Lost Cousins newsletter - late Jan 2020

[JBee]

https://www.lostcousins.com/newsletters2/latejan20news.htm

[kiterunner]

I think the issue of being "logged in" is rather more important on Findmypast now than this newsletter states - I've noticed in the last couple of days that if you do a search on FMP when you are logged out, it won't let you view the results until you log in. Funnily enough, this was something I suggested to them a few years ago, though I only suggested it should apply to the 1939 Register, because of the fact that search engine bots (or other bots) could collect data without logging in. I wonder whether search engine bots are the reason for the recent change? They certainly never acknowledged it was a problem when I asked them about it at that time.

[Merry]

Interesting that, according to Peter, rape only happened outside of marriage.

[kiterunner]

Interesting that, according to Peter, rape only happened outside of marriage.

Well, rape within marriage was legal until 1991 in the UK. Still rape though.

[Merry]

When I read the heading "Was your Ancestor a Rapist?" I thought more along the lines of a married ancestor with legitimate children raping someone from outside the household (as I found when helping someone with their tree and then didn't know how or if to tell them).

Having said it's usually impossible to tell if an illegitimate ancestor was conceived by rape, he goes on to say we use language such as "took advantage of her", when what we really mean is that he "forced himself upon her", when he just said we usually can't know what happened, so should have used the word 'possibly' in there somewhere!

I haven't the energy to pick apart what he says about middle and upper class men, but can imagine many people who believe they are descended from Lord such-and-such and read that article will now also think their female ancestor was raped, when in fact the father was not that person at all.

[Olde Crone]

But Merry, it is a very well known fact that all upper class men are evil rapists and all working class women are pure demure maidens who only give up.their virtue under force!

Imagine - you are a scullery maid and you've been a bit fast and loose with the boot boy. Now you sre pregnant, he can't marry you because he hasn't got a penny to his name, or he doesn't want to and you are being sent home in disgrace. Your dad is going to.kill you. So you tell him it was the young master (or the old one!) and that he forced you. Your parents can now face the neighbours who will gladly believe this tale and you get all the sympathy.

I am sure some women were raped. I am equally sure than most were not raped and did what they did willingly. Human nature and sexual attraction was ever thus.

I also have several instances in my tree where it is obvious that the father or his parents made discreet arrangements for the child and the mother suddenly was able to support herself and her child without working.

OC

[Katarzyna]

Interesting that, according to Peter, rape only happened outside of marriage.
That is a pretty unfair statement, Merry, as he never wrote that at all. He was talking about illegitimate issue not rape within marriage which is a completely different subject.

[Merry]

Yes, I know you are right really (I am just over-sensitive to the topic), but when I read:

"Was your ancestor a rapist?

It's not a pleasant thought, is it? We all have illegitimate ancestors, yet in most cases we don’t know the circumstances in which they were conceived."

It made me feel that he was saying we only need to concern ourselves with the conception circumstances of our illegitimate ancestors, but as you rightly said, that isn't what he was getting at, so I take my comment back, but I'm not going to delete it.

[kiterunner]

I hope Peter's ok - there has been no newsletter since this one. I would have expected him to at least send out a supplementary one about the 40% discount offer on FMP subs, and that has been on offer for a few days now.

[JBee]

Haven't seen anything Kate - so I too hope he's ok.