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150,000 new Devon parish marriage records published

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve published 150,388 new parish marriage records for Devon on findmypast.co.uk

The records span the period 1837-2002. Anyone with Devon ancestors will want to search these records for fresh information about their ancestors’ marriages.

See a detailed list of the areas and churches these records cover (PDF)

The Devon Family History Society and the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office provided us with these records.

Search the Devon marriage records now

Ask the photo expert – miniature mystery

Our photo expert, Jayne Shrimpton, analyses your family photos.

Helen Shimitras sent us her miniature portrait and asked:

‘I have attached a miniature for you to provide some clues on, please – possibly the date, what the clothes tell us and perhaps the country of origin. This miniature was in the possession of my great-great-grandmother, Mary Agnes Fitzmaurice, who was born in Ireland around 1835. She ended up in Australia somehow around 1850 – I’m still trying to work out why, when and who with and who her father was. We know her mother (or maybe her grandmother) had a highly decorated brother, Major Roche Meade, and among her possessions there was another miniature of him in his scarlet army uniform. That portrait has now gone missing, but he did not look like the same person as the one in this miniature. The wording on the back of the box in which the brooch was kept is wrong – just an assumption by a relative. I hope you can help.’

Click to enlarge

Jayne says:

‘It’s always interesting to work on a painted portrait. Most family historians have mainly photographs in their picture collections, but now and again an original artwork surfaces. Having a portrait painted became increasingly fashionable in the late 18th century and by the early-1800s more of our ancestors commissioned such pictures. This displayed their wealth and social status, although ordering a hand-crafted likeness in the pre-photographic era was a luxury that few could afford. Even a small painting like your miniature typically cost at least a guinea – equal to around six days’ wages for a craftsman in the building trade in 1800. It was mainly our affluent forebears, therefore, who are depicted in hand-painted heirlooms, such as landed gentry, professionals, businessmen, successful tradesmen and military officers, and their close relatives.

Thousands of portrait artists worked during the late-1700s and early-1800s in Britain, wider Europe and the colonies – anywhere where there was demand and a prosperous community. Apart from the most accomplished and well-known painters, few signed their work and their portraits were, unfortunately for today’s researchers, rarely dated or their subjects identified. Miniatures were very popular because they were relatively economical; tiny versions could be fitted into items of jewellery such as lockets or brooches, as in your case, and they were highly portable, often travelling across continents. Unless a picture displays strong national features it is hard to tell where it was painted, so I’m afraid that I can’t confirm the country of origin of your portrait.

In these circumstances the best that we can do is to date your image, so that you can consider which ancestor the young man may have been. We only have a small head and shoulders view to go on, as was usual in a miniature. During the first quarter of the 19th century men’s appearance remained fairly standard in terms of hairstyle and upper garments. Here we see a smart dark frock coat with a high collar, worn with a fine white shirt, the starched shirt collar resting on the lower jaw and swathed in a white cravat – all characteristic details of elegant male fashion in the era popularly termed ‘Regency’.

Jayne Shrimpton

His hairstyle is also of the time, worn with faint sideburns that later became more pronounced. Based on fashion clues, the date range is most likely c.1800-1820 – just possibly as late as 1825. This ancestor looks very young and may perhaps have sat for this portrait to mark his 21st birthday. In view of the picture’s timeframe, he would have been born between about 1780 and the turn of the century. He, therefore, hails from an earlier generation to your 2 x great grandmother: perhaps he is connected to Major Meade, who was, it seems, portrayed at a similar date.’

If you’d like to send your photo to Jayne Shrimpton, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account. Jayne only has time to analyse two photos each month, but if yours wasn’t chosen this time, you could be lucky next month!

Ask the photo expert – mysterious carte de visite

Our photo expert, Jayne Shrimpton, analyses your family photos.

