Ancestral Wormhole

Using Excel to Format FamilySearch Data

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:38:00 +0000

It has been quite some time since I last posted a blog, this is mainly due to my TIMMINS One Name Study taking up more time than expected. I am still learning about surname studies so have been reading up on the subject. I have just finished the Surname Detective by Colin D. Rogers, this book has proved to be a very useful introduction as well interesting, I can recommend it if you are in any way interested in surnames. Next on my reading list is a book referred to many times by Rogers - The Origin of English Surnames by P.H Reaney.

So what else have I been doing over the past few weeks. One thing that cropped up was a requirement to investigate a surname in my wife's family, this was subsequent to the discovery of a photograph that had a list of names on it. The family name was WARNER, they had resided in India in the 19th and early 20th century's.

FamilySearch has pretty good coverage of India, so some family reconstruction could be carried out to determine the family groups. Searching on India Marriages for WARNER produced some 253 matches, that is 13 pages of links at 20 links per page. Each marriage record has 24 items so copy and pasting all this into an Excel spreadsheet could take a long time; but......

by using my favourite data capture program Outwit Hub I devised a really simple scraper and saved myself hours.

The methodology of using this scraper is the same as detailed in my previous post Extracting Marriage Data Made Easy

Once I had Caught the data in the Catch area it was exported into Excel, I then made a copy of the worksheet (this is so that I can work on the data but retain the original data - just in case!). There are a number of colums of data that I don't need so all those are deleted, that just leaves the field name in column A and the data in column B.

I was now faced with a vertically tablulated column of data stretching over 6,072 rows (253 x 24). What I really need is 24 columns of data over 253 rows. I have used Excel for many years but my expertise in Excel functions would not enable me to sort this one out! I did know however that a macro in VBA would be my best bet, so I searched the usual forums and found a solution.

To make this macro work I needed an end of record identifier for each of the 253 records. The last field on each of the record sets was "Reference Number", this field had no useful data in it - so I filtered column A on this field and filled all 253 instances with an "@" symbol, this this is the end of record delimiter for the macro. Column A is now no use so it is deleted. All the useful data should now be in Column A (unfiltered). Run the macro and you now have the data in a usable format. Insert a row at the top and name the columns a required. Rather than have a load of screen shots of Excel showing the process you can download the Excel Spreadsheet from my Google Documents HERE (under File - Download).

There are 4 tabs in the workbook with the instructions on how to use it in the first tab. If you want to see the code behind the macro then go to Tools - Macro - Visual Basic Editor - if it is not already visible then double click Module 1.

Well there it is, with this macro you should be able to tackle any vertically tabulated column of data and manipulate it into a useable database.

Before I sign off thanks go to Jerry Beaucaire on the Excel Forum for the neat peice of code. Jerry also has his own Excel Assistant web site where you can leave a donation if you found this code useful.

Extracting Marriage Data Made Easy

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:45:00 +0000

I have received a number of requests for details on how I use Outwit Hub to make data copy and pasting easier. I will explain here how I used this Firefox Add-on to simplify the extraction of marriage information from Find My Past. The image below is what can be expected once the data is exported to Excel. The data collected here is being used for the One Name Study of my TIMMINS surname. The data would normally have taken a few hours to copy and paste into my Excel spreadsheet, but by using Outwit Hub it took less than 15 minutes.

The extraction method is not perfect, you will need to delete some unnecessary columns and tidy things up a bit when you get it into Excel. I collected these 724 Worcestershire Timmins marriages in about 15 minutes.

The instructions below look daunting but they are fairly straight forward, definitely worth the effort when you see the result.

I would urge you to do the Outwit Hub tutorials, they really are good.

First you will need to download the scraper file Marriages from FMP.xml

How to use:

Import the xml file into scrapers, make sure it is the only active scraper, Source type: Original.
Go to scraped : ensure Clean Text and Catch Selection are the only options ticked.
Make sure you are signed in to FMP as it has a tendency to keep signing you out.
Call up your search in FMP, the first 50 matches to your query should appear. DO NOT execute scraper.
Go to tables: in the filter area - select row if “column 8” “equals to” (type in) “view”, make sure your cursor is flashing after the w in “view”
I have noticed that the selection sometimes does not highlight, if this happens clicking again in the field (after the w in view) should fix this.
Right click on the multiple selection
Select Auto Explore Selected Link
Select Fast Scrape (Include Selected Data)
Select Automatically Select Scraper
You now should have the first 50, check in scraped window
Go back to tables
Click the first blue button from the left – (load next page in series), wait until the page is loaded (animated circles should have stopped)
Again make sure that the cursor is positioned after the w in view
Right click on selection
................ and so on until you have all the data.
Go to scraped, now Export in your preferred format.
Note that there is no need to use any Catch button in this process.

I’m sure this process could be further enhanced by using Outwit's Macro’s, but I haven’t got that far in my learning curve just yet.

My original blog post on using Outwit Hub can be found here.

Note of Caution - Always check a service providers Terms and Conditions before extracting data.

Timmins One Name Study

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:26:00 +0000

Today I launched a new Blog to support the One Name Study (ONS) of my TIMMINS surname.
This is just a short post inviting friends and followers to click the link and see the new blog and perhaps follow me in yet another Ancestral journey! Timmins - A One Name Study

Ancestral Wormhole will still be the main outlet for my Family History blogging but anything related to the TIMMINS ONS will be over in the new blog.

Happy New Year

Guild Of One Name Studies - Member #5946

News From The Wormhole - Dec 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 22:38:00 +0000

The latest news and tips from the world of genealogy and family history; and perhaps some local history. A round-up of bits and pieces of news, together with some book recommendations, local history and TV. If you missed last months edition then catch up here - News Nov 2011

FHS Cheshire Toolbar

Check out the free toolbar at the Family History Society of Cheshire web site, it works with Firefox, IE, Safari and Chrome. All the links are here for exploring Cheshire and the surrounding counties, plus lots of useful UK sites and all the commercial sites. All the links you need in one place!

Outwit Hub (Firefox add-on)

If you have been following my exploits searching for the origins of the TIMMINS surname, you will have noticed I found a web extraction tool called Outwit Hub. Since the last post I have been reading the tutorials, they have proved really useful, enabling me to refine the way I extract data from genealogy web pages. You often find hidden data that can be really useful. You can try it for free from the Outwit Hub page.

British Newspaper Archive

There has already been lots of reviews on this new resource already. However the blog post by Kirsty Wilkinson, at the Professional Descendant, is an excellent first hand experience view by a professional genealogist and worth a read.

LostCousins

One of my favourite newsletters is just out - LostCousins. The author Peter Calver has been busy using the Freedom of Information Act, getting to the bottom of the GRO fiasco on the losses made by increasing the cost of BMD certificates.

Getting your ancestors into the LostCousins database is really easy and it's confidential, I currently have for England & Wales: 1881 - 54 entries; 1841 - 48 entries; and 1911 - 39 entries. You are not restricted just to the UK as Ireland, Canada and the United States Census' are also supported.

Genealogy Search Sites

Dedicated search engines for genealogy research can be very useful tools filtering out adverts and unnecessary hits. Here are two search sites that I use on a regular basis: first is the Google based search by Randy Majors - AncestorSearch using Google Custom Search Randy says:

This tool helps you build a better Google search for finding web pages mentioning your ancestors. It returns a more focused set of search results by using advanced Google search techniques including exact phrases, forward and reverse name order, alternate name spellings, logical operators, and so on. Nothing magical, just a big time-saver!

