This query comes from Dr. Lawrence Miller in California:

I was born in Liverpool in 1945. My father is from Southampton, my mother was born in either Fishguard or Swansea, Wales. My father’s father died mysteriously in Southampton sometime in the early 1930s. I want to
find out how he died, and trace the family tree. My father’s name is Walter Thomas Masters Grant, he was born in 1927 (or 1914) I believe. I do not know my grandparents (my father’s parents first names, I know that my
grandmother’s maiden name was Masters, her mother was Cohen but that’s all.

She was from Cornwall, and married (I think his name was William) Grant. They lived in Southampton and had 13 children. I am curious. Can you help me in this matter?

Our expert, Steve Rigden, comments:

“Thanks for your question. You should be able to find answers very soon!

This sort of problem is usually fairly easily solved by a systematic approach to the available online records, namely the indexes of birth, marriage and death for England & Wales. To solve the problem in this instance, these are the steps I took:

1. Searched for the marriage of a Walter Thomas Masters Grant before 1945. Entry found for a Walter T M Grant marrying an Ann C Kiely in September quarter 1943 in Swansea registration district.

2. Searched for his birth in the period 1911 to 1928. Entry found for a Walter T M Grant born in March quarter 1914 in Southampton registration district. This gave his mother’s maiden surname as Passmore.

3. Searched for the marriage of a Grant to a Passmore in the period from 1890 to 1914. Entry found for a William Henry M Grant marrying Minnie Passmore in March quarter 1899 in Southampton registration district.

4. Searched for the death of a William Henry M Grant between 1914 and 1945. Entry found for a William H M Grant dying in March quarter 1926 in Southampton registration district. He was 49 years old.

You can now apply for the 1926 death certificate of William Henry M (presumably Masters) Grant to find out cause of death. You can do this online or by post (as you live in California, I would not recommend the phone!). Go to the official General Register Office of England & Wales website for details. The index references for the death entry (needed to order a copy of the death certificate) are vol 2C, page 17.

I also looked up the family on the 1911 census for you. This shows the Grant family living at 2 Threefield Lane in Southampton – William aged 34, a coal porter, wife Minnie aged 30, and their children Ellen, William junior, Alfred and Violet (older siblings of your father Walter). All were born in Southampton.

With this information, you should be able to research the family back in time, finding them on the 1901 and earlier censuses, looking for the births of William and Minnie and so on.

Good luck!”

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In last month’s newsletter we asked you to send us your experiences of researching your family tree. Thanks to all of you who wrote in - we really enjoyed reading your stories. Read on for how Ann is getting on with the search for her ancestors:

Ann Barker’s story:

One branch of my tree is the Scadding/Scadden family from Cornwall, Devon and Dorset. I found information about my 5 x great grandfather John Scadding who was hanged, but nobody could find any newspaper reports.

Quite by chance I was reading The Western Gazette while visiting my daughter who now lives in Dorset. There was a section of news from 100 years ago, 50 years ago etc. I wrote to the editor to ask if there were any archives of newspapers in 1795 and if so where were they kept. He informed me that they were in the Somerset Studies Library in Taunton. So I persuaded my husband that we needed a day out!

There I discovered reports of his arrest, trial and subsequent hanging. He was arrested on 9th March 1795, his trial was on 11th March, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. He was hanged on 28th March 1795 in Dorchester Prison.

One of his accomplices Samuel Foster, who was also due to hang, was reprieved and sent to Australia the other one, Samuel’s brother Thomas Foster, gave King’s Evidence and was acquitted. Justice was swift in those days.

Hot on the heels of our recent five-county 1851 census update, we’ve added seven more complete counties.

These newly-transcribed records give you the chance to search for those ancestors you can’t find on other versions of the census. And all the ancestors you’ve already discovered can be viewed again on our new high-quality images – probably the clearest and most faithful online reproductions available.

The new counties are:

• Kent
• Shropshire
• Staffordshire
• Cornwall
• Lincolnshire
• Leicestershire
• Westmorland

Discover your ancestor’s precise age

1851 was the first census to reveal the precise age of each householder – on the 1841 census everyone over 15 had their age rounded down. This ‘rounding down’ policy has proven a perpetual source of frustration for family historians the world over. If an ancestor was alive in 1851 but had perished by 1861, our new records could well be the only way you’ll track down their birth record.

Find your forebears on our high-quality 1851 census images

More counties coming soon.

We’ve just added over 319,000 monumental inscription records for the county of Cornwall to our Parish Records Collection. These new records cover the period 1131-2007, which means that findmypast.com now holds some of the oldest parish records available anywhere online.

Search for your ancestors in our Parish Records Collection now

The Cornwall inscription records are the result of two decades of work by transcribers from Cornwall Family History Society, who have diligently noted down the details from gravestones and other monuments across the county.

The memorial inscription records will appear as part of the results when you search for a burial within the Parish Records Collection. Some contain basic information such as the parish and date of death, whereas others are more in-depth, depending on what was written on the headstone, and which of the information has survived.

Pricing for inscriptions is six, eight or 12 credits, depending on the amount of detail they contain. Or they can be viewed free with an Explorer subscription.

Cornwall memorial inscription sample record

The new records cover around 90 per cent of Cornwall’s parish churchyards, but there are a large number of non-parish burial grounds that aren’t yet included. Cornwall FHS aims to transcribe these in the near future.

Cornwall FHS is just one of a large group of family history societies involved in preserving and transcribing historical records, nationwide. If you would like to get involved in a project like this, contact your local family history society.