Saturday, April 02, 2005

gnimmel: "April 5th, 2004
12:26 pm: Hunting the feral words
So. I wrote about there being too many words in the world. Only one little problem. The words don't like that very much. Have you ever been in a room with thirty million sulking words? It's like being at a book-burning. I'm afraid they might fly out in the night and infect my dreams. So I'm going to write about some words which I do like.

These are the words I've been stalking on the streets of London over the last few months. The words in the world of these gentlemen."

gnimmel - Hunting the feral words: "I have a confession to make. I like graffiti. That's not to say I do graffiti; "

gnimmel - Hunting the feral words scroll down : "Somehow it reminds me of the host of little symbols I used to find in the inside back covers of library books when I worked as an assistant librarian. They were little circles and squares and dots, all different, neatly stacked in rows as if they were a secret language with a meaning; but I assumed some bored reader was putting them in at random.
For some reason the marked books were mainly in the large print section. It seemed odd that someone would get out a whole host of doctor-nurse romances and Barbara Cartland specials just to write very small discreet symbols on them.
Then one day my Nan revealed that she did it too; because the books were all so similar, it had become customary for the older folks of the town to tag each book they'd read with their symbol so that when they couldn't remember if they'd read something they could just look at the back page.
It makes me wonder if there are any elderly taggers out there marking up identical housing estates just so they can remember where they've been. :)"

From: ixwin
Date: April 5th, 2004 - 09:43 pm

link


I really love the concept of feral words.

They
are the
feral
words
They have
slipped
their leash
Now
They slink
along walls
behind dustbins
over railway bridges
late
at night
when you
should be
safe at home.

BBC - Search Results For severn river

my ancestors lived, and I went to boarding schools, on both sides of the Severn estuary and we were taken to see the severn bore as children Google Image Search: "severn bore"

copyright reserved by the BBC Website of all below


Tsunami theory of flood disaster
Professors Ted Bryant and Simon Haslett
Professors Ted Bryant and Simon Haslett believe a tidal wave hit south Wales
A tsunami in the Bristol Channel could have caused the deaths of up to 2,000 people in one of Britain's greatest natural disasters, experts have said.

For centuries, it has been thought that the great flood of January 1607 was caused by high tides and severe storms.

It is estimated that 200 square miles of land in south Wales and south west England were covered by water.

In Timewatch at 2100 GMT on BBC2 on Friday, two experts argue a tsunami could have caused the devastation.

Eyewitness accounts of the disaster, published in six different pamphlets of the time, told of "huge and mighty hills of water" advancing at a speed "faster than a greyhound can run" and only receding 10 days later.

Map
The extensive area in blue shading was affected by the 1607 disaster

Professor Simon Haslett, from Bath Spa University College, said: "There is an overall theme running through the pamphlets of a destructive event, very violent, disastrous, on a scale that is unprecedented."

Australian geologist Ted Bryant, from the University of Wollongong, agreed: "The waves are described as mountainous - that's a description of a tsunami."

During the programme, Mr Haslett and Mr Bryant revealed evidence from all around the Severn Estuary backing up their theory.

This included a layer of sand in mud deposits at Cardiff's Rumney Wharf, in which pebbles and pieces of broken-up shell can be found.

They claimed that these deposits were brought in from the open ocean around 400 years ago, possibly by a tsunami.

And they argued that boulders lying on the shore in Dunraven Bay in south Wales could have been carried into their positions by the force of the onrushing waters.

Pamphlet
The disaster of 1607 was recorded in several pamphlets at the time

"Whether it is sand on the marsh, or it's pebbles in the clay, or it's erosion on the headland or boulders piled up in key spots, you go for the simplest explanation, and I can put down most of the signatures we have seen by one wave," said Mr Bryant.

However, Dr Devin Horsburgh, from the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool, said some of the phenomena found could have been caused by a massive storm surge, formed by a combination of high tides and hurricane winds.

"A storm surge is going to provide some billions tonnes of water rushing across the flood plain and is more than capable of picking up enormous rocks and large amounts of sediment and depositing them a long way away," he said.

Further evidence supporting the tsunami theory came from Dr Roger Musson, head of seismic hazards at the British Geological Survey, who said there were other examples of earthquakes in the area caused by an ancient fault off south-west Ireland.

Timewatch graphic
Timewatch uses computer graphics to recreate what the wave could have looked like

One quake, measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale, was recorded there on 8 February 1980.

"The idea of putting a large historical earthquake in this spot is not so fanciful," he said.

"We know from seismological evidence, that we have actually had an earthquake here - so there is a fault and it is moving, it is active."

Other UK tsunamis include a 70ft high wave that hit Scotland 7,000 years ago, following a massive landslip in Norway.

Three months ago, a tsunami triggered by a submarine earthquake near northern Indonesia killed nearly 300,000 people.


== I looked around the BBC website for a video repeat of this programme to link to
but could not find one - only news and radio:-(

Friday, April 01, 2005

snipped

Spaghetti, was introduced into this country by Italian POWs during the
second World War.

Not able to get enough of their favorite pasta, they asked the Red Cross to
ask the Italian Government to send them a small quantity of pasta seed.

They were allowed by their benign British guards, to cultivate various
types of pasta plants.

Pasta is well known as a crop that does not require much sunny weather to
mature, so their POW camps were ideal growing grounds.

They were thus able to add to their rations with plenty of spaghetti
bolognese even if they were forced to make it with spam.

I hope that helps on this day

Best wishes,

Phil.
in my email from the Britsol_and_Somerset list:-

In looking through the 1861 census today, I was surprised to find an unusual
occupation - haggis farmer. Although these normally wild animals are farmed
extensively in Scotland, I hadn't realised that they were being farmed in
the South West of England in the 19th century.
Of course, herds of them are a common site in the fields of Scotland,
often feeding on the natural vegetation, or where farmers are rearing
them for their meat, on spaghetti trees that the farmers plant to provide a cheap source of carbohydrate. But I've never seen photographs of them
roaming this far south in England.

Has anyone else come across an ancestor in this line of trade ? I imagine
they would have been pretty scarce.

