Hello everybody and welcome to Family Tree Talk,
your favourite family history podcast. I'm your
co -host Nathan Ward and with me as always is...
Helen Tuffy. Hi Helen, you alright? I'm very,
very well, yeah. How are you? I'm okay. Busy,
busy, busy as usual. How's your family history
life going? Well, it's been a very... Exciting
time recently, hasn't it? Because if you have
any Irish ancestors, that 1926 census for what
was the Irish Free State, that came out very
recently and it's completely free to use. That
is exciting. I'm not very excited by this because
I don't have any yet. I'm waiting for the 1927
Pudsey census to come out. It's going to be amazing.
Yes, that would be amazing. I'll just tell you
a few really, really enviable details that it
has on it. Go for it. So we all know what kind
of what we expect from a census if we're researching
in the British Isles, kind of, you know, which
kind of name states, job, relationship to head
of household, that sort of thing. But these few
extra funky details that the 1926 Irish census
has. It has, for married women, it has the precise
duration of their present marriage. So it will
say, like, for my great -great -granny, it says
51 years and 7 months. So if you didn't know
their marriage date, you've got their marriage
date. You haven't got the actual day of the month,
but it's pretty close, isn't it? That's good.
Yeah. Yeah. And what other things does it have?
Oh, and then like the 1921 census, it has for
England, Wales and Scotland, it has the details
for the employer. So that's really, really cool
because rather than just knowing they worked
as a manager in a wool mill or whatever, which
is what my two times great grandpa was, I now
know the name of the mill, which I did actually
know the name of the mill. But it confirms that.
It gives you the name of the mill that he actually
worked for. And we had a really cool talk by
this Irish genealogist called Frances Daly. And
she was saying, watch out when you're researching
in the 1926 census because lots of the key place
names may have changed. So these might be street
names, factory names, institution names. And
the reason they change is because if they were
names which had been put onto Ireland by the
kind of... Anglo -Irish or English overlords,
then obviously when Ireland separated from the
rest of the British Isles, politically established
itself as a new state, then obviously it wanted
to get rid of these names. So it's worth knowing
about these name changes because if you're searching
for one thing and it's changed. Right, okay.
And a pickle. So it's all interesting. That's
really cool. I might have to look into Irish
censuses. Like, do you remember ages ago I had...
I can't remember which guy it was now, but he
joined the Navy, went off to war. Well, he didn't
go off to war. He went to Jamaica and he was
all around places, but he got married in Ireland.
I don't know if you remember. I do remember this
now, yeah. But I don't think I ever looked at
any of the Irish censuses. I didn't even think
about that. So I might have to find out what
his date ranges were and dip in. I don't think
it was 1926, though, but it was much earlier
than that. But still, you can see if he appears
on those. So the Irish censuses, it's a... It's
a game of extremes. So you have the 1926 and
the 1911 and the 1901, and they are free to search
online. They're free to look at the beautiful
digitized old documents. I mean, how good is
that? Anyone can just, you can go and feast on
them without spending a penny. But then prior
to 1901, many of the censuses, most of the censuses
have got destroyed for one reason or another.
So when you get into the 1800s. You don't have
that luxury of census for most people. There's
a few little surviving snippets here and there
just to make everyone else feel extra bleak that
it wasn't for their area, but yeah. Okay. I feel
mine was 1800, so I'm probably going to be scuppered
straight away. You might be. Whatever. Yeah.
But so that's been really fun for me. How about
you? It's gone all right, I guess. I've been
keeping up with my genealogy journal and I've
done that. So I'm quite happy about that. I'm
making slow progress. It's still the same old
rubbish and I'm sick of it now. But it was finding
the final three death dates, second time's great
grandparents. And then I don't remember the last
time I mentioned about having one of my one.
I couldn't find one of them. But I found him
to his son, Clifford. And then that opened up
a whole can of worms for a new marriage, etc.
So I made my mission this last week to finish
off these three final two times great grandparents
because I'm so, so bored of saying it out loud.
And then I also needed to find out about Clifford
because he died young. Largely, I just got my
rear -ending gear and did the death dates for
the second time great grandparents by... Using
common sense and, like, searching the GRO, cross
-referencing with free BMD and just matching
everything up. And it all came quite easily.
I don't know why I was dragging my heels on it.
I think I just probably didn't really want to
do it. So I've sorted everybody out there. Congratulations.
Yeah, thanks. I don't feel fulfilled by it. I
found it actually a little bit depressing. I
don't know if I'm just overly emotional at the
moment, but looking for death dates was a bit
miserable. particularly so with the son Clifford
because he died at 18 and I ended up ordering
his death certificate and it said he it's on
the death register thing it said that he died
of heart failure due to an old emphysema of the
lungs or something like that I've got no clue
really what that means um I mentioned this to
my mum and she said he died in a motorcycle accident
so I don't would that have been logged on the
death certificate if it was heart failure or
Well, I mean, I do know death certificates are
very precise, aren't they? So you could have
been in a motorcycle accident and then you could
have sustained long term health conditions. But
what's actually going to get put down on the
death certificate tends to be the final thing
that takes you off. Right. OK, so. Right. I guess
you could look for the newspaper, because if
he's back in the early 1900s and he's involved
in a motorcycle accident, then I would assume
that'd be quite newspaper worthy. Yeah, it was
1926 he died. Maybe I'll look for that. But yeah,
it just, it says an old standing emphysema of
the lungs. Accelerated by, I can't read the last
words. It looks like escalation or something,
whatever. Exertion. Oh, Nathan can read. Which
to me doesn't sound like a motorcycle accident,
but then maybe it's one of these long, long held
family myths that's not actually real. But yeah,
that was quite sad, dying at 18. Very sad. Both
of his parents died two years prior to that as
well. So it was just really like a sad search
all around. Like, oh, they died in the same year,
his parents. And then he died two years later
at 18. So he obviously lost his parents quite
young. It was just all really dark and sad. And
if I'm honest, apart from that bit, I found it
a little bit boring. I want adventure. I don't
want to be just looking for facts. This is where
I'm stuck now because after I'd found all these.
