| NEWS FROM FEDERATION OF FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETIES |
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Saturday, August 04, 2007 - The 2007 Archive Awareness 'Freedom and Liberty' Campaign The 2007 Archive Awareness 'Freedom and Liberty' Campaign will be launched in the press on Wednesday 5th September. It would be fantastic to use this as an opportunity to raise the profile of as many family history societies and archives as possible and to encourage the public to get excited about all the fantastic events which are taking place this season! Please see below a few suggestions on how your society can get involved in this year's campaign. For any other information please contact Elise Oliver directly at elise.oliver@nationalarchives.gov.uk or 0208 392 5237. REGISTER EVENTS ONLINE REQUEST MARKETING MATERIALS LINK PROJECTS TO FREEDOM AND LIBERTY HELP DRIVE TRAFFIC TO AAC WEBSITE Look for an event near you at www.archiveawareness.com If you have any questions about this year's campaign please contact Elise Oliver at elise.oliver@nationalarchives.gov.uk or 0208 392 5237 |
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Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - ONS To Vacate Ground Floor FRC By 31 October 2007 At the Family Records Centre User Consultative Group Meeting today at the Family Records Centre (FRC) Myddelton Street, London, the Federation of Family History Societies representatives (Maureen Bullows and Geoff Riggs) were extremely disturbed to be informed that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will vacate the ground floor at the FRC by 31 October 2007. From 31 October until the previously announced date of closure, the end of March 2008, access to the Indexes for Births, Deaths and Marriages will be on the first floor of the FRC on MICROFICHE only. Ordering of certificates will be ONLINE only and there will be no provision for certificate collection. The ONS and General Register Office (GRO) were left in no doubt by the unanimous protestations of the Family Records Centre User Consultative Group. Full details and a copy of the Public Briefing paper can be found at: www.ffhs.org.uk/archives/gro/briefing070725.php |
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Thursday, May 03, 2007 - Were you a Supermarket Shopper in the 1950s and 1960s? Researchers at the Universities of Exeter and Surrey are looking for shoppers from the period 1945 - 1975 to talk about their experiences. The information will be used to build up a picture of how Britain changed from being a nation that predominantly bought its goods from small retailers to one that pushed a trolley around the local supermarket once a week. The research is sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and is set to run until the end of the year. The project aims to investigate the different reactions to self-service in different regions of the UK. It is also designed to look at the differences between male and female consumers and whether different ways of organising family life influenced the way people shopped. If you can remember using self-service food shops or supermarkets please contact Adrian Bailey at the University of Exeter: Tel. 01392 262523. He will forward a questionnaire, which will inform you about their exciting oral history project. To find out more, please visit their research website www.sobe.ex.ac.uk/shopping" |
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Thursday, May 03, 2007 - Domesday Book A "21st Century Domesday Book" - a snapshot of the United Kingdom seen through e-mails - is being compiled by the British Library in conjunction with Microsoft's Windows Live Hotmail. The library is asking everyone in the UK to forward an e-mail from their inbox or sent mail box representing their life or interests. Alternatively, people can submit a specially-composed message. Each eligible e-mail received in May will be recorded and used to create the library's E-Mail Britain archive. John Tuck, British collections head at the library, said: "E-mail Britain will allow us to archive a vast snapshot of our present-day e-mail communications and will be of great value for future researchers. "Digital archiving of e-mail has never been attempted before on this scale and we're very excited to be capturing such a rich slice of contemporary life." The e-mail address for those who wish to take part is email@emailbritain.co.uk Or for more information on the project visit www.newhotmail.co.uk/emailbritain/ |
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Friday, April 20, 2007 - Rix Family Alliance Open Day I am the General Secretary for the Rix Family Alliance ((RFA) - GOONS Membership No 298) to advise you of our forthcoming Open Day and which members of your FHS may wish to know about and possibly attend. The RFA url is: http://www.rix-alliance.co.uk The Open Day will be held on Saturday 2nd June 2007 at Ketts Park Sports Hall, Harts Farm Road, Wymondham, Norfolk (plenty of parking). Doors open at 10:00 a.m. and the RFA AGM (usually quite brief) will take place during the afternoon. Anyone wishing to attend and requiring lunch (for a very reasonable price) should contact Sheelagh Rix on 01727 832762 or Sue Simpson on 01953 454404. Doors close at 5:00 p.m. All Rixs, Rix descendants, and anyone with an interest in the Rix Family name are most welcome to attend. Rix descendants may very well find remote, and sometimes not so remote, relatives to further their family knowledge. I would be very grateful for any publicity you could give the RFA Open Day on your website, or in your FHS publications, newsletters, or news boards and I look forward to welcoming any of your members wishing to attend. Regards, Arthur Rix |
