Gretna Green Marriage Records Online

I've no reason to believe any of my ancestors married in Gretna Green, but in 2009 the Gretna Green marriage records were put online so you can search them.

Blacksmiths could preside
over marriages in Scotland.

Scottish laws are different to English laws and in 1753 England changed their law on marriage so that if you were under 21 you needed your parents' permission.  Scotland didn't change their laws, so boys aged 14 and girls aged 12 could be married there.  All that was needed was a tradesman and two witnesses - so many were married by the local blacksmith, for example.  David Lang and his son Simon, both blacksmiths, probably married more couples than anybody else and their records contain 10,478 marriages conducted between 1785 and 1895.  Of these, only 156 were local couples - the rest were elopers!  It is these 10,000+ records that have been put online.

Gretna Green was on the stagecoach route - it was the first stop in Scotland from England, so it became the place that young lovers would dash off to in order to marry if their parents didn't approve.

Elopement to Gretna Green and Scotland mostly occurred between 1753 and 1857.  In 1857 Scottish law changed so one of the people being married had to live in Scotland for three weeks.  Although there are several record sets, this largest and oldest set of records for Gretna Green were put online in 2009 by Ancestry.co.uk. If you do find any of your ancestors were married in Gretna Green, then you are probably hot on the chase of a family scandal!

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Bride Drowns on Day Before Wedding in Fen Ditton Ferry Tragedy

You'll find yourself being intrigued by many stories you stumble across - nothing to do with your family, but they intrigue you.  The online newspapers are the most common way to discover these old events.  One of my areas of research is Chesterton, Cambridge and, as it's alongside the river, drownings and bodies found in the river are a regular occurrence.

Grave of Violet Maude Handscomb.
Victim of ferry tragedy, 1905.

One such event occurred on Saturday 10 June 1905.  My great-grandparents were living in Chesterton in 1905, my grandmother had just been born in May 1905, so they will have known about this tragedy - they might even have been at the riverside when it occurred, although a mile or two downstream!  Below is a transcription, from PapersPast, although there are several reports of the tragedy available on FindMyPast:

DROWNED ON HER WEDDING EVE.

There was a melancholy ending to the May boat races at Cambridge. A ferry overturned and three lives were lost.
The accident happened at Ditton Plough, where the ferry consists of a flat-bottomed pontoon, which is drawn across the river by a chain. The last racing boat had passed, there was a rush to cross to the Chesterton side, and the ferry was filled. When nearing midstream the ferry turned over and sank, about twenty persons being thrown into deep water. Several young men pluckily dived in and rescued all they could see.
One young woman, who belongs to Bishop's Stortford*, and who was witnessing the races with her fiance was brought ashore exhausted and insensible. She was revived by means of artificial respiration, and was subsequently removed from the Plough Inn to a house in Fenn Ditton, but died at midnight.
In two other cases efforts to restore consciousness proved unsuccessful, the victims being Mrs. Thompson, of Malta Road, Cambridge,  who was only recently married, and Miss Murkin, of Selwyn Terrace, Newnham, who was to have been married the following day to Mr. Ebenezer George Reece, of Swansea, who was on the bank at the time of the accident.
There was a similar accident with this ferry about twenty years ago, but only one life was lost on that occasion.

You then find yourself finding out more about these people, abandoning your own family research to chase the interesting story you found!  It's good to have a break though.  I used the Camdex online BMD system and FreeBMD to try to find more details:

• FreeBMD has the death of a Minnie Murkin, aged 26, registered in the second quarter of 1905 at Chesterton. The Camdex reference for Minnie's death registration in 1905 was 331/FUL/29/351. 
• FreeBMD has the death of a Annie Maria Thompson, aged 20, registered in the second quarter of 1905 at Chesterton. The Camdex reference for Annie's death registration in 1905 was 331/FUL/29/352.  The GRO Index gives her age as 20. 

You'll notice the two deaths were registered one after the other as the entry numbers were 351 and 352. 

I then tried to find the marriage of Annie Maria Thompson.  My first port of call to look up Cambridgeshire marriages is the online Camdex system as this pairs up the married couple, so can be easier to use than FreeBMD.  This gave me one potential candidate:

• Annie M Sheehan who married John W Thompson in 1904. Camdex ref number 331/CE042/01/22, which was at Cambridge St Philip.  I've built up a list of Camdex codes for the parishes, over time, so that information is from my own research.  

Next I checked FreeBMD and that gave me the same result:

• John William Thompson married Annie Maria Sheehan in the 3rd quarter of 1904.

So between Camdex and FreeBMD it looks like this is the lady who drowned on the ferry in May 1905.

*The third victim of this ferry accident, whose name wasn't listed in the newspapers was Violet Maude Handscomb, aged 22.  Looking for records of Violet, I found the following on FreeBMD and Camdex:

• FreeBMD had the death registered as Violet M Handscomb, aged 22, registered in Chesterton district.  Camdex has the same information recorded, with a reference number of 331/FUL/29/350 - again, you'll see that the reference number of 350 shows that all three victims of the Plough Ferry disaster were registered at the same time.

Violet Handscomb was buried at Bishops Stortford New Cemetery, Hertfordshire, England.
Violet Maud Handscombe, 1883-1905.

