My father was stationed at HMS Anderson, Ceylon, during WW2. I am trying (unsuccessfully) to locate exactly where this was. I have been told it was located in a jungle clearing not too far from China Bay (East coast). But I have also been told it was at the Anderson Golf Links, Columbo (West coast). This latter shows up with google searches, but I can't find any reference back to any formal source. I do wonder if both might be true (the golf club first, where it acquired the name, then on to a more suitable location once they got themselves organised). My father's photographs of the place are certainly more consistent with the second suggested location (he arrived turn of the year 1943/4, and remained until the end of 1945). The trouble is, I can't get a better location than "near China Bay". Any suggestions as to how to better identify its location?

I think this coincides in date with the beginning of the grand surrey canal, authorised by parliament in 1803 according to wikipedia. Like a lot of canal schemes, this one petered out after a few years and never made money. Later railway schemes put the last nail in the coffin. Not sure about posting links on here so i have stripped off the hotel tango tango papa prefix! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Surrey_Canal You will note there is a little map there, showing the canal heading from a dock at rotherhithe towards and through deptford then turning sharp right to head west. The canal did not come to much, and the dock was more lucrative. The dock was modified in 1804, affecting one of the locks, so i guess work would have started in 1803 and continued through 1804 and on until at least 1807. Your man may well have been involved in digging or extending the dock, though it is a fair walk from deptford! If you google "canal deptford" you will find another link where traces of the canal can be followed on the ground, including a bollard on top of a road cutting! If he was in a taxation register, is he shown as a proprietor/property owner, or just as someone elses tenant? It suggests either way that he was resident, rather than living in a camp. Indeed in that area there may have been enough local manpower not to import many (although i think it was primarily market gardening that side of the thames). If born in 1771, did he live long enough to appear in the 41 census? He would be 70, so not very likely. Also post 37 death registers did not initially put age in the index. Grrr! Can you follow the child(ren) in the census, esp in the 51 census, where place of birth should be given? Maybe that is how you got to him.... As a general rule no canal building took place after 1830, the croydon canal being one of the very last, but that was swiftly taken over by a railway (west croydon station is more or less in a canal basin and some walls are original!) Canals started after 1800 or so were not generally profitable, never finished, or were closed and their routes taken by railways from Victoria's accession onwards. Not sure about the navvies religious practices. I think in some areas missions went out to navvy camps, but this may have been where they were seen as heathens in need of saving, and a bad influence on the area, best kept in the camps and out of town. In the deptford area they would have been right on top of the town (unlike the situation in some northern and midland areas where the canal went through open country,and tiny villages grew to towns on the back of the canal).Catholic worship was lawful then, and if they had time, maybe Irish navvies would have attended now and again, but nobody had much time off, so this would be confined to major events (i would think) rather than weekly worship. Look up the books listed in the bibliography. I am slightly familiar with the hadfield book but not the other. If in the south east, your library may have it, or you should be able to get titles on inter library loan. This kind of research is likely to involve a degree of legwork! Generally, googling "canal" with a place name usually reveals links to canal(s) to or through or near those places, including the many canal schemes that never (or hardly) got out of the ground. Happy navigating! Dave Beakhust On 4 April 2014 16:35:33 Gerry <gerrynuk@gmail.com> wrote: > David, > > I also have an interest in Canal Workers, in particular Stephen WALKER, who was born about 1771. I have no history for him before 1805 when he appears in the Baptism Register for St Nicholas, Deptford baptising a child. In the same year he also first appears in the Taxation Schedule for Deptford. > > In the Baptism Register he is shown as a Navigator and therefore my line of enquiry would be to investigate where he might have worked on canal construction prior to 1805. Would you be able to give me any leads? > > I know that many of the construction camps would have been in quite remote areas. Would they have been expected to go to the local church for baptisms, weddings and funerals or would the local clergy have come out to the camps? Would such workers have been the focus of attention of non-conformist clergy or did they confine their activities to middle class families? > > Would you have any ideas about what he might have been working on in Deptford in 1805? I was wondering if the Dockyard was being extended to cope with the demands of the Napoleonic War. > > Many thanks, > > Gerry > > Sent from my iPad > > > On 4 Apr 2014, at 15:35, David Beakhust <dave@beakhust.com> wrote: > > > > A difficult area to research, as the gangs were mobile, progressing along > > ..... > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

If anyone is thinking of subscribing to FindMyPast, may I suggest that they Google on "findmypast feedback forum" and click on "improve features to bring in line with the old site", for some idea of how other people find the "new" version of the FMP web site.

