findmypast blog

Renowned publication Your Family Tree is holding its annual awards ceremony, and findmypast.co.uk is in the running! We’ve been shortlisted for two awards, including ’Best Census / BMD Website (paid for)’ and ’Best Advanced Records Website (paid for)’, with our sister sites ScotlandsPeople and 1911census.co.uk also included in multiple categories.

The winners are decided by public vote, so if you want to show support for your favourite family history company, head on over to http://www.yourfamilytreemag.co.uk/awards and get voting.

Our expert Stephen Rigden answers your questions:

After receiving a copy of my great-grandmother’s death certificate I thought it would be an easy thing to find her burial place so that I can visit from Australia next year. However, I have come up against a problem I have no idea how to tackle - I am unfamiliar with the areas around Bournemouth and with the changes to Hampshire and Dorset boundaries so do not know where to begin.

She died in Winton, Hampshire in 1903 from the effects of TB at aged 32 - her name was Ellen Dean (nee Boyt), wife of Charles. I have made enquiries with libraries but there is no record of her burial in the Bournemouth area and I am at a loss to know where to try - surely there must be a register which would record all burials for the County? Any advice would be gratefully received.’ Kris

Steve says:”Unfortunately, no! There are no such things as countywide burial registers in England and Wales.

Registration of deaths occurs locally at district register offices, with records then being collated centrally into a nationwide index. It is true that in civil registration there is an ongoing move towards unitary authorities sited at county level: for example, Kent County Council has a single countywide Registration Services portal. However, this does not apply to burials and cremations.

Unlike deaths, burials have never been regarded by the state as a vital event requiring systematic registration of date and place. Therefore, once a death has been registered, and assuming certain regulations are followed, burial can take place in a cemetery (or other approved location) of one’s choice.

Back in 1903, therefore, your late great grandmother’s death was registered in Christchurch registration district, which covered both Winton and Bournemouth. This is the only guide to place of burial that you have: most burials take place close to the locality of residence and death where these are the same. However, it is not hard to imagine situations where these general guidelines are broken. For example, if a person died far from their usual place of abode (for instance, while on holiday, or travelling), they may have been buried not near the place of death but back in their home district. Similarly, it is not unusual for a person who left their home town to be buried back there, especially if all other family remained in that location. Of course, neither of these scenarios may apply in your case, but do check on the death certificate for any addresses given for the deceased and/or the informant.

If it does seem that your great grandmother both lived and died in the Christchurch registration district area, you find yourself in a position shared by many genealogists: you know where an ancestor died but you will have to search speculatively to try to identify the place of burial. It was precisely to help out researchers in your predicament that the Federation of Family History Societies embarked upon its ongoing National Burial Index (NBI) project. A version of the NBI is online, containing 13 million entries, at Find My Past and can be found at http://www.findmypast.co.uk/parish-records-collection-search-start.action?redef=0&event=D. Currently, however, there are only limited records for Hampshire and, unfortunately, none of relevance to you.

This leaves you with only one option: to identify all the municipal and church burial grounds in the area active in 1903 and to eliminate them one by one, working out from the centre to more distant locations. As you are based in Australia and do not benefit from local knowledge, I suggest that your best step would be to contact the relevant family history society, in this instance Hampshire Genealogical Society for advice. Their contact page http://www.hgs-online.org.uk/contacts.htm includes email addresses for local organisers. They may also be able to recommend a local expert willing to undertake enquiries upon your behalf; such searches may be necessary at the County Record Office and could take in funeral notices in local newspapers for the two weeks after death, as well as burial registers.

Finally, as a word of caution, it is worth noting that if and when you successfully identify the place of burial, it is possible that you will find no surviving headstone in situ – one may not have been raised in the first place, or it may have become weathered and damaged over time. In this regard, those local authorities most mindful of health and safety regulations often lay down headstones which they deem to be dangerous.”

We hope this is useful to your research. If you would like to pose a question for Steve, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account.

Our expert Stephen Rigden answers your questions:

‘Is it possible for a person to appear in more than one census return? In other words, does a census recorder check that all the people named on a census are actually present in the house?

My problem is that I have just recently obtained a copy of a marriage certificate for Norton Dryden Hutchinson showing that he married Maria Cook aged 20 in Southwark in 1870, and her father was Edward Cook, a stationer. Fine, there is a Maria Jane Cook born in 1850, father Edward who in the 1861 census is shown to be a stationer. I cannot find any other Maria Cook with father Edward who is a stationer. The trouble is that the 1871 census has a Maria Cook living with Norton Hutchinson but also a Maria Cook living with her father Edward the stationer.

The situation is not helped by Norton Hutchinson claiming to be a widower in 1881, but I cannot find any death of Maria Hutchinson, nor any 1881 census for father Edward and his wife.’ Mike

Steve says:”Yes! Many family historians come across the situation during their research. As alluded to in your question, each census is a snapshot in time intended to record not who was customarily resident in a given property, but who was actually resident overnight on census night. However, this objective will not have been entirely achieved in any census.

