Hi everybody and welcome to Family Tree Talk,
your favourite family history podcast. I'm your
co -host Nathan Ward and with me as always is...
Helen Dovey. Hi Helen, you alright? I'm very
well. I am a bit hot, I have to say. It is somewhat
warm, isn't it? Yes, I think it's affecting lots
of our heads as well. I've had people email me
saying, I can't answer this now, it's too hot
to answer properly. Yeah. I think that's a valid
answer, it really is. Yes, yes. Become nocturnal
and then we'll be okay. It's a bit cooler at
night. Well, we might have to be, mightn't we?
If this is the shape of things to come, we might
become night dwellers. It's appealing. It is
appealing. Although saying that, I ran last night
and it was still 30 degrees, so it was stupid.
Whatever. I think we should be journaling it
all. We should be kind of keeping statistics
on how many dogs now have paddling pools and
things like that. Yeah, that should be like a
national barometer for the weather. Dogs with
paddling pools. Yes. I like it. Our dog now has
a paddling pool. The first dog we've ever got
a paddling pool for. I have to say my dad bought
it for the dog. We didn't buy it for the dog,
but it was very kind to my dad anyway. Oh, that's
lovely. And are you allowed in the paddling pool
with the dog or is it strictly just for the dog?
I'd put my feet in there. I wouldn't really want
to get any more in the water with the dog. No,
fair enough, fair enough. I do love her, but
she's a dog and she does disgusting things. That's
fair enough. Yeah. How's your family history
going? Oh, well, it's so hot. I just can't answer
that question. It's going all right. I've not
done as much as I wanted to do. It's been slow
progress. I did a little bit more digging on
the English electric lightning. Just confirming,
it was the first British supersonic aeroplane
reaching Mach 2. All very exciting. I tried to
find, using the, was it National Archives? Would
that be correct? No, it was National Records
of Scotland, whatever. And I tried to locate
the airfield in Farsley using old maps. I failed.
I was enjoying the search and piecing together
different maps and obviously, for those of you
that have not used it. I mean, I'm not an expert,
so this is quite embarrassing to say out loud
anyway. It lets you have a modern -day map and
an old -day map, and you can then choose through
a range of dates, different years for different
maps that they've used, and compare them. And
I couldn't quite find the date range I wanted,
but I looked at some of the older ones, and there
were big fields there, but it wasn't necessarily
saying this is a runway or a landing strip or
whatever you want to call it. But it was fun
nonetheless to have a look in there because I've
not been in there before so it was nice to look
at some old maps. I did quite enjoy that even
if I've not yet got the result I want to. I will
go back to it, I just got frustrated. I looked
through my grandad's journals and stuff for his
electrical engineering course, whatever it was
that he did. So I've got a collection of things
there and it's like 1933 and I think it must
have been one of the first journals he got where
it's got like... various information about engineering
and then it's all graph paper and he's got to
do his design so there's loads of designs for
various iron based sockety things i don't know
any technical terms so there's lots of diagrams
that he's drawn and created which is quite cool
beyond that i thought i had a bit more stuff
but i like actually on this sort of technical
side of in english electric but i don't i've
got a shareholders meeting um document from 1958
where they're talking about how much money they've
made and the future of the company so it's talking
about the fact that they designed a supersonic
airplane and some guided weapons and various
bits and bats and like the progression of the
company how much money they used to make and
how much money they did make so that was all
quite interesting and I've only flicked through
it there's a lot of like heavy data in there
But there's an amusing section where they're
talking about the use of computers within the
office space. And there's a whole, like, I don't
know, two or three page document saying when
it is acceptable to use a computer for work and
what potential computers have in the workspace
and stuff. So it's quite interesting seeing it
from those sort of eyes of a, you know, 1950s
people not really knowing where computers were
going to go. This seemed quite on it, though.
It seemed all quite accurate, but it's just new
technology. So that was quite cool. That is very
cool. I love it. I mean, that's very similar
conversations that we're having now, like to
what extent do we use AI? To what extent do you
have a choice whether we use AI? It's the same
thing, isn't it? It's the same conversation.
Humans trying to feel the way towards the future,
not want to lose their old skills, not want to...
who make their brains go mushy, wants to keep
their brains fit and active and not kind of hand
over capabilities to the machine. It's the same
conversation, isn't it? It is, yeah. In years
to come, people will look back on our conversations
and be like, these idiots. What are they talking
about? Well, hopefully that's the best answer.
That's the best outcome. Yes. Alternatively,
they'll be like, they won't read it. They'll
get AI to look at the answer and be like, oh,
idiots. Yeah, dark, dark times. But speaking
of progress, though, I mean, it wasn't so many
months ago when you would use solely ancestry.
