19th century immigrants' records released online

Do you have ancestors who lived in England? Did they arrive there from another country, such as France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Spain, Russia, Poland,  or Sweden?  According to National Archives UK:

"The records of thousands of 19th century immigrants to Britain are now available to search and download online. The collection, which covers the period 1801 to 1871, includes records relating to more than 7,000 people who applied to become British citizens under the 1844 Naturalisation Act, as well as a small number of papers relating to denization, a form of British citizenship that conferred some but not all the rights of a British subject. 

Applicants were required under the act to present a memorial to the Secretary of State at the Home Office stating their age, trade and duration of residence. These papers are now available online for the first time."

I'm off to see if I can find my son's German ancestor Georg Heinrich Christian Schulze who settled in Yorkshire England ca 1867-1868. Wish me luck!

Unpaid Royal Navy pension claims now online at National Archives UK

Next of kin claims for unpaid Royal Navy pensions 1830-1860 are now available to search and download online at National Archives UK.

These records are applications for the unpaid wages or pensions of deceased officers or their widows.

The records cover officers of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, and civilian employees of the Royal Navy and Naval Dockyards.

They can include vital information for researchers such as the officers' date of death, his rank, the name and address of the claimant, the date the claim was admitted and examined and the total value of the effects claimed.

The records are free to search in Discovery but there is a small fee for downloading them.

Search the records now.

The Genealogist's Internet available at National Archives UK

The National Archives U.K. sent Olive Tree Genealogy the following announcement.

We're excited to announce that the fifth edition of The Genealogist's Internet is out now!

This new edition brings the popular title up-to-date, and is the comprehensive guide for anyone researching their family history online.

It not only covers all online resources now available, but also includes the impact of blogging, podcasting and social networking on family history research, allowing family historians to find others with similar research interests and to share their results.

This book is a must-have for any family historian - order your copy today.

NEW! Poor Law Union Immigrants to Canada 1836-1871 ONLINE

For the past six months Olive Tree Genealogy has been working on a new project to reconstruct names of passengers on ships sailing from England to Canada before 1865.

I'm pleased to announce that 23 ships with the names of pauper immigrants sent from England sent by the Poor Law Union to Canada between 1836 and 1853 are now online and freely searchable.

The Poor Law Union Act of 1834 was responsible for determining if impoverished individuals and their families were to be sent to the Workhouse, supported by their parishes, or given passage to a British colony such as Canada, New Zealand and Australia. 

As well as the newly reconstructed ships passenger lists, there are hundreds of immigrant names listed by year from 1836 to 1871. The yearly lists are individuals who were offered passage on board ships sailing to Canada, but the specific ships each sailed on are not named.

There are no comprehensive ships passenger lists of immigrants arriving in Canada prior to 1865. Until that year, shipping companies were not required by the government to keep their passenger manifests. This reconstructed set of passenger lists and emigrants by year is a valuable tool for those genealogists whose ancestors left England for Canada in this time period.

Please take a few minutes to have a look at POOR LAW UNION IMMIGRANTS TO CANADA

You can also consult the other projects for ships passenger lists to Canada before 1865 at Filling in the Gaps

This new project consists of names extracted from the Poor Law Union records. More information and details on individuals can often be found by using the reference sources given on each page, and sending a request to National Archives UK. 

I have also included bits and pieces of extraneous detail that helps us understand the plight of these impoverished people. For example the ship Albion sailed to Quebec in 1836. Included in the Poor Law Union correspondence is a lengthy and interesting description of the passengers being held for 24 hours on arrival in Quebec. It seems the master of the ship did not receive his money (poll tax) from the Poor Law Union. So he demanded it from the passengers, who could not pay. This resulted in him imprisoning them on board until they were ordered released.

Hopefully you will find an ancestor or two in this new, never before published, lists!

Ask an Archivist Day on Twitter

#AskArchivists on Twitter

On 9 June 2011, The National Archives will be taking part in #AskArchivists Day alongside archives from around the world.