Violet was the only daughter of Albert Handscombe, a builder of Church Street, Chelmsford. Violet was a dressmaker and was due to be married in November and was on a day trip to visit her fiance.  Albert Handscombe had already previously lost his only son in an accident.

John Thompson had been on board the ferry and had tried to rescue his wife, but failed to do so.

Minnie Murkin was a nurse - she was identified by her sister-in-law, Annie Murkin.

I find it fascinating researching the stories that got into the newspapers as they are events I know my ancestors will have been aware of and had conversations about with family, friends and neighbours!

The location of this tragedy is The Plough, at Fen Ditton - nowadays still a great riverside pub.  The ferry operated until 1961, when it finally sank.

Image (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Geograph

Cambridgeshire OPC

Across the country there are OPC groups and some years ago I looked to see if there was a Cambridgeshire OPC, but there isn't.

Online Parish Clerks, shortened to OPC, are groups of volunteers who transcribed the parish registers of their county.  They work as a county team, informed, local and interested people transcribing parish registers usually from the originals. Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Lancashire OPC groups seem the most vocal, of the counties I've had to check for records, with phenomenal coverage!

This surprised me at first!  I thought that the interested and educated people of Cambridgeshire would have willingly started an OPC group for Cambridgeshire, but it seems that they prefer to work alone :)  Some OPCs have their entire counties covered.  Almost every parish register transcribed, Censuses published and even local newspapers re-typed and published!

Cambridgeshire does have the Family History Society, of course - and the County Council have made Cambridgeshire BMDs available through their Camdex system, but you simply don't get the same level of commitment and coverage that an OPC might've given.  Perhaps its because people within the county see themselves as different groups and not as a whole.  There is a world of difference between the settlements in the north of the county and the city of Cambridge itself.  Maybe groups felt pulled in one way or another.

It's a shame, but when researching family history in Cambridgeshire, as in any county, you have to work with what you've got!  For beginners, though, it's a vast array of different groups that can be confusing if you're not from round that way.  Born locally, I have a mental map of the area and am familiar with all the place names - that makes it a little easier for me ... but without the records it can be fruitless.

My current best sources of information on Cambridgeshire family history would be:

• FreeREG and FreeBMD (not FreeCEN as there's very little transcribed for Cambs)
• Cambridgeshire Family History Transcribed CDs (a few ££ each)
• Familysearch.org website (free)
• Findmypast (££ or a free trial), who are putting parish registers from CFHS online

Having multiple sources does give you different results.  Transcriptions don't come from the same sources - and, working from the originals, there can be variations in spellings/understanding of what was written down.  Many parish registers are falling apart, faint, faded, scribbled in illegible script and even, sometimes, in Latin or other languages.

I am signed up as a transcriber with a couple of sites, but they don't (as yet) have the parishes I am keen to transcribe (or areas I feel familiar enough with to volunteer).

John Stokes, Upton, Huntingdonshire. 1801-1847

One of the things that can trip you up in genealogy is eagerly pouncing on a chap from the past and sticking them into your family tree!  Indeed, you need as much evidence as possible that somebody with a matching name is "your" ancestor and not simply a chap of the same name that moved into the village in the past 10-20 years, or was born into a related family in similar years.

Ancestors often have a limited number of names and parish records are incomplete, or missing.  Often you'll find yourself collecting lots of random finds and information over time, hoping that one day you'll have enough information to dismiss or confirm one.

In my tree is John Stokes.  I believe "my" John Stokes was born in Bourn, but he married a girl, Jane, who came from Upton.  To my knowledge he never lived in Upton, Hunts, but, it's interesting to note that the name John Stokes was very common in the area at the time.  Indeed, in just one newspaper I discovered two different John Stokes' in Upton, Huntingdonshire, in one edition.

One of the John Stokes had an industrial accident when he fell off a haycart and was found.  A second John Stokes committed suicide. They are not the same man as the suicide inquest was held on the Monday of the week and the second John Stokes had his accident (and lived) on the Tuesday.

The John Stokes who committed suicide was reported as being 46 years old in 1847, so he must have been born ~1801.  The same year "my" John Stokes was born.

John Stokes who died in 1847 aged 46 at his inquest, but when he was buried the parish register said he was 43, giving a birth date of ~1804.  The parish registers seem to have no John Stokes in that parish in that year, but there was one baptised in 1806 - of course, that could be the same John Stokes but baptised at age 1-2.

And this is why tracing your family history can take years!  To try to solve this mystery takes more effort and cost than looking at free resources online! The two pieces below were reported in the local newspapers, which can be viewed online through GenesReunited, Findmypast or on the NewspaperArchives sites:

Inquest of John Stokes, August 1847:  

Upton, Hunts. —An inquest was held on Monday last, by John Beedham, gent, coroner, on the body of Mr. John Stokes, aged 46, who was found on Sunday by Thomas Casledme between two bushes near Coppingford Wood, with his throat cut through  his neckerchief, dividing the caroted artery on the left jugular, the razor lying near his right hand, and having 7s. Id, in his pocket. From evidence, it was clear to the jury that he had destroyed himself.  

Verdict, temporary insanity.