Best wishes of the day,

Mike Gould
Leicestershire
in my email from the Britsol_and_Somerset list:-
MEDIA RELEASE

Provo Friday

My Family.Con Inc., producers of the world leading genealogy software
/Family Tree Maker/ announced today that the company had entered an
agreement with the World Astrological & Clairvoyants Association (WACA) to
develop a new capability in a future version of /Family Tree Maker/.

This new capability will allow users of /Family Tree Maker/ to confirm
unknown details in their research to allow them to quickly complete missing
data by establishing links to departed ancestors.

The company said that new research by NASA in conjunction with the WACA is
based on recently developed algorithms and Bayesian statistical analysis is
used to intelligently assess the accuracy of the given message. The new
technology to be added to /Family Tree Maker/ will also include Heuristic
filtering which looks for patterns or activities that are likely to come
from paranormal activity. The new technology called WHOYOUGOING TOCALL will
add a new dimension to genealogy.

Once a contact has been verified, the program will use the established web
merging capability introduced in version 2005 to seamlessly add the new
data. The company noted that no existing data will be overwritten by this
new source. Registered users of /Family Tree Maker/ will be invited to test
this exciting new technology.

A company spokesman, Dr. Peter Venkman said that this is an exciting
breakthrough in genealogical research and reinforces the company's
commitment to provide users of /Family Tree Maker/ with the benefits from
the company's extensive research policies which is making /Family Tree
Maker/ the world's best selling genealogy software. The company said that
the new capability would be introduced as soon as the subscription
technology to access this hitherto unavailable information is refined.


Dr Karen Francis
,
Centre for Endocrine and Diabetes Sciences
Cardiff University, Heath Park,
CARDIFF
Tel: 029 20742343
.............
Registered with the GOONS
News : Weird News -- KansasCity.com: "Thief steals poop from woman walking dog
This mugger was left holding a bag he didn't really want."
The Victoria Advocate: "Expected to be installed sometime this summer, the treadmill will be just over 20 feet long and five feet wide. Elephants walk by simultaneously moving two legs at a time along a path only about 18 inches wide, so the machine has to be able to withstand concentrated weight. It will be buried in a pit so that the surface is roughly level with the ground, with safety rails on either side of the treadmill's belt."
Google Groups : soc.genealogy.britain:
Lottery grants for family historians"
Google Groups : soc.genealogy.britain:
Lottery grants for family historians"
W3Schools Online Web Tutorials: "Full Web Building Tutorials - All Free
At W3Schools you will find all the Web-building tutorials you need, from basic HTML and XHTML to advanced XML, Multimedia and WAP."

yet another brilliant web freebie
Gmail: Help Center: "What's new on Gmail?
Just launched!

G is for growth
Storage is an important part of email, but that doesn't mean you should have to worry about it. To celebrate our one-year birthday, we're giving everyone one more gigabyte. But why stop the party there? Our plan is to continue growing your storage beyond 2GBs by giving you more space as we are able. We know that email will only become more important in people's lives, and we want Gmail to keep up with our users and their needs. From Gmail, you can expect more."

email me ask for an invitiation if you want an account
Google Gulp

er what day is it?
KELLY'S DIRECTORY OF MONMOUTHSHIRE, 1901: "A high .sea wall, erected to prevent the irruption of the tide, skirts one side of the parish.

The church of St. Mary Magdalene is an ancient building of stone in the Early Englsh style, consisting of chancel, nave, south porch, and an embattled western tower containing one bell. In .the chancel there is a mural brass thus inscribed :-

'On the 20th day of January, 1606, even as it came to pass, it
pleased God the flood did flow to the edge of this same brass,
and in this parish there was lost ?5,000 in stock &c.
besides 22 people was in this parish drowned.'
Goldcliffe: John Wilkins of Pill Row and William Tap,
Churchwardens, 1609"
St. Gwynllyw alias Woolos ... sixth century


The Life of Saint Gwynllyw: "§11. Of a certain composer of verses from the acts of saint Gwynllyw.
Acertain British versifier, versifying in British, composed verses on his own race, and in the British speech praises concerning the manner of life of the most holy Gwynllyw and of his life's miracles, which God for love of him allowed him to do.

These same verses had not yet been completed by the composer, for a fourth part of the verses was wanting in composition; he had, however, sought matter for his theme, but natural genius to discover more to say there was not.

In the meantime a very furious sea-flood with overwhelming strength covered the flat land; it overwhelmed all the inhabitants and buildings; horses with oxen, oxen with horses, swim in the water.
Mothers held their children on their outstretched hands; the flood seizes them and they went no further. What great distress and what great misery!
They who were then living there become corpses.

Between the church of saint Gwynllyw and the Severn none came alive to the wood except the aforesaid composer by favour of the most holy Gwynllyw.
For when he saw the very high flood threatening, staying in the midst of the maritime parts of the Severn, he began to compose the fourth part of his verses, fearing for fear to be then submerged.
When he had begun [the house] was filled with waves. After these things he mounted higher on a beam, and a second time there followed him the swelling flood.
A third time it followed him on to the roof, nor does he even so give up his busy praises.
When these were done, the British poet escaped, and propped up and secured his house, but the other houses the water subverted and swept away."

Severn Estuary - 1606: Great Storm - or Tsunami? Tuesady January 27th

British Tsunami in the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary in 1607

Research into the devastating coastal flood event that is likely to have been a tsunami, affected the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary in January 1607 has, since 2002, been the subject of collaborative study between:
Dr Simon Haslett, Head of Geography at Bath Spa University College, author of Coastal Systems (Routledge) and
Dr Ted Bryant, School of Geosciences at the University of Wollongong, Australia, author of Tsunami: the Underrated Hazard (Cambridge University Press)

The flood occurred around 9am on the '20th January 1606', although in the modern calendar this is the 30th January 1607. The event is recorded on plaques in a number of churches, including those at Kingston Seymour in Somerset, and in Monmouthshire at Goldcliff, St. Brides, Redwick and Peterstone.