David, I also have an interest in Canal Workers, in particular Stephen WALKER, who was born about 1771. I have no history for him before 1805 when he appears in the Baptism Register for St Nicholas, Deptford baptising a child. In the same year he also first appears in the Taxation Schedule for Deptford. In the Baptism Register he is shown as a Navigator and therefore my line of enquiry would be to investigate where he might have worked on canal construction prior to 1805. Would you be able to give me any leads? I know that many of the construction camps would have been in quite remote areas. Would they have been expected to go to the local church for baptisms, weddings and funerals or would the local clergy have come out to the camps? Would such workers have been the focus of attention of non-conformist clergy or did they confine their activities to middle class families? Would you have any ideas about what he might have been working on in Deptford in 1805? I was wondering if the Dockyard was being extended to cope with the demands of the Napoleonic War. Many thanks, Gerry Sent from my iPad > On 4 Apr 2014, at 15:35, David Beakhust <dave@beakhust.com> wrote: > > A difficult area to research, as the gangs were mobile, progressing along > .....

A difficult area to research, as the gangs were mobile, progressing along the canals as they were built, and it seems rather unlikely that the individual labourers would have left much evidence of their existence, unless or until they married or died. The gangs would be pretty self sufficient (that is, the men would not be canal company employees), rather it would be gangmasters who would do the day to management of the men, hiring and firing or casual. It may be that looking at the evolution of the canals and the dates of construction of key parts would help you. If you have any placenames or fragments of history for the worker in question, it may be possible to track them to a particular canal. Post them here and i am sure any canalcoholics such as myself can suggest which canal... The histories of canal constructions are recorded, but not all in one place! For information about the building of the canals in general, it may be worth looking at the bookshop of the inland waterways association (IWA), but like SoG they rely on volunteers, and unlike SoG don't specialise in genealogy! If you have an inkling of a location and date, then that is your best bet: find the canal that matches and it may have a dedicated society. In turn they may refer you to the appropriate record office, who could have any record fragments remaining. The record office may not be the one where the work was done, but rather may relate to the home of the canal company - somewhere else on the same canal. I suspect the CRT (Canal and river trust - successor body to British Waterways) will be unable to help, though they possibly hold a lot of ENGINEERING material from the past 250 years, for their own use. Finally, some canals no longer exist, but some of these still have histories published, and some have societies. You may not find "proof" of a particular ancestors life, but you will gain an insight into their very hard lives. Does SOG have a "my ancestor was a navvy" title, btw? If so, is it mainly railways 1830 on, or canals, fifty years earlier? I do not know. Possibly the railway navvies would have had more local men - escaping from the mid 19th century depression. Conjecture though! One of my ancestors probably worked on the (now defunct) railway line through wiltshire to marlborough. That he did this can only be inferred from the dates and places his children were born, and its exact coincidence with progress of the railway, plus his occupation (where visible). He was unusual - married, and local. Many navvies were either single or working long term away from family, and often from ireland or other places where work was scarce. Enjoy the search! Dave Beakhust On 4 April 2014 11:22:41 Vivien Emons <emofenn@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Dear All, > Can anyone tell me if there is a means of finding workers on the early building of the canals, 1780-1800? > Thanks > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Dear All, Can anyone tell me if there is a means of finding workers on the early building of the canals, 1780-1800? Thanks

<<snipped>> I am surprised that people keep saying "no point in complaining here" (I paraphrase). Does no one from FMP's management/PR subscribe to SoG? Do none of the family history magazine's news reporters monitor this mailing list for stories? <<snipped>> I am simply pointing out two facts: 1. If you don't use the official feedback mechanism, you will not get your detailed point over. 2. Complaining here is letting off steam (and therefore carries self-satisfaction) but the FMP change is a business project - it's not a Family History exercise. The metrics that the project has will not include monitoring all the mailing lists from how many counties, all the message boards from how many magazines, etc. Don't kid yourself that the conversion project will subscribe to this feed. They are IT people, not genealogists. Anyone tempted to say, "And that's the point...", well, I'd agree to some extent but let's deal with reality. Adrian B

You only have to be an SOG member to post messages to the list. The SOG list archive is publicly available and messages appear on the web at the same time as they appear in your inbox: http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/Genealogical_Societies/SOG-UK .html Anyone wishing to monitor the list could easily do so by subscribing to the list's RSS feed. However, I very much doubt that any of the family history magazines would go to quite so much trouble! Best wishes Debbie http://cruwys.blogspot.co.uk -----Original Message----- From: sog-uk-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:sog-uk-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Chris Mappley Sent: 04 April 2014 10:48 To: sog-uk@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SOG-UK] FMP Hi all, Just to step in, this monitored list is private for members of the Society of Genealogists, so any Family History magazines would need to be paid up members of SoG to read the postings in real-time. Thanks, Warm regards, Chris. Chris Mappley Network Manager Society of Genealogists 14 Charterhouse Buildings London EC1M 7BA Registered Charity No. 233701 Company Limited by Guarantee Registered No. 115703 E-mail: support@sog.org.uk Web : www.sog.org.uk

