Past Search NewsletterPast Search NewsletterPage 1 - Issue 09 January 2010

One of the more diffi cult years of the recent past, 2009 has been weathered well in this corner of Norfolk.

Firstly thank you to all my customers for their support over the past year.

The fact so many are still commissioning me for research and att ending classes in such austere times is very touching.

Looking at a brighter future, I’ve been invited to speak at Who Do You Think You Are Live, on 26 February. I will be presenting ‘Your Norfolk Ancestors: An Insiders Guide’ from 12.45 to 1.30 pm.

The event is at Olympia in London, over the weekend of 26-28 February.

I’ll have a stand there on every day of the event. The stand is number 86, next door to the nice people from Pharos Tutors.

Life hasn’t been all business,

we’ve had drama and excitement on the home front.

In August my partner Ian had a

rather dramatic and worrying reaction

to swine fl u, or possibly Tamifl u.

This rather put the dampers on our summer holiday. In the fi nest tradition of the NHS, the staff at the Royal Devon & Exeter hospital were fantastic.

Our thanks also goes to the helpful staff at Sidmouth Folk

Festival and all my customers who sent their regards upon hearing of Ian’s predicament.

Bett er family news came when my daughter Cáitlin decided to marry Jos, her long term partner.

The wedding is in April, which will add a new Blanchard marriage certifi cate to be unearthed in the future.

I’ll sign off this article by wishing everyone a happy new year and the best of luck in their family history endeavours and life in general.

A year gone and a year to come

Rosary Cemetery becomes Grade II* listed

Norwich’s Rosary Cemetary has been declared to be of “more than special interest” by English Heritage. Only fi ve percent of buildings and places in England are Grade II* listed.

This graveyard was Britain’s fi rst nondenominational cemetery, it was founded in 1819 by Thomas Drummond. Using his life savings, the nonconformist minister bought a former market garden to convert into the 13 acre resting place of over 18,500 people.

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It’s tradition...● First Footing: After midnight householders would wait for a dark haired person to arrive at their door and cross the threshold.

The person carried a piece of coal, some bread, some money and some greenery. The items symbolised prosperity and luck for the coming year.

● Frost Fairs: In the ‘Mini Ice Age‘ of 1550-1750 the Thames frequently froze over in January, sometimes for up to three months.

New Year’s Day saw skating, sledding and even stalls being set up on the ice.

Page 2 - Issue 09 January 2010

● 9 January, 1799: The fi rst income tax is introduced by the Prime Minister, William Pitt. Those earning more than £60 a year had to pay a 0.8333 per cent tax.

● 10 January, 1863: The London Underground opens between Paddington and Farringdon stations. It was the fi rst underground commuter railway in the world.

● 18 January, 1486: Henry VII marries Elizabeth of York. The union ends the War of the Roses, which was fought between the houses of York and Lancaster.

● 19 January, 1915: The fi rst ever bombs fall on Britain as German airships bomb Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn.

● 23 January, 1901: After 64 years on the throne Queen Victoria dies aged 81. She is still Britain’s longest reigning monarch.

● 26 January, 1788: The fi rst convicts to be transported to Australia arrive at Port Jackson. The date is now commemorated in the country as ‘Australia Day’.

This month in history...

Zeppelins caused fear and panic

Teaching genealogyI am looking forward to engaging with new and returning students with a lot of teaching this year. It’s been 13 years since I gained my adult teaching PGCE.

Teaching is also great for gett ing out and seeing what really interests people. Oft en the topics of discussion in classes are what people want their research to focus on when I’m rooting through records.

Over the years I have taught a great range of people in all sorts of places from prisons and village halls all the way up postgraduate students at the University of East Anglia.

Learning how to assess student’s needs, design courses

and structure lessons are essential skills, with most of the best teachers having undergone formally recognised training courses appropriate to their audience.

Addressing an audience in Norwich

News and recent eventsI’ve given well received talks

to the London branch of the Norfolk Family History Society at the Society of Genealogists. I also spoke at the Great Yarmouth branch of NFHS.

My thanks go to those who att ended and I hope they got something out of the evenings.

Look out for an article by me based around a servants’ wages book from a Walsingham estate due to be published in Ancestors magazine.

It will explain a bit about how such a relatively innocuous

document can yield fascinating insights into people’s lives

I’m busy working on my next publication for Pen & Sword on how to trace the history of a house or a property. The deadline is looming for the beginning of May, so the computer’s keyboard is about to endure a lot of typing.

I’ve researched numerous house histories, so this book

will be tying together what I’ve learnt across all of

them. When it’s fi nished the book will set out the techniques for fi nding out who has called a building home over the generations and how its physical structure has changed.

I am now on Twitter, at: twitter.com/GillBlanchardtwitter.com/GillBlanchard

Also my blog should be up and running soon at:

gillblanchard.blogspot.com/gillblanchard.blogspot.com/

Page 3 - Issue 09 January 2010

Upcoming Pharos online coursesThe Poor, The Parish and

The Workhouse: Records in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Start: 31/03/2010

The parish poor may seem to be a forgotten section of society for many centuries, but detailed records of them do exist.

