Mastering the Art of Talking in my Sleep or Continuing my Campaign to do Two Things at Once

This week has seen me enter my 45^th year of serious family history research, although I drew up my first family tree at the age my oldest grandchildren are now. It is the obsession (hobby really doesn’t cut it) that keeps on giving and I can still find something new. This last week or so it has been a potpourri of discoveries. An exciting new one-place source, of which more another time. The story of the interesting four Gilbert sisters who had ten illegitimate children between them, plus a niece with one and an aunt with three more. After that I thought I’d better stop looking. Filling in my census and trying not to die between the day I submitted it and actual census day and creating an account of my own census day memories. I have recorded a video of a family history story for my grandchildren, well I had fun with it anyway. I have half written one talk and recorded another, so a fair bit achieved this week.

A few weeks ago, I managed to be in two places at once. Now I have mastered the art of accomplishing tasks whilst sleeping. This is going to be sooo useful. I appeared as a speaker for the Family History Down Under conference, which went live in Australian time. Hence, I was able to give a talk whilst I was asleep and wake up to a raft of lovely comments and questions. My final session on Embarrassing Ancestors is due to go live any minute and as it was a brand new talk, written with audience discussion in mind, I am keen to know what others think. You can still register for this conference and listen to all the sessions, or register for just one of four streams.

I have also made a possibly rash decision about how to spend my time over the next academic year and if am successful, stand by for accounts of my latest adventure. Only one life and all that. It might mean delaying novel number three, which wasn’t really happening anyway and I might start being a bit more hard hearted when asked to give talks; I have twelve booked for April and that pace really isn’t sustainable.

In non-historical matters, I was asked to complete a random Covid test, to assess levels of asymptomatic disease. Assembling the accompanying box to return the test was a challenge. The instructions were on the underside of the box I was trying to reconstruct. Do I hold it above my head? Do I try to assemble it upside down? Do I look, memorise and then assemble? Then there was the stick it down your throat and up your nose (ideally in that order) thing. The next challenge was putting the swab in the tiny transparent tube. This was a bit of a fail. Having taken my glasses off so I could see my tonsils in the mirror (my close sight is better without glasses), the tube was beyond my clear sight range and it took a few goes to get the stick in. I know, I know, I should have moved it closer. What a wonderful thing hindsight (or indeed just sight) is. Next step to put the test in the fridge and await to see if the courier who was, I was told, going to arrive between 15.03 and 17.03, could find my house. What’s with the .03 business? With a two hour window you’d think it would just be 15.00. Should I refuse him entry if he arrives at 15.02? Unsurprisingly, since apart from the empty next door chapel and the mobile post van fifty yards away, I have only left the house three times since October, it was negative. Or at least my hand which accidently touched the swab with all the getting it in the tube malarky is uninfected.

The excavation of the office continues. I have sorted out and sent three sacks full of paper to recycling. No, I really don’t need all the rough scribbles for my PhD. There are a few more files to cull and I have to decide if I am ever likely to read photocopies of umpteen academic articles. Oh and if anyone local wants a huge pile of House Beautiful Magazines dating back four years you are welcome. At least I can say they come from a Covid free home.

Spring is on the way and just to prove it here are some catkins from my newly pruned trees.

My Life in Seven Censuses #Census2021 #Censusdayphoto

Fresh from filling in my census form in last week and then keeping my fingers crossed that I would live until census day to avoid confusing my descendants, I decided to look back at my appearances in censuses past. I have found the forms that I saved in 2011, 2001 and 1991, so I know exactly what I put then and I have copied the latest one too. I am sure I have the 1981 return somewhere but unearthing that may involve a trip into the uncharted territory of the loft. I have tried to pick photographs that were taken as near to census day as possible. It was difficult to find later pictures for years ending in 1 as I am the photographer, so appear in very few. 1991 was a total fail – I don’t seem to have anything between 1989 and 1993. So here is my offering; please do likewise and create your own census day stories.

23 April 1961

This is one of only two censuses where I appear as part of a complete family unit. I have just had my fifth birthday. I am living in a three-bedroomed terraced house at 28 Sundridge Road, Addiscombe, Croydon with my parents. Recent censuses ask about central heating and I believe past ones have included questions about radio ownership. At this point, we do not have central heating, although we do have both radio and television, as well as a fridge. I am about to start my second term at Tenterden School. I am a little hazy about when my father moved from job to job but he is working as a projectionist and I think, has just started working for Associated Electrical Industries. My mother is probably doing freelance book-keeping at home. I will shortly be going for a week’s holiday to Bognor. I have just been given my second tortoise, Emma.

