Hello and welcome to Family Tree Talk, your favourite
family history podcast. My name's Helen Tovey,
I'm editor of Family Tree and with me is... Nathan
Ward. Hello there. Hi Nathan. So I don't even
need to ask how your family history is going
this week because I know how it's going because
we've had some amazing emails from some podcast
listeners. I'm just going to give one of them
a shout out and then shall we look in depth at
what the other people have been telling you?
Let's do that indeed. Okay, so first of all,
this is a quick shout out for Tony. And Tony
just had such a lovely message for us. And he
says he wanted to thank us because he's been
listening to the podcast since it first started.
And it's so good that it's the first podcast
that he downloads and listens to each week as
he drives to work. And it's been a joy to listen
to Nathan's journey from a wannabe Viking to
a proper family historian. So you hear that,
Nathan? You're no longer a newbie. You're a proper
family historian. I did a nudge by Helen. Would
you agree that's gentle? I think I am quite lenient
on you. I'm not sure you are. I think you're
very bossy. I'm not sure I am a proper historian,
but yes, thank you. That's very nice to hear.
And he says, even though he's never met either
of us, we feel like old friends. Well, I have
to say, our podcast listeners definitely, definitely
feel like friends. And we have some really good
emails this week, don't we? Which are really
like above and beyond friendship. They're really
useful to you. Yes, they are indeed. So do you
want to fire away? I will fire away. I'm jealous.
I am jealous. Okay, right. Well, a quick recap,
if nobody knows what I'm talking about. I was
looking for my, oh, I can't remember what relation
is. Anyway, some guy called Alexander McKay,
who's on my tree. I think he's like my great
-great -great -great -grandparents' brother or
something like that. I could find the facts out,
but whatever. Anyway, he was married. There was
a rumor that he had a child. And then he allegedly
was married again to another woman up here. And
I couldn't find much of anything to do with it.
It was a bit of a mystery. So there was a missing
child, a missing marriage for the second person.
And there was a marriage for the first person.
But that person disappeared. Wow, I'm making
this sound crazy. Anyway, Alexander McKay married
someone called Jesse. And we had a record of
this marriage and the parents matched up and
it was all very tickety -boo. I could match it
all to my tree, very happy with it. My mum didn't
know anything of her. She only knew Auntie Dolly.
Now, Auntie Dolly we thought was called Dorothy
and we were trying to work out if there was a
death or a divorce for Jessie. and where Dolly
came in and how they got married and all the
documents seem to be missing. So it's been a
little bit of a couple of weeks mystery where
I've found a little bit, but not much. Anyway,
after last week, we got a bit of advice last
week, didn't we? And I went away and did a bit
more research and I went back to some of the
stuff that I'd previously done where I don't
know if I said I did some research and I couldn't
remember how I'd found these names out, but I'd
found a Dorothy Wood. who would potentially be
Dorothy McKay later on. And we've had some media
letters that back up what I've thought there.
So literally, I started doing my research again.
And as it is, I haven't needed to because you
guys, the community, have come to my rescue in
an amazing way. I'm actually quite emotional
about this. Like, the level of detail that we've
got a few listeners that have come in, it's just
amazing. Like, talk about going off on your own
rabbit holes and then taking mine instead. It's
great. So anyway, let's, I'll go through these
emails. We've got one from Abby, who is all the
way in New Zealand. And she said, hi, Nathan
and Helen, love your podcast. And she goes into
details on what she's found for my Dolly mystery.
So on free BMD, she found the death of Dorothy
Louise May, which again is another thing I should
add. There was a thing on the 1939 register.
where her name McKay had been crossed out and
me, M -double -E, had been put in instead. And
then there are a few little squiggles and numbers
suggesting something to research. Anyway, so
she's found the death of Dolly Louise Me in Leeds
in 1987 and the birth date matches what was on
the 1939 register. She's also found the marriage
of Dorothy McKay to Reginald Me in Bradford in
1976. And she's also found the marriage. Now,
this ties up with what I was saying. The marriage
of Dorothy L. Wood to Alexander McKay in Wakefield
in 1934. So that's a massive bit of missing information
that I actually couldn't find. She has found
that. She goes on to say that figuring out what
happened to Jesse McKay near Robinson was a bit
more difficult. She can't find an obvious death.