This course covers the background and language of key types of record. It also explains how to use the wealth of online information that is available.

Even those tracing ancestors from wealthier families can gain from the course, because

the records cover those who had to pay into the coffers that funded the Poor Law’s benefi ts.

Tying the Knot: Marriage and its Records. Start:

18/05/2010

This is a brand new course and a valuable addition to the Pharos repertoire.

Marriage records are vital for tracking name changes and seeing how families

combine and diverge.The core of this course covers the history of marriage law and methods of fi nding records produced in accordance with it.

Searching for Wills and Administrations in

England and Wales. Start: 10/06/2010

Records of wills and administrations reveal what a person owned and to whom they wished to give it in death.

Seeing who was rewarded and who was slighted is intriguing. Often wills name many relatives besides the next of kin.

This course covers wills before and after 1858, administrations before and after 1858 and death duty registers.

www.pharostutors.com

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Upcoming courses and talksWriting Your Family History. Starting: 11/04/2010 at Norfolk

Family History Society.

This course will concentrate on how to bring your ancestors to life and how to present your research as a writt en story.

Six fortnightly workshops will take place on Sunday aft ernoons; 1:30 to 4:30pm.

The Norfolk Family History Society is based at 70 St. Giles Street, Norwich.

The society is 30 years old and has a dedicated research centre with a library that is open to all. There is lots of useful material even if you have no local ancestors.

From Computers to Records: How to Develop your

Research Beyond the Internet. Starting 22/04/2010 at Norfolk

Family History Society.

The internet is now a ubiquitous and bountiful starting place for many researchers.

But eventually it becomes time

to fl y the nest and start looking for, and looking at, physical documents.

This course is designed to show how online research skills apply to fi nding information in paper records and impart the new skills necessary for research in the real world.

Eight weekly classes will take place on Thursdays; 6:30 to 8:30pm.

Writing Your Family History. Starting: 03/07/2010 at the Society of Genealogists.

Three interlinked, practical creative writing workshops will teach participants to bring the story of their ancestors to life.

These workshops explain the diff erent phases of writing and editing.

Three Saturday aft ernoon classes on 3 July, 17 July and 31 July.

Th e Society of Genealogists on Goswell Road, London

www.sog.org.uk

www.norfolkfhs.org.uk

● 10 February: I will be delivering a talk on family history to the Poringland Women’s Institute at Poringland Community Centre

● 12 May: I will be telling the Norwich Business Womens Network about running a historical research business. Venue to be confi rmed.

Other events

Page 4 - Issue 09 January 2010

Some informative page-turners...

... and some online offerings

British Architectural Styles: An Easy Reference Guide by

Trevor Yorke

This book is a great starting point for anyone looking to gain an understanding of how building design has evolved.

More importantly it explains which features denote certain eras of building.

The reader learns to see where features have been added and even removed from buildings over time. Making it a great companion to a visit to an ancestors house.

A slight niggle is that the book covers mainly houses, which is great for the family historian, but may leave a litt le to be desired for the architectural buff .

British Architectural Styles: An Easy Reference Guide is published by the David Brown

Book Company. It retails at £4.99 in a paper-back binding.

A Glossary of Words Used in East Anglia by Walter Rye

In 1895 Walter Rye compiled a precursor to the slang dictionaries of today by looking at the regional dialects of East Anglia.

Most documents include litt le slang, but as an insight into how people once spoke the book is fascinating and amusing.

A Glossary of Words Used in East Anglia is published by Oxford University Press. It retails at £17.00.

Who Do You Think You Are? by Dan Waddell

The tie-in book to the TV series is a great introduction to family history for novices.

It covers terminology and the basics of research techniques with enthusiasm and humour.

Although a great introduction to family history research this book has litt le to off er experienced researchers.

Who Do You Think You Are is published by BBC Books. It retails at £4.99.

freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.

com/~tinstaafl /

The Norfolk Baptism project is a great little site full of complete indexes of records from many Norfolk churches.

Using the moniker ‘Tinstaffl Transcripts’, an anonymous researcher has been busy writing up the transcripts of thousands of records.

It is very rare for someone to provide such a great volume of data and simply give it away.

The scale of the altruistic endeavour that

is involved in making this site is worthy of great praise.

It is worth noting that getting some proper instruction in transcribing and ordering records is advised before starting a record website.

A lack of accuracy taints many well-intentioned sites of this nature.

www.origins.net

A broad range of databases are available on the Origins Website. They can be searched for names to see if there is

any leads worth following up on.

Members of the Society of Genealogists are entitled to a certain number of free searches each year. This is because Origins.net includes several databases

held at their library.Subscriptions start at £4.50

for three days access to the English, Scottish or Irish databases. It is £7.50 for access to all three.

This offer gives a taster of the site and can provide a good weekend of research.

Although some of the databases can be clunky to use it includes some real gems that make the subscription worth its weight in gold.

These include Boyd’s Marriage Index and the National Apprenticeship Index, London burials as well as some census returns and material relating to Ireland and Scotland.

If you have Irish ancestry the library section has photographs, drawings and accounts of 19th century tours.