Helen Parsons Family History Researcher

18/01/2022

What have you found in the newly released 1921 census? I traced 2 maiden great grand aunts we’d lost track of, both visiting their married sister. They were a house keeper and a cook working in different households, the names of their employers given on the census which gives clues for further research 😊

27/10/2021

Next big release of records is 6th January, the 1921 Census, just what family researchers have been waiting for! Can be accessed through Find My Past. 😃🌳🧐

25/02/2021

25/02/2021

Getting stuck into online

06/02/2021

Newspaper reports provide useful clues in your family history research. Find My Past, as an example, has a comprehensive database enabling you to find birth, marriage and death announcements. Reports on funeral or wedding attendees can give vital clues to family relationships. Criminal proceedings are reported on so if you can match area, age, address you know you have your person or can link to other databases. Checking the newspapers can direct you to find convict transportees, bigamists or just fill that gap with garden club award winners, pub license renewals or sports achievements. It all builds a picture.

20/01/2021

Further to my previous post about transportation to Australia, our man, from Bury St Edmunds, was sentenced to 7 years transportation in 1825. He had stolen items from his employer to resell. This time he wasn’t sent to Australia but served 4 years on the prison hulk Leviathan at Portsmouth. He received a pardon from George IV for good behaviour and was released. But either he couldn’t help himself or circumstances dictated that he would steal again, from his next employer. In 1831 he was sentenced to Life transportation to New South Wales, being shipped out in November 1831, arriving March 1832. By 1842 he had earned the right to a Ticket of Leave, no longer having to work as a convict servant but able to work for himself in a designated area and unable to leave the colony. However, he was found concealing foreign to***co so his Ticket was withheld. In 1847 his Ticket of Leave was re-issued. In 1849 he was granted a Conditional Pardon, meaning he was a free man but could still not return to the UK. His freedom was shortlived, by now he was in his sixties and died in or before 1851

15/01/2021

On the transportation trail to Australia in the 1830s. Do you have any black sheep in your family?

26/11/2020

This week’s person of interest was born in 1799. He joined the 19th Light Dragoons aged 21 and was sent to India, serving under Major General Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington. Within ten days of his arrival in India in 1803, our man was likely involved in the Battle of Assaye, Wellesley’s first major victory and a bloody battle in which the British and Madras troops were vastly outnumbered yet routed the Maratha army. Our man brought his wife to India with him and it was here their twin sons were born. In 1806 the 19th was called on to race to the rescue of a neighbouring garrison at Vellore that had been victim to a brutal sepoy uprising. The put down was quick and harsh but it stopped this earliest of the uprisings against the East India Company and British influence in India. The cause of the uprising was the British Commander in Chief of the Madras Army had ordered insensitive dress changes for the sepoy uniform, against military board directions. The CiC General Sir John Craddock was recalled to England under a cloud, the Company refusing to pay his passage home, as punishment for his ill judged orders. Our man returned to England with his regiment later in 1806 and remained a soldier until 1817.

11/11/2020

A few years ago we had the opportunity to visit the Clairiere de l'Armistice while on holiday in France. It was here, in the Rethondes Clearing, that the 1918 Armistice was signed at 5.15am on the 11th November. Two train lines had been built into the clearing, coming from opposite directions, to bring the Allied delegation led by Marshal Foch and the German delegation. They met in the train carriage containing the Allied Headquarters, carriage 2419D, to discuss the Armistice clauses. Hi**er later humiliated the French by choosing this site for accepting France's surrender during the Second World War on 22nd June 1940, in revenge for Germany's own humiliation in 1918. After France signed the surrender Hi**er had this site and all the First World Monuments that had been erected here destroyed. Only Marshal Foch's statue was preserved, being covered with a wooden box while the Germans dynamited the rest of the site. It was said that Hi**er had a certain respect for the French soldiers of the First World War and that is why he preserved this statue, others said it was kept to highlight the French Army's 1940 disaster. The original Armistice carriage of 1918 had been preserved at this site since 1918, but Hi**er now took it to show off in Berlin. It was later found to have been taken to the Ohrdruf Prison Camp where it was burned and destroyed. Ohrdruf was the first prison camp to be freed by the Americans and so brought to light the full horror of the N**i concentration camp system. The prisoners there had been set to work digging the underground passageways for Hi**er's planned new headquarters.
This site, we thought, had a very strange atmosphere. It was peaceful yet with a kind of heaviness about it. Everybody visiting here had an air of respect and thoughtfulness. The museum holds a replica of the carriage and how it was set up for the 1918 Armistice, and exhibits show the journey back to war between 1918 to 1940. The Crypt contains the memorial flame and the names of the bloodiest battles are inscribed on the wall. It is well worth a visit should you get the chance.

08/11/2020

We also remember those lost in all conflicts. And those who served and came home. And those that have supported our troops by their roles at home. The Landgirls, the WRVS/RVS, the ARP wardens and First Aiders in our bombed streets and industry, volunteer fire service, all the workers in the munitions and vehicle factories, the code breakers. The list of those who had a role to play goes on.

07/11/2020

This week I have been looking at the London Bomb Damage maps from the 2nd World War, a useful and interesting resource to find out the impact the Blitz and bombing had on our London ancestors.

07/11/2020

We will remember them:
Henry Mitchem 7/08/1915 Gallipoli
Evan Wright 13/04/1918 France and Flanders
Roy Albert James Mitchem 16/11/1943 Leros, Greece
Albert Henry Parsons 11/06/1944 at sea Isle of Wight
Septimus Wright 18/06/1917 Belgium
Sydney Carter 21/08/1915 Gallipoli, Turkey
James William Carter 3/03/1916 Amara, Iraq
Albert Carter 1/05/1918 Belgium
William John Murkin 31/03/1942 Singapore
Harry Albert Parker 6/06/1915 Gallipoli, Turkey
Charles John Eley 2/11/1917 Belgium
Lawrence Samuel Dolley 31/05/1944 Cassino, Italy
William Samuel Wolfe 25/10/1917 Belgium
William Henry George Wildney 5/02/1941 at sea Great Yarmouth, Norfolk