Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Family
Tree Talk, our lovely family history podcast.
My name's Helen Tovey, I'm editor of Family Tree
and with me as usual is... Nathan Ward, hello
there. Hi Nathan. Hiya, how are you doing? I'm
doing really well actually, yeah, how are you?
I'm good, thank you. Full of the busy. Mm -hmm,
we are. We've put a beautiful new edition of
our beginner workbook to print, haven't we? Just
very recently. So that'll be out soon. Yes. It's
called a beginner workbook, but it's actually
suitable for anybody. If you've been doing family
history for 10 or 20 years, you're going to read
through it and go, yes, I haven't been doing
that. Maybe I should. Or just little ideas, little
handy hints and hacks all the way through. Yeah,
things to remember. To make your life easier.
We used to find information, which is the eternal
quest, isn't it? Yes. And ways to not forget
what you're doing as well. Oh, yes. Yeah. Lots
of those. So we're doing that. And then we've
been working on our lovely new website, which
we've still got lots more to do on, but it's
still in a fantastic shape already and well worth
people exploring. Definitely. I know how long
Nathan's to -do list for the new website is literally
as long as his leg, isn't it? It keeps coming.
I mean, it's great what we've done though, isn't
it? It's such a lovely site and obviously you
can navigate it really easily and find all these
really useful articles that we keep talking about.
So it's definitely been worthwhile. Do you know
what? Instead of using trendy words like navigate,
can you just imagine I've never been on the website
before and it doesn't matter what level you are.
Let's say I am somebody and I've been doing family
history for about... a year and what would you
tell me to do when i work so how do i find what
i want and what's going to be useful to me and
i guess the easiest way is on the very top of
the website there are a few buttons that say
getting started next steps digging deeper so
that's related to where you think you are within
your research level so click on one of those
and that'll take you to a hub that will then
get you started and show you like beginner articles
or intermediate articles or advanced articles.
So that's a natural place to come if you're just
looking for somewhere to start. Or at the other
end of the top of the navigation bar. Am I allowed
to say navigation bar? Anyway, at the other end
of the top of the website, there is a button
that says content hub. Does it say content hub?
Content library. Content library. Because we
love the word library because it's just nice.
It's just tied into genealogy. And it really
is like a library. So click on that and literally
you've got access to all the articles. Obviously,
it depends on your level of membership. If you
come in to it fresh without logging in, you'll
get a few articles. If you register for our e
-newsletter, you'll get even more articles. And
then if you want the whole shebang, all the videos,
everything, you sign up for Family Tree Plus
and you can get access to every single thing
that's on that website. So it's a wealth of information.
It's really cool. And with the e -newsletter,
just to... Totally clarify, it's completely and
utterly free as well. So you can achieve an awful
lot on the website without parting with a penny.
Just pop in your email address and then also
we will email you roughly once a week with other
handy hints and pointers to the website to find
new things or whatever. Yeah, we're not going
to spam you with rubbish, are we? It's actually
a really useful email. Absolutely not. No rubbish.
Not rubbish. We want to help you. Yes, yes. We
don't want to waste people's time. They've got
too much family history to do to be having their
time wasted. Oh, you're not kidding. Yeah. So
how about, so have you had any kind of cool or
interesting emails or I've got a bit more podcast.
I have had one email. I don't usually get the
emails that usually come to you. But then we've
had an email from Judy who has started working
her way through our podcast. She's a beginner
and she loves listening. And she says it's easy
to learn with fun banter and a simple approach.
So I'm glad people are enjoying it. But she has
asked. If there's an example of my spreadsheet
anywhere, which currently there isn't. So my
spreadsheet is basically a list of generations
and then it's like the facts. So it's who they
are, who they married, when they married, when
they died, when they were born. It's just, you
know, columns. It's very basic, very easy to
use. We haven't put it anywhere, but we have
set up our new podcast page on the website. So
we'll put a link to it there. I'll create a blankish
version with just the template headers on there.
And if anybody wants to use it, they can. It
is very basic, but it has helped me sort of keep
my mind organised and get those facts straight.
Definitely. I think that I really like your approach
because it's when you start doing your family
history or even at any stage when you're kind
of building out a branch, you're gathering names
and dates quite quickly and it's easy to get
in the muddle and to... you not not know who
you do and don't have the details for whereas
your excel sheet is brilliant for that because
you can see at a glance right i haven't got their
birth date or death date or whatever it is and
so it kind of really helps you focus your time
and energy on finding those crucial building
block bits of information because although we
say family history isn't names and dates until
you've got those names and dates for the kind
of skeleton tree in place it is hard to build
it out because you haven't got anything to build
on have you yeah exactly and that's exactly what
that spreadsheet was for it was What information
do I have? Great. I've recorded it somewhere
so I can see that I've recorded it. But more
importantly, what don't I have? So then if I
had a spare 10 minutes, I could be like, right,
no death there. That's what I'm going to go research.
To be fair, I use it less now, but actually thinking
about it, it's more organized than like going
to my ancestry tree, which looks pretty, but
you don't always know every single detail without
clicking into every single entry. And that then
becomes a task in itself. So maybe I should go
back to it a bit more. Or just use it occasionally
when you're on a bit of a, you know, a bit of
a task that you've got in hand and you need to
focus on. That'd be good. Yeah. So we've, anyway,
we mentioned it, I think last week or the week
before, that we're going to set up this podcast
page. So if you go to our lovely website, which
is family -tree .co .uk, go to the content library,
search on the word podcast, and then you'll find
our little podcast item and we'll have a tiny
little summary of what our podcast is about.