So there's a few search options that I should
look into there. She suggested searching Jesse
in 1939. I've already done that. I can't find
her. If she's not there, look for a marriage
and death after 1939. If she's not there, check
for Jesse Robinson and make sure she didn't go
back to her maiden name. If no, likely Jesse
Robinson, then look for the marriage of Jesse
Robinson, sorry, Jesse Robinson or Jesse McKay
after 1928, etc. So just really brilliant stuff
there. And it's really helpful and factual and
has helped me get on. All fabulous. So thank
you for that. It's such a good... Abbey's provided
you with such a good step -by -step list of things
you could potentially do next. It's so orderly,
isn't it? It is, yes. And I would ordinarily
have gone on and done that. But we've had another
listener, Sarah, who's in Australia. And she
has gone and... Really, I am taken aback by the
level of detail that Sarah's gone into on this.
It's amazing. She's sent even like a spreadsheet,
which I'll go into once I've gone through the
information she's given. It's just mind -boggling.
She's put, this is my first time writing into
a podcast. I've been listening all the way through
the back catalogue since the start of the year
and have thoroughly enjoyed it. It's been fascinating
following Nathan's genealogy, I can't say the
word, genealogy journey from the beginning and
to hear how his research skills have developed
over time. And it goes on. So she said, when
I heard the discussion about Nathan's great -granduncle,
there you go, he's my great -granduncle, I found
myself disappearing down a McKay -sized rabbit
hole. That's nice to hear because I do like a
rabbit hole. So here we go. She's done a lot
of digging for us. She has found Alexander McKay.
She's found the marriage of Jesse and Alexander,
which I did have that one. So that's already
cool. And she is then found on the 1929 electoral
register. She's found... Alexander and Jesse
on Find My Past, that is. So them together there.
And this is so meticulous. Sarah's literally
written down everywhere she's found these people
and then given reference to where she's found
them. If people were good, they'd put them in
the research log. I'm not sure I'm so good. Anyway,
a really interesting one now. In 1932, she has
found the divorce of Alexander and Jesse in the
National Archives. So I'm probably going to come
back to you on this, Helen, because I've never
used the National Archives and I'm a little bit
clueless about it. So I never would have found
this because I wouldn't have even thought to
look there. So I'm fascinated by that. So yeah,
she's found the divorce. So I need to look at
that document. She has also found the marriage
of Alexander and Dorothy in 1934, which again
is what Abby was saying as well. So those two
match up. And then after that, she's given herself
a side quest where... I actually noticed this
as well myself in the research. We've got the
census where there were four children and only
two survived. So there's two missing children.
I obviously stopped on this project because I
started getting a little bit emotional about
it all. But she's actually gone on and decided
to do a bit of digging for these missing children.
She's found one, but not the other missing one.
So it's just stunning. Absolutely amazing. I'm
absolutely thrilled by this. And like I said,
I'm really touched. Like we've got such an amazing
community that's like gone and done my research
for me. It's making me quite lazy, but it's just
stunning. And Sarah has also sent over an Excel
document, which it just makes me feel a bit embarrassed
about the level of my research. It's amazing.
It's an Excel document and it has the year down
the side, starting from 1868. It has the name
of everybody going across the top. James Maxwell
McKay, Mary Jane, Mary McKay, Phyllis, et cetera,
Alexander. and it just charts what they were
up to and where they were found on each like
census or whatever document and then along the
side of that as well going down it's got events
so like the coronation of the queen for example
or the london dock strikes so it's giving you
like context for like what was going on in the
world this document is just stunning um like
i'm very ashamed of all of my work it's just
meticulous it's i'm just like flabbergasted by
this it's so good And then at the bottom corner
of this document, which you get to like, I mean,
it goes on and on to like 2012. But at the bottom,
she's put loads of follow up questions and things
to do as well. So her follow up questions were,
did Alexander McKay serve? If so, find records.
What happened to Jessie after she divorced? So
they're two good questions. And then to do, she's
put find a picture close to 1921 of the where.
Houseman Clerks and Drapers School, which I believe
last week's, I can't remember, forgive me. Brian.
He found a video of it, didn't he? So we have
that. And also find an old map to picture for
Moorside Idol Bradford. Yeah, which is cool.
I could just run there and do that. That was
quite near me. Find records of Alexander between
1914 and 1973. Order the divorce record. Further
research is needed into this record. It may not
be relation... Oh, yeah. So there's somebody
born in Middlesbrough, which I think I, again,
touched on last week. I don't think the Middlesbrough
McKays are my McKays. We had, like, a bunch of,
like, four children being born at Ewing Park.
So absolutely amazing, guys. Thank you so much
for that. It's just... It's blown my mind how
you've all just, like, jumped on this. I've had
texts as well from my friend Helen from Run Club,
who I keep occasionally mentioning. She had lots
of ideas on what was going on. So I'm glad that
you've all enjoyed that mystery. Very good. What
I love is Sarah says of herself that she tends
to work as... This is her words in a fairly chaotic
capture everything style while researching. So
she's attached the working document she created
for this little project. And it contains transcriptions,
source references, notes, follow up questions
and theories. And it's certainly not polished,
but you're welcome to have a look through it.
