Blog
Archive for November, 2010
Fully name searchable marriage records 1837-2005 on findmypast.co.uk
You can now search fully name indexed marriage records on findmypast.co.uk
We have developed what we think is the easiest and fastest marriage search anywhere online. Use MarriageFinderTM to find your ancestors’ marriages.
How does MarriageFinderTM work?
MarriageFinderTM is a very clever search facility which enables you to find a marriage by searching just once, not twice. Now, not only can you perform just one search, MarriageFinderTM will actually match up your ancestors’ records, providing you with one definite marriage match, or a list of possible matches.
When you receive a definite spouse match, we will also provide you with the volume number and page number for both spouses’ records. These are essential when ordering marriage certificates.
Search across all years
Findmypast.co.uk is the only place you can search the 1837-2005 marriage records all in one go – you now do not need to enter a quarter and date range. To be able to search all years simultaneously is a major breakthrough in marriage searching, especially in cases when the marriage occurred earlier or later than you expected it to. Our vastly improved search will save you so much time and effort.
To demonstrate how powerful the search is, we searched for ‘John Smith’ with ‘Jane Jones’ as his spouse across all counties and years. Even with these extremely common names, MarriageFinderTM found all the potential spouse combinations.
Solve those marriage mysteries
MarriageFinderTM also means the end of mystery marriages. If you only know one partner’s name, search for their details and MarriageFinderTM will find all the possible matches. You can then view a record to check it is your ancestor. Alternatively, if you know the first or last name of the spouse, enter this information in your search to get an even more accurate list of spouse matches.
MarriageFinderTM makes it highly likely you will be able to find previously elusive marriages. If you have already searched for your ancestors’ marriages without success, try searching again – we are confident we can find your missing marriages.
If you haven’t already registered on findmypast.co.uk, try our 14 day free trial. This will give you free access to our Foundation package which includes these fantastic new marriage records. Sign up today to try out our amazing new marriage search.
Search our marriage records now
Behind the scenes: reinventing your marriage records search with Ian Tester
As you’re probably aware, one of the larger projects the findmypast.co.uk team has been working on this year is a complete revamp of our General Register Office (GRO) birth, marriage and death (BMD) indexes.
We’ve created a completely new, clearer set of images of the original records and we’ve also been working to transcribe each and every one of them for the very first time. This allows you to search directly for your ancestors, rather than having to browse several pages to find the person you are looking for.
Of course, some England & Wales BMD records are available elsewhere online, and some of them are even fully-indexed like our new ones, but to date, nobody else has provided a complete set of fully-indexed BMD records – another first for findmypast.co.uk, and a project which should be complete in early 2011 when we launch the death records. As always, our aim is to make your family history easier and this project is no different…
So, having launched the new birth records a few months ago, recently we’ve turned out attention to marriages.
Marriage search challenges
One of the main difficulties with searching marriages is the need to search for both spouses separately, and then compare the registration district, volume and page numbers to see if the two match up. Even worse, because more than one marriage is recorded on a single page of the GRO indexes, even if you manage to match up two potential partners, it is always possible that they actually married someone else on the same page of the index that you haven’t tracked down.
Another major challenge is finding wives when you do not know their maiden name. Often you will come across a new branch of your family in a census and identify a new husband and wife, listed under their married surname. Finding the husband in marriage records is generally possible, but without knowing the wife’s maiden name, tracking down the marriage can often be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Introducing MarriageMatchTM
To help overcome these inherent difficulties, we’ve been developing a new search technology we call MarriageMatchTM, which should make searching for marriages much easier, and should even help you unravel some mysteries in your tree.
MarriageMatchTM does something very clever – rather than searching for one spouse in a marriage, it searches for both at the same time, and does the matching up for you. If you give the surnames of both spouses and they married after 1912, it will generally produce a list of exact matches – people with the surnames you are looking for who definitely got married to each other.
If they married before 1912, or if you only know the first name of one of the spouses, it will also show you all the potential matches on the GRO index page: in most cases you only have to choose between two (or occasionally four) people that your ancestor might have married. In any case, because it shows everybody on the same results page, you can be confident that one of the people on your results screen is the right one, and you don’t need to dig further.
