Hello everybody, welcome to Family Tree Talk,
your favourite Family Tree podcast. I'm your
co -host Nathan Ward and with me as always is
the very croaky... Hello Dovey! Not that bad
but my voice might tune in and out a little bit
so if it does, any listener, then it's not your
device you're listening on, it's just me. It's
just human failure this week. Poor Helen. Well,
as long as you're okay enough to talk to me,
that's good. Well, yes. Do you know what? I think,
as ever, family history is very good for taking
your mind off your woes and you forget that you've
got a sore throat or a headache and things while
you dig it. It is. It's all involving, isn't
it? You can get totally lost in it. So what have
you been up to? Well, I have to admit that I
have been being seriously helped by somebody.
Yeah. Really? I know. So anyone who reads Family
Tree magazine, they will have noticed Mary Evans'
name and she pops up on the Q &A pages. fairly
frequently over the years she's done many articles
on us on really good research skills solving
brick walls things like that and many many years
ago back in the day we used to have a forum and
she was um so active on the forum helping people
out and in the past she has helped me make really
cool discoveries in my family history so I'm
really grateful to her anyway we had a webinar
recently and I um mentioned have I ever mentioned
Marianne Pickering before so I'm like no no So
I was banging on about Mary Ann Pickering, even
outside the podcast, the spade of my life. And
Mary very kindly offered to take a look at it.
And so I will freely admit that my research.
logging skills and um application are hit and
miss i do know in theory exactly what to do sometimes
i do it and you would think i am just like an
a class student and how does she find the time
she's so organized and at other times you'd think
has she ever ever given herself five minutes
to get any genealogy education because i just
i'm not writing anything down and there's no
evidence i've done anything at all anyway by
chance the mary i'm bickering because she is
such a uh just like a little a genealogy gremlin
to me that I just can't get through the problem.
I've written copious notes on her. So I bunged
over to poor Mary, like 3 ,000 words about what
I've not found about Mary at Pickerig and some
little documents, what I had found, things like
that. And so Mary has been taking a look and
she thinks she's found some things, but she's...
I'm kind of pleased she's finding it hard to
make progress on Mary as well. Because it's kind
of a mixed blessing, isn't it? You think, well,
I'm not completely stupid because someone else
is finding it hard too. But also it would be
really lovely to be able to find out, make big
strides with her. Anyway, so Mary did what is
a great tactic when things aren't kind of getting
up ahead of steam enough and you feel like you're
just getting a bit stuck. And she's like, well,
I'm going to take a look at her husband and see
what I can find out about him. And her husband
was also someone I hadn't, I wouldn't say I got
a brick wall on him because I'd never really,
I'd kind of found what I could easily enough.
get him baptised in 1833. His name is Thomas
Jones, which is like, if you're not going to
have Smith, the next kind of worst option is
pretty much Jones, isn't it? Tom Jones. Yeah,
yeah. Anyway, so he's from Mary. That's not unusual,
is it? I know. Well, this is how it gets even
better. So Mary has brilliantly found out Tom,
because I only had an inferred date of his baptism,
actually, to be fair to me, or to be fair to
Mary. That was from the census. Mary actually
found his birth. baptism record she thinks she's
like 99 sure guess what his dad's called tom
tom jones and then mary also managed to find
this mary's which is not mary ann pickering actually
it's the generation before mary and this so i
don't know we've got mary ann pickering who married
thomas jones who also has a son called thomas
jones and then because mary couldn't find anything
about mary ann pickering she thought right i'm
going to try and find out Thomas Jones' dad.
So Thomas Jones' dad is called Thomas Jones.
And then she managed to find this Mary, which
is Mary Ann Pickering's mum, who's also called
Mary. So Mary Ann Pickering's mum, Mary. Oh my
God. She found, and who's married Thomas Jones?
She found, obviously on their marriage certificate,
guess what Mary Ann Pickering's dad is called?
Oh God, is it Tom? It's Thomas Jones as well.
This just sounds like me last week. I'm sorry
if I confused anyone, but it is funny, isn't
it? It's ridiculous. It's like, oh, it's such
a cute thing. They've named themselves after
their family. And then you get that happening.
It is literally what happened to me last week,
isn't it? And then you look at the same names
and you're like, which person am I looking at
now? Which generation am I researching? And you
get so confused. It's chaos. Yes. So I've now
got two branches of my tree, which have got runs
of Thomas Jones on them. Oh, other names are
available. But it's funny. And I'm really, really
grateful to Mary. What is amazing about Mary,
and this is, I probably said it before. You know
when you get stuck on a brick wall and you feel
like, oh, you've looked high and low and maybe
you should look in different record collections
and maybe you need to go to an archive. No disrespect
to archives. She does actually use archives heaps.
She's always going to archives. But what Mary
manages to do is she has a phenomenal brain on
her, really good at analysis and deduction. And
so she will pretty much solve brick walls just
using birth, marriage and death records or if
it's pre... civil registration, baptism, marriage
and burial records, and also census records.