The second is Mocavo - Today they announced a premium PLUS version with an annual subscription of $79.95 which seems rather expensive if you ask me!! I can't comment in depth though as I have not tried it. Dick Eastman has reviewed it in his latest EOG Newsletter. My interest stems from the announcement on 29th Nov when Mocavo introduced a dedicated UK version of the search tool - mocavo.co.uk. Initial results using the search were very encouraging, I would urge you to give it a try. The Mocavo blog said:

Today we’re thrilled to launch Mocavo.co.uk – a United Kingdom version of Mocavo that will search websites, blogs, records and content specifically from, or discussing, English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh decent. While Mocavo.com searches sites and blogs from around the world, and will continue to do so, Mocavo.co.uk will focus specifically on the United Kingdom, giving those who wish to narrow their search to that region the ability to do just that.

India

My wife has a far more interesting family history than I do! On her maternal side having links to the Indian sub-continent and on the paternal side to the Brock Fireworks dynasty. I have been assisting in the family research on both sides, but I find the Indian connection absorbing. I am always looking for interesting articles or new avenues for research in this area.

The Families in British India Society (FIBIS) has partnered with Brightsolid to digitise many of the India Office Records for the British Library. The India Office records will be available online to users of Brightsolid's findmypast.co.uk website. Included in the project are two million records of baptism, marriage and burials of European and Anglo-Indian persons in India. **I can't wait**

An interesting blog post that came to my attention recently was by Anu Anand Hall at Sacred Cows. Read about Anu tracing her Hindu ancestry with the aid of panda's, no not the animals!

Google+ Webinar

On 29th Nov I listened to a Dan Lynch Legacy Webinar - Take a Closer Look at Google+ If you are a genealogist and serious about Google+ you have to watch this. Understand why completing your G+ Profile is so important. Be quick though before this webinar becomes payable. --Listen here --

Book of the Month - December 2011
Reared in Chester Zoo by Janice Madden I go to Chester zoo regularly and never get bored. This book opened my eyes to the history of the site, reminding me of the times when I was a child watching the polar bears and riding on the elephant with the mahoot.

To the people of Cheshire the Mottershead family is synonymous with the world famous Chester Zoo - the pioneer of zoo's without bars. Reared in Chester Zoo traces the story of the development of Chester Zoo through the life of June Mottershead, younger daughter of George Mottershead, who conceived of and founded the Zoo in 1931. Through June's eyes and thoughts we understand how what most people at the time considered a crazy and intrusive idea, became a thriving reality.

Previous Books of the Month
November 2011 -The Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers by Cecil R. Humphery-Smith This is an expensive book to buy, but once you have used it in a record office or local library you realise its worth to the british genealogist. It is my book of the month for its invaluable help in understanding the parish boundaries during recent research into my family surname TIMMINS in the Dudley area of Worcestershire.

Genealogy Software

I noted over the past weeks a couple of software upgrades. First is Louis Kessler's Behold Genealogy program which has moved from Beta into Full Release. You can try the program free for 45 days. Louis is a genealogist who was unhappy with the commercial programs available, as they failed to provide data in the format he wanted, so he wrote his own! I like the program using it as one of my secondary databases, however I guess it's different approach will not suit everyone.

Next is RootsMagic which has moved on to Version 5. I particularly like RootsMagic for its web building capability and the New FamilySearch support. Again you can try the program before you buy, I would suggest this with all genealogy programs, pity there weren't more choices when I started my research! Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings has been putting the software through rigorous testing, so if you are interested stop over at his blog.

Family Tree Maker 2012

I mentioned this last months news, but the good news is that Amazon have now dropped the price to £29.99 - If you are looking for a Xmas present then the Platinum Edition is excellent value for money as it comes with 6 months PREMIUM membership to ancestry.co.uk which would normally cost £77. Family Tree Maker 2012 Platinum Edition (PC)

TIMMINS ONS

Probably my most exciting peice of news this month is that I have registered my TIMMINS surname with the Guild of One Name Studies. I had been pondering this for some time but was gently coaxed into doing something about it by Carole Davies of STEERS ONS and Slowly Being driven mad by the Ancestors. Thanks Carole!

FamilySearch for TIMMINS in 1881 using Outwit Hub

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:40:00 +0000

In my last post on the TIMMINS surname I was left with an action to check if I could glean more information on birth locations from the FamilySearch web site, namely the 1881 census of England and Wales. There are two possibilities for FamilySearch, either I use the old site which displays 200 entries at a time and gives a total hit of 2331 entries of the surname, or I use the new site which gives 2337 hits but only displays 20 entries at a time!

I decided to use the old site as it prevented RSI by requiring fewer mouse actions. The following two images show the data as presented firstly by FamilySearch into the Outwit Hub add-on for Firefox (this is prior to using the extraction options); and, secondly the extracted data, exported in Excel format, then manipulated in an Excel spreadsheet.

The search was TIMMINS with exact match ticked.

Final Excel spreadsheet after a lot of data manipulation

For a better view, if you click on the images they should open in a larger window

One thing you will immediately notice is that Outwit Hub has extracted data that is not visible on screen! Cool! Before I move on to analyse the results let's just see how I extracted the data. The following screen image is OH (Outwit Hub) before the export.

In OH I have moved to Tables under the Data option in the left hand panel. I have filtered by Select Row if Col3 Contains timmins. I have unticked the Clean Text option as we want all the data. On Page Load I have selected Catch Selection and unticked Empty. Columns 2 and 3 contain all the data that is in the final Excel spreadsheet. Next move back to the web page by selecting Page in the left hand panel. Go to the bottom of each page and select Next until you reach the bottom of the data, 2331 in this case. OH will catch all the data. Go back to the Tables page and select Export Excel in the On Page Load panel at the far right. You can load the exported file into Excel and manipulate it as you see fit.

I won't go into the ways to manipulate the data as it could easily fill another lengthy blog post, and there are hundreds of different ways to do it!. Ideally though you want to get the data in each cell into comma separated format, once you have this copy all the data into Notepad and save as a text file, then open the text file in Excel with the delimited option selected. If you are an Excel guru then there are much more sophisticated ways to extract what you want using Functions and Visual Basic.

Before you start catching data it is a good idea to play around with Outwit Hub to see if more data is available by selecting the other options in the left hand panel. Look at the source option and check through the page using find input field, just type in what you are looking for e.g. Timmins - this shows no results. I tried this on a FMP page and there was additional information that did not show on screen.

Outwit Hub - If it want to try this program there is a free light version.

OutWit Hub breaks down Web pages into their different constituents. Navigating from page to page automatically, it extracts information elements and organizes them into usable collections.

OutWit Hub Light is free and fully operational, but doesn’t include the automation features and limits the extraction to one or few hundred rows, depending on the extractor.

There are lots of on-line tutorials by the makers and users, to get the most out of the program I would recommend you give them a go.

Now back to my TIMMINS surname investigations.

Having all the data in an Excel spreadsheet has enabled statistics heaven!! But it has also highlighted lots of errors in my original investigation using Find My Past, which goes to show that you can't beat working with the original secondary source material, but even the LDS transcript has its anomolies. For instance West Bromwich has been spelt 10 different ways? The transcribers have been true to the original text but this does not help when you want to filter in or out certain data.

I noted that non of the commercial sites I tried appeared to have suitable filtering available to enable the results I wanted!

The statistics overall, albight more accurate that my first pass on FMP, still tell the same story.

Dudley Parish still appears to be the most likely place of the surname origin

Here is my data relating to the parishes within the Poor Law Union boundaries. It is interesting to note that there were 83 entries without a precise birth place location; 74 of these at least gave a county or country; only 9 entries had no location whatsoever.

