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

From Brenda Lacey:

‘My late father received a letter in 1974 containing details of the ‘Tyzack’ family from a Mr V Tyzack. As the address was a London office, I have been unable to trace his whereabouts or this family, if he is now deceased.

The information given states that his family lived at Wells Next the Sea, North Norfolk. I have found the tombstone of his Grandfather Edward Tyzack in a churchyard at Buttlands, Wells next the Sea. I have also learnt the history of the ‘Tyzack’ who lived at Little Walsingham via a local historian, but I am stuck with regards to moving forward from Edward Tyzack.

Mr V Tyzack is still a mystery, although he states that a dozen Tyzacks lived at Wells when he was a child, i.e., cousins. Can you please help?’

Stephen says:

‘Thanks for your emailed question.

My first comment is that you are very fortunate! The surname you are researching – Tyzack – is unusual and distinctive. This means that a number of broad, cross-database searches are possible which simply would not be available to you if you had to pursue a more common name.

If using findmypast.co.uk, one way to start is simply to do a very basic cross-database search from the home page. Even if you just type in the last name and search on that, you get a manageable number of results, arranged by record type, which you can then look at by clicking on the record counts (number of results) of each.

Of course, you can narrow down the search by using first name as well, i.e., by searching for Edward Tyzack and looking at all results. You should be able to identify his birth entry from his age at death (you can find his death entry easily, as you know when he was buried), and from there narrow down possible marriages to one or two candidates.

One factor which helps is that earlier this year findmypast.co.uk published fully name-indexed birth, marriage and death indexes. This really speeds up the search for you. Once you have his marriage, you can then look for the births of issue of his marriage, then for their marriages and deaths in turn, continuing the process towards the present day and building up the family tree. Unless some events took place overseas and are not recorded in the overseas BMDs on findmypast.co.uk, you should be able to reliably piece together Edward’s tree to the present day.

When searching census or civil registration records for England, use Walsingham as the registration district up to 1938. For BMD records from 1939 to 1975, however, Wells next the Sea is in Fakenham registration district. You should probably consider London districts as well, given the known family movement to the capital.

As for the London-based professional Mr V Tyzack, keep under consideration that V may have been the initial of his middle name rather than of his actual first name. You can do a Living Relatives search on findmypast.co.uk. If you cannot find the mysterious V, you may be able to find other relatives you have identified as part of the family tree reconstruction process described above.’

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!

Hello,

My name is Ian Tester, and I’m the product manager at findmypast.co.uk. That means that it’s my job to try to invent new features on the site to make finding your ancestors easier and more satisfying. I’m also heavily involved in getting new records onto the site, and improving the search features we offer.

I started off in marketing at findmypast.co.uk a few years ago, but it wasn’t until I had spent a winter using findmypast heavily to start building my own family tree that I felt confident to move over into the product manager role.

Ian Tester - making pre-flight checks at home on his farm

I’ve worked on websites for 13 years, but you really can’t work on something as complex as findmypast or develop features for family historians until you have been at the coalface doing your own research and understanding what real family historians need. Perhaps the most important thing for me to learn was: a few years of my own research has left me with an awful lot to learn. This is where the experts come in.

I’ve now got my own (hard-won!) insights into family history research; however, I’m very lucky in that I have access to a lot of highly-skilled and smart people to help me out. The first group of people are my colleagues here in London and Dundee - they’ve got years of experience, many as professional genealogists, and they have unrivalled knowledge of family history records, research and research tools, so they’re always a valuable source of ideas, suggestions and improvements.

Because they’re using the site every day, their feedback tends to come thick and fast and one of my key tasks is stay on top of it all, capture it and make sure we follow up on all those small tweaks and improvements they suggest. In the nicest possible way, they can be quite demanding (which is good for our customers)!

The second group is unique to findmypast.co.uk - the groups of experts that we work with on a day-to-day basis. We’re constantly getting feedback from members of family history societies around the country (and beyond), the Guild of One Name Studies, the Society of Genealogists and of course, The National Archives, who have a dazzling display of subject experts on every set of records that you can imagine. Add to that the expert publishers we work with, such as the Naval and Military Press and Gould Genealogy in Australia and our partners at FamilySearch, and I’m able to tap a range of experts on any subject under the sun.

We often use our partners in the industry as ‘expert reviewers’ to gather early stage feedback, and to demonstrate early versions of new services to before we refine them and put them on the website. For example, when we launched the 1911 census last year, we spent months getting expert feedback from industry experts and made a huge number of changes to the way that the search and website worked before we went live.