On the day, you can use your Twitter account to ask us about our collection, online resources and how to research at The National Archives. We'll also be answering questions about archival practice and advice, conservation, digital preservation and web archiving.

To keep up to date with the plans for #AskArchivists, follow @uknatarchives on Twitter

Press Release: Catalogue of Stolen Cultural Artefacts From WW2

The National Archives joined with leading archives and museums in a global agreement to make records relating to cultural artefacts stolen by the Nazis available through an international online catalogue. The catalogue is intended to help families, historians and researchers trace the history and provenance of the looted art.

As part of the project, The National Archives worked with the Commission for Looted Art in Europe to catalogue and digitise more than 950 files. The records are now available on DocumentsOnline.

WW1 RAF Service Records Online at National Archives UK

The Royal Air Force (RAF) was the world's first independent military air arm and by the end of the First World War it had become the largest.

Now you can search and download First World War service records of RAF officers. This database is of interest to Canadians whose ancestor may have enlisted in WW1 as a pilot. Canada did not have its own Air Force and any individual wishing to join the Air Force had to join the RAF. Approximately one-quarter of the aircrew in British Royal Air Force (RAF) squadrons were Canadian. A large RAF training establishment operated in Canada to produce new aircrew.

The collection contains records for over 99,000 individuals and is searchable by first name, last name and date of birth.

Searching the indexes is free but to obtain full details a small fee is charged by the National Archives UK. I tried this database earlier this morning with a generic search for my PEER ancestors. Because I search for all PEER individuals in North America, it's always of interest to me to see if one of them can be found in any new database online.

My search gave me two results for PEER. In order to view the scans of their service records I saw that it would cost me 3.50L for each man (that converts to $11.00 Canadian) The website stated each man's records consisted of 3 pages. I added both to my Shopping Cart and then made the purchase. This is what I love about ordering from the National Archives UK website - after entering my Credit Card details, I was given an immediate link to download the service records. The link is good for 28 days.

As is common with Military Service Records you never know what you're going to get. Some are full of information, others are not.

The Service Record I downloaded for Walter James Peer gave his name, date of birth, next-of-kin in Canada, address in Canada and place of employment. There wasn't much recorded in the section for his whereabouts throughout the War.

The second record for Harold Emerson Peer had a full page of entries for his movements throughout his time in the RAF but no date of birth, no next of kin and no location in Canada. For me that $11.00 was well worth it as I pursue my genealogy with the goal of obtaining as much detail as possible about every individual in my database.

One caveat - when the National Archives UK website states there are x number of pages in a set of records, be aware that the first page is a Title Page with no information on the person involved.

I'll explain how to read and understand these Service Records in a separate blog post. Please watch for it here! 

NEW! Extracts of Names from Surgeons' Journals of 8 ships from Ireland to Upper Canada 1825 online

In 1822, the British Government established a trial emigration scheme for Irish paupers to Upper Canada. There were two waves of emigration, one in 1823 the second in 1825.

Peter Robinson arranged for these impoverished Irish emigrants to come to Upper Canada. In 1825, 2024 passengers on board nine ships - Fortitude, Resolution, Albion, Brunswick, Star, Amity, Regulus, Elizabeth, and John Barry - arrived in Quebec. From there the emigrants made their way to Upper Canada (present day Ontario).

Passenger Lists for these ships are available online  but Olive Tree Genealogy has been busy compiling a new project which contains much more information on many of the Irish passengers. The new project is the extraction of names from Surgeons Medical Journals which were kept during the voyages.

There are medical journals for 8 ships and they contain a great deal of information. Olive Tree Genealogy's project contains extracted details of the voyage, the names and ages of each passenger treated by the surgeon, the date they were put on the sick list, where the ship was at the time and the date they recovered or died. Births of children are also recorded as are deaths, sometimes with details as to exact time and location.

You will want to consult these extracts if you think your Irish ancestors were on board the following ships:

Surgeon's Journal of the Transport Ship John Barry between 22 April to 25 July 1825 during which time the said ship has been employed in conveying the Irish Emigrant Settlers from Cork to Quebec.

