29/6/2025 LostCousins Newsletter

Newsletter – 29th June 2025

Detailed records of central London births revealed NEW

Over 2 million Birmingham court records go online NEW

Save 35% in Ancestry.co.uk offer ENDS THURSDAY

ScotlandsPlaces website closes

National Collection of Aerial Photography

Bundle of letters found in canal

New Zealand census ditched

Missing 1841 Census records were found in bookshop

Save on Who Do You Think You Are? magazine

Peter’s Tips

Stop Press

The LostCousins newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue (dated 20^th June) click here; to find earlier articles use the customised Google search between this paragraph and the next (it searches ALL of the newsletters since February 2009, so you don't need to keep copies):

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Detailed records of central London births revealed NEW

What would you expect to find in a record set entitled London, England, University College Hospital and Middlesex Student Records, 1828-1945? I imagined that it would list trainee doctors and nurses, and it does: there are records of student doctors training at Middlesex Hospital Medical School from 1891-1936, and of nurses at University College Hospital Preliminary Training School from 1925-1938.

But what I didn’t expect to find in a collection categorised under School lists and yearbooks were registers of midwives’ attendances on expectant mothers, including arrival and departure times as well as details of the birth (which, as a squeamish male, I’d rather not know about!).

I picked a birth just before the 1911 Census so that I could follow it through as far as possible – the extract above shows 6 visits to Mrs Humpage between 8.20am on Saturday 4^th February and 6.35pm on Sunday 5^th February.

That information comes from the left-hand page of the register; the right-hand page is a separate image, and it’s not that easy to match up the two sides. (To help you make sense of it I’ve included the headings although these entries were not, in fact, at the top of the page.)

The final entry from this extract shows that Mrs Humpage eventually gave birth to a living male child after 28 hours in labour. The abbreviation B.B.A. stands for “Born Before Arrival”, which must have been frustrating for the midwife, who had left not long before, as well as worrying for the mother – although it wasn’t her first child (she had given birth to a daughter 2 years earlier).

I don’t have any medical training – unlike many readers of this newsletter – so I’m not going to attempt to interpret all the abbreviations, but most of them are fairly obvious (I suspect that B.B.M.S. against the entry for Mrs Joyce indicates that she gave birth by caesarean section).

Because the register shows the mother’s address I was easily able to find the household in the 1911 Census:

Note that both parents are working even though they have two young children; perhaps relatives were helping out with child care? The information relating to their marriage and children is on the wrong line of the census form – it should be against Eliza rather than her husband – but it enabled me to find their marriage at St Mary the Virgin, Somers Town 2 years earlier, even though the groom had married as George Henry, rather than Henry George.

Sadly it was not a long marriage. Although George survived the war – he was discharged from the army as unfit for service – in spring 1918 Spanish Flu arrived in England:

Eliza had borne three further children: John in 1913, Kathleen in 1916 and Thomas in 1917. Four of the five children were living with relatives in 1921:

In the 1939 Register Ellen, John, and Kathleen were living with Helen Richardson, by now a widow. George had married in 1936 and went on to have three children. But what of Thomas, the youngest of the siblings? I discovered that sadly he had died just 6 days before his mother:

George, whose birth was the catalyst for my search, lived to 1990 – outliving all of his siblings apart from Kathleen, who was 97 when she passed away in 2013.

There might not be anyone reading this who is related to the Humpage family, but in the registers there are tens of thousands of entries for midwives attending expectant mothers in the area around St Pancras between 1889-1917: do please let me know if the birth of one of your ancestors is amongst them!

London, England, University College Hospital and Middlesex Student Records, 1828-1945

Over 2 million Birmingham court records go online NEW

As I was finalising this newsletter Ancestry released their second new collection of the month: Birmingham, England, Petty Session Registers, 1892-1923 includes over 2 million entries.

Petty Sessions were the forerunner of Magistrates’ Courts, which replaced them from 1972. They dealt with minor offences such as drunkenness, petty theft, assault, and vagrancy – but could also refer a case to the Quarter Sessions. Looking through the newly-published records I could see offences including the use of abusive language, making to threats to kill, failure to buy a railway ticket, giving a false statement to obtain a Separation Allowance (this was during the Great War – see this poster for details of the payments), and employing a child after hours. There were also applications for maintenance, and prosecutions for arrears of maintenance.

