Tracing your family history has never been easier

IT MUST have been a shock for David Beckham to learn his great-great grandfather was a scavenger.

Singer Amy Winehouse chose a different profession to her great-great grandfather too, a hawker who sold goods from door to door. But Kate Moss has more in common with her great grandmother, a mantle-maker of fashionable cloaks.

This glimpse of the family histories of the famous was revealed by the 1911 census, now available online for the first time.

The census, taken on Sunday, April 2, 1911 includes details such as people’s name, age, and children and should make delving into our family history much easier.

Phil Hazel, chairman of York & District Family History Society, is using it to research his ancestors.

“It’s fantastic information,” he said. “A lot of people will now be glued to the 1911 census because they’ve been waiting for it to come out for years.

“Censuses are good because you can build a picture up from decade to decade. You can follow their lives; see at what time they were living with their parents; at what time they were living on their own, maybe as a labourer, maybe married; when they had children. You can see your family growing.”

Censuses enable us to see how our lives have changed, too, in terms of employment, family sizing and housing.

In 1911, the leading occupational category for workers in England and Wales was domestic service, compared with today’s top occupational categories, such as sales assistants and retail cashiers, and teaching. The railways, chocolate and glass manufacturing and tourism were big industries in York, says Dr Mark Roodhouse, a lecturer in history at the University of York.

People lived in two-up-two-down terraces, did not usually have pensions or proper healthcare and had a much lower life expectancy.

“The traditional northern working class was at its height,” said Dr Roodhouse.

“A third of the population of York was at or below the poverty line and there were more people crammed into houses. There were a lot of live-in servants too, so families would have strangers in their midst permanently.”

You can search for free, but to view records you must buy credits. Each credit costs between eight and 12 pence to buy, depending how many you buy at once – the cheapest package being £6.95 for 60.

To view a person’s transcript costs ten credits, but to view the original document costs 30.

I found most of my great grandparents, but knowing the year they were born can be invaluable to help sift through names without wasting credits.

Not everybody was recorded by the census, warns Mr Hazel, because of human error or because people did not trust the Government with their personal information. “If you want a thorough portfolio of your family line you should send off for the birth, death and marriage certificates,” he said.

* York & District Family History Society has a research room in James Street, York, where you can research your family tree. Log on to yorkfamilyhistory.org.uk or phone 01904 412204.

Sophie Hicks

In 1911, Sophie Hicks’ great grandfather was a sausage skin manufacturer in Northampton.

Emiley, Sophie’s grandmother, was only four then and living with her parents William and Ada Burton, siblings Ada, seven; William, five, and Elise, one.

“I really love sausages, so it’s great,” laughs Sophie, 31, who is York City Football Club’s communications and community director.

“I think it’s really interesting. We always wonder who we look like and what our backgrounds are and it’s so interesting to find out more.”

William and Ada had three more daughters after 1911; Grace, Ivy and Amy, and the family later moved to Edmondton, where Emiley met her husband, Robert McGill, and had two children.

Sophie remembers her grandmother well.

“It’s quite sad actually because she lived in north London all her life, for 60 years in the same house and didn’t travel ever but in the end when she was poorly she actually came up to York to a nursing home. I was about nine then and she was about 87. She actually died in York but never travelled anywhere.”

Sophie was disappointed not to have been able to track her great grandfather Harry Abbey, who was a painter and decorator in York in his 20s in 1911, and his wife, Margaret Moore. Sophie thinks Margaret, who was born in Newcastle, may have lived in Yorkshire with family before marrying Harry and having Sophie’s maternal grandmother.

“It’s also interesting that it’s been difficult to find people,” she said. “We can’t find anything down the McGill route or on the Abbeys.”

Rick Witter

SHED Seven front man Rick Witter was not the first member of his family to enter showbiz circles – one of his ancestors was an actor in America.

Frank Cooper, who later called himself Jack, was the son of Rick’s great grandfather’s brother and starred in silent movies.

Rick’s great-grandfather, Albert Cooper was born in Cheshire, in 1872, one of four children. Albert, who was a gardener, married Lucy Ann Townson in 1897 and by 1911, aged 39 and 37 respectively, they had five children; Albert Edgar, 10; Bertha, 9; Lucy, 7; Eric, 6 and Gilbert, 1. Alice, Rick’s grandmother, was born in 1912.

Meanwhile, Rick’s great grandfather on his dad’s side was called Thomas Witter.

In 1911 he was a 43-year-old locomotive driver who lived with his wife, Martha Ann Kate, 38, sons William, 12; Arthur (Rick’s grandfather), aged two, and daughters Kate, four, and Florence, ten.

Thomas died in 1937, when it is thought Martha Ann Kate bought a hotel called The Swan in Gorton.

Even further back, Thomas’s father, John Witter, had an epileptic sister called Catherine, who was sent to Parkside County Lunatic Asylum because nobody understood her condition.

“It’s part of my blood and it makes me want to go and look around graveyards and find out more about these people I’m talking about,” said Rick, 36. “My dad died about four years ago, so that makes me even more interested. Just as we’re researching this, I hope that one day my great-great-grandkids will buy one of my records.”