Monthly Archives: November 2013

LED lamps – do they save money – are they green?

One of the halogen down lighters in my kitchen started to flicker – not the bulb, but the transformer…Time for a change.

So, I bit the bullet and bought some LED down lighters, made by a firm called JCC.

Easy swap for the old units, built in firecans, and only 7 watts instead of 50, so for every 24 hours of use a unit is saved. As they cost £30, I need to save about 200 units at 15p/unit. That is 800 days at 6 hours per day… So let’s hope they are still working in three years time.

So, do they save money? If they don’t break down earlier, yes, eventually. A ten year warranty helps.

Are they green? Well, I am really not sure. I am sure that I will use less electricity, but how much went into making the thing? It is also clear that LEDs use rare resources that the old tungsten bulbs do not use. Time will tell if this is sustainable.

Current plan is to replace all lamps with CFLs or LEDs, except for the ones in toilets and cupboards. It will be interesting to watch the electricity bill.

 

 

 

 

Saint Helena Connection

Many years ago, my mother repeated something she had heard from her mum – that somewhere in the family history is a slave ancestor. I dismissed this as improbable, many years ago. However, a year or two back, the connection showed up. My great great grandmother was born on the tiny Atlantic island colony of St Helena. Born in 1824, Amelia Bertha Pollard was the daughter of Thomas Pollard of the 1st St Helena Artillery, and Mary Houndsworth, described as “free”, therefore non- European. Whilst the slave trade was stopped by the British in about 1807, and slavery abolished altogether in the British empire in 1833, in St Helena the taking or buying of slaves was stopped in the late 18th Century, all children born of a slave parent was declared free if born after 1818, so Mary, an adult in 1824 may have obtained her freedom by other means – yet to be discovered. It seems likely that her father too was a soldier, but the records are scant and we shall probably never know. Amelia Bertha married in 1842 in Madras, aged under 18, so it seems likely her father Thomas was posted there.

It goes to show, that however improbable a family legend may be, there is usually a reason for it. The reason may not be what you are told, but where there is smoke, it is at least worth looking for the fire.

(I am indebted to Chris and Sheila Hillman who have done research on the island, and Colin Fox for information about slavery on St Helena)

In praise of the internet

If you are just embarking on researching your family tree and find it irksome or expensive to use subscription services to search the birth, marriage and death indexes, it helps to remember two things:

The first is that those of us that researched in the old index books had to shift 1800 volumes for a single surname over 150 years. The books weighed upwards of 5 kg. I make that about nine tons of books, and then there was all the time and train fares. One upside was that the old, hideous Victorian typeface used in these indexes could be examined close up, and errors minimised, whereas some of the fiche copies make transcription difficult.

The second thing to remember is that as more and more public and statutory records are moving online, and in many cases behind subscription paywalls, free resources do still exist. One example of this is “freebmd” a volunteer project to index and publish on line the England and Wales b,m,d indexes. It is as the name implies, free to use. Subscription services such Ancestry.com and Findmypast will still show you something even if you have no subscription. Often as not, just a total of hits, but in many cases rather more. This can sometimes give you a lead for extending your search or buying pay as you go credits.

Having in recent years found online sources from around the world, online is clearly the way forward. However, there are and probably will be for a long time vast volumes of records that have not been transcribed. If you don’t find it online, it does not mean it does not exist!

Indexing errors in GRO indexes.

Until the GRO computerised the capture of registration data, the quarterly indexes were compiled by hand. In the earliest indexes, entries are handwritten, later ones are typeset. These indexes used to be in huge books that you could consult at Somerset House, then St Catherine’s house, and finally Myddleton Street, before they were eventually withdrawn, and for pre 2005 records, only fiche copies of these index books already in existence and online services remain, for the indexes covering all of England and Wales.

Transcription errors can and do creep in at every stage. I found one that probably crept in at the typesetting stage. This was in an index from 1862, when the typeset indexes had started to save space by setting the surname first, and below it, a set of forenames.

So, if you are looking for Susan Beakley, born Wisbech in December quarter of 1862, you probably will not find her. In that quarter, the printed surname Beakley had been omitted, or set one row too low, so Susan was indexed as Beakhurst, just below Albert Beakhurst. As this birth was in an odd place for my family, I ordered the certificate. The order was rejected, but as they proposed not to return my money, I double checked this entry and spoke to a supervisor at St Catherine’s house. He phoned Southport, who examined the films and found that indeed it was Beakley, and as it was their error I did get my refund.

The entry in question is still found in error in findmypast and freebmd, as they just transcribe what was copied onto the fiche.

The entry in question should read: 1862 Dec quarter: Beakley, Susan, Wisbech vol 3B page 565, not Beakhurst, Susan, Wisbech vol 3B page 565.

Online indexes offer the chance to correct transcription errors, but this one cannot be corrected on Find my past or Freebmd, as their online records do fairly reflect the printed index.

 

WordPress and Coffee Shops

What have these in common?

Well, I find that with my so far limited experience of WordPress, I can write blog posts and update my website with my tablet and the free WiFi connection. Everyone does it of course, so this is nothing new. There is no reason to restrict yourself to blogging in this situation. Creating or maintaining static pages is just as easy, provide you have access to your images and other resource you may need. For this I use drop box, so I can share files between my main PC and the tablet.

By the way, right now I am not in Starbucks or Costa, but in a nice, locally owned coffee shop in Downton, Wiltshire, called the Borough Cafe. You can find them on tripadvisor, of course.

Looked everywhere? Don’t forget the London, Edinburgh, Belfast Gazettes

The London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes, are published by the UK Government and contain a wealth of information useful to genealogists, particularly those researching modern records, as a great number of gazettes from the 20th century are searchable online.

Who puts information in the Gazette? Often it is solicitors, and this is where a wealth of family history trivia can come to light. Personally, I have found a number of name changes, some involving not just the parent but also children, so providing some of the same information that would be in a census, but much more recent. You will often get not only names but an address. Finding a name change helps you ‘kill off’ (or not) someone who seems to have dropped from public view. I have also found insolvencies, bankruptcies and dissolution of partnerships. All useful information.

Everyone has heard of the Bona Vacantia lists published by the Treasury listing the estates of intestate persons, through the ‘heir hunters’ programmes on tv. But even where a will exists, solicitors need to advertise for anyone having a claim on an estate, to ensure that someone having a valid claim is not unfairly excluded, and whilst I believe they do not have to use the gazette, they commonly do (the other place for this is newspapers). A solicitor once told me that publishing an advert in the gazette is like ‘hiding in plain sight’. They do not really expect you and I to read the notices, but other solicitors and heir hunters will. So should all genealogists.

Some awards of medals and honours are listed in the gazettes, usually in supplements issued at the appropriate time. If you had a relative with an honour, that should be listed. You will often get no more than a name and regimental number for medals, unless lucky enough to find an award for valour (VC, for example), and expect to search through many pages to find the subject heading (a weakness of both old and new sites).

The gazette websites are currently being revised, with what they claim is a better user experience in the new (beta) site. Personally I find the beta site looks good, but I have had difficulties downloading PDFs on any but a PC. This will pass, I am sure, but if you search online for “London gazette online”, you will find the websites very easily.