28 January is Tracing Your Female Ancestors Day at the Society of Genealogists. Our first half-day course, Women in the 1800’s: Birth & Baptism with Tom Doig will take place from 10:30am-1pm.
Tom will look at how pregnancy was identified: the Monthly Nurse and Laying-in, childbirth & midwives/Godsibs, the folklore of birth, dealing with weak babies, normal and private baptisms and traditions of naming the child as well as ‘upsitting’ and the ‘churching’ of women.
Tracing Female Ancestors, will follow from 2-5pm, with Ken Divall and Else Churchill
These sessions will discuss how Family historians are often accused of interesting themselves only in the male lines of their ancestry following the history of the surname. Older pedigree compilations often ignore the daughters of a family leaving it difficult to establish the distaff line. However there are some sources that can be used to throw more light into the lives of our ancestresses and which let us hear their voices. We will look at some strong minded, vocal women; hear their voices and learn about women who fell on hard times. In the second session we will look at how the wars effected women’s lives, and changing their social status forever. Often taking over the jobs that had previously been the preserve of men, for example, bus and tram driving.

Each of these half-day courses cost £17.50/£14.00 (SoG Members) and can be booked together or separately. Spaces are limited and must be pre-booked, either online or by telephone: 020 7553 3290.Do you have a question? email the events department.

Technorati Tags: ancestor, class, family history, female, genealogy, grandmother, lecture, military, Parish Registers, pedigree, social, Society of Genealogists, talk, women

The development of fixed surnames occurred much later in Wales than in the rest of the British Isles.   Is this why you cannot find your ancestor in the records? Come and discover how Welsh names evolved,  when the traditional patronymic naming system declined and some techniques for research.

A one-hour lecture with Mari Alderman on Wednesday, 18 January at 2pm, £6.00/£4.80 SoG members. This talk must be pre-booked, through our secure website, or by telephone: 020 7553 3290. Do you have a question? email the events department.

Technorati Tags: ancestor, class, family history, genealogy, patrynomic, Society of Genealogists, surnames, wales, welsh

Just a quick note to let you know that Findmypast have released 10 million new Cheshire records today.

The Cheshire Collection is an extraordinarily rich and comprehensive set of records provided by Cheshire Archives and Local Studies.

These records are essential to anyone with Cheshire roots or connections, as they cover not just the Church of England but also Roman Catholic and Non-Conformist registers, and, moreover, extend well beyond these core records of baptism, marriage and burial to a variety of other records giving biographical details for the residents of the county.

These records span the period 1538-1910. These records contain:

• Bishop’s Transcripts of the Parish Registers 1576-1905
• Church of England Parish Registers 1538-1910
• Electoral Registers 1842-1900
• Marriage Licence Bonds and Allegations 1663-1905
• Non-Conformist and Roman Catholic Records 1671-1910
• Workhouse Registers 1781-1910

Find more information about these records here

Findmypast is available free at the Library of the Society of Genealogists and members of the Society received discounts on subscriptions to the site

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

The SoG’s famous marriage index compiled by Percival Boyd comprising some 7million names is now available on Genesreunited

Percival Boyd

Boyd’s obituary published in the Genealogists’ Magazine Vol 12 p61 (June 1955) says he was born in 1866 but he was actually born on 29th June 1868 at St Paul’s, Haggerston, into a family of London merchants and warehousemen. He was educated at Sutton Valence Grammar School, Uppingham School and Clare College, Cambridge, where he received his MA in 1894. After leaving university he became a partner, chairman and managing director of the family firm in Friday Street, off Queen Victoria Street, in London. He became a liveryman of the Drapers Company in 1893, Master in 1926 and senior member of the Court of Assistants. In his spare time he was a member of the Cyclists’ Touring Club, the Royal Philatelic Society and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Boyd joined the Society of Genealogists in 1922 and was made a Fellow in 1926. He served on the Executive Committee for 22 years from 1927-49, with a one-year gap in 1932 due to ill health, and was its Chairman from 1929-31 and 1938-40 and Vice-President from 1949 until his death.

