Discover Your Ancestors

Issue 081

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A very happy new year and a warm welcome to the January issue of Discover Your Ancestors Periodical, your monthly digital family and social history magazine.

This year is already shaping up to be busy and exciting for family historians, and here at Discover Your Ancestors we’re hectic at present, preparing for the South-West Family History Show in Bristol on 8 February (see www.thefamilyhistoryshow.com) as well as working hard on our next flagship print edition (more on that next time, but you can still get Issue 8 in WHSmith or directly from us online at discoveryourancestors.co.uk).

In the meantime, do enjoy this issue, which has the usual rich variety of interest and information.

Andrew Chapman, Editor.

Articles

The secret worshippers

It is not always easy to trace Roman Catholics before c.1750. Their names were not generally recorded in parish registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials, since they avoided the ministrations of the established church. They were persecuted by the government, and therefore kept a low profile. The prime source for tracing them are the records of governmental persecution.

More than just scrawls on walls

The word graffiti was originally a term which described man-made marks and scratches that adorn walls and rock faces. It includes ancient marks that are almost as old as the human race, through to spray paint in a modern day underpass. Thanks to the latter, graffiti has now acquired a negative reputation and become a byword for the wanton damaging of someone else’s property by daubing it with paint or gouging it with tools.

Tales of the Cartaret dynasty

While I was doing some research in the land records for Bedfordshire on TheGenealogist recently, I came across an estate on a tithe map whose owner’s name I recognised as having connections to the island of my birth, not to mention a much better known US east coast state.

The child-snatchers

Child kidnapping, for a ransom, is luckily a relatively unusual occurrence. However, there have been particular cases that have remained in the public consciousness, as a kind of horror story to scare others with long after they have taken place. The most notable historic cases of child kidnapping have been in America. In what is regarded as the first high-profile American kidnapping case that involved both a ransom and extensive press coverage, the victim was never found. Today, it remains a high-profile unsolved case.

Motherhood and madness in the Victoria era

The Victorian era was a period of time in which men and women operated in separate spheres, with men being involved in the outside world of work and politics, whereas women were confined to the duties and responsibility of the home – which included being a dutiful wife and mother. Indeed, the cult of domesticity was so strong that the middle-class nuclear family was seen as the bedrock of society so that anything which challenged or threatened it was seen as potentially dangerous to society itself. Therefore, most Victorian women and especially middle-class women, knew from an early age that their futures involved marriage and motherhood.

New war memorials and Map Explorer update

TheGenealogist has just released over 12,000 records from 138 war memorials. This means that there are now a total of over 580,000 individuals listed on war memorials that are fully searchable in TheGenealogist’s Military Records collection, with photographs centred on their inscription. These memorials can give researchers an insight into education, rank, regiment and occupation of an ancestor.

History in the details: Railway staff uniforms

The mid-19th century heralded the great era of civilian/occupational uniforms, including those worn by railway staff. Engine crews of early independently-run railway lines wore regular dress, but as scattered local lines developed into a larger network, some companies provided identifying livery-style clothing for their drivers and firemen. The first was the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway, which in 1841 introduced uniforms of dark green cloth with red edging for engine crews. By 1848 Great Western Railway drivers and firemen were wearing blue trousers, white shirts, black neck-cloths and peaked blue caps, with dark blue peaked caps from then on favoured for engine drivers. By the late 1800s the standard engine crew uniform was jacket, trousers and cap, with oilskins or warm pilot coats for cold weather; for summer a working man’s lightweight slop jacket.

Place in Focus - Monmouthshire

Monmouthshire is one of 13 historic counties of Wales and a former administrative county. It was formed from parts of the Welsh Marches by the Laws in Wales Act 1535. Between about the 5th and 10th centuries the Welsh Kingdom of Gwent covered a variable area roughly contiguous with Monmouthshire. At the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086 the Chepstow and Monmouth areas were, for accounting purposes, reckoned as parts of the English counties of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire respectively; the Normans built many stone castles in the region.

The home front, Woman on the front line and Scottish Ancestors are covered in this months books

A lifesaving gas mask. A ration book, essential for the supply of food. A shelter stove that kept a family warm while they huddled in their Anderson shelter. A leaflet dropped by the Luftwaffe that was designed to intimidate Britain’s populace during the threat of invasion. A civilian identity card over-stamped with the swastika eagle from the occupied Channel Islands… The ordinary objects featured in this book, whether those produced in their millions to the far from ordinary or unique, all portray and exude the highs and lows of the British people during six years of war. This is the perfect book for students, historians, collectors and general readers, enabling a clear understanding of one of Britain’s most important historical periods.

Additional Information

Other Formats

You can buy a printed version of the annual Discover Your Ancestors bookazine directly from the publishers, please see www.discoveryourancestors.co.uk and click on ‘Order print copies’ at the bottom.

Editorial Office

Discover Your Ancestors Publishing,

PO BOX 163,

Shaftesbury,

SP7 7BA

E: [email protected]

W: www.discoveryourancestors.co.uk

Discover Your Ancestors – The Family History Show

The Family History Show, York!

Saturday 22nd June 2024
10:00 –16:00 (GMT)

Put your research questions to an expert, watch a talk, speak to a local society, archive or genealogical supplier.

Free talks all day, held in a large lecture hall.
Free Experts on hand to help with your queries.
Many family history societies, archives and companies will be attending from all over the country.

Special Offer! Buy tickets for £8.00 (£12.00 on the day)

Buy your tickets early and get two for the price of one!

Find Out More Purchase Tickets

Future Events

Unable to make the next show? We also have shows planned for the following locations:

Discover Your Ancestors Periodical is published by Discover Your Ancestors Publishing, UK. All rights in the material belong to Discover Your Ancestors Publishing and may not be reproduced, whether in whole or in part, without their prior written consent. The publisher makes every effort to ensure the magazine's contents are correct. All articles are copyright© of Discover Your Ancestors Publishing and unauthorised reproduction is forbidden. Please refer to full Terms and Conditions at www.discoveryourancestors.co.uk. The editors and publishers of this publication give no warranties, guarantees or assurances and make no representations regarding any goods or services advertised.