I’ve just stepped out for a bite to eat on a quiet Saturday at the Society of Genealogists. The library is busy and there is a workshop on in the lecture room but it’s a quiet day generally as there  is little of the normal weekday traffic buzzing around our corner of London’s EC1M where Goswell Road meets Clerkenwell Road and Old Street. Since the closure of the Family Record Centre I’ve not walked about our neighbourhood so much recently but it doesn’t take much to notice that there has been a significant gentrification of the area. The building works next door to the Society have finally finished and the new William Harvey Heart Centre next door to us at the end of the Charterhouse Buildings cul-de-sac was formally opened on July 7th 2011.  The Heart Centre is part of the new Queen Mary Charterhouse Square Campus in collaboration with Barts Hospital and The London NHS Trust.Opposite the Society’s front door , on what used to be the last bomb site in London, stands a modern block of apartments, very expensive office furniture shops and a veterinary practice.

Turn left at the end of the Charterhouse Buildings cul-de-sac you come to historic Clerkenwell now with new restaurants including the very highly acclaimed Modern Pantry and the exclusive Zetter Hotel and Townhouse on the corner of St John’s Square. Over the road  is the fascinating St John’s Gate; the the historic home of the Order of St John and a landmark in Clerkenwell since 1504, which has been picked by Londoners to represent Islington on a commemorative badge for the 2012 Olympics.  The church of St James Clerkenwell still provides a quiet oasis of calm to sit and eat a sandwich on a sunny lunch time but the trendy set still head for the pubs and bars of Clerkenwell Green and Farringdon during the week.

Today’s weekend engineering works on the Metropolitan and Hammersmith & Circle lines closed Barbican underground station, so a stroll up Old Street to Old Street tube station past the  newly renovated church of St Lukes’ Old Street means you can see how the new LSO St Luke’s concert and rehearsal centre have added vibrancy to this part of town.  Turn off Old Street down Whitecross Street and you’ll come to some of the best street food and restaurants in London. Usually the street food vendors serve exotic  but incredibly tasty and cheap cuisine to the lunch time office workers and residents from the nearby Peabody Trust Estate (wonderfully interesting flats built in London clay brick) but the restaurants stay open at weekends too. This weekend the street food vendors, local shops and artists held a  food and rather avant-gard music arts festival as part of the open London free weekend events leading up to the Olympic cultural celebrations.  The food smells were divine and I wish I hadn’t had lunch before I walked down the street. I did resist the temptation of the most wonderful meringues and pastries. I loved the jazz and local community choir but couldn’t quite work out the art.

Turn right at the bottom of White Cross Street past Fortune Street Park and you’ll come out at the Barbican Tube station opposite the Barbican Arts Centre and Exhibition Halls. All of this culture is available within 30 minutes round walk from the Society of Genealogists. A very pleasant way to get some air and stretch your legs before hitting the SoG books shelves and manuscripts. I like working on a  Saturday.

Technorati Tags: family history, genealogy, London EC1, Society of Genealogists, Whitecross Street

Rain on St Swithin’s Day forebodes a dreadful summer of 40 days of rain. So what are  family historians to do if you can’t be distracted from your genealogy by trips beach or forays into the garden? Well you could  just get on with your genealogical research and how better to do that than join the Society of Genealogists in its Centenary Year?

The Society of Genealogists’  Summer Membership Special Offer waives the joining administration fee of  £10 until 30 September 2011. This means your first year’s membership is only £45 (or £27 for overseas members). Join the Society  of Genealogists today and your discounted membership will be valid until October 2012. IN ADDITION the Society’s Summer membership Offer includes free  Family Tree Builder genealogy software (while stocks last).

Benefits of membership including FREE access to the SoG Library,  FREE data online, FREE Genealogists Magazine, FREE access to genealogy websites in the SoG Library and discounted books and courses are outlined on the Society of Genealogists website .

Download the application form today and quote SSP11 to take advantage of the Summer Special Membership Offer.

Technorati Tags: family history, genealogy, Society of Genealogists

We’re now tantalisingly close to discovering who Lord Alan Sugar will choose to be his next business partner, with the final of The Apprentice hitting our screens on Sunday. The Society of Genealogists also got the business bug as we’ve just published the Business Index Collection in association with the Findmypast.