I was like, what do I do next? I literally was
like, I don't know which way to go. I could go
to the third time's great grandparents and find
their death dates. But like I said, it's making
me feel a bit miserable. So I kind of don't want
to do that. So do I just go for a deep dive and
try and get further back deep dive? I'm not made
of AI. Do I try and go further back? Maybe I
should. What do you think? Well, I think there
are a few things you can do. in your scruffy
notes you might have so you just to recap Nathan's
been doing his family history for very roughly
about 18 months not quite 18 months yet is it
but maybe like 16 months I don't know we know
exactly December 2024 so that sort of time frame
and he's done amazingly he's just established
he's just announced today he's researched all
of the bookend dates for his all of his Two times
great grandparents. So even managing to get all
of your two times great grandparents, that's
a good shout out. It's not something that is
inevitable. And even lots of experienced researchers
can find they have a brick wall because if something
unusual has happened in your family tree or the
records don't survive or for any number of reasons,
then it can be hard to trace them. So you're
doing really well in your tree building. You've
got quite a number of your three times great
grandparents. And over the months, you've been
really thorough how you've built your tree. So
you haven't been exhaustive about finding absolutely
every sibling. You haven't done it as kind of
mission that I'm going to find every sibling.
But you have been noting the siblings as you've
gone along, haven't you? So you've probably done
quite a good haul on these direct line siblings.
Yeah, definitely. I feel like when I go back
to people to find extra details, I am finding
more and more siblings are creeping out of the
woodwork. So I've not been like, like you say,
meticulous. I've not. necessarily gone through
every census for every single person i got the
car details for a lot of them and then just carried
on but others obviously we've i've got sort of
a little bit obsessed by and then found loads
of siblings so yeah a bit hit and miss with their
siblings so because you have found the death
the hall for the death dates um a little bit
depressing quite understandably and because both
of us are a little bit whimsical just by our
turn of frame of mind or whatever you call it
we like those stories and things and i do know
that over the months you have mentioned quite
a lot of intriguing things and you are also an
extremely lucky person that you live in the same
area that a lot of your victorian and 20th century
ancestors lived so you're on kind of home hunting
ground for finding out information and spring
is in the air. So I think you could have a lot
of fun by either just going through your tree
to make a note of these things or going through
any scruffy notes that you might have made. In
the future, you'll be able to look through your
genealogy journal and think of people that you
found who you thought were interesting, even
if they're not on your direct line. So remember
you had a bridge painter and you were intrigued
about which bridges and... What was his daily
life like? You had somebody who I think who might
have worked in aircraft in some way. You have
your famous tank man. So you've got quite a lot
of interesting occupations there. And it's one
thing just knowing the name of what their occupation
was at one point in their life. There's a few
different things you can do. You can look at
the occupations they had through their life because
it might have changed or it might not have changed.
That's just interesting in and of itself. dig
deeper into what that occupation was like. And
I never feel this is a waste of time. It's fascinating.
You'll be shocked and appalled by the lack of
health and safety, by the amount of creativity.
You might have an occupation which involves them
moving around a lot. So although they keep being
based in your local area, you might find they're
moving like if they worked on a railway, they
might work along that railway line or whatever.
So digging into their occupation. So this will
involve you doing some local history. I think
that could be really fun and learning about the
places of employment in your local area and thinking,
what were all these people, what was their working
life like? Because that soaks up most of our
life on planet Earth is going to work. So it's
a pretty important part of Happy Cheese. So that's
one thing I would definitely do. Yeah, well,
interestingly, Joseph... George Ward, who was
one of the last second -time great -grandparents
for the death date, he was the guy that was the
bridge painter. And I found in doing this research,
I found that he was a bridge painter for the
Great Northern Railway. Wow, wonderful. So he's
been doing that, and Clifford, who obviously
sadly died at 18, he also worked for the Great
Northern Railway as well. So I was quite intrigued
when that sort of stuff started coming up. So
there is a little bit of... interest there like
whereabouts did they work and what lines and
stuff and even just so from our perspective somebody
who's 18 it's a couple of years ago it changed
um in england and wales at least so that you
had to stay on in um education until you were
18 so from our perspective 18 is a very very
young adult they're only just fledging into the
world of work whereas when you go back to the
1920s early 1900s lots of people are leaving
schools you know before A modern -day teenager
would have done their GCSEs. It would just be
the norm. And so by the time they've got to 18,
they can easily have racked up three, four, five
years of work, and that would just be normal.
