Tales from the Crypts

... good money was to be made by charging wealthy parishioners to stack coffins containing their dead family members under the church.

The daily blog Spitalfields Life publishes a timely item, A Brief History of Crypts, written by Malcolm Johnson, author of Crypts of London and formerly Rector of St Botolph’s, Aldgate.

We learn that:

"in the eighteenth century most parishes received around seven per cent of their income from interments, although at St James Garlickhythe the average was nearly twenty-seven per cent. 

No wonder there was resistance from the clergy to the closure of London churches to further burials as a sanitary measure in 1852.

British Newspaper Archive additions for October

The British Newspaper Archive now has 22,481,573 pages (21,937,298 pages last month). The 46 (49) papers with new pages online this month are tabulated below with the major additions bolded. Note particularly the national Daily Herald and speciality The Stage.

TITLE	DATE RANGE
Aberdeen Evening Express	1970-1971, 1975-1978
Aberdeen Press and Journal	1970-1971, 1975, 1977-1978
Alcester Chronicle	1889
Annandale Observer and Advertiser	1890
Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald	1881, 1898
Barking, East Ham & Ilford Advertiser, Upton Park & Dagenham Gazette	1910
Birmingham Daily Post	1954-1964, 1966-1972
Bolton Evening News	1889
Bridgwater Mercury	1857-1860
Cambrian News	1863-1868, 1874-1875
Carrickfergus Advertiser	1896
Chard and Ilminster News	1887
Coleraine Chronicle	1872-1910
Daily Herald	1913, 1923-1925, 1928-1938, 1946-1950, 1952-1956, 1958, 1961
Darlington & Stockton Times, Ripon & Richmond Chronicle	1847-1854, 1856, 1858, 1863, 1877, 1880, 1889, 1894, 1896
Dover Telegraph and Cinque Ports General Advertiser	1856, 1861
Dublin Evening Mail	1882, 1897-1907
Dudley Herald	1898
East Anglian Daily Times	1896, 1900, 1907
Eastern Daily Press	1891
Epworth Bells, Crowle and Isle of Axholme Messenger	1873-1904
Glasgow Evening Citizen	1868
Gravesend Reporter, North Kent and South Essex Advertiser	1873-1885, 1887-1909
Greenock Advertiser	1873
Hants and Berks Gazette and Middlesex and Surrey Journal	1892-1910
Lanarkshire Upper Ward Examiner	1879-1887, 1889-1892
Leigh Journal and Times	1877, 1879, 1885, 1888-1889, 1898
Leitrim Advertiser	1900
Lloyd's List	1888, 1893, 1910
Loughborough Monitor	1867
Nottingham Journal	1912
Paisley & Renfrewshire Gazette	1877
Pateley Bridge & Nidderdale Herald	1889, 1899
Rhyl Journal	1877-1878, 1888-1889, 1891, 1897
Ross Gazette	1867-1890, 1893-1896, 1898-1909
Rugby Advertiser	1906, 1908
Salisbury and Winchester Journal	1897
Shipley Times and Express	1876-1881, 1885, 1897
Shipping and Mercantile Gazette	1874
Southern Echo	1897-1898
Thame Gazette	1857-1869, 1873, 1875, 1877, 1928
The Stage	1885, 1887, 1891-1894, 1896-1897, 1902-1909, 1913-1918, 1938
West Sussex County Times	1909
Weston-super-Mare Gazette, and General Advertiser	1868-1871, 1873-1876, 1887, 1897, 1908-1910
Winsford & Middlewich Guardian	1896
Cardigan & Tivy-side Advertiser	1870, 1877, 1879

Breaking Down Brickwalls by Blogging

Last Saturday's excellent presentation 21st Century Genealogy: Taking Advantage of Social Media for Your Research to Ottawa Branch OGS by Gail Dever prompted a blog post by Elizabeth Kipp. It tells how her blog established a contact that allowed her to push a branch of her family tree back further.

In Hardship and Hope: A History of the Liverpool Irish

Here's a new book of interest if you have Liverpool-Irish ancestry.

The author, Greg Quiery, writes

"The book is concerned mainly – but not exclusively – with the Catholic Irish.  Whilst the core of the book concerns the Irish in nineteenth and early twentieth century Liverpool,  it also examines the early years of the Irish community in the eighteenth century and – in the closing section –  the process of integration and assimilation which took place in the nineteen fifties and sixties.  It is an attempt to do justice to a dramatic story of courage and hardship.  I also hope it will illuminate, for the reader, one aspect of the story of our city – Liverpool – through a better understanding of one of its many communities,  and the difficulties that community has overcome."

Read more at www.liverpoolirishhistory.com/ including a link to order a copy online through Lulu.

via a blog post by Claire Santry.

Ancestry England Record Updates

Ancestry lists following databases as having been recently updated. Past experience is the additions or modifications are often minor, but there is never any information given on the extent of changes.