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Wednesday, April 11, 2007 - The National Archives Announces its Partner in Digitising the 1911 Census The National Archives is delighted to announce that Scotland Online will partner the UK government's official archive in the forthcoming project to put the 1911 census for England and Wales online. Scotland Online was established in 1995, and is one of the UK's leading Internet business solutions providers. In 2002, in partnership with the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS), Scotland Online established what is now one of the world's leading genealogy websites ScotlandsPeople www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk. The 1911 census (document references RG14 and RG78) is huge - it currently occupies 2 kilometres of shelving at The National Archives. Comprising over eight million householder schedules and a further 38,000 enumerators' summary books, it details information relating to approximately 35 million people then living in England and Wales. Once digitised the census will take up an equally large ½ a petabyte of computer memory or, physically, 800 data tapes. The digital scanning alone in preparation for digitisation will create 18 million images - 14 times the number of images created in advance of the 1901 census being launched online in 2002. From 2009 there will be a phased release of the information in the 1911 census starting with the major conurbations. This will include images and transcription data, but with sensitive data redacted in line with the Information Commissioner's recent ruling. From 3 January 2012 the public will have full access to the entire 1911 census, including the information not accessible in 2009. Researchers anywhere in the world will be able to search across the fields of the census by name, address or The National Archives reference, and download high-resolution digital images. For more information on this and the status of the 1911 census for Scotland and Ireland see the April edition of FFHS Ezine - due next week. |
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Thursday, March 22, 2007 - Empire's Children Can you help - have your family or friends researched their family history connection with the British Empire? Empire's Children is a new six part Channel 4 television series, by the makers of Who Do You Think You Are, which will be aired at the end of May. Empire's Children will tell the story of the end of the British Empire and the effects of its legacy, by revealing the imperial backgrounds of six British celebrities including Dame Diana Rigg and former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Steel. The show will follow celebrities investigating their past to discover how the British Empire played its role in shaping their family as it exists today. The show will be accompanied by a website, produced by the BAFTA award winning internet production company Illumina. The Empire's Children website will be a unique, specialist online resource to help people with connections to the Empire to trace their own family history. The website will cover all aspects of the Empire including information relating to families who left England to make lives for themselves in the Empire and also those who came to settle in England from the Empire. Illumina have the important task of capturing for prosperity the experience of the end of the Empire from all points of view and would much appreciate any help that you would be able to give. They are specifically looking to speak to people who have done their own family history research and who may have documents and perhaps photographs relating to their personal and family connection to the Empire. If you have an Empire story or know someone that does, Samala Wagstaff would love to hear from you. She is looking to compile a list of stories within the next couple of weeks, so the sooner you can get in touch, the better. For more information call Samala Wagstaff on 0208 600 9302 or email samala.wagstaff@illumina.co.uk. Any help you can give with building this important and unique record of the Empire's history and personal memories would be much appreciated. |
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Wednesday, February 28, 2007 - New Edwardian History Show - BBC4 Do you have any Edwardian heirlooms or photographic treasures you'd like to share with Britain or find out more about? Lion Television are urgently looking for contributors to share memorabilia from the Edwardian era (around 1901 - 1914) for a special hour long programme to be shown on BBC4. Lion Television want to hear from you if you have photographs or artefacts such as letters, diaries, toys, objects or clothing from this glorious era - and if there's a special personal connection to your treasure, so much the better. The Edwardian period was a time of great change and promise. It saw the rise of industrialization, the dawn of a new era for transport, the fight for women's suffrage, the sinking of the Titanic and the 1908 Olympics in London. Entertainment for the masses flourished with the huge popularity of music halls and, perhaps most importantly of all, the arrival of amateur photography with the invention of the Box Brownie. Lion Television would like to see photographs of your special items or scanned images of your period photographs and find out the stories behind them. The very best will be featured on the show, with a team of specialists and contributors alike revealing the historical themes and fascinating personal stories behind them. Please send your stories and pictures to Edwardians@liontv.co.uk or call Lion Television on 0141 331 4994 before 23rd March. |