And if I tried to kind of mention the idea that
you are allowed to tiptoe. outside Ancestry and
look at other websites. Other websites are available
for family history. And you'd be like, no, no,
no, no, don't overwhelm me. And now you've just
done a kind of a summary of what you've been
getting up to in your family history over the
last week. And it sounds like you probably haven't
even been on Ancestry at all. And you've been
busy using the wealth of the World Wide Web to
get general history information. You've been
on the National Library of Scotland map website.
You're reading all sorts of stuff. And you've
been diving into that trunk that your mum has
full of old papers by the sound of it. Yeah,
that's very interesting, actually. You haven't
noticed. You're just like, yeah, of course, that's
how you do family history. I should have cancelled
my subscription. I could have saved a few pounds.
Pause it. Pause it, right. Okay, I'll look into
that. I literally honestly haven't opened Ancestry,
which is fascinating. I hadn't even realised.
Pause it for one or two months a year. I'm pretty
sure I'll be dipping back into it next week.
You sure you will be. That's the thing. Yeah.
Obviously, I've just got very much into doing
the local history stuff, which is very new to
me. And then obviously my granddad's history,
which is still kind of local history, but it's
stuff that's obviously not on Ancestry with him
because he's only featured in a few documents
on Ancestry too young. It's quite cool. I also
found some documents from English Electric and
it's their sports bulletin. And I've got like
about five of them from like 1936 to like 1950
something or other. It's just like apparently
English Electric had like an interwork sports
day. So people from different like from the Bradford
branch and Stratford and wherever came together
and had competitions against each other in the
company. I've not really looked through them
and found my granddad yet, but there is lots
of running stuff. So he will be in there. But
I thought that was quite cool. It just gives
you a summary of all the events that happened
and who won and who did what. It's pretty cool.
Very cool. Thank goodness I didn't work for English
Electric. I'd find that day very, very stressful
indeed. I thought you liked running. Well, not
in front of other people, though. Yeah. You could
have done hockey instead. They did cricket, hockey,
golf and a bit of running. I can imagine it's
a fun day. I bet everybody looked forward to
it in the company. It does look fun. There's
loads of pictures on there as well, like people
doing tug -of -war and sack races and yet they're
all still dressed like... In formal gear. It's
very cool. And back to that, you said you couldn't
find a map for Farsley. And that is always a
bit of a problem that you can't necessarily find
a map for the exact time period you want. And
it depends when the maps got surveyed, doesn't
it? So when you see the maps, it will say like
a survey date and a published date on it. So
the survey date is of most relevance, isn't it?
Because that's saying in 1892 when it got surveyed.
This is what was actually on the ground. Whereas
if they publish it four years later, obviously
some more houses could have got built. Yeah.
When I initially got in there, it's all my own
fault. When I initially got in there, I did the
search, found Farsley, and it gave me like a
list of maps that were available. And I thought,
okay, I'll go a few years before, or I can't
remember when I went. I think the airfield was
built for World War I. So I think I went a few
years before then just to see if it was there
anywhere. And then I got forward another set
of years and I couldn't see it there either.
And then I don't know what I did wrong, but this
list of maps that were available disappeared
and I couldn't find the next one along. So, like
I say, it is my own fault. I just need to go
back in and redo the search. But I know it becomes...
There's one you can do and this is where... Helen,
don't do this, but I'm going to do it anyway.
And I have done this. I'm pretty sure it's on
the National Library of Scotland website. So
let's say you went to Wikipedia, got the information
about Farsley Airfield or Airstrip or whatever
it's called, Airbase. And then it might have
a grid reference on there. And then I'm pretty
sure you can get the grid reference and then
you can paste it into the National Library of
Scotland and it should hop you right to the direct
bit. I have a vague memory of that and I haven't
done it for a while. And I might be making it
up and never, never done it, but I'm pretty sure
I have done it. Well, if that works, that sounds
awesome. It's really good, isn't it? Yeah. And
if they don't, they should do, but I'm pretty
sure they do do. Yeah. So that's worth a try
because it is, it can be hard if an area has
been, you know, dramatically changed over the
decades and centuries. It's hard to actually
pinpoint the place unless you've got landmarks
like rivers and stuff to help orientate you.
Yeah, well, in the modern day, I know it's now
a primary school, or it used to be, so I do know
the location. It's just the time frame to find
it. I did also find, I don't know whether it
was Farsley Family History Society or whatever,
but I found a whole big PDF that was like the
history of Farsley, and that mentions English
Electric for a little bit. There wasn't too much
information there, but it was referenced, so
I might have to flick through that a bit more
as well. But equally, it feels like this is just
like snowballing into this big search. And then
I'm like, why am I doing this search again? I
don't know. Because you wanted context and you're
getting local history slash family history because
your family lives locally to where you still
live. So it's all rolled into one. Give them
the excuse to go and visit the archives and see
what else they can tell you about the local area.