So this is the amazing Excel document that you've
just been talking about, Nathan. And I think
Sarah's approach is really good because she's.
Often, we're in the flow. We don't want to keep
stopping ourselves. We need to keep those thought
processes going. And by just copying and pasting
everything into an Excel sheet, and she says
it's fairly chaotic. We think it's super organised.
It means she's got everything and she's not later
hunting for things. And it's just really good.
It's just like, it doesn't have to be in Excel.
Some people just, as soon as they hear the word
Excel, they freeze. You could equally do the
same sort of idea in a Word document. Yeah, I
don't think digital, so you can just go copy,
paste, copy, paste, and you're there, aren't
you? Yeah. I mean, I would honestly hate to see
what one of her organised documents looks like
because it's just stunning and it's just like,
wow. Yeah. Yes, I feel ashamed of my silly little
scrolls that I make. No, not at all. But she's,
yeah, Sarah, thank you. You're a good example.
Yeah, Nathan, I think we should ask her if we
can share her Excel. Yeah, let's do that. So
it's exciting. It is exciting. So largely my
homework that I was doing, I started doing and
then didn't need to. So I might do this every
week. I'll just put out my homework to everybody
and then I can just sit around and do nothing.
Yeah. I don't mean that's at all. I enjoy the
thrill of the chase. I've still got a couple
of mysteries with this. Obviously, like I said,
I've never been to the National Archives to look
at documents. So I need to have a peruse of that
and find out about the divorce record. That's
interesting. Find out a little bit more about
what's going on with Jesse. And again, This whole
word of mouth thing, my mum thinks there's a
child as well between Jessie and Alexander. So
I need to have a nosy about that. Yeah. So two
things to follow up. One, Sarah's suggesting
that you look for photos of the children's home
or the boarding school that you're... Was it
your great -uncle? Great -grand -uncle. Your
great -grand -uncle that he went to. So obviously
like childrenshomes and workhouses .org, they're
Peter Higginbotham's websites. They're both really
useful websites for finding such organisations.
Yeah. As well as he's Googling the name of the
school and seeing if there's particular school
archives. which may be available online or available
via local archives. I'm just saying that because
you're lucky because Brian's already helped you
out with that. But in case somebody is listening
and wondering what to do, then the childrenhomesandworkhouses
.org websites are the really good kind of starting
points. And then with the divorce records, that's
really interesting. So obviously the National
Archives has millions and millions of records
and a tiny percentage of them, I could be out
of date. I think it's just... something like
three or four percent of it's digitized it's
a very small percentage it's digitized i could
be well out of date on that but it's still not
going to be massive so what we rely on as historians
and historians if we can't get there we rely
on the catalog so the catalog is basically a
massive shopping list of what they have in the
archives and depending on how well you can find
what you need depends on how detailed the shopping
list is so The shopping list could just say get
bread and it could have everything which is bread
filed under bread or it could have it filed under
baguettes, organic bread, gluten free, everything
else. And it could have the brands, you know,
it could go down very, very granular. So for
your example, Sarah went to the National Archives
website, which is discovery .nationalarchives
.org. gov .uk she has gone and searched just
by their name she's done that kind of one of
those potluck searches presumably maybe she searched
specifically for a divorce well actually she's
she's obviously um put the search terms in her
notes because it's so meticulous yeah she searched
for Alexander McKay divorce with a date range
of 1928 which is obviously when he got married
to Jessie 1934 which is when he got married to
Dorothy Brilliant. And so by luck, those records
have been, they've been catalogued and indexed
to enough detail that you can find the individual
names of the people. Some of the record collections,
you might know that you've got records for a
particular place, for instance, but it might
not have all of the people indexed. Yeah. So
you'd be able to go, OK, they've got records
for this parish, but I can't actually find the
names of the people. So that's lucky that in
this instance you can find those records. That's
really brilliant. And it's interesting because
it says that, looking at Sarah's notes, it says
that Jessie's the appellant. Is that the word?
Where is it again? Yeah. And Alexander's the
respondent. She's the one who petitioned for
divorce. Yes. So I wonder whether he was already
getting together with Dolly. Plain aware. Potentially.
Yeah. Hmm. You could go to the National Archives
and that's not a bad thing. There's other options
because obviously lots of people don't live near
the National Archives and it can be expensive
to get there. So other options you can do, you
can go and find this record in the National Archives
catalogue and then you can see if you can order
it. Sometimes you can order the records quite
readily. Sometimes you have to, you ask them
for a quote and then they'll say it'll cost you
X, Y and Z amount of money. for them to make
a copy of this record. It can be expensive. So
another option could be that you see if there's
anybody who lives near the National Archives
or who happens to be going anywhere anyway, like
a friend of yours, who can do you a favour and
go make a copy of the record. Or you hire a professional
researcher to do it. And it swings and roundabouts.