It's where we're going to put rather grandly
our show notes. We've heard other people call
them show notes. So we kind of want to be impressive
like that. So it's going to be useful things.
So big long links that in the past I would try
and read out. I won't do that anymore. We'll
just pop them there. And so people can click
on the links to go wherever we thought is useful.
We'll give the example of Nathan's Excel sheet.
And as any other useful things come to pass over
the weeks and months, years and decades to come,
we just add them there. Yeah, definitely. And
equally, if we start prattling on about a picture,
we might put them on so you can actually go and
have a look, sharing what we're talking about.
That'll be really fun because Nathan has this
fantastic trunk of family history goodies, which
his mum and his ancestors have gathered. And
it'd be great to kind of get some visuals. It
would. It just lets people know what we're talking
about a bit more, doesn't it? That'd be nice.
So yeah, this page is going to end up being a
real mess of stuff. It's going to be a splurge
of our brains just on the internet. We'll make
it as organised as possible. Yeah, of course
we will. If I'm the historian, everything's organised.
Yes, yes. So we mentioned Marilyn from the Blue
Mountains a few weeks ago and we'd helped her
a little bit and then she had quite a long email
and so I thought, well, I'm going to have to
go and help her off the podcast because, you
know, some things just don't translate well into
a conversation. There's too much detail and all
of our... brains would just get totally boggled.
Anyway, so I tried lending her a helping hand
and as it turned out, Marilyn had actually done
really, really thorough research and she'd actually
come up with the answer that she needed to do
or a really good answer to her problem herself.
So, and the reason I'm mentioning Marilyn again,
because I think it's a predicament which might
be of interest to you, me, all of us to think
about. So, Marilyn had an ancestral couple who
were getting married in the 1930s and then she
wanted to find out which children they'd had
over the years. And they were born, they were
marrying in Lancashire. And then it's like, so
where did she go next? And she looked in all
the usual places, Free BMD, the GRO and 1939
Register, all of those places that you might
hope to find people's future families and their
children and things. Not found anyone. And then
she's found their death dates and she's now at
the point of ordering a will. For me, I think
once you've looked in all the normal places you
could possibly think of, then the will is a really
good place to potentially see, have they got
any kids? Have they got any beneficiaries? That's
Marilyn's predicament, but this is where I think
it is relevant to all of us, is when we're looking
for things and we find people and we find information,
that's great because we can put it on our to
-do list, we can put it on our research log and
put it on things like that. But it's when we
don't find things, trying to keep a record of...
those things which didn't happen. So she searched
for the couple's children and they evidently
or seemingly didn't have any children. It's like,
how can they be absolutely sure that they didn't
have any children? Or did the husband's job cause
him to work overseas for years? And so the whole
family were living overseas and the children
were being born overseas. What other kind of
things might have caused the children not to
be found in the records where you're looking?
So that idea of what I'm trying to kind of open
up is... The idea of when you don't find something,
how do you make sure that it definitely didn't
happen or definitely wasn't there or the person
definitely wasn't in the record for whatever
reason? And how do you record it that they weren't
there? Because when they have seven children,
you go, they have seven children. Whereas when
they don't have children or don't get married,
then it's recording something which doesn't necessarily
have a record. Yeah, this is actually ringing
very true for me at the moment. I'll go into
it later, but it is a hard thing, isn't it? It's
like potential facts that you know should be
there. If you look at your tree at a glance,
they're not there, so you don't think that they're
missing. But as soon as you know the potential
they're missing, it's like, right, okay. It's
an interesting one. It is an interesting one,
and it's one of the... I remember when... When
I first started doing family history, there was
this lovely woman called Christine Morris and
she helped me. She said, she kept urging me,
you've got to write down even your negative searches.
And she went on and on about this. She's kind
of a tiny subset of this idea of the things you
don't find because otherwise you keep repeating
it, don't you? Yeah. And I was like, oh, whatever,
Christine. And then I wish I'd paid more attention
to that because she's absolutely right. Yeah,
definitely. You need to be aware of the negative
space, don't you? Like it does help you. focus
on the quote -unquote positive space. I used
to do this thing when I did foundation art at
college, and sometimes we'd have to draw objects,
but a lot of the time the tutors would be like,
don't draw the objects, draw the negative space.
And it's kind of that thing where you're focusing
on the areas that don't exist as opposed to the
shape that is there, and then when you focus
on the negative space, you accidentally draw
the positive space. And that idea is it's cool.
It is. And sometimes, yes, it's the fault of
the records, isn't it? And sometimes it's just
because a life event didn't happen. There's so
many variabilities. It's all of us trying to
keep a kind of organized, having a kind of a
bit of a tactic, having a bit of a think and
a reflect before we just go headlong into our
research or at the end of a research lesson,
having a bit of a think and a bit of a reflect.