Okay, cool. Something to look at there, isn't
there? Yeah, yeah. I might try and look in that
accident logbook as well again and see if I get
any hits on that. Yes. So what Nathan's talking
about is the Railway Work, Life and Death Project,
isn't it, by Dr Mike Esbesta? And he came, we
interviewed him, didn't we, months ago, maybe
even a year ago, a long time ago. But I think
you should look in that, yes. Yep. yeah good
chance there i think for uh for clifford and
just so people aren't frustrated so the best
way to find the railway work life and death project
is just to google railway work life and death
project and when you go on the website there's
a page which has a screed of text and you keep
scrolling down and then you can download the
data in excel file format if excel file for leaves
you cold or you haven't got excel i'm pretty
sure you'll be able to open up in google docs
which so it means that's a free way of being
able to open up those files yeah and then the
other thing for the 1926 census link the best
thing for people to do would be to google 1926
irish census if you want to go on that and you
do not need to pay so if anyone's trying to make
you pay for anything do not pay because you don't
need to it's data which was released from the
national archives of ireland and it's completely
free Right, so you don't need to just go into
Ancestry to look for it? No, not at all. No,
no, no. The only place is on the National Archives
of Ireland, a special dedicated 1926 space they've
set up. So it won't appear on Ancestry straight
away then? No, and I don't know that it ever
will particularly either. Maybe they will do,
maybe they'll have transcripts. And a bit how
they do for Scotland. So you'll be able to get
a few typed up details. But to get the actual
census image, you need to go to Scotland's people.
So potentially this could happen for the 1926
census for Ireland. Or maybe they'll keep them.
It depends on what the licensing happens. Intriguing.
So shall I read out the census URL just so if
anyone... Get your pencils ready. So it's https://nationalarchives
.ie. forward slash collections, forward slash
search, hyphen the, hyphen 1926, hyphen census,
or just Google it. It's probably easier because
it's not particularly short. Lovely. I'm sure
everybody will find it from that. They will find
it, yes. So how's your research going? well quite
aside from the 1926 so the 1926 was so funny
and we got released on the 18th of april and
i woke up at five o 'clock on the saturday morning
some people would have been night owls and stayed
up ready for the site to go live that wasn't
me i'm not a light owl anyone too old and decrepit
But I can do the early bird thing. And I just
woke up at five o 'clock in the morning and straight
away my eyes pinged open. I was like, grab my
iPad and went searching for my two times great
grandparents, my great granny and my grandpa,
all of whom I was hoping I was going to find
in Ireland. And I did. From all together living
in the same house. My two times great grandpa
is 71 and a half years old and they were living
in a five roomed house. I haven't actually dug
into it, what those five rooms entail, but normally
they wouldn't include things like if they had
a bathroom, it wouldn't include a bathroom, wouldn't
include a kitchen or office space. So there'd
be five rooms is OK, isn't it? It's like a living,
it's like a normal three bed semi, isn't it?
Got three bedrooms and then a living room and
a... front room or kitchen or you know however
you how people spread out their space so and
his job and he's done this job for decades is
he's the manager of the mill so it's it's called
variably O 'Brien's Mill in Douglas Cork or uh
later St Patrick's Mill and I was like well of
course he's he's retired at this stage because
he's 70 and a half and then I I've just I've
had a week of making leaping to conclusions and
then going, oh, why don't you go and read the
records again and see what it actually says?
And this has been the theme of the week. I think
I've been trying to hurtle around. So I went
back to the records. Even though he's 70 and
a half, so he is eligible for the state pension
by then, which is 70, he's still working, yeah?
And he dies the following year, so he never gets
to retire. Oh, wow. Well, again, another leap
of faith. He might have retired in the final
year of his life. I need to find that out. So
I found him. Him and my two times great granny,
they are a couple who always confuse me because
they're born in the 1850s and they have children
together for so long. They're kind of the...
My two -time great -granny is a late teenager.
I think she's about 19 when she has her first
baby. And by the 1890s, she's still having children.
And I always think, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Have I got two generations here? What's happening?
What's happening? And they just have children
for such a long time. She spends her entire adult
life having children. Wow. Yeah. So by the time
you get to the 1926, then they are married. They've
been married for 51 years and four months, which
is really cool, isn't it? It's good, isn't it?
Yeah. Very good. And then the plot thickens because
the whole reason why our family got into family
history was because my dad found his grandpa's
death notice in the newspapers in the 1960s.
And this is my great grandpa. So my great grandpa
was supposed to have died of war wounds after
the First World War. He didn't know. He went
AWOL, died in the 1960s. And it was a very tumultuous
time after the First World War. Lots of people
were on the move, traumatised. There's statistical
rises in bigamy. There's, you know, it's a complicated...
sad society in lots of respects and he's one
of those figures yeah he's a he's a case study
of part of a broader picture anyway so I'd always
been intrigued what it was going to say about
my great granny and my grandpa on the 1926 census
because when the 1921 census came out for England
and Wales I found my great grandpa and he's living
at home with his mum and his sister and it says
he has one child and there's no sign of the wife,
and there's no sign of the child. I was like,
I have to be patient. I have to wait four or
five years. When the 1926 census comes out, I'll
see what it says. So here they are on the 1926
census, and she is there, my great -granny's
there, with my grandpa, who's a little five -year
-old. And the duration of the present marriage
for my great -granny says seven years and however
many months. And so that record is recording
that she is still married. Her dad filled in
the form. Her dad still perceives that she's
still married and it's still a present live marriage,
even though they've been split up for many years
at this stage. They've been split up for at least
five years. And the family legend about, or the
family understanding or story, I don't know what
to call it, that we were all brought up with,
that this great grandpa had died. of war wounds
shortly after the first world war so enough time
for my grandpa to get conceived then my great
grandpa dies but clearly in 1926 when my great
granny's dad fills in the census form he's like
they're married and there's no that that kind
of urban myth that family myth about him having
died of war wounds is not part of the paper trail
so at some point i'm like so who and then it
asked me to reflect i'm like so who where did
this story come about because I think this is
my theme of making assumptions. So our family
was, my dad got told this story by his dad. And
his dad said, his dad died of war wounds after
the First World War. And the assumption is that
he got told this by his mother. But now I'm wondering,
maybe it was my grandpa who made up the story.
