Anglo-Celtic Connections

This week’s FMP additions focus on Northamptonshire, a traditional county bordering Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Oxfordshire.  A strong agricultural legacy, augmented by light industry, notably shoemaking, shaped Northamptonshire’s societal and economic history.

Northamptonshire Land, Poll & Window Tax Lists

Northamptonshire Land Tax Assessment has 10,834 transcription records, all for 1801 across the county.

Cleyley & Towcester Hundreds Land & Window Tax has 1,472 transcription records for 1772.

Higham Ferrers Hundred Window Tax has 539 transcription records for 1750.

Huxloe, Rothwell & Corby Hundred Poll & Window Tax has 3,212 transcription records for 1698.

Northamptonshire Poll Books

This new set, 7,463 Northamptonshire poll book transcription records from 1768 to 1835, includes the occupation and parish.

Northamptonshire Quarter Sessions Licences

Covers licenses awarded by the County Quarter Sessions court between 1689 and 1932. Three licence types are included:

Non-Conformist Meeting House Licenses: This index contains 1,391 names, covering 1689 to 1851. A licence was required for an individual or group to hold non-conformist religious services between 1689 and 1852. 

Gamekeepers’ Licenses: For the period 1709 to 1932, records contain 2,490 names, the year of the licence, a home address and the location of the land.

Badgers and Higglers: Badgers and higglers were wholesalers and travelling salespeople who sold food and other commercial products, and required a licence to do so. This index covers 1693 to 1773 and contains 1,212 names.

Many of these transcriptions are from the Northamptonshire Family History Society.

This week, one new newspaper, the Hebden Bridge Times, from Yorkshire, was added to the FMP collection. Starting in 1883, there are over 20,000 pages available.

In this video Deborah Liu, president and chief executive officer of Ancestry, joins Alex Chi, from Goldman Sachs Asian Network, to discuss her time leading the largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, her lessons in leadership and how growing up as an Asian-American shaped her views in the workplace.

The section on Ancestry starts just after 13 minutes and ends around 21 minutes.

TheGenealogist announces the release of a collection of  service records, rolls of honour, and books of remembrance from schools, places, and institutions in the UK.

The records offer information on over 25,000 individuals, detailing service histories of soldiers, portraits, schooling, and family connections. They include details of those killed or wounded in action.

Compilations included in the release are:

Birmingham, Service Record of King Edward School 1914-1919
Whitgift Grammar School, The Book of Remembrance 1914-1919
Memorials of Rugbeians Who Fell in the Great War, Volumes II, III, V, VI
A Book of Remembrance of Old Boys and Masters of Watford Grammar School who Served in the Great War, 1914-1918
Shrewsbury School, Roll of Service, 1914-1918
Portsmouth and the Great War
Swindon’s War Record 1914-1918
The Clan MacRae Roll in the Great War – Unveiling of Memorial Supplement
7th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, Officers and Men Who Fell During the Great War
London County Council Record of Service in the Great War, 1914-1918
Phoenix Assurance Company, Ltd. – War Service List, 1914-1919

Additionally, the release includes two publications that provide more context to the conflict, with stories and illustrations of battles and heroic deeds: Children’s Story of the War and, Deeds that Thrill the Empire.

A recording of this year’s lecture, held on the evening of 6 August, has been posted with the permission of the speaker, Kristen den Hartog. It is now free for everyone to view until 14 August. 

https://torontofamilyhistory.org/learn/toronto-history-lecture/

It’s official. Forget LMA, or as the new website says, “Hello from The London Archives .. and a fond farewell to the metropolitan.”

Otherwise, you’d hardly know of the connection except for the address: 40 Northampton Rd, London, EC1R 0HB.

Find the new, clean-looking website at https://www.thelondonarchives.org/.

So far, the natural three-letter acronym TLA is not used on the website, except in the email address ask@tla.libanswers.com/.

Have you been waiting for the third shoe to drop?

MyHeritage recently added baptism and burial transcription records for the Archdeaconry of Rochester. Now, they include 860,931 banns and marriage transcriptions from 1559 to 1939.

As usual, these records include the names of the groom and bride, their ages at the time of the wedding, the date and place of the marriage or banns, and the names of their fathers. Some records also include the names of the witnesses.

The Archdeaconry of Rochester, Church of England, covers the western part of Kent and parts of Greater London.

Choose from selected free online events in the next five days. All times are ET except as noted. Assume registration in advance is required; check so you’re not disappointed. Find out about many more, mainly US events at Conference Keeper.

Tuesday, 6 August

2 pm: Ottawa Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, for OGS Ottawa Branch. 
https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/virtual-genealogy-drop-in-2-2024-08-06/

2:30 pm: I Found My German Hometown – Now What?, by Kathy Wurth for the Genealogy Center at Allen County Public Library.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/11180553

7:30 pm: Rebuilding the Body in WWI Toronto, by Kristen den Hartog. The 2024 Toronto History Lecture.
https://torontofamilyhistory.org/learn/toronto-history-lecture/

Wednesday, 7 August

2 pm: The Power of Siblings – the DNA Tests of Five Brothers by Donna Rutherford for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/the-power-of-siblings-the-dna-tests-of-five-brothers/

Thursday, 8 August

6:30 pm: Same Name More Than Once in the Same Location?
How to Decipher Who is Yours, by Emily C. Richardson for the Genealogy Center at Allen County Public Library.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/11152496

Friday, 9 August

2 pm: English Occupation, Apprenticeship and Guild Records, by Paul Milner for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/english-occupation-apprenticeship-and-guild-records/

Saturday, 10 August

A detailed account in the Castleford Women’s Institute Tweedsmuir Community History Collection describes a tornado event that hit Castleford, Ontario in June 1893. The two-page document, housed in the Arnprior & McNab/Braeside Archives, recounts significant damage to the local schoolhouse and surrounding buildings.

However, research reveals a date discrepancy. I’ve found no other records to confirm a tornado in the area during June 1893. Instead, evidence points to a notable tornado event on May 23, 1893:

1. The Ottawa Citizen reported a deadly tornado in Ottawa on May 23, 1893 (published May 25).
2. The Michael Newark Digitized Tornado Archive records a widespread tornado outbreak on the same date.

It’s possible the Castleford account actually refers to this May event, with the date misremembered as June. The vivid details suggest an eyewitness account, potentially written years later from memory.

This finding highlights the importance of cross-referencing historical sources and considering how memory can affect the accuracy of eyewitness accounts over time.

Katherine Borges posted the following from meta.ai on Facebook as a warning for those using AI.

meta.ai
I apologize for the mistake. You are correct, the three citations under “Academic Papers and Research Articles” are fictional and do not exist.
I generate text based on patterns and associations in my training data, and sometimes this can lead to errors.
In this case, I attempted to create plausible-sounding citations to support the information I provided, but I clearly went too far. I should not have claimed that these sources existed or implied that they supported the information.
I strive to provide accurate and reliable information, and I appreciate you bringing this to my attention. In the future, I will be more careful and …

From my experience, when AI produces a response that is exactly what you want, too good to be true, be careful. Verify. I was given a quote from Friedrich Engels’s 1845 book The Condition of the Working Class in England that was entirely fictitious. When I checked the book, the quote was nowhere to be found.

Via Maps Mania, from University College London, how London has been seen through the eyes of Europe’s cultural luminaries by mapping some of these observations of the city.