It could be worth getting the quote, seeing what
the quote is, and then thinking, OK, what are
my other options? Because it can be expensive.
Yeah, you might be better off. using a professional
researcher, because lots of professional researchers
will be going there a lot anyway, and so they
can do your job as one of many jobs in a day.
Okay, cool. So it's possible, but equally you
can go to the National Archives. It's super exciting.
Well, yeah, it sounds like a nice day out, doesn't
it, as well? It would be, definitely. Yeah. A
good day out. You'd have to do it as a work trip,
Nathan. I could come too. Yes, let's get that
penciled in. Yeah. Research. Yeah, obviously
it's a big rabbit hole, but it would be a nice
day out. So yeah, that's fabulous, isn't it?
It's really, really good. So I've done nothing
else. It's just been that. That's been my family
history. That's good. It's very good. What a
community. I love it. Yeah. So I've been doing
things. I don't know whether you remember, but
last week I was going to put myself... into the
ring with AI and see who is faster, me or AI.
I'm like, I don't want to do these things to
myself. Anyway, I did it. Okay. So a quick recap.
I'll try to get my AI to help me transcribe one
of my grandpa's RAF Second World War logbooks.
It did a lot of the pages perfectly. It did some
of the pages complete fabrications. So that made
me feel very disconcerted about the whole lot.
So then I had to go through and check everything,
which suddenly escalated the time the project
was taking because of all the verifying. This
is nothing new. We all know that we have to verify
output that AI gives us. So then I rather kind
of, what's the word? I don't know. smugly or
arrogantly or whatever, said, well, I'm going
to see if I can do manual transcriptions myself
faster. So I had to go. So who do you think won,
me or AI? Is this taking accuracy into account
as well? Yeah. Okay, I'm going to say you won.
No. You didn't win. Yeah, even taking into account
having to double check all of AI's work, then
AI's still faster than me. So even though I did
it and I was accurate, so I did my pages, double
checked them. Just because I had his original
logbook next to me, so just check I've got all
the facts in correctly. So my manual typing,
I'm not bad at typing. I can sit in front of
a computer all day long and I touch type. And
I'm still slower than AI, even though I had to
do loads of human verifying and checking of those
AI pages. Right, I can remember. Yeah. AI was
7 .5 minutes per page and I was 10 minutes. Oh
wow, that is quite a big difference. Yeah. So
if AI had got it right, it would just have wiped
the floor with me drastically differently. Half
of my AI time was sourcing out the problems it
had made. Right. Yeah. So I thought that was
interesting. It's very interesting. I'm quite
shocked. And I've been learning a bit about AI.
So last week I completely was feeling in a bit
of a grunt with it and I was blaming it for making
mistakes. And then I, this is a typical kind
of bad workman or bad work person blames their
tools. And so I was definitely that bad work
person because I had had this experience before.
You start using AI and you're working with a
large language or whatever you're putting in
your data. And it's performing really, really
well. And then the conversations kind of degenerates
and the fabrications creep in. And apparently
it's just because it's lost its, it's used up
its context window. I think that's the jargon
or it's used up its short term memory. And then
mistakes start to happen increasingly. So that
kind of partly tallies with my experience, but
partly doesn't because then it managed to revive
itself. Obviously sneaked off for a coffee, came
back. Right. So I'm not quite sure what happened
there. I think you've got a limit, don't you?
Like where you talk to AI and then it'll be like,
you've used up your five questions. It didn't
even tell me I had a limit. It just started derailing
itself. Right, okay. Because I've noticed that
it does say sometimes like, oh, you're now on
a slower process and now come back in three hours
and you'll be back on a faster one if you've
got paydent for anything. So suddenly, yeah,
it starts asking random questions and doing things
that you don't know. I was... I can't remember
what conversation I was having with AI, but it
was giving me some useful information. And then
it did that thing where it said, oh, you're now
on this lower processing thing. And it started
telling me that I had a job working in transport
randomly. I was like, I've never said that to
you. And I don't work in transport. That's when
you need to walk out of the room and leave it
for a bit. Maybe it's future projecting for me.
Maybe it knows what I don't know. Who knows?
