Publication of DNA and Social Networking

My long-awaited book DNA and Social Networking: A Guide to Genealogy in the Twenty-First Century has now been published and I was very excited to receive my advance copy in the post this morning.  I feel very privileged to have been asked to write the book, and it is a humbling experience to see my own words in print. I was almost trembling as I opened the envelope and was able to see the book in print for the first time! I could feel my eyes moistening, and it took me a few minutes to summon up the courage to open the book, knowing that if there is anything I've forgotten or have got wrong it's now too late to make any changes. This book has been particularly challenging to write because there has been a constant stream of new developments in both fields. After submitting the manuscript I had to make a substantial number of amendments in an attempt to keep everything as up to date as possible, with the last changes being made in August. I suspect my book might even be the first book to mention Google+, the new social networking service from Google.  Google+ was in beta-testing when I updated my proofs but is now open to all. The publishers have done a magnificent job with the book. It is printed on good-quality paper, and the illustrations, although necessarily in black and white, have all been reproduced to a very high standard.

The contents of the book are as follows:

Foreword by Chris Pomery
Preface
Acknowledgements

Part I: The genetic genealogy revolution
Chapter 1 The basic principles
Chapter 2 Surnames and the paternal line
Chapter 3 Before surnames: haplogroups and deep ancestry
Chapter 4 The maternal line: mitochondrial DNA tests
Chapter 5 Cousins reunited: autosomal DNA tests
Chapter 6 Setting up and running a DNA project

Part II: The social networking revolution
Introduction
Chapter 7 Traditional genealogical networking methods
Chapter 8 Genealogy social networking websites
Chapter 9 General social networking websites
Chapter 10 Blogs
Chapter 11 Wikis
Chapter 12 Multimedia
Chapter 13 Collaborative tools

Appendix A DNA websites
Appendix B Testing companies
Appendix C DNA projects
Appendix D Surname resources
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

It will be a few more weeks before the book arrives in the shops and with all the online retailers, and the official publication date is now 28th November. The book will be available direct from Amazon.co.uk or from The History Press. A Kindle edition is also in preparation, and the publishers are currently waiting for Amazon to upload the PDF onto their website. The book will eventually go on sale in North America, Australia and other countries but it will take time for it to go through the distribution channels in these countries, and it probably won't be on sale overseas until the spring. In the meantime the History Press and Amazon UK both accept orders from overseas. I will also maintain a small stock of copies which I can sell myself at family history events.

© Debbie Kennett 2011

Catching up on Marriage Challenges

I've received a number of marriage details in recent months from various Marriage Challenges conducted by my fellow members of the Guild of One-Name Studies. I have got somewhat  behind in posting details to this blog, something which I am now attempting to rectify. I am now providing below outline details of the latest faux marriage certificates I've received, with the names of the trees where known shown in brackets. If you are researching any of these lines do get in touch and I would be happy to send a copy of the faux certificate which contains all the details you would expect to find on the real marriage certificate but without the necessity of paying £9.25 to obtain the information.

Birmingham Marriage Challenge
- 1876 St George, Birmingham: Elizabeth Cruse, daughter of Martin Cruse, labourer, and John Frederick Woolley, pearl cutter, son of Samuel Woolley, pearl cutter.

Berkhampstead Marriage Challenge
- 1902 St Peter and St Paul, Tring, Hertfordshire: Ellen Cruise, daughter of John Cruise, labourer (deceased) and Arthur Baldwin, son of Henry Baldwin, labourer (deceased).

East Ashford Marriage Challenge
- 1840 St Martin, Aldington, Kent:  Martha Cruse, widow, daughter of William Cott or catt, labourer, and Richard Ealy or Eady, son of Thomas Ealy or Eady, labourer.

Hastings Marriage Challenge
- 1860 St Mary Magdalen, St Leonards, Sussex: Frances Caroline Cruse, daughter of Edmund Cruse, coachman, and Samuel Ginger, blacksmith, son of Thomas Ginger, blacksmith.
- 1885 St Matthew, Silverhill, Sussex: John William Cruse, son of Edmund Cruse, coachman, and Hannah Lydia Carey, daughter of Thomas Carey, farmer (deceased).
- 1886 St Matthew, Silverhill, SussexAnnie Sarah Cruse, daughter of Edmund Cruse, coachman, and Charles Scrace, son of Henry Scrace, sawyer (deceased).
- 1901 St Matthew, Silverhill, Sussex: James Frederick Cruse, farmer, son of Edmund Cruse, coachman, and Christina Margaret Stewart Huggins, daughter of George Huggins, gardener.