That'd be fun. Yeah, yeah. It is just snowballing,
though, because I was doing Carverley local history
stuff, and now I'm suddenly looking at Farsley's
history, and it's like, wow. I mean, it is all
related, I understand that, but everything's
getting bigger. It's going to freak me out soon,
I can feel it. But doing local history is never
a waste of time if you like doing family history,
because imagine if you just learn about the people
and you don't know where they lived. That's,
it's like... chopping a person out of a photograph
and you've literally just got a little person
standing there and you can't see whether there
are mountains behind them or ocean liners or
coal mines or rows of shops or the workhouse
or anything. Yeah. I think find as well like
with local history. like casually talking about
it with people around here, you get more interest.
Whereas obviously nobody wants to know about
my great, great, great granddad or whatever,
other than me and my family. Whereas if you say,
oh, that building used to be X, Y and Z, like
when you were at the pub, people are like, oh,
you know, they get into it. They're a bit intrigued
and it's cool. It's very, very cool. Yeah. Oh
my God, what's become of me? No, I think that's
good. That's very, very good. So how are you
going to carry on with this then? Are you going
to carry on hunting for a map? Yeah, I'd like
to. I did quite enjoy looking at the map. It
was fun. So I just need to redo that search and
see if I can get the date range correct. I don't
know what I did wrong. There literally was a
little box with loads of buttons I could press
for different maps. It disappeared after I pressed
it a couple of times. Anyway, yeah, I'm going
to go back and do that for sure. Yeah, and then
I think I am going to have to go back into Ancestry
and document some of this information about my
grandad. Because it's not on Ancestry at all.
There's no documents for it. So just a note,
just maybe a picture of the aeroplane just to
show that's what he did. I think that's quite
cool. Definitely. And you can even write up a
little Word document if you wanted and then you
could upload it to your granddad's gallery. So
you've got it, all the stuff you just told me.
Yeah. Just to keep it all in one place. What
did you put? You do. It sounds like I just did
this and I just did that. But when we say that
when we're doing our family history, it's hours
of stuff at a time, isn't it? If you add it all
up, sometimes it can feel as though it's just
this because you haven't made as much progress
as you want. But it's still lots of dedication
even to each one piece of information sometimes.
Yeah. And if you don't record it, then you've
wasted your time as well. And you've got the
potential to forget it yourself, don't you? Yes.
Yes, I should get it on there. Yeah. I would
say not the potential to forget it. I'd say the
certainty you will forget it. It's interesting
what memory brings. Like, I think I mentioned
the other week within this chest is my granddad's
retirement speech. The first time I saw it, I
thought, I can't be bothered reading that. But
then finding out about the aeroplane, I was like,
maybe he mentions the aeroplane. I'm going to
go read it. So I read it and... It was a typical
retirement speech where he thanks lots of people,
thanks people for gift, makes jokes about other
people having to go to work tomorrow. It goes
on. So nothing really intriguing about aeroplanes,
but it mentions snooker and billiards. And my
granddad was really into both of them. And I'd
totally forgotten that. Like, nobody to talk
about it, really. But he was really into it.
And it just reminded me of a story where the
snooker player, Joe Johnson, I don't know if
you know him. He was famous for a bit. He used
to live in Calvary. And one day, I think my granddad
just knocked at his door and asked him if he
wanted a game of snooker. And it was like a big
family story. But I mean, I think I've said my
granddad was a bit of a blagger. He would just
always push his luck. So he went and played Joe
Johnson and beat him. So that was cool. No way.
That's pretty good. Yeah, it's just a cool memory.
But I had literally forgotten it until I'd read
that speech. That's nice. Very good. Write that
down as well. Write it all down. I will do. People
are like, who the heck's this guy? Whatever.
How's your family history going? So mine, I haven't
done one of the things I said I was going to
do, but I am doing the other things. I said I
was going to be going through the old photos.
That has stalled. But what I have, I have picked
up the threads of. assessing the Janet McLaren
research that I started a few years ago I realized
when I started it was back in 2020 I think I
got had a bit more spare time on my hands because
we were all um confined under house arrest weren't
we in 2020 and so I've really got into this idea
of actually eventually trying to find out who
my five times great granny's dad was so um Janet
McLaren was born in the 1760s and her dad was
the guy who's allegedly Captain Donald McLaren
who jumped off the cart and escaped down the
mist, having been captured after the Battle of
Culloden. This is what was supposed to have happened.
