Hello everybody and welcome to Family Tree Talk,
your favourite Family Tree podcast. I'm your
co -host Nathan Ward and with me as always is...
Helen Tummy. Hiya Helen, how are you? I'm very,
very well, yeah. How are you? I'm really good,
thanks. Just had a right nice long bank holiday
weekend, haven't we? Mm -hmm, yeah. And shocker,
some sunshine, which is good. I know, very, very
good, yeah. And have you had much chance to do
any family history? I have not. I've done bits
and bats, but not to the extent that I want to
do. I'm feeling a little bit guilty about it
right now. Yeah, that's what it's like sometimes.
You just have to kind of keep chipping away,
don't you? Weaving it in. You do. I've done bits,
like going back on what we said last week, I
did go and have a quick look at Clifford, who
is my, oh my gosh, I can't remember what he is
to my relations now, but he'll be like a great
-great -granduncle or something. He died at the
age of 18 and my mum told me it was from a motorcycle
accident. I'd previously ordered his death certificate
that said he'd died from complications. That
was just emphysema, wasn't it? Emphysema of the
lungs, yeah, due to long -standing heart conditions
and exertion. So it didn't sound like a motorcycle
accident, but I guess it could have been. So
I had a quick dip in to find my past to see if
I could see any records in the newspapers about
him. And long story short, I couldn't. But it
was actually really good fun being in Find My
Past. I'm actually really keen to get into that
now. As I've said recently, I'm getting bored
of dates and numbers and times. I want some texture.
And just looking through the search and some
of the results that came up, it was like, this
is actually really cool because this is like
living history. It's not living history, but
you know what I mean? It's people doing things
and it's all in context. So I'm going to keep
my eye open for options to actually get into
those archives and try and find some interesting
articles because that was cool. Was it the newspaper
collections on Femopost you're looking at or
just general search results amongst other collections?
I think it was just the newspaper ones. But yeah,
it's just really cool. It's a really cool search
engine, isn't it? Fantastic. I need to find more
opportunities to dip into that. So like I say,
I'm going to keep my eyes open. Anything that
looks like it's newsworthy, I might jump on there
and just get a bit more texture. That's exciting.
Just a quick newspaper 101. Most people already
know about this, but the Find My Past newspaper
collections, I think they have 100 million newspaper
pages now. And they're also the same records
that you'll find by the British Newspaper Archive.
So these are all the records, copies of newspapers
over the past centuries, which have been kept
by the British Library. Obviously, the newspaper
and the stories covered, there's national and
local newspapers. And some of the stories they'll
be covering will be global. And there is a really
cool option. So when you go and search, when
you go to their search interface, the first thing
you see is really simple. But then if you click
advanced search, you probably found that, Nathan.
You can really fine tune your search by maybe
the title of the newspaper, the date span, any
particular keywords. And scroll down to the bottom,
there's an option which says. free newspapers
and they have about one million free newspapers
which may or may not cover your area or era of
interest but it's something free is always worth
having a look at isn't it it's always good yeah
yeah so the websites it's just findmypast .co
.uk or the british newspaper archive lovely lovely
stuff good yeah i'm hopeful about that um and
then the only other thing i've done and i was
so excited about this and it ended up being a
bit of a Well, yeah, just, all right, okay, I've
done this. I added in a photograph of one of
my ancestors. I was, I don't know what I was
expecting. It felt like it should have been like
some sort of social media interaction. I can't
describe it to you. I thought, I'm going to put
this on. People are going to have her in the
tree and they're going to be like, oh, that's
my great -great -grandma, blah, blah, blah. And
all that happened was I attached the image to
the profile and now her image. appears next to
her name and i i don't know i was expecting it
to like be like a tidal wave of like connections
it hasn't been no but it could be like a slow
burn so over time she'll get thrown up as the
um potential hint to people yeah yeah i also
i then obviously wanted to add more and i do
have a collection of photographs that my my great
auntie sent down to my mum yeah so I was like
right I'll go get those added and obviously I
hit my stumbling block straight away didn't know
who any of them were so I need to find my mum
and spend some time with her to actually work
out who they are then I'll get those added but
I think now that I've got at least a couple on
I want more yes It's so much more evocative looking
at your tree when it's got photos on, doesn't
it? Yeah, it looks great already. It's quite
amusing as well, because I know we discussed
this in the past about not using AI images. And
then you made the reference to the fact that
in the past, a lot of people didn't have photographs.
It was like a caricature or etching, et cetera.
And this one is an etching. So technically, I've
just put someone's drawing on of this person.
But we do know who it is. It has been handed
down. We all know who this person is. That's
cool. I don't think my, I mean, they all have
different perspectives, don't they, on AI? So
I'm not particularly against or pro -AI. I can
see both sides. But I think for me, let's keep,
as family historians, we need to keep really
vigilant. What are we looking at? How factual
is it? Where did it come from? And increasingly,
as AI gets better and better at generating old
pictures, we're going to get in a muddle. We're
not going to know which ones are AI -generated
and which ones aren't. That's what I don't like.
