Wisdom Wednesday: What Genealogists Want

As I write, I am also preparing a talk about “Accessing Land Records Online” that I will give at the Ohio Genealogy Society Conference. I was thinking about what features a good land website would have. Then I realized that they were the same basic features I wanted from any site – ancestry.com or familysearch.org. My list includes:

                -search by name

                -see original document on the screen

                -print or save the original document, free

There are over 3000 land records offices in the U.S. with little coordination between them, but in this day and age, almost all have a web presence. You will find offices with a bare minimum of data online, that is, only their contact information, address, phone and email. Some reach my criteria for a perfect site. The vast majority of the web sites are between the minimum and the ideal.

Fees for copies are common when you visit an office in person.  Losing this revenue when the world went digital was a fiscal issue in many land offices. If a recorder needs or wants to charge and then puts its images online, many genealogists are clever enough to take screen shots to bypass payment so the records offices may not post the images either.

Charges range from $.50 to about $2.00 per page. The copies are cheap when compared to prices for vital records, so that is the silver lining.

The websites are very exciting so go to the one where your ancestors lived and see what is available.

Wisdom Wednesday: UK Catholic Records

Continuing a thread of posts started last summer about non-Anglican church records, let’s look at Roman Catholic records in the UK. A good place to begin is the National Archives for a quick tutorial: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/research-guides/catholics.htm

Dr. Penelope Christensen reminds us that most people with British ancestry have Catholics in their family tree before Henry the VIII’s split with the Church of Rome in the 1530’s. “There was little or no tolerance for the Roman Catholic religion in England between 1558 and 1829…” (Page 127) Statutes passed by parliament at that time are referred to as ‘penal laws.’

There are several groups trying to make pre-1837 Catholic records accessible. One website will lead you to most of them: www.catholic-history.org.uk/index.php. From this very humble home page, there are nine buttons to click across the top. Beginning with the first on the left, ‘cas’, click to link to the site of the Catholic Archives Society, www.catholicarchivesociety.org . This group promotes preservation of documents and trains archivists who do the day to day work. They do not have a collection of documents for genealogists.
 
The next link is to the CFHS (Catholic Family History Society) that accepts memberships from people who are researching their English and Irish ancestors in England, Scotland and Wales, www.catholic-history.org.uk/cfhs/index.htm . They publish a journal called the Catholic Ancestor, once known as the ECA Journal. The titles of the journal articles since 1983 are listed at the site. The bookshop has books and CD-ROMs available from transcription projects in London, Manchester and Lancashire.

The third link is to the Catholic Records Society, www.catholicrecordsociety.co.uk that according to its web site is “the premier Catholic historical society in the United Kingdom and is devoted to the study of Roman Catholicism in the British Isles from the Reformation period to the present day.” Since 1904, it has been producing transcriptions of records. The National Archives web site notes that “the majority of Catholic registers remain in the custody of parish priests, although a number have been transcribed and indexed by the Catholic Record Society.” (See above.)

The fourth link is to Benedictine history, www.plantata.org.uk. There is a searchable list of monks and nuns of the order.

The five links on the right connect with regional Catholic history societies with journals and publications, and dues in the £10 per year range. Note they are not ‘family’ history societies.

Last but not least, a resource you may want to check is the Catholic National Library www.catholic-library.org.uk which has most of the transcripts from the Catholic Record Society in its 70,000 volume collection. The Library is located at St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough, Hampshire and is open three days each week.

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

Wisdom Wednesday: How Catholicism Survived the Penal Laws

There was great political and social, really personal , upheaval when Henry VIII decided to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and the pope did not give his permission. After long negotiations and threats, Henry declared himself head of the church in England. The king’s decision affected his realm well into the nineteenth century.

Not all of the aristocrats, much less the people, were one hundred percent convinced that this was a good idea so Henry imposed a series of laws that outlawed Roman Catholic worship in the realm. Catholics could not attend university, own land or serve in Parliament.

How did Catholicism survive?

-After decreasing to only one percent of the population in the mid-1700s, the numbers of Catholics began to climb with the immigration of Irish and Italian craftsmen and workers. It is estimated that in 1780, there were 80,000 Catholics in the country.

-Sons were often brought up in COE to preserve their rights of inheritance, while daughters were schooled at home in the Catholic way. A husband might attend COE services without his wife and children.

-Catholic families of means sent their sons abroad to train as priests, although that was illegal. They returned to England and ministered to congregations in small, but illegal family or estate based chapels. There were few legal public chapels until after the Catholic Relief Act of 1791. See below.

-In London, each embassy of a Catholic country was allowed to have its own chapel, but their registers indicate they served a greater population.

-There were pockets of Catholicism where laws were not enforced vigorously – Lancashire and rural Yorkshire – areas about as far away from London as you can get. Certain large cities also gave some relief from oppression.

The Catholic Relief Act was passed in 1791, allowed Catholics to enter the legal profession and granted toleration for their schools and churches.  In 1829, full equality was given by the Catholic Emancipation Act.  In 1850, the Catholic Church organized into dioceses again, but it was after World War I before geographical parishes were set up.  In the intervening time, people could choose their own place of worship. This may account for your finding your family records in a variety of registers.

At the beginning of civil registration of births, deaths and marriages, the government asked for the clergy to turn in their old registers. Only a few Catholic ones were included. See next week’s blog post to find out how to get UK Catholic information.

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

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.