There are many reasons for this. The first is simply that people are not very good at filling in forms. If you are familiar with the 1911 census for England and Wales, you will have seen for the first time the household schedules completed by householders themselves (these were destroyed for the earlier censuses). And you will almost certainly have seen mistakes in filling out the form – for example, the so-called fertility information entered against the man and not the woman, or Nationality completed by English and Welsh natives even though it clearly says that this is to be filled in only by persons born overseas. I have also seen several 1911 census returns where the householder has dutifully but erroneously entered the names and details of all their deceased children: usually, struck out in angry red ink by a Census Office clerk.

So we can expect householders to have made many errors of other types on the household schedules for earlier census years from 1841 to 1901 and for many of these to have been copied across by enumerators into the census returns we see today.

Secondly, the form may have been completed a day or two before the actual census night and then a person usually resident turns out to be away temporarily on census night and is recorded elsewhere as well.

In short, I believe there are reasonable grounds for you to accept that both 1871 census returns refer to the same Maria Cook. The fact that she is recorded under her maiden name Cook rather than her married name Hutchinson in the parental home is not unprecedented and may simply be householder or enumerator error. However, before proceeding further, I would strongly recommend that you conduct further searches and obtain supporting documents, especially the 1850 birth certificate of Maria (to check the name of her mother). Bear in mind that the surname Cook is of course common, London is a populous city, and the occupation of stationer may be expressed in other ways, or may change over time (for instance, between 1871 and 1881), so you do need to proceed with caution so as not to accidentally attach an incorrect but coincidentally similar-looking branch to your family tree.

Finally, although it is premature to leap to any conclusions, it would not have been unheard of for a man to claim to be widowed, and to re-marry, after separation from his first wife. In the mid- and late 19th century, divorce was an expensive and intimidating process and there are many known instances of men, and women, dispensing with the formality of divorce and re-marrying bigamously.”

We hope this is useful to your research. If you would like to pose a question for Steve, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account.

This month sees an inpressive update to the already extensive range of parish records on offer. We’ve just added an incredible 30,000 baptisms and almost 27,000 burials for the following Middlesex parishes:

We’ve also increased the amount of records on offer for Halifax St John. The number of baptism records has grown from 16,715 to 72,295 and the number of burial records from 11,176 to 54,210. These new records provide greater coverage for the Halifax District.

We’ve just added over 50,000 new baptisms for Stepney and Spitalfields. The records are broken down by church making them easier for you to pinpoint your ancestors. We’ve added almost 20,000 records for Spitalfields and over 30,000 for Stepney with the breakdown by church as follows:

Stepney Churches
St Dunstan 1835 - 1848   -  11,967 new records
St George in the East 1861-1877  -  15,848 new records

Spitalfields
Christ Church 1729-1795  -  19,481 - new records

We’ve also added the London probate indexes for names A-F, and a complete dataset for Kent. Records that we have include:

• Over 15,000 records added for London for the years 1750 - 1858
• 6,300 records for West Kent for the years 1750 - 1858
• 128,000 records for East Kent for the years 1831 - 1841

You can find these currently listed within Parish Burials.

The UK’s biggest family history event returns to London’s Olympia on 26-28 February for its fourth fascinating year, and findmypast.co.uk would like to welcome you into 2010 with an exclusive 2 for 1 ticket offer.

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*£2 transaction fee applies. 2 for 1 offer ends 19th February 2010. On-door standard entry tickets priced at £22 each. Workshop tickets available free on-site, or in advance at a cost of £2. This is not a BBC event.

Our expert Stephen Rigden answers your questions:

‘Help! I have an elusive great-great-great-grandfather who appears out of no-where. His name was Absalom Boucher/Bowcher who married on 17 Aug 1825 in Bridport, Dorset to Priscilla Coombs.
Absalom died in 1848 but not before fathering 7 children. He was buried in St Mary’s churchyard in Burton Bradstock

What I cannot find, is his Birth or Christening, which from the age given on his Death Certificate would’ve been circa 1790/91. His occupation has variously been described as: M. S., Gentleman’s Servant, Butler & Inn Keeper on his children’s records.

To work as a gentleman’s servant or butler, you would think it was for a well-healed land owner.
A thorough check of the Ilchester estate records (Fox & Strangeways families) did not reveal a butler or servant by the name of Absalom Boucher.

Another rich land owner was the Pitt-Rivers family and yet another was the Roberts family who owned the local mill. No further in-depth research has been done as I live in Australia.

Absalom may have had 2 sisters: Sarah b: c. 1798 & Abigail b: c. 1901, both around the Bridport area, but can only find a 1861 census showing these 2 ladies (Sarah married a chap named Edward Macey from Symondsbury & they were all living in Dorchester in 1861).