Romford Marriage Challenge
- 1887 St Mary, Great Ilford, Essex: James Cruse, labourer, son of James Cruse, blacksmith, and Jean Lemon, daughter of John Henry Lemon, builder (James Cruse and Maria Shepherd line from Burlescombe, Devon).
- 1887 St Mary, Great Ilford, Essex: Julia Cruse, daughter of James Cruse, blacksmith, and John Frederick Webster, soap cutter, son of Thomas William Webster, hairdresser (James Cruse and Maria Shepherd line from Burlescombe, Devon).
- 1900 St Margaret, Barking, Essex: Emmeline Annie Cruse, daughter of James Cruse, blacksmith (deceased), and George Henry Rayner, bootmaker, son of William Rayner, bootmaker (deceased) (James Cruse and Maria Shepherd line from Burlescombe, Devon).
- 1907 St Andrew, Romford, Essex: Ellis Cruse, labourer, son of Joel Cruse, labourer, and Annie Elizabeth Digby, daughter of Walter John Digby, brewer's employee (Imber tree from Wiltshire).
- 1908 St Margaret, Barking, Essex: Albert Cruse, labourer, son of James Cruse, blacksmith, and Mary Ann Reading, daughter of William Reading, seaman (James Cruse and Maria Shepherd line from Burlescombe, Devon).
- 1908 St Margaret, Barking, Essex: Emma Cruse, daughter of James Cruse, crane-driver (coach driver?), and Edmund Gurney Puller, labourer, son of Arthur Puller, provision dealer (deceased) (James Cruse and Maria Shepherd line from Burlescombe, Devon).
- 1910 St John the Evangelist, Seven Kings, Essex: Sarah Cecilia Wray Creese, daughter of John Thomas Wray Creese, gentleman (deceased), and Harry Richard Cowling, draper, son of William Cowling, tailor.
- 1911 St Margaret, Barking, Essex: George Henry Cruse, son of James Cruse, blacksmith, and Caroline Annie Dommack, daughter of Joseph Albert Matthias Dimmack, shoemaker.
- 1911 St Margaret, Barking, Essex: Georgina Cruse, daughter of John Cruse, labourer, and Henry Edward Hemp or Kemp, engine driver, son of Henry Hemp or Kemp, labourer (deceased) (James Cruse and Maria Shepherd line from Burlescombe, Devon).

Winslow Marriage Challenge
These five marriages all relate to the same family but I've not yet had the time to do any reconstruction work on this line.
- 1862 Parish Church, Stewkley, Buckinghamshire: William Cruse, drover, son of William Cruse, baker, and Martha Smith, daughter of James Smith, labourer
- 1893 Parish Church, Drayton Parslow, Buckinghamshire: Ellen Cruse, daughter of William Cruse, stock dealer, and Charles Illing, bootmaker, of St Giles in the Fields, London, son of Ezra Illing, bootmaker
- 1896 Parish Church, Drayton Parslow: Henry William Ayres, packer, of Holloway, London, son of  Samuel Ayres, engineer, and Sarah Cruse, daughter of William Cruse, stock dealer
- 1897 Parish Church, Drayton Parslow: William Nathaniel Mayne, plumber, son of George Mayne, plumber, and Annie Cruse, daughter of William Cruse, cattle dealer
- 1898 Parish Church, Drayton Parslow: William London, ironmonger, of Fulham, London, son of Thomas London, baker (deceased), and  Clara Cruse, daughter of William Cruse, stock dealer.

Many thanks to Anni Berman, Peter Copsey, Lynda and Roger Goacher, Shelagh Mason, Pauline Pederson and Graham Taylor-Paddick for their hard work finding all these marriages in the registers and transcribing all the details.