25 April 1971

I am a stroppy teenager and am just about to return to Croydon High School after a term off having broken my wrist and ankle. Breaking both at once means that I haven’t been able to use crutches. School is two bus rides away and involves many flights of stairs, so attendance isn’t practical whilst I am in plaster. At least, that’s what I am claiming. I am studying for eight O levels (this will reduce to seven after my absence, although actually I learn better at home than I do at school). Whilst I am home from school, I am volunteering at the nursery school up the road; the first of many voluntary jobs involving children that I will take on. I am also recovering from a severe bout of flu, leading to my weight dropping to under six stone. I have just met my first ‘proper’ long-term boyfriend.

By this time, my father has died and my mum and I are living in a two bedroomed maisonette at 3 Parkfields, Shirley, Surrey. Thus, the census shows no record of my living at what I regard as being my childhood home, 57 Firsby Avenue, Shirley. We had solid fuel central heating at Firsby Avenue but now have electric, oil-filled radiators.

Mum is working both at home and in the office as a book-keeper for the instrument makers Negretti and Zambra. Around this time I am working in the restaurant at Crystal Palace Athletics Stadium at weekends. An important member of our family is our dog, Sparky but she won’t appear on any official document.

5 April 1981

I have been married for nearly eight months and I am living in my first home of my own; a three-bedroomed Victorian terrace, 31 Cross Street, Sandown, Isle of Wight. We have gas central heating. Although I have had a colour television for nine years, we have reverted to black and white to save the license fee. I am working as a school secretary and my husband is a civil servant for the Customs and Excise Department. Censuses are keen on asking about qualifications, so I will record that, at this point, I have seven O levels, three indifferent A levels and a Diploma of Higher Education in history and sociology (DipHE was a short-lived and fairly meaningless qualification that was the equivalent to two years of degree level study). I am working to convert this into a full degree through the Open University. I am looking forward to starting a family and I am just about to go on holiday to Guernsey.

21 April 1991

My second and last census as a complete family unit and a short stay in Aston Clinton, Buckinghamshire has slipped between the enumerators’ nets. Now I am in the ‘forever’ home at 12 Ranelagh Road, Lake, Isle of Wight. This is a detached three-bedroomed house with a two-bedroomed flat in the basement. We now have gas central heating, a washing machine and a freezer but the television is still black and white. Both my daughters feature in this census as school children. I have completed my honours degree and also have a Further & Adult Education Teachers’ Certificate Parts I & 2 (City & Guilds).

I am teaching genealogy evening classes and doing free-lance research. My husband is still with the Customs and Excise but is now commuting daily to Portsmouth to do so. My mum has moved to a bungalow round the corner.

I have learned to drive so the household has a car to record in the census for the first time (my dad’s short spell as a car owner fell between two censuses).

I am actively involved with Isle of Wight Family History Society, running their bookstall and library. I am also the Honorary Education Liaison Officer for the Federation of Family History Societies, traveling to Birmingham for the meetings. I am a governor at my daughters’ primary school.

29 April 2001

I am still at the same address, the first home to appear on two censuses. We finally have a coloured television. I am now a widow; one daughter is at university and the other is on the roll at the local High School.

My short stints as a lecturer for The Open University and a school dinner lady have come and gone. I am working part time teaching history in a private faith school, with a handful of pupils. I will later also teach geography and law, as well as taking on a role as school bursar. I am also working as a relief special needs classroom assistant, which I love.

I have added to my qualifications with a Part 2 certificate in Genealogy and Heraldry from the Institute of Heraldic & Genealogical Studies.

I am still involved with Isle of Wight Family History Society and also the Braund one-name Society as their historian and editor.

27 March 2011

Now I have relocated to Devon and downsized drastically to live alone in my current seventeenth century cottage. It has three bedrooms but two are little more than box rooms, a tiny garden compared to the 250 foot that I have left being and central heating fed by an oil-powered Rayburn.

The intended early retirement has certainly not happened. I have now spent nearly ten years with the job I must not mention and have been promoted to a position of responsibility. I work occasionally as a traffic census enumerator. I am also enjoying working as a seventeenth century historical interpreter for a local tourist attraction. Living where I do, my lecturing opportunities have greatly expanded. I volunteer for Devon Family History Society and the Braund Society. I have also completed my PhD. Both my children are now married. I have begun to travel abroad regularly; later this year I will visit Australia.