Hi all, Just to step in, this monitored list is private for members of the Society of Genealogists, so any Family History magazines would need to be paid up members of SoG to read the postings in real-time. Thanks, Warm regards, Chris. Chris Mappley Network Manager Society of Genealogists 14 Charterhouse Buildings London EC1M 7BA Registered Charity No. 233701 Company Limited by Guarantee Registered No. 115703 E-mail: support@sog.org.uk Web : www.sog.org.uk This email and any attachments are confidential and intended for the addressee only. You must not use, disclose, reproduce, copy or distribute the contents of this communication unless explicitly  permitted to do so. If you have received this in error, please contact the sender and then delete this email from your system without further distribution or use. ************************************************************************ -----Original Message----- From: sog-uk-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:sog-uk-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Peter at LostCousins Sent: 04 April 2014 10:28 To: sog-uk@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SOG-UK] FMP > dorsetpast@aol.com wrote: > > Do none of the family > history magazine's news reporters monitor this mailing list for > stories? I don't know about anyone else, but I certainly do (and my newsletter has a circulation of around 60,000). Peter ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

> dorsetpast@aol.com wrote: > > Do none of the family > history magazine's news reporters monitor this mailing list for > stories? I don't know about anyone else, but I certainly do (and my newsletter has a circulation of around 60,000). Peter

<<snipped>>I *assume* that the original period of exclusivity is up and that TNA have supplied microfilm to Ancestry, so in that cases it's TNA supplying a service to Ancestry and Ancestry won't have any obligations to TNA. <<snipped>> Well unless TNA are supplying Ancestry for free [and if they are, I'd like a free set too, please], there is still a commercial arrangement. One can refuse to trade, in any commercial arrangement. My point was that as well as (1) putting in complaints and (2) threatening to cancel subscriptions, people could also consider (3) ensuring that those who make contracts with FMP understand that they do not provide a good customer service (if, indeed, that is the case). I might also add (4) write to the many, many, many family history magazines to express dissatisfaction. But as I said I don't use FMP so cannot judge. I am surprised that people keep saying "no point in complaining here" (I paraphrase). Does no one from FMP's management/PR subscribe to SoG? Do none of the family history magazine's news reporters monitor this mailing list for stories? Perhaps that is the case. Mark

Thought you might like a response I had from FMP. Chris Stupples >----Original Message---- >From: info@findmypast.com >Date: 03/04/2014 9:18 >To: <chrisat53@tiscali.co.uk> >Subj: RE: New FMP > >Dear Chris, > >Thank you for taking the time to write to us, > >As you probably know, we have communicated with all of our customers by email and continue to work to understand the issues customers are having using the new website site so they can be addressed. >Findmypast has always been very customer focussed, so any customer complaints concern us greatly. We aim to give our customers the best possible family history experience and will listen to concerns and try to resolve them as quickly as possible. > >Please see our 'What's new' page which our members will find extremely helpful and can view the feedback forum: > >http://new.findmypast.co.uk/articles/help/whats-new > >If there is anything else we may help with Chris, please do not hesitate to contact us again. > > > >Kind Regards, > > >Alex Brett >findmypast.co.uk Support Team > >=============================== > >Your announcement regarding the 'new' FMP arrived this morning - an event I >dreaded based on the experiences reported by my fellow amateur genealogists >through the SoG forum. I sincerely hope you have been kept appraised of all >the doubts and concerns that have been raised and will act accordingly. > >Chris >Stupples (a fairly long time subscriber). > >______________________________________________________________________ >This email has been scanned by the brightsolid Email Security System. Powered by MessageLabs >______________________________________________________________________ >

