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by Peter Bennett
Published in the June 2008 edition of
"The Genealogist"
| Well, the Family Records Centre is no more.
At the last minute there was the predicted rush, with coach loads of family
historians coming in from afar to use the facilities one last time, but now
they will all have to go to Kew. As I write the facilities at Kew are just about all in place. There are plenty of computers for those who just want to use the online records, and the cabinets of films are waiting on building works to finish before they are moved to their final places. The library should be open again soon, and all the reading rooms desks ready to be used by the time this column is published. In the short term only the early arrivals can be guaranteed of a place. It is a good exercise in teaching people to check with a record office before a journey is made for there are all sorts of reasons why places might be closed. For those for whom Kew is a journey too far there are some alternatives places for research in central London. The London Metropolitan Archives and the Guildhall Library have some useful databases and the Society of Genealogists is opening up a suite of computers in the reception area for non-members to use a selection of records. At this early date I do not know what these are going to be, but it could well be an interesting place for the visitor to spend a few hours. There are some interesting new items this quarter. The British Library has installed a database of journalists onto their computers. Known as ‘Scoop!’, this is a collection of some 21,500 biographies of British and Irish journalists from about 1800 to 1950. The details range from just a few lines to fairly complete biographies, but like the newspapers I mentioned last time, this index can only be consulted from within the library building. The British Record Society has published ‘Wills at Hertford’, an index to the probate records held at Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies. The title is misleading, for the contents lists all wills as well as administration bonds, probate accounts and related documents. But these are only the records held at Hertford, and for this county probate records are also held at Chelmsford, indexed in the ‘Wills at Chelmsford’ volume by BRS, Guildhall Library, London Metropolitan Archives and some early records, pre-1610, at Huntingdon. This scattering of the documents is not an especially unusual arrangement for probate records before 1858. Searchers would do well to consult the ‘Probate Jurisdictions’ volume in the ‘Gibson Guide’ series before undertaking a serious search for wills in England or Wales. Some years ago The National Archives included the First World War campaign medal cards in their ‘Documents Online’ database. These are a very good way into discovering at least basic information about a British soldier, for the vast majority of participants are included. But at the time these cards went live, there was dismay that the reverse of the cards had not been included. This situation has now been rectified. ‘Ancestry’ has now put the cards, front and back, online and so we can see that there is indeed information on the other side of some of these. There are many home addresses with names of next of kin so these are going to help a lot of people. While on the subject of military records, I had reason recently to visit the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede, Surrey. It is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, whose web site should be visited by anyone who has relatives who died in any of the 20th century wars. At Runnymede they have built a memorial to the airmen and women of the Second World War and an impressive place it is. Perched on the edge of a hill, the names of over 20,000 air personnel from around the world are inscribed in stone, and a tower gives spectacular views to Windsor and beyond to the west and London to the east. To finish up, I am indebted to the staff at the Hampshire Record Office for the following. It came at a pertinent time, for I have recently been searching some 17th century parish registers and have come up against the all too familiar missing entries. At Hampshire they have a ‘document of the month’ on their web site, a good reason to drop in on your favourite counties from time to time for you can never tell what might come along. Hampshire are also putting images from their own and the collections of some local history groups on line, so there is more to come. But meanwhile, here is Henry Hooker doing his bit for the family historians of the future: A Worried Man When civil war rages, the stable patterns of life are disrupted and regulations often neglected or ignored. During the English Civil Wars, for example, the recording of baptisms, marriages and burials was notoriously poor. Thomas Hooker, parish clerk of Odiham in those troubled times, wrote a note to posterity in Odiham’s parish register – Hampshire Record Office reference 47M81/PR1 – explaining why he had been unable to do his duties: Thear will com a time when men will com to search in this Booke for the names of thear children and in Regard that they cannot find Theare names hear writen let them not blame me for it but looke upon theare selves for since the wars began in this land (t)heare have been maney that have been baptised that I never knew of nether had I aney notes of them never the lese I know that the blame will be laid upon me. Thomas Hooker, parish clerke 1652 Not that this really helps, for many of us are stuck with the fact that the parish registers are notoriously deficient from the 1640s to the 1660s with many years of entries missing. I had been working on the nearby parish of Crondall when this item came up, and was confounded in my search by this very fact. Many readers will just wish we had a 17th century problem or two in our research, but we can all dream of the day when our searches will take us back into these times of such seemingly insurmountable problems. Peter Bennett With grateful acknowledgement to Hampshire Record Office. |
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