As for the other John Stokes, who also isn't in my tree:

Accident.—On Tuesday last, as John Stokes labourer, was about to cut a hay rick belonging to Mr. Colson, butcher, situate near the road, he was seized with a giddiness  in the load, and fell helplessly to the ground. Being a stout, heavy man, fell with great force and received a severe injury in his back and loins, and now lies in a dangerous state in the Infirmary. His bay knife fell on him, and has slightly hurt his mouth, only fortunately falling with the edge uppermost. Considering his severe injuries, it is astonishing how was able to get home without assistance.

FreeREG Huntingdonshire: New Parish Register Transcriptions Added

I just checked the parish records for Huntingdonshire to see that eight parishes had updates on 19 July, which I've listed below.

I'm interested to check out a couple of those parishes, to see if the new records can fill any gaps I've got.

Parish	Church	Baptisms	Marriages	Burials
Alconbury Cum Weston PR & BTs BTs-some years missing	St Peter and St Paul	1559-1875	1604-1626,  1660-1750,  1755-1876	1604-1626,  1633-1842
Alwalton	St Andrew	1576-1672,  1697-1811,  1813-1877	1577-1681,  1698-1812	1577-1673,  1697-1812
Brington	All Saints	1658-1878	1837-1876	1813-1876
Diddington	St Lawrence	1689-1877	1699-1753,  1755-1836	1697-1879
Great Gransden	St Bartholomew	1538-1653,  1701-1876	1538-1653,  1701-1752,  1754-1837	1540-1653,  1753-1877
Huntingdon	All Saints	1558-1876	1559-1876	1558-1875
Stanground	St John the Baptist	1539-1557,  1660-1876	1538-1875	1538-1657,  1661-1862
Yaxley	St Peter	1653-1854	1653-1812	1653-1809,  1813-1875

Wouldn't it be magical if every parish was available immediately!  Unfortunately there are millions of records and FreeREG relies on the hard work of volunteers - and don't have unlimited access to the records themselves or it'd certainly be easier/quicker to achieve that.

Of course, there are other ways to get the parish records, but FreeREG is a great free resource for family history records and parish registers.

Image: FreeREG

Mary Ann Edwards, Caldecote, Cambridgeshire

FreeREG's latest update to the parish records of Caldecote finally solved a small doubt in my notes.  I knew that there were two Mary Ann Edwards' deaths registered in the same area and round about the same time.

There they were!  In the latest transcription update to the parish registers for St Michael & All Angels, Caldecote, Cambridge were two Mary Ann Edwards who were buried.  One in 1902, one in 1903.  Now just to check further to work out which one was "mine".

The 1901 Census had Mary Ann Edwards living in Bourn, with her daughter Mary, her son-in-law and her grandchildren.  On that Census it said she'd been born in Kingston, Cambridgeshire (just 1-2 miles up the road - she never went far!).

The FreeREG transcription of the parish registers for St Michael & All Angels had two to choose from - and it was an easy choice:

• Mary Ann Edwards, buried 31 July 1902, aged 38, living in Luton
• Mary Ann Edwards, buried 19 November 1903, aged 84, living in Bourn.

That's the one then! The burial in 1903.  Aged 84, that longevity gene's been passed further down the female line!  I think I might miss out on it though as I've definitely got more of dad's features and characteristics :(

I wonder who the other one was then.  I'll probably find out at some point.... she must be on the tree somewhere with that surname!  My first guess is that she's the Mary Ann Badcock that married Richard Alfred Edwards in 1887, based purely on a name/age/location match.  Off to update the tree with that thought! It looks a good match.

Parish Records: St Michael & All Angels, Caldecote, Cambridgeshire. Update

I've been keeping an eye on the Parish Records of a few churches, including the Parish Records of St Michael & All Angels, Caldecote, Cambridgeshire.  These have been transcribed on the FreeREG site and I was pleasantly surprised to notice that in the last few days there's been an update of the records.

The years now available on FreeREG for St Michael & All Angels, Caldecote, Cambridgeshire are:

• Baptisms: 1662-1875
• Marriages: 1676-1880
• Burials: 1671-1885

These are really new records that have been added!  The dates covered before were only up to 1876. So I'm off to see what I can discover!  This transcription of the parish records must nearly be 100% complete! I'm so lucky ... although there are many parishes I am not lucky with, but it's nice to have one parish that's well covered.

This is so exciting, I was looking for a burial in 1903-1905!  Thank you to the volunteer for FreeREG who transcribed these records!

EDIT:  Found it!  That's for another post as it solves a doubt!  Two women of the same name were registered as dying in the area and I knew one was my GG-grandmother.  Now I know which one!

Last checked/updated: October 2015
Image: Geograph

Directories: Bennetts Business Directory of Cambridgeshire

Business Directories were the fore-runner for the Yellow Pages of today.  The Bennetts Business Directory of Cambridgeshire covers ten main towns: Cambridge, Chatteris, Ely, Littleport, March, Newmarket (Suffolk), Royston (Herts), Thorney, Whittlesea (Whittlesey) and Wisbech.

Produced as a trade directory, these books would have originally been bought by businesses and travelling salesmen, who needed to know contact information for businesses within a town or area.  Bennett & Co were based at Chapel Works, Granville Street, Birmingham and produced business directories for several counties in the UK from 1888-1930.