She only uses those key records, like the records
that we all kind of start off with, and without
branching out beyond them, just by being such
a terrier, casting a really wide net, and then
gradually crossing off all the people who couldn't
be possible, she dwindles it down to the correct
people. And she's done it time and time again.
I've watched her do it loads with readers. I've
just... working on the q a pages of the magazine
and she's done it again for another reader and
going and you mean and the reader was at the
point they'd done really good research to be
fair to them and they just wanted a second pair
of eyes on the situation mary looked through
the second pair of eyes saw additional things
because she does she has her bionic eyes and
um has solved the problem so i think that's a
really encouraging lesson to all of us that sometimes
we don't need to kind of go out to pastors new
or find new records we just need to get a really
good set of research steps in our head so that
we can be really thorough, really methodical.
Right, that sounds great. Or get someone else
to do it for you. Or get someone else to do it
for you who has those amazing steps. That's not
a bad plan either because it's all experience,
isn't it? And I think Mary has a natural aptitude
for it and she does have a whole heap of experience
as well, so the combination is just a superpower.
Nice one. Yeah. So you've made progress and you
feel like she's unstuck then, Mary Ann Pickering?
Yes, I think it's really exciting, yeah. That's
cool. I think it's going to be one of those things
that I'm going to, I wouldn't say I'm going to
go running headlong into the distance making
loads of fast progress because I now got these
two branches both with runs of Thomas Jones on
them and we've got to the time period that you
say you find daunting you when you get back to
it. The 1830s, you've kind of jumped off the
cliff. There's no more easy censuses to peg our
research on. There's no easy birth, marriage
and deaths. We're looking at the parish registers,
which aren't necessarily so readily accessible.
Societies on the move a lot from their little
rural communities, quite a lot of them, into
urban areas. So in my family, I find that they're
moving from Shropshire and... all over Yorkshire
and everything. And there was loads of them ending
up in Liverpool. So they end up kind of feeling
quite rootless because they're just there. Liverpool.
And you're like, so I've got Tom Jones in Liverpool
and I need to now find where on earth in the
country he's come from before then. That's exciting.
It sounds terrifying as well. It's really exciting
though. Yeah. Yeah, I'm so grateful to Mary.
Yeah. That's brilliant. It's not just me who
can benefit from these amazing perks. It doesn't
happen to me very often, I have to say. What
I mean is I don't abuse my position as having
access to lovely experts. It was just pure luck
Mary offered to do this for me. But on the Q
&A pages of the magazine, we run a free reader
service. And so you can just email me at helen
.t at family -tree .co .uk. and provide details
of what it is that you're stuck on. If you have
any documents, of course, provide those. We can't
deal with everybody's questions on the Q &A pages,
but we choose ones that we feel would provide
useful learning points, and we try and cover
as many as we can do, but we can't obviously
cover them all. And then you get your answer,
answered by somebody like Mary Evans or some
of the other amazing researchers we have, completely
free of charge to you. So that's pretty cool,
isn't it? Yeah, it's brilliant. Really cool.
Yeah. Nice one. Yeah. I mean, I've got you, so
I feel like I'm in a lucky position anyway. Oh,
I do. I think that's really not a lucky position
at all. You must be kidding. I had a friend who's
done the DNA test recently. Yeah. Like looking
at his tree, wanting some information. And weirdly,
like I went into researcher mode and suddenly
all this information came flooding out of my
mind. And I was like, oh, my God, all this stuff
I've learned. And, you know, you know, when you're
doing it, you know, you know it. When you're
doing it in isolation in front of somebody else,
it was like, wow, look at how much I've come
on. It was great. I really enjoyed it. Really
good. So you're helping a family history friend
do some of their family history? Yeah, just asking
a few questions about where they should find
various certificates and looking for various
loose connections. So I was just like, oh, yeah,
you can try this and you can go here and go to
3DMB and then download this. And I was like literally
on the verge of wanting to order documents for
him. It was like, no, this isn't my tree. I'll
leave it alone. But it was just cool. It was
cool to see that I actually had some knowledge.
It was weird. It's very, very cool. Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, it could all have been wrong and I've
lied to him about everything, but you never know.
No, I'm sure you haven't. And it is exciting
as well when you, I think that's when you, you
could think you're doing something in your head,
but then either when you have to explain it to
somebody else, like for me, if I am trying to
explain DNA to my dad and then it all slips through
my fingers and I'm like, oh goodness, I didn't
know. Because he'll ask me questions which just
completely throw me. Yeah. And so I think when
you're trying to explain something to somebody
else, then you can, it does actually help you
realise how good is my understanding of this
and how well, how thoroughly you know something
enables you to either explain it, you know, suitable
for a child. If you've really got to the nub
of the issue and you know what's happening, you
could explain it to a seven -year -old or equally,
if you really got it and you know exactly what's
going on, you could talk at length to somebody
about it who has got lots of experience. Couldn't
you? Whereas if you've got kind of a rough initial
knowledge, you could soon find yourself getting
stuck. That's me and DNA. Yeah. Let's not talk
about DNA. Yeah. It's not good for me. Yeah.