Surgeon's Journal of the Transport Ship Amity between 5 April to 9 July 1825 during which time the said ship has been employed in conveying the Irish Emigrant Settlers from Cork to Quebec.

Surgeon's Journal of the Transport Ship Elizabeth between 4 May 1825 & 21st July 1825 during which time the said ship has been employed in conveying the Irish Emigrant Settlers from Cork to Quebec.

Medical and surgical journal of the Star transport ship for 6 April to 13 July 1825 by Ninian McMorris, Surgeon and Superintendent, during which time the said ship was employed in conveying emigrants to Quebec.

Medical and surgical journal of the Regulus transport ship for 7 April to 13 July 1825 by Matthew Burnside, Surgeon and Superintendent conveying the Irish Emigrant Settlers from Cork to Quebec.

Medical and surgical journal of the Fortitude Emigrant Ship for 28 April to 1 July 1825 by Francis Connin, Surgeon and Superintendent conveying the Irish Emigrant Settlers from Cork to Quebec.

edical journal of the Brunswick, emigrant ship, for 5 April to 27 June 1825 by John Tarn surgeon and superintendent, during which time the said ship was employed in conveying emigrants from Cork to Quebec

Medical and surgical journal of the Albion Convict Ship, for 4 April to 4 July 1825 by John Thomson Surgeon and Superintendent, during which time the said vessel was employed in conveying emigrants from Cork to Quebec.

The surgeons' journals contain much detail both on the illnesses of each passenger and on the journey itself. Some surgeons recorded their thoughts about certain passengers so they are a very interesting read.

Two of the ships medical journals are available online as a .pdf file at the National Archives UK website. The other medical journals are available for a fee from the National Archives UK website. All source files are provided so you can enjoy reading the entire journals or ordering ones of interest.

Warning: Some of the journal entries are very distressing to read.

Surgeon's Journal for Ship Elizabeth Ireland to Quebec 1825

Anyone with ancestors who were part of the Peter Robinson settlement of Upper Canada in 1825 will want to see the Journal of the Transport Ship Elizabeth between 4 May 1825 & 21st July 1825

This journal (which adds the comment "during which time the said ship has been employed in conveying the Irish Emigrant Settlers from Cork to Quebec.") consists of 55 pages of detailed notes on each of the 21 Irish passengers Surgeon Power treated.

I have extracted the names, ages, dates of admission, whether the patient died or recovered and a few notes for some patients. Most patients have their illnesses noted in detail, along with medicines given, reaction of patient and other data. The wealth of information is incredible and there are interesting, albeit horrifying, descriptions of life on board the ship as well as some of the more ghastly medical problems passengers presented with - such as a 7 1/2 foot (Yes, I said FOOT, not inches...) long intestinal worm.

This Surgeon's Journal comes from the newly added Surgeons at Sea - Royal Navy Medical Officers' journals on National Archives UK. The series consists of journals and diaries compiled by Royal Navy surgeons and assistant surgeons who served on HM ships, hospitals, naval brigades, shore parties and on emigrant and convict ships in the period 1793 to 1880. Many of the journals were for ships sailing to Australia.

Explore National Archives UK Domesday Map for Ancestral Towns

Explore 11th century England with National Archives UK new Domesday map. You can search by placename or postal code, or browse the map to find out whether your town had a place in the earliest surviving public record.

The new Domesday tool shows a map with those places mentioned in William the Conqueror's survey of England in 1086.

Visitors to the site can also download photographs from the early 20th century.

I gave this a try since my maternal grandparents were both born in England their lineage is solidly English. Some of the towns where my ancestors lived were Ramsgate, Chilham, Lenham, Pluckley, and more.

The search area for the maps was extremely slow to load but hopefully this is due to visitor interest and not the website itself. Using IE8, the map never loaded and did not display. A search for "Ramsgate" in IE8 had still not provided text results after 4 minutes, so I switched to Firefox.

Using Firefox the map displayed very quickly and a search for "Lenham" brought text results in 2 minutes. But searching for "Pluckley" hadn't displayed results even after 4 minutes of waiting.

