S&N Email News: November 2007

Below you can read the full articles included in this issue of S&N Email News.

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TreeView

TreeView is an exciting new project from S&N that allows users to manage their family tree online. The project has just come out of our beta testing stage and is open to anyone with a “The Genealogist” account, just go to http://tree.thegenealogist.co.uk to start your tree now.

TreeView has many features, which include:

• A simple, easy to use interface that introduces two new ways of viewing your tree (a 4 generation pedigree view and a 3 generation family view)
• The ability to import and export GEDCOM files.
• An interactive, navigable pedigree view that allows you to enter people straight into a tree quickly and with great ease.
• The ability to handle multiple addresses, sources, source repositories, notes, events and facts.
• Multiple reports such as a searchable Individual list, an individual summary, source list and repository list.
• A context-sensitive help system – wherever you are within TreeView, just click the help button to get easy to follow instructions for the section you’re in.

The latest feature we’re working on is the ability to upload pictures and associate these pictures with individuals or events, so you will be able to include those valuable family photographs and pictures of special family events.

Upcoming features will include being able to link to The Genealogist's records such as census transcripts and BMDs. We will also be adding a feature that will let you invite friends and family to view your family tree with their own login.

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Voyage of Discovery: Tracing a route to Captain James Cook by Eric Caton

According to the book "Captain James Cook', By Richard Hough, James Cook snr. was a Scot who migrated South in search of work. He settled in the village of Marton, in the district of Cleveland, in the far North Eastern corner of England, in the second decade
of the c18th.

He got work as a farm labourer, met, and married, Grace Pace of Thornaby. In Marton they raised eight children, of whom James was the second, born 27.10.1728. When he was eight, the family moved to the village of Great Ayton, three miles away, when his father gained the position of bailiff for the Lord of the local Manor.

Along the Cleveland Coast there are a number of fishing villages and towns-Redcar, Saltburn, Sandsend, Staithes, and Whitby, all within a distance of twenty three miles of one another, and roughly twenty miles from Marton. It was to Staithes first, then Whitby that young James Cook's remarkable voyages of discovery began, in 1745, shortly before his 17th birthday. It is a well documented story recorded in a number of books.

One of those coastal villages, now a town of some considerable size- Redcar, eight miles from Marton, is the place of my birth. The history of Redcar dates from the beginning of the c12th-at least. It was in the Northeast area that the last resistance to the Norman conquest took place in 1069a.d. In retaliation, the Normans put the entire Northeast to the sword.

The Doomsday Book records it as a 'terrae wastae'-wastelands!This, then, is the region that gave England's most famous navigator to the world stage-Captain James Cook, my 'almost' ancestor.

The Story:

As a young lad, one of my delights was visiting my paternal grandmother Mary Crame Caton (nee Baker). She lived almost next door to my parents house, so the visits were frequent. She lived alone in one of the oldest houses still left standing in the town. It was built of sandstone, roughly plastered, and colour (yellow) washed once a year; lit by gaslight even to the year she died in 1956. It is also the house in which I was born.

Among the many conversations we had, only two things stand out in my memory. The first, that we have French and Welsh blood running through our veins (well diluted by now) and second, that we are related to Captain James Cook!

At the time those things didn't register much with me, I just took it for granted. After all, aren't grandmothers the fount of all wisdom and knowledge? And the family was/is of seafaring stock (except for me, that is!).

It wasn't until 1977 when, as a (by now) minister in the Maori section of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, in the Parish of Whakatane (North Island), that I began to think more deeply of my 'relationship' to Captain Cook, and the need to establish it as fact.
 
The opportunity came when, as a part-time industrial Chaplain to a factory in the town, I decided to take three months study leave on Industrial Chaplaincy with the Tees-side Industrial Mission, the first of its kind in Britain, which just happened to be based in Middlesborough, eight miles from Redcar. I was able to stay with my parents whom I had not seen since emigrating to New Zealand in 1949.

This gave me the chance to delve further into my lineage. Through visits with surviving relatives, and searching local Church records, I was able to glean some information based around my grandmother's maiden name, Baker, which was also a seafaring/fisherman family. My research was very amateurish, and was limited to the the time I was able to spend away from my studies, and Chaplaincy at two large factories.

Needless to say, I didn't progress very far, but was determined to devote the last two weeks in England researching my Grandmother's claim, by going to to view the records section of the County seat -Northallerton- but I never made it; my father died the night before I was to make a start. So those remaining two weeks were devoted, instead, to caring for my mother, helping tidy up my father's affairs, and arranging for his funeral, and preparing to depart for New Zealand. For the next twenty two years I put all thoughts of James Cook and our relationship out of my mind concentrating, instead, on my calling as a minister of the Gospel, serving in four Parishes before retirement in 1996 (although I still serve a Paish on a part-time basis).