Ian Tester, findmypast.co.uk's product manager
Where it really comes into its own is when you know the surname of the husband and just the first name of the wife – again, MarriageMatchTM will find you all the records where, for example, a Thomas Smith married a Catherine. You can even use a variants search on either or both of the names if you are not 100% sure of the first name the wife may have been recorded under.
We have been testing it thoroughly at findmypast towers, and it has been incredibly valuable for us – it seems to have an uncanny ability to identify the marriage you are looking for from the millions of marriage records you might have been browsing for years, hoping to get lucky. I managed to crack five long-standing brick walls in my tree (husbands with common surnames marrying wives with common first names) in 20 minutes flat and we’re hoping you’ll find it just as useful.
We’re just doing some final tweaks to it now and will make it available on site in early December.
I’d really recommend that if you have any marriages that have left you baffled, you start digging them out now so you’re ready to see if MarriageMatchTM really can solve some of those marriage mysteries…
December's issue of Discover My Past Scotland magazine is coming soon
The next issue of Discover My Past Scotland magazine goes online on Monday 29 November.
This 40-page A4 issue is packed with special features and how-to guides to connect you with your Scottish Heritage, including:
- How to store your memories – for future generations
- Local archives – help is at hand!
- Sea Life! – fishers in your family?
- Dean Cemetery – a ‘who’s who’ of 19th-century Scots
- Family History – a decade of progress
- Spotlight on Ullapool
- Expert Q&A
- Family history newsround, library and events
Find out more about Discover My Past Scotland
December’s issue of Discover My Past Scotland magazine is coming soon
The next issue of Discover My Past Scotland magazine goes online on Monday 29 November.
This 40-page A4 issue is packed with special features and how-to guides to connect you with your Scottish Heritage, including:
- How to store your memories – for future generations
- Local archives – help is at hand!
- Sea Life! – fishers in your family?
- Dean Cemetery – a ‘who’s who’ of 19th-century Scots
- Family History – a decade of progress
- Spotlight on Ullapool
- Expert Q&A
- Family history newsround, library and events
Find out more about Discover My Past Scotland
Ask the Expert – military mystery
Our military expert Paul Nixon, pictured below, answers your queries.
From Jenny Fitzgerald in London:
‘I really hope you can help me with my query as this has been a mystery for 20 years. I will fill you in with the background, as this is necessary for the questions.
My great grandfather John Ernest Parkinson was born on 8 September 1856 in Ostend, Belgium, to John Parkinson. I have a copy of his birth certificate, written in old Flemish, that I’ve had translated into English. One of the witnesses on the birth certificate was a captain Veynoe domiciled in Dublin, in English Service; the other was a local Inn keeper. Annoyingly, it does not state the occupation of the father.
I searched for any military records of John Parkinson born Pentonville, London in 1832, in the new records on findmypast.co.uk, and found him serving in the Army Hospital Corps from December 1858 until discharged with TB in 1869, during which time he spent eight years in India – a fabulous find. The record showed he died on 1 May 1871 and I now have the death certificate which confirms it is the right person. The census taken just before his death shows him at home with his family.
So, I have a couple of questions: why would John be in Belgium with a heavily pregnant wife in 1856? I suspect he may have been in the army because of the witness, but if he was in the army, why in Belgium?
Also, why did he join the AHC if he had been in another division two years prior? Would he have been conscripted, or joined voluntarily? Thanks for your assistance.’
Paul says:
‘I’ll answer the last question first. He would not have been conscripted but would have joined voluntarily, and it was not uncommon for soldiers to transfer from one regiment to another. You see that a lot, particularly with cavalry regiments as a matter of fact.
I’m not sure why he’d be in Belgium in 1856 but his military papers in WO97 may state whether he had previous army service. If he did not, then he was presumably in Belgium as a civilian.’
If you’d like to send your question to our experts, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account. Unfortunately our experts only have time to answer a few queries each month. If yours wasn’t answered this time, you could be lucky next month!
Ask the Expert – lost uncle
Our military expert Paul Nixon, pictured below, answers your queries.
From Gillian Edgell in Norfolk:
‘Ref: Edwin John Mandeville, born 13 March 1857 at 101 Kent Street (now Tabard Street) Southwark. Parents Hannah and Alfred Mandeville.