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Sunday, February 18, 2007 - Did Your Parents Meet Through a Lonely Hearts Ad? Fran Beauman is researching a new book about the history of Lonely Hearts ads. To this end, she is trying to track down anyone whose parents, grandparents, great-grandparents or beyond met through a Lonely Hearts ad. The book covers the three hundred years between about 1680 and 1980, so any leads to people who fell in love through the newspaper columns or the like during this period really would be greatly appreciated. Confidentiality assured if required. Please contact Fran Beauman at francescabeauman@hotmail.com |
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Tuesday, February 06, 2007 - Latest News On Civil Registration FFHS representatives met recently with the GRO (General Register Office) management team for the DoVE (Digitisation of Vital Events) project to review progress on the project. The most important news we learnt was that a system is now being developed to enable the indexes to the digitised records to be searched via the internet, and these should be made available progressively from April 2008. Work is well advanced on digitising the historic birth records (those from 1837-1934) and over 40 million of the 70 million records have already been processed. These have been loaded on to the EAGLE (Electronic Access to GRO Legacy Events) database. The EAGLE project will introduce a more efficient system of recording and tracking customer orders within the GRO at Southport, and its implementation is imminent. Yet another bird's name has been chosen as the acronym for the third project - MAGPIE (Multi Access to GRO Published Index of Events). This will provide online indexes to the newly digitised records, and will be accessible via the internet, hopefully by April 2008. The FFHS has accepted the GRO's invitation to take part in user testing this new internet facility, although its search capabilities may be more restrictive than the wide-ranging possibilities we have asked for. By April 2008, the historic birth indexes will have been loaded onto EAGLE and the historic death records (those from 1837-1957) should also have been loaded. This means that those indexes will be accessible via the MAGPIE system on screen terminals at TNA at Kew (as well as via the internet) when the ONS facilities at the Family Records Centre close. Subsequently, the loading of the historic death records will be followed by the modern birth and death records, then the historic marriage records (those from 1837-1945) and the modern marriage records. For those records that have not been added to the MAGPIE project by April 2008, access will be available at Kew, as an interim measure, to the images of the existing indexes on microfiche and on computer. The original vellum and paper indexes will be moved to TNA at Kew, but will not be on open access. As a separate process, the Registrations Online project that deals with current registrations (2007 onwards) will provide indexes of these on terminals at the FRC by July of this year, with an interim search capability that will be more basic than that eventually offered by MAGPIE. We will continue to keep you informed of developments in this important area. Geoff Riggs, |
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Friday, January 26, 2007 - 'Who Do You Think You Are?' - Live Over the last three years, the hit TV programme 'Who Do You Think You Are?' has inspired a new generation to trace their ancestry and to join those who are already well on their journey towards uncovering their personal heritage. Following this unprecedented success, Who Do You Think You Are? is launching a National History Show, giving more people than ever before the opportunity to discover more about their heritage. 'Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE' (incorporating the Society of Genealogists Family History Show) will take place at the National Hall, Olympia, London on May bank holiday weekend, 5th - 7th May 2007. The Show is supported by the Daily Telegraph and Ancestry.co.uk. Specialist speakers include TV's David Starkey, Dan Snow, Bettany Hughes, Nick Barratt, Saul David and Jonathon Foyle plus experts from The National Archives and the world of family history. SPECIAL TICKET OFFER INFORMATION Save £20!! 2 tickets for the price of 1 !!! You can buy 2 tickets for £20*, saving £20 on the full ticket price. Simply call 08701 660443 or visit www.whodoyouthinkyouarelive.co.uk and quote FFHS241 when asked for a code. Offer deadline 22 April 2007. Normal adult ticket price is £20, all theatres and workshops at the show are included in this price. Children (6-15 years) £5 in advance. Calls charged at national call rate. Tickets must be bought in advance of the show. * Ticket booking fee applies. LIMITED FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY GROUPS DISCOUNT!! Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE' is also offering groups of 20 and over the chance to buy two Adult tickets for just £15!! That's a saving of £25! This special society offer ends on 28th February. To claim your discount simply quote FFHSGROUPS when asked for a code - it's as simple as that! ***Please note that all activities, including talks etc at Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE are included in the special discount ticket price. Maggie Loughran |