No, I don't like that. Yeah. So as long as it's
watermarked and carefully labelled up and everyone
knows this is, you know, somebody from the 1890s
from that sort of social or occupational background,
that's what they roughly would have looked like,
rather than it is definitely great, great Aunty
Mary Jane, then I'm happy. I think it just needs
to be flagged up. I mean, that is one thing that
I didn't do. When I put the image on there...
It didn't seem to be anywhere for me to add comments
about the image and it hasn't appeared in a timeline
or anything like that. So if you go to your gallery,
so go to the person's profile. Gallery, I've
never even pressed that button before. Ah, nice.
It's always, I mean, it's all that we do occasionally
own or I think lots of people do about Ancestry
and any of the big websites. do offer us incredible
tools. And she does have particularly sophisticated
tools for doing a family history. So you go to
the person's profile, you can see the tabs along
the bottom. We've chatted about it before. Normally,
quite often, we will be spending time on the
kind of place which says about the facts and
the sources and the relationships, wouldn't we?
Yes. But then press gallery. And in gallery,
you should be able to find your picture that
you added. Yeah. Yep. And then I'm pretty sure,
let me go to somebody on my tree who I do. If
you click on the image, it then gives you the
option on the right to add a date, a location,
a category or a description. So you are going
to do that, aren't you, Nathan? I'm going to
add a description saying this is not AI. Yes.
And what you can do, it's nice to say where it
came from. So I call things, that sounds a bit
grand, but if I've got something from my uncle,
then I might call it, I'll call it the. his first
name, his last name collection. Yeah. Or, and
if I've just got a few pictures from somebody,
I will put it, I'll keep a record by maybe in
the file name or if I have them in a folder,
I'll say these pictures are from blah, blah.
And then keep that. It's the provenance, isn't
it? Where they came from. And what's really interesting
about that is say you've got that picture and
then at some point you might via your online
tree. make contact with a second cousin or third
cousin or something and they've got that picture
too or they've got a slightly different picture
or pictures which are clearly taken in the same
studio at the same time with different family
members so if you can keep track of where your
stuff came from and then where their stuff came
from it makes a more interesting um makes more
interesting jigsaw piece puzzles to work with
it doesn't and everything you said as well about
ai this could actually have been created with
ai so just a flag that it isn't ai and it is
the real picture that's just good isn't it Very
good. How exciting. Very, very exciting. And
it's just like lots of things with our family
history. Sometimes you can feel a bit daunted
and mean to do something for ages. Then you've
just got on and done it now. And now you've done
that one, I can see you adding loads. Yeah, it
feels like a fun mission, to be honest. It's
obviously going to be a challenge because there
are going to be lots of people that there's no
way I can get an image for. But like you say,
it just makes the profile look much nicer. So
you can get as many of them on your tree. It's
going to be lovely. And your boys will be more
inclined to find your tree interesting? I mean,
we can pretend that, but yes. And you might find
that you get some unusual kind of beard inspiration
or something and want to grow ridiculous, not
ridiculous, moustaches or anything? Ridiculous
is good. I like ridiculous. Yeah, I'd be well
up for that. Yeah. Why have these gone out of
fashion? I'm bringing them right back. My great
-great -grandad would be so proud of me. Yeah,
yeah. Do you know, Nathan, you've had some really
lovely podcast emails from podcast listeners.
Lovely. Yeah. Shall I give them a quick shout
out? One is a tip for me and you. Really good
point. And it's kind of saying a tip that I said,
but turning it around and upside down and making
a useful point. So last week we've been talking
over the week. We always talk about our research
log and how we keep notes. And I was just saying
to you about how you could. Keep your notes in
your family tree. So when you go to somebody's
profile and click the little notes button below
their name and add notes about your research
you're doing on them. And what else did we talk
about? We talked about tweaking the life stories,
tweaking somebody's life story to add in further
details and tell their narrative. And then, so
Steve switched it around and he says, if you
want other people to be able to see what you're
writing, then obviously you need to use the comments.
So he says, Steve says. Thank you for writing,
Steve. Steve says, in your most recent podcast,
you were explaining to Nathan how he could tell
people looking at his tree on Ancestry about
some family documents by tweaking the life story.
Steve continues, he could also use the notes
and comments feature. These are accessed from
the tools menu. As we note, tools are only visible
to Nathan and anyone he shares his tree with.
I think they're with editor rights, but anyone
who shares his tree with, while comments would
be visible to everyone, assuming that Nathan's
tree is public. And he hopes this helps. And
he gives the URL, which is the Ancestry support
URL. So support .ancestry .com forward slash
s, forward slash article, forward slash notes,
hyphen and, hyphen comments, hyphen any, hyphen
trees. And notes, comments and trees all have
a capital T. And I think... Nathan, should we
just set up a little kind of blog post or something
where we can put these URLs? Because they're
a nightmare to read out. Yes, definitely. I think
that'd be quite a useful thing to do. Let's do
that. So everyone, we'll let you know. We'll
find it. We'll create a useful space for you
so you don't have to listen to intermittently
long URLs. Anyway, the main point is about the
comments. If you want other people to see things.