The Kingston Seymour plaque reads:
"An inundation of the Sea-water by overflowing and breaking down the Sea banks; happened in this Parish of Kingstone-Seamore, and many others adjoining; by reason whereof many Persons were drown'd and much Cattle and Goods, were lost: the water in the Church was five feet high and the greatest part lay on the ground about ten days. WILLIAM BOWER"

The idea that the 1607 flood was due to a tsunami was first put forward by Haslett and Bryant in a scientific paper published in 2002 in the journal Archaeology in the Severn Estuary.

A number of historical documents exist that describe the event and its aftermath. An area from Barnstaple in north Devon, up the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary to Gloucester, then along the South Wales coast around to Cardigan was affected, some 570 km of coastline.

The coastal population was devastated with at least 2000 fatalities according to one of the contemporary sources. In some parts of the coast the population never recovered from the social and economic disaster.

Examples of the human tragedy include:

At Appledore, Devon, a 60 tonne ship was well-laden and ready to sail and was driven by the wave onto marshy ground well above high tide, likely never to be recovered.
In Barnstaple, Devon, the wave burst open doors that were locked and bolted and knocked down many walls and houses, one of which was the house of a James Frost in that the roof and walls collapsed and killed both him and two of his children.
Near Newport, Gwent, a wealthy women, Mistress Van, lived four miles from the sea and although she saw the wave approaching from her house she could not get upstairs before it rushed through and drowned her.
In Monmouthshire, "a maide child, not passing the age of foure years: it is reported that the mother thereof, perceiving the waters to breake so fast into her house, and not being able to escape with it, and having no clothes on, set it upon a beame in the house, to save it from being drowned. And the waters rushing in a pace, a little chicken as it seemeth, flew up unto it [the child], (it being found in the bosome of it, when helpe came to take it [the child] downe) and by the heate thereof, as it is thought, preserved the childe's life".
In Monmouthshire, "Another little childe is affirmed to have been cast uppon land in a cradle, in which was nothing but a catte [cat], the which was discerned as it came floating to the shoare, to leape still from one side of the cradle unto the other, even as if she had been appointed steresman to preserve the small barke from the waves furie".
In Monmouthshire, "A certain man and woman having taken a tree for their succour, espying nothing but death before their eyes, at last among other things which were carried along, they perceived a certain tubbe of great bignesse to come nearer and nearer unto them, until it rested upon that tree wherein they were, committed themselves, and were carried safe until they were cast upon the drie shore".
In Monmouthshire, "more than did, had perished for want of food, and extreme cold, had not the Rt. Honble. Lord Herbert .... sent out boats to relieve the distresse .... himself goping to such houses as he could minister to their provision of meate and other necessaries".
In Somerset, through the breaking of the sea bank at Burnham some 30 villages were utterly inundated, and their cattle destroyed, and men, women and children besides. The accounts state that 28 people were drowned at Huntspill and 26 at Brean, and death toll that was similar in many other villages.

Haslett and Bryant were led to think that the 1607 flood was caused by a tsunami, rather than a storm, for a number of reasons:
Some historical accounts indicate that the weather was fine e.g. "for about nine of the morning, the same being most fayrely and brightly spred, many of the inhabitants of these countreys prepared themselves to their affayres" and the ship at Appldedore (see above) is unlikely to be ready to sail in stormy weather.
The sea appears to have been "driven back" i.e. retreated out to sea, before the wave struck, a classic tsunami herald.
The wave appeared as " mighty hilles of water tombling over one another in such sort as if the greatest mountains in the world had overwhelmed the lowe villages or marshy grounds Sometimes it dazzled many of the spectators that they imagined it had bin some fogge or mist coming with great swiftness towards them and with such a smoke as if mountains were all on fire, and to the view of some it seemed as if myriads of thousands of arrows had been shot forth all at one time". This is very similar to descriptions of more recent tsunami, such as the tsunami associated with the eruption of Krakatau in 1883, where accounts refer to the sea as being ‘hilly’, and the reference to dazzling, fiery mountains, and myriads of arrows, is reminiscent of accounts of tsunami on the Burin Peninsula (Newfoundland) in 1929, where the wave crest was shining like car headlights, and in Papua New Guinea in 1998 where the wave was frothing and sparkling. Film of the Asian tsunami is similar.
The speed of the wave appears to have been faster than a storm flood as the wave is ‘affirmed to have runne …. with a swiftness so incredible, as that no gray-hounde could have escaped by running before them’.

In the summer of 2004, Haslett and Bryant embarked on field work in the area to record any physical impacts of the proposed 1607 tsunami that might still be left in the landscape. They found:
erosion of rock at the coast that is characteristic of erosion caused by high velocity water flow. This includes two large chunks of farmland on the Severn Estuary north of Bristol that were simply washed away, one where the foundation of the Second Severn Crossing is, and the other is now the reservoir for the Oldbury Nuclear Power Station;
the deposition of layers of sand over wide areas at the time, discovered in boreholes in the ground from north Devon to Gloucestershire to the Gower;
large boulders that are only easily moved by tsunami waves have been found stacked like dominoes at and above the high tide limits all along the coast.

These signatures of tsunami enable Haslett and Bryant to estimate the scale of the proposed tsunami wave and its affects.

Tsunami height - In the open sea area between north Devon and Pembrokeshire, the wave was just under 4m (13ft) high, but as it entered the constricting funnel-shaped Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary, the wave increased in height to 5m (16ft) along the Glamorgan coast, 5.5m (18ft) along the Somerset coast, and over 7.5m (25ft) high, by the time it reached the Monmouthshire coast. This increase in wave height due to the funnel-shape of the estuary is exactly the same as the process that creates the famous Severn Bore.
Tsunami speed - The speed (velocity) of a tsunami is related to its height, so as it moved up estuary and got squeezed between the opposing shores of England and Wales, it got faster, striking the coast at just over 12 m/sec (27mph) in north Devon and southwest Wales, to just under 14 m/sec (31mph) along the Glamorgan coast, to 14.5 m/sec (32mph) in Somerset, and over 17 m/sec (38mph) in Monmouthshire. This agrees well with the contemporary observations regarding the speed of the wave.
Tsunami inundation - On the flat coastal areas the tsunami was able to penetrate a considerable distance inland. The maximum inland penetration possible of a moving tsunami wave in north Devon and southwest Wales would have been just under 2.5 km (1.55 miles), in Glamorgan just over 3 km (1.86 miles), in Somerset just under 4 km (2.5 miles), and in Monmouthshire just under 6 km (3.7 miles). This agrees well with the accounts of the wave reaching up to 4 miles inland at Cardiff and in Monmouthshire. The fact that the floodwaters reached further inland in places, such as to the foot of Glastonbury Tor (14 miles inland) is due to the fact that the landsurface actually slopes landward in many of the coastal wetland areas, such as the Somerset Levels, so once the wave collapsed the water flowed landward under gravity rather than back to the sea.

