Anglo-Celtic Connections

Thanks to Christine Jackson for the suggestion.

For the record, 24.7 million dead people were added to Find A Grave in the past two years, which is a rate of about 40% of total global deaths annually.

Location for Find a Grave® Index	Records	Records	Percent Change
	Dec 2025	Dec 2023	(Two years)
U.S.	184,339,956	175,802,716	4.9
UK and Ireland	23,818,332	19,341,965	23.1
Global, Burials at Sea & Select Locations	22,691,823	15,649,165	45.0
Australia and New Zealand	12,526,572	11,436,526	9.5
Canada,	11,905,737	10,080,603	18.1
Germany	4,491,626	3,017,935	48.8
Sweden	1,165,869	1,116,071	4.5
Italy	448,850	343,946	30.5
Norway	248,083	223,985	10.8
Brazil	210,032	189,211	11.0
Mexico,	93,256	69,789	33.6

Miscellaneous items I found interesting this week.

The hidden engine room’: how amateur historians are powering genealogical research

Deceased Online Annual Update
In the last 12 months, DO has made significant changes and added and updated records from: Rugby Borough Council, Halton Borough Council, Hull City Council, Broxtowe and Erewash, Blandford Forum, the London Borough of Havering, and Cotswold District Council.

Thanks to the following individuals for their comments and tips: Alison, Anonymous, Brenda Turner, David Blakey, Dianne Brydon, Gail, Teresa, Unknown.

 

New Collections

British Royal Navy, Submarine Movement Cards
Years covered: 1896–1968
Records added: 27,654

If you have a person of interest in Britain’s submarine fleet, you should find a transcription that lists postings and includes linked document images. They are sourced from the National Museum of the Royal Navy.

British and Allied Warships Lost in the Second World War
Years covered: 1939–1945
Records added: 420

Also from the NMRN, this collection is a nominal list of major British warships and Allied (other than U.S.) warships under British Operational Control lost in the Second World War. It includes the date and location of the sinking and the axis vessel responsible.

British Royal Navy Casualty Logs, 1939–1945
Years covered: 1939–1945
Records added: 36,338

Based on the NMRN collection British Royal Navy Casualty Logs 1939-1945, transcriptions include the ship name. The linked image is a register grouping all who succumbed in the same incident.

Newspapers

Three new titles, with new pages from 1869 to 2004.

Title	Date Range
Silent Messenger 254 pages, new title	1895-1896
Norwood Press and Dulwich Advertiser 7088 pages	1930-1952
Midhurst and Petworth Observer 10648 pages	1986-2004
Irish Independent 1522 pages	1921, 1926, 1960
Greenwich and Deptford Chronicle 4172 pages , new title	1869-1870, 1872-1873, 1875-1876, 1878, 1880-1885
Dromore Leader 6066 pages	1921-1950
Darwen News 2220 pages, new title	1877-1880, 1888-1889, 1905
Blackpool Gazette 836 pages	1888-1889

A favourite from past years, updated.

Originally posted on 25 December 2021

In 1899, Christmas was the first time my orphaned grandfather was at Chase Farm Schools in Enfield, North London. How was his day?
A post-Christmas column in the Middlesex Gazette through the years he was there reported much the same program, the articles a rewrite from the previous year with the numbers and names updated.

The issue for Saturday, December 29, 1900, under the heading Festivities at the Chase Farm Schools, started —

At these Poor Law Schools the Christmas season was observed in time-honoured fashion. While the Guardians granted special fare, private sources yielded many a delight for the nearly 400 children who receive a thoroughly sound all-round training at this institution. And nowhere do the staff of any similar schools enter more heartily into the spirit of the season than do those at Chase Farm; with the result that, as formerly, nearly every room presented quite a festive appearance; and it is pleasing to know that the little ones have realized the joys of a Happy Christmas.
Early astair on Christmas morning, they were furnished with an abundant breakfast, after which the children attended the service at St Michael’s Church, returning with hearty appetites for the great event – the Christmas dinner. That they were not stinted in this particular is shown by the fact that the viands placed before them included 12 stones weight of beef and 15 of roast pork, with potatoes, followed by 36 – 17 lb plum puddings! We can only hope that the medical officer has not been unduly taxed at the Schools since then. After the dinner each child received a parcel containing apples, oranges, dates, sweets, nuts, biscuits, etc. It was, indeed, a happy, if large, dinner party that assembled in the dining hall; and the proceedings were made the more gladsome by the strains of the Schools Band. The spacious apartment was quite a picture in its decorative glory. Gaudily-coloured paper chains cross and re-cross overhead; attractive devices brightened up the walls; and there smiled down upon the juvenile diners the wish, in large lettering, “The Happiest of Christmas Days, the Brightest of New Years to You”; while, in sequence, around the walls ran this kindly wish: –

“May the sunshine of success,
all our labours crown and bless;
and make bright the onward way
This, and every Christmas Day.”

The amounts work out to be for each child 6.7 oz of beef, 8.4 oz of pork, and 1.5 lb of plum pudding. Even allowing for feeding the staff and guardians in attendance the amount is generous, perhaps as well the 1910 report mentions that “The whole of the viands enumerated above were not consumed on Christmas Day. Enough is provided to ensure a special spread on New Year’s Day.”

Recently, by Pam Ayres