Historians may well view 2007 as the year when family history became respectable. Perhaps the ultimate accolade came when both The Guardian and Independent newspapers (and their Sunday equivalents) published special genealogical supplements. Neither would have done so had they not thought that they could gain readers as a result. The Guardian’s booklet was especially good.
On the other hand the General Register Office (GRO) showed contempt for a key user group in the way they handled the closure of their services at the Family Records Centre. The closure received coverage in the national press, but it was too little and too late to make a difference. Indeed the GRO has not had a good year, with key indexing and digitisation projects way behind schedule. It remains to be seen whether the Office’s merger with the Identity and Passport Service due in April will lead to an improvement.
The hobby is dominated by the internet in a way which would have been inconceivable even three or four years ago. The major records to be put online during the year were the outward passenger lists between 1890 and 1960 by FindMyPast and the surviving First World War Army service records by Ancestry.co.uk. Neither is yet complete, but they should be by the end of 2008. In addition the first batch of the 1901 and 1911 Irish censuses (Dublin 1911) were made available in December and S&N put the first tranche of the pre-1837 non-conformist parochial registers online in September.
But the larger sites are now offering much more than raw data. The big value added services to emerge during 2007 were social networking and DNA. Neither, of course, is exactly new. The current fashion is for social networking (see the hype over Facebook et al), but family historians have been sharing research and family trees since the infancy of the internet. And it has been possible to have DNA tests done for a number of years now, although the results are so general that in most cases they are meaningless.
The excitement lies in the convergence between social networking, DNA and genealogical data to build up a massive genealogical database, literally for all of our ancestors whether they left a written record or not. Clearly the company which does this first – or best – is set to make a killing (and will probably kill the hobby stone-dead if all you have to do is type a few names in order to receive a complete pedigree). Two American companies Genetree and Ancestry.com are already working along these lines. They launched services in the autumn. Genetree provide social networking and DNA, while Ancestry offer all three. At present the market leader for social networking in Britain is GenesReunited, but they seem to be resting on their laurels and could conceivably loose out to newer rivals such as FamilyRelatives which has an impressive (and free) social network facility.
The family history world still needs its annual fix of "Who Do You Think You Are?" The fourth series aired on BBC One in September and October (with a special earlier in the year). Personally I did not find it as interesting as previous series, and one or two programmes were positively dull. Viewing figures however remained very respectable. Over six million people watched the first programme with Natasha Kaplinski. However I have seen no evidence that archives and libraries had a surge in people desperate to trace their ancestors as a result of the programmes. Perhaps everybody who wants to find their forebears are already doing it, or now that most households are linked to the internet viewers are doing their research online. Further series are planned for 2008 and 2009.
However there were two spin offs from the programme. The first is a new magazine from BBC Magazines. With six family history titles now on the newsstand one wonders whether they can all survive. Fortunately the circulation of Ancestors was not hit by the new magazine. Indeed, our sales are slightly up.
Secondly the Who Do You Think You Are Show took place at Olympia over the early May bank holiday. Some 12,000 people came through the doors, dwarfing the attendance at the old Society of Genealogists’ family history fairs which had in previous years been on the same weekend. The organisers Brand Events (who do this sort of thing for a living) brought a professionalism which had previously been missing from such events. It was a massive success – I was rushed off my feet answering questions from attendees on The National Archives stand – and all copies of the magazine had been sold by lunchtime on the Sunday. The 2008 show will be bigger, both in terms of space and the numbers of exhibitors – with more emphasis on heritage – and is scheduled for 2-4 May.
2007 was not all good news. Increasingly (and inevitably) the family history world is dominated by a few big commercial companies – primarily Ancestry.co.uk, FindMyPast and S&N – and one institution The National Archives. Even here there were persistent rumours that both Ancestry and FindMyPast were for sale. As proof in September, Spectrum Equity Investors bought a majority share in Ancestry’s parent company The Generation Network for $300m.
Smaller companies are finding it increasingly difficult to compete and a few ceased trading during the year. The Federation of Family History Societies closed its commercial arm, selling the well-regarded FH Online website to FindMyPast and Genfair to S&N. Many of the existing booklets were taken over by a new company the Family History Partnership. In addition, Stepping Stones, which mainly produced census CDs was bought by S&N, and Archive CD Books suddenly ceased trading in October.
My predictions for 2008: 1) more emphasis on value added services by the big providers in order to encourage new subscribers and retain those who are already members; 2) the first tranche of the English and Welsh 1911 census in the autumn will bring new standards to the indexing and the quality of the digitised images; 3) the concentration within the industry will continue as more companies offering genealogical services close as they are unable to compete against the major hitters; 4) new standards and facilities for those using the records in person will be provided by the new reading rooms at Kew and the Scottish Family History Centre in Edinburgh; 5) Ancestors will continue to cover these stories and the background behind them, but then you knew this. Happy New Year!