So let's see. What you were talking about was
uploading those. First of all, war records, I
think, because one of your ancestors died and
he got sent a letter from the king and presumably
his death penny, a big plaque, which is about
three or four inches wide. I don't have the penny.
It was just a letter to say, sorry, that is dead.
Yeah, he would have got a penny, but maybe someone
else has got the penny now in your family. But
anyway, you're going to upload the document and
then... If you put a comment about it, add in
comments about that person, then everyone else
will be able to see that comment. Would the comment
be tied to the document I upload or would it
be a general comment tied to that profile? Well,
I think it would be, let's go to here. It's going
to be tied to that person. So let's say you're
on the person. You're on the big, presumably
you haven't changed the colour scheme. You're
on the big grey bar at the top. And when it says
view notes, then it says view comments. And so
the comments are going to be relevant to that
person. Yeah. So, but that's okay, isn't it?
I think that's just fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant.
Then do you want me to read out the other email?
So this is a tough one for us. It's got lots
and lots of information in it, but I'm only going
to cover a little bit. So Marilyn has written
in and she says that she loves listening to the
podcast. It cheers her up enormously and really
gives her encouragement to start looking at her
research. So that's great, isn't it? That's just
what we want. That's perfect. That's exactly
what we're here for. Yes. And to waffle as well.
Yes, and to waffle and just to have a fun talking
about our family history. So Marilyn, I've got
to look these up online because they sound incredible.
So she says she comes from the Blue Mountains
in Australia. Doesn't that sound like kind of
a fairy story? Sounds lovely already. Yeah, it
really, really does. And so Marilyn writes, she
often hears you and I, Nathan, chatting about
our research and how we found a person on the
civil registration records. um on free bmd but
sometimes this puzzles marilyn because how do
we know for certain that we don't just have a
namesake without paying for an official certificate
can we delve into that question a little bit
more on our podcast so that's a really useful
and good question and something we'll have to
keep vigilant to don't we so we find something
in an index result for instance on free bmd how
do we how do what do we do to make sure we're
not just thinking that name fits that It could
be a namesake, but we'll take our chances and
just put it on the tree. What do we do to make
sure we're not going wrong like that? Well, the
only example I've got of this is when I've been
finding like a wedding certificate or a reference
to a wedding. And so it gives you like a volume
number and a page reference, et cetera, on FreeBMD.
And the only way that I've been like, right,
that definitely is the right person is by finding
the... person they were marrying and seeing if
those numbers matched up it was like the chances
of them being on the same page at the same time
and not being married when I'm thinking they
are few and far between that's that's my only
example of that so that's that's interesting
so when you say you when you say you're Finding
evidence of people who you think they are. So
you've already got some sort of clues about who
you're looking for. You're not going in cold
with just one of the spouse's names and not having
a clue who the other one is. You've already got
some warm leads on the other one. So when you
find information in the index, those two pieces
of information are helping to shore each other
up, even though each one by itself doesn't feel
so strong. But the more data points, the more
pieces of information you have, the stronger
your case feels. Yeah, because obviously with
FreeBMD as well, you can type in someone's name
and get 20 people with the same name coming through.
So I'm already looking for that person in FreeBMD,
but then the reference numbers match. Say if
they've married George and George's reference
numbers are on that page, that's more likely
to be my relative than anyone else on that page.
And I would say as well, Anne -Marie, we do order
quite a lot of certificates because not the marriage
ones because they're expensive, but the birth
and death certificates because they're much cheaper.
Nathan and I, our mindset I think is quite similar
on this. If we can find a way of getting that
information, feeling confident about it and not
spending the money, that's the route we're taking,
isn't it? 100%. That sounds good to me. But then
if we have to spend the money because we can't
think of another way of getting that. kind of
confidence about the facts that we will spend
the money. Or sometimes if we're just curious
about someone's cause of death, we might spend
the money as well. Very much, yeah. Yeah. So
we will look at other things. We will basically
be building up a little, like a biscuit tin.
We're not just getting one biscuit. We want a
whole biscuit tin of stuff, don't we? So you
said just there, some other clue will have given
you a hunch about both of the spouses' names.
So when you're going in to search the index.
you've got those two things that you're potentially
looking and hoping to match and then we will
the both of us for our different reasons quite
keen on trying to find as many children as we
can do so we will be searching for the children
with the mother's maiden name so we're getting
lots of information about the family and that
helps us know let's say you've got seven children
all getting born over 10 or 20 time year time
period You're feeling more and more confident
that that's the location where the family is.
We're lucky enough to have the census or the
1939 register, the other records. We're using
all of this to help make sure that we're not
just muddling up one family. We have got definitely
our family in the right time period, in the right
place. And I'm really keen on doing a massive
broad search. I'll start really broad so I know
how many contenders I've possibly got. You do
that as well, I think, don't you? Yeah. Because
it's just useful to know, because you might think
you have a really, like my surname, Tovey or
Tovey, you might think that's quite unusual.