I could be working in transport before I know
it. I've also been listening to some amazing
AI podcasts. Okay. I know. It's a really good
one. And it's called, it's called, obvious, I
think it's the Family History AI Show. So that's
kind of what it says on the tin title. And it's
by two people from the Coalition for Responsible
Use of AI in Genealogy. And so I kind of, because
I felt like I need to learn more so that it's
not just using AI, but it's like, are you, are
we creating? future problems like what are the
what are the issues what are the dangers and
so to try and learn about them so you can not
suffer from them so that clearly like things
don't put in details of living people because
if it gobbles up those details of the living
people they're kind of gone and you're going
come back can i just retrieve that bit of paper
with the details of the living people no you
can't so that's useful to learn Very mindful
what you put into it. I'm not worried about my
grandpa's Second World War logbook because it's
all in the past and I'd be happy for anyone else
to have that information. Providing it's correct
and not gobbledygook. That's out of date, though,
because it has got its version of it is a little
bit bonkers. Yeah, well, that is the bigger concern,
isn't it, for us as quote -unquote historians,
finding facts from somewhere else that actually
aren't correct or having fake images that aren't
anything to do with anything. We're just at the
foothills of this. It's all the skills we already
need to have as family historians, isn't it?
We know we need to have a few pieces of evidence,
not just one fact, and we don't want to spin
a whole story just off one clue. We need to have
lots of corroborating evidence, don't we? We
do. We do indeed. I like to have three points
at least. That makes me feel comfortable. That's
good, yeah. And we need to check things. We do.
We need to not talk about living people. It's
all the same stuff. You have to be careful what
you give out because people can randomly go searching
for you on free BMD, can't they? It's very true.
Just a few details. Before you know it, something
isn't anonymous anymore. You have to be kind
of more cautious than you think. Yeah, before
you know it, your co -workers are telling you
how old you are. It's true, but also that depends
on which country you're from. So where I was
born, you can't readily do that. Right. Yeah,
that's why it was safe to search for your birthday
to find out how old you were because I knew you
couldn't do a revenge attack. Fair enough. It
made me feel very, very scared. Anyway. So we've
been having a good time recently with Family
Tree. We had a busy, busy month last month, didn't
we? We were working on, we were putting together
a wonderful new workbook, which is... suitable
for people who are starting their family tree
but it's also suitable for people who have been
doing family history for a while and we've already
had some reviews from people saying that they've
found that so that's really cool because it's
got when we just talked about the national archives
a moment ago it's got information about you know
how to use the national archives how to find
archives near you it's got like But that's not
beginner information. That's kind of quite a
lot of, that's a few steps down the road, isn't
it? You really have a hobby. Yeah. So it's got
all sorts of clues like that in it and how to
keep organized that. Never, ever ending question,
which is I'm always going to stay there. And
then we've been also working on a wonderful workbook
with Dr. Sophie Kay, which is just outstanding,
isn't it? Well, it looks beautiful. Nathan's
done a great job on it. And it's full of search
techniques, which are particularly useful. For
those problems that you and I always come up
with that, you know, when you find somebody and
they've got the right name and they sort of check
out, but you're not entirely confident it is
definitely your Alexander McKay. So you just
had that the other week, didn't you? Yeah. So
it helps you resolve problems like that. And
sometimes where it's the opposite problem, you've
got several people by that name, but you're so
you're like, well, one of these is probably mine,
but I don't know which one it is. So it helps
you solve those problems. These are all good.
Because it sounds so simple, doesn't it? But
it's such a simple situation to be in. You can
label it out quickly. I found this person. They
got the right name. A few of the details check
out. I'm a little bit unsure, though. What do
I do next? The workbook will help you find out.
Or the other situation, I found three Alexander
McKays. I don't know which one's mine. And unless
you've got some tactics you can call into play
at that point, you're stymied, aren't you? You're
like, oh, I've got a brick wall. Move on to the
next branch. Yep, definitely. And like the name
of that work looks spot on, isn't it? Is this
my ancestor? It's the question everybody should
ask. Yes. Whether you actually know it's true
or not. Just so you are like checking upon those
facts. It's cool. So we've been doing that and
we started the wonderful course to go with it
as well. We've got so many other cool things
in the pipeline as well. I know. Well, we haven't
talked about the big thing, have we? Which we
can talk about. The very, very big thing. We
should talk about that. Go for it. So. Very recently,
we announced that next year, I know we're a whole
year away, in May 2027, then we're going to have
Family Tree Live and it's going to be a two -day
show, an in -person show with actual humans.
all meeting up on an actual place on planet Earth
to immerse themselves in genealogy. And it's
sponsored by Ancestry. There's going to be, so
the stands have already booked up and there are
already some very cool people there, but I don't
want to say any other names because I don't want
to be speaking out of turn, but we will be letting
people know soon. And yes, it's going to be two
days of talks, visiting around all the exhibition
stands. We've got a cool game that we're going
to weave through the whole event. And so people
can try out their genealogy knowledge and take
themselves on a bit of a kind of mystery tour,
all concentrating on genealogy records. And we're
going to be there, aren't we? So you can camp
or you can stay in a hotel. What are you going
to do, Nathan? A hotel for me. I'm a princess.
