S&N Email News: June 2007

Why don't you email us your personal story about researching your family history and the interesting tales you've discovered about your ancestors' lives? All stories submitted will be eligible to compete for the prize of £100 for the top story of the month.

Email your stories to [email protected] or submit them in the Community Area of The Genealogist.

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Email News Offer - Free Online Trial

We are currently giving out a free online trial for an all-inclusive subscription. This comes with a special offer for all those who take a Premium subscription out after the trial. www.TheGenealogist.co.uk/freesub

Stepping Stones Takeover

Stepping Stones range now part of S&N
S&N can now offer an even wider range of genealogy products with the takeover of the Stepping Stones CD and DVD range.

This brings the total number of family history products available to over 2300. These include directories, maps, poll books, telephone books, wills and other early records which have now been added to S&N’s extensive range.

You can view these on www.GenealogySupplies.com by just browsing the Directories or Maps sections or using the search facility.

The Stepping Stones site also now includes a wide range of S&N products plus Stepping Stones Census products. See www.stepping-stones.co.uk

Stepping Stones census products can still be ordered from their website address which redirects to www.GenealogySupplies.com/ss

Any customers with advance orders for Stepping Stones products can have their order fulfilled through the new service with a guaranteed price match for orders taken before June 2007.

Mick and Tom

Those that are regular attendees of fairs will remember the friendly banter and service from Mick and Tom who have manned Stepping Stones stands for many of the fairs. They have also worked for the SoG and Hillingdon. It's taken us a while to sign up these two stalwarts but finally they will now be attending fairs with the S&N and Stepping Stones range. This hopefully will benefit everyone by bringing our fair special offers to a venue near you.

UK EVENTS June 2007

Yorkshire Family History Fair

30th June at The Knavesmire Exhibition Centre, The Racecourse, York

Come and meet the family, Mick and Tom and say your farewells to Judd as he mans the Stepping Stones stand on our behalf.

Collect your free online subscription card plus our free full-colour 40-page catalogue.

When you buy any item collect your free family history research guide (while stocks last) and benefit from our special show pricing.

Save £5 on A4 binders and £7 on A3 binders with our special show prices. Keep your documents, certificates and photographs safe with our archival padded leather effect high quality binders.

RootsMagic Platinum has recently won the best genealogy software in the group test in Your Family Tree June 2007 issue. Save money and pick up your copy at our show special pricing.

Forthcoming Fairs

Weston-Super-Mare 14th July at the Winter Gardens

London 13th-14th July at Olympia, The Retirement Show

Bucks, Aylesbury FHS Open Day 28th July at The Grange School, Aylesbury

For further details of fairs visit www.genealogysupplies.com/events.htm

SPECIAL EMAIL NEWS OFFERS

For a limited time we have a Special Offer on Directories and Army Lists.

Buy 4 Directories and get the cheapest free
Buy 4 Army Lists and get the cheapest free

To place your order phone S&N on 01722 716121 (9-5 Monday-Friday) quoting the June email news.

Hurry as the special prices won’t last.

Free Library Subscriptions to Census Transcripts, BMDs & More

If you work for a council library your library could benefit from a 6 month free subscription. Our transcripts are complete for 1841 to 1891 and are fully searchable across Name, occupation, relationship, etc.

Click here to view all special offers

WHAT'S NEW ONLINE

www.TheGenealogist.co.uk

All of the new data has been added into the All-Inclusive subscriptions which cost as little as £4.66 a month.

[22 Jun 2007]
Cambridgeshire 1901 Transcripts completed with images
Wiltshire 1901 Partial Transcripts released

[21 Jun 2007]
Middlesex & Staffordshire 1901 Partial Transcripts with images
We have added over 450,000 records to our Middlesex 1901 transcript. This brings the current number of records to over 800,000, with images.

We have also added over 490,000 records to our Staffordshire 1901 transcript. This brings the current number of records to over 1.2 million, with images.

Both Censuses are also available as an index.

[19 Jun 2007]
Staffordshire & Sussex 1901 Partial Transcripts & 1850 Navy List
The Current state of our Staffordshire 1901 transcript is now available online and contains over 760,000 records, with images. This Census is also available as an index.