Yeah. And also helping yourself out in time as
well. Knowing which records you've been to and
which you haven't been to and keeping a record
of that. So you're not just going around in circles
doing the same thing again and again. So how
about you? Tell us about your thing then, Nathan,
when you were just mentioning that. OK, well,
I'll tell you about the whole shebang. So last
week we were talking about. Calvary and like
do my local area study etc and I got very excited
about it and I wanted to start doing a bit of
research on ghosts and historical figures around
Calvary and I love that idea did I do it no I
didn't so I am what prompted this I put one picture
on the web on my family tree of Horatio Nelson's
wife and obviously I was very excited about it
I thought it was brilliant and For whatever reason,
this week I saw my mum and she's got a bunch
of pictures out, like old, old pictures. So I
was like, who are they? And she started telling
me and a lot of them were on my tree. I was like,
right, OK, this is the perfect opportunity. I'm
going to get them on my tree. So I sat with her
and she had this big pile of pictures. And if
you've got the Ancestry app on your phone, you
can go into like the profile for a person. Press
a button and it'll let you upload a picture that
you can then apply as a profile and it scans
it and tidies it up for you. It's very easy to
use. It's really cool. So we start doing that
and I went through and I've put about, I don't
know, maybe 20 pictures of people, like all very
nice old school black and white images on my
tree. And it's looking really lovely. I'll show
you it later. Maybe I'll put a screen grab on
your webpage. Anyway, so one of them. Alexander
McKay, who is the brother of Phyllis McKay, who
is the mother of my granddad. I could have said
that a lot easier, couldn't I? Anyway, I've got
a picture of him next to an aeroplane with what
my mum called Auntie Dolly. Oh, that's Auntie
Dolly. I'm like, I have no recollection who Dolly
is. She's not on my tree. Did they get married?
Oh, yeah, yeah, they got married. Right, OK.
So I went up to my tree and I've got Alexander
married to Jesse Robinson. who's not Dolly. And
then my mum started saying, oh, there's rumours
that he had a child with somebody else, but I
didn't know he was married. Anyway, my mum is
very quick to say no to things. So I was like,
oh, he's been married before. He married this
Jessie Robertson. No, she didn't. No, he didn't.
And lots of things that we were talking about,
family history related, she would just flat out
say no to. And I'm like, mum, you've got to be
careful with these no's because you're saying
these are fact. And I've got like documentation
that says opposite. So I'm like. Can we just
be a bit cautious with the use of the word no?
And it centres off on a conversation about Alexander
anyway. So he definitely married somebody called
Dolly or Dorothy, I guess would be probably what
her name is. And I thought, right, I need to
solve this now whilst we're in conversation about
it. And I did a bit of rummaging around. I double
checked my facts about his marriage to Jessie
and it's 100 % accurate. Let's say 100%, let's
say 98 % accurate. Because of the family and
because I've discussed these guys before, the
McKays all have amazing middle names. So his
dad is James Maxwell McKay and he's on the marriage
certificate. There's not going to be that many
James Maxwell McKays who match that name, the
same job, the same time period, etc. So I'm pretty
confident that the marriage certificate for him
and Jesse is spot on. So that happened. After
that, I can't find... any details about jesse
on any of the censuses because we're talking
about 1920 well yeah it's the 1921 census is
the only one i've got because the alexander's
born in 1907 so i guess i've got the 1911 but
obviously too young to reference jesse so it's
really hard finding her and then i need to try
and find her to find to confirm this birth of
this child But my mum says nobody really knows
much details about this child. Apparently, Alexander
was sent to boarding school down south somewhere
and had a southern accent, but came back up to
live here. And apparently, Dorothy also had a
southern accent. I can't find anything about
their marriage at all. And that's it, basically.
I'm just stuck. So I need to find a child. A
probable death date or divorce date or whatever.
and then another marriage. And I'm literally
like, I don't know whether I'm being silly, and
I've forgotten the basics, but I just cannot
find these people doing what I'm normally doing.
Well, I do think you are being silly. I think
it is a really relatable situation. So you've
got a bit of a family, a little bit of, not a
scandal, but a bit of a, you know, a bit of a
kind of family whisper going on, I guess is the
best way of saying it, that Alexander has been...
doing things which aren't necessarily like his
main event life he's got like a side life as
well potentially or two strands or lesser known
strand of his life so I mean you're talking to
the wrong person Nathan because I am the mistress
of making up stories of the hoof aren't I but
I can tell you potentially what I mean this is
just a potential so that he married Jesse completely
fine him and Jesse fell out for whatever reason
they didn't get divorced And so that made it
not possible for Alexander and Dolly to marry.
That's why you can't find a marriage for Dolly
because they wouldn't have wanted to look bigamy
because that would be more serious than to use
the language of the day like you're big in sin
or whatever. Yeah. Okay. That's possible, isn't
it? It is possible and I'm quite happy to go
with this, to be honest, because then it means
that my research skills aren't as bad as I think
they are. Yes, it could be that. Which country?
Is this all happening in England? Yeah, it's
the land living. So on the 1921 census, I've
got Alexander in a private school. That was quite
interesting to look at because when it came up,
I was like, well, what the heck's this? It just
says pupil, pupil, pupil, pupil. And I don't
know why he's gone down south to this private
school either. That's a different story altogether,
I guess. And what kind of, what were his parents
up to at that stage in his life? That's a good
question. Just because it's interesting to consider
that. Was he sent to a private school because
his parents had loads of money and that's just
how they did things? Was he sent to a private
school because potentially his father had died?
Because there were benevolent charitable schools
which were taking, you know, orphans or fatherless
children of particular lines of work. Yeah. Right.
Well, looking at the 1921 for his mother, Barry
J. and Mickey. She is 50 and the head of a house
and a widow. So her husband's died and his sister
is living with her and she's 18 years old. So,
yeah, he's been sent away to a fancy boarding
school. That would be interesting to learn about
that boarding school too. It's a bit of a sidetrack
from what you're trying to find out. But why
I think it's helpful is because you're learning,
like, why did he go south? So potentially if
his mum's a widow, it could be any number of
reasons. It could be a family friend who's thinking,
like, this fatherless boy needs to get an education
and he's too hard for Marianne to look after,
so I've got the money, I'm going to help him
out. It could be, as I say, a charitable institution.
But it just helps to know, like, why is he down
south? What other ties has he got down there?
