Frequently Asked Questions ‎(FAQ)‎
9 April 2012 - 10:10:17am

Under the \"Help\" button there is an entry called FAQ. If you select it you will now find some questions and answers to help new users to find their family tree. If you have ever had problems using the site, please contact me with a suggested question, so that Nick and I can work out an answer, and add it to the FAQ list.

Phil

First Update of 2012
9 February 2012 - 2:34:45pm

I think this must be my shortest time between updates, just about 8 weeks! We have had some security issues on the site, and I am sorry if Google shows your birth details! Google managed to find a way into the site, short circuiting the Privacy arrangements. This has now been stopped, but I am afraid if it found your details they will be on the web for some time, as they keep copies of the pages. At least now if you follow the link, you cannot access other private data without signing in!
I have continued my task of reviewing each record in turn, and have now made it up to record 4000. Almost half way! Recently this review has alowwed me to merge quite a number of records, by identifying ladies whose deaths were recorded, but where I had not found their maiden names. This merging has brought the number of individuals down from 8136 last time to 8041 this time. I am sure there are still more duplicates to find. I have also started to review Ancestry\'s latest database, Electoral Rolls for London, going back to about 1880. This is another source of addresses, and has been helpful in following peoples moves around London, especially between Census years. It is amazing how often many people moved a hundred years ago. You will also note that we have a new youngest entry ‎(latest birth date)‎ Congratulation to father Barron, my informant. If you know of any recent births marriages or deaths please let me know ‎(checking of course that those near to them are happy for the information to appear!)‎
Phil

Christmas 2011 Update
17 December 2011 - 5:56:11pm

Happy Christmas to all our readers, whether registered users of Charsley.org.uk or not. If you have an interest in our website, it is worth checking to see if this update has made a difference to your family tree! I hope the new Gedcom file will be up before Christmas, but I have failed to do it myself this time, as Nicholas has increased the security. Christmas is a good time to check what I think I know about your family and ancestors, and help by pointing out errors, or just things you find hard to believe!

I have at last completed my first review of the London Parish Records on Ancestry.co.uk. I am sure I have not yet found everything, but I did use my list of over 160 variant spellings. I am just not confident that it is exhaustive! I have also spent the last month checking individual records to see if they are as accurate and complete as I can make them. So far I am about one third of the way through this review, having got to Individual No 3000 of just over 9000! It has allowed me to weed out some of the duplicates, and also to use the power of the Ancestry website to find spouses from the early 19th century through to 1901. At that time the spouses name was not listed in the marriage register, and the only certain way was to buy a marriage certificate at about £7 each. This is not within my means, so an alternative approach is needed. The register page lists up to 4 couples, i.e. 4 husbands and 4 wives, but does not say who married whom! However, by searching the next census it is often possible to find the appropriate spouse, especially if one or other has an unusual Christian name. This has helped me to find quite a few additional families!

The results of this work can be seen in the table, where Total Trees counts trees of one or more persons, whereas the next line excludes single unrelated people. The next lines indicate the numbers of related people in each of the 8 largest trees.

--------------------------------April--------December----February-------December
--------------------------------2010--------2010-----------2011-----------2011
Total Individuals----------7702---------7500----------7668------------8136
Total Trees ----------------1908---------1838----------1896------------2066
Trees over 1 person----1156---------1131----------1147------------1246
Charsley ‎(Bucks)‎-----------913-----------912------------913-------------933
Charsley ‎(Middx)‎-----------606-----------603------------603-------------624
Cheesley ‎(Surrey)‎---------366-----------366------------366-------------366
Cheesley ‎(Wilts)‎-----------168-----------202------------168-------------168
Cheasley ‎(Middx)‎----------217-----------217------------217-------------273
Cheesley ‎(Wilts 2)‎--------144-----------161------------144-------------144
Cheasley ‎(Middx 2)‎-------112------------135-----------112-------------118
Cheasley ‎(N London)‎--------------------------------------------------------111

The 8 largest trees include all those with more than 100 individuals, but there are another 10 trees with between 30 and 82 people in them, so it would be good to see if I can link these. They are all Cheasley or Cheesley, but there are 2 unlinked Charsley trees ‎(30 and 29 members)‎ and both are in South Africa!

I still intend to see what further links I can forge in these trees, but it is quite a challenging task, with such a large database. At least my Rootsmagic program allows me to look at all the events in a particular location, and see if I have individuals entered as two separate people when they should be one!

One of my greatest difficulties is the variability of spelling of surnames in the 16th and 17th centuries. Often I find a single family where the surname is spelled 3 or 4 different ways at birth, marriage and baptism of the children. This is easy to spot if the first names are unique, but really hard when they are all Williams! Once again the advantage of using Rootsmagic is that you can enter alternative names ‎(although being an American program it calls the “alternate names”!)‎. Then you can get individuals listed by all their names, and comparing entries becomes a bit easier.

I do not really look forward to the dark evenings as winter approaches, but at least they give me a bit more time for this hobby, and the work on my allotment garden is easier to resist.

Phil Charsley
19 December 2011

Second update of 2011
10 July 2011 - 10:01:52pm

This is the first time I have managed to upload a new GEDCOM data file on my own! Well, almost on my own, as I did have telephone help from Nick. I have been working since the last update on the London Parish records, finding spelling of our registered surnames that are a little different. I think I am now about half way through these non-standard spellings, and have added several hundred entries. When I am complete, hopefully before the end of this year, I will start to try to make sense of them, and see if any fit into the families I already have.
Have a good summer one and all!

First Update of 2011
23 April 2011 - 9:32:13pm

I worked hard for the first couple of months of the year, taking advantage of the poor weather which did not tempt me outdoors, but did not quite get round to updating the site before I was forced to get out onto my allotment! However, I am taking the advantage of a couple of cooler days to make this update.

The first two months of the year were spent downloading images of London births, marriages and deaths from Parish Records indexed by Ancestry.co.uk. It was a mammoth task, and my rough count of new sources amounts to 294 for Charsley, 143 for Cheasley, 99 for Cheesley and 135 for other spellings. I still have not finished the “other spellings” but will soldier on!

The results of this work can be seen in the table, where Total Individuals counts trees of one or more persons, whereas the next line excludes single unrelated people. The next lines indicate the numbers of related people in each of the 7 largest trees.

------------------------------April-2010---December-2010----February-2011
Total-Individuals-----------7702--------------7500------------------7668
Total-Trees-----------------1908--------------1838------------------1896
Trees-over-1-person-----1156--------------1131------------------1147
Charsley-‎(Bucks)‎----------913---------------912--------------------913
Charsley-‎(Middx)‎----------606---------------603--------------------603
Cheesley-‎(Surrey)‎---------366--------------366--------------------366
Cheesley-‎(Wilts)‎-----------217--------------202--------------------168
Cheasley-‎(Middx)‎----------168--------------217--------------------217
Cheesley-‎(Wilts-2)‎---------144-------------161--------------------144
Cheasley-‎(Middx-2)‎--------112-------------135--------------------112
Some of the new records have given me links I did not have before, such as fathers on marriage records. Unfortunately the earliest marriage records do not list relatives, so for early records it is only baptisms that really help.

It is some time since I looked to see if I could link any of the trees, so I will make that a task for this year!

I hope to meet some of our Charsley users at the Charsley Family Meeting on 9th July, which has been organised through the Charsley Group on facebook. It is at the Duke of Devonshire Pub in Balham, London. Please either Join the group or email me for more information!


Phil Charsley
16 April 2011