Although trade directories, these books often also included lists of prominent local residents, potentially being the source of specific address information of ancestors between the censuses, as well as after census of 1911. 

While it is possible to find and buy an original copy, this would be very expensive and unsearchable.  It's therefore great that directories such as this have been scanned in and are sold as a searchable CD containing either page images, or PDF files.  This also makes your entire genealogical book collection truly portable and minimalistic!

As a rule of thumb, scanned images of a book are unsearchable, you'd have to 'flick through' each page to see what's on it.  As a rule of thumb, a PDF copy is most likely to be searchable. As these scans and CDs are produced by individuals/small companies then it's difficult to give a simple answer.  

The Bennetts Business Directory of Cambridgeshire lists all the local traders for each town (e.g. bakers, dairymen, butchers, schoolteachers, tobacconists, undertakers, grocers etc)

There is also a list of all the pubs, hotels, banks and manufacturers - and display advertising for local businesses. 

You can usually find a copy of this Cambridgeshire Directory for sale on ebay as a CD for under £5, as well as from online family history and genealogy shops.


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Cambridgeshire Bastardy Bonds

Like most bastardy bonds, the Cambridgeshire Bastardy Bonds are not online in an easily findable place.  However, the Cambridgeshire Family History Society have produced a CD/download that contains these, along with a lot of other records that will be important in trying to find people.

Bastardy bonds are produced when the father of an illegitimate child doesn't want to marry the girl - and he has to stump up the cash to pay for the baby.  Often they will contain the boy's father's name, or employer, as these people tended to become involved in the process of producing/extracting the cash!

You might not see illegitimate children in your tree as these are most visible when the child is baptised and the mother's name is given.  Some illegitimate children might give their father's name when they get married, but that's hit and miss too.  This means you might ONLY discover that one of your male ancestors has been merrily trotting round the parishes impregnating the local ladies if you check through the bastardy bonds.

Settlement Papers and Removal Orders will help you to track your ancestors moving around as they were supposed to get a Certificate from their old parish as they left - and hand it in at their new parish when they arrived.  These were kept by the Church in the parish chest in case they fell on hard times and the parishioners had to work out who was going to pay their "benefits". If you didn't have a legal right to settlement in a village you were sent packing, back to somewhere who had an obligation to provide for you.

It's not clear what the CD contains- if it's just an index of names/places, or a transcription of each record.  I suspect it's just an index.

Another place to check for this type of record is in the Petty Sessions records.  So that's two sets of records you have to buy!

CFHS Cambridgeshire Bastardy Bonds CD/download:

The CD contains a fully searchable index of:

• Cambridgeshire Masters and their Apprentices 1763-1811, extracted from National Archive records. Cambridgeshire Poor Law Papers 
• Index of Settlement Papers, Certificates, Examinations, Removal Orders, Vagrancy Passes, Apprenticeships and Bastardy Orders from 1697

The originals of the Poor Law Papers are held at the County Record Office, Shire Hall, Cambridge.

The CFHS CD/download that contains the Cambridgeshire Bastardy Bonds has a reference number of CD/005 and can be bought from the CFHS online shop for £15.00 +p&p

Image: CFHS

Free Census Records: Cambridgeshire

Trying to get free census records can be like trying to get hens' teeth!  There is a free website called FreeCEN that has volunteers transcribing the censuses and making them available online for free.  But it's a big task and is progressing very slowly.

FreeCEN is part of the FreeBMD and FreeREG group of websites, making genealogical information free online.

I've just checked for Cambridgeshire and it's not looking that good!

FreeCEN transcribe the censuses for 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881 and 1891.  At the time of writing, for Cambridgeshire it's looking like this:

	1841	1851	1861	1871	1881	1891
Cambridgeshire	0%	0%	10.5%	0%	0%	26.5%

It can be very frustrating when you see a couple of counties that have 100% transcribed in all years as well as having extensive parish registers published for free!  Oh well, we can't help where our ancestors are to be found.

The 1881 Census is available for free on Findmypast and on Familysearch.org across the whole country at least.

Free FindMyPast Access

I noticed last month that there is now free FindMyPast access at some public libraries.  The FindMyPast Library Edition can only be accessed from inside the library, on their PCs, or, in some cases, through their free Wifi.

FindMyPast is of most interest to me as they have two sets of records that Ancestry don't have:

1. Parish Registers for every parish - they are working with the Family History Societies to add all the transcribed parish registers onto their system.  Many for Cambridgeshire are already there!
2. The National Burial Index - the latest version is only available through FindMyPast.

At the moment I am restricting my interest and research to England only as I've not got my own subscription at present and it'd be too hard (aka expensive) to do too much research abroad.  I'm lucky that nobody in my direct upline went abroad!

Over the coming months/years more libraries will be offering free FindMyPast access.  For now, as it's fairly new, there are few.  Some libraries offer no access, others will sell you £5 PAYG vouchers.  But I am keen to tap into those libraries that offer the free subscriptions to FindMyPast.

The access is organised at a county/administrative level, this means that you might be lucky enough to commute across 2-3 library areas and manage to fit a visit to the right library into your schedule, whether that's on the way to/from work, or when you go shopping, or even on holiday!