Are there any other family members down there
to help line up with? How does he potentially
meet Dolly down south? They've both got Southern
accents, yeah? Yeah, I mean, that's the sort
of logic I put to it about them meeting down
there. Oh, but then he got married to... Oh,
my gosh. This is just terrifying, actually, when
I look at it. So he was... A pupil in Surrey,
is it Colston? In 1921. He got married to Jessie
in 1928, but he got married in West Yorkshire,
like in an area, in a part of West Yorkshire
I know. Oh, boy. But I've got no reason to not
believe the wedding certificate. It looks so
accurate. But equally, I guess the big grey area
here is like how... accurate my mum's information
is so sticking with trying to orientate him in
Yorkshire and like what so you've got um a marriage
date which is potentially you know he's pointing
to the fact that he married in Yorkshire so it'd
be interesting to try and work out did he did
he marry did he meet Jesse somewhere else and
then just go back to Yorkshire because that's
his home place or jesse's home place to get married
or was he anchored there more permanently so
was he born in 1907 did you say he was yes so
from 1928 onwards he'll be 18 he'll be 21 so
he'll be in the electoral registers because you
had to be 21 to be able to vote yeah okay so
from It'd be interesting to look, you're not
going to get him before then, to be able to pinpoint
him up in Yorkshire before then, because he's
too young to be in the electoral registers, but
you'd be able to look from then onwards to go,
okay, does he stick around here? Because obviously
you're not going to have any census records.
So you can try and trace him in the electoral
registers. Right. And Find My Past has a brilliant
collection of electoral registers. Okay. You
can look elsewhere, but with any collection,
you're trying to get a really comprehensive...
set aren't you with really good date spans and
as few gaps as possible because that's going
to give you the most most data points it's going
to give you the most you bits of information
isn't it definitely this is cool it's like it's
an annoyance this but equally and it is it's
a side shoot it's kind of the interest that i
actually wanted i wanted a little mystery to
draw me in and now i've got it and you've done
all the usuals to look for jesse and alexander's
potential child I've done the basics but I didn't
have a date range and that actually really stumped
me I was like the date range is so expansive
at the moment because I don't have any full stops
anywhere I didn't know how easy it would be to
find I literally think I've forgotten everything
so everything so Because we do actually have
podcast listeners from all different levels.
Sometimes they write in giving us tips and good
advice and keeping us on the narrow because they've
got a wealth of experience. And sometimes they're
newer on the family history journey. So welcome
everybody, whatever level you're at. So Nathan,
when we say do all the basics for looking for
a child born to a couple, what are those basics?
What would you do to try and look for a baby?
You've got their marriage certificate, you've
got the couple's marriage certificate. How do
you go and look for those babies? I think I've
just, my brain stopped working. But, well, obviously
you look for their names and see if there are
any in the, well, this is laziness now, but in
hints and ancestry, it normally comes up, doesn't
it, with christening or birth records relating
to the names of the parents. So that's usually
the first easy stop to go to finding these things.
Clearly that's not happened for me here. And
after that, you've got the website FreeBMD. which
lets you search for births, marriages and deaths,
obviously. This is where I'm stumped, though,
because naturally I'm like, right, OK, I'm going
to go to Free BMD and I'm going to find a birth.
But it's that date range that just flummoxed
me. Can I get a decent search going on Free BMD
without a date? Well, I think you have got some
dates, though, haven't you? Yeah? I guess so.
Because you've got the marriage date, which is
1928? Yes. Yeah. And so, you know, potentially
they could have had a baby before then. And you've
got his age. He's going to be seven in, no, he's
born in 1907, which means that in 1928, he's
21. So you could search for, from 1925 onwards,
so he's 18. I mean, he's unlikely to have any
children before then. So you could search from
1925 and then you could say, right, we know they're
marrying in 1928. And unless he has an occupation,
which is taking him. far away like he's got he's
a sailor and he's working at sea or in the arm
and he's gone to the other side of the world
because there's a war on for years and years
if he's around it's unlikely for them not to
have children within a few years so if you searched
for five years after 1928 so go up to 1933 so
suddenly you've only given yourself an eight
-year window then so it's not it's not you've
you've narrowed it down rather than saying i
haven't got any clues it's unlikely that they
would be married living together and not have
a baby in five years i obviously fertility issues
aside, it's unlikely they don't have a child.
Yeah? Yeah. Particularly in the era of poor to
no contraception. Yeah? Sure. But if I go onto
3VMD to do the search, I literally have forgotten
everything. If I go onto 3VMD to do the search,
I have to click on, like, birth as the option,
obviously. But then you've got surname and first
name. I guess I know the surname is going to
be McKay. I don't know the first name. I know
the mother's... maiden name yes yes and that's
that's absolutely crucial because if you're just
searching on a surname then that's a ridiculous
search to do like for even the rarest of surnames
you're not you're not going to know without ordering
a million and one certificates whether any of
those are correct but if you're searching on
the um Assuming the baby has the father's surname,
you're searching on the mother's maiden name.
I think it's from, I should know this off the
top of my head and I always forget it. Like when
I go to 3BMD, I'll put in the mother's maiden
name and then it'll go, no, you can't do that.
I think before 1911, but it doesn't matter because
we're after 1911. And apologies if I got that
slight detail wrong. But anyway, you're in the
window where you can put in the mother's maiden
name. I'm 99 % sure. So put in the mother's maiden
name. So suddenly, rather than looking for one
piece of information, you've suddenly narrowed
it down a lot. So the only search results which
are going to come back are going to be for those.
A baby with those two surnames in the search
results, yeah? You've narrowed down the window.
