'Tracing the History of Your House and Home' - a new course

I am starting an exciting new course entitled Tracing the History of Your House and Home.

Having written house histories for a number of years I feel I’ve got the process down to a manageable series of steps which I can pass on to others.

House histories weave together many stories, but cover two distinct strands. The story of who lived in a home, what they did there and what social factors cause the occupants to change is one part. Secondly, the story of the structure of the building can reveal what rooms were originally used for and how a house has been modified and expanded over time.

I am joined by Dr. Sarah Edwards in teaching this course. Sarah is an architectural historian with eight years university lecturing experience, she has also taught adult education classes for the past five years.

Together we will guide students through using historical records and physical analysis to build up a complete picture of a house and its occupants over the ages.

The course runs over two terms, the first is 11 September – 4 November 2010. The second term is from 5 February – 2 April 2011. Tutorials take place between 10am-2pm every alternate Saturday in the Town Close Room, Theatre Royal, Norwich.

Four of the 10 sessions will be field trips with opportunities to try out skills in practical situations. The course costs £375 and can be paid in instalments. There is a £25 discount to those choosing to pay the whole course fee up-front.

Tutorial and field trip dates are as follows:

Term 1: September 11th to November 6th 2010
September 11th Theatre Royal
September 25th Theatre Royal
October 9th Field Trip
October 23rd Field Trip
November 6th Theatre Royal

Term Two: February 5th February 19th April 2nd
February 5th Theatre Royal
February 19th Theatre Royal
March 5th Field Trip
March 19th Field Trip
April 2nd Theatre Royal

Life, love and death on the ocean waves

The Index of Births Marriages and Deaths is one of the best transcribed and studied collections of documents in family history research. What many people often overlook is that there is also the index of Births, Marriages and Deaths at Sea.

A person being born, married or dying on a ship is often part of a much more interesting story than if such an event occurs on land. Findmypast.co.uk is setting up an online database where anyone can join in on transcribing records from the index of Births, Marriages and Deaths at Sea between 1854 and 1888.

These records could explain how a great aunt got onto a boat for America and came off with a different surname, or perhaps how a second cousin went on a voyage and returned with a child in tow. Clear instructions and a simple interface will be provided by the people running the project, so if you've got a computer and a broadband connection there's nothing to stop you getting involved.

Norwich Family History Fair - 29 March

The Norwich Family History Fair is on at St Andrews Hall on 29 March, I shall be there along with representatives of many family history groups and businesses in Norfolk.

The event is an opportunity for the public to come and meet experts and fellow enthusiasts and learn a bit about their favourite topics in family history.

It is also a good place to go if you are looking to commission research or enroll on courses because it allows you to meet researchers and teachers and see exactly what is on offer.

The fair runs from 10:00am to 4:00pm and costs £2 admission for over 16s.

Vaccination Records Article in Ancestors Magazine

I’ve written an article on vaccination records in the upcoming April edition of Ancestors Magazine.

We often think of vaccinations as being part of modern medicine, but inoculation against smallpox was compulsory in England and Wales between 1853 and 1948, taking vaccination records well back into the Victorian era.

After the Second World War many other vaccinations became compulsory, in effect handing the baton of vaccination records from the smallpox jab to a new generation of vaccines.

Smallpox is probably the most famous vaccine in medical history because it was one of the first to be documented in a scientific way. From the 1770s onwards smallpox was widely feared in England because of its near one-in-three mortality rate and disfiguring effects on the body.

Scientist Edward Jenner noticed that the milk maids on the farmland surrounding his Gloucestershire home did not contract it.

Jenner’s investigations lead him to establish that they had all contracted the much less virulent cowpox when they were young, and for some reason this more benign disease protected them form smallpox in later life.

Jenner tested his theory on n 14 May 1796, inserting material from a milk maid’s cowpox blisters into an incision in the skin of eight-year-old James Phipps. Phipps contracted cowpox and suffered a slight fever, but afterwards he never contracted smallpox.

This inoculation works because cowpox and smallpox are similar in make-up. Once the body has developed the ability to recognize cowpox, including a set of antibodies to fight the pathogen, it has also done the same for smallpox. Thus upon infection by either disease the immune system reacts instantly and effectively to prevent it taking hold.

The use of cowpox to inoculate against small pox had been recorded in China and the Ottoman Empire since the 1500s, but Jenner’s great breakthrough was scientifically testing the method and starting the basis of modern immunology.