Absalom is shown on the 1841 Census living in Symondsbury, Dorset. He was NOT of that Parish.
He is listed as a land owner in Burton Bradstock & Shipton Gorge, shown on the Tithe Apportionments around 1843.

Also listed as Land Owners was Sophia Roberts, Lord Rivers & Elizabeth Roberts.

Two clues:
1). Absalom had a daughter named Ann Roberts Boucher chr: 31 Jan 1835 in Burton Bradstock.
2). He and a woman named Mary Roberts were Witnesses to the marriage of one Ann Roberts in 1835 to a Robert Slader.

And that’s as much as I know about Absalom. There are of course records of other Boucher’s in the general Dorset area, but none that can be linked to Absalom.

I wonder if you could give me some tips as there is nothing more publicly available on the Internet or on the BVRI Disks. ‘ Cheryl

Steve says:“One of the least auspicious scenarios in which a genealogist can find themselves is the one where an ancestor is recorded with a No against Whether Born In Same County on their 1841 census return and then inconveniently dies before the 1851 census can shed any light upon place of birth. It is not possible to solve such a problem quickly or painlessly.

In your case, we know only that Absalom was not born in Dorset. You also say that you have searched all the usual online sources, although these are of course far from complete in the required period before the start of civil registration in 1837. I am assuming the Whether Born In Scotland, Ireland Or Foreign Parts field in the 1841 census is silent for Absalom, in which case the usual inference is that he was born in England, for which you also have some circumstantial evidence (his sisters were apparently born in Dorset, although I believe you have found no evidence of this).

Two things occur to me in light of this. Firstly, as you will no doubt have considered, the surname may be French and quite possibly Huguenot and you may wish to consider a speculative browse through the publications of the Huguenot Society – for details of what is available, see http://www.huguenotsociety.org.uk.

Secondly, an alternative scenario (not necessarily contradicting the first), is an origin in the Channel Islands, both because of the surname and of a possible family seafaring connection given his marriage in Bridport (I am assuming that the marriage register says “of this parish”).

Of course, neither of these may be true: he may simply have hailed from, say, neighbouring Devon or Somerset, or from London or elsewhere, but you have nowhere to go without some leads.

This may be one of the problems which you have to put by a for a year or so and periodically review, for instance in light of newly available online resources as and when they are published. However, if you have not done so already, you may wish to search for probate records just in case Absalom died testate and mentioned siblings, or nephews and nieces (given the large family of his own, this may be improbable but you will not know unless you check). Pre-1858 probate papers are decentralised but there are some searches you can make online, for instance on Documents Online (for the Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills only) http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/wills.asp and, indeed, on Find My Past’s indexes to death duty registers http://www.findmypast.co.uk/DeathDutyStartSearchServlet. Note that the last, which cover the period from 1796 to 1903, are indexes and that, if you find a reference to the deceased, you need to take your search to The National Archives to view the registers on microfilm.”

We hope this is useful to your research. If you would like to pose a question for Steve, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account.

Our expert Stephen Rigden answers your questions:

‘The 1911 census shows that my wife’s great grandmother was born in Peking, China in 1875. Is there any way we can find out why her parents might have been in China at that time, when they went and when they returned to England. They were all English citizens.’ Derrick George

Steve says: “Peking, or Pekin as it was often spelt in the Victorian era, would have had a small but thriving British community in the 1870s, following the trading and other concessions granted by the Chinese in 1860. As well as diplomats at the British Legation (with their staff of professionals such as translators and physicians), this is likely to have comprised customs officials, merchants and a small but growing number of what today we would call NGOs (both educational and medical) and church missionaries. With the exception of the evangelists, in some cases these residents may have taken with them trusted British domestic staff. It is quite likely that there was also a small entrepreneurial community servicing the official one – for instance, running a club or restaurant, a hairdresser’s or a fashion store.

Only you are in a position to judge how your wife’s ancestor fits into this social landscape. Perhaps you will be able to estimate how long her family stayed in Peking from their presence or absence on the 1871, 1881 and 1891 English & Welsh census returns. The census and family birth, marriage and death certificates may also shed light on this. However, I have to say that it is very unlikely that you will be able to establish when the family travelled out to China, as this was before the government started to systematically require and retain passenger lists in 1890. They could have taken a number of routes, for instance the long way by ship round the Cape, or the short cut through the Suez Canal if they travelled after it opened in 1869, or the combined land and sea route which predated the opening of the Canal.

There is a limited collection of Peking registers at The National Archives in Kew and you may be in luck. The piece FO681/1 covers births registered with the British Legation 1869-76, so your wife’s ancestor born in 1875 might just be included in those records.

Perhaps other researchers have family history in Peking and can add to my general comments?”

We hope this is useful to your research. If you would like to pose a question for Steve, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account.