Okay. Yeah. And the venue is called Statford
Country Park. So it's in Tamworth. So it's in
kind of the centre of England. It's a cute venue,
so it's kind of right out in the middle of the
sticks. You can get the train to Fairleigh nearby.
I'm hoping that we might be able to lay on a
vintage bus to transport people from the railway
station to the venue, but that's got to be confirmed,
but that's potentially happening. And when you
get to the venue, it's got beautiful old steam
engines, hasn't it? Like countless beautiful
steam engines on a lovely, I'm just making a
lovely round, is it called a round table? What's
it called? turntable like roundhouse isn't it
and it has this big turntable thing in the middle
and then you could also go on there's a couple
of different gauge steam trains that you can
go on rides around the fields nearby just take
yourself on a little kind of reverie a little
nostalgic journey that's good fun we went to
both of those didn't we we did yeah it is so
nostalgic like when you get there like I didn't
have any like association with trains or anything
but as soon as you're there it is everything's
vintage and old and it's yeah you can't help
but feel like you're immersed in history whilst
you're there it's cool and it just brings out
like the the fun like when you're on a steam
train it's Isn't it? If you're on the steam train,
you have to wave at other people who are not
on the steam train. And if they're not on the
steam train, they have to wave back at you. The
city just goes too fast. It doesn't work, does
it? It's a little bit of a rule. Yeah. And then
also it's home to the National Fairground Museum.
So as long as you're not a dizzy minded person,
you can go on these vintage old fair rides. Some
of them look far too fast for me. But anyway,
they look beautiful. Yeah, they're absolutely
gorgeous. Yeah. It's got all the old artwork.
Yeah, back in the day when people just had time
to paint beautiful, beautiful fair rides. Thank
God, yes, they really are. Yeah. So the aim of
Family Tree Live is we did it years ago before
COVID and we did it at Alexandra Palace and it
was great fun. We all had an absolute ball. By
the end of the weekend, the only slight hazard
is you probably lost your voice because you'd
have been talking so much family history to so
many people. But you'll go away just buzzing
with ideas of things to do with your family history.
You'll go away. buzzing probably with a tote
bag jammed full of all the goodies you've bought
the books dna kits family tree charts all sorts
of things like that just things you can't imagine
and um you'll have made new friends it's just
unavoidable might even met some relations you
never know yeah it's a really good one yeah looking
forward to it And what we're aiming it for, we're
aiming to cover quite a lot of different topics
so that people who are like really dedicated
family historians, so that they can come along
and stretch themselves on the new kind of frontiers
of family history. So speaking back to AI, covering
that sort of topic, but also people who are just...
Maybe they've got a photo of their grandpa and
they're thinking, do you know what? I am going
to do this family history thing. And then you
could come along literally knowing nothing apart
from your own name and your own birthday. It
can help you get started with your family history.
Because we're all this big network of people,
aren't we? And we're all on different stages
of where we're at with doing our family history.
So we want everybody to be able to do more family
history. Be happier. Definitely. It sounds good.
Because we've done scientific studies before,
haven't we, Nathan, with me and you, and it makes
us happy. 100 % success rate out of two people.
Yeah, and it was a very, what's it called, very
controlled scenario to do those scientific tests.