Perhaps the most important group, however, are our customers, from whom I get feedback constantly. Key to this is our customer support team, who act as our ‘eyes and ears’ and understand better than anyone the issues or improvements that you suggest. I also attend family history events around the country and this one-to-one contact with customers provides some of the most useful ideas for what we need to do to make your research easier. Finally, we do a lot of market research with our customers, and it’s your generous and constant feedback that helps us decide what to do next and often how to make it work. I once tried to work out how many years of family history experience all our customers combined might have - but gave up when my calculator ran out of digits.

Enough of how we gather feedback - what am I actually working on at the moment and how is it going to make your research easier? Well, there are a number of projects that we’re actively developing features around at the moment. The most important is ‘improving your search’.

Improving your search is not only about adding new records to the site, but also revising the search facilities that we currently offer you and making sure that we make it as easy as possible to find your ancestors in the records.

We already transcribe more fields than other family history websites, meaning that our advanced search features let you search pretty much anything that is in the original record, but we could do better at making our searches cleverer (and, therefore, making you work less hard). For example, we spent a lot of time designing our new fully-indexed births 1837-2006 search to work with some of the idiosyncrasies of the records themselves. So, when the original indexes only record the initial of a second name of an ancestor, our search will intelligently spot that and find you the ‘Andrew P Smethwick’ recorded in the index for the ‘Andrew Peter Smethwick’ you entered into the search.

More cunningly, it will also find you the ‘Unnamed male Smethwick’ you might never have thought of searching for. If you include the mother’s maiden name in your search, it will even try to uncover scandal by finding possible illegitimate births (maybe an Andrew Peter Middleton).

I’m currently working on the fully-indexed marriages which will be on the site in the next few months, and trying to design ways to make this much easier. We’re designing something we’re calling ‘MarriageMatch’ at the moment, which will automatically hunt out and check both partners’ records and make sure that they match each other. These results will be marked as ‘MarriageMatches’ and put right at the top of your search results. This will save you having to look for both partners in a marriage and cross check the reference yourself.

We’re also designing a degree of flexibility into this search - again so it works with the idiosyncrasies of your ancestors and the records, so it will also look for variants in MarriageMatches and find these too. My great grandmother Gertrude Minnie Hardwick was somehow recorded as ‘Hardwicke’ on her marriage certificate. Our new search will still find her for you and match her up automatically with her husband’s marriage record, even though she was married before 1912, which was the first time a partner’s name was recorded in the General Register Office index.

So what’s the lesson in all this? Well, first, that searching records that you might find on other sites is not the same as searching on findmypast.co.uk. We’re aiming to make our new BMD search the best that you can find online. It will be complete and apply extra intelligence to your searches to help you find your ancestors faster and with a higher degree of confidence that you’ve found the right person. Second, that spending time to understand the records thoroughly before we design searches is key to making them work well. Third, that consulting our customers and industry experts gives us some of the best insights we can get into what makes searching records difficult and, therefore, ideas to make it easier.

After marriages, as in life, will come deaths, but I’m also working on incorporating ‘extra’ BMDs into the new BMD searches. Findmypast.co.uk already has the most complete set of GRO indexes 1837-2006 available online (we’ve been diligent at tracking down those missing pieces that other sites may not have got round to over the past seven years) but we’re also going to be adding BMDs at sea and BMDs overseas into the main BMD search in the coming months. They may help solve some of those mysterious missing events.

The new BMD search is just a small part of our ‘improving your search’ project and that project is just one of many that we’re working on to improve your experience on findmypast.co.uk. At the risk of sounding a tease, I’m going to save telling you about some of the other projects for another post. In the meantime, if you have any great ideas…there’s space for comments below.

Our expert Stephen Rigden, pictured, answers your questions.

From Edward James Pace:

‘I’m having problems trying to find details of the death of my grandfather and, naturally, his parents. I have submitted his details in various searches and can get no results:

William Frederick Pace, born in 1876, joined the army in 1893, left the army in 1911 and rejoined in 1914. His service no. was G/27234 and he served in the Middlesex Regiment as a Sergeant.

William married Henrietta Mann in 1904. Their children were William, Thomas, Edward, Alice, Millicent and Emily. He died in 1918 – he was killed or wounded in France/Germany and cremated in England.

One would think that there is sufficient detail to find all about him easily but I’ve had no joy. I’d really appreciate if you can assist me in my frustrations.’

