William Benger was present at the baptism of his first son Thomas Benger at Portsmouth New Chapel in Green Row, Portsmouth. Thomas was born 16th April 1837, baptised 1st May 1837 by Robert Sherwell.
I’m not sure where the Portsmouth New Chapel in Green Row, Portsmouth actually was so I shall have to do some detective work about this place.
One more record from The Genealogist relates to my great great grandfather Benjamin Hacker (1805-1890).
This is an extract from Tithe Records for Plot 280 in Broad Hinton, Wiltshire, dated 21st April 1845.
The Landowner is William Browne Ruddle Esquire and the Occupier John Drunford & Benjamin Hacker.
Reference IR 29/38/46
I found this interesting record thanks to my free trial on The Genealogist website. I have very few records post the 1911 census so was excited to see Alfred Benjamin Hacker listed as the resident of 1 Whiteman’s Street, Swindon in the 1915 Swindon Voters list.
Although he died in 1935 his wife Elizabeth Hacker lived in the house until the late 1950s when she moved to a council house in Portal Road with one of her daughters and her family.
As I mentioned the other day I signed up for a free trial with The Genealogist and already I have found a new record! My great uncle is mentioned in the Daily Casualty List published in The Times, 4th September 1916.
I recently read that The Genealogist has released some new records from the First World War. This new release contains over 800,000 records. Included are 575,000 Killed in Action records, over 226,000 unique Missing-in-Action records and 14,000 Status Updates.
My great-uncle Alfred Mansel Young was killed in action in 1916 so I was interested to see if I could find out any more information about his death.
Unfortunately The Genealogist is a subscription site and although it looks like they might have some interesting records I can’t afford a subscription. However, they offer a 2 week free trial here so it looks like I shall be signing up later tonight to take a closer look!
Yesterday I was reading about the new Find A Will online service which replaces the old Probate Office in Holborn. I visited the old place a few times and enjoyed looking through their old record books, finding relevant records and ordering copies to take home and add to my own records.
I’ve been meaning to go back for a while so was pretty pleased to hear about the new online service which I tried out this evening.
The service is still in beta and has a surprisingly basic search – just surname and date. You can search for Wills and Probate 1996 to present, Wills and Probate 1858 – 1996 and Soldier’s Wills.
If there are any results you can look at the original page which features a short summary – name, amount of estate, enough information to help you identify them as the person you are looking for and the name of the Executor. You can also look at the entries either side of your result as well as the previous or next year.
I’ve only spent about an hour using the site but so far found 1 result for George Caswell, a distant relative through my paternal great-grandfather. I’m tempted to order a copy of the Will even though I already know he left his estate, which was under £800, to his only daughter Selina Cleopatra Anne Caswell.