But if you go to the wrong village in Somerset,
then there'll be lots and lots of them. Yes.
And so suddenly you're not unusual. It might
be unusual across the UK, but in the wrong place,
particularly in centuries past, go through the
parish registers. It's ridiculous. Like nearly
everyone's called it. So you have to really know
that. Yeah. And they're all called Mary. Yes.
Yes. They're all called Mary. Yeah, getting a
lie of the land to know how likely is it I'm
going to get in a muddle with someone. Matching
up lots of family members. Thinking of different
record sets, you definitely use parish registers,
don't you? Because increasingly they're getting
digitised. So you're already paying for ancestry.
Yep. And we've talked in the past about all the
other places you can look for them as well. So
using different record sets. It's a good question,
though, to make sure we're not just choosing
a namesake because that's just a bit devastating.
Yeah, it's too easy, isn't it? It does give up
so many results as well. And you can just, even
for me, finding somebody I think I know, you
can get four or five examples where it is villages
around here or in Yorkshire. It's like, oh, they
could all tie in and you just don't know, do
you? So you do need to just line it up with other
stuff as well. And you have to remember, you
can get it wrong. So the other week when I had
to lop off, it was only a little mini small branch,
but I did have to lop it off because I had been
a bit too, you know. I hadn't been diligent enough.
And so I had this little Betty Linton. So for
me, Betty Linton felt like an unusual name. And
I hadn't done the due diligence thing. And so
I just muddled up two Betty Lintons. I was like,
what are the chances of two Betty Lintons being
born in 1902 in Ireland? The chances are quite
high, actually. But I didn't know that. So I
like that the hard way. Because it just feels
unusual to me. Someone else who's really familiar
with that kind of island or that name, they would...
be like how could she make that mistake you get
excited though don't you when you get new names
and new surnames because you haven't experienced
them at all it does feel like oh this is fantastic
and different I'm getting it the other way now
where I'm getting further back and suddenly names
that are on the other side of my tree are coming
on the on the paternal side so it's like oh my
god potential for confusion is there but it's
interesting it is yeah And Marilyn asks lots
of other really useful questions, which I'm going
to have to think about more carefully because
I'm not going to be able to do it due diligence.
She is a family tree maker user and she has been
trying to contact Ancestry to get help. So although
Ancestry syncs with Family Tree Maker, Family
Tree Maker is a completely separate company.
So if you've got a Family Tree Maker problem,
the best thing to do is contact my key of their
support. And it can be slow, but it's... That's
the route to go. And also download their free
companion guide. So just Google Arbitrary Maker
companion guide. It's hundreds of pages long.
It's PDF, completely free. Cool. I use it. Yeah.
So shall I tell you what I've been getting up
to this week? Please do. So I have this like
a fractal thing. So I've been concentrating on
this one small aspect of my tree where I've been
doing my down and out, blah, blah, blah. And
then I thought, I'm just going to do a little
project for my three times great grandfather,
all of his children, where they emigrated to,
where their spouses came from, where their children
were born, et cetera, et cetera. And do the same
for my two times great grandfather. And I'm gradually
piecing it all together and it's... It's become
its own little world. I could see this is another
little project that I could do for the next 10
years. And then eventually in like 2036, I'll
emerge out of this little rabbit hole. I'll be
like, what was I doing again? Oh yeah, my down
and out tree. Right, okay. But it is good. It's
very, very interesting. So what I've been discovering,
so I have this family, they were three times
great. generation were being born in the early
1800s in Scotland. A lot of them emigrated to
Ireland in the second half of the 1800s, so obviously
after the potato famine, which I imagine there
was, in some respects, although there was lots
of economic hardship in Ireland, there was potentially
economic opportunities as well because lots of
people had died and lots of people had emigrated.
And then lots of my family emigrated directly
from... Scotland to America and Canada, and some
of them went via Ireland then to America and
Canada. And I think that is because they didn't,
wouldn't necessarily have the fare. Yeah. And
lots of them did that chain migration thing.
So some of the family would go over and then
the wife and the children might follow. Sometimes
the women left, like little Betty's mother, she
left before her little tiny daughter. So there's
all lots of things going on. But what I'm loving,
this new... realization is lots of their spouses
they might be in America or Canada and then when
I found their find their spouse their spouse
has been born in Scotland or Ireland as well
so they might even live for a generation in America
or Canada but then they've still got those really
strong cultural roots so within their community
they're choosing people who are recent emigrants
from their homeland or so there's I'm going to
see some really interesting connections of those
bonds and living that people might move Their
body, but their heart is staying somewhere else.
Right. So what you're saying, like two separate
entities go over to America, for example, but
meet in America and they're both Scottish. Yes.
Yes. Or I can't see a connection yet. There might
be a connection. There might be, you know, their
families may well have known each other really
well. Yeah. Okay. I've got to dig into it more,
but it's really, it feels kind of beautiful.