Boyd’s Marriage Index

The Marriage Index was first announced to members in the Genealogists’ Magazine for September 1925 in an article entitled “An index to marriages”. It covers the period 1538 to 1837 with a few events dated earlier and one or two parishes continued later. Sources were transcripts of marriage registers – some borrowed from the transcriber for the purpose and then returned – bishop’s transcripts, marriage licences and banns registers.

After Hardwicke’s Marriage Act, all nonconformist marriages from 1754 to 1837, except those of Quakers and Jews, should have taken place in a parish church of the Church of England. In all, the index includes marriages from parts of over 4,320 parish registers and some Quaker marriages.

Theoretically, the index only covers England but there are some irregular marriages in Scotland relating to people from Holy Island 1776-1812 in the Northumberland and some marriages further afield in the extracts from the Gentleman’s Magazine 1731-1768. Entries taken from the Faculty Office Marriage Licences could also extend beyond England.

The information given for each entry is standardised and consists only of the year of marriage, names of partners and place of marriage or source of information such as ML or Gents. Mag. Where one partner is a long way from home Boyd indicates this and makes an entry in the home volume.

Entries for 16 of the best-covered English counties were typed into the Main series and entries for other counties and those taken from marriage licences were bound into a Miscellaneous series. At Boyd’s death in 1955 he had amassed approximately a further 1/4 million slips which he bequeathed to the Genealogical Society of Utah. They covered the full period from 1538-1837 and all English counties, including information compiled from marriage licences such as those at Wells. The GSU put this series of slips into strict alphabetical order and typed them up and this became the Second miscellaneous series which is NOT available online.

All told, there are approximately seven million entries in the index as a whole and it is estimated that this covers between ten and 15 per cent of pre-1837 English marriages. The best coverage is for the earlier period up to 1754 or 1812. Although the index bears Boyd’s name and he himself did, or paid to have done, most of the work, other members were involved in the project – both at the time and since his death.

Cambridgeshire – most of the marriage registers in the county before 1812, including BTs from Ely, were transcribed by the Reverend Evelyn Young. Writing in Nov 1935, the year before his death, he said that he had then “copied approx 130,00 Cambs marriages”. Those supplementing his work for the period 1801-37 were compiled by Thomas Peter Roysse Layng in 1977.

Durham and Northumberland were largely the work of Herbert Maxwell Wood, FSA. Very few of the index entries go beyond 1812. In Durham two go down to 1826 and three to 1837 and in Northumberland three parishes are covered to 1814 and one to 1818. Herbert Wood died in 1929.

Gloucestershire was indexed by Eric Arthur Roe, TSG, and includes entries from BTs as well as registers. Many of the entries for Bristol parishes and one or two other places are extracts only but half a dozen or so parishes are included down to 1875. From 1876-1926 only marriages for Great Rissington are indexed. Roe’s slips were typed up by the GSU in 1958.

Yorkshire – all of the indexing for Yorkshire was done by Norman Hindsley before he emigrated to Calgary in Canada.

Since Boyd’s death a number of other genealogists and family history societies have indexed marriages in their own counties by using unpublished original as well transcribed registers but his amazing pioneering work is still one of the largest and most impressive indexes of its kind.

Technorati Tags: boyds marriage index, family history, genealogy, Genes Reunited, Society of Genealogists

Now that the Society of Genealogists has celebrated its centenary anniversary, attention is turning on securing its future. The Society now has many commercial competitors but our unique material enables us to stand out from the crowd. This uniqueness needs to be made readily available in order to retain and attract members.

One way of improving accessibility and awareness of the Society’s unique records and family history documents, is to make them available online. This is a mammoth task, as the family history document collection alone consists of over 950,000 documents that will need to be individually catalogued, scanned and uploaded.

With membership fees just about covering the daily running costs of the Society, there is little left over for updates like digitisation, new collections and binding.

This is why we launched the Society’s Friend initiative…

Become a Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum Friend and you will be helping to secure the Society’s future whilst also benefiting from exclusive Friend benefits, for example, dedicated Friends lectures and special visits to historic landmarks accompanied by trustees and senior staff.

Click here to download a Friends donation form.

Technorati Tags: Bronze, centenary anniversary, Friend, Gold, Platinum, Silver, Society of Genealogists