In sickness and in health…

KNOWSLEY ARK: BRINGING HISTORY ALIVE

The Archive closes its doors to the public in January for the annual stock take. As well as being good archival practice, this enables us to focus on the maintenance of the collections, assessing the condition of all of the items and allowing the team to carrying out jobs such as re-boxing, re-packaging and shelving. 

All of this is essential to the smooth running of the service, ensuring that we can locate and retrieve documents, photographs and maps as requested by researchers. 

This activity means that we have the perfect excuse to explore items that may not have been accessed during the previous year and to rediscover the hidden stories told by the collections.

One such story is that of James Whittaker of Huyton, especially poignant as February’s calendar highlight is Valentine’s Day… 

James – or Jimmy, as he was known – was a young man serving as a trooper in the Royal Armoured Corps in Europe and North Africa during the Second World War. He was born in November 1921, the only boy amongst five siblings growing up in Huyton.

Like many men serving overseas, he wrote letters home to his family. In one such correspondence with his older sister, who was stationed with the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force at R.A.F. Northam near Bideford in Devon, he responds to her latest news with observations of his latest posting.

He also recalls some memories from his youth, remembering his sister bringing her ‘very attractive and pretty girl friends’ to the family home, and confesses to ‘regularly and secretly falling in love’ with them.

Perhaps the girls picked up on his adoration from afar, as he describes one of his sister’s friends somewhat embarrassing him with her teasing comments. No harm done, Jimmy laughs about the incident in his letter, but one can’t help thinking that perhaps he was also thinking about the future and who he would meet and marry after the war was over.

Official records relating to births, marriages and deaths offer us an important tool in researching our family histories. In a previous article, we looked at the broad range of resources available in the Archive that can help family historians to plot their genealogical journey.

This month, we will take a closer look at the records which tell us about the major events in our lives and those of our ancestors. 

Civil Registration is the system used to register births, marriages and deaths in the United Kingdom. Records began in 1837 in England and Wales, 1855 in Scotland and 1864 in Ireland. In 1875, it became the parents’ responsibility to make sure that all births were registered within six weeks of the birth. 

In England and Wales, the country was divided into registration districts based on the Poor Law Unions set up in 1834, with each registration district then divided in sub-districts. Registrars were appointed to record all of the births, marriages and deaths in their areas and the details were recorded in registers which were then sent to the Registrar General’s Office in London. Here, the registers were copied and indexed into a national register of life events.

There are separate indexes for Births, Marriages and Deaths. Up until 1984, they were produced in quarterly volumes. Events were recorded by date of registration, rather than that of the actual event and the indexes are split into quarters, arranged in alphabetical order by surname and then forename.

Each entry contains the person’s name, the district of registration and a reference number, which can then be used to order copy certificates from the General Register Office.

Certificates are important to family historians as they contain information such as names, occupations and addresses, with birth and death certificates giving the address where the event actually took place. This invaluable information can confirm what is already known, or allow the researcher to use the information to search in other sources such as census returns. 

It’s not possible to view the actual registers, but the Civil Registration Indices (also known as the St. Catherine’s House Index, the General Register Office Index or the GRO) can be searched, either online in the Archive and any Knowsley Library, using Ancestrylibraryedition, or on microfilm in the Archive only (births and deaths indices from 1837-1983 and marriages from 1837-1993).

Additionally, a full set of Overseas Indices for life events relating to British Citizens abroad and corresponding records relating to Ireland and Scotland are also available.

Important life events are recorded in parish records. The Church of England has been recording baptisms, marriages and burials since 1538, with each parish keeping a register of all of the events occurring within its boundaries. From 1754 for marriages and 1813 for births and burials, registers with pre-printed forms were usually used. 

Many surviving parish records have been deposited with local record offices then copied onto microfilm. It is important to note the Knowsley Archives does not hold any original parish registers, but does hold parish registers for the local area on microfilm. Indeed, not all parish registers are available to view, as some parishes have kept their records.

‘Non-conformist’ is a term used to describe those who did not follow the Anglican faith. Many Protestant non-conformists and also Catholic Churches kept registers of baptisms and burials for their own congregations within their churches, and some of these local non-conformist church records are available to view on microfilm in the Archive. 

Completing the picture, microfilmed local cemetery records are also available to view, as is the International Genealogical Index, compiled by members of the Church of the Latter Day Saints from parish records and research by members of the Church.

Covering the whole of the UK, it can be viewed on microfiche or online at www.familysearch.org.

But – what of Jimmy Whittaker and his unrequited love? The letter to his sister was sent on 10th September 1944. Tragically, just eight days later, Jimmy was killed, fighting in the Po Valley, Italy – never to realise his youthful dreams..