Rather than going, I don't know any dates, you've
got an eight -year window. And then you could
see how many results have you got at that point.
And if you've got a world of results, then I
would stop and think, right, I'm going to geographically
limit this a little bit. I'm going to start putting
it in for the registration district, which is
covering where the family are living in Yorkshire.
I might be having a look around in the whole
county of Surrey. or if it's near a border, county
border in Surrey, looking in the neighbouring
counties, I'd start to control the geography
of where I'm looking. Yeah, because it's unlikely
you're going to be in Dorset. I'm not saying
they couldn't be, but it's, you know, you've
got some geographical areas that you know they're
associated with. Okay. So, but I wouldn't put
in the geographical areas first. I'd just literally
do those surnames, that date parameter. What
have we got? Is it like 10 or 20 results? That's
manageable, isn't it? It is. Whilst we've been
talking, obviously, I've snuck off and done this.
And I have got, I've done a massive date range.
I've done 1921 to 1940. And I've only got six
results coming back. Ideal. So now you've got
your six results and you're just going to scan
your eye down them. And there might be funny
little clues. Like one of those might be a baby
called Alexander. And you're like, well, of course
it's good. Or if you know Alexander's father's
name. Because obviously they've got that Mackay
surname, so they're potentially still honouring
those Scottish naming traditions where you'd
name your first son after the dad's dad, the
first daughter after the mum's mum. So if you
have those other family clues, you think, well,
you don't know that that baby, whatever Alexander's
dad's called, you don't know that that's definitely
your baby. But if you have clues which would
make you warmer or colder, looking at the registration
districts, this could be a hard one. A registration
district isn't necessarily obvious. You might
know the village that your ancestor comes from,
but you might not know what the registration
district is. So when you look at the registration
districts, if they mean nothing to you, have
a quick Google, or because you're looking in
England and Wales, you could go on the FamilySearch
1851 map site, and that gives you lots of administrative
areas, which sounds boring, but it's so useful
because you'll be able to look at the names of
registration districts. put it in whatever the
registration district is then you see it on the
map you go oh that covers their area in wherever
it is west yorkshire ideal okay you know it's
like warmer you're playing a game of warmer and
colder at this stage yeah this is tricky like
knowing what i now know and looking at these
results of the six entries four of them have
middlesbrough as the registration district but
Each Middlesbrough reference is two years apart,
which suggests that potentially that could be
the same family having child after child after
child. But that range is happening in like 1923,
at which point he should still be at boarding
school. So it makes me think that none of these
are right. What about the other two? You said
there were six results. So what about the two
other results which aren't Middlesbrough? But
both of those ones have got the surname McKay,
but it's spelt wrong. And I know I can't take
that as gospel, but that puts me off. One's in
1923 in Rochford, and then one's in 1940, which
must be wrong, in Woolwich. So from that list,
my feeling would be that none of those are for
your Alexander McKay and Jessie, because as you
say, one's just way too early, one's way too
late. And those four seem to be their own separate
family unit. Or you could also do, while you're
in 3MD, just to kind of definitely rule out those
four. If the dates of those children look plausible
for your Alexandra and Jessie, go back to your
3BMD search, search for marriage, look for a
marriage. Just specifically look for a marriage
in Middlesbrough or that sort of rough area.
Yeah. And for the rough time period. And then
hopefully what you'd do is you would come up
with a... McKay, whatever Jesse's surname was,
marriage in the Middlesbrough area. And you'd
be like, okay, I can definitely rule out these
guys. Yeah. They got married in Idle in West
Yorkshire. Your one did. Yeah. What you're looking
for is you're looking for a mum and dad for those
four kids in Middlesbrough. Ah, right. Sorry.
Yeah. Then you can go, no, this is definitely
a different family unit. Yeah. Potentially. And
then you just cross them out of your mind and
go, I have to potentially think that Alexandra
and Jesse didn't have any children. Then you
go back to my massive surmines. Did they fall
out and separate quite early on in their relationship?
It's all to play for suddenly again, isn't it?
You're like, OK, we can't find a child. Jesse
was that child Alexander had. Was that child
actually an Alexander Dolly child? Yeah. Wow.
Maybe he was that Alexander Dolly child and that's
why Alexander and Jesse fell out and separated.
it's always it's like real life it's like all
of us can understand those situations we've all
been various of the parties in those predicaments
it's just being part of human isn't it well my
mom's wording was nobody talked about it and
nobody met this child so i don't think it would
have been dolly's child but then it's obviously
there was a past that hasn't been talked about
So way back when, when we started this podcast,
the reason we started it is because Nathan did
a DNA test and he thought it would be fun to
do a podcast and he thought it would be fun to
potentially, you weren't really fussed about
family history, you ought to do a DNA test and
see whatever your DNA test could tell you. Anyway,
then he's accidentally got addicted to family
history in the meantime, hasn't looked at his
DNA results, which I know are part of family
history, but they're just like part of it. Sorry
to offend anyone who loves DNA, but they are
just part of family history. And so I wonder
if you go back to your DNA results at some point.
So let's say, so what is Alexander to you? So
what I'm trying to get at is there could be a
descendant of this Alexander, mystery Alexander
baby, who could potentially turn up in your DNA
results. Oh, yeah. I might finally have a use
for my DNA. Yeah. Apart from like upsetting me
and telling me I'm not a Viking. Yes. What was
Alexander again? Your two times great grandpa?
He's my great grand uncle. Okay. Okay. Okay.
So, oh my God, this makes my head hurt. So he's
your great -great -uncle. He's my great -great
-great -grand -uncle. He's not my great -great
-great. He's my great -grand -uncle, yeah. Yes,
well, I call it great -great. It's the same thing.