And we've cast this, we've kind of pointed the
finger at my great granny and said, why did you
lie? And maybe she never did. Maybe she... It
just shows the family history. I think we have
to be kind and we have to, this is a lesson to
me, I'm such an assumption maker. I love tying
up the loose ends, adding two and two, making
five, weaving my stories. Sometimes you have
to accept you don't know, don't judge, don't
make assumptions. But I do find it intriguing,
this paper trail record is very factual and no
hint of the family myth at that point. Because
the paper trail records can hold those family
myths, but this time it doesn't. Yeah, that's
really intriguing, isn't it? It's like, what
time did they decide to have the quote -unquote
myth? Yeah. Yeah. And who started it? And also,
when you get handed the myth, if you don't know
it's a myth, you can become the unwitting bearer
of it. You're the myth bearer, but you don't
know it. And so you just perpetuate it. Oh, man.
Anyway, that was interesting. What other interesting
things have I had? Oh, do you want more assumptions?
Why the hell not? Yeah, let's go for it. So I've
been looking. So this two times great grandpa,
who was the manager in the woolen mill down in
Cork, his brother is the one who got caught stealing
a ton of coal in 1896. Yeah. And so scooted forward
to the 1901 census. I'd found him with his wife,
scooted further forward, found him with his little
three year old daughter or found his little three
year old daughter emigrating to America to see
her mother. So I was trying to find out about
my two times great grandma. Pa's brother, which
I've also referred to as my great granny's uncle.
Same guy, obviously. And I was trying to find
out about him. And so then I went back to the
1901 census. Oh, I know. So the two other things
I found out about him, I found he got arrested
for drunkenness and he, with his penknife, stabbed
somebody. So he got arrested by the policeman.
And I wasn't quite sure from the newspaper account
whether he'd stabbed the policeman or whether
he had stabbed a passerby, whether the passerby
was a witness of the police man being stabbed
or whether the passerby got embroiled in the
stabbing so that's that's so many questions like
did he go to jail what was the trial like i need
to find out all these things and then i was trying
to find out more about this instance of the drunkenness
and the accidental well i like to call it accidental
stabbing there we go again with assumptions i
like to think it was an accident moment of madness
anyway poor guy so i found him a newspaper account
in August 1901, and he's selling all of his property.
And it's a really lovely account. Like he clearly
had a nice family home full of nice things, nice
furniture, not like posh or anything, but just
a lovely home full of good garden tools, solid,
reliable furniture, a nice, comfortable home,
which is not easy to come by at any time in history
and definitely not guaranteed, you know, in the
early 1900s. This is a tragic story, so we timeline
it. 1894, one of his sons dies at the end of
July. August 1894, his wife dies on a newspaper
clipping. He's like, my dearly beloved wife,
Mary Jane, dies. 1896, he gets caught for stealing
a ton of coal. 1897, I find he actually marries
a different woman, who's the woman on the 1901
census called Alicia. And then, so 1901 census,
he's on the census with Alicia, who is the same
age as his Older children. That's complicated,
but I guess that's just what happens. And then
August 1901. So just a few months after that
census, he's selling all of his property. I'm
like, what's happened? What's happened? Like,
is he going to emigrate? Has he lost his job?
I don't know. Yeah. What's happened? And then
November 1901. So just a few months after that,
he marries for the third time to his Marianne.
And he has a little baby the following August.
So he wasn't married. It wasn't a shotgun marriage.
She wasn't pregnant at the time she got married.
So they got married August 1902. Little baby
Mary Jane, which I felt as a hunch would be married,
named after his first wife. And because of the
newspaper, because he's my dearly beloved wife,
I think the little baby was named after his first
wife. She gets born. Three years later, the baby's
going off to America. So I'm like, this guy is
going. And at some point, I've forgotten what
date, he's done his accidental stabbing and arrest
for drunkenness. Oh, my life. It's just tragic
and fascinating. That's a lot of information.
And this is the guy that becomes a confectioner?
No, he's definitely not a confectioner. I've
looked into that as well. He's not a confectioner.
I had thought he might be. Of course, it's not
going to work out for him. I'll stab you or I'll
give you some sweets. Yes. The reason I found
out that he's not a confectioner, I tried digging
into that. And I felt like you in the lead's
getting colder and colder. And you're like, no,
this is just wrong. It's not stacking up. But
then I'd done a few leaps of faith and a few
assumptions, because as I say, this is the theme
of the week. And I'd accidentally added a few
people to my tree. And then, you know, when you
go and research some further to shore up your
findings, and then you're like, this is actually
mumbo jumbo. So I was quickly deleting the people
off my tree. deleting the records and then to
be fair to me this doesn't happen that often
i'm just telling anyone else so what happens
is and it's a very important notice when you
have to delete the the it's kind of like a walk
of shame back through your family history it's
all i've had to do this week when you delete
a record of your family to your ancestry it goes
watch out in it says it in official wording watch
out any associated facts to do with this record
won't be deleted So let's say you've added a
census and it's added in, I don't know, an address
or occupation or whatever. If it's added in any
other facts down that fact line, delete the record.