Birth Place	No	%
Dudley	269	11.97
Sedgley	157	6.98
West Bromwich	138	6.14
Tipton	113	5.03
Stourbridge	71	3.16
W Bromwich	59	2.62
Wednesbury	47	2.09
Oldbury	40	1.78
Halesowen	30	1.33
Kingswinford	29	1.29
Rowley Regis	26	1.16
Brierley Hill	17	0.76
Westbromwich	10	0.44
West Bromch	7	0.31
Brierly Hill	6	0.27
W.B.	6	0.27
Cradley	4	0.18
Oldswinford	3	0.13
W Brom	3	0.13
West Bromh	3	0.13
Lye	2	0.09
Amblecote	1	0.04
Dudley Port	1	0.04
Dudly Port	1	0.04
Quarry Bank	1	0.04
West Brom...	1	0.04
West Broml...	1	0.04
Westbromwichh	1	0.04

sub-total	1047	46.57
Total Birth Places Identified	2248
Total Surnames	2331
Blank Birth Place	83
(Blanks is where no precise birth place is given)


Blank Birth Place	No	%
Cheshire	4	0.18
Cornwall	2	0.09
Cumberland	2	0.09
Shropshire	4	0.18
Other England	3	0.13
Ireland	48	2.14
Scotland	7	0.31
United States	3	0.13
Malta	1	0.04
No birth location entered	9	0.40

Total	83	3.69

Poor Law Unions	No	%
Stourbridge	164	7.30
Dudley	567	25.22
West Bromwich	316	14.06

Conclusions & Observations so far:

- It is a shame that you can no longer download GEDCOM data from the old FamilySearch site.
- Why does the new FamilySearch not have a download facility?
- New FamilySearch needs to have 25, 50, 100, 200 items per page options (a bit like eBay).
- We need to keep the old FamilySearch 1881 Census live as it has many advantages; could they provide a new front end that enables more complex searches.
- Commercial genealogy web sites need a form of "fuzzy search" capability on some of the fields.
- Does anyone know if it is possible to buy the raw 1881 data set from LDS; one that will load into Excel or Access?
- Outwit Hub is great tool for data extraction on the web.
- TIMMINS surname origins to continue in the Dudley Parish.

Finally - If anyone wants a copy of my Excel spreadsheets, either the original data or the final cleaned and edited version, give my your email address and I will gladly send you a copy.

Surname Saturday - TIMMINS (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 19:04:00 +0000

This is a follow on post from What's That Name which started the exploration of my own surname TIMMINS. So far we have just considered the name as it is spelt now, ignoring the alternatives. For this post I intend to continue down this path to see where in the UK that the name is most populous. This area will be the most likely origin of the surname.

In the last post we determined that three Poor Law Unions in the West Midlands had the majority of the surname distribution, that is TIMMINS living in the district, not those born there. Out of the 2414 occurrences of the name 1580 (66%) are in the counties of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire; and of these 1136 (47%) lie in the Poor Law Unions of Dudley, West Bromwich and Stourbridge. The largest cluster of 569 (24%) being in Dudley.

To find the birth parishes we must first find the names of the locations that people would have given the Enumerators. I covered some of this in a recent blog post British Settlements and the Census.

Using the book The Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers by Cecil R. Humphery-Smith I drew a map showing the parishes that make up the Poor Law Union boundaries:

The definitive web page for understanding the parishes within registration districts in the UK and Ireland is on the GENUKI web site, so from here lets get the list of parishes and townships that go to make up the districts.

(For anyone researching from outside the UK, the GENUKI web site is a great place to start)

Using the Find My Past web site I entered the place names one by one in the "Birth place:" field, with TIMMINS in the "Last name:" field ("Include variants" un-ticked), all other fields blank.

Stourbridge Registration District or Poor Law Union is made up of the following places (parishes & townships) in 1881:

There are 188 TIMMINS' resident in the district and 164 born here.

Number in brackets after place is number born here.

Amblecote [1]
Brierley Hill [23]
Cakemore [0]
Cradley [4]
Halesowen [30]
Hasbury [0]
Hawne [0]
Hill [0]
Illey [0]
Kingswinford [29]
Lapal [0]
Lutley [0]
Lye [2]
Oldswinford [3]
Quarry Bank [1]
Ridgacre [0]
Stourbridge [71]
Upper Swinford [0]
Wollaston [0]
Wollescote [0]

Dudley Registration District or Poor Law Union is made of the following places (parishes & townships) in 1881:

There are 568 TIMMINS' resident in the district and 564 born here.

Number in brackets after place is number born here.

Dudley [268]
Dudley Castle Hill [0]
Rowley Regis [26]
Sedgley [157]
Tipton [113]

West Bromwich Registration District or Poor Law Union is made of the following places (parishes & townships) in 1881:

There are 379 TIMMINS' resident in the district with 226 born here.

Number in brackets after place is number born here.

Handsworth [0]
Oldbury [40]
Warley-Salop [0]
Warley-Wighorn [0]
Wednesbury [47]
West Bromwich [139]

So what can we determine from this exercise?

The parish of Dudley has by far the largest populous of the TIMMINS surname and is so far the best area to look deeper.
The next thing to do is to look into the parish records for the churches in the Dudley area. So come the New Year I need to see where this takes me.
In the mean time I will look at the old IGI web site to see if I can gleam any more detail from an LDS 1881 record search.

Tombstone Tuesday - Primary Source vs Online Database

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:38:00 +0000

A Grave from the HAYES of Chester in my Family Tree

I found this headstone early on in my family history research, it was a great find as it opened lots of other doors and enabled me to discover much more information about my HAYES line. The data which led me to the headstone was on a microfilm held by the now defunct Chester Record Office (now part of the Cheshire Record Office). I spent hours perusing these microfilm records extracting likely candidates for matches to my then small family tree. Now a days you can easily search the Overleigh Cemetry records on-line! The details of the 5!! people interned in this particular grave can be found HERE.

Old Cemetry No2, Overleigh Road, Chester. Grave Number : R8000

The MMI (Monumental Inscription) for this headstone indicates that there are in fact 6 people buried in this grave and NOT 5 as suggested by the on-line database.

ALWAYS check the Primary Source!

The sixth person details are on the reverse side of the headstone. ALWAYS check the back of a headstone.

There was also a small memorial stone hidden behind the main headstone, this gave some more valuable information on another HAYES ancestor.

The sixth person does in fact appear in the online database but is recorded as being interned in grave number 8000 (the R is missing).

Below is the information that I recorded from the original microfilm. As you can see there is information here that has not made it to the online data, that is, the name of purchaser and the date they purchased it.

ALWAYS check the Secondary source. You never know what goodies lurk in the old microfilmed resources.

Just to finish off this post here is the full MMI.

In Affectionate Rememberance of
Rebecca Hayes
Who died February 5 1892
Aged 74 years
And now Lord what is my hope
Truly my hope is thee

Also Elizabeth
The beloved wife of Walter Brown
Born March 14th 1861
Died April 29th 1896
Gone to be with Christ which is for better

Also Hannah the

[Paternal 2nd Great Grandmother]
Beloved wife of William Hayes
Who died July 18th 1904
Aged 77 years
Peace be with this place

Also Jane

[Paternal Great Grandmother]
Wife of Edward Hayes
Died Sept 27 1915 Aged 59 years

Also Edward

[Paternal Great Grandfather]
Husband of the above
Died Sept 7 1926 Aged 70 years

(on rear of headstone)
Also
William Hayes
Died January 23rd 1929
Aged 71 years

(Memorial behind headstone)
In memory
Of
Thomas
Son of
Edward & Jane Hayes
Who died of wounds
In the Great War
Aged 25 years
Buried in Boulogne

News from the Wormhole

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 14:46:00 +0000

The latest news and tips from the world of genealogy and family history; and perhaps some local history.

This is something new to the Ancestral Wormhole blog. A round-up of bits and pieces of news, together with some book recommendations, local history and TV. If this is a success I might do some more!

Horrible Handwriting

For the past three Wednesday afternoons I have been on a Horrible Handwriting course at the Cheshire Record Office. This is an excellent course on the introduction to Paleography; we are already deciphering old wills and parish registers. It is a 4 week course (four 2 hour sessions) and would recommend it to anyone who wants to start reading old documents. You can meet like minded people, have great help from the archivists, get plenty of handouts, plus refreshments; what more could you ask for. I am sure they will run another course in the not to distant future.