At the end of one of our Church conferences in November of 1999, I was to journey to Auckland on a family matter, and I was asked to take two people with me, who lived there, one a Maori and the other a Pakeha (caucasian). The Maori took no part in the ensuing conversations (she fell asleep in the back seat, meetings can be so tiresome!).

My other passenger began to ask me about my life; how I came to emigrate to New Zealand, how I happened to be married to a Maori, and how I became a minister?

At the end of my long story she said: "Why don't you write about it, that's very interesting?'
"Why?" I replied, "Who would want to know that?"
"Your children", she said.

On my return to Whakatane (I had retired there), I forgot about our talk for three months, until one of my daughters started to ask me about my side of the family (my wife's Maori lineage is well documented). This was the catalyst to encourage me to start writing, and the more I did, the more I realised the need to do some serious research in order to establish a family tree and to find, one way or another, a connection to James Cook.

I joined the local branch of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists at the beginning of 2000, and was fortunate to receive some much needed guidance from two of the senior members, one of whom put my name on the Internet in the hope that someone would connect with it (I didn't have a computer at that stage).

Someone did, and it turned out to be the daughter-Janine- of my first cousin Margaret. Janine, living in Leigh-on Sea, had been researching the Caton/Baker names for some years. We had met in 1977, but genealogy was never a topic for discussion at that time. It was much later, when living in South Africa, that she took it up and had, by now, discovered quite a lot about the family lineage. For a while, until my daughter gave me a computer, I was correspponding with Jan by way of 'snailmail'.

Once, when referring to to the Captain Cook connection, her reaction was: "Oh, that old chestnut".

There's some doubt as to whether there is a relationship, but I can't prove it yey, one way or another". It wasn't until early in the year 2002 that she was able to prove an 'almost' relationship, not a direct one , as my Grandmother had claimed (unless I misunderstood her).

James Cook and his wife Elizabeth had six children:
Two (31 and sixteen) died at sea, two others in their teenage years, and two in infancy.
There is no direct line of descent from the family. This too, is so well documented. So where does the 'almost' relationship come in?

As a result of the prolific emails between Jan and myself, I am now in communication with close cousins that I had lost touch with, and distant cousins in England, Australia, and the 'Fleck' connection, here, in N.Z., helping to build a 'tree' which confirms our family place alongside the Captain. It goes like this, and is a confusion between two Margarets. The french blood that is in us is through (as far back as we can get) Wilmi Fleck-1548. Coming through this line we get to James Fleck, and his sister Margaret.

James, a fishermen and shopkeeper of Redcar, married James Cook's sister, Margaret, in 1764. They lived in Redcar, and raised eight children. Margaret Fleck married Thomas Thompson, also a fisherman of Redcar, in 1765. They raised nine children from whom Jane, the eighth, I am descended.

Thus:Fleck.1548.
Thompson. 1765.
Burniston.1816.
Crame.1821.
Baker. 1868.
Caton.1888.

As Hough's book records, the Captain's connection with Redcar is maintained through his sister's residence there, and his father who, after the death of his wife, moved there to live with his daughter and her husband. He died there at the age of 84 and is buried close by at the Church of St. Germain, Marske, outliving his son by six weeks.

In December 1771 James and Elizabeth visited his sister Margaret, and brother-in-law, James Fleck, during one of his few periods ashore. It was the first time Elizabeth had met any of her husbands family. While there, James took the opportunity to visit old frieds at Staithes and Whitby, leaving his pregnant wife behind; the journey from London had been exhausting
enough!

So, after my long, convoluted story, it transpires that my 'almost' relationship to Captain James Cook is just that - 'almost'. His sister Margaret was a sister-in-law to my Gggg grandmother!

Eric Caton

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BMD Registers - The Hidden Records - Official National Archives Site

Birth, Marriage and Death Records are the most important way of tracking down your ancestors. The trouble is the BMD records in the General Register Office main index only go back as far as 1837.

The hidden Birth, Marriage and Death records have been compiled from various unpublished registries and many unusually include records of three generations of a family.  These are a fantastic resource for the family historian and often prove to be the only record of the events.

The returns from various registries were submitted to the GRO but it was felt as these events were not part of the official system they would not be included in the standard GRO index. These records are now held at The National Archives.

Genealogy Supplies recognising the importance of the records applied and won the bid to make these available online as part of The National Archives LIA scheme on the site www.BMDregisters.co.uk

This new release of online records means that for the first time these additional BMD records can be searched with ease rather than looking through millions of images on thousands of reels of microfilm.

Many famous non conformists helped shape the world in which we live and famous writers abound:-

Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe), William Blake (Jerusalem) and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein).

FREE SEARCH
The site www.BMDRegisters.co.uk allows you to search over six million individuals with ease  and allow you to see three generations of a family for many of the records.

Lets have a look in more detail on how to use the material and what it will provide.

These records contain many famous Victorians so they make an ideal starting point. We shall start with a search for Mary Shelley’s birth, the author of Frankenstein.

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin later to become Mary Shelley was born in 1797 daughter of the famous anarchistic philosopher and writer William Godwin and the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft.