A possible cause of the proposed tsunami is not yet known, but the possibilities include a submarine landslide off the continental shelf between Ireland and Cornwall, or an earthquake along an active fault system in the sea south of Ireland. This fault system has apparently experienced an earthquake greater than magnitude 4 on the Richter scale within the last 20 years, so the chance of a bigger tsunami earthquake is a possibility. It may also have been a combination, in that an earthquake might have triggered a submarine slide.

A BBC Timewatch programme was filmed in the summer of 2004 in conjunction with Haslett and Bryant's research and fieldwork, and is scheduled to be shown early in 2005, although some re-editing may be needed in response to the Asian tsunami.

For further information and photographs, please contact:

Dr Simon Haslett FGS, FRGS
Dept. of Geography,
School of Science and the Environment,
Bath Spa University College,
Newton Park,
Bath, BA2 9BN.
Tel: 01225 875544 (or 01225-875585)
Email: s.haslett@bathspa.ac.uk

Environmental Valuation & Cost-Benefit News - Severnside's own 'tsunami': "The happening has been investigated by Sharpness-based author and historian Royce Denning who dealt with it in his book A History of Berkeley Vale.

Mr Denning said the earliest record of the flood was by John Smythe, custodian at Berkeley Castle, who had it as occurring in January, 1606. Smythe wrote: 'The sea overflowed the banks and sea walls and many people and cattle were drowned
'All along the Severn-side from Bristol to Gloucester this flood is said to have risen nearly as high as Frampton Tower, at least 60 feet above the present level of the Severn.' "


Google Search: bbc wave severn timewatch: "bbc wave severn timewatch "

BBC - BBC TWO - Listings: "
9:00 pm
The Killer Wave of 1607
Timewatch investigates the massive wave that devastated the counties of the Bristol Channel in January 1607. Experts now believe that the wave was not simply a freak storm, but a tsunami. [AD] "




what I get up to when not blogging or researching - or watching tv, reading books or listening to jazz or classical music

posting to groups
or in this case bulletin boards

Re: Parish registers
Author: Hugh Watkins Date: 31 Mar 2005 6:13 PM GMT
Classification: Query
In Reply to: Parish registers by: Shalisse Johnstun



(1)
The government registered their citizen's civil status

born === but no penalty for non reagistration prior to 1875
so many missing before between 1 July 1837 and 1875

married === but some never married

died === must be registered to get permission to bury or cremate the body.
after a coroners report if a sudden death.

all public events and registered

http://www.genuki.org.uk/
Addresses of local Register Offices can be found on English and Welsh Register Offices, or in the appropriate telephone directory under Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths. Details are also available of Registration Districts In England And Wales (1837-1930).
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/RegOffice/
on line http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/
with the indexes created from the original registration entries held by the local registrars

all public events and searchable centrally too

St Kaths index was the old name before the move to Somerset House and
now at http://www.familyrecords.gov.uk

http://www.freebmd.org.uk
FreeBMD is an ongoing project, the aim of which is to transcribe the Civil Registration index of births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales, and to provide free Internet access to the transcribed records.
The FreeBMD Database was last updated on Mon 21 Mar 2005 and currently contains 97,982,159 distinct records

The records that have been transcribed are not evenly distributed; the graphs for
Births, Marriages and Deaths how which years, quarters and events are most complete.


http://www.1837online.com/Trace2web/
pay to look at images of the published index
if you have no access to film or fiche at a library near you

Certified copies of entries are available from local registrars
Note these are the originals and the above page reference numbers do not apply
see Comedy of Errors
Michael Whitfield Foster's research at the General Register Office (the GRO) in Southport

copies of copies
http://www.familyrecords.gov.uk/topics/bmd_3.htm




(2)

the church (es) register religious events

baptism AKA christening === do not enter as date of birth in family trees

sometimes YEARS after the birth
or as a group when the priest caught up with them

or the family converted to a new church

or to qualify for relief under the poor laws,
some gypsies even christened their children many times LOL

confirmation === around 14 years of age

marriage

burials === do not enter as date of death in family trees

location of graves in church yard

Then there are cemetery records from municipal or private cemeteries - access may be a problem.

use
http://www.familysearch.org/

• Search the Family History Library Catalog for records and resources.
http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp

Place Search to find film of church books AKA parish registers

FreeREG - Search English Parish Register Transcripts and Indexes
is in its infancy.

(3)
the Church in Wales and some parishes refused access to LDS
so use Bishops Transcripts
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/EmeryPaper.html#Bishops


http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/EmeryPaper.html

I have to go to Wales to read the originals concerning my Watkins and Jones from Raglan

but it is much easier to read parish registers of small villages than ordering lots of certificates WRONGLY for John Jones or other big names like SMITH


Hugh W

and see the context:-



http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=81867074&pid=r&mode=ALL&query=&t=s

I feel another FAQ coming on
that could be the second draft needs more on the beginnings of parish registers

Thursday, March 31, 2005

I hate gov.uk webmasters
who destroy useful links

below rescued from googles cache

=========== © Norfolk Record Office 2004 =========

Norfolk Record Office Information Leaflet 40
Adoption Records


There are around half a million adopted people in this country, many of whom wish to find out about their birth family. Also, the birth parents and siblings sometimes wish to find out what has happened to the adopted person.
Adoption was put on a proper legal footing by the Adoption of Children Act of 1926 which came into effect in 1927.