So with this friend, so you've wanted to order
them some certificates. Are you helping them
build a tree? What are you doing? Or are you
just giving them some advice and they're going
to come back to you? It was just initial advice
to where to go to look for various bits and bats.
It was quite tricky because a lot of it was modern
history, which I kept on going, we'll just check
the 1941 census. Oh, there isn't one. It's very
strange working in the modern day, isn't it?
You forget that you don't have access to that
much information. So it was then working backwards
from that and seeing what we could get around
it. You do know the gutting thing as well, that
we're not going to have a 1941 census, don't
you? I did not know that. It gets even more tragic.
If you're looking for English and Welsh ancestors,
you're not even going to have a 1931 census.
What? Why not? I can't remember why. I think
it might have got destroyed in the Second World
War. Oh, she's doing it again. She's going off,
talking up to my head, but she's even got a cold
as well. So I'm feeling particularly, like, fuzzy
-headed. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the next one that's
going to be available to us is in the 1951 census,
which will be available in 2051. Great. Fantastic.
Apart from, this is where you're going to be
so pleased. What are your Scottish runs called?
The Mackays? Yeah. So the Mackays, then Scotland
does have a 1931. Go Scotland. Yes. Yeah. And
then I... Obviously really soon Ireland, the
Republic of Ireland is going to be releasing
its 1926 census in the coming weeks. Yeah. April
2026. So that's very exciting. Northern Ireland's
accidentally lost theirs somehow. But these things
happen. How have they lost it? I think a whale
came and stole it. Let's just start making it
loads of really random stories. Yes. There is
actually some, I think it's Fife is like the
famous story. I can't remember which year. It
might be 1841. And they were carrying the census
records across the river and some of them fell
in the water. Oh, no. I know. I'm sorry if I'm
laughing. Maybe I'm in frivolous mode. It's really
annoying if it's your ancestors from those ages.
Yeah, that must be gutting. I've just realised
as well that 1931 census for the Scottish people
won't help me because my ancestors were in Pudsey
by that time. True. Apart from, it could help
you because let's say you've gone back many generations
to four times great -grandparents, five times
great -grandparents and you're building your
tree out and down. Some of them might have stayed
up in Scotland and then you'll be... So it won't
actually help your direct ancestors, you're quite
right, but you could find some interesting things.
Yeah, I could flesh out the side branches. Intriguing,
intriguing. But that's years, years down the
line. It really is. It really is, isn't it? It's
really upsetting. I love the 1939 now. It's like
that's your last reference of life, isn't it?
It's just really irritating when something happens
in 1940 plus and you're like, I had to give me
the information. Yeah. The 1939, that was so
exciting when it came out and there was a few
people who campaigned for it. So the Census Act
said that it should have been, if it had fallen
under the Census Act, it would have had to be
closed for 100 years. Because it didn't fall
under the Census Act, that's who people like
Guy Etchells and I think Stephen Smurl, they
argued and did like a, I think it was a freedom
of information request and said this. It doesn't
fall under this Act of Parliament, so it can
be treated differently. So they got it released
years and years early. Yeah, that's brilliant,
that, isn't it? Otherwise we'd be waiting, we
still wouldn't have it for another terrible mess.
13 years? Yeah? 14 years? I don't even know what
year it is right now, but yes. Yes, a long time,
very long time. No, that's cool. I saw one the
other day where I was just looking and somebody
got married, I think, for the third time. On
the 1939, it had them as a child or a teenager.
So with the maiden name. And I was actually able
to, again, learning stuff. I followed like the
little notations that people had crossed out
and wrote on them. It's like I found two marriages
from it, which I was quite chuffed about. Very
good. Yeah. Check me out. I might not fill my
research log in, but I know some stuff. Yes.
Yes. No, it's good. It's looking at all those
details, just taking time because. Not to miss
any clues is always a good thing. It's exciting,
isn't it? When you get a clue, you're like, oh,
this is slightly more than this document should
give you. This is cool. Going back to your friend
who you're helping. So whenever I help somebody
do their family history, I love it. And I really
do the thing that I want. Sometimes I do start
building a secret tree for them because it just
helps me. piece together the information they've
told me. And I don't want to kind of take away
their joy of doing it themselves, but partly
I'm just like, I want to do it. I want to find
out what I can do. Just the challenge and partly
just getting the clarity. So I'm excited about
helping somebody, but then I also get a little
bit nervous in case I'm getting it wrong. So
did you have any of the fear factor that you're
leading them up the garden path or not? Yes.
I made some bold claims and accusations quite
quickly. And I was like, This couldn't be true.
