Saturday, May 23, 2009

GenealogyBuff.com

GenealogyBuff.com - free genealogy searches, obituary searches, library: "The purpose of GenealogyBuff.com is to be a free genealogy search site that will hopefully inspire new family researchers. By providing a means to gather a large amount of data for a surname, one can build a family tree very quickly. (Hint: start with yourself, work backwards, using the census records. Then build using the many databases referenced from this site.)"

from my usenet email:-

The hosting platform for GenealogyBuff.com http://www.genealogybuff.com
was changed by the parent host and caused the user-contributed forums
to be disfunctional for a few days. These forums, especially the
Canadian one at http://www.genealogybuff.com/canada-bbs/webbbs-config.pl
host thousands and thousands of obituaries and just had a ton of
funeral home obits added recently. I apologize if you visited and
got an error message. The forums are back up and running and have
tested successfully. They are also being kept spam-free (full-time
job!). Each forum is independently searchable.

User-Contributed Obituary Forum http://www.genealogybuff.com/uco/webbbs_config.pl


User-Contributed Data Forum http://www.genealogybuff.com/ucd/webbbs_config.pl


User-Contributed Canadian Obituary Forum http://www.genealogybuff.com/canada-bbs/webbbs_config.pl

Hope this helps.
Bill

Barton Regis Union. 14th March 1877

Clifton is in Bristol. Gloucestershire. England. and had this strange administrative change of name

Barton Regis Registration District
Registration County : Gloucestershire.
Created
: 1.4.1877 (out of Clifton district).
Abolished : 1.1.1905 (succeded by Bristol, Chipping Sodbury and Thornbury districts).
Sub-districts : Ashley; Clifton; St. George; St. Phillip & Jacob; Stapleton; Westbury; Winterborne.
GRO volumes : 6a (1877-1904).


from my Bristol_and_District rootsweb list email:-

This may be helpful with regards to the switch from Clifton to Barton Regis.

The Barton Regis union was started in 14th March 1877, previously it was known as Clifton Union.

The reason for the change was that the deaths in the area made Clifton look worse than it was, as the Union of Clifton District embraced a large population residing in the poorest parishes of astern Bristol. For some years previous to this date, the reputation of Clifton as a watering-place
had been injured by the quarterly returns of mortality issued by the Registrar-General, whose statistics were founded on the deaths reported in the entire Union of Clifton

Repeated remonstrations having been made on the injustice of this arrangement. The Local government Board at length ordered the name of the Union be changed to Barton Regis. The mortality in Clifton alone was then only included in the Registrar's returns of watering-places, with the effect of proving the parish to be amongst the most salubrious in the kingdom.

Politicians back them were just as good at manipulating the statistics as they are now! The name change was just so Clifton Area did not show up so bad in the stats for deaths.

The Barton Regis Board of Guardians, suggested to give it a more permanent character, that elections should take place every three years, instead of the annual elections. The rate payers were given a vote in June 1885, upon the question whether future elections should be annual or triennial. A majority declared in favour of the triennial system, and the alteration was approved by the Local Government board. The first election under the new regulation took place in April 1886.

So St George would have been under Clifton pre 14th March 1877 and then Barton Regis.

Iles was a very common name in the St George Area, and I have come across lots in the Crews Hole Area of St George.

Hope this is of interest to some of you.

Information was taken from "Annals of Bristol "
Vol 3 "Nineteen Century"
by John Latimer written in 1887
republished in 1970 Georges of Bristol.

my thanks to Brian

Barton Regis - Google Search

København or Kjøbenhavn - some historical spellings

OSS is danish for FAQ

København/Kjøbenhavn — Københavns Biblioteker:

"Indtil 1938 var det valgfrit at bruge stavemåderne København eller Kjøbenhavn, ifølge officel retsskrivning.
Der findes tilsyneladende ingen kommunal vedtagelse om, hvad byen skulle kalde sig selv.

'Borgerrepræsentationens Forhandlinger' bryder med j'et ved forhandlingsåret 1902/03 og introducerer den nye navneform fra og med 1903/04, hvorimod 'Københavns Budget' først dropper j'et fra og med 1907/08.

I 1938 var Kjøbenhavn i almindelighed gået af brug for længst. I ministerielle sammenhænge stryges j'et i 1929. Stednavneudvalget anvendte det frem til 1932, og i Kraks vejviser ses navneformen frem til og med 1933.

Udenlandske navneformer for København:

Dansk: København.
Engelsk: Copenhagen.
Fransk: Copenhague.
Græsk: [Kopenafn].
Italiensk: Copenaghen.
Latin: Hafnia.
Rumænsk: Copenhaga.
Russisk: [Kopengagen].
Spansk: Copenhague.
Svensk: Köpenhamn.
Tysk: Kopenhagen"

there are more

Revl og krat — Københavns Biblioteker: "Revl og krat
Sidst opdateret 04/12 2006 04:33

Savner du viden om fx Københavns folketal et bestemt år, om Nulpunktstenene ved byens porte eller noget helt andet, er det en god idé at prøve Rådhusbibliotekets FAQ.