Yeah. Yeah. But I've always felt very uneasy
about it because they're not a shred of evidence.
What there is, which is a bit annoying, is there's
a lot. Well, beg your pardon if you're one of
those people. There are a lot of people in Ancestry.
We all share a little tiny fragment of DNA. And
they all like to say that Captain Donald McCarran
is Janet's dad. And I don't know who started
this rumour, or I don't know who knows the facts
of this story, but if they know the facts of
the story, they're keeping them very close to
their chest and nobody's sharing the facts. And
I can't find the facts. So I'm the party pooper
who's going, well, until we find further evidence,
I'll stop going on my tree. And I want him to
be on the tree. Anyway, so I've been looking
back through my old notes and I've been assessing
how much I practice what I preach. And I think
I give myself like six out of ten. This is a
bit depressing. So some things I've been really
accurate about. I have an Excel sheet and I've
clearly done lots of organized research with
lots of different tabs all doing different things.
I can call it up and have a quick reminder what
the heck it has. One of the tabs is a list called
the things I had to do, to -dos. Another tab
is a summary of what I've done so far. Another
tab is all the baptisms for babies born to Donald
McLaren's in the place of Balquida, which is
where this is supposed to have happened, where
my Janet's supposed to have come from, between
certain date parameters, all the McLaren households
in that village. I've got really methodical stuff,
but then I haven't... given myself my enough
this is what i'd do in the future enough nice
little paragraphs going helen what you were trying
to accomplish was here and what you were getting
confused about or what your sticking point was
was here so i have done a little bit of like
my summary and a little bit of what i need to
do next but i haven't done nearly enough to be
able to pick it up five years later and be able
to just i'm having to do a lot of reorientation
so note yourself try and imagine that you've
because when you're doing research it's really
fresh in your head isn't it and so Although I've
just said you will forget it. It's a lesson I've
learnt bitterly and I'm going to keep learning
it my whole life. I'm never going to learn it
properly that I am going to forget everything.
I wish I'd kept better notes. Anyway, I'm picking
it up and I think it's going to be quite fun.
And another thing, I've done the classic thing.
You know when you've got a brick wall and you're
like wrestling with the brick wall and I'm not
going to put it down. I'm going to find out who
Janet's dad is. And so I had my massive long
list. There were 70 odd babies who were born
in this little tiny... and I'd got done all the
70 babies and then I'd sorted them into families
with dads with Donald. These 70 -year -old babies
had dads called Donald through this 20, 30 -year
time period. And I'd sorted them into households,
had all the little groups of siblings with a
mum and dad. And then any household which didn't
have a baby Janet in, I was like, delete the
baby, delete the household. So I got left with
eight households which had a dad called Donald.
And a baby called Jammet. So I was like, okay,
these are all possibles. But the only reason
I'm searching in Balquida is because everyone
on Ancestry with their DNA matches is saying
it's Balquida. But of course it could be anywhere
in the world. Yeah. So I'd been kind of methodical.
Sounds like you've been very methodical. But
not enough. not enough i'm losing my train of
thought so many things trying to so i've been
like a dog with a bone trying to build her backwards
and then when i went to revisit this bit of my
tree i was like wait a minute let's search out
janet and her husband and their kids more let's
go forward in time i've got three of their kids
they've got a boy called james and two daughters
And so Janet's husband's called Robert. And in
Scotland, naming patterns are really, really
strong. So what you'd normally do, you'd normally
call your first son by the dad's dad's name.
So Janet's husband's Robert. I don't know what
Robert's dad's called. There's a good chance
he's called James because their son there is
called James. So I can't find a second son, but
if they had a second son by rights. If Captain
Donald is Janet's dad, that second son should
be called Donald, okay? But I can't find a second
son for them. So I'm thinking about I need to
research the children of Janet's children to
see if any of them honour Donald and call any
of their children Donald. And I need to do that.
I might have already done it as part of my darling
archery. I can't remember. I need to check that.
And then I need to do the thing of, you know,
sometimes where you research somebody's death.
date or burial record or future records for them
near the end of their life, like you were saying
with your grandpa's retirement speech. Sometimes
these records or evidence and things we leave
behind us near the end of our life can actually
time travel us back to events and facts from
earlier in our life. So I need to do more, research
out their lives more fully and think, is this
going to give me any clues to any point? Do they
have any connections? to Perthshire, because
at the moment they're not. At the moment they're
in Berwickshire, a completely different county.
Yeah. Right. I need to do this research. So having
that gap, even though my research notes weren't
in the perfect state to pick up, just having
the time and approaching it with fresh eyes,
this has been helpful. So I think I'm going to
stop fixating for the moment on finding the white
Janet's baptism. I'm going to build out her other.
