Wisdom Wednesday: U.S.- Based UK Family History Societies

There are at least two UK/British Isles family history societies that are based in the U.S. that deserve some attention. The first is the British Isles Family History Society-U.S.A. and the second is the British Institute whose formal name is the International Society for British Genealogy and Family History.

British Isles Family History Society-U.S.A. www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bifhsusa

The moving force behind this Los Angeles-based group is Linda Jonas, who with Paul Milner, co-authored "A Genealogist's Guide to Discovering Your English Ancestors." Besides information about society membership, events and study groups on the website's home page, there are links to several research tools:

-Guide to British Isles Research
-Using U.S. Records to Trace Immigrant Ancestors
-Links to:
          British Isles Resources
          Irish Resources

These sections contain the best online British how-to information I have discovered. Enough said.

International Society for British Genealogy and Family History
www.isbgfh.org

This society's claim to fame is the British Institute, a week of classes about British genealogy held each fall in Salt Lake City. The classes meet in the morning, and the group then heads to the Family History Library for research. This year's Institute is 7-11 October and is at the Radisson Hotel, a short, easy walk from the FHL. April 8 is the first day you can register for one of the four classes offered.

Membership includes a journal and other benefits detailed on their website.

Kent's Family History Societies

After writng a post about research in the Fenlands, I wondered both whether there were other regional family history societies (FHS) and whether there were societies for areas smaller than a county. It seems many of the smaller societies exist. Let's look at the county of Kent, for example.

Kent is east of London and contains such well known communities as Greenwich, Canterbury, and Dover with its white cliffs. The Thames River and the sea form the northern and eastern boundaries of the county. Present day East Sussex and London form the bounds in the southwest and northwest.

According to the website www.genuki.org.uk the North West Kent FHS and the Kent FHS cover almost all the parishes in the county. You can find out about the North West group at their web site www.nwkfhs.org.uk. The Kent FHS was founded in 1974, making it the oldest in the county. Find it at www.kfhs.org.uk. (The other source about the English FHS is www.ffhs.org.uk.)

Three other smaller groups exist in Kent:

-Besides the NW Kent Society, there is another abutting London, the Woolrich and District FHS. It covers 8 parishes listed on its homepage at www.woolrichfhs.org.uk.

-Folkstone and District FHS covers a 44 parish area in the east of the county by the sea. Reach them at www.folkfhs.org.uk.

-The Tunbridge Wells FHS is a hybrid. While it covers only a thirteen parish area, they are in two counties, seven in Kent and six in Sussex. Find the society at www.tunwells-fhs.co.uk.

Wisdom Wednesday: Research in the Fens

Fans of Dorothy Sayers' fictional detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, know about England’s fens. Her book, The Nine Tailors, was set there, and Lord Peter’s brother had a home there. Long ago, the land was covered with water, and the high points, such as the Isle of Ely, were accessible only by boat.

The fens are a naturally marshy region in southeast England which is part of four counties - Lincoln, Cambridge, Norfolk and a small part of Suffolk. The whole occupies nearly 1,500 square miles.

Most of the fens were drained several centuries ago and continue to be protected from floods by drainage banks and pumps. The result of this engineering is a flat, damp, low-lying agricultural region which contains a large percentage of England’s best farmland. You can still see windmills a la The Netherlands dotting the landscape.

This pretty, rural part of the country is challenging to a genealogist because of the county borders and the need to consult all the County Records Offices. For example, some parishes in Western Norfolk were in the Diocese of Ely, and their records are in the Cambridge Records Office.

Two sources that cover the entire Fenlands are:

Wisbech and Fenlands Museum, Museum Square, Wisbech – www.wisbechmuseum.org.uk

"Wisbech & Fenland Museum is one of the oldest museums in the United Kingdom. Not only containing local artifacts from the surrounding Fens...The Museum also houses two historic libraries and a substantial archive, holding diocesan and borough items. The collections were initiated by the town's Literary and Museum Societies which were formed in 1781 and 1835 respectively. Since the Museum opened in 1847, the collections have continued to grow, but the essence of the Museum remains virtually unchanged."  From www.wisbechmuseum.blogspot.com  

Fenland Family History Society – www.fenlandfhs.org.uk

The Fenland Family History Society was founded in 2001 to promote and encourage the study of family, local and social history with particular reference to persons who lived in or were associated with the historical area now known as Fenland.

Wisdom Wednesday: UK Jurisdictions

If you use www.maps.familysearch.org , you can see an English village’s 1851 jurisdictions or in other words, the areas where a level of government or the church has authority. The first lesson in a series called ‘England Beginning Research’ at www.familysearch.org explains the meanings. Access this video by clicking the ‘Learn’ button on the home page, click ‘England’ in the left column and find the fifteen minute lesson.

The presenter, Margo McKinstry helpfully divides the possible jurisdictions into two groups, civil and church. In the example above the town of Swaffham is in the county of Norfolk. A county is a civil jurisdiction. England was divided into 40 counties until a major realignment in 1974. After 1837, births, marriages and deaths were recorded by the government and not the Church of England so each parish in the country was assigned to a ‘civil registration district.’ Swaffham is a medium sized market town and was grouped together with several of its smaller neighbors into the Swaffham Registration District.

The Civil Parish is the smallest form of local government and the center of English community life. In some cases, it has little relation to an ecclesiastical parish. A civil parish can consist of part of, one entire, or more than one ecclesiastical parish. There can also be villages or hamlets within a parish.