But you also need to go down your fact line and
manually delete any associated facts. So, for
instance, with my Betty, I'd wrongly assumed
that there was a woman called Christina being
her aunt. And Christina wasn't. It turns out,
scooting back, Christina was her mum. And it
turns out that's why the confectioner isn't the
relation. It does all make sense at the time.
Wow, it's a lot of stuff in one little strand,
that, isn't it? It is a lot of stuff. I love
it. Yeah, I was shocked at myself how wrong I
could go so quickly, but I think it does show
the value of the more information you can get
about a person, the better chance you have of
getting an accurate picture. So you could...
be in the danger of getting a lot of information
about somebody. And that information could be
accurate to that person. But still, that person
doesn't actually belong in your tree. It's just
a namesake. But the more information you get
about one person, the more information you get
about the other people, so their siblings, their
spouses, all of that, then the more errors in
your research get thrown up, don't they? They
kind of come to light. Yeah. Yeah, that's terrifying.
It's making me a little bit sweaty. Well, don't,
it's just my rubbish research. So your research
is fine. You wouldn't have added them to the
tree in that slightly giddy way that I did. It's
just, again, I'm going back to my Joseph George
with his remarry. He got remarried and I found
out loads about this wife that he remarried.
And then I started chronicling her like generations
back because it all came together really easily.
And I'm now like, oh my God, is that real? It
probably was. But it is far too easy, isn't it?
It's terrifying. We have to accept the fact,
if you're somebody like me, and probably all
of us, that we can make mistakes. It's so easy,
isn't it? It's the belief that it gives you,
because you do get the things that cross over.
You're like, well, that name can't surely be
there as well and not be the same person. It
can't be. That's why I like a good middle name,
a good randomly weird middle name. Or a birth
at some really obscure location that you can
just follow. Very comfortable, doesn't it? I
can remember. Do you know what? We've had some
really cool podcast emails. So shall we read
them out? Oh, please do. Yeah. So we've had somebody
who just mentioned it as an aside. So they were
emailing in about something else because somebody
actually called Diane and she's studying on Sophie
K's. research skills course at the moment and
she says there's a kind of almost like a little
PS I'm really enjoying your podcast with Nathan
too she's only discovered it recently she's working
her way through the episodes and picking up lots
of tips so Diane I hope you're enjoying listening
that's that's very cool and then um James has
written in and he has written a long email which
I can read out would you like me to read it out
you can do yes it's up to you okay I'm going
to read it out I'm going to read it all out so
that I don't do a muddling kind of pricey so
james writes hi helen and nathan i hope you're
both well i really enjoy listening to your podcast
family tree talk and i love finding out little
segments of information that may help you with
my tree building so we really hope it is helpful
to people our aim is although it's waffle is
that it does provide useful tips and kind of
points for reflection he has been i have been
i've been researching my family history since
2013 on ancestry and has a tree score of 9 .9.
Nice one. Well done. It's the best tree scar.
I've recently purchased the ProTips, or that's
the Pro Tools, and found out I only have 25 errors,
all of which are for people with no sources.
They do tend to be the people at the top or bottom
of the tree where the records are harder to find
or not available, or they're people who've been
born outside of the UK and haven't been able
to view the records. That's understandable, isn't
it? Mm -hmm. One issue which did arise on my
tree was Ancestry thought I had a duplicate for
some ancestors who are called Joseph and Josephine
who were born on the same day. However, looking
at the records, they were shown on the same census
multiple times, so I assumed they were twins
and ignored the Ancestry error. That's just what
you had as well, didn't you, with your Mary and
Maria the other week? Yeah, exactly that. I mean,
they weren't born on the same day, but it was,
yeah, they were on the census quite a few times
together, so I established it wasn't a duplicate,
despite them wanting it to be. I mean, that's
just stopping in the midst of reading James's
email. We always need some way of marking that
to our self, that they're definitely not a duplicate,
don't we? Because one of my mistakes I made this
week was I realised I had two Agnes Lintons as
two siblings on one bit of my tree. And I was
like, duplicate, idiot. So I merged them. And
then I looked at my research more carefully on
Family Tree Maker. I was like, they weren't duplicates,
idiot. They were two sisters. And obviously the
first sister died. And then eight years later,
the other one. So then I had to re -establish
that on my tree. We have to think about that
in a minute once I finish reading James, how
we can mark that up on our tree, couldn't we?
Yep. So James continues. I'm currently in the
same boat as Helen, finding out all about my
down and outs. I realise that this does help
with your research and even knocks down to potential
research walls. And here are a couple of examples
on my tree. My two -times great -grandfather
is still proving to be difficult to research
in his early years and finding his marriage in
1882 to my two -times great -grandmother proved
tricky. He was originally from Essex and my two
-times great -grandmother was from Derbyshire
but the wedding certificate which seemed most
relevant was for Beverley in Yorkshire. It was
only by doing my down and outs I found my two
times great grandmother's sibling had given birth
to a child in South Cave, just outside of Beverley,
a month before they were married. Their father
was also a train driver who had moved around
the country for work, which should explain why
they were in this area at the time. So that's
what we're saying as well about the value of
researching. The more people you research, it
does help. It's just jolly useful. Isn't it?
It's making me feel guilty. Yes. And then James
talks about a photo which has been added to multiple
people. So James is three times great grandfather,
George Carpenter. And a photo has been added
all over Ancestry and kind of proliferated in
the wrong places. And James has put it correctly
on his tree, but he feels a bit wide that everyone's
going to think he's the person who's got it wrong
because he's standing out like a sore thumb.
