Miss Norman (written August 1999)

Older members of the Society of the Genealogists may remember Miss Gwen Norman who was a member and a volunteer here during the 1980s. About ten years ago Miss Norman left us her exceptionally detailed genealogical research in which she managed to trace all thirty-two great-great-great-grandparents: a remarkable achievement. At long last we are tackling the hundred and twenty or so binders in which this material was originally stored.

Her papers are more than just genealogical jottings, for they contain her life story and notes about her parents and other members of her immediate family. It is also full of photographs of the places, mainly in BDF, CAM and HRT, where her ancestors lived.

Cat lovers will be pleased that the collection contains snaps of the various felines she and her family had over a fifty year period. In fact there are so many photographs, I have had to abandon work on the collection for the moment because we have run out of the polyester wallets in which to put the photos. Even so I hope that this material will be available by the end of September.   

Miss Norman's Collection is curiously moving for it illuminates the tragedies (the killing of a cat by a neighbour) and pleasures (her fun-loving father) of an ordinary family in an ordinary London street. It made me think that we should all leave such a life-story behind to give our descendants and others interested an idea of the times we lived in and the lives we lived. 

Society of Genealogists articles

For a year in 1999 and 2000 I was archivist at the Society of Genealogists in London and contributed to a weekly e-newsletter, which went to members, about the records held by the Society. I had thought that the newsletter had disappeared in the ether, but one of my clients pointed out that they can still be found on Rootsweb. I have rescued them and dusted them down and have posted them here.

I have hardly edited them at all, so when I talk about the Upper Library I am talking about the collections which are now in the Lower Library or basement. The Special Collections are specific collections generally of genealogical research which have been deposited by members or more often their executors. The Document Collection are odd items - generally loose sheets of paper or odd documents - which are arranged by surname.

Some of the non-SoG resources are now online and the Public Record Office is now The National Archives.

You can find out more about the Society of Genealogists at www.sog.org.uk

I have to say I am pleased at how well the articles read after a period of nearly a dozen years.

The Society is now celebrating its centenary. Happy birthday!

Mystery researcher: British Library's Africa and Asia Room

I've been a regular at the British Library for many years. I even a had a readers's ticket when it was still based in the British Museum. But until now I haven't used the Indian Office collections, but a client recently asked to see whether there were any files about an Indian politician active at the time of Partition.
Like the rest of the St Pancras site the room is sumptuously furnished, with book cases around the walls full of reference works and catalogues. Not much infomation is yet online (although there is some stuff on Access to Archives A2A). It is quiet with a separate area for microfilm readers and a security guard on the door checking tickets on the way in and bags on the way out.
It was reasonably busy when I was there with a mixture of academics, professional researchers and family historians. The staff were extraordinarily patient with all enquirers and very helpful, particularly with the convoluted and bizarrly arranged ordering system. Files and books take about an hour to 70 minutes to arrive,

Room: 8; staff: 10; resources 7; ordering 2

Mystery researcher: National Army Museum

Years ago I went to the National Army Museum when I was researching my PhD thesis. It was real ordeal getting a reader's ticket then I was patronised by the staff on the desk. Of course I didn't find anything, but even now I remember the trip as one of the worst experiences of my career as a researcher.

Fortunately matters are now totally different. To start with there is a new reading room - the Templar Stidy Centre - which was comfortable and well laid out. It is in the basement and there is a lift if you need it..

The staff was knowledgeable and helpful (and offered a great tip about what to look for) and not very interested in my reader's ticket. I spent three hours there and there was a number of visitors - a couple of people listening to their collection of oral history tapes, somebody researching their family tree and lady who brought in a badge she wanted identified. The duty archivist tried to identify it and when he couldn't called down a curator to help. I fear this would not have been even considered in the old days.

My only grumble was the online catalogue which not yet on the NAM's website and isn't terribly powerful or user friendly. That said it came up with some excellent leads.

Room 8; staff 8; ease of access 8; catalogues 5

A perfect set

It's never happened to me before, but I've just found a complete set of records for a soldier, that is an entry in the 1901 and 1911 censuses, service records and Medal Index Card. What's more the National Army Museum has his autobiography and some photographs (ref ARC 2002-03-171). The lucky man was 8434 Private Fred Wilkinson, The Buffs (East Kent Regiment). His typewritten memoir was written when he was 75 in 1963. His spelling was erratic and sometimes it can be difficult to work out what he is describing.. He was born into extreme poverty in Woodchurch in Kent one of thirteen childrenl his father was the local rat-catcher and his mother a midwife, although it is unlikely that she had any training.
After minimal schooling, Fred became a labourer. He claims he joined up and saw service in South Africa at the end of the Boer War, but I could find no reference to this. What is certain that aged 15 he got a local girl into trouble, and tried to enlist in the Grenadier Guards but was a quarter-inch under the height requirement. Fortunately the girl's father pointed out that she had had lots of men and it was uncertain who the father actually was (it would be fascinating to find out whether sought help from the local poor law).
Instead aged 18 he joined his local regiment the Buffs. He claims to have reached the rank of Sergeant Major, but his service record suggests otherwise. Fred certainly became a corporal, but returned to the ranks at his own request. The battalion served in Hong Kong, Singapore, India before returning to France in the early months of WW1 Later he was in Egypt and Salonika. He was discharged in 1919 and spent the rest of his life as a labourer and mole catcher (to clear a blockage, he suggests, tying a treacle can to a mole and put him down the drain).
Fred was certainly one of the lads and there are several stories about his drinking exploits and the times he got into trouble with the authorities. His service record suggests he was courtmartialled several times. But unusually for the period he was no racist - he had a Chinese girlfriend in Hong Kong for several years.. Even so the focus of his world was the battalion and his friends.
In 1918 he married Edith Gill. We don't find out very much about her, which is a pity because from her photos she seems to have a real twinkle in her eye.
Fred eventually died in 1975 aged 87.
Unfortunately the couple did not seem to have any children a real shame because these documents are a unique portrayal of somebody who has been forgotten by history. I bet though he would be tickled pink by how much we can find out about him.