Her actual life and her husband's life. Okay.
Oh, it's going to be a long journey. She's going
to vie with Mary and Pickering, who I still haven't
resolved. They're probably related. They probably
live next door to each other. Imagine, yeah.
I feel quite stressed just listening to all of
that, to be honest here. It sounds like a lot.
It's kind of fun. I think when I get into it,
I... so at the moment I'm just in the kind of
reorientated thing once I get into the flow I'm
going to really enjoy it because you have to
be so methodical and it's the sort of thing whenever
you leave your computer it's just going round
and round in your head as your brain is just
or my brain takes a long time to think through
these things and this if it has any moments at
all it's allowed to think about it or just fixate
on it and be like keep trying to work it out
I quite enjoy that that's that's one of the things
that I actually really enjoy about family history
it's like if i'm doing it and i do it and it's
fine it's all ticked off i forget about it you
know it's logged it's on the tree it's done but
when a mystery comes up or some something that's
a bit involving he's suddenly like just sat thinking
about it like it's a puzzle or like i'll mention
it to my mom or my auntie or someone they'll
come back later on randomly like half it's like
we're halfway through a conversation that we
weren't having and they'll just blurt something
out all right yeah that's that's useful i like
I like it when it just sort of ruminates. It's
cool. I definitely like that. I think maybe I
should be a little bit more determined about
actually getting an end result. I think I spend
a lot of time faffing and ruminating and I should
be a little bit more clear -headed. Like if I
was a professional researcher and you were my
client and I was just racking up the hours, you'd
be like, oh, it's very extensive. Whereas when
it's your own family history, it doesn't really
matter, does it? Exactly. And you've got to enjoy
it as well. Yeah. Didn't you say you were going
to throw this one to AI, though? Didn't I say
that? I forgot all about that. You said you were
going to throw in all 80 -odd names and get AI
to pick it out for you. Ah, interesting. No,
I haven't done that. I will add it to my to -do
list and I'll do that. Yeah. I'm not trying to
make jobs for you. No, well, I mean, AI is supposed
to be helpful, isn't it? You did say it. Yeah,
yeah. Okay, I'll do that. Thanks for the reminder.
Yeah. I've been doing my own special brand of
AI quality testing. Yeah. Nothing to do with
family history before I get started. I decided
to test the quality of AI in a Nathan kind of
way. So I asked three different AIs the question,
why a spoon? Why not a knife or an axe? Alexa
told me that she couldn't help me with my problem.
ChatGPT told me that it's a very good question
and it all depends on what job you're doing,
etc. And it went on and on and on. And Gemini
says to me, it's because it's dull and it will
hurt my YouTube, which is the answer I wanted.
How? Yeah, it was a quote from Robin Hood, Prince
of Thieves. I was just seeing how knowledgeable
the AI was within my world of film quoting. But
it was quite cool to see the three different
takes on it. But Gem and I was just like, it's
dull, you idiot. I was like, yes. So it's my
new best friend. It's supposed to ramble, isn't
it? Because it's almost like clickbait. It wants
you to just hang around. Well, chat GPT got there
in the end. It was like, oh, Nathan, I know what
you're talking about here. And it started talking
about the difference in the quality of various
utensils. And I was like. I'm not sure you do
know what I'm talking about. I was actually talking
about robbing the Prince of Thieves. And then
it was like, oh, my mistake, my fault. I get
it now. Such a great line. Leave it alone, chat
GPT. You know Gemini. So do you use Gemini more?
Does Gemini know you better? Not at all. Of all
of them, it's the one I use the least. I probably
just use it to make like egg timers and that's
it. Or if my children ask me random questions
and I'm out and about and I don't know the answer,
I'm more likely to film quote to chat GPT. It
should be better on it by now then, shouldn't
it? Well, it should, yeah. Very upsetting. But
yeah, much love for Gemini. Interesting. Yeah,
zero help to anyone at all, but that's my quality
control. That's how I work. Well, I think that
is a good idea to do quality control because
then when you really need to use it for serious
things, you... know some of its foibles it's
a good idea yeah i've been like reading into
ai a little bit recently like i know we talk
about it quite a lot but like the whole thing
about there's a lot of stuff about art and creative
stuff and saying like ai actually has no intent
ai will not go and create art without some human
person telling it to do so it can make you something
But you have to tell it, you have to direct it.