I just keep on speculating here, but I'm throwing
myself into it like I know what I'm doing. But
equally, I've secretly built the tree as well,
so I need to delete that because I'm getting
hints about it now and I don't actually want
to pursue it. Oh, so have you built them a secret
tree on Ancestry? I've built it on my profile,
yeah. Okay, that's okay. And have you gone into
tree settings and made sure it's private and
unsearchable? Because if it's a secret tree,
it's got to be secret, yeah? I'm not entirely
sure. I think so. I think it's private. How do
I find this? Well, you'd find out. Just go to
Ancestry and then go to Trees. And then it will
say, like, when you've gone and choose one of
your trees, this is a way to do it. There's several
ways you could do it. Go to one of your trees.
Then in the menu on the left -hand side, go to
the option which will say Create and Manage Trees.
And then... When you've clicked create and manage
trees, you'll go through to a window which says
tree settings. When you go to tree settings,
choose the tree that you want to adjust. When
that opens up, I think this is right, then you'll
see where it says like privacy information. They'll
have three tabs along the top and choose that
privacy one, go in there and make sure there's
a box which says. private you can go like public
or private so ticket search private and then
there'll be another little box which says make
sure doesn't get found in the search index so
if somebody searched on a name somebody in that
tree you don't even want them to getting get
returned in search results yeah so you tick that
as well then you know it's super safe then the
other thing is with the hints you can choose
whether you have your hints on or off. But the
thing is, I think with ancestry, you have to
make a global decision about hints. So I, you
can choose that you're going to not get any hints.
You won't get any for your friend for their secret
tree that you're making. And you also won't get
any hints for you. I think that's how it works.
Whereas my heritage is pretty cool. I'm pretty
sure on there, you can do granular hints. So
you could choose for my tree, I want to have
the hints, but for my friend's tree or my auntie's
tree, I don't want any hints and then you turn
them off. Nice. Really nice, isn't it? There's
all these things which sound so, like, if you
didn't know how doing family history, if I was
telling my husband about this, he'd be like,
oh, good. But when you're actually doing it,
it's really helpful. It is really helpful. I
literally followed the path that you were saying
then and you got it pretty much verbatim, word
for word, everything right. And you just spouting
that off the top of your head. Fantastic. I've
actually just gone in and deleted that tree completely
now. It's gone. Yeah. It was just trying to make
it clear in my mind so I wasn't giving duff information.
But yeah, it's not my job. No, it's not your
job. Oh, I'm in bossy. I'm giving uninvited information
mode this morning. So the other thing you could
have done, Nathan, but it's too late now. Now
you've deleted your tree. There's no going back.
But what you could have done while you're in
tree settings, you could have gone like to the
download option and then you could have downloaded
a GEDCOM of the secret tree. And then let's say
the friend came back to you in a few weeks time.
You could. Either re -upload that tree to Ancestry,
make sure you've done your private settings on
it, or you can even go get yourself some free
software like Legacy. It's Legacy Family Tree.
So you can put that software on your desktop.
Then you build the tree super secret. Again,
another way of doing it secretly. I'm not trying
to be secret, but sometimes it's like it's not
your tree. You don't want to be over -interfering
to somebody, but you want to be able to be helpful.
And sometimes somebody might not realise what
you have to do. in order to help them. And sometimes
one of the things that you have to do in order
to help them is actually be maybe a little bit
more investigative than they would have anticipated.
Yeah. There's the whole aspect of it not being
your story as well. I feel like that's coming
to the front a lot for me at the moment. There's
lots of things I'm like, this is really interesting.
I'm like, but it's not my story. There are things
that I could potentially talk about on the podcast,
but I'm like, again, it's not my story to tell,
so I shouldn't tell it. I guess it's more modern
times things, but it's tricky, isn't it? It's
like that debate. It's not a debate. It's other
people's stories. So it's their responsibility.
If they want to tell their stories, they should,
but we shouldn't. I think that's such a good
point. Like whose story is it? And also we all
see different stories in the record. You could
give us all the same records. We would all see
different stories in it. We'd all have different
feelings about those stories. So, you know, when
you look at the records, you might say, for instance,
you love aeroplanes or whatever. So anyone with
an aeroplane collection you'd be particularly
happy about and you would build it up and you'd
be looking for, for instances, of other people
who have engineering or technical backgrounds
or artistic, creative backgrounds. That would
really appeal to you, wouldn't it? Anything to
do with art and engineering. And you'd be happy
about that. If there were difficult situations,
let's say one of them was a bigamist or one of
them had had illegitimate children or any of
the things which can kind of be unsettling to
find out, you would have your overarching narrative
about the engineering and the art and you'd find
it maybe easier to deal with the other things.
Whereas someone else may feel particularly sensitive
about those issues and they're looking at the
same records as you, but they're seeing a different,
they're feeling, having a different experience.
feeling different experiences looking at them
yeah definitely it's all point of view isn't
it it's yeah and the further back you go I mean
maybe I don't know actually I don't think I've
got that much controversy on my tree but I think
the further back you go the more removed you
are from it and the less it pains you yes unless
that is just me and I'm just dead inside but
like I think like my best examples like George
Horatio Nelson thing where he was brought up
by his mother's mother and then his mother and
his dad went to it well alleged dad I'm going
to say moved county and I felt that one a little
bit because I'd got so involved with that guy
has been like my favourite ancestor but it's
so removed it's like it's just a story isn't
it it's not like that really hurts me but I still
think as well like I don't know whether it's
just us but in our family we do have some branches
of the family which are kind of hero branches.
And I don't literally mean they're kind of amazing
soldiers or anything. I just mean that they're
ones that we feel extra fond of or really proud
of. And actually, the reason why we feel proud
of them is sometimes as they've gone through
incredibly tough times, sometimes they live through
tough periods of history. Both of those points
apply to all of our families. They've all lived
through tough times and all lived through amazing
periods of history or fascinating periods of
history. And the other one is... where they just
stuck by each other. And we're like, hey, you
stuck by each other. Like, it's not an easy thing
to do, the human condition. And we're pleased
with them. So in a funny way, I have to be really
diplomatic with those branches because although
the overarching picture is they're there, they
stuck by each other, they were a loving family.
And it's like, they were, but there's other evidence
to allow it. To what extent do you want to burst
anyone's bubble? No. So... We have to be very,
we do have all these little micro ethical dilemmas
about, it's all very well in our own head. We
can go, I love doing family history because I
like the detective aspect. I love the puzzle
aspect. I love the way it informs social history.
Just a general interest in social history. If
you populate it with your ancestors, suddenly
it's not just social history, it comes alive
with individual people, doesn't it? So all of
those cool things, reasons why you might like
family history, or you're just curious about
your roots, whatever it is. But then when you're
imparting it to the... your friends and family,
if it's their family history too. Yeah. It is
fascinating. Like, I think from my perspective,
like I say, I don't have much drama on my tree.
There's not really any drama that I can see in
my DNA. So it is all a fun hobby. I pursue something
that's, you know, a nice thing to do. And I went
out for a meal with some friends the other day
and we were talking about, like, taking DNA tests.
And I, again, I was very sort of nonchalant about
it because I don't want to really explore my
DNA. I will do at some point, I promise. But
I haven't had the real reason to do so. But it
was quite interesting to hear other people's
opinions about it. There were like the ethical
reasons why they don't want to do it, things
that they're not bothered about finding out,
hints of things that they might know and don't
want to pursue any further. And it's like, actually,
it's quite a heavy subject if you're coming from
a certain point of view. It's just fascinating.
And I think it is because when you, all of us
across, not just in our family history worlds,
but you end up in echo chambers, don't you, with
other people who, like you, you'll have lots
of friends who love running and none of you could
conceive of the idea of just being a couch potato
and not having gone for a run for seven years
or whatever. Mentioning new names. And there's
points in my life where I couldn't ever conceive
not having gone for a run for seven years, but
it's perfectly possible. Yeah, I've done it.
So when we talk to other people, it can be quite
eye -opening. Yeah, just a completely different
kind of ethical stance and you realise it's not
clear -cut. Yeah, it's perspective, isn't it?
It's like, well, just like I say, I look at this
as a fun pursuit, a fun hobby. It's something
to just get lost in. But actually... There are
textures, there are layers. Obviously, like,
you know, all these TV shows, like Long Lost
Families, et cetera, that stuff really does happen
to people. And you forget that when you're just
absorbed in the fun of the research and you're
not really worried about what you're going to
find. Yeah, and you can't, yeah, that's, I mean,
kind of links into what we were talking about
earlier, like the kind of the scare factor of
when you're doing other people's family history.
My initial scare factor was like, oh, am I going
to get this wrong? And then the other scare factor
is when you think they've asked you a pretty
simple question. You're like, I can find that.
I can find a birth record. He's busy, whatever.
And then once the records materialize and then
you could see a different story or a story, an
unexpected story has emerged. And you're like,
oh, because they asked for a simple story, a
simple fact. And you're like, this is actually.
a fact but it's like a little gift tag on a bombshell
yeah whatever respect there's something very
big and intriguing there potentially yeah expected
did we talk about this the other week because
i think it's a really important issue so with
dna um if you're encouraging someone to do a
dna test and so i think the dn what what the
thing about dna is it brings everything up kind
of fast and furious so when we do family history
with other people so a friend might ask you or
a family member might ask you about family history
and you can kind of gradually piece your way
along the path gradually gathering evidence you're
building up a picture and you can kind of okay
sometimes some records are going to suddenly
give you a bit of shocking information but on
the whole it's a gradual sense of what this person's
life was like what this family was like and you
can tell sometimes some families have more troubled
lives than others don't they just like we do
today and some people have more troubled chapters
or less troubled chapters in their own lives
but with DNA it speeds it up dramatically because
you're not slowly gathering evidence you do your
DNA test you get your match list back and so
suddenly you can get most of us don't most of
us are a bit like non -plus because we have to
work hard to make sense of those matches but
you can get a lot of information very very quickly
and also with DNA, let's say you're encouraging
a friend or family member to take that DNA test.
They may not know what they're, they may say,
oh, I've always wanted to know if I've got German
or whatever. And they may take it for quite a
glib reason, or they might want to be a Viking.
But then they don't realize that their DNA results
have the potentiality to reveal so many other
things. And then it's like one of those unnesting
things. So not only does it have the potential
to reveal things to them about their life that
they may find unexpected or stressful but that
is inevitably going to impact any siblings they
have their parents yeah yeah so you're making
decisions for other people so anyway with dna
people are really good about doing informed consent
so what you should do if you're going to encourage
a friend or family member to take a dna test
whether it's for their own benefit or for your
benefit, your research, DNA research projects,
you should literally say to them, what are you
going to feel about X, Y and Z? And if you Google
DNA test informed consent pro forma or things
like that, you'll be able to download a form,
basically like a template letter. that people
can read through and consider what am I going
to feel like if I find this information and say
if you were doing the research on behalf of someone
else or you're going to be working with someone
you can go do you want to know if you get unexpected
results and then they can decide before they've
got information whether they want you to tell
them stuff. and they can also if they're doing
it themselves they can reflect how am i actually
going to feel about this and they can also ask
their close family members hey i'm thinking of
doing this do you want me to tell you if you
find out things so what you don't want to do
is gang ho take the dna test get the results
back you found some information which is unexpected
you're okay with that but now you're like i forgot
to ask my sister if she wanted to know this and
um And you're like, do I tell her? Did I tell
her? And you're suddenly sitting on a secret
that you didn't want to have. Yeah, you can't
word it like, so I took a DNA test. Do you want
to know if I found anything interesting? Because
instantly, you know you found something interesting.
Danger. Yes. So I think with DNA, I think maybe
it's just me. Maybe it's a bad reflection on
me, but I think that whenever we're working with
anybody, even if the question starts out as a
seemingly simple question, I think that's good
to just tee them up to the possibility, have
the conversation, have the informed consent conversation.
It doesn't have to be really heavy. I think it
needs to be pretty direct and say, I'm really
happy to help you find your auntie's birth record.
But just have a bit of a gentle conversation
going, oh, when you do family history, you can
find unexpected things. Are you anticipating
finding anything unexpected? How are you going
to feel about that? There's a lot to scare people
off, but otherwise you're in that predicament
where you actually know something about their
family and they've asked you for one simple thing
and then you've got a complicated thing that
you know and they don't know and you feel guilty
if you don't tell them, guilty if you do, because
you haven't asked them whether they want to know.
You know, it's due diligence, isn't it? You've
got to do that. You can't just go in and just
say, yeah, I'll do this for you and here it is
and splurge it because it could just really mess
with the lives. I mean, hopefully you'd think
it won't, but there could be really big things
out there. Back to the Q &A pages in the mag,
it doesn't happen very often, but every now and
again the researchers will work on somebody's
question and then the information which comes
back, we're like, this is heavy stuff. You know,
it will just potentially involve very, very young
parents, like even by olden days standards, like
illegally young or very dubiously young parents
or incest, like all the really horrible, stressful
things. And so at that point, then we will get
back to people and say, you know, we found out
some quite tough information. Would you like
us to let you know? And we don't always publish
the answers that we come across in the magazine
because or sometimes we just completely anonymise
or pseudonymise the information just for privacy.
Because you're right, as it goes further, the
generations you go back, the easier it is to
handle. But sometimes you have to go back quite
a lot of generations. You can still be very upset
about your great -grandparents. Yeah. Well, when
it's somebody that's touched somebody that you've
probably known in your living time, that's when
it's like, oh, my God, did they know this? And
how has that shaped their perspective of life?
And then they've sat with this knowledge, maybe
or maybe not. It can shift your dynamics quite
a bit, can't it? Fascinating. Well, this is a
deep conversation, isn't it? But I have to say,
weirdly, none of this puts me off doing family
history. I think... Although it's difficult,
I think it's actually one of the most important
bits to me of family history because life is
complicated. It is. Pretty much most people have
either very close encounters with complicated
stuff in their near relations or in their own
lives. And I think we can all relate to the fact
that sometimes some of our chapters of our lives
are harder than others. So hopefully it means
that some of our ancestors will have had a non
-stop. life of hard chapter after hard chapter
but some of us maybe just have some hard chapters
anyway i think it's it's useful for just knowing
where you've come from about the people who lived
before and also just general human life like
human experience yeah taking some stock yeah
so i think it's important it is heavy but it
is important to me i think yeah no that's good
do you want to hear what i've been up to Oh,
goodness, Nathan, yes. I've given you a word
of the tree, so you can tell us. No, no, no.
Helen's got a sore throat. She'll just talk the
entire time. Unfortunately, I haven't actually
got much to say. So last week I was struggling
with one of my third -time great -grandparents.
Oh, my God. It's just what you were saying before.