The Church of England provided leadership in religious and civic matters for centuries. Some of the divisions of the COE directly impact genealogy so here are the church jurisdictions. The country is divided into two provinces – Canterbury and Kent, each overseen by an Archbishop. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the head of the Anglican Church. 

A diocese was the next smallest division of a province and was headed by a bishop. It was made up of several smaller areas called archdeaconries. An archdeacon headed this union of several rural deaneries which each contained a number of ecclesiastical parishes. The parish clerks sent copies of their registers to both the head of the diocese and the archdeaconry, thus creating Bishop’s Transcripts (BTs) and Archdeacon’s Transcripts (ATs).

The ecclesiastical parish of Swaffham, Norfolk is in the province of Canterbury, in the diocese of Norwich, in the archdeaconry of Norfolk in the rural deanery of Cranwich.

Wisdom Wednesday: Land Records Online

While preparing for a talk called ‘Accessing Land Records Online,’ I‘m anticipating that listeners might wonder why land records offices digitize their collections from the present and work back in time. After all, don’t they want to preserve the oldest, most fragile records from deteriorating?

Remember preservation is only one goal of the offices. Another is giving access to the documents most in demand by land records users - think real estate professionals, not genealogists.  They, like us, want the convenience of accessing the documents from their offices without a trip to the records office. However, the real estate community has need for the most recent deeds for two reasons.

First, before a closing the records are searched for clear title. Then the new deed and closing papers are prepared. It is inevitable that some time passes. On the day of the closing, the lawyer or title professional must search all recent documents to see if the owner has sold the property to someone besides today’s buyer during this time gap. Thus an urgent need to access recent documents quickly and efficiently is created.

Title insurance is a policy that protects against a defect in the title abstract prepared for a real estate closing. There is a one-time premium payment made at the closing table. In order to issue a policy, insurance companies that sell this product demand clear title for the past 50-75 years, depending on which insurer is used.  Again the most recent land records need to be searched. You might notice that, in these tough economic times, record offices with tight budgets may have online records going back this length of time and have now reallocated funds elsewhere.

 

Wisdom Wednesday: Geni Travel Alerts

I begin thinking about library and archive opening hours as the ‘travel’ months approach. It’s not too early to plan.

On the domestic front, Dick Eastman alerted us that the Family History Library in Salt Lake City will change its Saturday hours to 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. beginning 13 Apr 2013, Previously, it was open from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. I guess this proves that even genealogists have other things to do on Saturday night. Who knew?

If you are planning a research trip to England or Wales, you may want to subscribe to the FFHS news feed at www.ffhs.org.uk. On the home page, there are three buttons on the right. Click on the middle one to subscribe to FFHS News which is almost always about openings and closings of various repositories.

For example last week, they reported that the Hillingdon Local Studies, Archives and Museum Service will be closing to the public on 28 March as the Uxbridge (Middlesex) Library where it is housed is closing for renovation. They will be in temporary accommodation with no public access for at least 9 months. The staff hopes to be able to run a limited enquiry service. Contact them by email at archives@hillingdon.gov.uk or phone 01895 250702.

Also, the Herefordshire Record Office is preparing to move to their new premises in 2014, as a result it is only going to be open ONE week in every month, beginning on 8 April 2013. The start dates of the weeks that they will be open are:

Monday April 8th
*Tuesday* May 7^th (Bank Holiday on Monday)
Monday June 3rd
Monday July 8th
Monday August 5th
Monday September 9th
Monday October 7th
Monday November 4th
Monday December 9th

Due to anticipated demand it is advised that you book a place in advance of your visit to the Herefordshire Archive Service/Herefordshire Record Office, Hereford HR1 2QX.
Phone: +44 (0)1432 260750 Email: archives@herefordshire.gov.uk

Wisdom Wednesday: Book Alert

Today I want to mention some new books that will be of interest to UK researchers. Please notice that my title indicates that this post is not a book review (because I have not read the books) but only an alert to titles that you should explore further.

The first is Greater London: The Story of the Suburbs by Nick Barrett. This came out 17 Dec 2012, and thus we all may have missed it in the holiday rush. It is available at amazon.com and in Kindle form.

If you have ancestors in the London area, you know that most books that cover the history of London do not include information about the outlying areas, many of which are now absorbed into the city itself.

From amazon.com: “By looking at the whole of the greater London area from Roman times to the present…Dr Nick Barratt is not only able to show how areas as far apart as Hendon and Streatham, Ealing and Leytonstone developed over hundreds of years but also to demonstrate the crucial role they played in the creation of the capital.”

The author, NICK BARRATT, PhD, began as a researcher at the BBC where he is now a presenter, reviewer and commentator on all aspects of history, with a particular interest in family and medieval history.

Barrett's Greater London could give you the background you are seeking. For basic how-to, you might want to check out this recently published book, Tracing Your London Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians by Jonathan Oates. It was published by my old friends at Pen and Sword Books in July 2011. There is another book in the series, Tracing Your East End Ancestors by Jane Cox from 2011.

Jonathan Oates has a newer book that came out from the same publisher on July 2012 and could potentially help many, many genealogists. It is called Tracing Your Ancestors 1066-1837. The last three books are available also at amazon.com and in Kindle version for less than $8.00 each. Without many city folks in my family tree, I think this last one will be my next purchase.