My daughters and sons in law are staying at my house on census night, in preparation for my mum’s funeral the following day. [Although I have put a note to this effect with my form, I didn’t include them as visitors. I have no idea why, perhaps I had already filled it in.]

21 March 2021

Again a home appears in two censuses, although this one is now sporting an additional conservatory, giving me 35% more downstairs space. I am still living here by myself, although due to COVID, I have a ‘bubble’. I have not seen my family, which now includes three grandchildren, for six or seven months. There are no holidays on the horizon.

I have had two more promotions in the job I must not mention but this is currently greatly reduced due to the pandemic. I am still giving family and social history lectures to a worldwide audience, although this is being accomplished virtually at present and this is keeping me busier than ever. Following the closing of the tourist attraction for which I was working, five years ago, I went free-lance as an historical interpreter but my colleagues and I haven’t been able to present in person for over a year.

I am now chairman of Devon Family History Society and also of my local history group and I continue to work for the Braund Society. I am a published author of both fiction and non-fiction.

What will 2031 bring?

One of those Weeks – mostly about yoghurt and family history

It has been one of those weeks. First there was yoghurt-gate. I volunteered to manage the T***o delivery without the aid of my trusty bubble companion. I’ve done this before. It does involve military style pre-planning because I am one of those who anti-bac wipes the milk cartons, hides the non-perishables away for three days and decants frozen stuff into clean bags but it can be done. Well, usually it can. For some reason I totally failed on separating out the non-perishable stuff into one bag as I unloaded the green basket that Mr Delivery Man rested in my porch. Then one of the yogurts found its way on to the quarry-tiled kitchen floor. Just take it from me this is NOT A GOOD THING. I suppose I should be grateful that it wasn’t carpet. I kid you not, yoghurt found its way out of the open kitchen door, three feet from where it fell, it spanned the three foot hallway to the door of the living room and such was the projectile quality of said yoghurt that it was still at a height to land on top of a table a further three foot away. I then had to clean up the worst of the yoghurt, which seemed to be enough to fill ten yoghurt cartons, despite the fact that the yoghurt pot was still three-quarters full. There were also quantities of yoghurt over me. The dilemma, should I abandon slowly defrosting shopping in order to get changed? Should I continue to unpack clad only in my underwear? In the end I carried on in my yoghurty garb, trying not to step in residue on the floor. At least I had decided against mopping the kitchen floor earlier in the day, as that would have been a total waste of time.

The upside to all this was that it bumped up my daily step count a treat. I am still trying to do at least three miles a day and as I am not going out this involves a great deal of jogging on the spot. This worked well during the weekend’s indoor athletics championships. Every time there was a decent length track event, up I sprang and jogged along. It really wasn’t worth getting up for the seven seconds of the 60m races but the 800m heats were ideal. I am quite thankful that there wasn’t a 10,000m event though.

Free image via Pixabay

I have also managed to lose the plot a couple of times this week, involving being a little late to one meeting and failing to realise until very late in the day that two meetings I thought would be consecutive, actually overlapped. This involved letting other people down, so caused me some sleepless nights but I guess we are only human.

Spurred on by the amount of dust revealed by the recent sunshine, I began to do some spring-cleaning/decluttering. I am now up to 2007’s spring clean. I am sure my offspring will be grateful to have a little less to sort out when the time comes. First, to rediscover the ‘office’, which I rarely actually use for anything other than storing officey things, as I prefer to sit by the wood-burner, or in the conservatory, according to the season. I am determined not to have more books than will fit on the seven six foot high bookcases (and that’s just half the collection – there are another six full height book cases in the spare bedroom.) So far, I have managed to part with some 1980s guides to record offices, the over-head projector acetates that I used to use for talks and today 30mm slides that were used for the same purpose. I have also jettisoned a whole load of old computer discs ‘how to recover Windows 98’ and the like and some random bits of computer wires that don’t seem to fit anything. Unless you looked at the bin and recycling box, I’m not sure you’d know I’d done anything but it is a start. I am now debating whether I can dispose of the large microfiche reader that hasn’t been used for about three years. I considered replacing it with a hand-held one but £100 for something I may never use seemed rather steep. I think I may go for adding it to the ridiculous amount of stuff in my loft ‘just in case’.