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Sunday, January 21, 2007 - Museums and Galleries Month Museums and Galleries Month is the UK-wide celebration of museums and galleries which takes place in May. Family history will be featured in MGM2007 linking to the theme of "People - who are we?" Working with the Archive Awareness Campaign, museums are being invited to stage family history workshops during May. Museums and galleries are currently registering their interest in hosting a workshop and we may be approaching your family history society soon to arrange a speaker to run a session in a local venue. All workshops will be publicised on both the MGM (www.mgm.org.uk/) and Archive Awareness (www.archiveawareness.com) websites and will offer a fantastic opportunity to showcase your society and encourage new members to join. |
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Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - Channel 4 TV series - THE FACE OF BRITAIN Imagine if a simple DNA test could show that you're descended from a Viking warrior, a Saxon farmer or Norman invader. This is what a pioneering project by Oxford University and the Welcome Foundation plan to do for the whole of the UK; and Channel 4 is going to follow the entire process. This new Channel 4 series is called THE FACE OF BRITAIN and the programme production company Wag TV are currently seeking families who know a lot about their family history but would like to delve even deeper and have their DNA tested to reveal their ancient roots. To qualify you and at least two generations of your family must come from one of the following regions: Cornwall, Devon, Pembrokeshire, Oxfordshire, Kent, Sussex, Northumbria, Cumbria, Orkney. If you would be happy to have a simple DNA test and have your family history delved into on television then please contact Wag TV as soon as possible. email or call Sorrel on: 0207 688 2166. |
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Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - Are you passionate about tracing your family history? Are you discovering your ancestral line leads you across the Atlantic? CHANNEL 4's brand new genealogy documentary is looking for great characters with great stories who would love to track down long lost family from the United States. If you would like to know more call Alex Lind on 0207 284 2020 or email or contact Alex at TwentyTwenty TV, 20 Kentish Town Road, London, NW1 9NX. |
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Friday, February 24, 2006 - FFHS-NEWS Modernisation of Civil Registration After the draft Regulatory Reform Order on the Modernisation of Civil Registration was withdrawn, following lack of support from the Parliamentary Select Committees, the General Register Office has been progressing the Modernisation of Civil Registration in two ways. You will have read the recent message on FFHS-NEWS giving our comments on the proposals to reform the procedures at register offices and for new registrations. Alongside this, the Digitisation of Vital Events (DoVE) Project is computerising the records of previous registrations. The first in a series of News Bulletins can be read on the GRO web site at www.gro.gov.uk. The Project includes production of new indexes of the data keyed from the copy certificates. What you may not be aware of is that the FFHS have been liaising with the GRO through regular meetings at a senior level, to try to ensure that family historians gain the maximum possible benefit from the Project. We are now able to announce that the main improvement we have been pressing for from the outset has at last been agreed. Once the new computerised Civil Registration indexes are available, all records in the indexes from the September quarter of 1837 onwards (the
start of Civil Registration in England and Wales) will include: We regard this as a breakthrough which should prove of immense benefit to research in the future. |
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Monday, February 27, 2006 - BBC Timewatch: The Influenza Epidemic of 1918 Timewatch is the BBC's flagship history series - we are currently making a programme looking at the 1918 Influenza epidemic. If you know that your family was significantly affected by influenza in 1918, then we'd like to hear from you. It might be that you have parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles who died or were orphaned as a result of it - or that you've discovered family archive or an interesting family story about it. We would also like to hear from anyone who has a family member who might remember the influenza outbreak. If you'd like to get in touch, please contact Emma Parkins, BBC Timewatch on 020 8752 6179, or by email. The programme is at the early research stage at the moment and all conversations are in complete confidence. |
