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.