We have added over 200,000 records to our Sussex 1901 transcript. This brings the current number of records to nearly 590,000.

We have also added to our Navy Lists:

1850 Navy List - Contains a list of Officers with dates of their seniority, together with historical information going back to 1796. It includes promotions, medals awarded, civilian employees, ships, Royal Marines and Rates of Pay.

[14 Jun 2007]
Cumberland 1901 Partial Transcript with Images
The Current state of our Cumberland 1901 transcript is now available online and contains nearly 200,000 records, with images. This Census is also available as an index.

[12 Jun 2007]
Buckinghamshire 1901 Partial Transcript with Images
The Current state of our Buckinghamshire 1901 transcript is now available online and contains over 140,000 records, with images. This Census is also available as an index.

[11 Jun 2007]
Navy Lists
Look under the Specialist Records section for our Navy Lists, which includes the following:

1866 Navy List - Contains Royal Naval Reserve, Royal Marine and Vessel listings.
1888 Navy List - Contains Royal Naval Reserve, Royal Marine and Vessel listings.

[7 Jun 2007]
Sussex 1901 Partial Transcript with Images
The Current state of our Sussex 1901 transcript is now available online and contains over 385,000 records, with images. This Census is also available as an index.

[5 Jun 2007]
Dorset 1901 Partial Transcript & 1901 Images
The Current state of our Dorset 1901 transcript is now available online and contains over 125,000 records, with images. This Census is also available as an index.

We have also added images to all our current partial 1901 transcripts:

Cambridge, Devon, Kent and Middlesex.

[4 Jun 2007]
Oxfordshire 1901 Transcript Complete & Middlesex 1901 Partial Transcript
We have now completed our Oxfordshire 1901 transcript. This brings the total number of records to over 180,000, complete with images. This Census is also available as an index.

The Current state of our Middlesex 1901 transcript is now available online and contains over 310,000 records. This Census is also available as an index.

[1 Jun 2007]
New Southern Directories Added
Today we have added the following directories for English Southern Counties:

Essex, Herts, Middlesex Kelly's Directory 1898
Wiltshire Kellys Directory 1899
Hampshire Kellys Directory 1899
Dorset Kellys Directory 1899
Channel Isles Kellys Directory 1899
Berks, Bucks, Oxon Kelly's Directory 1915
Suffolk Kelly's Directory 1912
Kent, Surrey, Sussex Pigot's Directory 1839

Directories are both a research tool and a valuable insight into the lives of your ancestors.

[24 May 2007]
London & Westmorland 1901 Transcripts Completed with Images
We have now completed our London 1901 transcript. This brings the total number of records to over 4.5 million, complete with images.

We have also completed our Westmorland 1901 transcript. This brings the total number of records to over 64,000, complete with images.

Both these counties are also available as complete indices.

[22 May 2007]
Herefordshire 1901 Transcript Completed
We have now completed our Herefordshire 1901 transcript. This brings the total number of records to over 110,000, complete with images.

[18 May 2007]
Yorkshire & Berkshire 1901 Transcripts Completed
We have now completed our Yorkshire 1901 transcript. This brings the total number of records to nearly 3.6 million, complete with images.

We have also completed our Berkshire 1901 transcript. This brings the total number of records to over 380,000, complete with images.

Both these counties are also available as indices.

All of the new data has been added into the All-Inclusive subscriptions which cost as little as £4.66 a month.

www.TheGenealogist.co.uk

WHAT'S NEW ON CD

The list this month is dominated by the large number of Stepping Stones products added to our range.

The complete list of new releases

Track down your family on TheGenealogist

The Genealogist houses a collection of essential records for your family research covering the period 1127 to 2005. These resources form the bedrock for investigating the lives of your ancestors.

They cover The Knights of England, Directories, Army and Navy Lists, Land Records, Overseas BMD for War Years, BMDs, Census Transcripts and Parish Records.

The Genealogist online service offers a wide array of material, but its main strengths lie in the accurate census indexes and transcripts, combined with access to the complete General Register Office BMD indexes. These are what have particularly attracted many subscribers, although there is a wide variety of other material to explore and this is constantly being added to. Other material includes Trade Directories, Parish Records, and Land Records plus other new material regularly added from the extensive S&N publication catalogue, adding further value to this useful resource.