So the intent then becomes from the human. And
that's been like one aspect of it, saying it's
been created by a human, therefore it still is
an art because it's been directed by a hand,
a human hand. And then I read another thing where
somebody said, if somebody got in a car and drove
26 .2 miles, you would not congratulate them
for doing a marathon, which is very true. because
they haven't done the long work it's not very
interesting i'm flossing it it won't it's very
very interesting no it is it is really interesting
it's very hard to try and pin it down because
you know we blame ai we're getting really off
topic but we blame ai for lots of things but
the really sinister things like creating weapons
deep fakes um all of that stuff is that a human
has thought of that first and then thought how
can i use ai to help me do my misdemeanors, criminal
activity, whatever it is, faster and better.
Yeah. So AI is just exacerbating all of our qualities
and our bad points. Definitely. I think my biggest
fear is that it's just going to make us all stupid.
Like, it's so easy to go to AI for the answer
or go to AI to create X, Y, and Z instead of
actually sitting there and doing it yourself.
And there is going to be a point where the younger
generations, wow, I'm old now, the younger generations
are going to just naturally use AI without thinking
about it. It's just going to be how they operate
and how they quote -unquote create whatever it
is they're doing. I don't think it's going to
make humans stupid. And I wish I could remember
this, but years ago I read in an actual paper
book and it was a quote by a Greek philosopher
who I can never remember who it is. And I have
never read any proper Greek philosophy. So it
was a modern day author quoting this person.
And it's when I think when Slates came in. So
when there had been oratory into the great. orators
were used to the fact of how you discuss things
and pass on information all of that is verbally
and they thought oh if we start writing it down
our brains are going to turn to mush and ever
since then whenever there's been a technological
development we've always gone oh don't do it
our brains are going to turn to mush and back
when you were just talking about your granddad
saying um should be or shouldn't you and how
should we use a computer at work back in the
1950s and they're all like oh we're going to
forget our maths and our brains are going to
turn to mush and then now we're doing the same
thing with ai so I don't think our brains will
necessarily turn to mush. But all of us, how
we use the internet is a tool that we can use
skillfully or not. And as family historians,
I think we've probably made ourselves, there
might be lots of mistakes on online trees and
everyone's mistakes on their online trees, unless
your online tree is private, is there for everyone
else to see and critique. But I think our quality
of our research, there's a good chance it's become
a lot more detailed. and a lot more nuanced,
and we can learn skills of other family historians
quite readily by going to lectures by expert
genealogists from all over the world, by getting
help on forums and getting lots of information.
So I think it can make us more sophisticated
thinkers. Yeah, I hope so. I guess my theory
is that thing where... you no longer need to
retain information because you can just ask the
computer. And it's the same with the internet.
It's not just AI, is it? But it is that thing.
I remember at university, me and my friends,
we were out and it's a random thing. We were
trying to remember a character from Ghostbusters
and we couldn't remember his name. And we spent
like three or four hours just being out, having
fun. But every now and again, somebody would
come back and start randomly shouting a name
out loud before we could find the answer. Whereas
now you just go to your phone and have the answer
within seconds. But that was actually quite a
fun thing to do back in that day. I mean, clearly
our brains didn't work at that time anyway. But
yeah, information is just so readily at hand,
isn't it? It's intriguing. Yeah. So it will have
negative effects too, but I think in some respects
it will have no effect and some respects it's
going to have good impacts on our brains. Is
that to us to be a bit more... autonomous or
like proactive not just be passively go oh well
there we go my brain's just getting mushy now
yeah anyway speaking of brilliant brains then
a lovely podcast listener neil he's um written
in and it is impressive what he's done nathan
do you want to have a look go on then let's go
through this what's he done and why has he done
it if you have a look Yeah. Okay. So I'm going
to find his email. So Neil says, as we know,
he's been trying to improve his tree and his
tree is already amazing. He's always buying with
Nathan with a very good tree score and he has
actually reached that elite status. Sorry, Nathan,
I know we've mentioned it before, but anyway,
we're mentioning it again. Neil talks about how
he generally goes about his family history. So
Neil's general go -to method has always started
with an individual. He's looked through the hints.
This is on ancestry. Looked at what other people
have done, accepted none of those hints as fact,
but simply used them as pointers. And then he's
gone from the search directly from an individual.
You know, when you're on their profile and then
just kind of below their profile name, it says
search on ancestry. Yeah. then drilled out by
adding more and more search parameters. And so
far, this has stood him in good stead. And he
says, but he has been a bit sniffy about the
use of the card catalogue. Oh, Helen, your favourite.
Perish the thought. He's been a bit sniffy because
he says that surely his method would give him
what he needed. But now he admits that he was
wrong. And it only gives you... His method only
gives you what the algorithm wants to give you.
To quote Nathan, oh boy. Oh boy. So what he's
been trying to do, he's now been using the card
catalogue to try and find out more about his
Abel family from Hadley in Devon before 1812.
