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Yoaur ideas, comments and advice
An hour ago I was about to start weighing out for a tray of Auntie Amy’s parkin and it reminded me of your request for stories about inherited recipes in the June issue of WDYTYA?.
This recipe is closer to family history (for me) than you might think. It’s written on a6” x 4” index card – which I used in my early days of family history research to record details – one for each person. This one has become a permanent reminder of the day I obtained the recipe.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I often called round to see Auntie Amy. Chatting about anything and everything, she would show me old photographs and tell me about the people in them. If I was lucky, (and this was years before I had a computer) I was allowed to walk to the local photo shop, who had a ‘photo- quality’ photocopier, to copy some of the pictures.
On one occasion, I said “You must give me a parkin recipe sometime” at which point she reeled off the recipe and I wrote it (almost verbatim) on a blank index card.
Being a ‘weighing’ rather than ‘measuring’ baker, I weighed out the quantities first time around and it ‘works for me’. I can make this from memory now, but on one occasion added some bicarb ( remembered from another recipe) and it was as flat as a pancake.
Auntie Amy’s parkin can be eaten straight away, but as we in the family say, it needs a few days to ‘come to’. If you can leave it alone – a week to even a fortnight in a tin is good.
I have since passed this recipe back to my cousin to email out to Auntie Amy’s granddaughters, who now both live in the Antipodes.
Since then, I have received Amy’s grandmother’s recipe book, and tried a couple of bakes. Taking them too literally, they have not been a great success – but having tried once, I can now look at adapting them. Mags Carter, by email Editor replies: Thanks for sharing this with us Mags. If you are ever in Bristol, do pop by with some parkin! Have any other readers got family recipes they would like to share?
Police resources
In response to the April issue star letter regarding Jenny Taylor’s policeman ancestor James Beattie Anderson, she might like to visit the Thames Valley Police Museum at the training centre in Sulhamstead. The museum holds items relating to the Amelia Dyer case and may have information relating to other cases he worked on. Visits are by appointment only www.thamesvalley.police.uk/ about- us/who-we-are/thamesvalley-police- museum. David Clow, by email
Editor replies: Thank you for this suggestion. I suspect police museums are an under- used resource and may disappear unless we use them more. I hope you enjoy our feature on police pension records on page 63.
Family finds
I have been using a well-known internet auction site to look for First World War medals and nursing medals for sale. Just type in the person’s name and you may be lucky like me.
I also use the same site to buy autograph books from the First World War for the pleasure of reading the little poems and looking at the drawings. If I identify anyone, I check whether he or she is on anyone’s family tree and then email with the details from the book. The response is always positive and sometimes very emotional.
So look out readers, I may email you one day with information about your ancestors! Patricia Curran, by email Editor replies: I love looking on eBay and also sites like Abe Books for family stuff. I once found an account written by my great grandmother of a holiday she took to Venice.
Father’s name mix-up
I recently looked up a possible ancestor’s marriage online and found
– to my surprise – that in the parish register in Ancestry’s Dorset collection the bride’s father was shown with the first name of Edward (see above). There is no Edward on this side of our family, so I immediately thought I had made a mistake and somehow gone into a different family although I could not see how or where I had gone wrong. I decided to send for a copy of the marriage certificate from the General Register Office (GRO), not really expecting it to say anything different but to my surprise and delight it shows the bride’s father correctly as William. I have no idea how this error could have happened. My advice is if you are unsure about any details shown in the register, it is worth sending for a copy certificate to make certain. Hazel Picton, by email
Editor replies: You would think the entry in the parish register would be the most likely to be correct and the copy held by the GRO most likely to hold an error. Have any other readers found inconsistencies between GRO certificates and parish register entries?
Photos sorted!
Some while ago one of my nieces and her partner were looking through my family photos and after a few comments of “Who is this?”, I decided to put all the photos in albums. I bought some new albums and numbered stickers, I put the photos in the albums with a numbered sticker and then typed a corresponding list giving the name(s) of the subjects and their dates of birth. Now with a copy of our family tree in the albums as well as the list, family members will know not only the name(s) of the subject(s) but also where they figure in the family tree. May I suggest that this idea may be useful to other readers of WDYTYA?. It’s such a shame when photos are passed down the generations and no one knows who they are of. Sue Martin, by email
Editor replies: I wish I was as organised as you, Sue. Have any other readers got tips for sharing their family history research?
Ancestor theft!
I would like to say what happened to me regarding the problem of taking information from online trees. I was contacted by someone via Ancestry who insisted that a certain person on my tree was her relative. I told her that she had the incorrect person, but I sent her copies of old photographs and certificates at her request. After six weeks I enquired whether she had received them and she then admitted she had made a mistake. Annoyingly, however, she has not deleted the people on her tree (from my mother’s tree) that she is not related to. I contacted Ancestry and whilst they were very sympathetic, they couldn’t do anything about it. Needless to say, I am very angry about this. Diane M Jenkins by email
Editor replies: I can imagine how annoying this must be. Lots of people start an online family tree and then give up, probably even more likely if they have made mistakes. Such a shame that the false family tree will just remain on Ancestry as it is, because it will lead to others making the same mistake!
Parish register praise
Thank you for the useful guide to online parish registers. To me nothing quite beats sitting in a record office doing the legwork so I tend to get a bit lost looking for parish registers online (exacerbated by the fact each county seems different). I am a big fan of freereg.org.uk which was great for a Staffordshire line but not so good for my local Leicestershire lines. This guide was useful for working out what is out there. Jennifer Shelden, Leicester Editor replies: Thanks for the feedback, Jennifer. We had a lot of positive comments about the feature and I’m glad it helped so many of you.