Collection	Records
Bexley, Kent, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1558-1812	50,085
Bexley, Kent, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1925	202,545
Bexley, Kent, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1985	49,848
Bexley, Kent, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935	100,435
Kent, England, Tyler Index to Parish Registers, 1538-1874	619,265
Liverpool, England, Catholic Baptisms, 1741-1906	1,411,612
Liverpool, England, Catholic Burials, 1813-1987	619,201
Liverpool, England, Catholic Confirmations, 1813-1920	80,889
Liverpool, England, Catholic Marriages, 1754-1921	290395

Record Annual Precipitation in Ottawa

Rain like your Ottawa ancestors never saw.

With 39 mm of rain recorded for Sunday, a record for the date, Ottawa has received 108.8 mm in October. It is still raining and there's more in the forecast.

The annual total precipitation (rain plus snow) for the year to date is 1,167.6 mm which would be a record if officially verified by the Meteorological Service of Canada. The previous record was 1,166.1 mm in 1972. And there are still two more months to go!

It was back in July that Ottawa's total precipitation for 2017 passed the city's climate normal for a whole year.

Portsmouth Parish and Workhouse Registers

This past Friday Findmypast loaded a gem of a collection for anyone with roots in Portsmouth, Hampshire. It has 550,207 baptisms, 379,004 marriages, 312,946 burials.
Index transcriptions are linked to images of the original record.
Find a list of parishes and years covered here.
You can also browse through 873 volumes of parish registers of baptisms, marriages and burials held at Portsmouth History Centre. These records pertain to Church of England parishes in the deaneries of Portsmouth, Gosport, Fareham, and Havant.

The icing on the cake from Findmypast is the Portsmouth Workhouse Registers with 60,953 entries. Records for the workhouse on Portsea Island run from 1879 to 1953. Typically find name, year born, religion, where from (normally Portsmouth), informant (often self) and dates of admission and discharge.

Save with Library Extension

There's a utility that could help save time and the accumulation of books on your shelves.

If you're searching for a book on Amazon or Goodreads and you have Library Extension installed on Chrome, only on Chrome for now, it tells you if your library, or the library you've selected, has any copies.
I tried it out on Amazon with a pamphlet from 1967.  Here's the result. OPL has 7 copies.

via bookriot.com and http://documentary-heritage-news.blogspot.ca/

Free Ancestry Library Remote Access for OPL Members

The notation Available for in-library use only for Ancestry Library under Online Resources through the Ottawa Public Library has disappeared. As I write you can log on with your OPL library card, search and look at the results, including images of the original records where available, all free.
I suspect it's a glitch. If so it probably can't be fixed until Monday so you may want to take advantage of a rainy day to search.

TheGenealogist adds further Worcestershire and Warwickshire Parish Record Transcripts

In association with the Malvern Family History Society and the Nuneaton & North Warwickshire Family History Society, TheGenealogist has added over 140,000 individuals to their Parish Records for Worcestershire and Warwickshire.

● 97,841 individuals have been added to the Worcestershire baptism records
● 44,250 individuals join the Warwickshire baptism records.

These new records are available as part of the Diamond Subscription at TheGenealogist.

FreeBMD October Update

The FreeBMD Database was updated on Thursday 26 October 2017 to contain 264,343,835 distinct records (263,803,089 at previous update).

Years with major updates (more than 5,000 entries) are: for births: 1963-64, 1966, 1977-1981; for marriages: 1965-66, 1977, 1979-80, 1982-83; for deaths 1976, 1979-82.

Rockstar Genealogists 2017: International and Non-Domestic

Join me in congratulating the following top ten genealogists worldwide who received most votes as Rockstar Genealogists 2017.
The International list tabulates all votes, the Non-Domestic list excludes votes from those living in the same country as the nominee.

International List

1. Blaine Bettinger
2. Judy G. Russell
3. CeCe Moore
4. Roberta Estes
5. Thomas MacEntee
6. D. Joshua Taylor
7. Lisa Louise Cooke
8. Dick Eastman
9. Maurice Gleeson
10. Janet Few

Non-Domestic List

1. Maurice Gleeson
2. Blaine Bettinger
3. John Grenham
4. Judy Russell
5. Chris Paton
6. Debbie Kennett
7. CeCe Moore
8. Thomas MacEntee
9. Dick Eastman
10. Lisa Louise Cooke

Rockstar Genealogists 2017: USA

Join me in congratulating the following top genealogists from the United States of America who received most votes as Rockstar Genealogists 2017. The list comprises the ten receiving most votes of the twenty-three nominated.

1. Blaine Bettinger
2. Judy G. Russell
3. CeCe Moore
4. Roberta Estes
5. Thomas MacEntee
6. D. Joshua Taylor
7. Lisa Louise Cooke
8. Dick Eastman
9. Kitty Cooper
10. Diahan Southard