I will try again and hope that the site is just busy this morning.

New Poorhouse Records online

Thousands of pages of Victorian workhouse and poor law records have been made available online following the conclusion of a major project led by The National Archives.

Read more about the 19th Century Poor Law Union and Workhouse Records now online and searchable

The Records begin in 1834 and are searchable by

* First name
* Last name
* Place name, which could be a village, town or county
* Occupation
* Any other words mentioned in the document, for example 'Chartism’, ‘Strike’, ‘neglect’ or ‘death’

If you are looking for Poorhouse records in USA or Canada, be sure to check out the free records at  Almshouse & Poorhouse Records

Ordering Documents from National Archives in Kew - a Comedy of Errors Part 2

Continued from A Comedy of Errors Part 1

I was now ready to fill out the online Request Form and order my ancestor's Chelsea Pensioner Records.


This is where it got a bit confusing. The fields were filled in for me with the Catalogue Reference Number and Details "Customer requested item reference WO 121/1/38 (part of document WO 121/1)"

My uncertainty was over how I could make sure I received all pages (images) for my ancestor Thomas Blandon? It was noted that his record was Image 170 but having had experience ordering other documents such as petitions, I knew that very often there were several pages (images) associated with one individual.

The detail box says "Or, give us details of the information you're seeking from the document. For example, name, service number, regiment, dates, ship's name, places etc."

So I decided to check "Copy all pages in this document" and add a note in the details box which stated that I was only interested in the images for Thomas Blandon whose document started on Image 170.

(This is where I believe I made my mistake. I failed to note the word "Or" which was not highlighted in red as I have made it here. So by ticking the radio button beside "copy all pages in this document" I inadvertently had made a choice of one or the other. I did not realize I couldn't add a note in the detail box! If I had simply written out what I wanted in the detail box, and NOT ticked off the "Copy all pages..." I believe I would have received just the papers on Thomas Blandon)

Next I received the following confirmation email:

Dear Lorine

This email is to confirm we have received your order for document copying.Please save or print this email or make a note of the following details. You should quote your order number in all correspondence and queries.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Order number: Cxxxxxx
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your copies will be produced with the following options:
Medium option: Digital Images
Colour option: Monochrome
Delivery option: By email

Documents to copy:
1. WO 121/1

Charge: £28.00
Transaction Number: R/09/xxxxxx
Payment Method: E-commerce

Once completed, your order will be sent to:olivetreegenealogy@gmail.com

Thank you for your order.
Regards

Record copying department
The National Archives

And so I sat back to wait. And wait. And wait. 3 months later, on June 25th I received a CD ROM in the mail with 864 images. It was the complete microfilm of every soldier who was pensioned out in 1787! So besides paying for these 864 documents, I also paid for the CD ROM to be mailed even though I had requested the less expensive option of picking the records up on the National Archives website. I am sure this was because there was so many images that the National Archives realized it would be quite a task to upload them all and use their server room for 30 days.

I am happy to say though that my ancestor Thomas Blandon had 2 pages (images) on the CD ROM.



And I have 862 other documents to read through if I am ever bored....

Ordering Documents Online from National Archives in Kew England - a Comedy of Errors Part 1

On April 9, I searched for an English ancestor (Thomas Blandon) on the National Archives site for UK. I found several records for Thomas and I wrote about ordering the records which were held at Suffolk Archives in Ipswich. But one record was held at the National Archives in Kew and that had to be ordered separately.

It seemed fairly easy to order although there were some areas where I was not 100% sure what information I needed to provide. But I read everything carefully and filled the online request out as best I could. A lot is filled out automatically for you once you find a hit and choose to order the documents for that hit. It did seem a bit expensive for what I thought I was ordering (and note the word "thought"....) but I wanted the documents on Thomas badly enought to go ahead. Since it was expensive to have documents mailed I chose the option to have the images uploaded to the website where I had 30 days to download them to my computer.

After ordering what I thought was anywhere from 1 to 5 pages on one specific individual (Thomas Blandon), and waiting for 3 months, I received 864 images - the entire microfilm! Where did I go wrong? How did I end up ordering the records for over 800 soldiers instead of just my Thomas Blandon?

Let me walk you through the process as perhaps I can save others from making the same mistake(s) I did.



I used the search box top right which is a quick search and entered "Thomas Blandon". Several hits appeared and it is the second one down that I wanted.

Royal Hospital, Chelsea: Discharge Documents of Pensioners WO 121/1/38 THOMAS BLANDEN alias THOMAS BLANDON Born WENERSTON, Suffolk Served in Suffolk Militia Discharged aged 48 after 28 years of service See film image number 170 . Certificates of service (disability or reason for discharge, length of service, rank, regiment, Date: 1787.Source: The Catalogue of The National Archives

The next step was to click on the link title Royal Hospital, Chelsea: Discharge Documents of Pensioners WO 121/1/38



This took me to a page which explained the scope of the records, the dates, whether or not it was available publicly and where it is held, in this case, the National Archives in Kew. On the top right, outlined in red is a nice little button labelled "Request This" You simply click on that button and you are taken to a page where you may choose to request an estimate for a printed or digital copy. I had to create an account with the Archives before I could place my order or get my estimate but that is very easy.


I requested the estimate and soon after received an email from the Record copying department with a link to where my estimate could be found. I looked at the estimate, thought it was a bit expensive but decided to go ahead with the order.

Read the rest of my Comedy of Errors in Part 2 tomorrow....

Finding a Removal Order for an English Ancestor

In an earlier post I talked about How to Use the National Archives United Kingdom Website to Obtain Ancestor Documents. One of the items I found, and ordered, was the Removal Order seen below:

On 18 MAY 1778, a Removal Order was served on my 5th Great Grandfather THOMAS BLANDON, DRUMMER in the Western Battalion Militia of Suffolk. Thomas, Mary, his wife, and their children Mary, Elizabeth, Ann, Thomas & Susannah were ordered removed from St. James, Bury St. Edmunds and sent to Wenhaston. Source: Removal Order FC189/G4/14. Suffolk, Ipswich Branch, WENHASTON PARISH RECORDS Date: 1778.

I wasn't sure why a Removal Order would be issued and what the circumstances were surrounding one. So I did some research and found out that inn 1662 England an Act of Settlement was passed to define which parish had responsibility for a poor person. A child's birthplace was its place of settlement, unless its mother had a settlement certificate from somewhere else stating that the unborn child was included on the certificate. From the age of 7 the child could have been apprenticed and gained a settlement for himself or he could have obtained settlement for himself by service by the time he was 16.

After 1697, the poor were allowed to enter any parish in search of work, as long as they had a Settlement Certificate signed by the church wardens and overseers of their place of settlement and two magistrates guaranteeing to receive them back should they become chargeable. No one was allowed to move from town to town without the appropriate documentation.

If a person entered a parish in which he did not have official settlement, and if it seemed likely he might become chargeable to the new parish, then an examination would be made by the justices or parish overseers. From this examination on oath, the justices would determine if that person had the means to sustain himself and, if not, which was that person's parish of settlement. As a result of the examination the intruder would then either be allowed to stay, or would be removed by means of what was known as a Removal Order.

A Removal Order was sometimes accompanied by a written pass to the parish of settlement showing the route to be taken. This would apply even within a city or town which consisted of more than one parish. Your parish of settlement was obliged to take you back.

Removal Orders would often take a person or a family back to a place of settlement miles across the country, sometimes to a parish they had only known briefly as a small child. It was not uncommon for a husband and wife to have their children taken from them, each being removed to separate scattered parishes.

Apparently a Settlement Certificate would have far more genealogical information but I wanted to see that Removal Order so I sent off for a copy. The documents I ordered just arrived this week (pretty quick service!) and I'm pleased that the Removal Order gave the ages of each of Thomas & Mary's children.

I also ordered two Bastardy orders and one Bastardy Examination for my ancestors, and will talk about those and the genealogical information in them in another post.