A communist at sea

While researching my new book on tracing naval ancestors for Pen & Sword I came across the curious story of Len Wincott. Able Seaman Wincott was one of the leaders of the Invergordon Mutiny which took place in September 1931 which took place as a protest against a proposed cut of a quarter in sailors' wages by the Admiralty as part of the government's austerity progamme as the result of the economic depression. The sailors' protest so shook the stock market that it forced the Pound off the Gold Standard. Despite the Navy's promise 24 men, including Wincott, were identified as ringleaders and dismissed from the Navy ("gone out" to use the technical phrase).
Wincott eventually published his autobiography "Invergordon Mutineer" (Weindenfeld & Nicolson, 1974) which makes interesting reading. Born in 1907 in poverty in Leicester he joins the Navy in 1923 after time at the training centre for boys at Shotley. The Navy gave him security, even if the pay was not much and the prospects in the peacetime RN fairly minimal  Wincott seems to have been more articulate than his fellow matelots. His service record at The National Archives (piece ADM 188/861) runs to the end of 1929 and shows a model seaman.  But his life would change overnight when he gets caught in protests about the proposed cut in pay. According to his memoirs he was one of the key leaders, but this may have been an exaggeration.
After his dismissal he became involved with the Communist Party speaking at meetings up and down Britain. The CP may have given him the same feeling of belonging as the Navy had. There are three MI5 files on him at TNA (KV 2/508-510) which show that he was being followed, and his mail intercepted. There are also detailed accounts of speeches he made, which make dull reading today. There were are also several reports from informers whose names have been blanked out in the files. With perhaps of hint of what was to come Wincott mentions that he was aware of being followed and his letters being read and names one of the informers as being a disaffected shipmate Terry Gentry. His account matches notes from one of the interviews in the file, so Wincott was probably right about the snitch.
For all the surveillance MI5 failed to spot that Wincott left Britain in 1934 for good as it turned out. He went to Leningrad to run the Anglo-American section of the International Seamen's Club. Wincott may have taken the post to be with his first wife Mary Copeland an American journalist who lived in Moscow - or perhaps the Russians were increasingly worried that he might prove to be an embarrassment to them. Apart from a visit to England in 1974 Wincott spent the rest of  his life in the Soviet Union. He survived the Siege of Leningrad and ten years in the Gulags where he met and married his fourth wife. Wincott finally died in Moscow in 1983. His ashes were scattered over Devonport Harbour..
Len Wincott has a rather hostile entry written by John Horsfield in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. There is also an interesting obituary in The Times for 22 January 1983.  Francis Beckett takes a more sympathetic approach when he describes Wincott's time in the Soviet Union in Stalin's British Victims (Sutton, 2004). Clearly another interesting footnore in history 

Soldiers' documents 1760-1913

If you have an ancestor who was an other rank (ordinary soldier) in the British Army before 1913 then you need to check out this new resource from Findmypast. They have completed digitising the soldiers' papers in series WO 97 at The National Archives (TNA). These are records for men who survived army service and received a pension: there are no records for men who died in the service or deserted. You can read more in my Tracing Your Army Ancestors' book from Pen & Sword (buy it at www.pen-and-sword.co.uk).
Any way I have been playing with the new resource which can be checked out here. It is pretty good. I do like FMP's clear layout (despite the distracting ads) . The index seems good and the quality of the images is excellent.
My only gripe is that in the indexing the only practical modifier is place and date of birth, which you may well not know, so you could waste precious units in downloading records which are no use to you.. It would have been better to include regiment as modifier, which users are likely to know. To an extent you can over come this, at least for men who left before 1854, by typing in your man's name into TNA catalogue and in the series box add WO 97. Years ago the Friends of the Public Record Office, as they were then, indexed these records in some detail and results were added to the catalogue.
It costs 5 units to download a transcript and 30 units for the document itself. The other thing you need to do is to press the clear button before each new search, otherwise the search engine may get confused.
Over the years I have researched several of the men who appear in here: Pte Fred Grover (48th Foot) who fought in the Crimea and whose life is memorably told in George Bourne's Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer, Richard Cavendish, a Gentleman-Ranker (and supposedly the illegitimate son of the King of Prussia) who abandoned a promising career in the Queens Hussars to become a workhouse master, and Benjamin Harris of the Rifle Brigade who left a fascinate set of memoirs behind which was the inspiration of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels.