Thursday, December 13, 2012

Military Pay Lists

Findmypast some months ago put online an index of people in the 1861 military pay lists. 245,000 men are listed. This is just a snap shot of who was in the military at that particular time. I was missing a few people between the 1851 and 1861 census. I was wondering what happened to David Scoggins who was born in 1833 in Badingham. He was in the 1851 census and then he just vanished. There is a David Scoggins listed as being in Hazaribagh East Indies in the 77th foot (East Middlesex Regiment) Out of all the military records online there is no mention of him. Next time I make it to the National Archives I will need to trace him through the pay list to see when he joined and when and how he left the military. The pay list are big bulky books that each regiment carried around with them. There not on microfilm. If you want a detailed view of where a military man went in his career then the pay lists will tell you. I sure hope they put some pay list online from the Napoleonic wars. A lot of men disappeared and if they died in the wars the only mention you may find of them will be in the pay lists. There is also a possibility that his birthplace will be found in the lists which would confirm his identity. There are pay lists for every regiment starting in about 1730.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Scoggins Civil Registration Marriages 1837 to 1851


Using FREEBMD civil registration indexes I have located 53 Scoggins, Scroggins marriages between 1837 and 1851. To find all the various spellings I used a wildcard. In the search box I put (scog*) The star or asterisk placed at the end picks up all the letters after. It may be surprising to know that any surname that starts with Scog is going to be a variant of Scoggins, Scoging, etc.
Scoggins and its various spellings are not very common, so it is possible to sort through them. Of the 53 marriages which took place 23 took place in Suffolk or 40%. 38 of the 53 can be traced back into Suffolk through research between 1775 and 1851. This means 75% of them have Suffolk roots. The remaining 25% or 15 marriages are scattered in 7 other counties with London area having 5. I have also noticed that some Northern England Scoggins have unique variants of their own, i.e. Skoggins, Scigens
On FREEBMD it is possible to add postems to each entry, so I have placed a postem for 28 of the 53 marriages. The postem I have included includes a transcription of the marriage record excluding the witnesses as I ran out of space as only 250 characters are allowed. If you have a marriage record, transcribe it and create a postem.
I have also found a marriage church record of William Bye Scogings in 1849 that is not in the civil registration indexes. I found that marriage on ancestry.com London marriage records.