John Pettifer sent us his photo and asked:

‘I should be most grateful if you could comment on the attached photograph. As you will see, I have also included a scanned view of the reverse. I have written 1874-87 on this as these were the dates I found some years ago on a website for when RH Tear was in business. If these dates are correct, it seems unlikely that the lady was in fact Charlotte Kenyon (born 1800) as she does not appear to be as old as 74. Any help you can offer would be much appreciated.’

Click to enlarge

Jayne says:

‘Like most surviving Victorian photographs in family collections, this is a professional studio portrait – probably an example of the small carte de visite photographic print measuring around 10 x 6.5cms and popular from c.1860 until the early 20th century. This was the most common type of card-mounted photograph until the 1880s/1890s, when the larger cabinet print became increasingly fashionable.

Cartes, cabinets and other non-standard mounts were usually printed on the reverse of the card with the photographer’s name and studio address and in theory it’s possible to discover when a photographer was working at a stated address. There is a useful database of early London photographers – www.photolondon.org.uk – but sadly there is no entry for RH Tear of Kingston Road, New Wimbledon, S.W., perhaps because Wimbledon was officially located in Surrey until the 20th century. You mention that you have established his operational dates as 1874-87 from a website. I have been unable to verify this, but can confirm that the reverse design, displaying central lettering and filigree decoration was common during the late 1860s and 1870s.

Let’s look more closely at the image now. Ancestors visiting their local photographer would dress up in their best clothing and pose in a contrived studio setting with pieces of strategically-placed furniture and ‘props’. Every aspect of the scene was controlled by the photographer, who wished to create as attractive a picture as possible. The book on the table may possibly have been the lady’s own volume, but is more likely to have been a ‘prop’, used to convey a genteel impression and imply literacy, at a time when not everyone could read!

The lady’s appearance gives us the best clue as to when the photograph was taken, her layered outfit with flounced edges typical of the 1870s. During the first half of the 1870s, fashion dictated a protruding bustle pad behind the waist, with drapery piled up over the projection. After mid-decade, when the bustle declined, some residual fullness remained at the back of the skirt. Unfortunately we can’t see the precise shape of her skirt from her seated position, so the exact style isn’t clear and to include all possible years, I would suggest that we consider a date range of c.1870-77. Her hairstyle, dressed in a low chignon, is rather old-fashioned for that period and she wears the narrow day cap of a mature married woman or widow.

Jayne Shrimpton

I would judge this lady to be aged in her 40s or thereabouts, so, as you suspected, she can’t possibly be Charlotte Kenyon, born in 1800. The boy looks to be aged about nine or 10 years old and could be her son, or even a grandson. Since there is no male adult in the scene it seems possible that the lady was a widow. Hopefully the date range, along with these clues, will help you to work out these ancestors’ identities.’

If you’d like to send your photo to Jayne Shrimpton, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account. Jayne only has time to analyse two photos each month, but if yours wasn’t chosen this time, you could be lucky next month!

Search new Oldham WWI records on findmypast.co.uk

We’ve just published two fantastic new sets of WWI records on findmypast.co.uk: Oldham Employers’ Roll of Honour 1914-1920 and Oldham Pals 1914-1920.

Oldham Employers’ Roll of Honour 1914-1920

Search records for more than 1,900 men who had enlisted in His Majesty’s Armed Forces and who were employed by companies in and around Oldham.

Some rolls include full name details as well as rank, regimental number, regiment, battalion, company and even platoon and section. Other men are listed simply by last name and initial.

Whatever new information you’re able to glean from these records, knowledge of the company that your WWI ancestors worked for will be very helpful in opening up other avenues of research.

Search Oldham Employers’ Roll of Honour now

Oldham Pals 1914-1920

Search around 1,755 records of men, by platoon, who joined the ‘Oldham Pals’ battalion in WWI: the 24th (Service) Battalion, The Manchester Regiment.

