some stage to see what I can find.
* FamilyRelatives.com doesn't have anything at the moment that looks like an intriguing lead (sadly none of my lot were posh enough for public school) but I'll be keeping an eye on any new databases they add.
* Roots UK has surname distribution maps that may well tempt me.....
* The National Archives Documents Online services has more than just the PCC wills and it will be interesting to see what pops up in future. I've just spotted some free-to-download poor law union correspondence - if I find anything in here that covers the poor law unions my ancestors lived in that correspondence will be colourful background reading.

Plodding on

2010-04-21T06:57:00.003+12:00

As promised, I've been plodding on making sure I'm getting as much research done as possible in Ancestry.co.uk before my subscription expires. In a move that's sure to prove foolhardy, not everything is making it into my PAF file at the time I discover it - I now have a sturdy stack of printouts to add "when I get around to it", mostly for siblings of my direct ancestors. There's been some lovely discoveries, like signatures of witnesses on marriage certificates, and yesterday I even located a long-standing missing entry for one of my ancestors in the 1861 census (still no sign of the elusive Elizabeth Gardiner in 1901 though, grrrr).

I've also remembered to grab the last couple of WO363 military records for Wing-born men, so Wing has not been forgotten.

London addresses

2010-04-13T18:44:00.002+12:00

I'm currently wrestling with exactly how to load London addresses into my genealogy file. This isn't such a problem for non-London addresses as the parish and village are generally the same and the street name is often non-existent.

In the source attached to any event I've been quite specific in listing full parish name (eg St David West Holloway), then the broad suburb (eg Islington), then county (eg Middlesex). However in terms of actually filling in the address field of the event the lines get blurred.

Part of the problem I think stems from the fact that PAF only has a certain amount of space to print addresses, so I know it will abbreviate parts of it to initials only when I print out the individual's summary page - understandable, but useless in practice. This means I have a tendency to try and abbreviate things myself - no point putting "24 Alfred Street, St David West Holloway, Islington, Middlesex" when I know on printouts it will just show "24 Alfred Street, SDWH, I, Middlesex". I'm thinking I might change my self-imposed rule and just put the Chapman code for the county instead of spelling out the county in full but this won't get me back that many characters.

Another part of the problem is the fact that I'm not a Londoner myself so my geographical grasp of suburbs is probably pretty shaky - it bugs me that I don't know if I'm using the name it would actually be known as in practice! I've just printed out most of the sections of this excellent 1877 parish map, and I think I could standardise this by using the poor law union name as the suburb name.

My brain also wants to use "London" rather than "Middlesex", even though London should only really be used for the City of London area.

And don't even get me started on the frequent parish boundary changes and name changes for those London parishes!

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how they approach this? Do I really need to include the parish name as part of the address so long as I've got it in the source? Am I overthinking the whole thing?

I'm Ancestor Approved!

2010-04-09T18:48:00.001+12:00

Thanks to the lovely Sheri over at The Educated Genealogist for the nomination. [UPDATED - also to the lovely Greta at Greta's Genealogy Blog *blush*]

Disclaimer: official rules state disclosure of 10 things you have learned about your ancestors that has surprised, humbled, or enlightened you, plus ten other blogger nominations. Ten seems an AWFUL lot, and it's Friday evening and I've already opened a cider, so here's three things I've experienced from this week's research in the (virtual) London Metropolitan Archives, and a virtual cider for everyone who reads this blog - thanks for being part of my online genealogical journey.

AAAAAA! - I discovered new (shortlived) baby siblings for my grandmother and great-grandmother. Don't you love those genealogical discovery moments when you go "aaaaa!" just a bit too loud and scare the cat? Hilda Alice WHITE (1903) and Edwin Leslie HALL (1904), welcome to the family!

OOOOOOH - "Blown Up" or "Kill'd by Explosion of Powder" is not something you want to read on a burial record. I'm glad to live in a time when the chance of being blown up by the local gunpowder mill is fairly minimal.

HMMMMMM - I found a probable baptism for my Charles AUGER which claims his parents were George and Lucy Auger - except Lucy was unmarried according to subsequent census records. Frankly I'm more inclined to believe Lucy managed to get away with telling fibs when baptising Charles.

Ancestry.co.uk - The Decision

2010-04-08T18:06:00.003+12:00

Today my car had to go to the doctor for the third time this year. I believe this is the universe assisting me with my Ancestry subscription renewal decision - so the decision is in, and it's a No.

This means I have to stay very focused and organised over the next three weeks to maximise my access before it ends. I've been spending quality time with the London Metropolitan Archives databases this week and have found many useful parish register entries. In particular I was very happy to see that a sizeable chunk of the records for the two churches in Twickenham 1800-1900 were now included, as I have multiple lines going through there, and going page by page through all the pre 1812 unindexed entries for Twickenham St Mary's has also proven valuable - although sadly my Alexander and Jane HUGHES appear to have married prior to 1800 (or perhaps not in Twickenham, as I have found a potential Alexander and Jane marrying in St James Picadilly Westminster in April 1800 - from what I've seen this name combination isn't common so it just might be them).

GRO orders - removal of reference checking

2010-04-05T14:19:00.004+12:00

I was ordering some certificates today ahead of the fee increase at the GRO tomorrow, and it seems there has been a further late change to this. They are now scrapping the reference checking facility altogether effective tomorrow, 6 April. In the past, if a reference check was specified and it turned out to be the wrong certificate you were only charged a partial fee - now you will have to take your chances and pay to have the certificate issued regardless. So if you have any you think may fall into that category, order them today!