If you are just starting out, how do you go about finding your family? The best place to start is your parents, aunts, uncles and all your surviving ancestors.

Using information gleaned from your relatives you can search for births, marriages and deaths and order certificates of these events from the GRO. The birth certificate will give you an exact date and place of birth, the father’s name and occupation, and the mother's maiden name. The marriage certificate will give the date and place of the marriage, the forenames and surnames of the couple, and their ages (before 1855 it will only show either ‘full’ if over 21 or ‘minor’ if under). It also lists the residence and profession of the father plus the names of the marriage witnesses.

You can then use these facts to search the census. Search for the known family members and you will often find the whole family listed with their ages (using our family button). This information can be used to search for further births and marriages, so you can work your way back through the generations. The census will allow you to work back down the tree and help you to find any living relatives.

Searching the Census

Master Search

The Master Search allows you to search the whole country at once for a surname or a full name.

This can show the breakdown across counties and is a good starting point.

This index is updated several times a year so it is safer to search in the county and year for more accurate results.

Full Census Transcripts

These can be searched using a combination of Forename, Surname and Age (+/– 5 years). To narrow your search down, you can also look at a specific District or Piece number within the County if you know them.

Nicknames and variants

Options to include Nicknames in the Forename search enable you to find entries such as Bessie or Bettie when searching for Elizabeth. You can opt to search for Surname variants too, so that Fowle would also find Fowl, Fowell, Foule etc.

Ages

Ages are automatically searched in +/– 5 year bands and you have the option to omit any records from your results with no age recorded.

District

If you know the Enumeration District or the Piece number you wish to search, you can select it to narrow down your search.

Wild cards

The wild card symbol * can be substituted for letters anywhere in a search term, as long as the word contains a string of at least 3 letters.

Thus Rob* will find Roberts, Robertson and Robinson etc., *ton would find Hamilton and Washington and Rob*son would find Robertson and Robinson.

Accuracy and omissions

Remember that the enumeration books themselves are only a transcript of the individual household census forms, so the enumerator may have transcribed the information incorrectly in the first place or the information may simply have been wrong. Also some people managed to miss being enumerated at all, whilst others manage to be in two places at once. To help find awkward entries that have been miss-recorded, the search form offers the facility to use wildcard searches, or to look for nicknames and surname variants.

Other ways of locating where your relatives might be

The Surname mapping feature allows you to enter the Surname and map it against the entries in various Birth records, and Census Years. This can give useful pointers for the concentration of possible family members. Of course Smith may not give a very useful pattern but other names can be seen to spread from specific locations in the country from 1841 onwards.

Break down that Stone Wall with the ‘Advanced Search’

If you’ve tried wild cards and variants, its time to delve a little deeper.

Finding people in the census can be fun especially when you need to think laterally. The advanced search helps by allowing you to enter the bits that may be less ambiguous for the enumerator or transcriber.

This allows you to do searches that can be based on just Forename and Age which can be combined with occupation, relationship, County of Birth or District. The more fields you use will reduce the number of results. Simply searching for John aged 30 would produce too many results and take a long time so its best to try different combinations of at least 3 fields to find them.

These techniques should help you find the person you are looking for.

Don't forget to try the adjacent counties as often the census county boundaries moved with parliamentary changes.

A good alternative strategy is to look for the Husband/Wife or Son/Daughter to locate the family.

Follow the links below to find out more about the wealth of records that can be accessed by subscribers to the TheGenealogist’s all-inclusive subscriptions, the most economical and cost-effective way of using the service.

www.TheGenealogist.co.uk

"We had a skeleton in our family cupboard connected to Jack the Ripper."

By Ken & Barbara Stride

Read the fully-illustrated article at: http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/jun07_ripper.php

Many years ago, when I was only fourteen years of age, my grandmother sowed the seeds of curiosity in me by hinting that we had a skeleton in our family cupboard, which was in some way connected to "Jack The Ripper".