And he's been doing searches with the card catalogue,
gathering together lots of potential records,
and he's... been pasting them into an Excel sheet
and he's trying to find out how his DNA fits
with this early 19th century research. And he's
made this incredible Excel sheet. It's got loads
of tabs. He's extracted all this information.
He's sorted them into families. He's made an
amazing family tree. And you know what's even
better, Nathan? As long as you're willing, he
says we're able to include this Excel on the
podcast page. of our website and then other people
can take a look at what he's done okay yeah that'd
be cool it's really good i would really recommend
people looking at it because he's even done things
like within excel he's drawn up a beautiful family
tree just manually it's quite the opposite of
ai it's just lovely right in excel yes yes okay
cool it's very neat very organized yes so if
anyone has a look at it and then wants to share
their thoughts on it please do so And recently,
Sophie Cade did this brilliant course for family
tree, a brick wall bashing course. And one of
the chaps on there was the extracts method. The
extracts method is a method which Helen Osborne
talked about in a book that she wrote about 15
or 20 years ago about genealogy methods. And
Sophie teaches it really clearly and nicely and
also covers it in her workbook, which is a little
plug here, for sale on the family tree website.
And the idea is when you're stuck with a problem.
Sometimes you might have a lot of information,
sometimes you might have a little information,
but unless you cast a wide net and get a comprehensive
large amount of information and then you can
use that to know that you're not overlooking
something and you can gradually sort out which
bits are relevant to you. So that's what Neil's
done. He's basically done the extracts method.
He's working on it to try and make sense of his
problem. And that's what I did as well on my
Excel sheet, like gathering lots of information,
growing it all down into one place. Because when
you're just dealing with search results on a
website, it's a bit like snacking, isn't it?
Yeah. Well, it makes me feel, again, similar
to the AI conversation, it makes me feel a little
bit lazy because I'm probably very guilty of
using the hints and taking what they give me.
Because obviously you've again said to use the
catalogs and I will shy away from that and just
take what I'm given. you guys with your excel
documents it's much more thorough well i mean
sometimes sometimes everything seems to be falling
into place and it's okay isn't it to to not choose
the hard path but when you get when you're faced
with an obstacle and you just can't see your
way through it then that's when you need to yeah
be really methodical and just do that equally
when i get one of those hard paths i'll um find
a different hint for a different person on ancestry
and go off on that tangent instead which is naughty
and a little bit lazy. So you have to stick with
these things, don't you? But then also, Nathan,
so I, five, six years ago, did, you know, pulled
out all of these names into a massive big list,
started sorting them out and then got stuck at
that point. I was like, so what am I going to
do with them now? Yeah. So it's all very well.
doing something, but there's a lot of work. So
I still haven't actually reached any further
forward. I've done some work towards a solution,
but I haven't got a solution. Right. Good that
you did it though. Thanks. Well done. I'll keep
going. I'll keep going. Yeah. I have to say,
I feel like a kid in a candy store at the moment.
Like when I'm doing one thing, I want to be doing
the other thing. What you guys are talking about
and doing and like the names and days. Now I'm
like. I want to get names and dates. Whereas
when I'm doing names and dates, I'm like, I want
to find texture and detail. But when I'm on,
I always want to be doing the opposite. And literally,
as we've been talking, surprisingly, I've opened
my tree on Ancestry and I'm like, I like some
of these names. I'd like to get further back
with these names. But yeah. Different head spaces
in different sections of our day, we can do different
things. So personally, I couldn't ever. do any
family history research on my phone in an app
I couldn't properly I can do it on my iPad it's
a bit bigger but I couldn't just sit there how
you sometimes do stuff on the bus on your phone
my head just can't cope with that I need to be
on my computer or at least on my iPad to be able
to do actual concrete family history whereas
the kind of more whimsical or local history side
then you and you just basically keep your own
googling stuff and going down serious rabbit
holes all over the place that's really easy just
to snatch moments here or there on your phone,
keep the tab open so that next time you're waiting
in the queue at Sainsbury's or whatever it is,
you can just put it up again, never be bored
and carry on rabbit holing. Then that's possible
to kind of snack on and grab moments, isn't it?
If you're trying to do something like a detective.
I think I just want to do what everybody else
is doing. I think we all want that. I'm just
doing something and then I hear what you are
doing. I want to do this instead. Then I'll go
do that and then I'll want to do something else.
I think we all do that. You know, we had an incredible
speaker at Study Club this month in Family Tree.
And he is a Dutch guy and he's called Peter Dentek.
And when I heard what he was doing, I said, I
want to do that too. So basically, you can watch.