Yeah, I added an extra great just because I was
singing that song. Anyway. Okay, okay. You know
me. Yes. So he's the sibling of your great...
What is he, the sibling? He is the brother...
Of my great -grandparents. My grandad's mum's
brother. Okay. Okay. So he's a third cousin to
you. Do you know how this mystery started? This
mystery started because I had a picture of Dolly
and I wanted to add her onto my tree with this
really nice picture. That's it. But I can't because
I can't find her. Anyway, carry on. Yes. Yeah,
so that's me being really silly. If you've got
a picture of Dolly in the family album, Dolly
is not a nefarious kind of other woman, is she?
My mum met her as a child because she had a southern
accent, as did Alex. So Dolly exists. It's the
Jessie that was a mystery. That was the bit that
my mum was like, are we never married? And I
was like, yeah, but you don't know that. You're
just saying that because that's what you were
told or brought to believe. Yet she still knew
rumours of a child. A mystery is flowering. Okay,
so I have to say I'm just like stuck. Great.
Sorry about that. This is where we go, please,
we just say casually to anybody listening to
the podcast, we'd be very interested if you have
anything that you could do to help us. We go,
please help us. Please help Nathan. Any ideas
on how we can get around this so that he can
find out how to add Dolly to his... family tree,
add the photo of her and add her, obviously,
then that would be great to know. It's just an
irritating time period. I love the censuses.
And as soon as you hit that 1921, you're like,
there's nothing after this. Shocking. I guess
I could try and find them on the 1939. I mean,
Dolly just feels very, you know, it's kind of
a nickname. You haven't got a surname. We haven't
really got a particular place for her. I did.
I can't remember. Oh, this is bad. This is bad
research now, but I did a bit of digging and
I came up with two potential surnames for her.
How did I find these? This is why you should
write things down in a research log. I've written
down on this piece of paper without any note
taking about where I got this information from,
that she's potentially called Wood, which is
annoying because she's coming from, well, she's
joining a family that becomes Wood, or she's
called Hammond. Now... Potentially, I might believe
this because I guess the search I'll have done
will be trying to find a wedding for someone
called Alexander McKay to somebody called Dorothy.
And I'm speculating that she's called Dorothy.
Is Dolly short for anything else? I don't know.
She could have been just born Dolly, couldn't
she? I don't know. I just don't know what Dolly's
short for. Right. Well, I went for Dorothy. Dot.
And in my head, Dot and Dottie was kind of Dorothy,
but probably Dolly could be too. Yeah. So I need
to go and look at that as well. Try Dolly. But
we've gone for Dorothy. Anyway, so I've got two
surnames. He must have been searching for the
marriage and two options came up, but there was
no actual document tied to them that let me see,
like, the father's name of James Maxwell McKay,
which would obviously just instantly be a massive
tick. So that's all I've got. There's just a
big, big grey area in this guy's life that I
can't flesh out. To establish how you did it,
so were you on...? I was on Ancestry. Yeah. And
I went to search. And I clicked on birth, marriage
and death. And then from that, I searched for
Alexander McKay as the main guy. I then deleted
the Jesse, because when I put him in, it filters
in all his information onto the search string.
And one of them was obviously married to Jesse
Robinson. So I deleted that and you can press,
there's a button where you can press like a relation.
So I pressed spouse and typed in Dorothy, just
the first name. clicked exact match and did a
search and it came up with a bunch of options.
This is exactly what I've done. Obviously, Alexander
McKay came up and a bunch of marriages came up
and there were lots of different names, but there
were two or three that were Dorothy's in the
kind of rough region of where I want them to
be. So I probably need to go back to those documents
with a keener eye. When I started doing this,
I was literally already at the end of, it sounds
daft, but scanning in the photographs. and allocating
them to the people was actually quite tiring
it was good and easy to do using the app but
every single person then had a story which was
fantastic because my mum started telling me information
that I'd never heard before but I'd literally
got to overload point at this point and this
became the mystery and it's like well I need
to solve this and probably wasn't giving it enough
attention so I need to maybe go back and look
at those documents but I just wanted an instant
concrete James Maxwell McKay was this guy's father.
Therefore, it's definitely a wedding. It's definitely
happened. Nothing was shouting at me saying this
looks promising. And so I do have the mystery
of what happened with the previous marriage,
who, what, where this child was and whether he
married Dolly. It's a good mystery, though. It's
what I want, isn't it? I said I'm bored of finding
fact figures and dates, so if I can tie a few
strings together on this little strand, it'd
be cool. Mm -hmm. It'd be very, very cool. Nothing
to do with what I actually said I wanted to do.
I'm still, like, fascinated by, like, the local
history idea and the ghost stuff. I think that's
going to be quite fun for me, personally. Mm
-hmm. But here I am with Alexander McKay, so
whatever. That's what happens, isn't it? Every
week. Well, just to all of us, I think. Well,
not all of us. Some people manage to be very,
very, what's the word, have a lot of self -discipline
and stick with the precise thing they want. But
in a way, is it really understandable that any
of us, of our research, that kind of we set a
plan that we want to do that week and then it
gets derailed? Because when we're finding out
things about our ancestors, it is a little bit
like a conversation. It's rare in life that we
keep going with one conversation. We do let it
take its kind of flow, don't we? And so if it
leads us off down a different path, that's where
we go. Yeah, and it was actually great going
through these photographs with my mum because
it was triggering her brain. Like, obviously,
I mention all the time that I'm doing my family
history and a lot of the time she doesn't think
she's got any knowledge, whereas... when we're
looking through these photographs just like oh
that's so -and -so and this is so -and -so and
they did that then and it's like oh my god all
this information you haven't given me yet and
equally because because I don't know the right
way to ask her either because I don't know what
the question is sometimes whereas these these
pictures were triggering like oh that's so -and
-so and they were related to them and this was
this wedding and it was really cool so I probably
actually need to spend a bit more time with my
mum and some of these photographs and find out
a few more definitely random facts that she's
got buried away that she didn't know she's got
And make sure you write them down when she tells
you. I know, God, how many times am I going to
say this? But add them to your tree as a little
note or whatever you want to do. Yeah. Yeah.