"And then there is the work! If the genealogical bug once bites you, you are a doomed man, and never again will you be happy except when attempting to trace the elusive ancestor: It has all the fascination of a game for one who loves it. It is like working out a chess problem or a crossword puzzle, but much more exhilarating, for the pawns in this game were once human beings. You have ancestral charts in blank, which theoretically can be filled in completely with the names of your ancestors; and there is no elation akin to that which you experience when a long-sought forbear is discovered and an empty space on the chart becomes a name and a reality." Donald Lines Jacobus, "Genealogy as Pastime and Pleasure" (1930)
Quoted by John Hamrock in "Tracing Your Roscommon Ancestors" (Flyleaf Press, 2007) which we will be reviewing in the magazine shortly.
Occasionally you come across information on websites which sends shivers down the spine. I can think of several times where this has happened to me. The first was finding Tony Blair’s entry in the electoral registers available on http://www.192.com. At the time (this was a couple of years ago) he and his family were living at 11 Downing Street. In a funny way it made our erstwhile prime minister a real human being rather than just a face on the telly. I had a similar but much stronger feeling when searching the Yad Vashem database of the Jews who had perished during the Holocaust http://www.yadvashem.org. Here in flickering black and white are the names and often the fates of over three million men and women (about half of those murdered). It brought home the share scale and horror in a way which books had not. And I think it was more shocking because I came across the site more or less by accident. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission Roll of Honour http://www.cwgc.org with its details of over a million British and Commonwealth service personnel (and some civilians) who died during the two world wars had not had this effect, perhaps because it is so well known. Lastly, I felt the same with the excellent Britain’s Small Wars website, devoted to the various post-1945 conflicts and campaigns in which British servicemen have been engaged. Harold Wilson has been praised for resisting American pressure to commit troops, but there have long been rumours that the SAS and perhaps other units experienced action there. http://www.britains-smallwars.com/Vietnam/index.htm (click on Rumour Control) includes debate and enough eyewitness accounts to suggest that the British forces were in the region at least in small numbers. Did the Prime Minister know? If you have visited sites which sent shivers down your spine, tell me and I’ll include them here.
Reader Barrie Brinkman has contacted me about his new website devoted to the parish of Weeke, which is now a suburb of Winchester http://www.weekehistory.co.uk
It is an excellent site with various pages (although essays might be a better description as each page is rather wordy) devoted to this Saxon parish, although as photographs here suggest that only the most devoted local historian can discern much amidst the urban sprawl.
He has also included extracts from parish registers between 1577 and 1870; lists of rectors; and extracts from the census and tithe records. More is promised.
I’ve suggested adding extracts from parish magazines, mainly because I’ve just written a short article about their worth for family and local historians for February’s Ancestors. I was impressed how informative these magazines could be. They should be better known.
The 1911 census for the city and county of Dublin is now available at http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie in a fully searchable form. This is the first tranche of a joint project between the National Archives of Ireland and Library and Archives Canada to digitise the whole of the Irish 1911 census. Then as now Dublin was by far and away the largest city in Ireland.
It is easy to search by name and the result is displayed in a PDF. The index leads to a simple transcription of the names and ages of the people in the household. From there you can call up a page of the original census enumerator’s form. This is slightly tricky – don’t click on view census form on the transcription page. Instead click on the address at the top of the page. You will then be presented with all the households in a particular house or street. Now click on the family you want and the enumerators sheet will appear as a PDF. The images are very clear in greyscale.
The whole site is clean and well laid out. And best of all it is free! But I am not sure why Irish and Canadian taxpayers should subsidise my hobby.
Five or more years ago I wrote a paper for the English Tourist Board arguing that the Board should be encouraging people with English ancestry to visit the country. They ignored my recommendations. Meanwhile the Scots have long encouraged ancestral tourism and it has been a great success for them. Well over ten per cent of tourists visit Scotland because they have roots there and want to see where they ancestors come from. If you are thinking of venturing north of the border in search of your ancestors http://www.ancestralscotland.com has lots of resources.
In order to attract such visitors the Angus and Dundee tourism people are organising a Roots Festival between 6 and 13 September 2008. They tell me it will include "a packed programme of events with visits to ancestral sites, living history re-enactments, talks, demonstrations, film shows and much more." Details at http://www.tayroots.com. You can find more about the Festival in the January issue of Ancestors which will be on sale on Thursday 6 December. Indeed the whole issue has a distinctly Scottish theme.
Further ahead 2009 marks the year of the "Homecoming Scotland" with a mass of events and celebrations to mark the 250th anniversary of Robbie Burns’ birth and Scottish culture and heritage. More at http://www.homecomingscotland.com
