Lost in 1939 - The Misleading Map

When Findmypast launched the 1939 Register, Infographic maps which pin-point the place of residence were heralded as a valuable extra.  My grandparent's household at 30 Manor Road, Birmingham is pinned like this:

See the problem? The pin is in Sutton Coldfield, not Birmingham.

Mapping locations is a revealing technique for family and local history when the source contains spatial information.  The 1939 Register contains 3 pieces of location information for each household:

1. Borough or district.  Counties were divided into four  types of units, County borough (C.B), Municipal Borough (M.B.), Urban district (U.D.) and Rural district (R.D.).  These units are listed in Understanding 1939 Registration Districts.
2. Enumeration district.  Boroughs and districts were divided into manageable areas for an enumerator to cover.  They are denoted by the E.D. letter code.  The One Place Studies blog published a helpful explanation of the 1939 enumeration districts and provide a list of these administrative units.
3. Street address. No explanation needed.

Extract of 1939 Register with location information highlighted

My grandparents lived in Stechford which was in the Birmingham County Borough.  A Vision of Britain through Time is a comprehensive resource for jurisdictions in the UK.  Sutton Coldfield was a Municipal Borough until it was merged with Birmingham in the 1974 re-organisation of local government.  In 1939 the boundary of Birmingham County Borough was:

Birmingham County Borough, with Sutton Coldfield and Stechford highlighted.  Source: A Vision of Britain.

Sadly smaller units like enumeration district QBEZ are not mapped in A Vision of Britain.  Census enumerators books included a place to enter as description of the area covered, but I don't know if 1939 Register booklets did.  Browsing the 23 images in the district reveals that only pages with personal entries have been published, so the context of the enumerator's work is missing.  From the street addresses, it is possible to gain an insight of the area covered.  Seven roads are named: Lyndon Road, Manor Road, Church Road, Station Road, Rosemary Road, and Yardley Fields Road.

All of the roads in enumeration district QBEZ are incorrectly scattered around Sutton Coldfield on Findmypast's maps.  Here is a Google maps comparison of the real locations and Findmypast's locations:

Enumeration district QBEZ.  Roads denoted by lines are actual locations, those denoted by pins are the 1939 Regsiter locations

 
A road is a linear feature, so is better represented by a line than a point.  Road names like Manor, Station, and Church are common. There are even several Lyndon Roads. These roads have been matched with other roads of the same name.  Matching locations using a gazetteer, a geographical index of place names with co-ordinates or grid references, is fraught with difficulty.  Red House, Rosemary and Yardley Fields roads were all pinned to the same spot as the incorrect Manor Road pin.  It is likely that the more uncommon road names could not be matched, so were assigned to a pin thought to be in the enumeration district. 

Findmypast's pins mislead even when correctly placed.  A point or pin suggests accuracy, so one might expect it to identify a house.  An jurisdictional area like an enumeration district or borough is best represented by a polygon, a shape which denotes the boundary of the feature.

Mapping technology is now widely and freely available.  Findmypast used open source mapping software, Leaflet, to present the maps, delivering a smooth user experience.  That was a smart move.  Using the digitised historical maps from the National Library of Scotland and modern OpenStreetMap was another smart move.  All of that came free.

It is clear that the jurisdictional boundaries from A Vision of Britain weren't used.  Adding that data layer could have unleashed the power of spatial queries, eliminating the type of errors discussed here.  The data seems to be available only for academic use, but the website was built over a decade ago, so would greatly benefit from serious investment.  Investing in the development and expansion of A Vision of Britain would be, well visionary.

Past Life Styles Before the Internet

Last month, I was in a slump and missed my post. I was moving back to the house my husband and I built when we were young. We had such high hopes for it and slowly began working towards those goals while having and raising 6 children.  As you can imagine, it was S L O W. We abandoned it to live in my mother’s home when

         1. She moved into an assisted living facility because of early onset of dementia and...
           2.   My sweetheart had stage 4 col-rectal cancer. 

It is a story and a half house, so my children were concerned about long range challenges for me and my knees. 

Oh well, who know what will happen in ten years. The biggest challenge has been overcoming the pain at seeing what he had worked so lovingly to make had fallen into disrepair. Some reading this know me on social media such as Facebook. I frequently talk about comments from the tree house. My son remarked that it was an apt description as it was a cross between the Swiss Family Robinson’s and the Bernstein Bear’s home. 

Now you can understand a little of the confusion and disorientation I have been experiencing in planning ahead. Well, that coupled with family calling and asking for assistance with their personal problems. What’s a mom to do, say no? I think not. That is what life and genealogy is all about.