Cheshire Record Office Web Site

If you are new to the Cheshire Record Office web site here are a couple of tips that could save you some time. Firstly the big buttons at the top of the page don't work if you have the Firefox or Chrome browsers. However the text links underneath the buttons work fine. If you are looking for any of the searchable databases then click on the 'Search & Shop' link.

Cheshire Collection on FMP

Whilst we were on the handwriting course, the Cheshire Record Office announced that Find My Past had just published the Cheshire Collection. It is an amazing collection comprising 10 million records which span the period 1538-1910. A fantastic resource for anyone with Cheshire ancestors, it contains the following records:

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

To complete the Cheshire Collection they will soon be publishing Chester Wills and Probate records, and the Land Tax Records.

Find My Past

You can currently get a 10% reduction on the normal Find My Past subscription cost by using the WDYTYA811 discount code.

Find My Past - Ireland

For those of you using the findmypast.ie web site (Find My Past Ireland) - they have just launched a Family Tree Builder on the site. Some of the main features of the software include:

Add, edit, update and delete relations.
Add partners, parents and children.
Search your own tree or other member’s family trees.
Upload photos and link them to relations.
Other member’s trees and Historical records are automatically searched and displayed.
View your immediate family, ancestors, descendants or whole family tree

WDYTYA (USA) Series 2

Current plans are to show the USA Series 2 of Who Do You Think You Are in a regular slot over the coming weeks, with an episode featuring Ashley Judd set to be shown next Wednesday, 23 November. If you missed the first of the series featuring Steve Buscemi you can still catch it on the BBC iPlayer

Find My Past (The TV Programme)

Find My Past the TV show is an exciting new 10-part series which unites ordinary members of the public with their ancestors. Each week, they take three members of the public on a journey to discover how they are related to someone from a significant historical event, by searching the records on findmypast.co.uk. they follow each of them as they uncover who their ancestor is and the part they played in history, before uniting the participants to find out how they are connected.

The show is screened on Thursdays at 9pm on the Yesterday channel: Freeview channel 12, Sky 537, Virgin Media 203. Chris Hollins of BBC Breakfast, Watchdog and winner of Strictly Come Dancing 2009 presents the show. Unfortunately it is not on FreeSat so I have not seen any any of the episodes!! You can find out more about the shows here - Find My Past TV.

Heir Hunters - BBC2

The return of the Heir Hunters this time to a prime time slot on BBC2. This gives you an indication of the popularity the program has gained from genealogists, family historians, etc. during its morning slot. If you have never seen it before then watch it for its research methods, also its very moving story lines. Some people prefer it to WDYTYA, it gives you the research and human elements that the first series of WDYTYA had. If you haven't written a will yet, you will (pardon the pun) after seeing this program.

Tracing Your Roots - BBC Radio 4

Now that the latest series of WDYTYA has ended and you are pining for something genealogy, then download and listen to some of the podcasts of Tracing your Roots. Again a under-rated radio programme with some fantastic content. It is presented by Sally Magnusson and Nick Barratt of WDYTYA fame. It has inspirational family history stories and key genealogy advice, they uncover personal perspectives on social history and give listeners the tools to become family history detectives.

Book of the Month

The Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers by Cecil R. Humphery-Smith

This is an expensive book to buy, but once you have used it in a record office or local library you realise its worth to the british genealogist. It is my book of the month for its invaluable help in understanding the parish boundaries during recent research into my family surname TIMMINS in the Dudley area of Worcestershire.

My Current Book Reading List

Being a Cestrian, well nearly! Apparently you need to be born inside the Chester City Walls, I was born just outside in the City Hospital. Anyway, I am an avid collector and reader of all things to do with Chester and the surrounding area. Chester has an incredible history dating from the Roman times, so in addition to genealogy expect a few books here to do with Chester and its history.

125 Years on the Borderline by Chas Sumner - A book about the history of Chester City Football Club from 1885 to March 10th 2010 when it was wound up in the High Court. An impressive book full of facts, information, photographs and statistics. For me it brings back lots of memories of the early 1960's when my father first started taking me to the football games at Sealand Road - Happy days! Chas Sumner is the official Chester Football Club historian, he writes articles for the local newspaper and the club program, and he often provides radio commentary on the games.

Tracing Your Family History on the Internet by Chris Paton - This is a book that I thought I didn't need! After reading it I realised I did need it after all. It is one of those reference books that points you towards research sources. When you are researching a new area of the country or a new subject this is the book to get you started. It will be a useful book for those just starting out on their genealogy voyage or if you are already experienced. A great addition to my genealogy bookshelf.

Family Tree Maker 2012

Family Tree Maker software has been around for many years, I started using it back in 1997 and it is my main database. It tends to be re-invented every 12 months with a high upgrade cost; whether the improvements year on year are worth it is debatable. I dabble with other family tree software but always come back to it as I know how it works, I don't want to learn another programme and I don't trust GEDCOM to transfer my data to other tree software. If you are looking for a Xmas present then the Platinum Edition it is excellent value for money as it comes with 6 months PREMIUM membership to ancestry.co.uk which would normally cost £77. Family Tree Maker 2012 Platinum Edition (PC)

If you want to know more about FTM2012 then checkout the blog Genea-Musings.
Randy Seaver is the prolific writer of this blog, he has written a series describing his experiences of using this latest version of FTM. You will find his descriptions and comments - imparcial, comprehensive and understandable.

That's all for now folks, I hope you enjoyed reading News from the Wormhole as much as I enjoyed writing it

Remembrance Day - 11/11/11

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:18:00 +0000

For The Fallen by Robert Laurence Binyon

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

My Grandfather John Henry WILLIAMS (1875-1925) survived the Great War (WW1), but what he saw and what damage it did to him I will never know!

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." - Winston Churchill

British Settlements and the Census

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 19:18:00 +0000

In my last blog post I mentioned searching the Find My Past 1881 census for TIMMINS in the Dudley area. Having done some further research since then I have noted that different results will be produced depending on how you complete the advanced search form. This can cause confusion if you don't understand the terminology used by the census forms themselves, or how the people of this era defined their habitat/place of birth, etc. There are many online resources that define the terminology, however I will attempt to simplify (perhaps over simplify) how our ancestors would have understood their surroundings.

Click on any image to enlarge it in a new window

Here we have the advanced search form. You immediately notice that there are numerous search fields many of which are blanked out, this is because the transcriptions were not completed for all the entries that the enumerators schedule had available. When you look at the original schedules you will understand why! The enumerators either ignored these fields or got the information wrong. The fields to concentrate on for surname research are: Birth Place, Registration District and Civil Parish. The use of wild cards in these fields can often be very useful!

Firstly you need to understand that the census' were geographically based on the Poor Law Unions which were created in 1834. It is these areas that were used for the publication of statistics. See the surname distribution maps in my previous blog - Whats That Name - Timmins Surname (Part 1)

Poor Law Unions - these were created by the Poor Law Act of 1834, they were responsible for providing relief to the poor in England and Wales. Unions were normally centred on a market town; their boundaries ignored historic counties and parishes. They could contain several parishes and townships.

Parish - An area served by a local church; they often derived their place name from the local Manor.

Manor - Its history can be traced to rural economy of the later Roman Empire. The Manor name often provided the name for the parish and covered the same area.

Ecclesiastical Parish - In essence the same as a Parish. A area covered by local church or churches, it could contain a number of Civil Parishes.

Civil Parish - An administrative parish; the lowest form of local government; the responsibility of the Parish Council; an area where rates could be levied. Often derives its name from the local township.

Township - A sub-division of a parish; a parish would often have have several townships each with its own church.

Registration Districts - In 1837 the Poor Law Unions became responsible for the registration of births, marriages and deaths. Registration Districts had the Poor Law Union boundaries. They remained in use for the census from 1851 to 1911.