It's tough, isn't it? I think he has to keep
confident. Definitely. That's the hard part,
isn't it? Having that self -belief and knowing
that you're right and other people are wrong
without being arrogant about it. Yeah, that's
a funny one. Because I had that, didn't I, with
the guy with the glue mill. Some bit down as
a great, great grandparent, but it was actually
the generation prior to that. So, scary stuff.
So what... Two things there. So when you do come
across a circumstance like that, what do you
do, Nathan? For the duplicates? Or what do you
mean for the... Well, let's do both, yeah. So
what do you do when you find a piece of information
which is wrong on someone else's tree? Do you
keep a record somewhere of why you think what
you think so that you have your confidence knocked
in the future? Not particularly. I think... It
sounds a bit, I don't know, poncy or arrogant,
but because I'm so, what's the word, edgy about
putting things on my tree without them being
right, if I'm worried about it, I won't put it
on my tree at all. Whereas if I'm confident,
I do. So that's almost enough. If there's a grey
area, then it's marked down in my research log,
allegedly. That's obviously gone to pot in the
last few months. It is a tough one. But I've
had example, well, I've had that massive example,
haven't I, where there's a guy called Edward
who went off to war and died and I've seen him
in other people's trees and he's married and
has children and it never happened. But I know
that because I've got the documents that were
sent from the king at the time saying Tahir has
died, et cetera. I guess I should, it's probably
my duty to scan those documents and put them
on his file and then other people can see. And
then they can make up their own minds. Like,
why would he have these war documents if they're
not true? I haven't been in touch with anybody
to say, oh, actually, I've got this and he's
died, which obviously would be a nice thing to
do. But I think that's my best example I've got
of that. I mean, I'd say that's a really good
thing, how methodical you are, that you can have
that confidence that your tree does represent.
I don't mean that in an arrogant way. I'm perfectly
aware I can make loads and loads of mistakes.
I won't put anything down on my tree unless it's
all adding up if I'm even in slight bit of doubt
I'll just step away from it and do you remember
we've talked in the past about the genealogical
proof standard and it has kind of it's a five
-step plan but part of that is that you you kind
of write a summary of why you conclude what you
conclude so I have two different ways I do my
family history. So when it's all flowing along,
I have to admit I'm very bad at keeping notes.
It all seems to be checking out. I don't write
notes of why I think what I think. It's only
when I am feeling that there's a kind of point
of contention that I might write why it's a point
of contention. So, for instance, if I'm working
on my tree on ancestry, I'd write it in the notes
there and say, considering this and considering
that. So that could be another thing. Maybe we
should be more like publicise, all of us publicise
these. So you, just what you've said, you said
you need to include these images for the Edward
who died in the First World War, include the
images, and then on his profile on Ancestry,
you can include a little summary to go, do these
papers in my family collection, providing evidence
that he died, stating the obvious. Yeah. Are
notes visible to everybody then? No, notes are
just visible to you, but I'm pretty sure, and
I haven't done this for ages, like years ago
I was like, right, I'm going to do this for everybody,
and of course I didn't. Yeah, the life story
bit. So on the life story, so you go to somebody's
profile on Ancestry and the main space, or at
least the main space that I spend most of my
time in is on the facts tab. So you've got the
big grey bar or the big chunky bar at the top
on the profile. And just below that, there's
the little white bar which says facts, hint,
gallery, life story, explore. So most of us probably
spend most of the time on the facts space where
we have the timeline, the sources and the relationships.
If you click life story, then it will have a
summary based on documentary evidence that we've
added so far. So there's little drag out stuff
to give a nice little life story timeline. But
we can also add so we can create our own extra
things on there. Yeah. Okay. Or it could be that
you add those images of the letters from the
First World War that you have. You could add
those as a source and then you could add a fact
and you could tie them up together in your fact
space on Ancestry and then it would feed through
to the life story anyway. In the edit bit at
the top, so the very first entry, you can do
a little bit of a summary. Yeah, I think for
me, I'm slowly but surely getting better with
my use of Ancestry. it's like it's taken me a
year to get into like using tags hasn't it I've
only just started on that but for me personally
I feel like as I get more into it and a bit more
involved and used to it all I am going to probably
have more information stored on Ancestry than
I am going to have on paper or in my research
log because it just feels for me a natural place
to come And it is slowly but surely coming, but
it's equally all over the place at the same time,
as positive as I with family history, I guess.
I think we are. And also, if you scroll back
for any of the family history websites over the
last 10, 20 years, they've all evolved massively.
So half of these tools just weren't here to start
with. Lots of us might be creating family history
in lots of different spaces. You might have ring
binders. You might have a desktop computer. We
might have... An online tree at Ancestry, you
might have an online tree at Find My Past or
My Heritage, Happy Search. Over at the Genealogist
Tree View, WikiTree, there's so many places where
you can create a tree. Yeah, I think I do. I
am actually fancying doing this, like adding
those documents. And in general, I've mentioned
it before, I've got a few photographs. I do like
the idea of adding them, not necessarily for
my own tree development, but I'm quite intrigued
to see. how those images then branch off and
connect to other people to see if anyone else
adopts them because like there is um there's
a gravestone for my granddad and view of our
other family members and it was a gravestone
that my mum and dad got made and put up and that's
an ancestry this gravestone i've not put it there
but i've seen it on lots of other people's trees
and it's like oh my mum and dad paid for that
and it's interesting to see how it ripples and
filters through to other people's trees so As
a little science experiment, I'm quite intrigued
to see if I can put some old pictures on and
just see where they lead. And again, I don't
like to take other people's trees as gospel.