I have already identified two areas that has free Ancestry AND free FindMyPast!

Of course, most libraries do limit you to just one hour on their PCs, but if you're organised enough you can produce a list of exactly what you're after and just hammer away like a madman for one hour to get it all.

Of course, using a free FindMyPast weekend would be more convenient - so I'll look out for these too, but they're quite rare and at short notice (meaning you're probably already busy that weekend!).

Check your library area now - just in case it's offering free access to FindMyPast.

Cambridgeshire libraries offer free FindMyPast and free Ancestry - with some PCs giving you two hours at a time!  There is a limit to the number of people that can be logged on to FMP at any one time though, so you might have to be patient.  Cambridgeshire libraries also offer free unlimited Wifi. Unfortunately, although I am researching Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, it's where I used to live, so I can't avail myself of these free subscriptions :(

Cambridgeshire library users can also download copy of "Your Family Tree" magazine for free.

At some point I'll make a list of libraries that offer Findmypast and Ancestry access for free.... but not today!  It'll probably take the fat end of a whole day to compile, check and type up :)

Joseph Finden and Ann Finden, Old Warden, Bedfordshire

In my haphazard approach to building the family tree, I've just added Joseph & Ann Finden to the top.  This pair are only there because I think they probably fit.  That's how you start: with a feeling, an idea and some data.  You then pencil them in and set out to prove/disprove that you've got the right people!

Joseph Finden was born in 1723 in Old Warden, Bedfordshire, England.  In 1749, at the age of 26, he married Ann Buckingham in Haynes, Bedfordshire, on 24 December 1749.

They then appear to have produced four children, although I do wonder if they lived somewhere other than Old Warden between 1749 and 1755 as that's an unusually big gap for people in my tree before producing their first child!

Well, wherever they were between 1749 and 1755, they produced four children that were baptised at Old Warden, Bedfordshire - at St Leonard's Church (the photo above is St Leonard's, Old Warden).  

• 1755 Mary Finding
• 1757 Thomas Finding
• 1761 Sarah Finding
• 1764 Ann Finding

This information was gleaned from the Familysearch website. However, you do have to take a leap of faith that you've chosen the right family when you're this far back and people move about a bit!  If this family turns out to be the correct Finding family, then my interest in in Thomas Finding, who would be my GGGGG-grandfather.  Joseph and Ann Finden would be my GGGGGG-grandparents.

Finden/Finding: When families move parishes or vicars change, as they can't read/write, it's up to the local vicar to spell names in the baptism records. The parents of these four children are listed simply as Joseph and Ann.  This could explain the apparent change in spelling of the names between parents and children.

I don't have a transcript of these parish records as I've moved into new areas in discovering this potential link.  Old Warden is not, at the time of writing, on FreeREG and, from what I understand, it is very unlikely to be in the near future unless somebody owns the data already and gifts it to them.  The Bedfordshire Family History Society have a CD of the parish records, with monumental inscriptions, for £15.  So that'll just go onto the Wishlist for now.

Images: 
St Leonard's Church, Old Warden CC SA 2.0
Joseph Finding Family Tree = this blog/mine

Caldecote Parish Registers and other Records from CFHS

Cambridgeshire Family History Society (CFHS) have many transcriptions of parish registers and other records, so I need to make a list of the ones I want for Caldecote.  Some of those will include other areas I am interested in, e.g. Bourn, Toft and Kingston - and some other records transcriptions will cover even wider areas, e.g. the Petty Sessions.

But, it's a good idea to make a list of what's available, so I know what I need to buy!  It's that dreadful time when you do need to put your hand in your pocket and get the full set of records in your hand, saving you weeks/months of poncing about online trying to do it all for free.

So, here's my CFHS Wishlist:

• Caldecote Parish Registers 1599-1950.  £12 as a CD/download.  Reference number  CD/PR/042. 
  
  
  This also includes the Bourn Parish Registers for 1559-1950.  These will give me the years covered by FreeREG and a further 120 or so years!  It seems to be the most comprehensive transcriptions of parish records available for Caldecote - as the CD includes Bourn and everybody seemed to float between the two villages.  The transcriptions from Caldecote Parish Registers can be viewed, for free, at a Family Research Centre of the LDS, but even the travel to my "local" Centre would cost £5 in fuel. A CD in my own hand gives me 24/7 access on a whim :)  Bargain.  Who'd not want a copy of this??
  
  When you look closer though, the CD doesn't contain all entries from all dates.  Caldecote Marriages are for 1604-1949; Caldecote Banns transcriptions cover 1760-1950; Caldecote Baptisms are transcribed for 1640-1950 and Caldecote Burial transcriptions cover 1640-1950.  So I am unsure where they got the 1599 description from - maybe they found a few sheets, or transcribed a bit more, but didn't update the image as that was harder to do :)
• Cambridgeshire  Monumental Inscriptions for places A-I.  £12 as a CD/download.  Reference number CD/MI/002.  This CD covers Caldecote, as well as many other places.  It's part of a trilogy of CDs and I do intend to get the full set covering Cambridgeshire in time.