It's amazing. Might have gone to the same bingo
club. They might have done. I wonder when bingo
was invented. That's a whole other thing. Yeah.
I think bingo's got to be, I think bingo's got
to be 1930s would be my hunch. And things like
butlins and people having more leisure time and
leisure money and going to the seaside. Yes,
that does tie in. We'll quickly Google it and
see if we're wrong or right. Go on then. Okay.
Why not have a rabbit hole? Yes. I quite like
this one though. The origins of old. Do you want,
Nathan, before you Google it, do you want to
have a quick guess? I'm saying 1930s. What do
you want to say? I'm going to say, I've got no
context. I'm just choosing a random number. 1823.
Okay. So, not at all. We're both way out. Apparently,
it is in Italy in the 16th century. Wow. Yeah.
Holy moly. That's really old. Like, wow. Yeah.
I mean, I guess it's a kind of obvious game,
so we shouldn't be too surprised by it. I know,
but your logic of making it a big event at Butlins
made sense. I know, that's the danger of being
me. Welcome to my family history. I make it all
sound really plausible. We're only 300 years
out, it's fine. 500 years out. Oh yeah, too many
centuries out. Not just even a matter of years.
Wow. Oh well, there we go, we've learnt something.
We have. So what I'm doing with my project, I've
set up an Excel sheet. I started trying to do
it on a bit of paper. And then you suddenly realize,
I was like, to get the granular detail, I need
to have lots and lots of columns. So I've got
columns of where people were, the place and date
they were born. So I've done a separate place
column and a separate date column. And then how
I'm adding in the place. Oh, Nathan is just going
to fall asleep on the spot. I'm adding in the
place backwards. So it goes kind of like USA,
Virginia, Norfolk. So it will be saying the.
So then I can search by country. Yeah. And I
can search by year and I can do lots of analysis.
Sounds very meticulous. It is being quite meticulous.
Yeah. I'm impressed. But I'm going to definitely
have to find out more and more about these spouses,
which is not going to help my DNA one whit, but
it will help me. It won't help me anything. It
will just give me a lot of fun nosing into their
family history, finding out at least the reasons
why they made this. I get from your life when
there'll be these connections, yeah. Well, that's
the important part as well, isn't it? You're
having fun doing the research. Yes. Yeah. Yes.
I have to say, like, you saying that is making
me think maybe my genealogy journal's a bad thing.
Why? Because I'm not writing anything else down
anywhere else. I've suddenly thought I'm not
actually in my research log. I've stopped using
that spreadsheet that I created last year. I'm
literally just making light notes in the genealogy
journal. No, I don't think that's bad at all.
So I'm using my genealogy journal and I'm still
loving it, still using the special pen. And I
don't write down masses. Sometimes I have written
a couple of pages and then this week I've only
written a few notes. I haven't actually written
what I've done. I've written just things I was
thinking about. Yeah. Cool. I think it's a nice
place to reflect because... We're really lucky,
aren't we? And I guess everyone is. We're lucky
because we work on Family Tree magazine and we
get to listen to loads of cool webinars and work
with experts helping to share their expertise
with our audience. So we do bits of family history,
do weave into our daily life. Not as much as
we might like, I have to say. Our job's quite,
there's lots of admin in it and there's lots
of... I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea
and think we're continuously mucking around in
data sets. We don't do that. Our job is having
to, maybe they'll be editing the webinar or I'll
be talking to someone about when they can actually
do it, looking at their calendar. And so it's
much more prosaic. It's not lots of family history,
but we do get to hear lots of tips and inspiration
in the meantime. So I've been including some
of those tips in my genealogy journal. Oh, that's
good. That is a problem for us. It sounds like
I'm moaning now, but I'm not. we're doing our
family history but around us we've got all these
experts talking about all these things you should
be doing and it does become quite a lot and i'm
like oh my god he's saying this and she's saying
that and do this and do that to the point where
you become that deer in the headlights and you're
like i don't know where to go it's it's so expansive
because we're getting little hints of the entire
world of family history but actually and also
because nowadays so in the past a few decades
ago probably said this before, but people might
go to their local adult education or they might
go to their local family history society and
they would gradually learn from maybe a small
number of experts about how to do something.
So you're getting one expert's take on something
and you're gradually piecing it together. You
haven't got the riches of literally billions
of family history records that you can get further
clues from. And so everything's very much slow
paced, whereas now you could learn advice from...
so many hundreds and hundreds of experts and
about how to use billions and billions of records
it's like oh my god that's so much we as a modern
family historian that we're trying to do and
it is a luxury so I don't want to moan about
it either it's fantastic but it does mean you
have to make a plan and just try not to get overwhelmed
by everything else and just think what's useful
to me what am I trying to accomplish yeah you've
got to be selective in the moment don't you yes
yeah yeah It is easier said than done. I was
just going to say, that's why it's useful writing
it down in the research log, because if you can't
do it right there and then, then you can say
that you want to learn it in the future. But
I think that's really true. It is true. It is.