Historical Streets Project

2010-04-05T08:00:00.000+12:00

The reason I was meandering through Ancestry.co.uk's Help yesterday was because I have just realised that Old Search enabled you to search a particular census by piece and folio number, but New Search doesn't as far as I can tell. Very annoying - I was looking for one of my ancestors in the 1871 census, who as luck would have it had banns read in late March and married in early April 1871, both with the same street address given as his residence. I therefore had the address he *should* be living at in the 1871 census, and just needed to locate the page for that address. I was able to find the piece and folio numbers thanks to the excellent Historical Streets Project of the National Archives, but had to switch back to Old Search on Ancestry in order to utilise that information.

After all that I found the page for that address in St Pancras but my Edmund WHITE is not there. Some extensive digging later I discover an Edward White of the right age and occupation but no birthplace given, a visitor at an address in Paddington. The streetname looked vaguely familiar - and lo, it was the same address my Edmund was known to be living a year later, so I'm happy that Edward is in fact Edmund. Happy dance!

1911 census summary books

2010-04-04T18:51:00.000+12:00

While meandering through the Help database in Ancestry.co.uk, I came across the following:

1911 England and Wales Census Summary Books
Question: When will the 1911 England and Wales Census Summary Books be available?
Answer: Early Release of the 1911 UK Census - We have now reached an agreement with the National Archives to release the 1911 England and Wales Census Summary Books. The Summary Books are projected to be released some time during 2010.

This item was last updated on 31 December 2009. One could speculate from this that we won't see the household pages themselves on Ancestry any time soon (perhaps they will end up waiting until the non-redacted versions are available in 2012) but the summary pages (the supplementary lists with one line per household showing the address, occupier name, and headcount) will be coming shortly.

Suffice to say, those summary pages would be *extremely* useful for the Wing One Place Study.

A love-hate relationship

2010-04-04T11:30:00.003+12:00

Ancestry.co.uk has been messing with me today.

Firstly, I found my grandmother's baptism by manually browsing the London parish and year I had been told she was baptised in. Hurray!

However she doesn't come up easily on a search as her forename has been mispelled - given the underlying record I'll give Ancestry the benefit of the doubt on that one.

Secondly, I discovered she had an older sister - a surprise, and hurray! I did this by searching for her parents names in conjunction with the parish name that my grandmother was baptised in.

However, her parents names are George and Alice Martha. I wanted to see if they perhaps had other children I didn't know about baptised elsewhere, so I removed the parish name, and included mother Alice's middle name with the "Exact" box ticked. Hey presto, it doesn't find ANY entries, even the two I know are in there! I know for a fact that Alice's middle name is included on the transcription because I can see it on the two entries I found earlier. So, Ancestry, why does your search engine do this?

The surname is a very common one, so if I remove the Exact tickbox on the forename it finds 27,395 possible entries and doesn't show the George and Alice Martha ones first. *Sigh*

HistPop

2010-04-03T10:00:00.004+13:00

In yesterday's post you may remember that I mentioned there was quite the backlog of information to process in relation to the Wing One Place Study, and also that I wanted to spend time this year concentrating on my personal genealogy. As always, good intentions have flown out the window....

I rediscovered www.histpop.org. It's a one-place-study's dream, particularly if that one place happens to have its own civil registration subdistrict as Wing does. From the annual reports of the Registrar General I've downloaded statistics on the numbers of births and deaths registered in Wing in the 1841 to 1881 period (still to get the later years). Who knows what other gems are hiding on that website to jump out and distract me?

Here's 1871's report with Wing near the bottom of the page (click to enlarge) - 15 illegitimate births registered that year out of 112 total.

A world without Ancestry.co.uk

2010-04-02T07:00:00.000+13:00

Yesterday I received my annual renewal reminder email from Ancestry.co.uk. Last year I had difficulty affording the annual subscription fee - and this year it has increased by 29%. The exchange rate between the NZ dollar and the UK pound might be the best it's ever been (so it didn't actually convert to as high a number as I was expecting) but it's still getting up there.

Has the time come for me to put my money where my mouth is - i.e. firmly at home with the in-tray full of resources waiting to be studied, transcribed and incorporated into my personal genealogy, the one-place-study and the one-name-study? But what would my genealogy world look like without the instant gratification of immediate access to Ancestry? I've never contemplated such a thing before. Although I use a wide range of online and offline resources Ancestry is fairly central to my genealogy workflow, but perhaps it needn't be that way.

I certainly have more than enough to be going on with as far as the Wing One Place Study is concerned - frankly, the discipline this exile might impose is probably a good thing! But I was determined to make serious inroads into my father's side of things this year and this would definitely make that task more challenging.

Some of that money I wouldn't spend on Ancestry would no doubt (in an emergency only of course, but let's not kid ourselves that emergencies don't exist even though everyone involved has been dead for decades if not centuries) end up in the pockets of the alternative sites. Options like:
* FindMyPast.co.uk who I see offer a 20% loyalty discount on their subscription renewals - something which would have made a difference to my current opinion of Ancestry had they had a similar deal. Nothing like being a continuous subscriber for several years and not getting any discount at all to make you feel valued!
* TheGenealogist.co.uk who I'd never been tempted to give any money to as their website did a really bad job of providing specifics about what you might actually get for your money - however I see that they have improved in that respect.

After the initial shock, I have to admit I'm actually not so scared by the idea of going cold-turkey. So what do you think - should I embark on this, my great experimental Ancestry-free year? Or shall I save that for 2011, when the impact of exchange rate changes will likely give me a much larger shock?