Brug den alfabetiske emneliste nedenfor. Den indeholder svar på spørgsmål af historisk/topografisk karakter, som erfaringsmæssigt stilles ofte."

water damaged pages England and Wales 1851 census

Family Tree, Family History, Find Your Past, UK | Findmypast.com

Coming in the next month: unfilmed 1851 records online exclusively at findmypast.com

A short time after the 1851 census records go live, findmypast.com will add transcriptions and reconstructed images for around 160,000 individuals from severely damaged pages. They have been made available for the first time online after a 14 year project to transcribe the original records by the Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society (MLFHS).

The records for the Manchester, Chorlton, Salford, Oldham and Ashton-Under-Lyne registration districts were water damaged many years ago when the storage area they were kept in flooded. Some were so badly affected that no writing at all was visible and many were too fragile to be scanned.

In some cases water damage was so bad that no text at all could be read

Image courtesy of Ray Hulley, Co-ordinator of the 1851 unfilmed census project.

Thanks to the statistical information that had been generated before the books were damaged, the transcription team knew that data from 217,717 individuals was missing. The team managed to retrieve 82 per cent of this data. We’re sure that you will agree that this is an impressive achievement, which would not have been possible without the immense dedication of Ray Hulley, the project leader, and his team of volunteers from the Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society.


In 1991 a small team of London-based volunteers from the MLFHS began the painstaking process of transcribing the records, which were held at the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane. As the documents were too fragile to withstand the glare of artificial light, the volunteers had to rely on natural daylight to read them.

Invisible text revealed

After The National Archives was established in Kew in 1997, the project was transferred and with the expertise and support of the conservation department there, the team made considerable advances in the recovery of the missing text. Using the latest ultraviolet equipment the team were able to see writing that had not been visible with natural daylight, and to re-examine documents that had already been transcribed to recover text that was invisible to the naked eye.

The transcribers followed a policy of ‘faithfulness to the original’ in accordance with best transcription practice, and words were only transcribed as far as they were legible – in many cases only parts of names or other details could be deciphered. In some cases street directories and rate books were used to confirm that names had been interpreted correctly, but the transcribers resisted the temptation to fill in information that they felt ‘should’ have been there

Friday, May 22, 2009

Hoose-Johnson of TGN

Hoose-Johnson Blog: What I did at Work Today, Vol. I: "For those of you who don't know, I work at The Generations Network. The main premise of our company is connecting families across distance and time.

Recently I was asked to do a new task that required a lot of math and programming skills. Luckily I was able to get on the Internet and find most of the code and data I needed. I was asked to create a list of adjacent counties for all U.S. counties. My first inclination was to just have someone look at a map and write them down. But then I realized there were thousands of them and using a program to do it would be faster.

The first thing I did was download all of the county boundaries from the U.S. government website. Being a government website, the data was in a really goofy format, but luckily I was able to convert it into a useful format that would let me calculate the adjacent counties. I used an open source polygon math library called GPC and I was able to create this map:



I then wrote some magical code that compared every county polygon to every other county polygon and came up with almost 10,000 adjacent county pairs. I also did the North America countries, U.S. and Canada states as well as the United Kingdom counties and Europe countries.

Soon we will use this data on the ancestry.com website to help rank search results for people that are in nearby counties / states / countries, and hopefully more people will find the ancestor(s) they are looking for!"

Louis Kessler

Louis Kessler’s Behold Blog - Blew Them Away: "I surveyed the crowd. 90% had computers. About 70% used genealogy software, mostly Family Tree Maker, Legacy, Brother`s Keeper and PAF. There was one Unix GRAMPS user and one Mac iFamily user. Only about one quarter of them knew what GEDCOM was."

BEHOLD Genealogy Software: "So why do almost all genealogy programs make you fill out forms? This is a slow, cumbersome, and time-wasting way to enter your data - especially if you have a lot of it. There must be a better way.

Why not enter your data directly onto the report? See some incorrect data. Just correct it right there."
Behold FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions): "Behold is the only program that lets you view and work with all your data at once. When Editing is enabled in version 2.0, Behold will be the only program that will let you enter, view, edit, and work with all your data at once. This will be a new technology for genealogists that will turn your hobby around. You will be able to enter your data many times faster than before, no longer slowed down by the cumbersome and inflexible fill-in-the-field forms of other programs. Behold will be your Genealogy Word Processor."

ancestry.co.uk Web Safety

ancestry.co.uk | Web Safety Ratings from McAfee SiteAdvisor: "We tested this site and didn't find any significant problems.