The Society of Genealogists Business Index Collection is also available to SoG members via MySoG on the Society’s website www.sog.org.uk

The record collection is made up of a selection of 17 books and trade dictionaries produced in different areas of the UK from 1893 – 1927, with 9,757 records showcasing businesses and prominent people of the late Victorian era and early twentieth century. You can find out more detailed information about the Business Index Collection.

The records are a superb family history resources. They can provide a lot of detail about your ancestors’ lives, often including a photograph and a short biography which will detail their education and experience, memberships of corporations and clubs, their hobbies or leisure activities as well as any charities they may have been involved with.

Else Churchill, Genealogical Officer at the Society of Genealogists, explains:

“The Business Index directories complement other family history sources such as censuses or birth, marriage and death records. While these records may merely state trade or occupation, the Business Index can include exactly what your ancestor did and often include potted histories of the family business, showing when it was founded and the generations of the family members who worked together. These stories put flesh on the bones of our ancestors. Society of Genealogists volunteers have been working hard to make these rare directories from its extensive library collections more readily available for the genealogists and we are delighted to be able to publish this first set of data.” 

Women in Business

We’ve had a hunt through the Business Index Collection and have found a number of successful women included, particularly around the early 1900s. This is fairly surprising considering the historical context of the records. It was not until 1928 that women were granted the right to vote on the same terms as men and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge had only opened their degrees to women some eight years earlier.

The successful businesswomen featured in the records include:

Helena Normanton – The first woman to practise as a barrister in the UK when she was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1922.

Irene Barclay – The first woman in Britain to qualify as a chartered surveyor. Barclay helped to set up a number of housing associations around the country, improving living conditions for many people. 

Dame Lilian Braithwaite – Celebrated actress who appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s film Downhill and Noel Coward’s play The Vortex.

Marion Lyon – The Advertisement Manager of Punch magazine and the only woman to hold a position of this nature in the early twentieth century.

Radclyffe Hall – Author of The Well of Loneliness, a novel about a lesbian relationship published in 1928. The book was declared obscene and was withdrawn from sale.

Lilian Baylis – Manager of the Old Vic and Sadler’s Wells theatres. Baylis also ran an opera company that later became the English National Opera, a theatre company that became the Royal National Theatre and a ballet company that became the Royal Ballet.

Debra Chatfield, findmypast.co.uk’s Marketing Manager, comments:

“The Business Index Collection shows us that while our female ancestors were fighting for the right to vote and to go to university, countless women were already business leaders. This is all the more amazing when you consider that today, fewer than 14% of FTSE 100 board positions are held by women.”

Search the Business Index Collection now to see if any of your ancestors are included!

Technorati Tags: family history, findmypast.co.uk, genealogy, Society of Genealogists

Wills are a fantastic resources for any family historian and it’s great news to hear of more being made readily available.

Ancestry.co.uk have been filling in some of the earlier gaps in its coverage of the post 1858 will indexes for England and Wales and we hear that these indexes are to be made free to view for the next week until 9th July.

We’ve been playing about with Ancestry’s new dataset of London wills 1528-1858 and trying to establish exactly what it contains. Comparison with various other indexes and sources and the site itself suggests these are the original wills  from those church courts whose records were formerly lodged at Guildhall and are now at London Metropolitan Archives (Commissary  and Archdeaconry of London) along with those from the Consistory of London and Archdeaconry of Middlesex which were always a LMA.

The collection does not, at present, include any testamentary records which might be found amongst the old Register Copy Wills or in the Will Act Books nor in the Administrations of those who died intestate. So don’t be beguiled into thinking these are the only probate records for Londoners.  As Ancestry’s site says there are still other records to check back at LMA.  It’s a fantastic start and the images of the documents it has are excellent. BUT you should still check all of the published indexes to the various London courts whether they be published by the British Record Society or on other websites.

The Society of Genealogists library has free access to Ancestry.co.uk as well as Findmypast and British Origins which also have useful indexes to wills for the London area. The SoG’s library of books and documents contains many abstracts and copies of London wills and some of these are indexed amongst the SoG data on MySoG. The Society has all of the manuscripts, printed and published indexes available for the church courts that governed wills including those for London  and Westminster. Note also that many Londoners’ wills were probated in the highest church court known as the Prerogative Court of Canterbury which has records at The National Archives. These indexed on TNA’s Documents Online webbsite which is also free to view at the Society of Genealogists.

For more information on using wills see the SoG free information leaflet on Wills.