At that age I was not interested in family history and so it was many years later before my curiosity surfaced.

I was looking for a book to read on a flight home from Singapore and spotted "The Complete Jack The Ripper", by Donald Rumbelow, and could hear the bones in our cupboard rattling.
"How could we be related to Elizabeth Stride, third victim of the Ripper?"

The third victim of the Ripper as most readers will know, was Elizabeth Stride, (Long Liz), nee GUSTAFSDOTTER, and was the only victim that escaped being disembowelled. She was also the first of two murders that took place on the same night.

Her husband was John Thomas Stride (b1827), but he came from Sheerness and we all came from the east end of London, so how could we be related?

By now I was hooked and felt I just had to research my family tree. Unfortunately at that time I was still earning a living in our own business and could spare very little time for such a time consuming hobby.

A further six years went by before I could start in earnest, and only then because I was forced to retire early through ill health.

I now enjoy family history research enormously and feel I have progressed quite well in the short time we have been researching. I say "we" because my wife and I both work together as we have done for many years.

John Thomas Stride was the second son of my 3x great grandfather, William Stride. John was supposed to have drowned together with two of their children when the "Princess Alice" went down after a collision on the Thames.

Donald Rumbelow, in the first edition of his book, indicated that he had doubts about the veracity of that and in view of his very thorough research, especially in the case of Elizabeth, I had to agree with him.

I obtained first John and Elizabeth's Marriage Certificate, which took place 7th March 1869. In 1861 he was still single age 30 living in Sheerness with his parents and other siblings.
On the 1871 census they were living as husband and wife at Tower Hamlets, Poplar. She was born in Sweden, so I next sent for her Birth Record.

In the 1881 census, three years after the "Alice" disaster, I found John and Elizabeth supposedly living together at 69 Usher road. However, there was no sign of any children some twelve years after their Marriage in 1869.

I have obtained the Death Certificate of John Thomas, which took place on 24th October 1884 in the Union workhouse sick asylum, age 63. This was 4 years prior to Elizabeth's untimely death on the 30th September 1888.

It was said by a few that Elizabeth had said she had children in order to obtain money from both the Swedish authorities as well as others in London.

One of the most Notorious Serial Killers in British History – Bethany Snow

The name Jack the Ripper is well known by most, and the serial killer is probably the most notorious in British history.

The name itself originates from a letter to the Central News Agency claiming to be responsible for the violent murders, although the exact identity of the killer was never discovered, and the name has become legendary.

The killings began in East London in 1888, all within a one mile area, including Whitechapel, Spitalfields, Aldgate and City of London proper. What made the story so famous was the involvement of the press, a new prominent force in society due to increasing literacy amongst the population.

It was the news press, especially London newspapers, that hyped up the story of Jack the Ripper and sparked fear into the residents of London. The papers logged the daily activities relating to ‘the ripper’ including anonymous letters, police evidence and the latest killings.
The victims of the ripper were all casual prostitutes, their throats cut and bodies left in a public or semi-public place. All the bodies of the conical victims with the exception of Elizabeth Stride were mutilated.

There were 6 suspects according to the police, and another 4 according to contemporary opinions, and later 14 people were added to the list by historians and theorists. However, none of these suspects were ever charged and the identity of Jack the Ripper remains a mystery.

Winner Best Article: £100 in S&N vouchers.

This is just one of the exciting stories subscribers are writing on TheGenealogist.co.uk new family history article system which allows you to read and publish stories about your family history. The top articles will of course feature here as well as on the site which is open to all subscribers to The Genealogist.

Email your stories to [email protected] or submit them in the Community Area of TheGenealogist.

www.TheGenealogist.co.uk

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5. Family Historian v3.1 Full £35.45, Upgrade £20.95
6. Family Tree Maker Version 16 (2006) £22.95, Upgrade £17.95
7. Getting the Most out of RootsMagic by Bruce Buzbee 14.90
8. Long Certificate Binder with 4 Archival Sleeves £14.95
9. RootsMagic UK V3 Standard £34.95
10. A4 Family History Binder £14.95

Order any of the above at www.GenealogySupplies.com

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Email News

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Happy researching

Sue and Nigel

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