Irish DNA Atlas Project

A very interesting new DNA Project for Ireland is to be launched at the "Back To Our Past" show in Dublin on 21st October. The Irish DNA Atlas Project is a joint initiative between the Genealogical Society of Ireland and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. The project's first newsletter states that the project has two purposes:

1. To further our knowledge of the population history of Ireland and its connections with other populations in Europe.
 2. To help us understand how genes influence health in Ireland through the creation of a resource for use as 'healthy' controls in researching how genes influence common diseases in Ireland, including (though not confined to) diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

 They are recruiting people with all eight great-grandparents born in Ireland. All of the eight great-grandparents should be born in the same general area of Ireland so that their DNA is representative of that particular region. The project is open both to Irish residents and people living overseas who meet the qualifying criteria.

The project will be using Y-chromosome DNA, mitochondrial DNA and autosomal DNA. I can't find any information in the newsletter about the tests that will be done but I assume they will be doing chip sequencing along the lines of the People of the British Isles Project.

Further information can be found in the Irish DNA Atlas Project newsletter. This can be read online here but the PDF cannot be downloaded without paying a fee to access the hosting company's premium service.

© 2011 Debbie Kennett

Cruises in Griffith's Valuation of Ireland 1848-1864

Howard Mathieson, one of my colleagues in the Guild of One-Name Studies, has been working on producing maps showing the distribution of a surname in Ireland at parish level based on the Griffith's Valuation Indexes. He has very kindly produced some maps for me showing the distribution of the Cruise surname and related variant spellings. From 1848 to 1864 Ireland's Valuation Office conducted its first survey of property ownership in Ireland in order to determine the amount of tax each person should pay towards the support of the poor within their Poor Law Union. This survey became known as Griffith's Valuation after Richard Griffith who was the director of the office at that time. The survey recorded the names of both landlords and tenants throughout the country in both rural and urban areas, and it provides a snapshot of the population at a key point in Irish history, beginning at the time when the Great Famine was at its peak. It is a particularly important resource because no Irish censuses have survived prior to 1901 and it effectively serves as a census substitute. Griffith's Valuation can be found online on the Ask about Ireland website.

Howard's first map below shows the distribution of Cruise tenants in Ireland. It's interesting to see that there are still Cruises in the east of the country in Meath and Dublin, the counties where the Cruise family first held lands when they arrived in Ireland in the twelfth century, though there has been a noticeable westward drift into Galway and Mayo.

The second map below shows the distribution of tenants of Cruise landlords and therefore provides an indication of the landholdings of people with the surname in Ireland at the time.

Some Cruises still held land in Dublin and Meath, and there were still Cruice landlords in Cruicetown in County Meath. It is however somewhat surprising that the largest landholdings are now in the west and south west in counties Galway, Clare and Limerick.

For anyone with an interest in surname mapping I recommend a visit to Howard's Geogenealogy website which provides a wealth of information on the subject and lots of interesting links.

© 2011 Debbie Kennett and Howard Mathieson

Cruises in Irish civil registration indexes

Thanks to the hard work of a fellow Cruise researcher I now have a major new database to add to my collection of records for my one-name study. We have now extracted all the references to the surnames Cruise, Cruice and variants from the Irish Civil Registration Indexes, and they have been placed in Excel spreadsheets for easy sorting. The Irish BMDs are available online free of charge on the new Family Search website. The births cover the period from 1864 to 1958, the marriages are from 1845 to 1958 and the deaths from 1864 to 1958. BMD records are one of the core datasets in a one-name study, and the Irish BMDs will serve as a useful baseline and checklist when work starts on reconstructing all the Cruise families in Ireland.

© Debbie Kennett 2011

Surname distribution maps

I recently purchased a copy of the new edition of Steve Archer's Surname Atlas. The atlas provides distribution maps of surnames based on data from the 1881 censuses of England, Wales and Scotland. The new version has a number of enhancements including some very useful listings of surnames specific to individual counties. I shall be making full use of the list of Devon surnames to build up my list of surnames for my Devon DNA Project. I've been having fun playing around with the CD tonight and have produced maps showing the distribution in England and Wales of the surnames Cruwys, Cruse and Cruise and other variant spellings. It is now possible to do a comparison of four surnames at once. The first set of maps shows a comparison of the distribution of the surnames Cruwys, Cruse, Cruze, and Scruse in 1881. Cruwys and Cruze are both clearly Devon surnames. Cruse is found across the whole of the south of England, with further pockets in the north. There is some overlap with the surname Cruwys, but the Cruse surname appears to have multiple origins. The appearance of the surname in the north might be a result of migration in the search for work in the industrial heartlands. Scruse is a variant spelling of Cruse and originated in Wiltshire.      