It was the whole people with the same name. So
it was Joseph G. Ward and Marianne Blackburn
and then... Her parents, Joseph, and mother,
Mary. And I put the name wrong back then. This
led to a whole spin -off of nonsense and children
being born when they shouldn't be born and all
sorts of weirdness. And so I wanted to untangle
that. Did I do that? No. Instead, I went back
to my second -time's great -grandparents and
I'm trying to fill out all of their death dates.
And from being stuck the other week, I think
I mentioned I just didn't know where to go and
how to find anything. I've managed to find all
but three, so... Fantastic. I know it's not masses
of people, is it what, 16 people? Yeah. So I'm
just three shy of having a full set there, which
is quite exciting. It's really good. And what
sort of records and steps and things did you
take to accomplish that? Oh, I wish you hadn't
asked. The probate one was great. I love the
probate one. It's nice because it's got... Full
proper dates on it. It's got links to family
members. So it just makes it really obvious that
it is the family member you're after. The National
Probate Calendar. Yes. Yeah. It's delicious.
So I use that one a lot. And I'm not quite sure.
It must have been parish records, I'm guessing.
I was getting lots of Find My Grey stuff and
then linked parish records. It's all a blur,
to be honest with you. But they all came up.
It was all very nice. Good. Like the National
Furry Calendar, then that is always delicious,
as you say. It just feels, it's such a win. It's
just a few, like three or four lines, isn't it?
And it's jam -packed. It's just so factual. So
many facts in such a short space of time. And
it's always very nice to type it up so you can't
miss the scroll. And it's like, yeah, that's
him. He lived there. He died on that day. He
was buried then, maybe. they're some of his children
or his wife or whatever so it's just very very
good isn't it it's like it's a good record I
like it a lot but you have to have an ancestor
who um who made a will yes yeah I mean like I
said I'm three shy and I have looked at these
three people so I am a little bit stuck I will
endeavor to like go back to them I've probably
learned a bit more finding the other ones out
to be honest so it's like oh This is what I do,
even though clearly I can't remember off the
top of my head. So just those things to sort
out, which would be lovely. And then I'm going
to go back and sort out my weird problem with
Marianne Blackburn and Marianne Blackburn and
Joseph and Joseph. In my notebook, I've got scribbled
notes from your chat about them. Not helpful
ones. I'm just writing down what Nathan's wrote
with like question marks all over the place.
Probably makes more sense than mine hurts. No,
I didn't think so. So back to the death certificate,
so the death register entries. Have you looked
for them? Because the timeframe you're researching
in, they're going to be well within that, aren't
they? I'm not sure I have. Because I know you
have to spend a few quid to get them, but I just
wonder whether you tried that or whether you
felt like you're getting too many entries and
you weren't sure which one was yours or what.
I haven't tried that. Where do I find them? 3DNB?
Yeah, free BMD and then the other one is the
GRO certificates because you know how you can
get the birth certificate so you can order the
JPEGs and the PDFs. So for the time period you're
in for deaths, you'll be able to do that as well.
Yeah. Am I right in thinking I can only do that
in two -year increments? Yes. Right. So that's
the one I would go to free BMD first and cast
a wider net. Drill it down, get your list of
potential people. Yeah. Okay. That's what I'll
do then. Yeah. Really good. Good progress. It
is good progress. It's a bit boring though. It
isn't boring because it's solidifying everything
and yeah, I'm trying to see if I can sneak up
to that elite score. But I want to get lost in
the mystery now because I found it more exciting
looking at my friend's tree. Because it was like,
these are new, this is fresh, this is different.
And it was like, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
So I found out lots of fun facts quite quickly.
And obviously the further back you get, the harder
it seems on your own tree. I'm not throwing the
towel in though. It sounds like I am. I'm not.
I'm going to get further back. No, you don't
sound like that at all. Talking of tree score,
then we have had some podcast people message
in. and definitely somebody was talking about
their tree score. Okay, so this is Neil and Neil
emailed in and he said that he uses Family Tree
Maker and Ancestry and he was talking about us
talking about adding sources to our Ancestry
trees to improve our tree score. We do do it
so that we do good genealogy, don't we Nathan?
It's not just to improve our tree score. The
tree score is a very nice kind of encouraging
way if you like games, I guess, isn't it? Anyway,
Neil says, unfortunately, he has hundreds of
people on his tree with no sources, which is
bringing his tree score down because he only
added a link and didn't add, like, for instance,
a link to a website such as Freereg and he didn't
add it as an actual source and he's finding this
very annoying. Anyway, what he is doing, he's
now adding his sources. to Family Tree Maker,
and then he's syncing with Ancestry. So he is
getting his sources in across both his desktop
tree on Family Tree Maker and his Ancestry tree,
and his tree score is going up. So that's very
good, isn't it? Fantastic. Yeah. So it's not
just good that his tree score's going up, it's
good that he's adding sources to his Ancestry
tree, because that's helpful for anyone else
who looks at his tree. Yeah. I mean, like you
say, it is almost like gamification, but it's
actually creating good practice for people, isn't
it? And isn't it? Because, you know, we think
we're adults, but actually we respond to that,
the tree score, just like a little kid. Yeah.