OK, I won't feel guilty then about my genealogy
journal. I just I feel like I'm being a bit slack
at the moment with following up. But maybe it's
just the fact that I'm saying this again. I've
just been data gathering. I've not been actually
challenged yet. I think I need to. Oh, be careful
what you wish for. Something's going to happen
now. Well, I know. I know. I want to be challenged
though. We'll see. Yeah, it does go in flows,
doesn't it? It's like reading, if you have a
bookshelf and you've got any number of different
sorts of books on it and your family history
can be like that. Sometimes you might be reading
a manual and other times you're reading really
a fantasy novel or things you'd never expected
before. And other times you can be reading a
book from one of your favourite authors. Even
if you haven't read the book before, you kind
of know how it's going to go. Our family history
is just like that, isn't it? It really is, yeah.
I'm just treading water at the moment. I need
to dare to go back and get involved in some of
the trickier bits. That's my challenge. And you'll
be greater than when you do, because you've added
the photo now, which is, you'll be like, why
was I making a fuss about that? I know. Is that
what you feel like? I'm a bit embarrassed. It
was such a non -event doing it. It was like,
boom, it's there. There wasn't any fireworks
or balloons or anything. It was just like, yeah,
she's got a picture now. But now I want more.
That's going to be cool. I was nosing at my tree
score the other day. I'm still at 9 .9, but I've
only got 13 errors in my tree. One is no documentation,
but it's not telling me who. And then I've got
12 possible duplicates. So because I've not paid
for the full works, it's giving me hints as to
like three of them, like who these duplicates
could be. But it's people that I've already told
it aren't duplicates. So it's like Ancestry's
refusing to believe me. That's what that chap
said the other day. Yeah. Neil said that. So
it feels like maybe I'm going to be stuck at
9 .9 because it's not going to accept any further
hints about these, or any further reassurances
from me that these two people aren't duplicates.
So I'm giving up on that. That's done. How many
errors I've got in my tree? Go on then. Do you
want to guess? 163. 221. Woof! Yeah, but how
many people have you got in your tree? Not very
many people in my tree. I've got... Oh, don't
say that. No, I'm just doing shocking. I've just
shut it down. I think it's so ashamed. Let me
open it up again. I will have about 700 people
and that in my whole everything, if I include
everyone I have, then it's about 1 ,000 people
that I've never had. Yeah? Well, that's a big
number to me. It's not. Loads of people have
masses. And to be honest... I don't think I'm
ever going to have very many people because I'm
too bad at dwelling on... Well, not bad. That's
how I like doing my family issue. That's my style.
I like dwelling on people and finding out a lot
about them. Well, I've only got 203 people in
my tree. So comparatively speaking, it's not
too bad. Thanks. You're trying to cheer me up.
I'm trying. Yes. Anyway, well, my tree score
is nine, so it makes you wonder how many areas
you have to have to get it lower. Maybe we should
try that. No. Yeah. Yeah. Go through and strip
out all the things. What I was going to say,
so, you know, when you said you added the photo
and it felt a bit underwhelming and what I was
going to look at, there used to be a place, and
I think there might still be, you can see who's
been looking at your tree, but I can't remember
how to do this. Can you remember? I've not had
this happen. I don't know if anyone's looked
at my tree. Okay. That's what you do. It says
no one's looked at my tree. Okay. Shall I tell
you how to find it anyway? Tell me how to do
this. Yeah. So if you want to see if anyone has
looked at your tree, go to your tree and then
over on the left -hand side, you'll see the three
little dots. And then you hover over that and
a pop -up menu appears and you click on the word
activity. And then a little sidebar will appear
on the right -hand side, which has tasks, changes
and viewers. And then you can see who has looked
at your tree. Oh, wow. Yeah. Has anyone looked
at your tree, Nathan? I've had no viewers yet,
exclamation mark. No, you know, I haven't either.
And then the other thing which you can do is
if you go to your home, then you'll see that
photographs get suggested as popular photos for
your bit of the tree. Yes. So I'm pretty sure
there must be a way of seeing who's looked at
your photos and who's saved your photos. Yes,
there is. So if you click on a photo which is
being suggested to you as a hint, it will say
saved by and it will have the initials of other
people who've saved. this person to their tree.
So that's quite cool. Obviously it's keeping
their privacy by just giving the initials, but
it'd be quite fun if you could see who saved
your photo. So let's go to gallery and see if
we can work that out. Yeah. Well, it's just nice
to know who, like, because they are relations,
so it would kind of be nice if people reached
out to each other. Then I guess you can, can
you click into their tree from that? Well, or
I guess if you want, you could actively just
go and, so you could go and search on your great
-granny's name, for instance, and in the search
terms, click the box that you specifically want
to get results from public member trees. Then
anyone else who's got your great -granny's name
in their tree, you'll be able to see that list
and then you can reach out to them, couldn't
you? Yes. If you wanted to. Oh, this is interesting.
I'm actually seeing quite a lot of pictures of
potential family members now. Oh, how are you
doing that? What are you doing? I'm on that photo
hints on the homepage. And it's just suddenly
coming up with very old pictures. It is interesting.