The second set of maps below shows the distribution of the surnames Cruise, Crewes, Crews and Crew in 1881. The surname Cruise is predominantly found in Ireland and the Irish Cruises are distantly related to the Cruwyses of Devon. The northern Cruises are probably migrants from Ireland.  The Cruises in the south-west probably share a more recent origin with the Cruwyses and Cruses of Devon and Cornwall. One branch of the Devon Cruwys family settled in Cornwall in the 1500s, and as can be seen the Crewes spelling was still concentrated in Cornwall in 1881. All the people with the variant spelling Crewes are probably descended from this single Cornish line. Crews is again mostly confined to the southwest. Crews is the predominant variant spelling in the United States and we are investigating the theory that the surname there evolved from Crew or Crewe. Crew is notably absent from the south-west but is widely spread throughout the rest of England.

© Debbie Kennett 2011

IPM of Robert de Cruys of Nalle, Ireland 1292

ROBERT DE CRUYS OF NALLE

 Writ to Walter de la Haye escheator in Ireland, 25 March, 20 Edw. I  [1292]

[MEATH.] Inq. Sunday before SS. Philip and James, 20 Edw. I.

Le Nalle. Buildings with stone walls of which the timber is of oak wholly unroofed, lands, rents &c. (extent given with names of tenants), including 120a. arable in 'le Carret feld' and mill field, 20a. in 'le Resk,' 36a. on the hill (montana), 24a. at Lochmoyan, a hill containing 17a. pasture, a pasture called 'la Roche,' and a moor for oxen, held of the king in chief by service of 20s. when royal service is proclaimed.

Ardmays. Wooden buildings thatched with straw and a stone tower worth nothing because they are in the march among the Irish and cost much for maintenance, and if they are thrown down it will be to the great damage of the whole country, lands &c. (extent given), including 87a. land at Cruys town and a township at Kenethan held by the Irish.

Ynesken. The advowson of the church.

Cruys. The advowson of the church.

Moderath. Richard Moderath holds a carucate of land by rendering 16d. when royal service is proclaimed; and ½ carucate of land in fee, rendering a pair of spurs yearly to the heirs of Thomas le Gros.

            Reginald de Sancto Bosco and Isabel his wife, mother of the said Robert, hold in dower 173a. arable, meadow, a mill, an orchard, 40d. or 400 eels issue of the lake of Robert's town (Lacy Ville Roberti), with common of the whole pasture of Ardmass and howsebot and heybote.

            And the said Robert died seised of 9l. 5s. 9 3/4d. rent of freemen at Clonachbrenan in the lordship of Sir Theobald de Verdum.

            Helen (Ellena) the wife of the said Robert has a third part of all the aforesaid lands &c. as dower.

                                                                                    C. Edw. I. File 63 (15)

Source: Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem and other analogous documents preserved in the Public Record Office. Volume III: Edward I. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1912, no. 48, p37. Available online in the Internet Archive.

© Debbie Kennett 2011

Inquisitions post mortem - an introduction

Inquisitions post mortem (IPMs) were a distinctive feature of the feudal system and were introduced about 1236 in the reign of Henry III. An inquisition was held when someone died ‘seized of lands in capite’, that is holding lands from the Crown. They were abolished when Charles II came to the throne in 1660. An inquisition will provide details of the lands the person held but can often provide much valuable genealogical information.  Many of the early inquisitions have been abstracted and published. These collections of abstracts, known as "calendars", were previously only available in large university libraries and reference libraries but many of them, copyright permitting, have now been digitised and made available online. A full list of  the volumes of  IPMs that can be found online is maintained on the Medieval Genealogy website. I have downloaded all the available volumes for my own personal use and, time permitting, will transcribe and publish all the entries for the surnames Cruwys, Cruise, Cruys, Cruse and any other related variant spellings.

© Debbie Kennett 2011