Personally, I find the descriptions of what you actually get a little lacking. I don't want to pin all my hopes on something being magnificent, that turns out to be not very useful at all.  That's the sole reason I've not bought them to date, to be honest :)

As I can't view the contents without buying, I'll just have to bite the bullet at some point.  Just these two genealogy CDs would give me all the records available - and (potentially) all the headstones in the graveyards (potentially?), it'd mean I'd have a full set of everything from the parishes of Caldecote and Bourn in one go, for just £24.  And then I could move on - it's surprising just how many parishes you do ultimately feel the need to get the records for.  It's best not to leap in really and consider carefully how far you're prepared to look for where ancestors disappeared to or from!

To compare the CFHS CD with FreeREG, FreeREG says it covers Caldecote from 1604 to 1988, so it looks like the CD will be almost the same data, except banns won't be on FreeREG (maybe).

I've spent months wasting time on the free sites only feeling I've got "so far" into the available data and nailing this once and for all is worth the small cost, although, in this case, FreeREG does seem to compare very well.  The two datasets are from different transcribers.  FreeREG will have been transcribed from the originals via the LDS; CFHS were members transcribing from the originals many years ago.  So both sources were transcribed from the originals, but different people, so there might be just a tiny difference that fills a gap!  (For comparison of Bourn, FreeREG covers 7162 records from 1563 to 1876).  Of course, FreeREG doesn't cover banns (to my knowledge).

I'm off to serve dinner now .... gotta keep the strength up for the next set of mysteries and curiosities I uncover!

Image: CFHS Shop

Widows, the Family Name and Illegitimacy

One thing to watch out for when you're doing your family tree is widows having babies long after their previous husbands have died!  As the widow retains the married name, those children will be baptised and registered with the same surname. They are rarely marked in parish registers as illegitimate, nor would the entry say "single woman".

So, if a married woman has children, make sure you double check their baptism dates against the date of death of her previous husband.  Of course, nothing's as simple as that.  A child can be baptised at any age, so you'd certainly need to dig a little deeper to check if the deceased husband was, in fact, the father and the child simply baptised late.

But that's just something for you to be aware of.  The implications to your family tree, if you're descended from a child born to a widow, is that although the name is in your tree, you're not descended from the family of the deceased.  Your upline stops at the mother, who gave birth to an illegitimate child.

This happened in my tree.  My GG-grandmother was widowed in 1878 and had children born and registered in 1880 and 1883.  Both bore the previous husband's surname, but were not his children!  I therefore have a "rogue" name in the tree that I am not blood-related to.  As these births were registered since 1837, ordering a copy of the birth certificate did show an empty space where the father's name would have been expected.  This is an instance where obtaining an original birth certificate from the GRO helps with accuracy, rather than "guessing" from entirely free sources of information such as FreeBMD.

It's essential you keep your eye on the ball when adding ancestors to the family tree.  You want it to be as accurate as possible and it saves you wasting time chasing records of people you are not related to!  Get original certificates where possible to aid with confusion and ambiguity.

Image: P576883

Caldecote and Bourn Banns Online

Having spent some time going through the parish records for Caldecote and Bourn in Cambridgeshire, I noticed that a few of the marriages had a note in them that the couple were married by banns.  I've never looked at, or looked into lists of banns, so I am now looking at where I can see the banns online, or on CDs.  I'm sure the Cambridgeshire Family History Society have probably transcribed the banns and sell them on a CD, but first I looked online.

Findmypast seems to have a simple way to search through the banns and so I looked - to discover that neither Caldecote nor Bourn are currently online at Findmypast.  I looked to see which Cambridgeshire parishes are on FMP at present and the list is:

Abington Pigotts, Arrington, Bartlow, Benwick, Bottisham, Boxworth, Brinkley, Burrough Green, Burwell, Cambridge, All Saints, Cambridge, Holy Trinity, Cambridge, St Andrew The Less, Cambridge, St Barnabas, Cambridge, St Clement, Cambridge, St Edward, Cambridge, St Paul, Cambridge, St Philip, Carlton, Castle Camps, Chatteris, Cherry Hinton, Chippenham, Conington, Cottenham, Downham, Dry Drayton, Dullingham, East Hatley, Elsworth, Ely, Holy Trinity, Ely, St Mary, Fen Drayton, Girton, Grantchester, Great Abington, Great Eversden, Guilden Morden, Hardwick, Harlton, Hinxton, Histon, Horseheath, Ickleton, Isleham, Landbeach, Linton, Little Abington, Little Shelford, Lolworth, Madingley, Manea, March, Newton Near Cambridge, Papworth Everard, Papworth St Agnes, Rampton, Sawston, Shudy Camps, Stuntney, Swaffham Prior, St Mary, Swavesey, Thriplow, Trumpington, Tydd St Giles, Upwell, Christchurch, Waterbeach, Welney, Wentworth, West Wickham, West Wratting, Westley Waterless, Whaddon, Witchford, Wood Ditton

However, although they don't (at the time of writing) have the parishes I was after, I have spotted a couple of parishes of potential interest in that list!  So all is not lost as I can use those to search for other marriages I was looking for.

What Are Banns?