At Petty Sessions the decisions were made by magistrates, not by juries, so I was initially confused when I came across this page amongst the records:

I should have read the small print – although the title of the collection only refers to Petty Sessions, the more detailed description makes it clear that there are also records from Quarter Sessions.

Interestingly the names of the jurors have been indexed as if they were defendants – yet another reason to view the source image!

But it’s good that the names of the jurors have been indexed – otherwise the chance of discovering that they’d done jury service would be minimal.

Note: ‘Petit Jury’ has no connection to ‘Petty Sessions’ – the term distinguishes it from a ‘Grand Jury’. In England Grand Juries were abolished in 1933, so many of you will only be familiar with the term from watching US crime dramas!

Birmingham, England, Petty Session Registers, 1892-1923

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ScotlandsPlaces website closes

Just last month I linked to the free ScotlandsPlaces website, which I first wrote about back in 2010 – but on Tuesday that site (and several others) were closed as part of a reorganisation by Historic Environment Scotland (HES). You can find out more about the changes on this news page at the HES site.

The Ordnance Survey Name Books, which were previously at ScotlandsPlaces, can now be found at ScotlandsPeople – and they can still be viewed free of charge, though you’ll have to pay a small amount (2 credits, equivalent to 50p) if you want to download one of the images.

National Collection of Aerial Photography

The changes at Historic Environment Scotland have also resulted in a change of website for the National Collection of Aerial Photography, which has around 30 million images, some of which go back to the 1920s. They’re not restricted to Scotland, or even to the UK – there are aerial photos from around the world (many taken by the RAF during World War 2).

I had a look for photos of the area where LostCousins is based – there were colour photos from 1971 and black and white photos from 1973. The watermarked images shown on screen are quite low resolution and it was impossible to tell how good the quality would be, so the only option was to purchase a sample image for £33 plus VAT (a total of £39.60).

I can’t show you the image because the licence only covers personal use, but I have to say that I was extremely disappointed with the quality. I’ll put it down to experience – and hopefully I’ll be able to save you from making the same mistake that I did!

Note: another source of aerial photography is the Historic England Archive, which allows you to view (but not download) over 400,000 photos from their collection of 12 million images.

Bundle of letters found in canal

My wife spotted this article posted on the BBC News website this week: it involves bundle of 32 letters which were sent around 1962 to a Miss Janet Millington in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire from a lad in Nottingham who signed himself ‘Arch’.

The lady who found them in a Birmingham canal would like to return to the owner – and perhaps LostCousins can succeed where Facebook has failed?

The obvious first step was to search the GRO birth indexes at Findmypast for ‘Janet Millington’ – it doesn’t seem like a very common name, but there were rather more than I expected. Given what we’re told about the contents of the letters it seems likely that she was in her late teens, so I decided to focus on births in the years 1940-1950 (allowing a little leeway).

There were none at all in Hertfordshire, and just three from Nottinghamshire, two in Nottinghamshire registration district (in 1944 and 1945) and one in Worksop (1947).

The writer of the letters called himself ‘Arch’, which is presumably short for Archie or Archibald. Assuming he was of a similar age to Janet I searched the birth indexes from 1941-1949, focusing on Hertfordshire and Nottinghamshire. This time there were eight results, five from Hertfordshire and three from Nottinghamshire:

We can put aside the possibly that ‘Arch’ was born in Hertfordshire since there is no Janet Millington born in that county during the relevant period. This leaves the three born in Nottinghamshire, all of whom were born within a year of at least one the Janet Millingtons listed above.

There are no marriages between a Janet Millington and an Archie (or Archibald), so if they did marry they must have married somebody else – though given the way attitudes to marriage changed in the 60s and 70s we can’t rule out the possibility that the letters bore fruit. Still, if the correspondence was rather one-sided it might help to explain why the bundle of letters ended up in the river and, if they were thrown away deliberately by the recipient, she might not want them back now….

New Zealand census ditched

In the last issue I was able to share the good news that the 2031 England & Wales census has been saved – but around the same time it was announced that in New Zealand there won’t be any more traditional censuses (the last one was in 2023). You can read about the New Zealand plans here – it’s yet another reminder that the heritage value of the census isn’t something that statisticians take into account.