Are you the owner of this site? Leave a comment"

Thursday, May 21, 2009

English and Danish dictionary

An English and Danish dictionary ... - Google Book Search: "By Andreas Berthelson" 1754 London

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Fødselsstiftelsen København

Fødselsstiftelsen: "Fødselsstiftelsen blev oprettet i 1759 og afløste et såkaldt 'frit' jordemoderhus, som lå i Gothersgade 1750 - 1759. På Fødselsstiftelsen kunne man føde 'hemmeligt' indtil Lov af 27. maj 1908 gav de fødende pligt til at oplyse deres navn

Mange ugifte kvinder har, som 'hemmeligt fødende', fået deres børn på Fødselsstiftelsen. Ved ankomsten fik hemmeligt fødende barselkvinder et skilt med et nummer om halsen. Derfor kan der i kirkebogen fx stå, at et barn er datter af “nr 328”. Jordemoderprotokollen vil i så fald heller ikke kunne oplyse den fødende kvindes navn. Man bør være opmærksom på, at en kvinde godt kan optræde anonymt i Fødselsstiftelsens protokoller, men i andre sammenhænge fremstå med fuldt navn. Det kan fx være tilfældet, hvis kvinden senere har ansøgt om børnebidrag eller anlagt en faderskabssag. I pastoratsarkivet fra Fødselstiftelsens sogn findes en række bilag til kirkebøgerne, fx erklæringer om faderskab og erklæringer fra forældre vdr. indgået ægteskab. Men findes kvindens navn ikke indført i kirkebogen vil der næppe være mulighed for at finde hverken hendes eller faderens navne via bilagene."

Google Translate: "Birth Foundation was created in 1759 and replaced a 'free' jordemoderhus which lay in Gothersgade from 1750 to 1759.

At Birth Foundation could supply 'secret' until the Law of 27 maj 1908
May 1908 gave women the obligation to disclose their names"

Here are the sources:
Landsarkivet for Sjælland, Lolland-Falster og Bornholm: Fødselsstiftelsens sogn, kirkebøger 1759 - 1910
Archives of Sealand, Lolland-Falster and Bornholm: Birth Foundation parish, kirkebøger 1759 - 1910


Landsarkivet for Sjælland, Lolland-Falster og Bornholm: Fødselsstiftelsen, jordemoderprotokoller afd. A 1852 >, afd. B 1849 >
Archives of Sealand, Lolland-Falster and Bornholm: Birth Foundation, midwife protocols afd A 1852>, afd B 1849>



Landsarkivet for Sjælland, Lolland-Falster og Bornholm: Rigshospitalets sogn, kirkebøger 1910 > ( under aflevering 2004 )
Archives of Sealand, Lolland-Falster and Bornholm: Rigshospitalet parish, kirkebøger 1910> (taking delivery in 2004)


Rigsarkivet: (Kgl. Frederiks hospital) Fødselsstiftelsen: Udsætterprotokoller 1770 - 1804 (Opfostringsstiftelsen) 1804 - 1861 (Fødsels- og Plejestiftelsen)
Rigsarkivet: (Kgl. Frederiks hospital) Birth Foundation: Cull Minutes from 1770 to 1804 (Opfostringsstiftelsen) from 1804 to 1861 (birth and Care Foundation)


(nyere årgange findes i Rigshospitalet )
(recent cohorts found in Rigshospitalet)

fødselsstiftelse - Google Search

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

you must have this for UK genealogy

Downloads: "Parish Locator Program

This UK Parish Locator program is freeware and will run on Windows 95/98, ME, NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP & Windows Vista.
The Database is available to users of other operating systems as a CSV file (see Download section below).
The Windows program enables you to locate any one of nearly 15,000 UK parishes. It will produce a list of parishes in any County or a list of parishes within a given radius of any other parish and also allows Import and Export via 'csv' files. It is possible to plot the location of parishes to either the screen or the printer. This version also includes a number of corrections to errors found by users.

The parishes listed were those in existence at some during the period from the mid 1500s to about 1837 when civil registration started but see section 2.2 of the Manual for full details."

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Friends Reunited for sale

Report: Friends Reunited Attracts Interest, Ancestry.co.uk Involved | paidContent:UK: "We predicted back in March that Ancestry.co.uk operator The Generations Network could be interested in buying Friends Reunited - and that’s exactly what has happened, according to Telegraph.co.uk this weekend. The paper says that company - a big noise in online genealogy - plus the less well-known FindMyPast.com operator, Brightsolid of Dundee, are amongst “a large number of parties” to have requested ITV’s prospectus on the up-for-sale site.

Typically, there’s no attribution for this story, so you’re obliged to take it with a dose of salt - but interest from the Utah-based Generations Network would be no surprise. Friends Reunited also operates Genes Reunited and the Ancestry.co.uk owner also runs Genealogy.com, plus FamilyHistory, MyFamily and RootsWeb. In March, ITV (LSE: ITV) online director Ben McOwen Wilson said he was hoping for “well north of £60 million” for Friends - but, since the main social network has lost out to rivals like Facebook in recent years, the most interest is likely to come toward the genealogy site specifically."