Counties - Civic Counties were simply the old ancient counties into which England and Wales had long been divided.

Place of Birth - A township or parish is usually given as a place of birth by the respondent in the census returns. Sometimes they give the name of the parish church where they were baptised, e.g. St John.

Above we have a typical enumerators return. We can compare this to the transcription below, also to information we have gleaned from the GENUKI web site.

Due to the idiosyncrasies of the British system it is always wise to check on the GENUKI site before starting any searches as you may find something surprising. Take Dudley in the county of Worcestershire for instance; at the time of the 1881 census its boundaries were entirely inside Staffordshire!

You will notice that using the wildcard search Dudley* in the Civil Parish field was used to provided the data that I required. The transcription had recorded it as "Dudley (Worcs)". Lower down the page Rowley has been entered for place of birth, the parish is actually Rowley Regis, you will get different results if you enter either of these in the birth search field, but you will get a more accurate result entering Rowley*.

The Birth Place I used in the search was Tipton, a Parish within the Dudley Poor Law Union boundaries. Tipton however is in Staffordshire! So the moral of this story is be aware of searching just on Counties or incomplete parish names, you could be missing a lot of valuable research data.

Unfortunately, not recorded or searchable is the fact that this census information was collected in the Parish of St Lukes.

Guide to other terminology that genealogists researching within the UK may come across:

Hundred - At the time of the Norman Conquest Counties were already sub-divided into Hundreds for administrative purposes.

Chapelry - A small church, a sub-division of a parish (often in a place of difficult access).

Tything - will often be referred to in old records, they were a sub-division of an ecclesiastical parish. It was a basis for some taxation prior to the nineteenth century.

Borough - have from pre-Norman times been towns and cities which have received a charter granting them certain privileges.

Hamlet - Smaller than a village, usually less than 100^[1] inhabitants.

Village - Larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town, usually less than 1,500 inhabitants.

Town - Larger than a village, mostly smaller than a city, usually less than 5,000 inhabitants.

City - Usually larger than a town, but not always. Has a Cathedral. City status in the UK is granted by the British Monarch.

^[1] Inhabitant numbers based on mid 19th century populations.

Modern day population by settlement taken from Wikipedia:

"Metropolis – a large city and its suburbs consisting of multiple cities and towns. The population is usually one to three million.

Large city – a city with a large population and many services. The population is <1 million people but over 300,000 people.

City – a city would have abundant services, but not as many as a large city. The population of a city is over 100,000 people up to 300,000.

Large town – a large town has a population of 20,000 to 100,000.

Town – a town has a population of 1,000 to 20,000.

Village – a village generally does not have many services, possibly only a small corner shop or post office. A village has a population of 100 to 1,000.

Hamlet – a hamlet has a tiny population (<100) and very few (if any) services, and few buildings."

I hope the information above helps you when searching the census'. It has certainly made me think twice. I'm happy to take any comments and corrections on the article. Hopefully I have not infringed anyone's copy-write.

What's That Name - Timmins Surname (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 14:59:00 +0000

For Surname Saturday I thought it was time to start investigating my surname. I originally thought it would be easy to research my TIMMINS name - but how wrong can you be?

Firstly there are a large number of books and on-line articles speculating on the origin of the TIMMINS surname and the location it evolved from. Not surprisingly they don't all agree! There are also the variant spellings of TIMMONS and TIMMS (and others). I think we will put this to one side for now, I can follow this up in a later blog.

Let us try to look at some concrete information on where the surname may have come from, the 1881 census of England and Wales looks like a good place to start - or is it? Doing an exact name search on FindMyPast produced 2,335 matches. The same search on Ancestry gave 2,391 whilst on FamilySearch I got 2,337 matches. I chose the 1881 census as I presumed that all the transcriptions would be identical as the data used has been provided by the fabulous guys at the LDS.

Ancestry actually gave a little more information as it also looks at the Scottish census - this added a further 62 Timmins' to the mix (Ancestry total 2453).

You would think that computer databases these days could come up with precisely the same answer to a simple query. Perhaps someone out there in blogger land can explain the differences.

To find the origin of a surname you really have to understand where a person was born rather than where they lived when the census was taken. Another factor is that you need to look at the older people in the census as this this will give a view of what was happening to the population prior to the mass migration caused by the Industrial Revolution. This is now starting to look too complicated a search for the likes of the usual suspects i.e. FindMyPast, Ancestry and FamilySearch.

So come to the rescue rootsmap.com . This is an on-line paid for service that provides a map and data matching the criteria I mentioned above. So here we have it, with the added bonus of Scotland.

An advantage of the rootsmap.com web site is that it can also determine if there are any surname matches in Ireland; it uses the Griffith's Valuation 1847 -1864 to achieve the results. Unfortunately my TIMMINS surname is not currently in their database.

I have other options to find out any Ireland/Eire Timmins':

FamilySearch - for Timmins born in Ireland between 1788 and 1860 there are 1031 matches.

Ancestry - for Timmins in the Griffiths Valuation gives 218 matches.

Ask About Ireland - the raw data for Timmins in Griffiths Valuation gives 263 matches; this search also includes the Landlord which skews the result, also it does not take into account one person renting more than one piece of land.

Irish Times - this gives a more precise figure of 121 matches, plus more valuable information on alternate names, also the households in each county and parish.

The Irish Times site is by far the best resource for searching any potential Irish surname connection.

So from the Irish Times:

The top 4 counties in Ireland for the Timmins surname are:

Carlow	37
Wicklow	21
Kildare	15
Cavan	10

Alternate surnames are:

Timmins	121
Timmons	67
Timmon	11
Timmin	4
Timmonds	1

Other alternative name given are:

Timins, Timmans, Tymanns, Ó Tiomáin (Wicklow), Mac Toimín (Mayo).

Leaving Ireland behind for a while I need to look at the more dense population of Timmins in the West Midlands (Staffordshire and Worcestershire) to see if I can narrow down the parishes they frequented.

I just happened to glance up at my CD genealogy collection and spotted a programme that I had forgotten about - Surname Atlas by Archer Software - I purchased it back in 2003, this is exactly what I need. "The British 19th Century Surname Atlas is a fully interactive CD-Rom product that allows you to plot floodfill-style distribution maps for all of the surnames and forenames found in the 1881 census of England, Scotland and Wales."

So I run the software and get 2,414 matches, not quite as many matches as Ancestry? But here we have the Counties that I am interested in together with the data.

Next I want to display the results by Parish, it can't achieve this but it can provide the Poor Law Union breakdown.

"Poor Law Unions were set up in England & Wales following the passing of the Poor Law amendment Act in 1834. The same areas were also used for civil registration and the collection of the 19th century census. They generally contain between 5 and 20 (civil) parishes. The system was less well developed in Scotland and the program only supports mapping by poor law union for England & Wales"

The density of Timmins' in the Dudley Poor Law Union would appear to indicate that the surname could have established itself here at an early stage. More investigation into this will follow in further blogs.

Just as I thought that I had finished another thought popped into my head "Google British Surnames". Yet more information.................. rather than copy and paste it here I will let you click on the links and explore my surname further at these web sites. In fact why not explore your own!

gbnames - the Great Britain Family Names Profiling website which presents the findings of a project based at University College London (UCL) that is investigating the distribution of surnames in Great Britain, both current and historic.

britishsurnames - The British Surnames website. Here, you can find information on similar surnames, most common surnames, surname meanings and etymologies as well as discussing your name in the forum. As the name suggests, this site primarily lists surnames commonly found in Britain, but many of these are found in other parts of the world as well - so even if you're not British, your name could well be in here!

americansurnames - See how the name has spread.

canadasurnames - There is also a town named Timmins in Ontario Canada - the following is courtesy of wikitravel, also see wikipedia

Timmins is a city in Northern Ontario with a population of nearly 43,000 (2006 census). The City stretches over approximately 2,961.52 km2 (1,840.20 sq mi) of land, making Timmins one of the largest cities in Canada land wise. Timmins was founded January 1, 1912 and is named after Noah Timmins, founder of the Hollinger Gold Mine. The gold rush of 1909 earned Timmins the nickname of the “City with the Heart of Gold”. The city is located in one of the richest mineral producing areas in the Western Hemisphere. It is a leader in the production of gold and base metals. Main attractions are mining tours, outdoor recreation and the Shania Twain Centre.

