Wisdom Wednesday: Tracing Ancestors by Occupation, Part II

There are two more sets of records that can help you understand your ancestor’s trade. In the mid-1500s, it became illegal to practice in a field without an apprenticeship so much information about masters and their apprentices was created. Documents from some businesses were deposited in archives throughout the UK, and a directory of where these records are held is maintained by the National Archives.

Apprenticeship records at the National Archives are being digitized. Check them at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk. The Society of Genealogists Library in London (the largest genealogical library in the UK) also has some transcriptions: www.sog.org . You must be a member to view the online apprentice records, but you can join easily on the website.
 

Society of Genealogists
14 Charterhouse Buildings
Goswell Road
London EC1M 7BA
UK

If you have a lot of tradesmen in your family, you might want to get a copy of this book:

          Raymond, Stuart. My Ancestor was an Apprentice. London: Society of Genealogists, 2010.

If you would like to research your ancestor’s company, the National Archives has an index of material held in all archives in the country at their National Register of Archives: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra. One of the tabs allows you to search by company name. When I inserted the word ‘Colman,’ I found that the Norfolk Record Office holds documents from the venerable mustard manufacturer. The other tabs let you search by:

personal name
family name
place name


This is an interesting site because when looking under personal or family names, you may find diaries which could be invaluable. In larger communities, there may be more than one brewery, for example. A place search might supply all the names of these businesses for you As would a historical directory (See the last post.).  According to the website, a place name “search will not retrieve all the records relating to a place. It will only find the archives of families, businesses and organizations based there, as well as diaries of residents and visitors who have on it in detail.” (I added the emphasis.) That seems like a lot of info to me!

Wisdom Wednesday: Tracing Ancestors by Occupation, Part I

Genealogists quickly find that British research has distinct differences from U.S. research. One example is that the paid websites for UK research are usually ‘pay per view’ versus a subscription. Another is an emphasis on searching for an ancestor using occupational records.

What resources are available about jobs and trades? Since 1841, the British Census has asked about occupation so find your ancestor in all the censuses you can. If you do not understand the term used for his occupation or you are not sure what that job entailed, you can google it or consult one of these references:

Culling, Joyce. An Introduction to Occupations: A Preliminary List 2nd Edition. Federation of     Family History Societies, 1999. ISBN 9781860061035

 

Stuart, Raymond. Trades and Professions: The Family Historian’s Guide. Family History Partnership, 2011. ISBN 9781906280253

Waters, Colin. A Dictionary of Old Trades, Titles and Occupations. Countryside Books, ISBN 9781853066016

The first two are sold at the National Archives Online Bookshop, but the high cost of postage may be prohibitive. (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk)  Try www.amazon.com instead.

The Society of Genealogists publishes a series of books, each title beginning with the phrase, “My Ancestor was a ___________” A private company, Pen and Sword Books, have a series  whose title all begin with “Tracing Your _______Ancestors.” I would consult either the National Archives or Amazon as listed above or directly at www.sog.org.uk or www.pen-and-sword.co.uk.

Here are examples from both series:

 

            “My Ancestors Were Watermen”
            “My Ancestor Was a Merchant Seaman”
            “Tracing Your Railway Ancestors”
 
You will probably wonder whether your ancestor was the only person in his trade in the parish where he lived. You can consult historical directories of the era which are the equivalent of a U.S. city directory.  Read more about them in my blog post on 9 Jan 2013. The website www.historicaldirectores.org  is changing and was having technical difficulties in mid-November, as I write this post. Generally, the entry for the parish describes it and lists the gentry, professionals and tradesmen living there.

 Next post:

            Finding and using apprenticeship records
            The National Archives – National Register of Archives

Wisdom Wednesday: 10 Dates In History of Non-conformity

In 2012, I wrote several blogs about my family and their religious beliefs. Although I could find their life events from the early 1700s to the 1850s recorded in the local parish registers, they became members of non-Church of England sects when the emigrated. I am still interested in non-conformists as the Brits call those who are not members of the Church of England (COE).

I found a new UK genealogy magazine at Barnes and Noble, called “Discover Your Ancestors". It is really an annual publication of TheGenealogist.co.uk. The good article that caught my eye was by Luke Mouland, a Dorset-based genealogist. In “Preaching to the People,” Mouland puts the relationship of the non-anglicans to the state-run church into historical context.

For example in 1662, the Act of Uniformity was passed calling for all ministers to be ordained in the COE. Over 2000 Puritan ministers broke away. The government wanted to discourage any further dissent and imposed fines on anyone worshiping anywhere other than a parish church so the 1670 Conventicles Act was enacted. (Mouland defines a conventicle as “any religious assembly outside the Church of England.”) The people who attended these services were fined between five and ten shillings. A much greater fine of 20 or 40 shillings was levied on a person who allowed their home to be used for a service.

Mouland’s article is accompanied by a timeline with ten important dates from the time of Henry the eighth’s founding of the COE and 1902 when some form of equality of religions was agreed to in the country.

1662 – Act of Uniformity required ordination of clergy within the COE and 2000 minsters left the church, mostly to become Puritans. Laws to punish non-conformists were enacted.

1672 – Declaration of Indulgence – an attempt by Charles II to give religious freedom to dissenters.

1689 – Toleration Act – religious freedom given to those willing to take oaths of allegiance.

1714 – Schism Act – People must be a member of the COE if they wanted to found a public or private school or act as a tutor.

1753 – Marriage Act – marriages must be performed according to the rites of the Church of England. See 1836.