Anne: I hold no brief for FMP and for the most part share the views expressed as to the bad implementation of the new site. However, experience over the last few days has shown that the search screen option boxes depend markedly on the route one chooses to get there. I was confronted yesterday with the same issue as you. It is certainly true that if you get to BoE wills screen via the "List of all records" button on top right you only get a YoB option (you also get county). However if you get there from the generic Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records screen by starting to type Bank of England in the Record set box towards the bottom of the screen you also get a year of death option (but no county option). This in many cases will be within a year or so of probate. Pending any tweaks from FMP, I hope this helps. Yet another instance of inconsistent implementation I fear. There are other instances which also depend on the route chosen in narrowing search strategy, marriages and census searching to name but two. So for specific datasets for which other sites are not an option, it is worth experimenting to see whether the "straight to the dataset" or the "drill-down from generic screen" options gives the better search options. Even better, in my humble view, would be to give us all the option to continue with the old screen while they get the new screen sorted. I've put this to them but I don't hold my breath. Derek -----Original Message----- From: Anne Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2014 9:40 AM To: sog-uk@rootsweb.com Subject: [SOG-UK] New FMP I have been transcribing some of the Bank of England will extracts for Devon FHS, and until now, from the spreadsheet provided by the coordinator, have found it easy to locate the individual. The old search had the facility to search for the year of probate/admin etc....... that has disappeared. There is only the dob of the person to narrow it down (other than the name). I have reported the fact to FMP and to give them some praise Paul Dunlop has acknowledged this and is going to point this out to the "search team to make tweaks".....I will await with bated breath. My sub expires in the summer so I will wait and see for a while Anne

I have been transcribing some of the Bank of England will extracts for Devon FHS, and until now, from the spreadsheet provided by the coordinator, have found it easy to locate the individual. The old search had the facility to search for the year of probate/admin etc....... that has disappeared. There is only the dob of the person to narrow it down (other than the name). I have reported the fact to FMP and to give them some praise Paul Dunlop has acknowledged this and is going to point this out to the "search team to make tweaks".....I will await with bated breath. My sub expires in the summer so I will wait and see for a while Anne It seems to have lost the ability to search in specific record sets or filter by this, or even to put results from a chosen set first. To add insult to injury, there are buttons labeled (eg) "search Boyds marriage index" that simply do no such thing. That is even worse than useless, it is misleading, especially after all the blurb describing the collections. Even the search that was available for Westminster records (the ones labelled as belonging to Westminster archives) now has a rather desperate hint to select "Middlesex" as the county. There were when i last looked more places than Westminster in Middlesex, and more records that relate to Westminster than are in the Westminster archives collection, so even selecting a place as Westminster does not restrict it to the Westminster archives collection. If you cannot tick off sources one by one, (even if you begin with a scattergun approach), you cannot know what you have searched. Btw, to add insult to injury, the site has seemingly not been checked on tablets, and i find I cannot use the feedback, as this creates a popup, that floats off screen when the soft keyboard appears and dragging moves the main window, not the popup. Browser choice does not affect this. Firefox or chrome. Also feedback seems to need new registration even if arrived at from a logged in screen. My sub expires in the autumn and i hope they have improved by then! Dave Beakhust

I don't know what everyone is moaning about. I haven't used the new FMP site very much yet, but so far I think it is much improved. Larraine

> From: David Beakhust > Sent: 03 April 2014 00:18 > > It seems to have lost the ability to search in specific record sets or > filter by this, or even to put results from a chosen set first. My experience is just the opposite. In the old site the only way to get to a specific record set like the Westminster PRs was to search all the PRs and with county set to Middlesex and then pick through the output to find the relevant records. In the new set up I go to the Search Records menu, Birth Marriage Death & Parish Records, type Westminster in the Record Set box and select so my search is only of the baptisms, marriages or burials from Westminster. Some of the transcript output formats are awkward but the precision of searching is an enormous improvement in my eyes. Best wishes Andrew -- Andrew Millard - A.R.Millard@durham.ac.uk Chair, Trustees of Genuki: www.genuki.org.uk Maintainer, Genuki Middx + London: homepages.gold.ac.uk/genuki/MDX/ + ../LND/ Academic Co-ordinator, Guild of One-Name Studies: www.one-name.org Bodimeade one-name study: community.dur.ac.uk/a.r.millard/genealogy/Bodimeade/ My genealogy: community.dur.ac.uk/a.r.millard/genealogy/

It seems to have lost the ability to search in specific record sets or filter by this, or even to put results from a chosen set first. To add insult to injury, there are buttons labeled (eg) "search Boyds marriage index" that simply do no such thing. That is even worse than useless, it is misleading, especially after all the blurb describing the collections. Even the search that was available for Westminster records (the ones labelled as belonging to Westminster archives) now has a rather desperate hint to select "Middlesex" as the county. There were when i last looked more places than Westminster in Middlesex, and more records that relate to Westminster than are in the Westminster archives collection, so even selecting a place as Westminster does not restrict it to the Westminster archives collection. If you cannot tick off sources one by one, (even if you begin with a scattergun approach), you cannot know what you have searched. Btw, to add insult to injury, the site has seemingly not been checked on tablets, and i find I cannot use the feedback, as this creates a popup, that floats off screen when the soft keyboard appears and dragging moves the main window, not the popup. Browser choice does not affect this. Firefox or chrome. Also feedback seems to need new registration even if arrived at from a logged in screen. My sub expires in the autumn and i hope they have improved by then! Dave Beakhust On 2 April 2014 20:44:18 "Larraine Williams" <rain@ihug.co.nz> wrote: > I don't know what everyone is moaning about. I haven't used the new FMP > site very much yet, but so far I think it is much improved. > > Larraine > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