Steve says:

‘With other ranks – NCOs and privates – it is always a good idea to consider possible variations on given names, especially the loss of a middle name. I found that your grandfather died not in France and Flanders but here in the UK – in fact, his death was registered as plain William Pace in Croydon. This is good news in the sense that it means you can use the reference given in the March quarter 1919 civil death index to order a copy of his death certificate.

He appears on the official Commonwealth War Graves Commission website simply as W Pace; he died on 13 February 1919 and is buried in Islington Cemetery. The fact that he died in England also explains why he may not appear in some of the other WW1 record sources such as Soldiers Died in the Great War, available on findmypast.co.uk

Interestingly, the individual I believe to be your grandfather appears on the 1911 census as William Edward (not William Frederick) Pace. He is with the 2nd Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment at Guadeloupe Barracks, Bordon, near Aldershot. He is aged 36 and his birthplace is recorded as St Pancras. As you may know, soldiers and their wives and children ‘on the strength’ are on separate ‘military establishment’ census returns in the 1911 census.

In your grandfather’s case, his wife Henrietta (born in Clerkenwell) is shown together with three children William, Edward and Emily respectively born in Thayetmyo (Burma), Kassauli (India) and Alderney (Channel Islands), which shows something of your grandfather’s military career in the years up to 1911.

Your grandfather, however, does not appear to have been born in St Pancras as there is no corresponding entry in our fully indexed births nor, for that matter, an obvious entry for a person of his name born in St Pancras in the 1881, 1891 or 1901 censuses.

Further research shows that he married in July 1905 and was born in Shoreditch to parents Edward Pace, a carpenter, born in Shoreditch circa 1844/45, and Emma Burchell, born circa 1853/54 in Kentish Town, who were married in June quarter 1872 in St Pancras registration district. Hopefully with this extra information, you will be able to start researching your family tree further back in time more successfully.’

If you’d like to send your question to Steve, please register or opt to receive newsletters in My Account.

Read the following story we received from Jan Pearce from Grantham, Lincolnshire. Jan found vital information for her family tree in our fully indexed birth records and Chelsea Pensioner British Army Service records:

‘My husband’s grandmother seemed to exist only in people’s memories, on censuses, and on marriage and death certificates. I couldn’t track her birth record although it was consistently shown as Southampton. Was Alice Maud found under a cabbage? Did the stork bring her?

My husband doesn’t know how he came by them, but he has copies of her parents’ marriage certificate, and her father’s death certificate. I had never come across the name Dedman/Deadman before, but there are multitudes of them in Hampshire records.

The only Alice Maud Dedman born about the right year came from Surrey, so I ordered her birth certificate. Wrong father and mother. I later traced this girl to her death from diphtheria, aged six.

I looked again at findmypast.co.uk’s recently re-indexed birth records, and there she was! Alice Maud Dedman, born in Southampton 23 November 1873.

It is interesting that the name was first spelt Deadman but the registrar corrected it to Dedman and signed the alteration. Her mother’s maiden name is written as Hansell when it was actually Ansell.

Second story - I was able to download my 2xgreat-grandfather’s Chelsea Pensioner records. It looks like he upped his age by a year or two to join the army in 1814. In 1815 he was sent to the East Indies with the 24th Foot Regiment and the seven years there left him with some health problems. This was the reason given for his discharge in 1834. He lived to the age of 91, however, having married twice and fathering a number of children.’

Last night, Monty Don became the latest celebrity to get the Who Do You Think You Are? treatment.

Monty Don (copyright jo-h)

The episode focused on two branches of his family tree, his maternal Hodge and paternal Keiller lines.

One of the ancestors focused on was Monty’s great-grandmother, Charlotte Augusta Hodge. The programme revealed that Charlotte was one of nine children born to the Reverend Charles Hodge and his wife, Ann. Charlotte was left behind in England when her parents and four of her elder brothers emigrated to New Zealand in the 1850s.

While taking a look at the large Hodge family in the all-new fully searchable birth records this morning, findmypast.co.uk has discovered that there was actually a tenth child – Charlotte’s twin. The image below shows the record of Charlotte Augusta Hodge’s birth in East Retford, Nottinghamshire in the July / August / September quarter of 1846. Nine lines below Charlotte is an entry for a Harriet Vere Hodge, born in the same district.

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The death index for the same quarter of 1846 reveals that Charlotte’s twin died soon after her birth. Reverend Charles and Ann Hodge’s youngest child was born four years after this tragedy and was also named Harriet, presumably in memory of the child they had lost.

Click to enlarge

This fresh information may help Monty understand why his great-great-grandmother, Ann Hodge initially emigrated to New Zealand without her husband and family in 1850. It was speculated last night that this showed a wish to escape from her husband. However, we feel that Ann’s emotional state following the loss of one child and the recent birth of another must have played some considerable part in her actions.