Prior to 1927 adoptions were arranged by adoption societies and privately between individuals. Some societies such as the Church of England Children’s Society (Edward Rudolf House, Margery Street, London WC1X 0JL) maintain records of the adoptions which they arranged. Boards of Guardians were also sometimes involved but there are few surviving records.

From 1927 adoptions had to be approved by magistrates meeting in a Petty Sessions Court and each court maintained a register. In Norfolk there were 28 Petty Sessional Divisions and the NRO has registers for around half of them. They give the date, name and date of birth of the child to be adopted, name and address of the birth mother and occasionally of the birth father, name and address of the adoptive parents, name of person or body acting as guardian ad litem, and decision of the court. The registers can be disappointing. They often do not give all the details and sometimes the handwriting is illegible. They are closed to public inspection for 75 years.

The Clerk to the Petty Sessions Court kept a file on each adoption. In many cases these have been destroyed but Norwich Magistrates’ Court (Bishopgate, Norwich NR3 1UP) has many adoption files (which the Clerk intends to deposit in the NRO eventually). Please note that these files are closed to public inspection.

Local authorities were given responsibility for supervising adoptions and a Children’s Officer was appointed. In the case of Norfolk County Council the Children’s Officer was based in the Education Department (before the creation of the Social Services Department in 1971) and kept a register of all the cases with which she was involved. The register (which is closed to public access) is dated 1927-1945 and is a useful indication of whether there are any papers relating to the adoption amongst the Children’s Officer’s files. If the register records that the County Council acted as guardian ad litem, there should be some relevant papers.

The Children’s Officer’s files can be disappointing but usually include a form signed by the birth mother relinquishing her parental rights. There is usually correspondence with the clergyman of the parish asking for his opinion of the couple seeking to adopt. Sometimes there can be other information such as a note that the birth mother is a wartime landgirl and has no means of supporting the child or a letter from a husband stating that he will stay with his wife so long as the child to which she has given birth as the result of an affair is removed.

Occasional references to adoptions can be found in the minute books of the Children’s Committee of Norwich Board of Guardians (N/TC 3/91-97), of Norwich City Council (N/TC 31/3/1-9) and of Norfolk County Council (C/C 10/79-87) but it should be emphasised that such references are rare.

The Adoption and Family Finding Unit (3 Unthank Road, Norwich NR2 2PA, tel. 01603 617796) should in theory have a file for every individual adopted in Norfolk, although this is not always the case in practice. It has been agreed that the NRO will take the files when they become 75 years old but the Social Services Department wishes them to remain closed to public access for 100 years.

Registers of all adoptions in England and Wales are kept by the General Register Office and indexes to them can be seen in the The Family Records Centre (1 Myddelton Street, London EC1R 1UW). However, only the adopted person can be given the information which links the adoption certificate with the original birth certificate. The Office for National Statistics website http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ registration has useful information.

When the Adoption Act of 1926 was drafted, it was envisaged that an adopted person’s break with his birth family would be total and both birth and adoptive parents were subsequently led to believe that adopted children would never be able to find out about their origins.

The Adoption Act of 1976 changed this and gave people adopted after 11 November 1975 the right of access to their birth records once they reached 18 years of age. The Act also gave people adopted before 12 November 1975 the right of access to their birth records but with the proviso that they must see a counsellor beforehand. An appointment with a counsellor can be made through the Social Services Department of the area where the adoption order was made or where the adopted person lives or through the General Register Office. The NRO cannot release closed information without a certificate from a social worker or counsellor.

At the moment the birth parents and other birth relatives cannot have any information about an adopted relative. However a bill going through Parliament at present will alter this and should become law next year (2004).

The Adoption Contact Register was established by the Registrar General on 1 May 1991 (under the Children Act of 1989) and enables adopted people and their birth relatives to register their willingness to be contacted. An entry may lay dormant for many years before a second person seeking the first places him or her self on the register. There is a one-off fee for entry onto the register: £15 for the adopted person and £30 for the birth relative. An application form can be obtained from: The General Register Office, Adoption Section, Contact Register, Smedley Hydro, Trafalgar Road, Birkdale, Southport PR8 2HH.

NORCAP is a registered charity which offers practical advice and assistance to adopted people who wish to trace members of their birth family and to both their birth parents and adopted families. For further information contact: 12 Church Road, Wheatley, Oxfordshire OX33 1LU.

Updated: April 2004.

E-mail: norfrec@norfolk.gov.uk

© Norfolk Record Office 2004
from my Bristol_and_Somerset rootsweb email:-


Hello,

I ask for your assistance and implore you one and all
To bring out your biggest hammer and break down my great brickwall
As it seems to have grown larger since I first attacked its base
And of the people I am seeking there appears to be no trace

One I seek was once a Hatter, John Whittington by name
Who sired a son he christened George and whose calling was the same
George was born he says in Bristol in 1836
But if there is a record its been shuffled in the mix

At St. Pauls in 1856 he married Caroline King
But once again those records, I cannot find a thing
Their home in 1861 was Clifton, and they had three children there
But then by 1871 it was Weston super Mare

More children here were born, but Hatters tend to roam
So by census 1881 Middlesex was their home
He was a Hatter in New Oxford St, till 1903
But then the Hatters curse appeared for everyone to see
In Dec 1912 he left this mortal life ,
And was laid to rest in Camberwell and so too was his wife.

Their issue was eleven, two lost along the way
But all the rest survived the test and saw their wedding day
I am George & Caroline's great grandchild,but surely not the only one
For I feel their must be cousins who still greet the morning sun

Children of George & Caroline Whittington

George Henry Thomas born 1856 Shoreditch
Eliza 1858 Lambeth
Helena Alexandra 1864 Bristol
Alfred 1866 Bristol
Frederick 1868 Bristol
Lilly Elizabeth 1869 Weston Super Mare
Albert 1871 Weston Super Mare
Cecil Harry 1875 Weston Super Mare
Francis Mary 1880 Middlesex


Respectfully

Peter Whittington

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

logo

Genealogical Society of Finland
HisKi project

HisKi project includes lists of christenings, marriages, burials and moves.