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Monday, November 21, 2005 - Do you think that archives are worthwhile? You can help ensure that archives receive the funding they need by filling in The National Council on Archives online petition at www.ncaonline.org.uk Following the publication of Giving Value: Funding Priorities for UK Archives 2005-2010, the National Council on Archives continue to lobby government and funding bodies to convince them that putting archives higher up the agenda is worthwhile. Chronic under-funding of archives means that some UK collections remain un-catalogued, housed in unsuitable conditions or unused. In the worst cases important archives are sold to overseas buyers. By signing the online petition you will be helping to protect the nation's heritage and showing your support for archives. The petition will be sent to Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. In accordance with the Data Protection Act we will only use the data you provide to us for the purposes of lobbying on behalf of archives. For more information contact: Ruth Savage, Policy & Development Officer, National Council on Archives - Tel: 020 8392 5376 or by email. |
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Monday, August 22, 2005 - FriendsReunited take over 1901 census service The National Archives advised last Friday evening that FriendsReunited had bought the contract for the 1901 census service from QinetiQ (though we would comment that the service may be provided via the sister site GenesReunited, since this seems more appropriate). The Message from TNA was as follows: "This is to advise you that QinetiQ (operators of our popular 1901 census service) have sold the contract this afternoon to FriendsReunited. We were not party to the negotiations but our approval was necessary. We sought and obtained assurances about the standard of customer service FriendsReunited will offer and believe that it is a positive development for 1901 customers. Customers will not notice any difference in the way the service operates. A press release will be issued by the two parties on Monday and we will publish further details on our website then. Should members of the public have any questions about the sale, they should address them to QinetiQ or FriendsReunited." We were unable to advise you sooner because it was stipulated that the news was "Embargoed until 22nd August". However, the press release appeared on the Qinetiq website on Sunday 21st August and can be read here. |
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Monday 25th July 2005 - The one-stop-shop for access to archives The UK's leading archive bodies have set the course for a revolution in online access to archives. A new scheme, aUK: connecting archives, born out of the Linking Arms consortium, aims to create a powerful new search engine which will provide single-point access to hundreds of archive catalogues. This facility will enable the many thousands of daily searchers to find information, wherever it may be, in the United Kingdom. aUK is headed by a partnership between The National Archives in Kew, West London, The National Archives of Scotland, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, the National Library of Wales, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and the National Council on Archives. Included in its remit will be the promotion of the digitisation of new archival content, taken from both official records and different kinds of community and independent archives. aUK will set technological standards, providing a focus on improving interoperability standards and initiating a new strategy for the hosting of the UK's online archives. Sarah Tyacke CB, Chief Executive of The National Archives, said: "This programme will break new ground in enabling people to search online for historical records and information - whether they're researching their family tree, finding out the story of their street, or investigating a school history project. It's a technical solution which will make an enormous difference to the way we manage and access information about our past." The leaders of the scheme are:
For more information about aUK please contact Danielle Kelly at The National Archives on 020 8392 5277. |
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15th June 2005 - Update on Archive Awareness Campaign From Monday 13 June the registration page at www.archiveawareness.com is ready and waiting for you to register your archive events. You can register events which are taking place throughout the year but if you are still planning, the main activity period for Archive Awareness Campaign in 2005 is September to December. Beginnings is the theme that has been chosen to assist you in directing your events and publicity (for example, do you have material about childhood that you can base an event around or publicise?). The theme is very open to interpretation but if you do not have material that ties in with this are you already putting on an event this autumn or winter that you can brand with the Archive Awareness Campaign logo (available from the website) and register on the website? The Archive Awareness Campaign website will be linked to from a variety of other sites (e.g. www.countmeincalendar.com and The National Archives' "What's on?" page) and featured in publicity material so your event stands to be well-noticed. We will shortly be preparing some new publicity material to help you publicise your Archive Awareness Campaign event in 2005. If you have specific suggestions as to what this should look like please email Lucy Fulton If you are not planning an event for this Archive Awareness Campaign season but still want to get involved you could think about organising some publicity and the theme of Beginnings might help