And I think that's really useful to think because,
say, your mum not realising all of those wonderful
nuggets of information she has. All of us, we
kind of don't appreciate what we do know and
we forget that it's not. like my children there's
loads of things I know that my children don't
know just because but in fact I live through
those events so I remember those people personally
and they're so familiar to me I kind of feel
they don't need explaining but they do exactly
yeah they're a mystery yeah they're part of your
fabric they're not actually a story that you
need to press down but actually that's exactly
what they are exactly yeah we're looking now
this is Nathan we're going to have to put this
in the show notes Nathan showed me a little part
of his tree and he's got so many photos on there
it just looks wonderful so we've got like 1940s
pictures with people with their lovely organized
hair and their smart clothes and then we go into
like early early 1900 pictures and funny little
kiss curls and hats and all sorts happening yeah
there's there's some great pictures and I've
obviously gone for the most like evocative looking
ones like you've got such a range don't you've
got the span of if you've got lots of pictures
of people you've got the span of their entire
lives like i've got really like funny pictures
of my granddad where he's like a child and he's
got like um dungarees on and it's a really cute
picture it's it's a posed picture that's been
done at a proper photo place but i wanted the
sort of more characterful ones of of them living
their lives so it's quite interesting like curating
it and making that choice as to which is their
profile pic i know you can add multiple pictures
to each person's account anyway but But you still
have to make that ultimate decision, which one's
going to be the one which shows, don't you? Yeah,
and it was quite funny. With my mother being
around whilst I was doing it, she really loved
her granddad. And she goes, oh, I've got a lovely
picture of my granddad. I want you to use this
one. So he was born in 1905, but he's the only
one I've got which is a colour image. Because
my mum was like, I really want this picture to
be the picture of him. Whereas I probably do
have some more younger, slightly dapper looking
pictures. But it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed
it. I need to find more now, though. And the
one of... There was a run there, that's why,
of Alexander McKay, and he looked like he had
a jacket with, like, a zipper on it. Was he the
one you mentioned was a photo of an aeroplane?
Yeah, that is him stood next to Dolly. And they
look like they're explorers. They look like they're
going to go on a hike or something, but it might
not even be an aeroplane, but it looks really
like... I can't describe it to you. It just looks
really like, right, we're going on an adventure,
don't we? It's got that sort of vibe. It's cool.
Maybe I'll put that on. Yes. And I think there
are pilot's licenses that you can... Ooh. Oh,
this is a hit. Don't, I mustn't, I'm digging
like a false promise. I have a feeling that there
are pilot's license records. Let me get back
to you on this. Yeah, well, I mean... I might
be equally lying that it's an aeroplane behind
them. It could just be a billboard or a freight
train or anything. So I'm not going to get excited
about that. The top of his jacket, it does look
like some sort of zipper overall situation. Yeah.
But maybe he might not have been a pilot. He
could have been a mechanic on an aeroplane. Total
side note, on my marathon, when I was running
the marathon the other week, either a spitfire
or a hurricane flew over. It was amazing. I heard
the noise. I was like, what is that? And I looked
up, I thought. Oh my word, that's a Spitfire.
And I was like, is that a Spitfire? And then
another guy next to me was like, yeah, that's
a Spitfire. I'm really into aeroplanes. I was
like, me too. We're best friends now. Anyway,
tangential, sorry. No, that's fine. I've got
this really cool little book, which I bought
on eBay. And it's, sorry if I mentioned it before,
it's a little tiny pamphlet, size of a postcard,
probably, I don't know, 30 or 40 pages in it.
And it's got silhouette drawings of all of the
aeroplanes, which... not just the British ones,
but German, American, whatever, which were likely
to be flying over British skies in the Second
World War. And the idea was that kids, anybody,
would be getting these books and you'd be learning
what the shapes were so you'd know if it's kind
of friend or foe. And obviously some people were
using it in a more kind of authoritative fashion
if they're kind of properly manning guns and
spotting air things. But obviously it was a craze
for the kids to know what was happening in the
sky button. So everybody was interested in these
silhouettes. Yeah, everyone became a spotter.
Yeah, spotter. It was a side view, side profile
of all of the planes and then an undercarriage
view. Yeah, I've seen those. I love them. Not
such an airplane geek. Cool. So what are we going
to do then next week? What's our plan over the
coming week? Who knows anymore? I promise nothing.
I do want to get back to my local history, but
I do feel clearly the Alexander McKay mystery
is currently in my head. So I will follow this
up and see if I can actually get anywhere. And
then if I can't, I'll just sack it off and pretend
Dolly doesn't exist and cut her out with a photograph.
I won't do that. Well, she won't do that. No.
So I feel like, I don't want to put you on the
spot, but potentially, do you think the idea
that Alexander McKay had a child? who isn't talked
about in your family, who potentially has descendants
and your DNA could potentially answer some of
those questions. Does that make you want to look
at your DNA? I'm still sulky with my DNA. I'm
not in a good place for that. One day you're
just going to come on the podcast and go, I can't
believe I didn't look at this sooner. It's amazing.
