Genealogists' Magazine - June 2014

Because this magazine, the Journal of the Society of Genealogists, covers a very wide field this issue has no articles directly connected with Hertfordshire - but two could be of interest to readers of this Newsletter.

The Loyalty Oath Rolls of 1723: an early census, by Sylvia J Dibbs, is a useful article on the history of these documents. It includes a reference to the web site History Working Papers - including a list of all the known surviving copies. Hertfordshire has a surviving roll which includes over 6000 names. While the site does not include these names they have been recorded in Hertfordshire County Records:  Volume VII, ed. W. Le Hardy (Hertford, 1935), pp. 477-563 - which is available on CD (Archive CD Books).

It is an Illegal Date, by Robin Bailey, provides good reasons for looking very carefully at the dates you find in parish registers around 1752. While you may be aware the when the calendar was changed there were 11 missing says in September 1752 - but the change stared the day after 31st December 1751. The change in the law meant that the next day was 1st January 1752 - which must seem obvious to us now - but if the change hadn't happened the next day would have 1st January 1751. What the law did was to change the start of the year and in England 1st January 1751 to 24th March 1751 never existed. However changing the law does not mean that people understood the change and mistakes "carrying on in the old way" can often be found in original registers, sometimes for several years. The lesson is to check the individual register entries (and noy just the one affecting your ancestor, to see if the minister got the year wrong!

Anne Drake Garrard's Commonplace Book (Genealogists' Magazine)

SOG

The September 2013 issue of the Genealogists' Magazine (the Journal of the Society of Genealogists) contains one article of particular interest to this web site. This is an article by Barney Tyrwhitt-Drake on Anne Drake Garrard's Commonplace Book. Anne was the daughter of Charles Drake who changed his surname when he inherited part of the property of the Garrard family at Lamer, near Wheathamstead. "Anne was the archtypical maiden aunt to several generations of her family, and her commonplace book includes contributions from many cousins and more distant relatives. ... she left several genealogical nuggets for her relatives. Among these was a four generation family tree [Illustrated] from Montague Drake (1698-1728) to Thomas D Tyrwhitt Drake (1749-1810). She dates her book from 1806 in the early pages, so this tree was drawn up in the early 19th century." 

The family tree refers to earlier non-Hertfordshire generations, and there are no Hertfordshire quotations given in the short article, but it is useful to note when such documents survive, and where possible make sure that their contents are accessible to future generations.

The magazine also includes an interesting article which illustrates how Richard III bones, discovered under a car park in Leicester, could be identified by finding a living relative down the female line, and matching mtDNA. 

The Library section contain three new additions relating to Hertfordshire. These are a copy of the book, Cathedral & City (St Albans) and transcripts of the registers of Watford Congregational Church and St Stephen Presbyterian Church, Watford.