Instructions and examples

Search program for history books

Updates of the search database

Transcription status


Note! The database does not contain all the parishes in Finland because all the information has not yet been entered into the computer. New parishes will be added as they become available.

The information in the database has not been checked and it contains errors. Also, the standardization of names is not complete, so it isn't always easy to find all the information. Any information found should be checked with original sources.

Search program is still partly in test phase. Some of the features are missing and there might be some errors left in the program. All feedback is welcome by e-mail to address historia@genealogia.fi.

Baby Farmers: "The practice of baby farming grew up in late Victorian times when there was great social stigma attached to having a child out of wedlock. Proper adoption agencies and social services didn't exist in the 1890's so an informal, untrained group of women offered fostering and adoption services to unmarried mothers who would hand over their baby plus, say, ten pounds in cash (quite a large sum of money then) to them in the hope that the child would be re-homed.

Most of the babies were, in one way or another. It is probable that some were sold to childless couples and others fostered/adopted for a few pounds. Unmarried mothers were often desperate, so answered the adverts placed in newspapers by seemingly reputable people. Getting rid of a child in this way had obvious advantages to the mother - it was simple, quick and legal with few questions asked. If the baby farmer moved on the baby's mother was often too frightened or ashamed to tell the police so it was very easy for unscrupulous women to kill off unwanted or hard to foster (sell?) babies.

The mothers had few real alternatives. Abortion was illegal and the back street abortions that were carried out were a very high risk alternative, sometimes resulting in severe haemorrhaging or even the death of the women or prosecution and imprisonment if she was found out. Abandonment was similarly illegal and little sympathy was extended by the courts to women who abandoned their children in those days. Murdering of unwanted children by their mothers typically resulted in the death penalty in Victorian Britain"

Bastardy and Baby Farming in Victorian England: "A many years ago
When I was young and charming
As some of you may know
I practiced baby-farming.
-- Buttercup "

Prior to the 19th century, the Poor Law of 1733 stipulated that the putative father was responsible for the maintenance of his illegitimate child. If he failed to support the child, the mother could have him arrested on a justice's warrant and put in prison until he agreed to do so.

my thanks to Stan Mapstone in Birtol_and_Somerset RootsWeb goup
Stednavne-database Krabsen is a bit hidden
Danish place names
Ireland Genealogy - Gen208 - Mother Hubbard's Cupboard:
"A bishop's diocese comprised parishes. Many parishes were villages with a church and a clergyman (or incumbent.)
Larger towns and cities would contain several parishes.

Records of British baptisms, marriages and burials have been maintained by law since 1538.

Not all churches date back to 16th century and not all clergymen kept proper records in the early years.

The early baptism, marriage and burial records were usually jumbled together and some of them were written in Latin but by 1732 all registers were required to be written in English.

During 18th century the baptisms, marriages and burials were maintained inseparate registers or on separate pages.
For the first 200 years it was normal to record only the father's full name and that of his child in baptismal entries so proving ancestry for a popular surname is often difficult. Most original parish registers are today in CROs but some are still in churches.

From 1598 the clergy had to send a copy of their entire year's parish register to the local bishop. These copy entries are known as the Bishops' Transcripts or BTs.

Thanks to the efforts of LDS, microfilmed copies of most parish registers and BTs are available for loan at most FHCs. (There is a delay whilst copies are made from masters atSalt Lake City.) There are also holdings at the PRO.
Microfiche and microfilm copies are available for scrutiny at the SoG and various libraries.
Considerable work has been undertaken by FHSs in indexing the registers, and typewritten indexes and abstracts can be viewed at SoG, CROs and FHSs. "
Alan J.L. MacLeod - Genealogy Professional: "I am a member and accredited researcher of the Association of Scottish
Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (ASGRA) and all research is
undertaken by myself. I have worked in and travelled thoughout Scotland for
nearly 60 years. As a result, I have a close and intimate knowledge of the
local and national geography, history, place names and people of Scotland. "

Google Search: ASGRA

OR

Atlantic States Gay Rodeo Association, ASGRA

AND

ASGRA Professional Researchers: "Scottish family history research carried out in New Register House, National Archives of Scotland and Local Archives. " and much more
even Outer Hebrides Family History and Genealogy. Bill Lawson Publications - Books & Genealogy Research Harris Outer Hebrides

and my thanks to Cyndi's List - What's New on Cyndi's List? for a daily email from Cyndi's List - The CyndisList Mailing List
OneTree Genealogy at www.sadolins.com
DESCRIPTION: OneTree is a genealogical relations PhP-database focusing on Patrician, Nobility and Royalty lineages in Denmark - and consisting of more than 60.000 individuals and 30.000 partnerships in one single tree.

Surname List top 1000 on this POSH danish site

Nikolaj Sadolin's great grandparents, Esther Margrethe Schultz (1888-1964) and Gunnar Asgeir Sadolin (1874-1955),

who together -
while they were engaged in 1907 founded the paint factory Sadolins Farver (mergered in 1914 to become Sadolin & Holmblad Ltd., which in the beginning of 1950'ties was one of the World's Top 10 largest paint and inks groups), are the two central persons in OneTree Genealogy.

Among Gunnar Asgeir Sadolin ancestors was on his fathers side: Hildebrandt, Brøchner, Lassen, Jørgensen, Lindemann, Borring og Brandt - and on his mothers side: Marcussen, Holst, Saabye, Olsen, MacGregor of Inneregny, Meyer, Bacmeister og Weedel.

His fathers siblings married into Schouboe and Tørsleff.

Among Esther Margrethe Schultz ancestors was: Schultz, Schultzen, Holm, Warnheim, Haagen, Mengs, Kornerup, Müller, Brøchner, Sommer, Kjeldsen, Møller and Høyrup.

Her fathers mother, Hansine Haagen, had one sibling who did not got married.

Her fathers father, Johan Philip Schultz, had five siblings and two of these got married into Gyldenkrone and Ipsen.

Her mothers mother, Hedevig Marie Møller , had two siblings and one got married into Ryberg.
Her grandfather, Bertil Brøchner, had seven siblings and Bay, Obel, Ipsen and Kaarsberg.