The Removal Order is a form document with blanks to fill in, which indicates to me that there must have been a lot of them served! What a wonderful item to find. If you have English ancestors, why not have a look online? You might be surprised at what is there.

How to Use the National Archives UK Website to Obtain Ancestor Documents

Using the National Archives UK website to find information on an ancestor is fairly straightforward. However, as I learned recently, the results you obtain using a search on their website are not always held at the National Archives but at a local English Archives. And the local English Archives websites can be confusing and frustrating to use, and are often very wordy!

Based on my own recent adventure finding and ordering records for my English ancestors James King & Hannah Blandon, I thought I'd share with you what I experienced and what the final outcome was.

Step 1: Go the National Archives UK Home Page Use the search engine at the top right of the page and type in your terms. I searched for my ancestor Hannah Blandon

Step 2: Two results showing, both for a Bastardy Case involving my ancestor James King and Hannah (who later married and had more children)

Step 3: I click on the top result and see the next screen showing that the examination took place in 1791 and the documents are not held at the National Archives. They are at the SUffolk Record Office, Ipswhich Branch

Step 4: I clicked on the link to the SUffolk Record Office, Ipswhich Branch and see a screen (still on National Archives site) providing details on their location and a website link.

Step 5: I click on the link to the Suffolk Co. Archives and am taken to their home page

Step 6: It isn't really very clear what I should do next but I opt for FAMILY HISTORY link (3rd choice down on the left) and am taken to a page that shows me more options. Again it is not clear what I should do next but I decide on COPYING SERVICES

Step 7: I'm at a very lengthy page full of information on their copying services, including several links to download pdf files for forms to fill out to request copies. Again it is not clear what form(s) I need, and although the website notes that payment must be made in advance, I cannot find a form that allows me to provide credit card details. I spend quite a bit of time searching, but end up more confused than ever. I think I need the form for copying a document but it is very long, lots of legal mumbo jumbo and still nowhere to put my credit card details! It also asks for a total I am paying but although I can find a price list, I have no idea how many pages or what size pages I am going to get so cannot calculate a final cost.

Step 8: After more than an hour of hunting around the website I decide the best course is to contact them and ask what I should do. So I click on the contact address at the bottom left and carefully compose a brief email. In my email I list the documents I want (I have actually found 3). I give their official looking number, their title and brief description plus date. I then ask which form I should use to request copies and I add that I live in Canada and must order these long-distance.

Step 9: About 10 days leater I receive a very polite email informing me that yes, the documents I want, can be copied and that my total cost plus shipping is xx pounds. The woman who writes also includes the 2 forms I need to fill out and mail to them. One is the request for copies of documents, the second is a credit card form for payment (which is not available online!)

I downloaded both forms to my computer and opened the first one, but a popup window came up telling me that I needed a password as the file is protected by the Suffolk Co. Archives. Great. The second form for my credit card information opened with no problem. Then I decided to try viewing the first document as an html file in my gmail account. That worked and although it wasn't pretty, I could see that the form they sent is the form online that I thought I needed when I first started this adventure! So all I needed do was go back to the website and download that form, no need to write back to the Suffolk Co. Archives and explain that I cannot open their password protected file.

It was at that point that I realized I actually had one more document I wanted copied. So I wrote back to the Suffolk Co. Archives (directly to the woman who replied to my first email) and asked for a recalculation based on my ordering one more document. Because the English are invariably so polite (and as a Canadian I've been acccused of being that way too) I made sure I thanked her for her time and trouble and apologized for requesting another document, thereby making more work for her.

She very kindly replied within a day with my new totals. I filled out the forms and mailed them off and now I am simply waiting with eager anticipation for the records of my ancestors to arrive.

In summary, it was confusing and time-consuming to figure out how to use the websites, but after I wandered around the site aimlessly for over an hour, I had no hesitation in writing to ask for help. Although it took quite a long time for a response the staff were very kind and helpful. So if you try this, remember the 3 "P's" and you won't go wrong - perserverance, patience and politeness