When you marry at your leisure, banns are read out in your local church on three consecutive Sundays during the church service - giving people, who probably knew you, the chance to object to the marriage if they have any valid and legal reason why you shouldn't be married.  e.g. if they knew you'd already married elsewhere, or some other reason.  As a rule it tends to be just part of the process and, to date, I've never heard of a wedding being halted as somebody did come forward.  I'm sure it must have happened to somebody somewhere .... but it's not common.  Banns can be read at more than one church if you married away from your usual place of abode, so if you discover two sets, don't be surprised.

Cambridge Banns Online at Findmypast

There were 28,364 banns listed in the Cambridge parishes at Findmypast.  I had a quick look through for the main family names I'm interested in in the area, but nobody I was after appeared in the lists.  I searched for two surnames and got 11 results for one and 8 for the other.

Ely Holy Trinity Banns Online at Findmypast

Surprisingly, when I checked this list for one surname of interest it gave me 112 marriages by banns at the church, ranging between 1755 and 1878.  I am interested in proving/disproving a marriage there in 1830 so further refined the list down to first name/surname at Ely Holy Trinity and that one is listed, so I've bookmarked it for next time I am a member of Findmypast.  I keep a free account on FMP and bookmark those I am interested in until either a free weekend, or a one-month pass, which is just £9.95.  It's not worth paying to look at one entry, which is why I bookmark them!

After this I ran out of time for today! So I'll have to continue looking for the banns at Caldecote and Bourn another day, later in the week.

Image CC 3.0

Lydia Richardson Chesterton Cambridge

For the last few days I've been looking again at a brickwall I have in the family tree, which stops at Lydia Richardson, who married William Mansfield in St Andrews, Chesterton, Cambridge on 13 October 1776.  There was no father's name, always annoying.  It declared Lydia was "of this parish", but that doesn't necessarily mean that she was born there, just that she lived there and had been living there for awhile.  It could even have been an assumption, or a misunderstanding of the question being asked. Witnesses were a Robert Johnson and Mary Johnson.  I was hoping this might lead to a hook up/link at some point (clutching straws is my middle name these days!).  Robert and Mary had married four years earlier; she'd been from Chesterton and he was from Burwell- I wonder how they knew them! Was Lydia local and had Mary been her friend from childhood, or did Robert work with William?

This record can be found on FreeREG easily enough and, to that point, I know my 'facts' are correct.  Lydia is correctly in the tree, in the right position, but where did she come from?  For months I've had no clue.  It was a dead end.  But then I got a "sniff of a clue".  Now, a sniff of a clue is a clue, so I pursued it.  Having discovered (but not seen) a random tree on Ancestry that indicated she might have a birthdate of 1752 I followed that line of enquiry.  I figured if I could discover Lydia Richardson's baptism then I'd have more clues available to me.  It didn't take me long to track down a random Lydia Richardson - but it didn't "feel right".  Often you have a nose for these things, whether something feels like you might be on the right track, or not.

But, with no other clues presently available (without spending money on multiple parish register transcriptions), I figured I'd follow that sniff and see where it ended up.

What I found, on FreeREG, was a Lydia Richardson baptised in Stanground, Huntingdonshire (this is now part of Cambridgeshire).  What that entry told me was that Lydia was baptised on 30 November 1752, to parents John and Lydia.  Looking at more records showed that they'd already had/lost a previous Lydia (1750-1752).  Next stop, burials - and I couldn't find any concrete evidence of this Lydia having been buried or married within the parish of Stanground.

I then spent way too many hours plotting out this rather large family to see if anything lead me in the direction of Chesterton.  It wasn't easy going - and is now another incomplete project.  It seems that John Richardson always had 1-3 sons called John Richardson, who often died early ... and after a few generations you had many Johns kicking about and the burial registers just saying John had died, but not specifying which one.  There were even two families of John/Elizabeth kicking about at the same time, with all kids being registered to parents John/Elizabeth, so, again, you'd not know which pair!

So, nothing gave me confidence that this Lydia Richardson is the right one.  But, once you've discovered a "possible", you can never tell when another clue will either make it all stack up or not.  Unless I can find a legitimate link/reason for her to up sticks and move it doesn't grab me as a possible.

I am not convinced it's the right Lydia at all - and I've even seen evidence of a Richardson family living in Chesterton at the time, but not being good enough to baptise their children at the church where parish registers have been transcribed!

I doubt I'll get answers this side of a few years at this rate.  Lydia .... you're out there somewhere!

In the meantime, for anybody who is looking for the Richardson family at Stanground, Huntingdonshire, below is what I made of them at my first attempt..... needs more work/research to verify any of this is correct.  Of the 10 children they produced, they seem to have only managed to retain three long enough to get them married off.  They had three Johns before one survived and two Lydias.  The twins are a tiny bit intriguing though as there are twins in other parts of my tree, but maybe I'm clutching at straws and I bet many people have twins with a tree large enough!

Phillimore Parish Registers for Huntingdonshire

William Phillimore set out to transcribe all parish registers, starting with marriages, across the whole of the country. Unfortunately, as with many Grand Schemes, he was hampered by the sheer volume of the task, but Phillimore did manage to make a start in Huntingdonshire.