I’m wondering if you can help me find or give advice on where I can find any further information on whereabouts of my great great uncle, Edwin John Mandeville, after he left the army in 1895.
On the 1881 census he is listed under the name of Edwin J Manderville , visitor, and his occupation was carpenter. His address was 53 Royal Navy, Salmons Lane, Limehouse. He was staying with his sister, my great grandmother Amelia, and family. I have been searching for years now, trying to find out what happened to him next, but I couldn’t find any further record of him.
You can imagine how thrilled I was when I recently searched for his name in the Chelsea Pensioners British Army Service Records 1760-1913 and I found a match straight away:
Edwin John Mandeville, age of attestation: 24 years 7 months (I don’t know why he lied about his age, unless you needed to be under 25 to join?)
The attestation date was 3 March 1883, attestation corps: South Lancashire Regiment (Prince of Wales’ Volunteers), attestation soldier number: 873.
I have looked at the original records – there are nine images. He was discharged after 12 years of service; he was found unfit for further service and his next of kin was given as his older sister Hannah Turner, 25 Arthur Street, Oxford Street, London.
Unfortunately I have not been able to find any further record of him again. I have looked everywhere and found nothing.
I would be very grateful for any input you can give me. Is there, for example, any way of finding out the address where his pension was sent to or when it was stopped paying out? Is there any reason why he would have joint a Northern Regiment, when he lived in London? Any help would be appreciated just so I can finally finish my family tree.’
Paul says:
‘Unfortunately there are no details of the pension award that survive in his papers, but it would have been sent to whatever address he gave to the Pension Board. He was probably awarded a conditional pension of £X in respect of a degree of disablement which was either attributable to, or aggravated by, army service.
This degree of disablement would have been expressed as a percentage, e.g., 20% degree of disablement etc. In all probability, after his first pension award, he would have been called before various subsequent medical boards which would either have continued to make conditional awards or ultimately stopped them.
Interestingly, before he signed up as a career soldier with the South Lancs, he had served with the East Surrey militia and, therefore, it would be worth checking our militia records (WO96) when these go online in 2011.
As for why he joined the South Lancs Regt, he may have been approached by a recruiting sergeant for that regiment and decided to join. Despite the fact that Cardwell’s reforms of 1881 attempted to align the British line infantry along territorial or regional lines, regiments recruited not only in their own counties but also much further afield.
I have a minor study of this for the Border regiment on my Army Service Numbers blog and there’s also related information here.’
If you’d like to send your question to our experts, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account. Unfortunately our experts only have time to answer a few queries each month. If yours wasn’t answered this time, you could be lucky next month!
November’s competition winner
We’ve picked the winner of our November newsletter competition in which we asked you this question:
‘We’ve found a ‘Guy Fawkes’ in our Chelsea Pensioners British Army Service Records. Can you tell us his place of birth?’
Congratulations go to Diane Lyddon from Devon who correctly answered ‘Accoo, Africa’.
Diane searched our Chelsea Pensioners British Army Service Records to find the correct answer. She wins a six issue subscription to Your Family History magazine.
Many thanks to all of you who entered – look out for the next competition question in our newsletter this Friday.
Murderer Dr Crippen in our records on the 100th anniversary of his execution
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the execution of Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen.
American homeopathic physician Crippen was hanged in Pentonville Prison, London, after being found guilty of murdering his wife Corrine.
We found Crippen and Corrine (‘Cora’) in our census records – here you can see them in the 1901 census living at 34 Store Street, St Giles In The Fields and St George Bloomsbury:
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Cora ‘disappeared’ after a party at their home on 31 January 1910. Crippen first claimed she had returned to America, then changed his story to say that Cora had died and had been cremated in California. Following these suspicious claims, Chief Inspector Walter Dew interviewed Crippen and searched his house but found no evidence of anything unusual. Crippen wasn’t aware of this and fled to Brussels with his new lover Ethel ‘Le Neve’ Neave.
The next day they went to Antwerp and boarded the Canadian Pacific liner SS Montrose, bound for Canada. Unbeknown to Crippen, the captain of the ship, Henry George Kendall, recognised him and Neave (despite Neave disguising herself as a boy) and ordered a wireless telegram to be sent to the British authorities. Chief Inspector Dew, who had been investigating Crippen, then boarded the ship as it docked in Canada and arrested Crippen for murder. Crippen was the first ever criminal to be caught using wireless technology.
