findmypast blog

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.

Celebrities from the TV show, including Kate Humble, will be taking to the stage to recount their fascinating family stories and sharing backstage gossip from the show with you, and there is a host of other show features to explore. With expertise available in an extensive workshop programme and one-to-one sessions, special features dedicated to identifying your photographs and military memorabilia, and around 200 specialist exhibitors, Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE has everything you need to find out who you really are.

TICKETS ON SALE NOW – 2 FOR 1 TICKET OFFER!

We’re giving you the chance to buy two adult tickets for £22 – that’s a saving of £22*! To claim this special offer and get your tickets to the country’s biggest and most comprehensive family history event, simply call the ticket hotline on 0871 230 5596 or visit www.whodoyouthinkyouarelive.co.uk and quote FMP241 today!

*£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.

With the launch of the complete 1851 census today, we are proud to be the only website to offer the complete census picture for our customers. Only the 1841-1911 censuses are available and we have them all here.

Browse the complete census records 1841-1911

Our expert Stephen Rigden answers your questions:

‘I have a brickwall that I would love an expert to look into to see if I can break it down. I have a baptism that I cannot find.

My 4 x great grandmother was a Leah (or Learth) Knights who, according to the 1851 census, was born in Billingford, Norfolk in around 1767.  Of course I have searched all the surrounding parishes, both in Norfolk and Suffolk, along with the other Billingford in Norfolk, but have not found any entries that could be hers.

Leah married Michael Pake in Rushall in 1799 and they had several children.  Leah would appear to have been quite old when she married - for those days - and she died in 1853, so I do not have any further census entries to check her place of birth.  She does not appear in any settlement or other Poor Law documents, and I do not have any information about her parents.  She was a spinster when she married Michael, so Knights is her maiden name and not a previous married name.

Can you please offer me any advice on how I might be able to track down her baptism?’ Jenny Manning

Steve says: “It is not possible for me to solve this without undertaking research, of course, but a few ideas occur to me.

Firstly, I assume that the parish registers you have been searching through are those of the Church of England. It is possible that the family was not part of the Established Church and the child was baptised in the nearest local Catholic church (or privately) or Non-Conformist chapel. Also, of course, it is possible that the family was not religious and simply did not bother with baptism: even though there were advantages to baptism, it is a mistake to assume that all children were baptised, or that parents baptised all of their children. It is also possible that the child was baptised not at the customary time (at about four weeks after birth) but at some later date: it is not uncommon to see parents baptising two, three or four of their children at the same time (for reasons of convenience or economy). You could therefore consider extending your search throughout Leah’s childhood years.

Census information is, by its very nature, very vulnerable to inaccuracy, as no evidence of identity was required by the authorities: they accepted in good faith whatever details the householders entered into their census forms. It is quite possible that Leah believed she was born in Billingford but was actually born elsewhere, for instance if her family moved there in her childhood. In other words, all Leah’s memories may have been of Billingford but she could have been born somewhere else entirely.

Another possibility is that she was indeed born in Billingford but not as Knights. Parental deprivation figures were high in the C18th and it is possible that her father died, her mother re-married and Leah took the name of her step-father (a Mr Knights, in this scenario). A variation on this scenario is an illegitimate birth, with the single mother then going on to marry Mr Knights. Or that Leah was born under a different surname but effectively fostered by a local family named Knights.

As you can see, there are various alternatives to consider, and you may have to consider all of them if you are to overcome this brickwall. I have answered your question in some detail as many researchers will face these kinds of problem and will need to systematically consider the manifold possibilities if they are to achieve a breakthrough.”

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:

‘My great uncle Tommy Venables was a private in the Cheshire regiment in the First World War. It was stated that he was ‘killed at home’ in November 1916, but no explanation is given, although we believe he drowned. Where can we go to clarify what happened?’ Irene Hartless

Steve says: “Soldiers Died in the Great War shows that Private Thomas Venables died at “Home”. Where the theatre of war is given as “Home”, this usually means that the soldier died either while serving within the UK (for example, in a reserve battalion or in a home service garrison), or else died back in UK of wounds sustained overseas without having been discharged from the army.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) website shows that he was buried in Toxteth Park Cemetery. If you have not already visited the memorial there, it is worth doing so in case a headstone gives more detail: however, it has to be said that this is unlikely unless the family met the cost (CWGC headstones are purposely standardised in design). The simplest way to find out the cause of death for a “Home” theatre of war casualty is to purchase a copy of the death certificate using the usual General Register Office (GRO) civil death indexes. Private Venables’ death appears to have been registered in the West Derby district in the March quarter of 1917. This delay (when registration would have been expected in the December quarter of 1916) may indicate that there was an inquest, which would be consistent with accidental death, such as drowning, which would require a coroner’s report. You can buy a copy of the death certificate for £7 online from the GRO’s website http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates or, if you live in Merseyside, you could visit in person the register office, which is located in Liverpool’s Cotton Exchange. The certificate may point you to a coroner’s report (if there was one: try Merseyside Record Office) and that, together with local newspapers, may fill in the background.”

We hope you find this useful to your research. Invitations to Ask the Expert appear in our newsletter, register to take part or select to receive newsletters in My Account.

As you’ve probably seen, the website’s been given a mini overhaul. We hope you find it pleasing on the eye and that it allows you to find what you’re looking for quicker.

The enhancements include: