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Posts under the 'Records and research' category

Tue Apr

2013

Trainee Tuesday: Goodbye from the Opening up Archives trainees

Posted by Kate Sutton in Behind the scenes, Records and research

Over the last year the other Opening Up Archives trainees and I have blogged on everything from Richard III and ice cream to medieval archives and LGBT history month. We’ve created a Polish Community Project, apps, trained archivists on the digital preservation process, and one of us even ventured outside to an archaeology dig. As our traineeships are coming to an end we’ve picked some highlights and interesting archives for one last blog post.

Julie Thomson – Leicester and Rutland Archives

Women’s Legion, Land Army, and factory and munitions workers

It’s been a busy, slightly wacky, but overall rewarding year of digital preservation training! The best part is that I was able to throw myself into the day-to-day functioning of my host Record Office in a really hands-on way, and at the end of it all feel like I’d made a significant contribution to preserving its holdings. I also hope my work (both digitising large numbers of items and helping to create an accessible, commercially viable online image library) will ultimately generate some real revenue for the Record Office, as well as promoting local heritage to a global audience. I’ve genuinely enjoyed learning about my colleague Kasia McCabe’s Polish Community Project too. Archives are definitely looking like a viable career path, especially with regard to digital technology.

Personal favourite archive item? That is a tough one. We’ve had Richard III material, Isaac Newton’s property rolls, and a lot of interesting medieval documents. But the photography collections are especially rich, and dealt with exciting material from throughout the 20th century. One of my most abiding interests is the role of women on the home front during the First and Second World Wars. I’ve cheated and made a collage because there are too many good ones!

Mon Apr

2013

Censuses compared

Posted by Audrey Collins in Records and research

1940 Census indexing Just over a year ago the 1940 census of the United States was released, causing much excitement and activity in the genealogical community there. Unlike recent census releases in the UK, it did not arrive fully indexed, but as soon as the census images were made public a massive crowd-sourcing project got underway to create name indexes. This is no mean feat since that census contains over 132 million names. The project was jointly undertaken by FamilySearch and by two commercial companies, findmypast.com and Archives.com with batches being allocated to volunteer transcribers and moderators using FamilySearch indexing software. The enthusiasm of the volunteers exceeded expectations, and the whole project was completed ahead of schedule within a few months. Quite independently of this, two other companies, Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.com, also compiled their own indexes.

I indexed a few batches myself, because I thought it was a worthwhile project, but also because I have an interest in American records. My own ancestry is all Scottish and Irish so far, but learning about American records is useful to me because I keep finding distant relatives whose families migrated there in the 19th and 20th centuries, and I have an American daughter-in-law. It’s also relevant to the day job, since many Americans have British or Irish roots, and when I am answering their research enquiries on British records it helps to know a little about the kind of records they are used to.

Nationwide or federal censuses have been taken in the USA every ten years since 1790. In Great Britain there has been a census every ten years since 1801, with the exception of 1941, and in Ireland every ten years from 1821 to 1911. There was no Irish census in 1921 because of the Troubles, but a census was taken in 1926 in both the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. There is a lot more US census to look at, and not just because it is a much bigger country. There are lists of names all the way back to 1790, albeit names of heads of households only before 1850, while in Great Britain no name lists at all were collected centrally until 1841 (although some lists from 1801 to 1831 do survive in local archives). But there is also a great deal of extra census material in the USA, including state censuses, often taken half-way between the federal censuses. There are also ‘Non-population’ returns for some years, recording details about agriculture and manufacturing.

Fri Apr

2013

Transparent papers need you!

Posted by Helen Wilson in Behind the scenes, Records and research

For the past six months I have been working on a challenging yet fascinating one-year conservation research fellowship at The National Archives on transparent papers. Today I’d like to tell you how readers at The National Archives are providing valuable information for this project via the Readers’ Transparent Paper Survey.

Questionnaire and collection box for the Readers' Transparent Paper Survey

Questionnaires and the questionnaire collection box in the Document Reading Room for the Readers' Transparent Paper Survey

For the purposes of my project, transparent papers are defined as those papers for which transparency was vital for its intended role. For example, maps, overlays, copies of artistic designs, and engineering or architectural plans are relevant while pages of text on thin, and consequently transparent, paper are not.

Wed Apr

2013

Friendly aliens in our fighting forces

Posted by Chris Barnes in Records and research

Medal roll of Samuel Ostroi

In October 1917 Russia withdrew from the First World War. One consequence of this withdrawal that you may not be aware of is that Russian nationals living in Britain suddenly became eligible to serve in the British Army.

Throughout 1915 there had been what was referred to as the ‘Conscription Crisis’. Too few men were enlisting in the forces to meet the needs of the industrial, mechanical nature of the First World War. In January of 1916 conscription was brought into force to meet the demand for men.

On 14 April 1916 the Home Secretary, Herbert Samuel, sought an amendment to Section 95 of the Army Act which imposed limitations on the enlistment of foreigners into the Army. He was hoping to encourage more aliens to join the British forces, or at least the territorial force. It was decided that foreign nationals who wished to join the British forces could do so as long as no more than 2% of the fighting force was made up of aliens. ¹

The exception to this rule related to nationals of Allied countries. There was an agreement in place that all French, Belgian and Russian subjects living in the UK who desired to fight in the War should be compelled to return to their own country to join their respective armies. Since Russia was no longer a belligerent after October 1917 the government felt that this agreement no longer applied. Mr Samuel especially considered it unfair that Russian shopkeepers should remain exempt from service, profiting from the absence of British shopkeepers who were serving in the Army.

Notes:

1. For a discussion about the enlistment of aliens into the British Army see file WO 32/4773. ^

Tue Apr

2013

Trainee Tuesday: the best of Borthwick

Posted by Amy Coaker in Behind the scenes, Records and research

Original artwork for a poster advertising Rowntree’s Fruit Gums (1954)

2013 is an important year for my host organisation, the Borthwick Institute for Archives, based at the University of York. The year simultaneously marks both the 50th anniversary of the University’s establishment, and the 60th anniversary of the Borthwick’s foundation. The latter became a part of the former in 1963, on occasion of the university’s opening.

Formed in 1953 as a repository and public research centre for the vast ecclesiastical archive of the Archdiocese of York, the Borthwick has since acquired material of increasingly broad and diverse origins. No longer renowned solely for its extensive church records, dating as far back as the 13th century, the Borthwick now boasts holdings that range from the archive of internationally acclaimed playwright Alan Ayckbourn, to those of the famous confectionery firms, Rowntree’s and Terry’s. Other highlights include the secret war diaries of E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, who served as Foreign Secretary and British Ambassador to the United States during World War II, and the archive of The Retreat, a Quaker-founded hospital for the mentally ill, established in 1796, which pioneered humane, progressive therapies at a time when most other asylums were treating their patients as little more than animals.

Telegram from Noël Coward to Alan Ayckbourn

Telegram from famed playwright Noël Coward to Alan Ayckbourn on the premiere of his play, Relatively Speaking (1967)

Thu Mar

2013

Through a lens: Malta – the George Cross Island

Posted by Steven Cable in Records and research

The Colonial Office library photographic collection contains 12 Malta albums with photographs ranging from the 1870s to the 1950s, as well as including some earlier engravings dating from the 1850s. Malta had a magnificent and unusually Italianate architectural heritage inspired by the Knights of St John and many fine architectural studies can be found amongst the collection.

The two photographs of the Valletta Opera House included here come from an album of architectural studies and views of the Grand Harbour taken by Captain R D Lyon.

Valletta Opera House, Malta (reference: CO 1069/716 (6))

Thu Mar

2013

Through a lens: views of Tel Aviv 1909-1934

Posted by Steven Cable in Records and research

These photographs come from one of a number of albums covering the Middle East in the Colonial Office library photographic collection (CO 1069) that have been made available on Flickr, the photo-sharing website.

Palestine was created as a part of the post-First World War settlement with boundaries resulting from political decisions taken by Britain and France.

Previously, under Ottoman rule, the land had been divided into three districts, each with its own Ottoman officials and a representative council of locals. Jerusalem, Haifa and Jaffa were the most important cities. The port city of Jaffa, Bride of the Sea, was mainly Arab but began to emerge as a cultural and educational centre for the immigrant Jewish population in the late 19th century. In 1909 Tel Aviv was founded as a Jewish suburb on its northern outskirts.

The lottery for housing plots Document (reference: CO 1069/730 (4))

Wed Mar

2013

Marvellous March Mash-up!

Posted by Jenni Orme in Behind the scenes, Records and research

“Come Mek Wi Dig Out Dem Roots!” was the enthusiastic cry as Sharon Tomlin, a Caribbean family historian, took to the stage at the March Mash-up at The National Archives this week.

The event was a celebration of various projects that have been running as part of the Caribbean through a lens Outreach project over the past year.

‘Caribbean through a lens’, led by my colleagues Sandra Shakespeare and Sara Griffiths, is part of the wider Through a lens photograph project that has released Colonial Office images online over the past few years. The Caribbean collection has had particular focus from the Outreach team, working with Caribbean communities across the country in response to the images - evoking memories and re-interpreting and re-using the information in their own way.

One of the popular images from the Caribbean collection. INF 10/39/10 Barbados 1950-1968

Mon Mar

2013

Writer of the Month: Antony Beevor

Posted by Antony Beevor in Behind the scenes, Records and research

Antony Beevor

For me, archival treasure does not mean the great historical scoop, although it is no doubt very satisfying if it happens. The true value lies in the accumulation of personal detail which illuminates a period. My first great lesson came in 1991 in the Archives Nationales in Paris. I was working at the time on a book which I wrote with my wife, Artemis Cooper, called Paris After the Liberation 1944-1949. After months of frustration, I had finally received permission from the Ministry of the Interior to examine the files of the French security service, the DST, for 1944 and 1945.

Among all the papers packed in the dust-impregnated ‘cartons’, a short paragraph caught my imagination. It was a police report on arrests in the summer of 1945. A German woman, a farmer’s wife, had been found in Paris among French deportees returned from camps in Germany. It transpired that she had had an illicit affair with a French prisoner of war assigned to their farm in Germany while her husband was on the Eastern Front. She had fallen so much in love with this enemy of her country that she had followed him to Paris, having somehow smuggled herself onto a train returning concentration camp victims. That was all the detail provided.

Thu Mar

2013

Cyprus through a lens: A woman’s work …..

Posted by Sally Hoult in Records and research

The latest batch of Colonial Office photographs from the Through a Lens series have been released on Flickr. These photos are from the Mediterranean series in CO 1069 and include pictures from Cyprus.

In 1952, both Greece and Turkey had just become members of NATO and the Greek Cypriot population were pressing for ENOSIS, which was becoming a serious international issue.

We hold a lot of records here at The National Archives regarding the political situation in Cyprus during the 1950s, but little about the social aspects of the island.

The Coronation on 2 June 1953 gave the Empire a wonderful opportunity to enjoy themselves, and the women of Cyprus were certainly no exception. The formal celebrations for this happy event lasted for a week, but while the men were doing what men in uniform do best -

Governor inspecting the police (catalogue reference: CO 1069/702)

- the photographs I was particularly drawn to show what the women liked to get involved with. These photographs I’ve chosen show a fun, lighter side of life enjoyed by them all.

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