An experience I have had as I have been moving back home, is unpacking my genealogy files. Many times, it makes me smile as I see, notes written on scrap pieces of paper, and no reference as to where I found it. 

Today, moving in the professional world of genealogy, I hear chastisement in my head for not having a research plan sheet, or writing down my documentation. I have empathy for those who find themselves with genealogy information and not a clue as to which book it was they found it in. Let me explain.

Going back to building a house and finishing it ourselves while raising 6 children, will help you understand a little bit. I worked as a public health nurse or school nurse while my children were growing up, and helped my husband with work projects he had as well. We are member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which as most know emphasize finding your family history. We were the only members on both sides of family, who were members. No one had a clue about their family’s history, it all fell in my lap to find it, along with all the above. To shorted this story, I will just say the way it happened was, aside from a few planned visits to major libraries, I would swing by the local library for a 30 minutes to grab some research time when I went grocery shopping or was running errands. My sweetheart would look at me when I got home (days before cell phones) and say “you sure took a long time, at the library again?”  And that is how notes were scratched on odd pieces of paper and now, random information found without documentation. It was almost a lifestyle. Grabbing moments to recreate life times, it is why I am going back and filling in the blanks now. Life before the internet was not easy, nor was it always organized. That is my personal family history finding story.

Has anyone else experience a lifestyle so random or am I the only one? 

Finding ancestors in the 'wrong' year in records

If you're fortunate (or dedicated) enough to trace any ancestors back to before the 1750s, and they were from Britain or its colonies, you may come across some odd-looking dates in documents from the early months of each year. They might be in letters, books, newspapers or parish records.

Here's an example, from the parish records for Merioneth/Meirionnedd in north-west Wales:

It looks as if nobody was baptised, married or buried between March 21, 1748, and March 25, 1749 - which isn't very likely. But not understanding this record could cause problems.

Suppose you're looking for Hugh Ellis and all the evidence points to him being born in Cae Gwernog in 1749 - and you found this record. You might think your other information was wrong, because it looks as if he was baptised on 21 April, 1748.

You might find a parish record which is even more puzzling (but gives a clue to the solution), like this one for the baptism of Mary Roberts of Tarporley, from the Diocese of Chester parish records:

She was baptised on 1 January, 1744. But wait a minute - just above her in the baptism of Thomas Garnett, on 30 December... 1744. Couldn't these people keep their records in order?

And yes, of course, they could. It's just that the calendar was organised in a slightly different way until 1752 in Britain and its colonies.

Old Style

From the late 12th century until 1751, the legal year began on Lady Day, the Feast of the Annunciation, celebrated on 25 March (exactly nine months before Christmas Day). So the year changed on that day: 24 March, 1750, would be followed by 25 March, 1751, and the year's length was calculated according to the Julian calendar. It seems odd to us, but since it was the way things had been for centuries, it was easy to understand.

Except...

New Style

Except that in October 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced a new calendar. By then, because the length of a year under the Julian calendar had been slightly over-calculated as being 365 days and six hours, with the six hours being added together every fourth year to make a leap year, the date of Easter had drifted too far away from the Spring equinox.

This also resulted in 'removing' 10 days from the calendar to make up for the drift. The new calendar, known as the Gregorian, was adopted by Catholic countries. But the English-speaking world was officially Protestant, and Protestant states weren't having anything to do with a change decided by the Pope. They stayed with the Julian calendar.

This caused confusion in dating letters, reports and documents which crossed the time zone between Protestant and Catholic countries.

To avoid this confusion, people often dated their papers using OS (Old Style) and NS (New Style), or gave two alternative years for those awkward days from 1 January to 24 March, like 1700-01, or 1700/1.

Here's how one newspaper, the Newcastle Courant, coped with the date problem:

You'll notice that in the latest edition the paper is dated 1744, but the first article mentions a date as being in OS - it's a report from (Gregorian, NS) France.

Just to add a little more confusion, the legal year in Scotland was changed to begin on 1 January in 1600, and after the Union of Parliaments in 1707, this caused more legislative problems.

Parliament wasn't happy. In 1750, it stated that the use of the Julian calendar was 'attended with divers inconveniences, not only as it differs from the usage of neighbouring nations, but also from the legal method of computation in Scotland, and from the common usage throughout the whole kingdom, and thereby frequent mistakes are occasioned in the dates of deeds and other writings, and disputes arise therefrom.'