And that's always the kind of moral dilemma because
some people don't like their photos being copied
by other people. But I'm not going to copy your
photos, Nathan, because they're your ancestors
and we're not related as far as we know. So the
only people who are copying the photos are...
I definitely agree. I definitely agree we shouldn't
copy each other's research. And if we did copy
aspects of people's research, we should give
credit where we got that information from. It
does tell you who originally shared it if you
save it to your tree. Yes, with the photos it
does. And that's good. That's really good. That's
what you want. That's cool. Yeah, you're going
to have fun. You're going to end up with loads
of photos all over the place. Yes, as long as
I... believing that they are my person absolutely
because they're hints aren't they they are it's
a little bit scary actually but but equally it's
pretty cool and so what sort of thing are you
going to do to help assessment they are your
genuine ancestor depicted in that photo honestly
i have no clue how this works like because i
can't see the original documents like it's not
like i can look on the back of it to see dates
and stuff i've got no clue But you have, I mean,
you've kind of answered a question of one thing
you would do. So some things you're never going
to know. If it's a plausible picture, then it's
really hard to detect there's something wrong
about it. But then in Family Tree magazine, Jane
trips with every month. She gives us really good
tips about how to help date photos. So you would
do, you would look at the mount. You would look
at the photographer's name at the bottom of,
if it's on a cabinet card or a card to see, or
even since you have a postcard on the back, might
see the photographer's name. And then you can
see when those photographers were in operation.
Detecting like the colour of the card mount and
things. Jane has talked about this at length,
but I just find that information really hard
to hold in my head. So you need to get your hands
on one of her books. And then you'd be able to
use that to compare, like if it had a lemon card
or dark green. Because it's like anything, things
go in trends. Yeah. So that would help you. And
then. their clothing and their facial hair and
their hairstyles, hats and things, they would
all help. So you could think, is this plausible
for somebody from this time period? But whether
it actually, so you can assess that yourself,
if you don't already learning about the fashions
of the past, but actually assessing whether it
is definitely a great, great auntie or something.
I guess you can do facial comparisons with any
other pictures you may have, but you do suddenly
get into more and more best guess. answers rather
than a hundred percent yeah it's it's a little
bit terrifying actually this but also quite exciting
I'll have to be careful with this because I could
get too excited just just for the want of having
all these old pictures on my tree but I do need
to be careful and it's really easy to make a
mistake with an old photo system I guess you
could look at somebody's tree and you could assess
what you feel about their tree so if you click
through to that person Yeah. And see how many
sources have they got for that person. Yeah,
true. I think I've said it before. I saw one
ages ago of, I can't remember his name, unfortunately,
a guy on my tree who they've linked this photograph
to, but I actually think it's his father and
they've linked it to the son. And I can't for
any reason know why I think I know that. I must
have some documents for that one still. So then
that's really helpful if you add up. you add
yours, which you believe to be correct, perhaps
you've got photos in an old album and they've
been annotated by somebody from the time, then
that's highly likely to have the correct name
on it, isn't it? Yeah. So you need to kind of
upload that as evidence for why you think that
and then potentially get in contact with them.
I think there was like a married picture of a
husband and wife and then somebody else had linked.
to the son with the same with the picture so
it could be that they literally were clones like
actually so identical father and son but it looks
like it's the father and not the son I think
I think that was what the situation was anyway
I could get totally lost in this couldn't I if
I'm not careful you could and what Jane always
says that men's clothes are much harder to date
because they change more slowly than women's
clothes but you know the son and father are likely
to be at least roughly 25 years apart from each
other, aren't they? So if you've got somebody
that age, you would hopefully be able to have
a fighting chance of assessing. Let's say you're
going to know what age they are getting married
from their marriage record. You could say, is
this 37 -year -old, do they look like they should
be 37 in 1920 or should they be whatever 37 plus
25 is? 63, whatever it is. I've got to hope that's
the right answer. You can get their age and think,
should they be this age in the time period that
these clothes are depicting in this old photo?
Yeah? Yes. So even if they have a strong father
-son like he had, you'd still be able to hopefully
determine for sure which one it was. Yeah, definitely.
And I feel like I've asked this question before,
but obviously looking at these photographs that
other users have uploaded, there's lots of them,
and then there's actually people have uploaded
marriage certificates. Hmm. So I guess my question
is, is it valid to link to these actual certificates
that somebody else has uploaded if all the information
looks factually correct? Should you go away and
do that research yourself? Yes, because the reason
you should do the research yourself is the same
that you flagged up. They're all hints. And so
just because it's an original document doesn't
mean that it's an original document that relates
to your family. So you do need to do, if you've
done all the research. then you can add the photo
or the marriage certificate or whatever to your
tree. But if you're just feeling extra confident
about it because it is an original document and
that's kind of beguiling you, then you should
stop, take a breath, go and do your own research
and then decide. Okay. Shouldn't you? You should,
yes, definitely. I mean, that is a sensible answer,
isn't it? Yeah. It's just that thing where you're
like, oh, this marriage certificate, it's, I
don't know. bernard saville marion marianne yeah
and then the file is matched oh you know the
usual stuff you normally do everything works
and matches and it's like right well actually
for me to actually have this document because
it's not on ancestry i'm gonna have to go pay
some money to find it yes no due diligence says
that i should not be doing that i should do it
properly yes it's just tempting isn't it when
you see all these documents oh i don't that one
It is. It is tempting. And it's instant. And
it's, as you say, it potentially saves you some
money. So it's got all of these things to make
us research slightly less sensibly. We don't
need help with that. No, we don't. I definitely
don't need any help with that. Yes. Yeah. Oh,
cool. Oh, no. So this is a, it's funny how a
week ends up with a theme. This week's theme
is definitely try to keep accurate, isn't it?