Click on the images above to see them in more detail. Thanks for taking the time to read this, I hope you found it interesting. Please leave comments below, or you can email me direct.

Wordless Wednesday - Girls With Hats

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:25:00 +0000

It is not that easy to be wordless, especially when posting old family photographs! This photo is from the early 1940's, it is the "Williams Girls" outside what looks like Hoole All Saints Church, I don't know what the occasion is but most likely a family wedding.

If you have been following my blog you will know that my mother Hilda came from a large family, eleven in total, eight girls and three boys. This is the only photo I know of that shows just the girls.

Gertie (born 1900) was the second child but the eldest daughter, Lorna (born 1924) was the youngest in the family.

One of things I like to do is list the married names of my female family members, this helps any cousins to find me if they Google their parents/grandparents names. So in no particular order the Williams Girls married names are - Timmins, McDonald, Monkman, Griffiths, Cowmeadow, Jones, Wilcock, Hales.

At Home!

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Well here I am again, sitting at home wondering what to do now that the holiday season is over and the weather is deteriorating! I have neglected my blog and family history research for a number of months as outdoor activities beckoned, so I think it is now time to ease myself back into genealogy mode with a nice easy post on my blog.

I have further reason to be inactive right now as I injured my knee whilst on holiday in Brittany (France). My daughter got married in early July, as you can imagine the weeks leading up to this were quite hectic so a couple of days later we took our touring caravan to Brittany for a long 4 week break. On the second day at the first camp site we decided to put up the awning on the outside of the caravan As I was squatting down to hammer in one of the pegs something happened inside my knee, a sharp pain and 2 days of swollen knee followed. We completed the holiday without too much of a problem, but I now realise I should have taken more care following the incident! My knee never recovered and deteriorated further. Following a consultation with a specialist last week I find that I have a Meniscal Cartilage Tear which now needs surgery.

I find that one of the great things about being away from home and all its diversions is the ability to relax and read some of the books that have been gathering dust in the bookcase. From a genealogists viewpoint one book I read stands out from all the others, in fact until I started to read it I never gave any thought to its relevance to family history. The book I am referring to is At Home by Bill Bryson. It is also available for the Kindle.

Bill Bryson seems to have the ability to grab your attention and draw you in to his books right from the start. Perhaps its a 'man thing' but I love the obscure facts that he keeps coming up with, I want to keep reading on and on to see what's next. The introduction starts with a cracker about Norfolk churches and why they all appear to have sunk into the ground, the fact is that they haven't, it is the churchyard's that have risen, 3 feet or more in some cases. I won't tell you why as it would spoil the start of the book. The book is a fascinating journey back to 1851 with hundreds of facts that will keep a family historian glued to the book. The research that went into this book is amazing, there are 33 pages of Bibliography, there is also a comprehensive 28 page index. In my opinion a thoroughly good read, highly recommended.

Book of the Month - An idea for a new widget

Thought - If I had injured my knee back in 1851 then I would have been a cripple for the rest of my life, thank goodness for modern medicine and surgery.

Fathers Day - Bill Timmins (1916 - 1986)

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:57:00 +0000

Today on Fathers Day I am remembering my father William George TIMMINS who was born 20th May 1916 in Chester. He died in 1986 and memories of him are slowly fading. There is a photograph however that rekindles memories; it is one that mum always had around the house until she passed away in 2008. This was of my dad aged about 27, he was in the Royal Navy; it was taken during the second world war when he was stationed in Gibraltar (c1943).

WGT - Gibraltar (c1943)

Bill TIMMINS

CPO Writer RN

1940 -1946

From his WW2 service record,
also a dictionary he used during the war,

these were his postings:

    HMS Royal Arthur
   HMS Glendower
   HMS Drake
    MS Sobieski (Polish)
   HMS Cormerant - Gibraltar
   HMS Ariguani - Gibraltar
   HMS Highlander
   HMS Owl

----- Happy Fathers Day Dad -----

Sentimental Sunday – A Day at the Seaside

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 17:36:00 +0000

Here I am sitting in the house on this miserable Sunday in June watching the rain bouncing off the patio floor outside, it is 16°c and I have two layers of clothes on. I haven’t been very active on the blogging front lately as I have been taking advantage of the dry weather to paint the outside of the house – that all stopped today though!

Feeling a bit sentimental today so have been looking at a Picasa slideshow of some old photo’s. I decided to do a quick blog after seeing a photo of my paternal grandparents enjoying a day at the seaside.

My paternal grandparents:
Bill and Annie TIMMINS

William TIMMINS (1889-1971)

Annie HAYES (1887-1958)

Date: estimated late 1920’s

Location: probably North Wales

I have a number of photo’s with Bill and Annie in several seaside locations, always with trousers rolled up and dress hitched up, paddling in the sea – no bathing costumes. Note that Bill was also wearing a shirt & tie, a waistcoat and long jacket, with handkerchief in top pocket and pocket watch. At least it wasn’t raining!

Judging by the pier in the background the location would appear to be the North Wales coast somewhere between Rhyl and Llandudno.

Bill was an Engine Driver for the GWR (Great Western Railway) and would have been allowed travel concession passes, so they probably travelled by rail. Annie was in service as a Cook for the Aldred family at Littleton Old Hall, Christleton, Chester. This was likely to be a Sunday when they were both not working.

Changing the Style of Blogger Static Pages

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Sun, 29 May 2011 18:24:00 +0000

The Blogger static page feature is a useful way of displaying important information that never changes, or data that changes less frequently. The problem with static pages is that they don't look like a web pages, they look just like the standard post pages.

Wouldn't it be great if you could use the full width of your Blogger template to display your family tree information in, well you can thanks to this tip from Greenlava at Blogger Sentral. Check out my AncestorTree Page from the horizontal menu bar to see this tip in action.

So here is what you need to do:-

First you need to paste the style code below into your static page html code.
Go to Postings > Edit Pages and select the page you want to apply this to. Switch to HTML mode; then insert this code above your static page content.

<style>
.blog-pager, .footer, .post-footer, .feed-links, .sidebar { display:none !important;}
.main-inner .columns {width: 100%;padding-left:0 !important;padding-right:0 !important;}
</style>

You will see that I have managed to get my family tree images to stretch the width of the blogger template. This also takes a bit of tweaking.

So next:-

Import your image; then select the image, now change the size to Original Size and choose Left for the justification. Now switch to HTML mode, and add width="100%" just before the end of the img code (see example below)

<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H2UnrjL9rmQ/TeJsrT782aI/AAAAAAAACcM/Ix18B0p67z0/s1600/Tree-MB.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H2UnrjL9rmQ/TeJsrT782aI/AAAAAAAACcM/Ix18B0p67z0/s1600/Tree-MB.png" width="100%" /></a></div>

Gaining this extra space and making your page look more like a standard web page improves the look and gives added benefits. To see the full tip with other applications go to this post at Blogger Sentral - Apply different layout/styling to static pages

Wordless Wednesday - Williams Family 1907

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Wed, 25 May 2011 22:52:00 +0000

I love Wordless Wednesday's as I get a chance to talk about a photograph!

This photograph was taken about 1907/8. It shows my maternal grandmother Martha WILLIAMS (formerly BENYON) standing outside her house with her first five children.