But if it suddenly starts linking to other people's
trees, you get a little bit of a hint that you
are on the right path or if you've got matching
information or totally different information.
And with that gravestone even, you could take
a brand new photo and upload that as well so
that you feel like you have ownership of the
image. It's the direct descendant. Because there's
other people who, unless they're your cousins,
then they're going to be more distantly related,
aren't they, to the grandpa whose gravestone
it is. So there are probably people like me who
are doing down and out trees and he's their two
times great granny's grandson or something. Yeah,
definitely. I've not found anybody else who's
doing the direct line that I'm doing. So, yeah,
but equally, just in general now, I'm thinking
for my homework, I'm saying I'm getting bored
of all these dates and things, but maybe it'll
just be good to like go to one set of my third
time great grandparents and just really dive
into all their records and flesh them out. That's
when the stories will come anyway. And I'll probably
accidentally discover my fourth time great grandparents
doing that. Quite a few of them. Lots to consider.
There is a lot to consider, isn't there? There
is. In the olden days, kind of the golden standard
would be is if you could collect all of your
four times great grandparents, you can have 64
of them. Right. You could do that. It's pretty
cool if you can get all of them. I don't have
all of mine. I kind of, I got quite far and then
I just stopped. Not for any reason, just you
and me kind of get on with something else. Yeah.
I've got eight on one side and I can't, it's
going to take me eight hours to expand my tree
on the other side to find. What do you have got?
I mean, that's obviously something to work towards,
isn't it? And interestingly, so with your three
times great grandparents, what time period are
we in? We are in... When are their birth dates
likely to be? 1824, 18... Oh, this is a really
cool project for you. What, getting my fourth?
Who are we talking about? Who's getting born
in the 1820s? Third times. Third times. Excellent.
Because... If you concentrated, you know, you
said you're a bit nervous of the drop -off point
before the 1841 census, or even you're a bit
nervous of the 1841 census. Very much so, yes.
So you're a bit nervous of the 1841 census. And
then when you go back before, because you're
so Yorkshire -based, you are talking about the
1837 English and Welsh civil registration records.
Before 1837, you're going to have to use parish
registers. And you've used them a bit already,
haven't you, to help save a bit of money and
get quick results? But before 1837, you do not
have the option of birth, marriage and death
certificates for them. You're going to have to
be looking at parish registers. So it will be
like a massive, immersive little self -directed
course on parish registers. It sounds terrifying.
What was that 1837 civic register thing? So on
the 1st of July. Then across England and Wales,
that was when the civil registration of birth,
marriage and deaths came in. So what had happened,
so if you scroll back to the 1530s, then Thomas
Cromwell had said, right, we need to have better
records of baptisms, marriages and burials. And
that's quite an amazing thing. When you go through
history, the normal thing is that you're at school
and you learn about kings and queens and generals
and admirals and things like that, don't you?
Bishops, like very prestigious people. That's
traditionally how history was taught. If you
go back all those centuries, back to the early
1500s, Thomas Cromwell is saying, we need everybody
recorded. It doesn't matter how rich or poor
they were, what walk of life they're in. anything
everybody needs to be recorded so that's phenomenal
and they're not comprehensive and obviously some
records have got lost over time and all sorts
of things because they were literally kept in
a in a chest in a wooden chest in the church
so you can imagine all sorts can go on and then
they devised these really cool systems whereby
there were two and I think maybe even three locks
on this wooden chest so you'd have not just one
person with a key who could go in and tamper
with the records because the records are vital
for establishing two things. They're vital for
establishing who are the legitimate children
of people because if they've got property to
leave, then the legitimate children are going
to be the people who are going to inherit and
the illegitimate children won't. So you don't
want these records tampered with in case any
falsifications get in there and the wrong children
would inherit the property. Obviously there's
wills, but it's a massive, verifying point having
the parish registers there the other thing was
when you get into i think it's the 1600s with
the act of settlement so this is all like in
a big historical picture so The time when Thomas
Cromwell makes it up, you have had the monasteries
for centuries providing welfare to people who
fall on hard times and basically kind of like
a local hospital as well. Then the monasteries
get destroyed also by Thomas Cromwell. Then you're
scrolling forward to the 1600s and the Act of
Settlement comes in. And I'm pretty sure it's
the 1662. Don't quote me on that. I'll add a
correction in next time. And so what happens
here is. If you fall on hard times, then you
will get removed to your parish of settlement.
So that's the parish where you were born. Yeah,
effectively. There's a few little variations.
Because what they don't want is, let's say you've
moved down the road 10 miles to a different place.
You lose your job. You need to go cap in hand
to... the local parish authorities and say, I
need some bread. And they don't want you to be
a charge to those ratepayers because the taxation
system, in this respect, and who's giving out
poor relief is very locally based. So everyone
in that local parish will go, we don't want to
pay for him because he doesn't come from around
here. We can't afford that. This is our hard
-earned money we've earned and we're not paying
for him. We're only going to pay for our own
people who were born here. So you would get accompanied
by the parish constable to the edge of the...
border of the parish and then the next parish
constable for the next parish would take you
on and accompany you back gradually getting you
back to the parish where you were born and then
when you get to that parish you can go i'm really
hungry and i need some bread i know so that's
why those records started anyways skip back to
your original question so this would have gone
on for centuries but by the early 1800s there's
obviously been lots of industrialization lots
of people have been on the move the records haven't
been kept particularly well and so it was decided
that the state would take over the registration,
the formal registration of the population's births,
marriages and deaths. So the 1st of July, the
Civil Registration Act came into effect across
England and Wales. In Scotland, it's the 1st
of January, 1855. And then in Ireland, as normal,
apologies if that sounds rude, in Ireland it's
a little bit more complicated because I think
it's Protestant marriages. started being recorded
by the state from 1845. And then all of the rest
of the records, so all of the Catholics and all
of the Protestants' births and the Protestants'
deaths, that's 1864. So you have to remember
all these different start dates. Wow. Off dates.