Yes. So that's the other exciting thing. And
then next month, we'll be weaving on into July
2026, then Karen Evans, she's doing a fantastic
two -part course, and that's weighing up the
differences between the major family history
websites that we... tend to pay for and obviously
we don't all pay for all of them because that'd
be much too expensive but some people will do
but so most of us have to make choices about
which ones we subscribe to whether we're going
to go for ancestry or find my past or my heritage
the genealogist and so she's going to be weighing
them up and seeing what's special about them
both what have they got in common what does it
look like to build a tree on there what does
it look like to search and um last year she did
one which concentrated solely on ancestry and
she just blew me away the amount of dedication
and detail she put into to using ancestry and
explaining all these different tips and tricks
of ancestry and i've used ancestry for years
i don't use it i probably use these every day
actually and i still was learning messes of things
last year on her course it's fantastic so i'm
looking forward to this year's yeah that sounds
like a great one like you say money's tight isn't
it and then there's so many things to pay for
so knowing what you want to use properly is definitely
worth it yeah And potentially, sometimes you
can have one subscription that's going to run
and run, but you think, well, I'm going to pay
for this other one, access to this other one,
if it's available, you know, just for a few months,
or sometimes just do a one -year subscription,
and then, you know, see where you're, which direction
your research is going next. Yeah, I mean, it's
happening with me, isn't it? I've obviously dedicated
myself to Ancestry, but slowly but surely, every
week, I'm suddenly mentioning all the little
websites that I need to nip into, and some of
them are soft -based, so... It is just knowing
where to save your pennies for, isn't it? Do
I buy a certificate or do I get a sub to this
for a month, etc? And it's the question of not
just having an overview. Before you part with
your money, you're really looking, what do the
websites hold? Because I think it was... was
it Sarah just in that was Sarah in her email
just now she mentioned those electoral registers
that she'd found on find my past for your ancestors
so obviously other websites do have electoral
registers as well but find my past just has the
most comprehensive biggest collection of electoral
registers and it's that thing whenever we're
looking you know if we're looking to see what
electoral registers or whatever any sort of record
collection website has it might say it has records
going from 1572 to 1973 and the earliest one
might be that date and the latest one might be
that day but they might have massive gaps in
between or have they got a continuous run or
you know just trying to ascertain what exactly
are you paying for okay yeah that sounds great
actually yeah so find my past is the place for
comprehensive electoral register access online
yeah is that the one with the newspapers as well
yes it's more tempting Well, I feel like this
is probably the next place I'm going to get drawn
into. The more I'm delving into people and finding
out about local history, it seems like a natural
progression to then go in there. But I'm trying
to hold back until I get real reasons to go in.
If I can get a few in one go, for example, have
four or five different reasons to go into one
website, I think that's going to help me spend
those pennies. Yeah, you're right. You've got
loads left to do on Ancestry. You haven't even,
even looked at your DNA results yet. Well, I
knew you were going to say that. I will do at
some point. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah, I think you will
do. Well, if you haven't done it by next May,
then you can go along to the Ancestry stand and
you can ask them there to give you a hand, can't
you? Yes, definitely. That's a good reason, actually.
Might spare me on. Yes, that's a long time away.
I'm sure you'll have looked at them by then.
I'm not so sure. I'm sure I can find more rabbit
holes to keep me away from her DNA. Lousy DNA.
I'm still sulking with it. I can't deny it. Whatever.
Nathan, can you shut me up about this? Have I
talked about it last week? But did I talk about
Catalina's last week? I'm drawing a blank. I
don't know what that is. So hopefully that means
I didn't, or it means you weren't listening to
me last week, one or the other. Because I'm all
in the mindset of my dad's dad, the grandpa who
was in the RAF. Both my grandpas were in the
RAF. Anyway, because I'm in the mindset of him,
then I was really confused. And I was talking
to my uncle recently, and he was showing me pictures
from his latest box of old photos that he unearthed.
And he had a beautiful picture of a Catalina,
which is a flying kind of an airplane which can
land on water. All right, cool. Really cool.
Anyway, yeah. My dad's dad used to fly these,
but there was a photo of one of these in the
box of photos relating to my mum's dad. And I
was like, wait, wait, wait, I'm all in the muddle.
I thought it was my dad's dad. When you feel
like, wait, I've got them in the muddle. Anyway,
it's an official picture from the Air Ministry.
It says on the back, and I'm going to read out
what it says because I found this really, really
exciting. And it's stamped, Public Relations,
Eastern Air Command, Calcutta. And it's a Second
World War photo. And it says, Title is Coastal
Command operate against the Japs, that's their
word, from Ceylon. RAF Sunderland and Catalina
squadrons operating from bases in Ceylon fly
over our convoys and shipping routes night and
day to protect them from Japanese surface and
submarine dangers. flying enormous distances
out to sea, sometimes through extremely severe
tropical weather conditions. The crews who fly
these flying boats can be justly proud of their
efforts, not only by preventing the Japanese
from attacking our shipping, but also for the
effort they make to track the enemy down wherever
he can be found. And then it says, the image
is 1186, a tropical picture, an RAF Catalina
flying boat. returning to its Ceylon base after
a long ocean patrol makes an artist's picture
silhouetted against an evening sky and framed
between palm trees. Why that's so exciting. So
I never really put the two pieces together. So
both I knew, always knew that both my grandpa
served in the RAF in the Second World War. And
I knew that my paternal grandpa got married in
Ceylon in 1944. And I knew that my maternal grandfather
was a prisoner of war in Burma. And then he got
shot down in October 1944. And so they're both
kind of in the same part of the world. I know
it's a big part of the world at the same time,
but I'd never really put it together. But now
I see it from a whole different perspective.
My mum's dad kept this photo of these boats that
obviously he was like, these are cool boats.
These guys are doing a good job. So he kept this
photo. He obviously collected it just for fun
because it wasn't in the unit he was in and kept
it with his own. his own other photos from the
period and his other records from the period.