Her mothers siblings married into Sporon, Ipsen and Foss.

Sadolin was an old priest lineage,
while Schultz was an old navy officer lineage, who had comed to Copenhagen from Kiel.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Genealogi: Personside - Rømer/Römer/Römer

nice Danish genealogy site


Frederik Christian Rømer
Født: 18. juni 1832 Edelsæde, Kølstrup sogn, Fyn
Døbt: 9. august 1832 Kølstrup kirke, Kølstrup sogn, Fyn
Død : 16. november 1921 Nyelandsvej 54, 2. sal, Frederiksberg
Begravet: 20. november 1921 Hvidovre kirkegård

Stilling: Generalleutnant og senere Guide og Kobberstikker i Generalstaben

Fader: Millitærmand Heinrich Friederich Christian Von Rømer
Moder: Inger Marie Hoffensetz

Familien boede også på følgende adresser:
1870 Blegdamsvej 8, Kbh.
1880 Blegdamsvej 8, Kbh.
1884 Wiedeweltsgade nr. 13, Kbh.
1885 Wiedeweltsgade nr. 14, Kbh.
1886 Kirkevej nr. 8 i Valby.
1889 Kirkevej nr. 4 i Valby.
1902 Kirkevej i Valby.
???? Et smut i Svendborg
1912 Jernbane Allé nr. 50 3. sal
1921 døde Frederik på Nyelandsvej 52 i København (om han boede hos datteren og svigersønnen vides endnu ikke).


Bergendorff - Genealogical homepage: "This homepage is made by a great interest in genealogy. Especially the name Bergendorff got my interest. If you hit our site in any relation, you are wery welcome to send a comment. Do you recognize a name in our lists related to your own search? Please mail us. Everyone will recieve an honest answer."

nice Danglish too

more here but better this than nothing LOL !!!

DIS-Danmark - english: "DIS-Danmark is an association of genealogical researchers which uses data processing and computers as a tool in the genealogical research.

It has not been possible to translate our total homepage into English � therefore the following introduction.


DIS-Danmark has an active homepage where you can find information about the association and its executive committee

- AND

DIS-Forum
where you among other things can search for ancestors and ask like-minded persons about various topics in relation to genealogical research and electronic data processing.
Here it is OK to write in English."
and why not ?
- that is how english grows world wide no longer owned by the english

Indian english is particularly fine

Monday, March 28, 2005

RECORD THOSE MEMORIES!

Pleases, please encourage those who are currently doing genealogy research now to write down their memoirs. My parents are deceased and many "oldies" have been forgotten, but my brothers and I are exchanging our remembrances of things our dad use to say.
For example, when we were out riding in a car and one driver would be in a hurry and pass another, he would say, "Beep, beep, toot, toot, honk, honk, get out of my way or I'll run over you."
We remember that from back in the 40s.
Another saying he liked was, "It's not what you know, it's who you know." Normally, he wasn't an outspoken man, but on certain things, he had a lot of influence.

Not only have I been writing my "life story" (I'm 72), but I have also written bios of my parents, grandparents, and from what newspapers had written, my great-grandfather.
From this bio of the latter, he name was entered into the Hall of Fame in Rocky Mount, N.C., and he was one chosen to be inducted because of how much he had done for our hometown back in the early 1900s.

Hazel Rawls Carr
Thanks to Hazel for today's Quick Tip!
If you have a tip you would like to share with researchers, you can send it to
: mailto:ADNeditor@ancestry.com

one net friend Moweq over in USA on AOL has written over 200 mini biographies - she puts me to shame!
"Ancestry Daily News" sign-up box is at: http://www.ancestry.com/learn
Census UK help and FAQ phew finished a major update

then after putting it all on the web spotting more mistakes and omissions
Anyway a wonderful day yesterday - the Boat Race - Rhinegold live from the Royal Opera House London on BBC2 TV

The W3C Markup Validation Service is a free service that checks Web documents in formats like HTML and XHTML for conformance to W3C Recommendations and other standards

To show your readers that you have taken the care to create an interoperable Web page, you may display this icon on any page that validates
but this blog page has hundreds of errors so no sticker here
then I made a killer soup with lots of spices yum yum
SN 3542 -Database of Irish Historical Statistics :

Census Material, 1901-1971
: "Time Period Covered: 1881-1971
1881, 1891, 1901, 1911, 1926, 1936 (Republic of Ireland only), 1937 (Northern Ireland only), 1946 (Republic of Ireland only), 1951, 1961, 1966 (Republic of Ireland only), 1971.

Country: Ireland; Multi-nation; Northern Ireland

Spatial Units: (A)Countries; (B)Counties; (C)Local Authority Districts
Observation Units: Administrative units (geographical/political)
Kind of Data: Numeric data; Alpha/numeric data; Aggregate (macro) level"

I like their terminology with the island of Ireland as a "Multi-nation" well a multinational project.

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Google Groups : dk.videnskab.historie.genealogi

I asked about Danish Census on CD

Hi Hugh

The CD's are available at ddd.dda.dk. 1787, 1801/03 and 1845 are
complete. 1834 is nearly there. Bornholm is complete and available from
www.bslf.dk.


KIPBrowser can do exactly that. It is very fast and has a very good
phonetic search algorithm.


And now that the censuses are delivered in ZIP format, it can search
inside the zip files. Which means that you can zip all your files and
reduce the space used without taking any noticable hit on performance.
It is available at www.nsoft.dk and it is freeware.


For those interested I managed to construct a single command to zip all
the files in the directory. If you use Infozip's freeware zip it would be


For %1 in (*.csv) do zip %~n1.zip %1


Automatic search for "tandlæge" in all 13766 censuses took 20 minutes on
a 1300MHz laptop and found 51 censuses among them.