<<snipped>>... it would seem to me a good idea to also complain to the organisations (eg TNA) who have commercial partnerships with FMP ... <<snipped>> Except that depends on who is supplying the service to who. If FMP have tendered to TNA and are being paid by TNA to provide a service to them, then yes. Perhaps. But it seems to me that in some cases it's almost the reverse - e.g. Ancestry now have the RG4, RG5 and RG8 non-conformist vital records from TNA. These were originally seen on http://www.bmdregisters.co.uk/ (and are still there now alongside other RG registers). I *assume* that the original period of exclusivity is up and that TNA have supplied microfilm to Ancestry, so in that cases it's TNA supplying a service to Ancestry and Ancestry won't have any obligations to TNA. Though that's probably over-simplified. So feel free to complain to the owning body but be aware that there may be no contractual obligation in the direction you think there is, and even if there is, they may simply say, "The contract says you need to talk to the online provider...." Adrian B

One query will bring up references in many record sets whereas a number of queries would be needed on the old system to gain the same information. Apart from that in what way you think it has improved? Lin -----Original Message----- From: sog-uk-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:sog-uk-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Larraine Williams Sent: 02 April 2014 20:41 To: sog-uk@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SOG-UK] FMP new website I don't know what everyone is moaning about. I haven't used the new FMP site very much yet, but so far I think it is much improved. Larraine ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

I am pretty sure that the copyright holder for Boyds is still the SoG, but before bombarding the society with complaints, do remember how dependent they are on volunteers!!! If someone in Charterhouse Buildings is reading this, lets hope they can take it up. I think a partial explanation of the mechanism that seems to split up records and present them in an apparently absurd order (though no excuse) is that FMP probably aims to present disparate record sets together in one set of results, and keep some detail behind the paywall. They have probably taken this merging too far, and the field order has been influenced by some record set you are not including. This may result (without actual error) in the order appearing illogical, or may result in duplication, and may even result in inclusion in the "detail" of items NOT actually in the records themselves (an example being the County in a GRO index item - to me an inexcusable error). Where counties are redrawn or reg districts are merged or split this can cause actual errors, but anyone who knows the original records can delete the county from the detail (but the researcher in South Carolina or saõ paulo does NOT always know this, of course). With error, you can get the absurdity i found on some military records (musters) that resulted in "length of service" being interpreted as age, with concomitant effects on what a search that includes date of birth will find. Sorry, away from my records so i cannot remember this one exactly, but records of 8-year olds in the military are sometimes not mistranscription of the figures, but pervade the whole record set. This is not a "new search" issue, as i found it with the old, but the error is not apparent until you view detail (so go beyond a free search). The records in question had images available (more cost for non subscribers) but these made the error blindingly obvious. Yes,i did complain about that one!! Meanwile, for military musters and the like, view images for a sample in the period of interest, and where this error is found, extend the DOB "to" range for any searches of those records forwards by 20 years or so and always view images. I am not really familiar with boyd, but if at the detail level (a link you may be charged for if you dont have a sub), something is missing that you know should be there, that *individual point* is a cause for complaint, rather than burying it in a field order complaint. It is more than likely that the responsibility for the two will not be the same. Let us hope that reasoned and precise complaints to FMP will persuade them to improve. I dont have the top level of sub, so occasionally have to PAYG for non subscription results. If it stays as bad as people are saying i may be tempted to go 100% payg, as i m not doing a huge volume of searches these days. Last time i used it i was on old search, though for an hour or so around midnight a couple of weeks back i saw the new, then in the morning was back on the old. I cant explain that at all! Dave Beakhust On 2 April 2014 12:09:38 dorsetpast@aol.com wrote: > <<snipped>>I would implore everyone with comments to use the FMP > Feedback site<<snipped>> > > I don't use FMP so can't comment on the changes, but it would seem to > me a good idea to also complain to the organisations (eg TNA) who have > commercial partnerships with FMP - if their records become all-but > inaccessible because of the changes, then they are not keeping to the > spirit of their commercial contracts which at some point will have to > come up for renewal. Just a thought. > > Mark > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message