And so the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 was passed. It ruled that the English-speaking world would make two changes in 1752: that year would start on 1 January everywhere; and there would be 11 days removed from the calendar, since the drift had widened another year since 1582, when the Gregorian calendar came into force.

Still with me? Phew! I think we both deserve a picture to help explain the effect this had on record-keeping.

These are burials from the parish records of St Stephen's Church in Norwich. You'll see that 1750 burials go from 31 March to 14 March; 1751 burials are from 25 March to 24 December; and 1752 burial start on 2 January.

The other part of the changes brought about by the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 was the removal of 11 days. Here's the law:

 

So you went to bed in the evening of September 2 and woke up on the morning of September 14. Which was not much fun if your birthday or other special day fell into the 'lost' time.

The Whitehall and General Evening Posts tried to explain the whole muddle on the morning of 14 September, NS:

Until recently I believed the story that the loss of 11 days caused widespread riots, with people furiously demanding: 'Give us back our eleven days!'

Unfortunately, it seems that this is an urban, and rural, myth, though the phrase was well enough known at the time. It appears, as 'give us our Eleven Days', on a placard at the bottom of William Hogarth's satirical painting An Election Entertainment:

But the missing 11 days isn't just a story about how daft the uneducated people were. A very recent blog post has pointed out that, though poorer people's wages, which were often paid by the day, fell by a third in September 1752, their rents did not. A good reason to be angry.

The taxes still had to be brought in, and so (rather than lose 11 days' tax) the government ruled that the new fiscal year should start 11 days later than Lady Day. And an extra day was added in 1800. That's why the UK tax year begins on 6 April - it's the old Lady Day, plus the (now) 12 days' drift.

Finally, as everyone's going Shakespeare mad, with the 400th anniversary of his death on 23 April, here's a brain teaser:
Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes died on the same date - but not on the same day. How can that be?

Notes:

Believe it or not, I've simplified things a lot here. The original Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 can be read online, if you really want to
All images are from FindMyPast, except for the Hogarth painting, An Election Entertainment, which is CC via Wikimedia, and the extract from the Calendar Act
If working out OS/NS dates is too much of a time-waster, there's a handy online date converter to do the work for you

Conferences and Genealogy Shows What's the Difference?

Photograph from the conference of Guild of One Name Studies held in Birmingham, England 

1st - 3rd April 2016

Conference or Show what do you get for your money?

Are they the same?

Does it depend where in the world you are?

Last year I wrote about going to Rootstech / FGS 2015 in Salt Lake City, my first impressions and compared it with WDYTYA Live which had just moved to Birmingham.

This year I was only able to catch the livestream and videos at Rootstech. However I did attend my first Guild of One Name Studies Conference held the weekend before Who Do You Think You Are Live. Both were in Birmingham the first at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole and the latter at the National Exhibition Centre the same as last year.

I have not attended anything in Australia and I know there are other conferences in the US. Pauleen Cass wrote a post on this blog last April about conferencing and she has quite a few references in this post to help give a more balanced view.

I did enjoy my Guild conference and have every intention of going to next year's conference which is being held on the outskirts my home city of Southampton. I am hoping to make the most of it by incorporating a research trip to the local archives in Southampton and the Hampshire Record Office in Winchester.

I decided to go to Birmingham on the train and managed to get a direct train both ways with a table seat for most of the journey. Both trains were crowded as it was the Easter holidays. Before I arrived at the hotel I could tell we were going to have an interesting and possibly noisy weekend see this tweet from Janet Few.

Chris Braund pointed me in the right direction and after registering, up to my room with the luggage, then back for a much needed drink before the first talk about DNA. 

Our first meal was followed by the quiz which I soon learnt was quite a challenge.

Unlike the likes of Rootstech the conference had 2 full days. The first part of the first morning was the AGM and the business side of things being swiftly dealt with we arrived early for the morning break. 

Next up was an interesting presentation about life on the canals. This guest was surprised when he actually sold out of the books he had brought with him. 

The session after lunch can be a real challenge and there was a lot of information to take on board. If you have anyone who lived and worked in British India the wealth of information available is incredible. Families in British India Society (FIBIS) has a lot on their website. They also had a big presence at WDYTYA Live this year and the celebrity I saw on the Saturday had gone to India to find out more about her family.

Anita Rani talking about her experience on WDYTYA at the Live show on Saturday 9th April 2016

The next speaker was from Twile but I will not expand further here as I plan to do a post on my own blog later this week.

Our final session for the day had to be changed at extremely short notice Paul Howes Chairman of the Guild did an admirable job and we heard some interesting stories from him and several other members.