Until it tells me I'm a Viking, I'm not talking
to it. Yes, I guess maybe I can lean into that
a bit more. Because it's not on my direct line,
I've got less of a sense of urgency about it.
And also the thought of going into my DNA just
tires my brain a bit because then I'm having
to learn a whole new set of things. And it will
be a good thing to learn. Maybe this is the opportunity
that I need to do that because until this point,
I haven't had that need, have I? It's all been
quite straightforward. So let's see where this
mystery takes me. It's just a weird one because
there's yet no evidence of the birth of a child.
I'm literally just taking my mum's we didn't
talk about this line and creating a child. So
it might just be that it didn't even happen.
We've obviously had instances in the past where
people in my family have been confused about
the relationship of who was married to who and
when, etc. So I'll take it all with a bit of
a pinch of salt. But the fact I've got a picture
of this woman called Dolly and then I've got
the marriage certificate for Jessie, there's
something there, isn't there, to look at? Definitely.
OK, well, I'll wait and see what you report back
with then. Okey -dokey. What have you been up
to? What have I been up to? I have been doing
a little bit on my mapping, but I've stalled
a little bit because partly I'm feeling guilty
because at the beginning of the year I set myself
four major projects to do. And I'm supposed to
do one a quarter. And obviously we're getting
near the end of June will be the end of the second
quarter of the year. And I have been working
on one of them, but my first project of the year
I haven't done. So I'm reviving that project.
And that project is my grandpa's logbook to transcribe
it using AI. The AI obviously is supposed to
be helpful. I have to be really honest with me.
It wasn't very helpful, but I'm going to give
it another go because people often say this,
AI is as helpful as how switched on and how precise
you are when you use it, and it's going to be
more or less helpful to you. And so when I was
using AI back at the beginning of the year to
transcribe my grandpa's logbook, each individual
page, it would transcribe pretty much perfectly,
and it would come up with loads of other additional
rabbit holes for me to follow up. So that's brilliant.
apart from this is where the human error crept
in at the beginning of the project um when i
would when i would try to give them a copy of
the two pages so obviously when you open a book
you have two pages the facing pages It just couldn't
translate. It couldn't go across the page and
line up the rows from the left -hand page to
the right -hand page. And then it would turn
it into total garbage. And then it would do like
duplicating previous lines of previous pages,
literally like it had had a meltdown. And so
I kept trying with this, starting new conversations.
And in the end, I sort of gave up on it. And
I thought... You know, I think this is going
to be easier to just use my little human brain
in an Excel sheet. But then I got you, stupid
idiot. All I need to do is, because I'd taken
individual photos of each of the pages. You've
got your facing pages. I've taken a photo of
the left -hand page and a photo of the right
-hand page because I wanted to try and make sure
that each photo was as high resolution and clear
as possible for sharing with my cousins and my
kids and things like that. Whereas now I'm just
going to take a photo of the facing pages. left
-hand page and the right -hand page all in one
go, then I think it will be easier for it to
read across the lines and it will probably work
a treat. And this time next week, I'll be going,
Nathan, I've done it. Take that project off.
Because my second project on my list was doing
my down -and -out tree. And obviously that's,
I love that. I'm all about that. So I've been
really good at that project, but I've just completely
been bad about the previous project. And then
my third project on there is to add more family
recipes to my family history website. And so
I have got some ancestor recipes, which is really
fun. And I've got some Second World War recipes,
which are family cooked. And even way back when,
before then, I've got some little remedies, all
sorts of things. But my mum and my aunt are both
brilliant cooks. And they will have lots of staple
favourites that they'll cook over and over again.
So I want to make sure I've got their recipes.
So I'm seeing them both very, very soon. So I'm
like, OK, I want you to tell me the recipe. Yeah.
Right. That sounds like a really nice project.
It's really nice. Yes, it's really nice. Yeah.
Food and memories and tradition, it's all really
woven in, isn't it? Yeah. I don't think you need
to be hard on yourself about not doing the other
projects, though. The Down and Out one's going
to last you forever. You're not going to finish
that, are you? Let's be honest. It's a continuation
one that's always going to go on. Yeah, Down
and Out is going to swamp up most of this year.
The logbook, I think... With a bit of organisation,
I think I'll get that. I think I could do that
really quite quickly. The recipes, it's just
like keeping on adding to it a little bit. I've
already got some of their recipes and I just
need to keep adding some more. Yeah. That's cute.
That'd be a really good keepsake and Christmas
present for people as well. I could do that,
couldn't I? Yeah. It's just loads and loads of
different blog posts. Yeah. Yeah. I could do
it in a little book. Nice. Yeah. So that's me.
Anyway, what's the space for the logbook? Now
I've said that I kind of feel beholden to it,
which is good because I need pressure to make
things happen. Yeah, I'll pull you up on it next
time. OK, OK, it's going to have happened. OK,
well, thanks for listening, everybody. And we
reached it at the start. But if you haven't recently,
do go and look at our lovely new website again.
It really is a treat. And hopefully you'll find
what you need. have any queries about anything
we've said on the podcast, or if you would like
a hand on finding something on the website, then
you can email me and Nathan at inquiries at family
-tree .co .uk. And then Nathan and I both see
that email address. So we'll be able to answer
you. And we look forward to seeing your Excel
sheet as well, Nathan, on our podcast item on
the website. Yeah, I'm quite excited to do that,
actually. I know, I know. So we'll be live there.
By the time you listen to this podcast, it'll
be there and ready for you. Lovely. Happy researching,
everyone. Bye.