To find her simply enter Mary Godwin in the search box and click search. (Shown below).

This record was found in Dr Williams’ Registry and Library, Cripplegate, London.

New Records to be added

Our next step is to add births, baptism, marriages and burials from Scottish, Dutch, French, German and other foreign Protestant churches in England and from the English church in St Petersburg, Russia. These entries in foreign languages have obviously taken longer to translate but hopefully should complete over the next few months.

Background Information

This year long project of digitisation and transcription has involved the digitisation of thousands of reels of microfilm and the painstaking formatting of the information into an easily searchable online system.

Further Detailed Background Information

RG5 Birth Certificates from the Presbyterian, Independent and Baptist Registry and from the Wesleyan Methodist Metropolitan Registry

These records are from the General Register Office, 1836-1970 and were compiled from the following registries:-

Dr Williams’ Library, 1742-1865
Presbyterian, Independent and Baptist Registry, 1742-1837
Wesleyan Methodist Metropolitan Registry, 1818-1838 

Original parchment and paper certificates from which the entries in the registers of births from the Presbyterian, Independent and Baptist registry at Dr Williams' Library were compiled, and the parchment certificates recorded in the registers of births and baptisms from the Wesleyan Methodist Metropolitan Registry.
These paper certificates are a late example of the many attempts to make such nonconformist registration legally acceptable prior to the 1836 Births and Deaths Registration Act.

RG4 Non-parochial Registers covering the period 1567-1858

Church of England, 1534 onwards
Royal Hospital Chelsea, 1682 onwards
General Register Office, 1836-1970
Royal Hospital, Greenwich, 1694 onwards
Dr Williams’ Library, 1742-1865
Presbyterian, Independent and Baptist Registry, 1742-1837
Wesleyan Methodist Metropolitan Registry, 1818-1838
Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, Hackney, London, 1713 onwards
South London Burial Ground, Walworth, London, 1819-1837
Necropolis Burial Ground, Everton, Liverpool, Merseyside, c 1825-1837

The Protestant Dissenters' Registry at Dr Williams' Library served the congregations of Baptists, Independents and Presbyterians in London and within a twelve-mile radius of the capital. However, parents from most parts of the British Isles and even abroad also used the registry. Almost 50,000 births were registered in it. The register was started in 1742, with retrospective entries going back to 1716, and continued to 1837. The certificates used to compile the registers also survive. Parents wishing to register a birth had to produce two parchment certificates signed by their minister and by the midwife and one or two other people present at the birth, giving the name and sex of the child, the name of the parents, the name of the mother's father and the date and place (street, parish and county) of birth. After 1828, paper certificates were required instead, which had to be signed by the parents as well; this made them more acceptable as legal proof. On receipt of the two certificates, the registrar entered all the details, except the address of birth, in the register, filed one of the certificates and returned the other to the parents with his certificate of registration.

The Wesleyan Methodist Metropolitan Registry provided for the registration of births and baptisms of Wesleyan Methodists throughout England, Wales and elsewhere, independently of any congregational records. Over 10,000 children were registered here. The registers continued till 1838, with some retrospective registration of births going back to 1773. One of the two original certificates submitted by the parents was entered in the register and filed, and the other was marked as entered and returned to the parents. The certificates and the register entry have the name and sex of the child, the name and address of the father, the name of the mother and of both her parents, the date and place of birth, and the name of the Wesleyan circuit, with the signature (or name, in the register) of the parents, the witnesses to the birth, and the baptising minister.

Despite these registers problems continued, as the courts proved unwilling to accept certificates from these institutions. When civil registration of births, marriages and deaths was set up, to start from July 1837, the opportunity was taken to provide for retrospective legislation of the records of births, marriages and deaths which had been registered outside the Church of England. A parliamentary commission was set up in 1837 to collect and examine non-parochial registers, and to authenticate those which conformed to an acceptable standard. Most Protestant nonconformist records were handed in (including the registers and indexes kept by the two central registries), but few Catholic ones and the Jews and the East India Company preferred to keep their own records. The opportunity was also taken by various Anglican institutions, particularly large charities such as the Foundling Hospital and the Royal Hospitals at Chelsea and Greenwich, to hand in their own registers for safe-keeping.

Once collected and authenticated, the registers were deposited in the new General Register Office. Certified extracts from these authenticated registers would henceforth be legally acceptable. Not all registers were found to be worth authenticating: the defective ones were returned to the congregations. In some cases, acceptable registers had been kept in a single book with other chapel records: the register section was removed and kept, and the other records returned. Many congregations were unhappy to lose their original registers, despite the benefit of legal recognition of their contents.

A further commission was issued in 1857 with most of the registers collected then in RG 8, but some were reunited with the registers collected earlier from the same congregation in RG 4. Some of these registers date from after 1837, but they contain information not included in the civil registers, as failure to use the civil registration system was not penalised until 1875.

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