here. What is your oldest document? Do you have records about babies and children? Do you have new acquisitions to publicise or are you opening a new building? All of these, as well as fantastic photos, can be used to promote Archive Awareness Campaign as well as your own organisation to the local media. If you would like help on writing a press release or "selling" an idea to a journalist you can refer to the publicity toolkit on www.archiveawareness.com or you can phone on 020 8392 5237. If you would like to discuss the theme of Beginnings or have any queries about registering your events please do not hesitate to contact me on 020 8392 5237. If you would like to find out about other activity in your region you can look on our website for your regional contact www.archiveawareness.com To tie in with the Beginnings theme the Archive Awareness Campaign central team is organising Victorian Voices, a short story competition aimed at Key Stage 2 children (P4-P7 in Scotland and equivalent in Republic of Ireland) to run through schools in November and December. Usborne children's publishers and Adobe are working with us on this project, providing prizes and endorsing the competition. The short stories will be based on source material about Victorian childhood which will be collected onto one resource pack and will be available to download from the Archive Awareness Campaign website in September (there will also be paper and CD versions available for schools without internet access). The AAC central team is currently bringing this material together and we want to include as wide a selection from as wide a range of archives across the UK and Ireland as possible. Please help support Victorian Voices and AAC by sending archive material relating to Victorian childhood and we will try to include it in the resource pack, crediting your organisation. Some of the great sources we have received so far include a statement relating to a group of children who left Liverpool for Canada in 1894 under the sponsorship of the Canadian Catholic Emigration Committee; The Master's Notes from the Second Annual Report of the Boys Ragged School, 1849; a plan of Wolverhampton Union Workhouse; images of Victorian school children. If you have documents to send please email them to me (lucy.fulton@nationalarchives.gov.uk) as jpgs (minimum size 500px wide (any height), and 72dpi). If written documents require a transcript, please include this, along with as much interpretation material as possible, reference numbers, links to electronic catalogues if available and details of your organisation. You can also support Victorian Voices by promoting it to teachers in your newsletter or on your website. You will find some prepared text that you might like to use for this at the bottom of this email. You can also support the competition by putting on Victorian themed events this winter. Do you have Victorian documents that you can put on display for visitors, or do you already put on Victorian re-enactment sessions for children that could be tied into the competition? Register this www.archiveawareness.com as a "Beginnings" event and we will be able to advertise your event with the Victorian Voices resource pack. |
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15th June 2005 - Who Do You Think You Are? The second series of Who Do You Think You Are? will be broadcast through January and February 2006 and will consist of six episodes. Archive Awareness Campaign is encouraging you to organise family history events to coincide with the series or to brand your existing events in this period as "Who Do You Think You Are? - Archive Awareness Campaign" In 2006 the BBC will not be supporting the series with large roadshow-style events but we have negotiated with them and the production company that the posters from last year will be updated and available for use in promoting family history events. We will be able to give you information about the themes (e.g.. migration, war, etc) and filming locations by mid September to allow you to tailor family history events to tie in with the programmes more closely. To discuss any of the above further please telephone Lucy Fulton on 020 8392 5237. |
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25th July 2005 - The National Maritime Museum The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London (UK) is undertaking an important project to enhance access to its research collections. The collections contain over 2 million archival items and complement the holdings of the National Archive by supporting journeys of discovery across a range of subjects, from the big histories of exploration and empire to the personal histories of millions of ordinary people whose lives were touched by the sea. As a family historian, the Museum would like to hear your thoughts on how they can develop access to their archival collections to meet your needs. They are very interested in hearing from both people who have used their facilities before, and those who have not. Please follow this link to find out more about the proposed developments. Once you have read about the proposed developments, please follow this link to their e-survey which will give you a chance to express your views. The e-survey should only take about 10 minutes to complete and your views will ensure the Museum develops its archive facilities in the best way possible. If you have any problems with the survey or any questions about the proposed developments please email here. |