Best rgds,
Michael Erichsen


og LynFT fandt dem på 20 sek. :-)

Bo Google Search: LynFT

For slægtforskere.Programmet anvendes til hurtigt gennemsyn af Folketællinger eller andre kilder der ligger i et tekstformat. Søgehastigheden er rigtig god. F.eks. tager det under 1 minut at finde alle forekomster af et navn i FT1801. Der kan søges på et eller flere ord. Wildcards er tilladt.
Klik på "Slægt og -software" i menuen i venstre side.
Status: Freeware
Platform: Windows 95+98+ME, Windows NT4, Windows 2000, WindowsXP
Producent: Bo Ekelund
Tilmeldt: 25. august 2003

Bo Ekelund's Web Site
acetified Delphi programmer

GOTCHER Family Main Page

from Robbie Giles to Freepages-Help:


There is a class of software called Open Source which is free to users.
The software is created by people and then shared with the internet
community. I found several very good editors for creating webpages. I am
currently using jEdit 4.2 which requires java on your computer.

Here is one site for open source software. <http://sourceforge.net/>
Poke around, it is amazing what people have made available. Think of it
as computer geeks who didn't want to become hackers. Just kidding, I
think it is much the same as the genealogy community freely sharing
information.

The page for jEdit is <http://www.jedit.org/>

I create my pages in jEdit on my hard drive and upload to the RootsWeb
server using WS_FTP95 LE. It is how I started coding back when and I
just haven't switched over to editing on a remote server.

My site uses an external style sheet and four javascript programs for
the banner, navigation bar, bookmarks menu and the footer. I made one
change to my navigation bar program and it changed the appearance of all
my pages. Contact me off-line if you want a copy of the scripts and
style sheet. You can edit them to fit your needs.

Just remember, everyone was a beginner once and we all keep learning new
thing.
Ancestry.co.uk - 1901 Wales Census NEW TODAY
HAPPY EASTER ALL !
Genealogy Resources on the Internet - USENET Newsgroups
now I am moving off usenet onto google groups
this list of newsgroups with gatewayed mailing lists is handy
Autumn Cottage Diary,: Roz Cawley (nee Roslyn LATHAM Newport Monmouthshire) a genealogist too
It is now summer time, but still 01:10 gmt on the computer clock.

BBC Radio 3 reminded me, so for once I advanced my two household clocks and my watch within minutes.

My faithful web spider loaned to me by http://www.freefind.com/ reported to me:-

Spider summary
html pages read: 6,971
text pages read: 1
pdf pages read: 0 in 0 files
total pages: 6,972
page limit: n/a
total bytes: 100,006,678

This covers all my sites in the side bar here which you may now search

The original html file was so big that no browser could open it on line
and when downloaded and unzipped neither Star Office nor MSIE 6 ould open it, but good old NoteTab Light 4.95 could (see http://www.notetab.com/)

Then NoteTab stripped out the html tags for me,
and by using a control F find on page got to the first line "indexed" in the Builder log which is an alphabetical list of pages searchable by the newly installed site search on this page, and above the word indexed was the report

more details about how it works here :-Indexing log file reference
Library > Reference > Indexing Logs

the build is alphabetical from http://1805ad.blogspot.com/
to http://www.rootsweb.com/~dnkcen/sitemap.html
and this time I could not see any gaps !

next I have to rebuild Danish Census and Church Books

http://www.rootsweb.com/~dnkcen/index.html
because of the goings on at http://www.arkivalieronline.dk/
which means all the links to indexes are broken
so my standard footer will become:-

=====================
dnkcen Site Map updated March 27 2005 Hugh Watkins
search my sites
=====================

for more scribblings about making sites see about Rootsweb and a little in the blog about AOL where I link to AOL member sites and many pages are created with Easy Designer or its new version:-




Welcome to 1-2-3 Publish, the easy way to build your own Web
page! Even if you've never created a Web page before, you can get your very own
page on the Web in minutes - it's as easy as 1-2-3!

First decide what you want to make your Web page about.

Choose one of the 14 categories below and then pick a template.

You can choose the look you want by picking the graphics and
colours.

Then you can add your own text to the page and upload your own
pictures.

List your favourite links for visitors to follow and don't forget to
add your email address so they can get in touch and tell you what they think of
your great new Web page.



More of my scriblings are here Google Search Results 1 - 100 of 7,700 for author:hugh author:watkins

my oldest stuff with my very first email address

Searched all groups
Results 1 - 12 of 12 from Jan 1, 1981 to Mar 26, 1996 for author:Hugh_Watkins@online.pol.dk.
these are from the old DejaNews site which was rescued by google when it ran out of money.

DejaNews considered harmful:


"Well, I won't deny that in the case of Usenet the good old days really
were better than the current situation. And hopefully, if it takes off, Usenet 2
will go some way towards fixing the problem. But I wish today to warn of a
deeper and potentially deadlier parasite that afflicts our favourite discussion
system: DejaNews and friends.

Usenet is, and always was, a conferencing system. As such, it suffered
from rolling amnesia - anything discussed more than two weeks ago was lost in
the cloudbanks of an uncertain past. There was a certain comfort to this, even
if it induced a certain soporific monotony; while answers to questions were
rendered obscure, and the same standard flame wars were resurrected in life
eternal, we were also mercifully able to leave the worst of it behind. Only a
few newsgroups were archived, and the archives were mostly known about only by
people smart enough to read the FAQ.

All this changed in 1995, when DejaNews rudely interrupted the amnesic
fogbank with a glaring transmission of daylight - and a TV camera. DejaNews
indiscriminately archives trivia and bile along with every insight and smile; it
is a veritable vacuum cleaner, slurping up anything posted on Usenet that isn't
tagged with the appropriate (and relatively arcane) exclusion information.
"

Which means there are more than 10,000 web pages created since 1996, when I ventured out on the web from the nursery BBS Politiken on Line ,
of which I own the copyright to the text and which my heirs may mine for (very seldom) nuggets for 70 years after my death - well some are duplicates.

Politiken.dk - det levende net now has Onlinedebat
Login Onlinedebat

a look at Computer Cafes was linked to

Eniro Danmark
http://www.eniro.com/: "Eniro is the leading
search company in the Nordic media market.

Eniro offers advertisers the best channels for buyers and sellers who want to find each other easily, thus bringing users closer to a transaction. Among the channels are directories, directory assistance, Internet and mobile services. "