Please do let us know what you thought of last night’s episode and what you think Ann’s motivations may have been for leaving her family in 1850.

Hello from the head of findmypast.co.uk

I’m Paul, head of findmypast.co.uk, and welcome to the first in a series of blogs I’ll be writing. I wanted to get in touch to talk about what we’ve achieved over the last year and let you know what’s in the pipeline for the future.

It has been a very busy and rewarding year at findmypast.co.uk. Just over a year ago we added the eagerly anticipated 1911 census for England and Wales to the site. We also completed the remaining censuses to be able to proudly offer you the only complete England and Wales census collection anywhere online. We’ve also added hundreds of thousands of parish records to the site to make ours the largest online collection of parish records in partnership with the Federation of Family History Societies.

More recently we’ve launched our fully indexed birth records that cover the period from 1837 to 2006.  There are over 100 million individual records. We’re very excited about these records and judging from the fantastic feedback we’ve received so far, you share our enthusiasm about the value of these records to family historians.

All of these projects were a key part of our continued commitment to you to:

• Deliver rich family history records to connect you to your past
• Provide a complete census collection for England and Wales 1841 to 1911
• Ensure our records are as easy as possible to search

This makes it the perfect time to introduce this new series of blogs which will share knowledge with our customers and the wider family history community. You’ll be hearing from me and other members of the findmypast.co.uk team on a regular basis about a wide range of topics, from records and data to products and marketing. The findmypast.co.uk team will keep you informed with new developments at findmypast.co.uk and give you a backstage pass into life behind the scenes at findmypast.co.uk

Of course we really want to hear your views and thoughts so you can help to shape the service we offer you. Please feel free to comment on any of our blog posts – you can do so underneath each post.

The next year is going to be even more exciting than the last one. We’ve got some fantastic new records which we’ll publish exclusively on findmypast.co.uk, including the fully indexed marriages and death records which will complete our BMD collection. Along with new search features and functionality, I hope this will make our site even more useful and engaging for you.

I hope you enjoy the ride as it promises to be a very exciting and rewarding journey on findmypast.co.uk

Following the launch of our fully indexed birth records last week, we’ve uncovered some interesting finds within the records:

• 10 babies named Fish Fish were born between 1840 and 1883, bizarrely, all in Lancashire. The list even includes one Fish Fish Fish born in Blackburn in 1864:

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• 340 Adolfs have been registered - with the last birth listed in the UK in 2005.
• Just five Ringos were registered in 1964 and 1965, compared with 2,414 Georges, 36,877 Johns and 56,170 Pauls.
• Six Dick Turpins were registered between 1854 and 1916 - a highwayman from the 1700s:

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• Four Maradonas were registered in 1986, the year of the infamous ‘Hand of God’ goal. Eight more were registered between 1999 and 2006, including two Diego Maradonas and two Ronaldo Maradonas.
• Eight Peles were registered between 1970 and 1972, following the footballer’s 1000th goal in 1969.
• Eight babies have been given the forename Hercules, with a further 51 bearing it as a middle name.

We also did some research into the birth patterns over the past century and found that the trend for births at certain times of the year has changed. In 1907 and 1908, the peak time of year for births was in quarter two during April, May and June, compared with 2007 and 2008 when July, August and September saw the most births. It’s possible that 21st century parents are more mindful of the school year than they were 100 years ago.

Search our fully indexed birth records today to see who you can find.

We’re very happy to announce that you can now search fully indexed birth records for 1837 to 2006 on findmypast.co.uk

Fully indexing the birth records involved rescanning 170 years of records and transcribing the quarter of a billion names within them. Over 1,000 people have worked on this two-year project.

These records are now the easiest to search complete birth records available anywhere online. The following are some of the benefits of the fully indexed birth records:

• Your search results will be in the form of a list of individual names, so you won’t have to check through pages of records to find your ancestors
• There is a complete 1837-2006 set of records
• The images of the index pages are completely new and very high quality
• We’ve added smart search features including name variants, and highlighting of unnamed children (very common in the Victorian period)
• There are clever search results to get around the quirks of the records, including the GRO’s procedure of initialising second names
• You can now search by mother’s and father’s name at the same time to help find those elusive births

If you haven’t had success finding an ancestor’s birth record previously, it’s definitely worth trying again using our fully indexed birth records - start searching them now.

Next on the list is a project to fully index the marriage and death records which we expect to complete by the end of the year.