And how do we actually know the things we're
looking at are true? That keeps cropping up.
Right from the start when Marilyn was asking
about how do we know that those pre -BMD records
are ours? Yeah, I mean, I think it's probably
a theme for every week, this one. It's a continuous
theme, isn't it? Yeah. Always ask yourself the
questions. Do you know what? This feels like
it's a shameless plug, but it is a plug because
it's blooming useful. So Dr. Sophie Kay, who
we have mentioned in numerous, numerous podcasts,
at the beginning of June, so only a month away
from now, she's running a five -week online course.
It's a family tree brick wall course. And the
key question that she's going to keep asking
us to turn over in our minds every single week
is, is this my ancestor? So when we're looking
at things. doing exactly what we've been talking
about today just assessing is this my ancestor
and so she's got a whole bunch of tactics that
we can learn and then we can rather than just
wonder and hope we can actually have a bunch
of tactics we can think about deeply put them
into practice in our own family history and then
feel more confident that we have done that due
diligence you're talking about so that's well
anyway you can find out details on our website
at family -tree .co .uk I won't I won't or make
your head hurt with another long URL in one session.
It's nicely advertised on the website, so you
should be able to just click into it straight
away. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a good one, isn't
it? That is literally everything that we do as
family historians. It is. It's the perpetual
question. Apart from me at the minute with my
rabbit hole of, I've kind of established that
they are my ancestors, but then I'm just like,
so what are they doing and why did they fall
in love? I'm just having that little side tune.
It's not asking whether they are my ancestors.
I'm like, what are my ancestors getting up to?
That's my question for the minute with my thing
I'm building on. Yeah. Nice. I've given up on
family history. I'm going to research the origins
of board games. When was Scrabble invented? When
did Monopoly start? Yes, I love that. Oh, so
what should we guess? Scrabble. Why do I keep
going with the 1930s? I'm going to go for 1854.
I'm not really doing this. I was joking, but
now. Oh, no, we've done this. Sometimes, Jim
and I, when we're having supper, we haven't done
it for ages, we'd have a guess how old the sweets
are. So try and guess when lemon sherbets were
invented or guess when licorice all sorts were
invented. What did you say for Scrabble? 1930s.
1938? 1931 it was invented, but the finalised
version, 1938. Fantastic. Take a pound from the
till. I'm like 100 years out. Do you know what,
as well, this is a really interesting insight.
So in the, just how new that game was, and potentially,
I don't know how old Monopoly was, but in the
Second World War, then they had to have had it
on the Imperial War Museum, I think. Then board
games were used to smuggle in items to help prisoners
of war escape from prisoner of war camps in Germany.
Ah, okay. Really cool, isn't it? Yeah, they would
have all little secret things hidden away in
there, in the pieces. That is cool. But it's,
you kind of feel like, so that's a really new
board game. It's only come on the market 1938,
did you say? Yeah. Yeah. And then one year later
the war starts and immediately Waddington's or
whoever makes it, they're busy there going, right,
how can we just like sneak in some handy kind
of coded messages and escape equipment and things
like that. Yeah. One of the pieces is actually
a little bit of dynamite or something. Yes, yes.
I don't know what it is. I can't remember. I
do remember definitely things we used to have
secret messages on. That's cool. That's quite
intriguing. It's really intriguing. I've never
got this, but I do want to get one at some point
in my life. So my grandpa, who was a... prisoner
of war but he was a prisoner of war in the far
east japanese prisoner of war and the pilots
used to get given silk scarves to tie around
their neck and on the scarf would be printed
a map of the area that they were serving in so
he'd have a map of burma etc so that when they
um land obviously it's waterproof that's why
it's called it's silk so they might land at sea
or anything crash land or get shot down or whatever
yeah then they've got a map to help them escape
help them get through the terrain That is really
cool. It's really cool, isn't it? Yeah. It's
so ingenious, all these ideas, people thinking
of them. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. Oh, well, shall
we better get back to work? And for the next
million years, when you ask me what I'm doing
each week in my family history, I'll be telling
you I'm working on those two little families.
Nice. And I'll be playing board games. You'll
be playing board games. Oh, we should invent
a family history board game. We should. Yes.
Well, thanks for listening, everybody. yeah good
happy researching bye