Martha (age about 32) is holding Doris who was born in 1907, Doris looks to be about 6-9 months old so I suppose the photo could be 1908. They are standing in the doorway of their house at 70 Westminster Road, Hoole, Chester. The house is still there today, in those days it was a two up two down end of terrace house with an outside toilet at the bottom of the yard. The facilities would be very rudimentary with cold running water and a coal fire for heating the rooms and water, the lighting would most likely be by gas.

Also in this photograph are:

John (aka Jack) born 1898

Gertrude Mary (aka Gertie) born 1900

May Alexandra born 1901

Robert Henry (aka Harry) born 1904

It is amazing how such a small house could support so many people, and there were still another six children to come!

Another LostCousins Newsletter Just Out

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Sun, 22 May 2011 20:09:00 +0000

I know I keep harping on about Peter Calvers LostCousins Newsletter's and how informative they are, but they just keep getting better. Here is an overview of what's in his latest newsletter, with my comments underneath:

The most comprehensive death indexes

A reason why you should use the search all feature in the Findmypast death index's

Masterclass: Extending your tree beyond 1911

How to find the descendants of your ancestors in the 1911 census. This is brilliant I shall be starting as soon as I have finished writing this post!

Researching children in family history

A short course at the SOG

Nick is the new president!

Nick Barratt, he original researcher in WDYTYA is the new president of the SOG. I still prefer the old structure of the show with Nick explaining at the end how he did it. Adrian Childs was also great at presenting the show.

How accurate was the 2011 Census?

I never realised that we were not asked for our birthplace in the recent census.

Canadian census disclosure option

Perhaps we in the UK should have been given this option.
I completed my census return on line and filled in the paper version (with additional info) which resides in my research papers.

The mystery of the missing will

Don't take no for an answer!

Low key launch for new Irish site

Great news for all the genealogist with ancestors in Ireland

Tracing 'Ag Labs'

I have loads of these so will be listening to this podcast with interest.

Hearth Tax returns online

Free transcriptions for the London/Middlesex area

Posting family trees on the Internet

Ah! the old conundrum - do I or don't I publish my family tree online. This is Peter's view on the subject.
I publish mine in several forms and on different sites depending who I want to share with. However if you don't publish how will your cousins ever find you?

The personal touch

Some interesting comments about the Ancestry site. This explains why their search facility is so utterly inferior to that of Findmypast.

Peter's Tips

A reason why to buy but not use Family Tree Maker!
A use for Marmite
The Nintendo 3DS Handheld Console

Have you tried

An unexpected record source

Read the newsletter to get some great information. Even better why not join LostCousins and find someone who shares your ancestors.

Tuesday's Tip - Blogger Backup - A Belt and Bracers Approach

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Tue, 17 May 2011 18:02:00 +0000

Following the problems with the Google Blogger service last week I started to think whether I could restore all my posts without too much effort. The answer was a deafening NO!

Since starting my Blog in February I have posted 14 items to my home page plus I have 4 static pages. Being new to blogging I have tried different ways of producing posts which has led to me using LiveWriter, Notepad, Word and Blogger itself. Apart from Blogger the only thing these editors have in common is the fact that I saved the work and images to my Blogger folder on Dropbox. This led me to the conclusion that it would have been damn difficult if not impossible to reconstruct my blog.

Weighing up all the options this is my take on protecting my work on Blogger.

First I set up a free account with Backupify So what is Backupify? The web site gives this description:

Backupify is the leading backup provider for cloud based data, offering an all-in-one archiving, search and restore service for the most popular online services including Google Apps, Facebook, Twitter and more.

This was a doddle to setup, within minutes I had Blogger, Facebook and Twitter all programmed to automatically backup. Now lets assume Backupify had not done its job?

I have a free account with Evernote which I must admit that I have only dabbled with on a few occasions when I wanted to save some Ancestry web pages, so I tested it saving a blog post. This was a success, so saved all my posts and static pages, it took about 10 minutes.

In addition to the web version of Evernote there is a desktop application which sychronises with the web version. I now have the desktop version on both my laptop and desktop PC's, so all my posts are available wherever and whenever I want them. I also put the working Evernote folder in Dropbox, thus giving a belt and bracers approach.

One thing I didn't realise was that Evernote desktop has a great little note application which is ideal for creating a blog post, it even allows you to insert tables! So this is how I will be creating my posts in the future.

I think the Blogger failure last week has done me a favour. I am now confident that I could restore my blog with not too much effort, also I have discovered Evernote.

Let me know how you are protecting your blog.

Entertaining the Ancestors

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Mon, 09 May 2011 16:30:00 +0000

This is going to be a Wordless Monday (of sorts). The post compliments a previous one - "When Father Papered the Parlour". May 9th is Mum's birthday, she would have been 93 today. As I said in the other post Mum loved to sing and entertain, so I expect she is now somewhere "Entertaining the Ancestors". These photo's are just a few of the ones I have of her entertaining.

Happy Birthday Mum. Hilda TIMMINS (formerley WILLIAMS) 1918 - 2008.

3rd from right - Chester Guildhall Choir c1938

2nd from left front row - WI concert c1966

Preparing for the Upton Heath WI concert c1966

Right - We Three Kings, in church at Christmas.
She attended Hamilton Street Methodist in Hoole, Chester.

Laughing - She was always smiling and laughing

Right - I remember sleeping in those bedsheets!

Left - With Flo her best mate and co-conspirator!

Front in white - Not bad for 83. Modelling with the Plas Newton WI.

This newspaper cutting is also one of many. I must get them all copied before they age.

Motivation Monday - New Domain Name

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Mon, 02 May 2011 23:40:00 +0000

After listening to a DearMyrtle Blog Tweaking Webinar a few weeks ago, it set me thinking about purchasing a domain name for my blogspot.

I was finally motivated to do it today after reading a post from the Blogger-Hat blog, with the simple title:

Using a domain purchased from another domain registrar or blogging-platform for your Blogger blog

So I am now the proud owner of the domain - www.ancestralwormhole.com, which was purchased via Google for the princely sum of $12 per year.

Following the notes I took at myrt's webinar plus the information from Blogger-Hat I was up and running in less than 30 minutes. In addition my blogspot url also still works, so no one has an excuse for missing any posts!!

There are many other tips on custom domains at Blogger-Hat, these are definitely worth checking out as they answer other questions that may crop up during the setup.

The only hiccup I had was in "disabling sites" at my new domain in Google Apps. You have to do this before you can link the blogspot url to the domain name. This was soon solved though by going through the excellent help available for Google Sites.

On another completely different subject, have you ever wondered how to open a web link in a new window hence keeping your viewer connected to your page, as I have done here. Check out Heather Kuhn Roelker Blog at Leaves for Trees to learn how.

LostCousins - Free Access for Easter

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 21:16:00 +0000

I have been using LostCousins for many years, it is a unique and great resource for discovering those cousins you didn't know existed! This Easter they are giving free access to link with cousins you find through the LostCousins web site. This is a resource that could be especially useful for genealogists in USA and Canada.

In the latest bi-weekly newsletter, which has become a must read, Peter Calver annouces free access.

Peter says:

"From now until Monday 2nd May it will be completely free to link with relatives you find through LostCousins! It's usual to have a free period at Easter, but with a Royal Wedding the following weekend I've decided to make this year extra special (even though my invitation to the wedding seems to have got lost in the post). Oh, and by the way, it's the 7th birthday of LostCousins on Sunday 1st May, so that's another reason to celebrate.

To take full advantage of this opportunity enter all the blood relatives you can find on the 1881 Census - no matter how distantly-related they may seem. Whilst it's important to enter your direct ancestors and their households (assuming they were recorded on the census), in practice it's the brothers, sisters, and cousins who had families of their own in 1881 who are most likely to link you to your living relatives - so make sure you enter them.

As a rule of thumb if you have 1000 relatives on your family tree, there should be between 150-200 entries from the 1881 Census on your My Ancestors page.