Unlike Rootstech the Guild has a Reception and Dinner on the Saturday night a chance to chat and get to know other attendees a bit better.

A short church service first thing on Sunday was followed by 2 presentations. The first looked at presentation of your study using that member's own study. The second was looking at key sources outside the UK for finding your surname across the world.

Lots of information here and "food for thought" as to how to get the information and then how to put it into a useful format.

The session after lunch on Sunday was another change looking at how we might find living people. As one namers we often find the best information comes from members of families especially if you need individuals for DNA studies. Finding clues in the records and knowing where to look is crucial. The techniques shown were those I had used in doing my own family research and have reaped dividends in terms of family photographs.

The final session of the conference looked at example sources for emigration and immigration. This rounded off an interesting weekend. 

I had three days before the WDYTYA Live show and I will write about these on my own blog if you are interested.

For the first 2 days of WDYTYA Live I offered to help out on the GUILD stand. Here are some photographs that I took.

This was just across the aisle from the replica Spitfire that was on display at the Forces War Records stand

Ancestry, Family Search, Find My Past, My Heritage and The Genealogist all had their own stands. There were relatively few commercial vendors and several non-genealogical charities had their own stands. Much of the Society of Genealogists area was taken by Family History Societies although many local societies did not attend. A full list of exhibitors can be found here.
There was much more in the way of workshop sessions that could be attended and the interest in, and availability of, DNA testing appears to be growing.
Family Tree DNA sponsored a raft of free lectures in their theatre.

Having everything in one large hall with sections partitioned off for sessions can be a disadvantage but with well set up sound systems and microphones the only problems seem to be when technology failed.

As regards costs the ticket prices for Who Do You Think You Are Live can be found here. The website of The Guild of One Name Studies can be found here if you want to know more about who they are and the benefits of becoming a member. Rootstech has a different pricing structure to WDYTYA Live and details can be found on the FAQ page. Pricing for this year's FGS Conference is not yet online you can find their website here. The FGS Conference has more in common with WDYTYA Live than Rootstech in regards to the topics for the presentations. This is not surprising given that The Society of Genealogists and The Federation of Family History Societies are similar organizations to FGS in the US.

Comparisons between events in different countries are difficult as the audience and how they interact can be affected by the numbers that attend for just a single day. In the US conference attendees are more likely to stay overnight in the area rather than travel on the day. Up until this year I travelled on the day, this was cheaper than finding overnight accomodation, this makes for a long day which means that a single day is all that most would feel up to attending.
Whether more would be willing to stay if evening activities were included it is difficult to know. It can be a problem organising events and then not getting sufficient uptake for them to take place. Having cancelled a day of the WDYTYA Live event in Glasgow the organisers are unlikely to want to take on any additional evening entertainment.

If you have attended other genealogical conferences or shows elsewhere in the world I would be interested in your comments.
If genealogists don't tell the organisers what we like or don't like or how we think they could improve the experience for us then we risk falling attendances. 
Many societies are seeing falling membership numbers. 
What do those researching want from them and what can we as members contribute? 
Why do you belong to a society? 
Have you allowed your membership to lapse? 
If so, why did this happen?

Why are some societies not attending national events?

Does History Matter?

Last year a popular British TV quiz programme revealed that a third of those questioned did not know who was on the British throne in 1859, more worryingly, a similar number couldn’t name the monarch in 1979! Admittedly the question was not straightforwardly phrased but even so…… Does this matter? Well, at the most basic level maybe not but it is symptomatic of our frenetic clawing towards the future and lust for something new, at the expense of our heritage. In England at least, history is continually being squeezed from the school curriculum and what is taught is often disjointed and lacking in context. Yes there really is a whole load of history between the Tudors and the Victorians, of which many school children are blissfully unaware, even supposing they have grasped that the Tudors come first! And yes, history does extend beyond the twentieth century political history, so beloved of the examination syllabus.

At the same time the news featured an eighteen year old American scientist who had discovered a diagnostic test for pancreatic cancer. His mantra was, ‘Science is using your curiosity to change the world.’ Undoubtedly this is true in his case and he deserves every credit. When I explain what I study, I often feel that others think it is self-indulgent and that it does not contribute to the greater good. I am not suggesting history is more important than medical research but I maintain that, in some ways, it is as important. More and more studies are suggesting that an understanding of the past is crucial to our well-being in the present. American research, by Dr Marshall Duke, investigating children’s resiliency and ability to deal with stress, discovered that children who knew more about their families:-

• Tended to do better than other children when they faced challenges.
• Proved to be more resilient and able to moderate the effects of stress.
• Had a stronger sense of control over their lives.
• Had higher self-esteem.
• Believed that their family functioned successfully.
• Felt that they belonged to something larger than themselves.