Yeah. But like, obviously mine dropped by a point.
It's like, okay, I need to go back and find some
sources. It engaged the research brain. It wasn't
just to get myself back up to the point. Obviously
it was, but... It's helped me solidify a couple
of people on my tree that I hadn't gotten citations
for or I didn't have any documents for. So it's
made me do some good research. Yeah. It's a good
little prompt, isn't it? Definitely. So what
are we going to do through the coming week then?
Because you said you're going to carry on, get
those final three. I want those final three.
So I'll do what you've just suggested, which
is obviously very much common sense. And I don't
know why I didn't think to do that myself. But
yeah, I'll try and do that. I want to find the
missing child. I did mention this last week.
There's a girl called Catherine that's appeared
as a child of one of the jewels. If her mare
is, I don't know which one. And there's just
something a little bit wrong with her birth date
that suggests something could have gone on. So
I need to, well, one, find out if she's actually
really on my tree and two, then clarify who wounds,
where's and why's. So that one actually does
sound like a little bit of a fun research task,
a bit of digging. So I think that'll probably
be enough for me. What about you? Down and out,
left and right? Palming off your work to somebody
else? I'm going to properly go through everything
that Mary's given me so that I'm not just...
So that I feel like... Up to speed with the information
that I've kind of thoroughly got it. I'm going
to add it all to my family tree maker. And then
just like Neil said, I'm going to sync it up
to ancestry. So I've got everything up to date
across both bits. And then because I'm me, it's
not a rabbit hole, but I will be just getting
maps and noting the addresses. Because I feel
like with so many Thomas Jones, any other information
I've got about them, like their occupations,
places they lived. all of their children for
each of them. And that's going to help me identify
them in other records. I need lots of help. Otherwise,
just saying you're looking for Thomas Jones is
like, well, here you go. There's six million
Thomas Jones. Take your pick. Yeah. That's a
fun plan. That is a good plan. Do you know what?
I've just remembered as well. I used a tag last
week. Didn't have to tag Catherine. Oh, yeah.
So I don't have to worry about where she's on
my tree. So I'll just go to my tags and boom,
I'll click on the one that says danger. Yes,
yes. Wow. And then also, if you forget what your
tag's called, you can just go to your tags and
then go into custom tags and it will have your
custom tags there. So let's say the months go
by and you're busy setting yourself all sorts
of other projects and you've forgotten to look
at Catherine. You've perhaps even forgotten that
you've tagged her with the word danger. It doesn't
matter. You can just go into your tags and you'll
probably be going to add a tag to somebody else
about something else entirely different. You
go, what's this danger tag? And then you'll find
your little note yourself. That happens to me.
But it's, although you feel slightly crackers
that you've even forgotten you made such an organised
note to yourself, it's jolly helpful. It is.
I have one question about tags before we go.
How do I find my tags? So you can just go to,
when you're in your tree, let me just fire at
you so I'm not going to be talking off the top
of my head. So you go to somebody's profile and
then there'll be a little pen. Okay, so somebody's
profiles opened up. So it has their name and
their birth and death dates at the top on the
profile. And then there'll be a little pen. And
if you hover over the little pen, the word will
come up, which says edit tags. So you can go
to press that little pen or pencil, whatever
you want to call it, and then edit. The little
sidebar will come up on the right -hand side.
Then press Edit down the bottom, and then all
the tags will appear, all the MyTree tags. So
there'll be a tag switch ancestry you've automatically
set up. So DNA tags, life experience tags, relationship
tags, research status tags. And then at the top
of that is a section called Custom Tags, and
in there you'll find your danger. Okay, cool.
Yeah, I think that's the best way to do it. Nice
one. Thank you. Yeah. While I'm here, though.
Because while I was looking to see if there's
a different way of finding out about the tags.
Then another thing is, so you're on their profile.
Go to the top right -hand corner. And right in
the far corner is the word edit. And then the
button next to that says tools. And then if you
click the word tools, a drop -down menu will
appear. And it will say, quite far down the list,
it will say show research tools. And then just
experiment with ticking and unticking that. Because
if you have it ticked. then it will show lots
of handy options on your little profile bar at
the top. So my colour scheme I've chosen is just
the dark grey one. So I've got show research
tools. So that means I can see immediately when
I'm on somebody's profile, I can go view in tree,
i .e. to view where they are in the tree. I can
view notes about them, view comments, merge with
safety tree, print. Yeah. So it's lots of handy
things I can see at a glance. No. Yeah. Yeah,
that sounds really good. Yeah. Oh, thank you.
So we're going to have a nice time then getting
on with our new bits of research. Yep. Fingers
crossed. You will do. Yeah. I think you're going
to have all of them by next week. That sounds
great. I'd be quite happy with that actually.
That'd be really cool. Yeah. Yeah. Again, well
have fun then. Yep. You too. Good researching
everybody. Yeah. Happy research. Bye bye.