Anyway, scooting back to you, why I'm excited
for you is because you will be able to look at
these parish registers. And I think you're going
to, this will be interesting in lots of respects
because you feel as though your family has been
very, very locally based. And this is going to
throw up. a cool picture of precisely how locally
based or not your family is yeah I do like without
looking and just guessing I do feel like the
generation that I've got back to they're the
people that moved to Yorkshire and stayed there
I don't know what problems that's going to kick
up for me for the generation back but I feel
like that is the overall arching thing that I
keep seeing like people come from Scotland from
Lancashire, from wherever. So we will see. So
you're going to find this interesting in so many
respects. So let's say you just found somebody
in your local parish register. So back in the
day, before everyone had digitised records, you
wouldn't just be popping in their name, hopping
directly to that search result, grabbing the
details, adding to your tree, moving on to the
next person. What you'd have to do is you'd have
to scroll through page by page until you found
your ancestor's details. And this sounds time
consuming, and it is. But the beauty of it is
you get a real feel for that parish because you're
going to see how many baptisms there are in a
year. There might be eight or there might be
pages and pages, depending on how large the parish
is. And you might accidentally spot other family
names, so the same surname as you, which will
prick your curiosity because you're like, well,
are there more kind of nuclear families by this
name in that community? And if there's lots of
people by that surname, that's showing you that
they've been established there for quite a long
time. If there's nobody else, they're kind of
blow -ins. They've come there for work. So you're
going to learn all these things. Yeah? And so
on Ancestry, you can just use that navigation
bar at the bottom to page through, you know,
when it has the little filmstrip thing at the
bottom of your images, you can just page through
there to find... what's happening in the nearby
pages rather than just doing the smash and grab
of the search result. Okay. Sounds like I'm going
to need to buy some very strong coffee for this.
Well, the handwriting can be a bit trickier to
read, but it's okay. It'll be okay because it
gets harder and harder. It's like perfectly designed
as a family history kind of paleography primer
because the further back you go in time, the
harder the records get to read. But as you're
gradually going back in time, you're getting
better at it. So it's okay, she says mildly.
It's still really hard to read. Is it key? Oh,
well, I'll give that a go. Or at least maybe
start thinking about giving it a go. No, I think
you're going to really like it. Because you're
very methodical. You love puzzles. We'll throw
up those. Can I give you one more little warning
thing or not? I don't know if this is nice to
have warnings or not. Go on then. Yeah. Give
me it. So with the... So the GRO or Free BMD,
you're used to the fact that you've got a national
collection. So you go to one website and you
can search across all of the births for the whole
of England and Wales, all from one little website.
That's pretty cool, isn't it? But with parish
registers, it's much more piecemeal. So what
you need to establish, this is when you're searching
within ancestry, you need to establish what parish
registers do they have for your places of interest.
So a good way to do that is to go to the card
catalogue and search on your places of interest.
Okay. It's going to be a whole new way for me
to research, really, isn't it? Yeah. Because
what you don't want to do is go to their main
search, pop in the name, say you're hoping to
find a parish register, not find anything, think
they're not there, or think you've done something
wrong. And all it is that for your particular
place, they haven't digitised the records, and
you're going to have to go to a different website.
So Find My Past is excellent for parish registers.
You might want to go to the local branch of your
family history society. You might want to go
to FamilySearch. Really, really good for parish
registers. You're going to have to probably look
in more places, which is something you already
do anyway now, even though you didn't used to
like the idea of that. No, it still terrifies
me a little bit. But yes, clearly I'm going to
be coming back with lots of questions on this.
So let's see how it expands. I think it's going
to be good. Yeah. Okay. And there's so many,
I'm going to shut up with all the caveats now.
And what are you going to do for your homework?
Oh, goodness. You know, I think I'm going to
be sticking with my Lintons. So it is down and
out research, even though it does feel as though
I'm getting seriously distracted by stories,
which I am. I will admit I'm getting seriously
distracted by stories, but it is still down and
out research. Oh, yeah. Well, it's all really
fascinating and interesting. I'd rather have
your stories than my I found his death date.
So, yeah, it seems like a lot of fun. Well, it
is a lot of fun, but it is very sideways. True,
true. But it is down and out research and it
is going to help me with my DNA, which is to
go right back at the beginning. Nice one. Yeah.
So I'm just going to plod on with that. Yeah.
And if anybody. listening has a project that
they're working on and they'd love to share what
they're doing or what they found or anything,
then do tell us. We absolutely love hearing about
it, don't we? We really do, yeah. I love the
community around us. It's great. We do. And literally,
like, when we get those little PSs on emails
going, PS, I love the podcast, it's just like,
yes. Because sometimes we just feel, I mean,
who's not going to like talking about family
history? Clearly, we love doing that, but it
is nice to know that somebody listens to it as
well. It is. It's lovely. Yeah. Okay. Take care
then, everybody. Happy researching. Thank you.