Studies by The Heritage Lottery Fund found that there are positive benefits to an awareness of heritage that relate to quality of life, community cohesion and creating better places to live. Can historians use their curiosity to change the world? I am an idealist, if we each change our little bit of the world, perhaps they can.

History is about using the past to inform the present and the future. It can hone analytical skills and teach people to question but it can also engender a sense of belonging, to a family or a to community. An awareness of a shared past creates unity in the present. In the dim and distant past (well ten years ago), when I had a history classroom, I had history related quotations depicted in coloured speech bubbles around the wall and these now head and foot pages on my website. Perhaps the most telling of these is George Santayana’s on the home page ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to fullfil it’. Sadly many are not learning from the past and many never will but I for one have the vision to think we could try and encourage people not to repeat so many past mistakes.

So yes, it matters but how do we spread the word? As my passion (far to far gone to call this merely a hobby) and what passes for my job overlap, I either work 150 hours a week, or I do nothing but enjoy myself! We can introduce others to history in a more moderate way. A bit like faith, we can take history out with us and introduce it to those with whom we come into contact. Not, I hasten to add, in a pushy overbearing way (that doesn’t work for religion either!) but gently, without people even realising that what they are doing is engaging in history. I wrote about this for the British Association for Local History’s newsletter. This blog post is already long enough, so I won’t repeat it all here now but there are many inventive ways in which this can be done; if you watch this space I may be inspired to feature some here. I am particularly focussed on engaging young people with history and heritage. Some of my descendants are on their way to visit (excited face) so I have the opportunity to put this into practice. Yes, I am talking about two year olds and yes it is possible. 

I know you will say ‘I don’t have the time’ or ‘My friends and neighbours don’t have the time’. Originally this post was entitled ‘Making Time for History and why this Matters’ but I have spent so long on why it matters that I haven’t made time to address how to make time in our busy lives. Another day, another blog post - I promise.

Janet Few

Because of You~Moving Forward

Passey Family Reunion
June 2015

It has been a year since "Saying Goodby Too Soon" was posted on this blog.
 Reading back through it's hard to believe that a year has gone by and in some ways, it feels like a lifetime ago.
 The journey has been tough, the lessons life changing but through it all support came pouring in.
 The Genealogy Community being one of our families biggest supporters both emotionally and financially.
  From generously giving to Reagan's Go Fund Me account, sending messages of love and support as we spent weeks at a time out of town for surgeries, radiation and chemo to understanding my need to continue my genealogy pursuits to have an outlet, you all have been such help in our journey.

After first surgery at Duke
April 2015

  This past year has been full of pain, fear, stress, exhaustion, and grief as well as fun, joy, and faith. While we watched our sweet 13-year-old, slowly lose his ability to walk, talk and care for himself we were blessed to make forever memories and enjoy our last 7 months together.

Disney Make A Wish Trip
August 2015

 We did say goodbye too soon; Reagan passed away on 4 November 2015. It hasn't been an easy last 5 months. He donated his body to science so without a body to bury we had a memorial service.
 A cremation burial still lies ahead.

My question in my post last year was "How did they go on?"
 Now I know.They had their family, church and community support. We have the same.

Thank you, dear Genealogy Community. Because of all you have done and continue to do, moving forward is hard but doable.

Reagan Blake Passey
25 June 2002-4 November 2015

Cheri

April Alphabets

Yesterday I made the rash decision to join the 2016 A-Z Blogging Challenge. Now I am wondering when I will get time to eat and sleep as I follow some of the close to 2000 blogs that are on the list of participants.

I am hoping to give my CurryAus Surname Study a boost by blogging stories about Australian Currys (people not food) on my CurryAus blog. It's barely day two and the blog statistics have  already spiked.

One of the reasons I joined the activity was because many of my friends were taking part and secondly I wanted to meet and learn from some new bloggers - I've hooked up with a couple.

If you haven't time to join as a blogger please consider taking a a look at the list of participants and visiting and commenting (an important part of the event)  on their blogs.

Some of the newtome blogs I have discovered so far are:

Genwest UK  http://www.genwestuk.blogspot.com
The Curry Apple Orchard https://argonautsite.wordpress.com
My Genealogy Challenges http://genealogychallenges.blogspot.com
Southern Graves  http://blog.southerngraves.net/
Springhill History  http://www.springhillhistory.org.uk/blog-3/index.html
treetrack'n  http://treetrackn.blogspot.com