These records are the most complete roll of the original contingent of the 24th Battalion Manchester Regiment and they will usually tell you the following information about your ancestors:

• First names, rather than initials
• Date the man arrived overseas
• Details of subsequent transfers
• Details of whether the man was killed in action or died of wounds
• Details of awards

Search Oldham Pals records now

Our thanks to the Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society for providing us with these records.

Most of the Oldham Pals qualified for the medals shown in the image above. Image courtesy of the British Army Medals blog.

June newsletter competition winner

We’re very pleased to announce the winner of our June newsletter competition. We asked you ‘In which year was William Fetball baptised in Plymouth, Devon?’

Congratulations go to Joanne Ealand from Yorkshire who correctly answered ’1710′. Joanne is the lucky winner of a copy of My Ancestor Was a Studio Photographer by Robert Pols.

Thanks to everyone who entered – look out for the next competition question in our July newsletter, coming your way very soon.

Ask the expert – nurse child

Our resident expert Stephen Rigden, pictured below, answers your queries.

From Anne Francis:

‘In the 1911 census I have found my grandmother Mary Jackson, born on 20 September 1893. She had two brothers, Thomas and Georgie, and one sister, Margaret, that had never been mentioned in the family.

Unfortunately I have mislaid the list but there was Joseph, Annie (who died aged 26) and Frederick. These I was aware of and they all lived in a close area. Margaret was only five months old but Tom and George were old enough to have been on the 1901 census but they weren’t. Why were they never mentioned and where did they go?

Their father was Frederick Jackson, born in 1869, and their mother was Annie O’Brien. My great-granddad Fred came from Liverpool, where family records go back to the 1700s. Any help would be a blessing.’

Stephen says:

‘Thanks for the question, Anne.

I looked up your grandmother Mary Jackson on the 1911 census and found the return that you mention, at 76 Davis Street in Eccles. She is shown with her father Frederick, a plasterer, aged 42 and born as you say in Liverpool; her mother Annie, aged 38 and born in Bolton; and her siblings Joseph, 15, Frederick, 13, Thomas, 11, Georgie, 9, Annie, 4, and Margaret, 5 months. The 1911 census states that Mary was born in Eccles and all her siblings in Patricroft, Lancashire.

Using this information, I did a search of the 1901 census and may have found some correct information: Mary Jackson, 7, Joseph, 5, Frederick, 3 and George, 1 month, all born Patricroft, are all in the Barton upon Irwell workhouse, shown on page 15 of its return. Annie, 29, a married housewife, born Bolton is on page 7 of the same institutional return.

Meanwhile, Frederick Jackson, married and aged 32, plasterer, born Liverpool, is head of household but by himself at 14 Ash Street, Eccles. It seems, therefore, that the family had temporarily fallen upon particularly hard times and Frederick admitted his wife and children into the local workhouse, where they would receive at least an assured basic diet daily. Perhaps he was finding it hard to find regular work as a plasterer at that time?

The ‘missing’ brother Thomas Jackson appears in 1901 as a ‘nurse child’, aged 2 and born Patricroft, in the Bentley family home at 14 Pym Street, Eccles. A ‘nurse child’ can mean a number of things, from informally adopted or fostered, to temporarily ‘farmed out’ to close kin, or family friends or near neighbours or private individuals who offered a service at what must have been (in this family’s circumstances) a very low price. Do you recognise the surname Bentley? All members of the immediate family are thus accounted for on the 1901 census.

I hope this helps a little. Good luck with your research!’

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 – WWI ancestor?

Our resident military expert Paul Nixon, pictured below, offers advice on how to solve your military family history mysteries.

From Alan Theobald:

‘I have been trying to find any records of my paternal grandfather’s army service for several years, without success, and would be grateful for any advice you can offer.