Of course, it's also a great time to invite the relatives you already know to join - remember that even 1st cousins only share half of your ancestors, so they can't rely on you to make all the connections. Do them a favour, and introduce them to LostCousins!"

As an added bonus, when you enter your census information into LostCousins it provides you with an excellent opportunity to check your census sources.

Happy 7th Birthday to LostCousins

Favourite Genealogy Form - Certificate & Census

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 17:59:00 +0000

Everyone has a favourite genealogy form that they use. Lots of genealogists love the Family Group Sheets, or the Census History Form, the Individual Worksheet or the Biographical Outline; the list goes on. There are lots of worksheets and forms that do a great job, I use many of them. However my favourite is one you will not find on any of the genealogy sites, I developed it myself following frustration with masses of paperwork.

As genealogist we "collect" anything and everything we can about our ancestors. I often just want a quick reference guide of where I am up to on my research, mainly at a direct ancestor level; say one of my 2 x gt grandfathers. The question's I ask myself are - do I have all the BMD certificates, parish records, and the Census forms for this ancestor. I need a reminder, short and sweet.

I became fed up with the constant shuffling of paper, searching through computer files, folders, etc. I wanted to know precisely what data I had and what was missing. Basically what should I be working on. Below is my Certificates and Census Worksheet, a quick reference guide to where I am up to with my direct line ancestors.

This worksheet tells me many things:
- Do I have a name for my ancestor
- When and where were they born or baptised
- When and where were they married (or not married)
- When and where did they die (burial or cremation)

Some annotations are:
- If it is in red then I have the certificate
- If there is a 'c' in front of the date, I have no poof it is a best guess
- If the date is in black without a 'c' then it has been seen in parish records
- A '?' after the place name means most likely
- There are date ranges e.g. 1841-51, this means it happened between census'
- A '+' after the date means the event happened later than this date

As you can see it is easy to annotate the base data with other relevant information.

If you want to try my form then you can download it from here - Certificate and Census Template

The Excel Workbook has 4 Worksheets (Tabs): Certificates, Census, All Data, and Relation Name Tester. Note that the ancestors Name only needs to be entered once on the Certificates sheet, it will ripple through to the other sheets. Don't enter any data on the All Data sheet.

Couples in the 18/19th century often used a naming convention for their children. The Relation Name Tester is a little App that I occasionally use to try and find the first names of a couples parents based on the names of their children. It sometimes works!

I hope you have found this post useful. You may have something similar in your array of forms/sheets, let me know what your favourite form is and why.

Surname Saturday : Timmins (WOR, STS, CHS); Hayes (CHS); Williams (FLN, CHS); Benyon (SAL, CHS)

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 19:15:00 +0000

I’m concentrating this post on the surnames of my grandparents. Timmins and Hayes are my paternal side, whilst Williams and Benyon are my maternal side.

My aim (wishfull thinking!) is to find all my living cousins that descend from these lines. So here goes with a list of my grandparents, their siblings and spouses; hoping that my cousins see this post at some time and get in contact.

Children of Albert TIMMINS and Hannah Jones:

Joseph Timmins (1883 – 1955); married 1907

Mary Jones (1884 – 1957)

Frances Timmins (1885 – 1942); married 1915

Frank Tibbetts ( – 1966)

Albert Charles Timmins (1887 – 1967); married 1910

Ethel Maud Simmonds (1889 – 1975)

William Timmins (1889 - 1971); married 1913

Annie Hayes (1887 – 1958)

My Timmins’ are mainly found in the Dudley and Wolverhampton area’s of the West Midlands (Worcestershire and Staffordshire). My grandfather moved to Chester (Cheshire) around 1911.

Children of Edward HAYES and Jane Smith:

George Edward Hayes (1879 – 1943); married 1905

Charlotte Fish (1883 – 1959)

William Hayes (1881 - ); married 1909

Edith Basnett (1883 – 1950)

James Hayes (1884 - )

Mary Jane Hayes (1886 - ); married 1907

John William Cobb ( - )

Annie Hayes (1887 – 1958); married 1913

William Timmins (1889 – 1971)

Joseph Hayes (1889 – 1950); married 1927

Ada Cox ( - )

Elizabeth Hayes (1890 – 1890)

Thomas Hayes (1892 – 1917)

Sarah Hayes (1894 - ); married 1920

Robert Hancock

John Hayes (1896 - ); married 1923

Alice Goodwin

My Hayes clan are all found in and around the Chester area (Cheshire) from the end of the 18^th century.

Children of William WILLIAMS and Mary Ann Thomas:

Emma Williams (1874 - )

John Henry Williams (1875 – 1925); married 1897

Martha Benyon (1876 – 1954)

Mary Jane Williams (1879 - ); married 1899

George Tattum (1879 - )

Isaac Williams (1880 - )

William Owen Williams (1883 - ); married 1918

Elizabeth Humphries (1886 - )

Margaret Ann Williams (1886 - ); married 1904

William Thomas Smith (1878 - )

Llewelyn Williams (1889 - ); married 1912

Ruth Ellen Morgan (1889 - )

Robert Thomas Williams (1891 - ); married 1909

Mary Elizabeth Parry (1890 - )

Alice Ann Williams (1894 - ); married 1915

James Thomas Henry Blythin (1888 - )

Sarah Elizabeth Williams (1897 - ); married 1919

Francis Thomas Hughes (1890 - )

My Williams’ are centred around the Holywell area of Flintshire. My grandfather moved his family to Chester (Cheshire) about 1900.

Children of Robert BENYON and Mary Fennah:

Thomas Benyon (1868 - 1936); married 1892

Alice Amelia Povey (1870 – 1952)

John Benyon (1870 - ); married 1892

Mary Jane Vickers ( - )

William Benyon (1874 - ); married

Martha Evans (1880 - )

Martha Benyon (1876 – 1954); married 1897

John Henry Williams (1875 – 1925)

Robert Henry Benyon (1879 – 1934); married 1903

Alice Underhill (1879 – 1937)

George Benyon (1882 – 1884)

Joseph Benyon (1884 – 1916); married 1905

Lorna Grace Harris

Sarah Ann Benyon (1886 – 1947); married 1921

Charles Bent

Mary Benyon (1890 - ); married 1919

Philip Woollam Baker (1892 - )

Florence Benyon (1893 – 1893)

My Benyon ancestors originally came from the Wem and Ruyton-IX-Towns area’s in Shropshire. My 2xgt grandfather moved his family to Chester via Birmingham in the middle of the 19^th century.

I wish that more descendents of my ancestors would use LostCousins it would save me all this Blogging!

Not So - Wordless Wednesday - John Henry Williams 1875 - 1925

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Timmins) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:45:00 +0000

My Maternal Grandfather
John Henry WILLIAMS (aka Jack)
Born Holywell North Wales 25 March 1875

My Grandfather (right) with his eldest son John (also called Jack)

Jack jnr was born 31 Jan 1898 in Leigh Lancashire

In 1900 the family moved to Hoole in Chester

These two photographs were taken during the First World War. They illustrate the effect that the war had on people. If you look at the first photo this shows a proud man in his new uniform ready to serve his country. The second shows a dejected, weary, thin man a couple of years later.

To date I have been unable to find the war records of either my grandfather or uncle, so I don't know what they did, or where they served? From their uniforms I surmise that they were in the Royal Artillery - Clarification and help welcomed.

Family remember that JH signed up for the army to keep an eye out for his 16 year old son who had run away to join up. JH would be about 40. They both 'survived' the war.

My grandfather died in 1925 - aged 50. On his death certificate it states he died from Tuberculosis. His wife and children doubted this, they thought he actually died from the results of coming into contact with mustard gas.

Following the war JH had joined the fire service in Sandycroft near Chester. During his service it is believed he "visited" the munitions factory where mustard gas bombs were being dismantled.