A couple of months ago, I created and ordered a book from Shutterfly.com and gave it as a Christmas present. I couldn't blog about it before as I didn't want to give the game away.

Anyhow, I thought I'd write about how pleased I am with the product - the finish is excellent. I ordered the 8x11 inch hard photo cover book and created a Custom Book rather than using the Simple Path. Although a bit fiddly and time-consuming because everything is done over the internet, the results are absolutely worth it. The pages are glossy and my photographs came out exceptionally well.

Called 'Ancestral Trails - Pathways to the Past', my theme for the book was the homes and districts where my paternal ancestors lived and worked using modern day photographs. I'd taken most of the photos on family history trips. I also added text and labels to explain the pictures.

Because I live in the UK, the postage and packaging almost doubled the cost but I can highly recommend the product and the service and I'm glad I ordered an extra copy for myself.

So, without further ado, here are some images of the book.


Front Cover

(Click the image above to view a larger version.)

(Click the image above to view a larger version.)

Even this close-up doesn't quite do the actual quality of the book justice
(Click the image above to view a larger version.)

Back Cover
Disclaimer - this is my own personal opinion and I have no affiliation to Shutterfly.

[Why Follow Friday? This phrase has been included in the title in order to take part in Daily Blogging Prompts at Geneabloggers]

[Note: All content on the Hibbitt Family History website and blog is copyrighted. Click here for conditions of use.]

If you have your own family tree website you might consider archiving it to a CD or DVD and handing it on to the next generation. After all, who's going to maintain your site after you've gone? The snag here though, is that there'll be a finite number of peope who'll be able to appreciate your efforts and that's only if they happen to share your interest. You could find your research destined for a dusty drawer or, worse still, put out with the rubbish.

In this digital age of readily available information, it seems logical that your site should remain on the internet for a wider audience to read and enjoy. So how do we do this?.....Read more »

Have you ever found difficulty in deciphering names in old parish registers written in Latin? If so, FREEREG has a useful guide to how these Latin names correspond to the spoken names which are, more often than not, the same as the names we use today. For instance, did you ever expect the Latin for Arthur would be Arcturus or Arturus? Jacobus is James, not Jacob as one might expect. Fida is Faith and Amabilia is Mabel.
Latin Names & Abbreviations

FREEREG also has a list of abbreviated Christian names which often crop up in old documents. Most are fairly obvious but you might want to be reminded that Gul. and Guliel are abbreviations of William, taken from the Latin, Gulielmus.
Real Names and Abbreviations

Next, there's a page dedicated to a few Latin words which often appear in old registers. For example, nupsit means married and parochia means parish.
Latin Words to Recognise

Lastly, there's a handy explanation of the minefield that is numbers and dates. You're shown the standard way to enter dates for genealogy records, different formats for Latin numbers and the oddity of the calendar change in 1752. To finish up, there's a brief explanation about Regnal years.
Numbers and Dates

[Note: All content on the Hibbitt Family History website and blog is copyrighted. Click here for conditions of use.]

If you have a blog or family history website of your own then displaying adverts via the various schemes available can be a good way of discovering new genealogy websites. Monitor the text adverts appearing on your site and make a note of the website address (note: don't click on the ads yourself or you'll most likely get penalised by the company running the ad scheme). Once you have the address, you can look up the sites at your leisure.

I came across a fairly new genealogy search engine called Mocavo in this way. This site is in its infancy but promises to be a useful tool as more and more resources are added to the site. Nevertheless, it's surprising what you can already find. One feature I found helpful is the search engine is picking up discussions posted by others to various message boards. This can often lead to connections and discoveries which you might not have otherwise made.

[Why Tuesday's Tip? This phrase has been included in the title in order to take part in Daily Blogging Prompts at Geneabloggers]

Today my focus is on the excellent SEAX website. For those who haven't come across SEAX before, this website holds the online computerised catalogue for the Essex Record Office (ERO) located in Chelmsford, and can be accessed at http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk.

Although SEAX contains descriptions of documents, it doesn't contain the actual text within them. However, the ERO are continually scanning their collections and adding them to the system so they can be viewed online – and the best bit is that these scans of the original documents are free to view......Read more »

Another family history researcher recently sent me a transcript of a marriage settlement involving my Dando line. As these documents can be a little confusing I decided to search for a useful online guide and came across the following link among the Learning Resources at FamilySearch:

Marriage Settlements in England and Wales

[Why Tuesday's Tip? This phrase has been included in the title in order to take part in Daily Blogging Prompts at Geneabloggers]

(Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

From the mid 19th century, Abney Park Cemetery became the principal place of memorial for prominent London dissenters (Congregationalists, Baptists and other Non-Conformists). Before this, the burial ground at Bunhill Fields had served a similar purpose.

If you have any Non-Conformist ancestors, it's worth performing a free search of the Abney Park Cemetery online database .

Furthermore, the 3rd Edition of the National Burial Index (available on CD for approximately £30) includes 47,682 entries for Bunhill Fields between 1788 and 1853.

[Why Follow Friday? This phrase has been included in the title in order to take part in Daily Blogging Prompts at Geneabloggers]

The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) have recently launched a new application which provides a fully searchable index to the will calendar entries for the three District Probate Registries of Armagh, Belfast and Londonderry, with the facility to view the entire will calendar entry for each successful search. The database covers the period 1858-1919 and 1922-1943. Part of 1921 has been added, with remaining entries for 1920-1921 to follow in the near future.

In addition, 93,388 digitised images of entries from the copy will books covering the period 1858-1900 have now been linked to the corresponding will calendar entries and are now available online, allowing users to view the full content of a will.

I'd been waiting for some time for access to a downloadable version of the will of my 3 x great-grandfather, Joseph Dando (1802-1870). Not only was I pleased to see this facility had finally arrived but imagine my surprise when I also discovered that it's FREE.

Search the PRONI Will Calendars here - who and what will you find?

[Why Thrifty Thursday? This phrase has been included in the title in order to take part in Daily Blogging Prompts at Geneabloggers]

In 1998, the Friends of Devon's Archives undertook a project to make the information from the county's tithe apportionments more accessible. Most date from the 1840's, and they cover 97.4% of the total area of the county. However, coverage does not exist for the urban parishes of Exeter, nor for Kingsbridge, Dartmouth St Saviours, East Stonehouse in Plymouth, the town of Tiverton, etc. - therefore, many highly-populated areas are not included.

The names of owners, lessees and occupiers, together with the names of the holdings and their acreages, have been extracted and a database of this information has been created. Several border parishes in Cornwall and Dorset have also been included.

This database is available to search for free on the Friends of Devon's Archives website.

The data can be accessed in two different ways, - by searching on a parish to obtain a complete listing of the parish, or searching on a name to obtain all occurrences of that name.

The main limitation with the database is that it does not contain field names or numbers and, except for named holdings whose location is known, the searcher will have to resort to the original Tithe Apportionment and map to obtain a geographical location of property.

I put in the surname, Horn, to try and find my 5 x great-grandfather, William Horn of Black Torrington, and the database rendered the following results:

Parish, Owner, Occupier, Holding, Acreage,
Black Torrington, Burden, John, Horn, William, Hole, 92.0.30
Black Torrington, Burden, John, Horn, William, Uptcott, 34.3.06
Black Torrington, Horn, William, Collacott, William, unnamed cottage etc, 0.0.03
Black Torrington, Horn, William, Dart, John, unnamed cottage etc, 0.0.04
Black Torrington, Horn, William, Horn, William, unnamed cottage etc, 0.0.20
Black Torrington, Horn, William, Horn, William, unnamed land, 1.3.34
Black Torrington, Paige, George, Horn, William, unnamed land, 1.0.00
Bradworthy, Oke, Hugh, Horn, William, unnamed house etc, 0.0.19
Holsworthy, Stanhope, Earl, Horn, William, unnamed house etc, 0.2.16

Area given in acres, rods (or roods), and perches (40 perches = 1 rod, 4 rods = 1 acre)



Used in conjunction with the 1841 census, I found the Tithe Apportionments database to be a useful tool. For instance, the census showed George Paige, the owner of an acre of unnamed land occupied by William Horn, lived at Bridge, Black Torrington. Using the Ordnance Survey maps at Bing, I discovered Hole Farm, Upcott Farm and Bridge Farm are all still in existence today.

[Why Tuesday's Tip? This phrase has been included in the title in order to take part in Daily Blogging Prompts at Geneabloggers]

With Christmas fast approaching, you may be looking for some gift ideas for your family history enthusiast so I've put together a few links to give you inspiration........Read more »