1812 – Relief Act – repealed most of the 1670 Conventicle Act and generally made concessions on dissenters’ places of worship

1828 – Prohibitions against holding political offices by non-Anglicans were removed.

1836 – Marriage Act – changed 1753 law and non-Anglican churches were given the right to marry people; civil marriage allowed.

1868 – Abolished payment of church rates for non-members.

1902 - Education Act – parochial schools integrated into the government school system and begin to be supported by taxes.

None of the equality of religion we know in this country came easily in Britain. For example, in the early 19^th century, three acts gave different rights to three separate religious groups: 1813, the Unitarian Relief Act; 1818, the Wesleyan Methodist Metropolitan Registry Act; and 1829, the Catholic Emancipation Act. I recommend consulting a lot of experts, if you need to search in the early records of any non-conformist religion.

Resources:

Mouland, Luke. Discover Your Ancestor, Issue No. 2, “Preaching to the People” Tring, Herts: Discovery Media Group, 2013.

Christensen, Dr. Penelope. Researching Non-Anglican Records. Toronto: Heritage Productions, 2003.

Wisdom Wednesday: UK Census Changes Discussed

After a census, every country takes some time to assess how things went and how they can improve. The UK Office of National Statistics (ONS) is exploring options to change the census in England and Wales through a program called ‘Beyond 2011’. I like to think of myself as progressive and a bit of a risk taker, but proposed changes to documents so at the heart of genealogy are unnerving.

ONS research has resulted in the view that there are two possible approaches to census-taking in the future. In late September, a public comment period was started to gauge reactions to these proposals:

·        a census once a decade - similar to the 2011 Census but primarily online; or
·        a census using existing administrative data and compulsory annual surveys.

“Both approaches would provide annual statistics about the size of the population, nationally and for local authorities, as we do currently. A census using existing data and annual surveys would provide statistics about population characteristics every year. An online census would provide more detailed statistics but only once a decade.” (ONS)

Various users will have different views on the approaches, depending on how they use the data, and ONS welcome input from anyone. They will accept comments until 13^th December 2013. You can find the consultation documents and a link to the online questionnaire here.

If you look through the documents, especially supplement C2 –Summary of Uses of Census Information, you will see a nicely written and accurate summary of how genealogists use the censuses already in the public domain. However, I don’t find the sentence that says they will continue releasing the censuses through 2111 all that comforting. ONS seems to think I should not worry about the genealogy community one hundred years from now, but I do.

Please contact ONS at beyond2011@ons.gov.uk if you have any questions, comments or wish to discuss further.

Thanks to FFHS for forwarding the original release from ONS.

Wisdom Wednesday: Land Description by Map Reference

Of the essential clauses in a deed, the land description is the most unfamiliar to the average genealogist. I explained the metes and bounds system of land measurement in a blog posted 13 Oct 2011, and I described the Government Survey System in two posts, 15 and 22 Aug 2012. The first system is used in the state land states; the thirteen original colonies and Maine, Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Texas and Hawaii. The other 30 states are called federal land states.

A third system that is used in both state and federal land states refers to a lot number on a plan for a subdivision. Depending where you live in the U.S., it might be called the recorded plat, recorded map, recorded survey or the lot-block-tract system. Briefly, a map of a large tract of land has been surveyed into smaller lots, the subdivision named and the new lots numbered. Then the resulting map is recorded at a county land records office. From that time, a legal description of one of the small lots can just refer to the number on the recorded map.

You might think this seems like a modern suburban subdivision which it is.  If you think that you would not be able to find an older deed that uses this method to describe land, you would be wrong.  I have found a deed from 1843 in Massachusetts and 1850s Pennsylvania. So be ready.

Here is an example from a turn of the 20^th century Montana deed:

 

 

 

Necessary information:

            Name of subdivision: Seymer Park Addition, Block 17, City of Helena
            Lot Number(s): 1,2,3
            Where map recorded: Office of the Clerk and Recorder, Lewis and Clark County

Wisdom Wednesday: Essex Pilgrims and Adventurers

The first time I saw the trailer for the new PBS series, Last Tango in Halifax, I was on vacation in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I remarked to my husband that it would be fun to watch because we might see places where we had just been. As most of you now know, the TV series takes place in Halifax, Yorkshire. Um…

Luckily, a recent find at a used book sale was easier to decipher. I quickly realized it was not about pilgrims in Essex County, Massachusetts.

      Smith, J.R. Pilgrims & Adventurers: Essex (England) and the Making of the United States of America. Chelmsford: Essex Records Office, 1992, 64 pp.

John Smith has written at least nine local history books for the Essex Records Office where he was the senior archivist in 1992. In this book, he concentrates on the contributions of Essex men in Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Georgia. The book is notable because of its illustrations which include maps, drawings and paintings from the ERO collection which are impossible to find on this side of the Atlantic. There are at least a dozen photos or old engravings of parish churches, for example.

Some of the names included are John Winthrop, Thomas Hooker, George Washington, and William Pynchon, but lesser known settlers, names abound. It has an extensive index.  This is the type of book that could have a big impact on a small number of researchers and serves as a reminder that each county record office may have a similar publication. (The Norfolk Record Office has an online exhibition titled, “Norfolk’s American Connections” at www.archives.norfolk.gov.uk. )

To see if the book is still available new, contact the Essex Record Office that does not seem to have a shop on their web site.

Essex Record Office
Wharf Road, Chelmsford, UK Cm2 6yt
+44 1245 244644
www.essex.gov.uk (Click on “Libraries and Archives” at left on screen.)
email: ero.enquiry@essex.gov.uk