Family tree research was as popular 100-150 years ago as it is today, but they didn't have the Internet!  You'd have to physically visit each church to inspect its parish registers and go through every line for yourself to check if there were any names that were relevant to your tree.  What Phillimore did was to find 150 subscribers, prepared to pay to receive a printed transcription.  He'd then organise, usually alongside the rector of a parish, for a transcriber to work with the original registers.  Once printed and distributed, the subscribers might then have written back to him with their own corrections and a volume might be republished with corrections.

When Phillimore started to print the parish registers of Huntingdonshire in 1912 he was still seeking the vital investment from subscribers:

"In Huntingdonshire there are 95 parishes having Registers beginning before the nineteenth century.  It is calculated that the Marriage Registers of these can be printed in twelve volumes, of which the present is the first, so that if sufficient financial support is forthcoming to enable two volumes a year to be issued, as in other counties, it is possible to complete the whole county in six years.  To enable this to be done thirty more subscribers are needed.  Fifteen more parishes, including the four comprised in the town of Huntingdon, besides Godmanchester and St Ives, are already transcribed and could be sent to press at once. "

Published in October 1912, Volume 1 Huntingdonshire Parish Registers. Marriages. Edited by WPW Phillimore, MA, BCL and WM Noble, Rector of Wistow, covered the following four parishes:

• Ramsey, Huntingdonshire, 1559-1837
• Little Raveley, Huntingdonshire, 1577-1839
• Bury, Huntingdonshire, 1561-1837
• Wistow, Huntingdonshire, 1604-1837

I have not (yet?) found evidence of any further parishes having been published at future dates.  Phillimore's Atlas and Index of Parish Registers was published with a full list of transcribed registers, but I haven't bought a copy of that yet.  This book was published in 1984 and includes over 1800 parish boundary and other maps and details about parish records and where they can be found.

William Phillimore died in 1913, leaving most of his planned work incomplete. At the time of his death he had published over 200 parish registers and inquisitions - all high quality work that is still used daily by genealogists today.

Huntingdonshire Parish Registers Online:

Only 150 originals were printed - many disappearing into libraries around the world.  You can find a copy of the Phillimore book that has been scanned in, or the records themselves, in a few ways, including, but not limited to local family history groups for the area covered and:

• Archive.org - scanned copies of the parish registers are available online at archive.org
• Ebay - scanned copies are available for sale on ebay in CD/PDF format
• Findmypast has the most parish registers online, making it the best website for searching through BMDs, but I checked for the first name in the Phillimore book and it wasn't present.  FindMyPast are working with the Family History Society and local Family History groups to add transcripts, but they are drip-feeding them into their system as part of their marketing strategy, so they could appear at any point.
• Ancestry.co.uk also didn't seem to contain the first entry.

While FindMyPast and Ancestry are great sites for instantly searching many thousands of registers and documents, they can't contain all information, on everything, immediately/today.  It's always good, therefore, to not rely on them, but to build up your own personal library of information.

I had a quick look through for anybody in the Finding family, but just found one that was over 100 years before the dates I was interested in ... but it's nice to have a copy as you never know what you'll find when you're flicking through the pages!

FreeREG Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, Upton, Huntingdonshire

I've been quite lucky that Upton, Huntingdonshire, is one of the parishes that's on FreeREG, meaning I can find the baptisms, marriages and burials at St Margaret, which is the only church in the parish.

Upton, Huntingdonshire

The Upton parish register transcripts were first made available on FreeREG in January 2014. At the time of writing there are 1271 records input, ranging from 1755 to 1877 and the last update/alteration was made in July 2014 and the following years are parish records have been transcribed:

• St Margaret, Upton, Huntingdonshire baptisms:  1784-1876
• St Margaret, Upton, Huntingdonshire marriages:  1755-1812, 1814-1836, 1839-75
• St Margaret, Upton, Huntingdonshire burials:  1784-76

That's quite good coverage except I am not much further forward in completing the jigsaw!  It's good to see records - so thanks to Sheila for taking the time to transcribe these - but when there are gaps it's annoying.  You'd have thought the church might've taken a little more care with their books and records over the years *sigh*.  I think the vicars were more interested in drinking tea with widows than making my life easier.... slackers :)

FreeREG has given me some great finds though, including:
Six baptisms from 1788 to 1809
Four marriages from 1815 to 1828
Three burials from 1807 to 1837

Of course, parish registers are only as good as what was written in them at the time - and if they are legible or weren't lost.  I need to find out the state of these Parish Records and, to see a copy of the originals at some point.

Soundex also yields some further results as the name "Finding" was written in other ways at the parish, including Findin, which actually looks like the record/s I will find useful. The spelling Fineden is also present.  Having said that, the particular marriage I was looking for exists under the name I was looking for: "Finding".  Annoyingly, there is no bride's father's name given!

As the parish of Upton, Huntingdonshire, is tiny, the next step would be to go through the baptisms, to see if it looks like Jane was born in Upton!  At first glance it looks like she was baptised, under the spelling of Findin, in 1803 and her parents were Thomas and Mary.  Obviously making that assumption is a leap of faith and doesn't always work... but, for now, I've got Thomas and Mary pencilled into the chart as potential parents.

Genealogy is the ultimate online game of strategy, cunning, intelligence, perseverance, patience and tenacity, but the rewards are greater than other online pasttimes as you're discovering your own family roots and secrets.

Image by Wikimedia: Upton