He was James Theobald, born in 1870, died in 1950/1 in Romford, Essex. He lived all his life within a few miles of Romford except for military service. He was unlikely to have been a commissioned officer. This is all I know about him:

• Found on the 1891 census as a civilian
• Not found on the 1901 census, which could suggest that he was overseas at the time
• Described on the 1911 census and on the 1909 birth certificate of one of his sons as an army pensioner. I know that he was partially paralysed as a result of wounds and/or sunstroke
• Not found in Chelsea Pensioners records, which could suggest that he was not a British Army pensioner. Who else would have paid him an army pension?
• Not found in any 2nd Boer War records. Not found by a researcher in WO97
• Reputed to have described the sun as the Bengal blanket
• Granted the lease of a smallholding in Crow Lane, Romford in around 1930, until his death, under a Royal British Legion scheme for disabled ex-servicemen. RBL say that they have no archive material

Hope you can help.’

Paul says:

‘Hello Alan.

Admittedly he’s a bit of a mystery and you’re really struggling without a regiment.

The survival rate of documents in WO97 for men discharged to pension between 1883 and 1913 is very good; in fact Michael and Christopher Watts, in their book My Ancestor was in the British Army (Society of Genealogists 2009) describe finding a document as ‘a near certainty’.

The fact that nothing appears to survive for your grandfather could suggest a) that he was discharged overseas (the survival rate for these men’s papers is low) or b) that he subsequently served during WWI. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that he could have joined up again in 1914, his papers being moved out of what is now WO97 and into WO363 where they were subsequently destroyed during bombing in WWII.

I’m tempted towards WWI because you mention the Royal British Legion, an organisation formed after WWI to look after WWI veterans and their families. As far as I’m aware they did not concern themselves with veterans of previous conflicts, although it would be worth verifying this with RBL.’

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 – absent service record

Our resident military expert Paul Nixon, pictured below, offers advice on how to solve your military family history mysteries.

From Mary Gregg:

‘My father served in the Kings Royal Rifle Corps in WWI. His name and number was Pte George Brunt 44919 – he later joined the 6th London regt. number 348277. I have his card but it gives no details of his actual service and I cannot trace his service records anywhere. I do know he served in France and was mentioned in two despatches as I saw the typed out pages which said he had captured a German trench. I also saw one that said he had captured some Germans single-handedly but these were lost by my family in the move to Australia. I would be most grateful for any information you can discover.’

Paul says:

‘Hello Mary. Thanks for writing to me.

The numbers date to quite late on in the war. 44919 for the King’s Royal Rifle Corps dates to March 1918 (almost certainly the first half of the month) and 348277 for the 6th London Regiment is a month or two after that. It’s possible that he was transferred from the KRRC to the 6th London Regiment under Army Order 204/1916, which dealt with compulsory transfers.

In the absence of a service record (which could have been destroyed as a result of enemy bombing during WWII) you could at least obtain a copy of the 6th London Regiment’s war diary from April 1918. This would give you an idea of what the battalion was up to at this time. The diaries are held at The National Archives in Kew but you could ask a researcher to obtain copies for you. As far as I know, this particular war diary is not available via documents online at TNA, although many are.’

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!

We add new Chester wills and probate records to our collection

We’ve just added 8,163 new Chester wills and probate records to findmypast.co.uk

The new records cover the period 1711-1772 and represent an important addition to the Chester wills and probate records we published in April this year.

Our Chester wills and probate records include all surviving original wills of Cheshire residents proved at the Chester diocesan consistory court 1492-1857 and registered copies made at Chester Probate Registry 1858-1911.

The Chester wills and probate records form part of our Cheshire Collection

We are working in partnership with Cheshire Archives and Local Studies to bring you these records.

Search Chester wills and probate records now

New London Docklands baptism records to search

Search more than 13,000 new baptism records for the docklands areas of London on findmypast.co.uk

Details of the coverage of the new baptisms are as follows:

This is the latest update to our Docklands Ancestors collection of records. We’re working with Docklands Ancestors to help you discover new information about your docklands ancestors.

Search London Docklands baptisms now