We found Chief Inspector Dew on the 1911 census, living with his wife and four children in Wandsworth, London:
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We also discovered Captain Kendall in our passenger lists. Crippen doesn’t appear on this record as he boarded the ship in Antwerp:
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Read more about Crippen’s fascinating and macabre story.
New Thames-side and Medway parish baptisms and marriages
We have published two updates to our Thames-side and Medway parish records collection.
You can now search additional baptism and marriage records for High Halstow parish in Kent. The details of these records are as follows.
Baptisms
We have published 842 new baptism records for the period 1813-1875.
Marriages
We have added 121 records – 242 names – for the period 1813-1919.
These records are part of a collection licensed from local specialist Rob Cottrell and represent the latest update to our Thames-side and Medway records collection. You can expect to see further updates in the coming months.
You can read more about this exciting collection on our Thames-side and Medway page.
If you have previously been unable to find your ancestors in these records, try searching for your Thames-side and Medway ancestors again now.
The bad boys of the Chelsea Pensioner records
We’ve done some digging around in the Chelsea Pensioner British Army Service Records and have found some fascinating characters. As well as providing rich historical detail about our military ancestors, the records reveal some controversial information about some of the soldiers. Read on to find out about three Chelsea Pensioner ‘bad boys’.
John Kray – great great uncle of the Kray twins
John Kray, whose mother was Elizabeth Kray, the great great grandmother of the notorious East End Kray twins, was born in Bethnal Green, London. He was a riveter by trade and on 13 August 1870 at the age of 17 years and 11 months, he joined the 65th Regiment of Foot.
Here is John’s attestation paper:
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John deserted on 9 February 1879, rejoined 20 August 1879 and was placed in confinement. The District Court Martial tried him and convicted him of desertion. John was sentenced to imprisonment, hard labour and stoppages (of pay) for a month.
We can also build up a picture of what John looked like from the Chelsea Pensioner records. His physical description on attestation was: 5’6″ (he had gained half an inch by the time of discharge), 35-36 inch chest, ‘fair’ complexion, hazel eyes, dark brown hair. John also had a scar on his left buttock:
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John Kirk – Victoria Cross winner and drunken scallywag
Another colourful character we found in the Chelsea Pensioner records is John Kirk. On 27 January 1846, John joined the British Army at the age of 18 years.
In June 1857, at 29 years old, John rescued a captain and a family of civilians from rebels during the Indian Mutiny. John was awarded the Victoria Cross for this heroic deed.
John didn’t gain any good conduct badges during his Army service, however, and was imprisoned numerous times for his improper behaviour. John was a notorious drunk who was tried and punished 12 times. The reasons for his punishments included ‘being drunk and making an improper reply’, being ‘drunk on the line of march’, being ‘drunk on evening parade’ and also for ‘habitual drunkenness’. John was also punished for going AWOL and for breaking out of barrack cells.
By 8 April 1864, at 34 years old, John was discharged from the army with chronic syphilitic rheumatism having been classified as ‘being totally unfit for further service’. Here you can see his medical report:
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Matthias Quinton – the insubordinate
Matthias Quinton was born in Limehouse, London and joined the Royal Artillery on 28 October 1889 aged 18 years and seven months. He saw service at home and in Gibraltar and was discharged after three years because of medical unfitness.
This particular Chelsea Pensioner has no less than 154 pages in his record. Among these are details of a trial by Court Martial which resulted in 42 days’ imprisonment because Matthias used ‘insubordinate language to a superior officer’. His record states that ‘when brought before Major W H Smart RA, his commanding officer, and when asked what he had to say in his defence, he replied “Sweet FA” in a highly disrespectful manner’.
Here are Matthias’ court martial sheets:
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These are just three examples of the valuable detail to be found in the vast Chelsea Pensioners records collection. The total number of records currently stands at 1,041,092.
Search our Chelsea Pensioners records to find out what stories they tell about your ancestors.
Check out The National Archives’ podcast about the Chelsea Pensioners records collection featuring military records specialist William Spencer.