But it's about what my other grandpa, who they
totally didn't know each other at all, was doing.
So I find it really touching to see these two
different aspects of the RAF, like going, hey,
good effort, guys. You're doing a great job.
You know, we really value what you're doing.
And I feel proud when it says about the flying
boats, the crews who fly the flying boats can
be just as proud of their efforts. Because my
dad's dad was one of the crew who was flying.
the flying boats. He wasn't actually a pilot
at that stage. He was, he was gunner and observer,
but he's still in the, in the machine. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So it's just really, it's really,
I feel it's special. I'm really excited about
it. It's a cute little crossover, isn't it? When
you were saying that, I was obviously painting
this picture where they met and then it was actually
their children met because they became friends.
Well, no, their children did meet because they
both continued to serve in the RAF after the
Second World War and they were both stationed
in Ireland. Right. Their children did meet in
Ireland because they ended up being next -door
neighbours in Ireland. Right. OK, well, that's
cool. Just strange. So, of course, like geography
being as terrible as it is, I had to whip out
a map. And so because I was also thinking, so
I'd recently found my dad's dad in the 1926 census
of Ireland. And we love Ireland. It's such a
romantic country. But there's no denying the
weather is shocking. So I was thinking, is him
growing up in Ireland or through his childhood
and teenage years? wet old island beautiful but
wet and then suddenly it's the second world war
and he's serving these incredible places and
he goes to the Seychelles so it's even if there's
a war on you're like well the weather's pretty
good so it must have been not just him like all
of the all of the young people who are serving
in the war just have been mind -boggling like
the you know the 30s were tough it was a tough
period wasn't it 20s and 30s lots of economic
hardship it wasn't wasn't a time most people
if it went on holiday it would be a British Isles
holiday at best or you might not go on holiday
and suddenly to go and see the world even in
such terrible conditions it must have been must
have had awesome aspects. Yeah it was quite a
culture shock. All I can see is SAS rogue heroes
now in my head. That's why I've been having fun
doing that. So Nathan we've been having a busy
time recently and what are you going to get up
to next week in your family history? I'm actually
not quite sure. I obviously need to write up
everybody's notes that they've done the homework
for me. So I need to, I want, as much as obviously
I see these facts and know they're right, I need
to find all these documents for myself and get
them linked to my tree. So that'll be a bit of
a tidy up job for me. I don't want to labour
on this little rabbit hole too long, but I still
am intrigued to see if I can find a child involved
in it. So I might do that. And after that, I
really don't know. I guess I might go back to...
doing a bit further back in my tree or I might
find some more random photographs that seem to
draw conversations out in my mother. That seems
quite a good thing to do. So maybe I'll do that.
It's a really good thing to do. Conversations
with living people should never be left. They
should be acted on. Yeah, it's just hilarious,
isn't it? Like the number of times I've told
my mum about what I'm doing and what's going
on and she doesn't seem to know anything. And
then you put a couple of photographs in there
and suddenly all these stories start coming out.
It's cool. It's really cool. It's very, very
cool. Yeah. What about you then? So I'm going
to tidy up the last bit of the logbook. So the
logbook's looking in pretty good shape. And the
whole point of getting the transcript for the
logbook was that was just the starting point
that I want to create a map with all the places
that he flew plotted on it because I thought
that'd be interesting to look at. And if I can
work out how to do it, which I probably can't,
but if I can work out how to do a map so that
I can have the dots going in kind of live time
and have like two coloured dots when he's night
flying and day flying. That's what I'd love to
do. That sounds really cool. Beyond me, all that
techie bits beyond me. I could do a map with
pins on it. I think a map would be awesome, eh?
Give you that adventurer vibe, wouldn't it, as
well? I love all that stuff. So that's me. Cool.
Nice one. And we have started our own podcast
page, haven't we, on our website, where we started
putting, I've put a few images on there. If anybody
wants to look at what we've been practicing on
about, I've put a few images on of things that
I've spoken about in the past. And we have started
putting links on there to anything we mention
in the podcast. So if people want to go have
a look at that, they can do. So, Nathan, how
do they find this podcast page? They go to our
website, which is www .family -tree .co .uk.
And then if you click on content library on one
of the top menus, we'll probably be near the
top because I keep updating it. So it keeps on
bringing the actual podcast to the top. But you
can just search using the search terms and podcast
will bring up the page. And it literally... It'll
just take you through the notes from each episode,
starting from episode 77, I think we've started
it from. There's a few images on there and some
links, just pictures of my granddad, pictures
of Calderwall Memorial, just things that we've
mentioned. Cool. Okay. Well, thanks for listening,
everybody, and we'll see you next week. Yep.
Happy researching.