Remember where there’s a will there’s a genealogist

Technorati Tags: Ancestry, family history, genealogy, Society of Genealogists

Findmypast.co.uk have released a fabulous family history resource -  the index and images of  WO96 militia records for 1806-1915. The Findmypast wesbite is available for free at the Society of Genealogists Library

The WO 96 Militia Records are a valuable resources for genealogy research-

• Over half a million records covering 100 years of the militia – the forerunner of The British Territorial Army – published online
• Records provide unique descriptions of what your ancestors actually looked like
• Everyday workers including butchers and bakers fighting for their country
• The British militia was recruited from all over the world

Leading family history website, findmypast.co.uk has published the records of over half a million men who served in the British militia, the precursor to the UK’s Territorial Army. The Militia Service Records, covering 1806 to 1915, have been made available online for the first time to coincide with British Armed Forces Day on Saturday.

The records colourfully portray what the British militia looked like, detailing the height, weight, chest size, complexion, eye colour, hair colour and distinctive marks of each recruit. Arthur Wilson’s distinguishing marks included an acrobat and dots tattooed on his left forearm. Similarly, Albert Smith, born in India, was recorded as having teeth that were ‘defective but enough for mastication’.

Debra Chatfield, Marketing Manager at findmypast.co.uk comments: “These records provide rich insight into our past and show how the everyday man, such as your local shopkeeper, found himself fighting for his country. In the absence of photographs, these records can help you imagine what your ancestors looked like, containing details which are largely unavailable elsewhere. Our easy to use website means you can unearth even more fascinating and detailed information about your ancestors at the click of a mouse.”

Like today’s Territorial Army, the militia was made up of men who held everyday jobs, but took part in military exercises and on occasions fought for their country. In the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, these typically included shoemakers, woodchoppers, butchers, bakers, coal miners and millers.

Charles Godfrey, for example, was a butcher for a Mr Debron in Oxford. Born in the Parish of Botley, Berkshire, Godfrey volunteered for the militia on 25^th July 1887 aged 18. Charles served with the 3^rd Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment and was recorded as being five feet four inches tall with steel grey eyes. 

William Spencer, Principal Military Records Specialist at The National Archives, commented: “It took a certain kind of individual to leave a day job as a blacksmith, labourer or barman and enlist as a part time soldier in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Although the majority never left British shores, many saw active service with the regular army in places such as South Africa during the Second Boer War. Like its modern equivalent, the Territorial Army, the pre-WWI militia offered a way for former soldiers to continue serving their country and civilians a chance to leave humdrum jobs, earn extra money and enjoy the comradeship such services had to offer.”

The Militia Service Records are the only set of their kind available online and have been published in association with The National Archives and in partnership with FamilySearch. The records show that the soldiers who made up the militia during that period hailed not only from the UK itself, but also from around the world. Some recruits had been born in Italy, Ceylon, South Africa and even as far away as Australia and New Zealand.

David Rencher, Chief Genealogy Officer at FamilySearch added: “The publication of the Militia Service Records fills another critical gap in the family historian’s toolkit. The digitisation and indexing of this rich collection will make it easy to find the regiment an ancestor served with and also when and where he was born. Family historians will quickly realise the value of this information, particularly when the record of an ancestor’s birth has been elusive or impossible to find elsewhere.”

ENDS 

For further information or examples of the records, please contact:

Amy Sell

amy.sell@findmypast.co.uk

or

Lauren Hunt-Morgan

0207 566 9729

laurenhm@lansons.com

Notes to editors

Armed Forces Day

The release coincides with Armed Forces Day which is taking place on Saturday, 25 June 2011.

The day aims to raise public awareness of the contribution made to our country by those who serve and have served in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces, It also gives the nation an opportunity to show support for the men and women who make up the Armed Forces community: from currently serving troops to Service families and from veterans to cadets. In 2011 the National Event will be held in Edinburgh, but there are many more events up and down the country being held in support of Armed Forces Day.

Full list of places of birth as recorded in the Militia Service Records:

Africa

Australia

Canada

Channel Islands

East Indies

England

Spain

France

Germany

Gibraltar

Greece

India

Isle of Man

Ireland

Italy

Ceylon

Malta

New Zealand

Russia

South America

Scotland

At sea

West Indies

Wales

Technorati Tags: family history, Find My Past, genealogy, militia records, Society of Genealogists