So if you're a member of Family Tree Plus or
a subscriber to Family Tree, you can go into
the Family Tree website and you can view the
recording. So scroll back 15 or so years ago,
he was doing archaeology with a metal detector.
in holland with his daughter they were looking
for roman remains like little pots and things
like that and they stumbled across this bullet
casing and the bullet casing said um re on it
43 and so he investigated that and it was remington
i think it was re remington engineering 1943
and it's like why would there be an american
bullet casing in this random field near where
i live in holland unravel unravel he did loads
of rabbit holing and he discovered that there
had been 6 ,000 Allied planes. I think they were
just Allied, but they might have been both sides,
but Allied or Maxis, but potentially just Allied
planes shot down over Holland in the Second World
War or crash landed. Yeah, they shot down or
crash landed. And within his little local area,
just a few miles, there were loads of them. So
he started investigating it more and more. He's
found the crash sites for the planes. He's...
been researching the servicemen who lost their
lives or who were taken prisoners of war. He's
traced their descendants and their families.
He's made memorial boards to the servicemen who've
died and he's created a museum with loads of
artefacts for the local people and the memorial
people. So there's a museum now in Holland in
an old fort. He's been given a knighthood by
the Dutch royal family for his work. He's created
a cycle route between all these memorial boards.
I mean, what a guy. And he works full time. He's
done this as a volunteer in his spare time. That's
bonkers. That's a serious rabbit hole, isn't
it there? It's a serious rabbit hole. And it's
such a moving story. Normally, Study Club is
quite a chatty environment. And normally, everybody
is butting in in a good way. And we all want
to talk over each other. And everyone has a lot
to say. And by the end of his talk. There was
a stunned silence. No one really wanted to talk.
Lots of people were just putting in their comments.
That was very moving. And we were all either
in tears or on the edge of tears. It was, I've
never heard anything like it. Wow. He's just
a remarkable guy. I mean, that's amazing, isn't
it? That's, yeah, that's a lot to go from just
one bullet case into a full museum. I know. In
only about 15 years. And all, they had some of
the people who were... descendants who he traced
they were there at the study club meeting oh
that's lovely i know because he's such a dedicated
person i think anybody who comes across him in
their life just basically becomes a devotee of
him he's so impressive and yeah just his his
will and determination to see that all of the
servicemen get honored and remembered is just
so passionate and he's just not deterred by anything
Yeah, clearly not. That's amazing. It's really
amazing. I think you'd actually really enjoy
the talk song, Nathan, because of what you're,
anything to do with planes as well, even if it's,
these are obviously tragic stories, but it's
still fascinating. I don't like things that make
me cry, though. No, it might make you cry. I'm
quite an emotional guy. Yes. Yes, it might make
you cry. Yeah, I do like airplanes. I will give
it a watch. That does sound fascinating. That's
amazing. What we all do is fascinating family
histories. And then sometimes you come across
a project and you're like, that just knocks the
socks off. It's very, very good indeed. It's
crazy. But my motivation now is to get a knighthood
for doing studies about ghosts in Calvary. Go.
Yeah. I'll get a museum going. Yes. Wow. That's
just, that's crazy, isn't it? That's like just
from one fragment of interest. Not just expanding
it, but like, wow. Yeah, I'm blown away by that.
He hasn't finished yet as well. He's continuing
to research more and find more. Yeah, impressive
stuff. Yeah. So we, back to mundane reality,
I'm going to carry on with Janet and find out
who her dad is. Yeah, I decided I'm going to
research Janet and find out who her dad is because
that sounds interesting. Just flip hints on Ancestry
and you'll find who it is. I'll do it in 10 minutes
on Ancestry and you'll be like, what? No. I am
going to have a look at the website again for
the maps and see if I can sort that out. I'd
like to put a full stop on it for a while there
because I feel like I am just dawdling a little
bit. But I do need to write up my information
about my grandad. And then I am tempted to go
on this little research rabbit hole about my
great -great -uncle who might have been involved
in Concord creation, working on the engines apparently.
I don't know where to begin on that one because
I don't know who he is and I don't know much
about him. So maybe I should park it for now
because it's so similar to my granddad thing.
Or maybe I should not. Maybe I should dive in.
I'm torn. I'll be honest. I've looked at my tree
and there's a woman on it called Grace Turner.
And I'm like, that's a fantastic name. I want
to know more about Grace Turner. And I've got
no reason to deep dive there. So that's what
you'll be doing then? No doubt. Okay. There must
be some... Oh, do you know what? I realise what
it is now. It's always pop culture references
for me. Forget about it. It's reminding me of
Pirates of the Caribbean, that's why. Anyway,
carry on. Have a good week, everybody. See you
later. Happy researching. Bye.