Missing 1841 Census records were found in bookshop

This isn’t news – but it was certainly news to me. Some years ago two of the missing 1841 enumeration books for Wrexham were found in a bookshop (some sources say a junk shop) by a member of Clwyd Family History Society and deposited at Denbighshire Archives. They aren’t included amongst the census records at any of the subscription sites, but they have been transcribed by members of the society (you can purchase a copy of the transcription here).

The chance of a making a discovery like this is very small, but the fact that it happened at all gives me hope that there are other gems to be found, perhaps laying unrecognised amongst family papers in an attic. From time to time we hear of records or photograph albums being recovered from rubbish skips – unfortunately there are some people who just don’t appreciate the heritage value of old documents.

Save on Who Do You Think You Are? magazine

Last month we heard a fascinating talk by Sarah Williams, Editor of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine – if you missed it you’ll find a link to the recording on your My Events page.

Not a subscriber? In the UK you can get SIX issues delivered to your door for only £11.99 – just under £2 per issue compared to the cover price of £5.75

To take advantage of this offer – and support LostCousins – please follow this link.

Peter’s Tips

I don’t think any of us can spend as much time as we would ideally researching our ancestors, and I know that many are also struggling to find the money we need for subscriptions to websites like Ancestry and Findmypast. In theory many of us can access one or both of those sites free at our local library, or at a nearby records office, but in practice most of us are able to research most efficiently from the comfort of our own homes.

When I began the Peter’s Tips column over 15 years ago its primary purpose was to enable readers to save money on goods and services generally, so that you would find it a little easier to find the money you need to research your family tree. However, for one reason or another Peter’s Tips has been appearing less and less frequently in the newsletter: it’s probably because it’s the last article I write, and it’s not really about genealogy, so if I’m up against a tight deadline (or exhausted!) it gets left out.

Since it was always one of the most popular sections of the newsletter I’m going to do my best to include a Peter’s Tips column more often – perhaps not in every issue, but most. And here’s a moneysaving tip to get you started…..

Would you like to save money on almost everything you buy? One way is to pay by credit card and put the money in a savings account until the due date for payment – on average you’ll get over a month’s interest, which (if you have a savings account that pays 3% per annum) is equivalent to 0.25%. Not a fortune, but every little helps!

However it’s possible to do much better than this. I have an American Express Cashback credit card which gives me 0.75% back on most of my purchases – add that to the 0.25% that I’m earning in interest and that’s a full 1% on most of the things I buy, including groceries. (Of course, when I’m buying groceries from Tesco I also use my Clubcard, which gives me another 0.25% – or more if I spend it with one of their ‘Rewards partners’).

There is a downside to the card I have – an annual fee of £25 – but there is no fee in the first year, and there are bonuses for new cardholders (provided you haven’t had an Amex card in the previous 24 months). For example, you can get 5% cashback in the first 3 months (up to £125, ie £2500 spend) and there’s also a cashback bonus, usually £25 but this is currently increased to £40 provided you complete the application before 15^th July and use a special link (which I’ll send you on request).

There are also offers during the year – in most years I cover the annual fee with the rebates I get from the offers. And you can also earn £30 (maximum £150 per year) by referring someone you know who subsequently signs up. Which is what I’m doing right now….

It’ll soon be Prime Day at Amazon.co.uk – which this year runs from July 8^th-11^th (I make that 4 days, but never mind). It’s exclusive to Prime members, so if you’re not a Prime member you won’t know what you’re missing… unless you sign-up now for a free 30-day trial using this link.

Finally, I’d just to thank everyone who wrote in following the article in the newsletter about Missie, our cat, who passed away at the age of 17 going on 18 (she came from a rescue centre so we never knew her precise age, though she had been with us for 16 wonderful years).

The good news is that Pussycat Lodge is still going (though only just, as they need to find new premises urgently) and when we looked at their website we were instantly drawn to Rosie. She had been at the rescue centre for over 2 months when we met her, having been discovered living under a hedge – but Rosie is a really beautiful cat, and we’re very lucky that she has agreed to come and live with us.

Stop Press

This is where any major updates and corrections will be highlighted - if you think you've spotted an error first reload the newsletter (press Ctrl-F5) then check again before writing to me, in case someone else has beaten you to it......

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this newsletter, and have picked up some useful tips. I’ll be back in July with more news from the world of genealogy – see you then!

Description: Description: peter_signature

Peter Calver

Founder, LostCousins

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