I am still Zooming left right and centre; it is a quieter week this week with only fifteen meetings. There are a couple of major events coming up, where I am virtually speaking. These are recorded sessions and somehow I always sounds as if I am reading a script (which I am not). It is more difficult to sound spontaneous in a recording and I have noticed that it is similar for other speakers. So you can join me for Family History Down Under in a couple of weeks’ time, including the premiere of my Embarrassing Ancestors talk and at the Family History Federation’s The Really Useful Show in April. Looking further ahead, the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottowa have just published the programme for their September conference and I will be there with another new presentation. In between, there is THE Genealogy Show in June, so it is going to be a busy year.

On the back of all this Zooming, I offered to run a Zoom of Zooms, so that other family history groups can benefit from the steep learning curve that I have gone through with Devon Family History Society and other groups in the last eleven months. This is not really me being philanthropic, it is self-defence, as I have already advised several groups and I thought it would be easier to do one meeting for a number of groups. If you know of anyone who is thinking of using Zoom, or would like to use it more proficiently, let me know and I will pass on the link. Believe me, virtual meetings are here to stay, even when face-to-face meetings are possible as well. It is not ‘too late now it is all almost over’.

I am excited begin another presentation of my Writing up your Family History online course for Pharos Tutors on Monday. Last time I looked there was still room for a couple more so why not begin to create order from the chaos of your family history notes.

Talking of which, I have now cracked open the new version of Family Tree Maker without too many hitches. I’ve also been revisiting one of my brick walls for the nth time. I still think I know who the parents of my 4x great grandfather (3 times over – best not to ask) are but I just don’t feel confident enough to ink them in. There may be a blog post!!

#RootstechConnect Ramblings Part 3

This will be my final #RootstechConnect report. I have more sessions to watch on my playlist and I will mention any that stand out but this is the last dedicated post. Many congratulations to the organisers. I hope it will be repeated.

 It is strange how so many of us are binge watching RootstechConnect talks, when we could just watch one a week for the next year. Maybe it is in a subconscious attempt to replicate the hectic face-to-face experience. Despite being lured into the garden by the glorious weather, I have made inroads into my playlist over the last two days.

Having recorded details of all my Relatives at Rootstech on a word document I realised that it would have been a lot more useful if I’d gone for a spreadsheet, so I could sort by common ancestors and so on. That took a bit of time. Now I have my list I need to do something with it and actually contact a few of these people.

For the final official day, I tried the two part Tracing your ancestors in the 1700s using DNA with Dr Tim Janzen. Sadly, his approach assumes that you have far more close relatives than I have and also makes use of GEDmatch, which I don’t use. When he said ‘I tested my mother’s sixteen first cousins’, I realised that his methodology wasn’t going to be much help to me!

Bringing your Genealogical Society into the C21st with Andrew Lee, was next, there were three parts this one. Suffice it to say that most of the societies I am involved with are considerably further into the C21st than those he was describing. It began with ‘get an email address for your society’. To be fair, it came from a US perspective and seemed to be addressed to small groups of 30-100 members. I really hope that less enlightened groups take his advice on various topics.

The great thing about virtual Rootstech is that, if you find a presentation isn’t relevant to you, you don’t have to regret sampling it, as you haven’t missed out on another session in order to attend.

Then it was time to check out every booth in turn and see if any of the downloadable resources were of use. I spent most of the time at the Family Tree Maker booth and was interested to see their resources for societies. I succumbed to the latest version but still have to grasp the nettle and try it out. I do miss the supply of free pencils and sweets that would come with a trawl of the various stands at an in-person conference!

Back to the ever-increasing playlist to listen to Discovering Records of the Enslaved a discussion between Sharon Batiste Gillins and Cheri Hudson Passey. A really thought-provoking session on how we share information about issues surrounding slavery, be we descended from enslaver or enslaved. I also watched her excellent follow up session Discovering Slaveholders in the Family Tree. These are definitely right up there on my best sessions list.

I looked at Community Reconstitution by Joe Price, thinking that it would be one for the one-place studiers. Personally, I prefer the term reconstruction but I wasn’t being picky. It was interesting to find that he viewed surname studies as a form of community reconstitution. The focus of the talk was not about community reconstitution at all, or at least not in my sense of the term but about adding more people to the Family Search tree. There was an emphasis on quantity over quality, advocating the use of five year olds to add new people and adding records whilst listening to audio books and exercising. That way madness lies.

Another session that I would recommend that you put on your must watch list is Girls must Feed Pigs by Darris G Williams. This is an interesting look at personal testimonies from various sources, such as Parliamentary enquiries, diaries and letters, that flesh out the evidence in the mainstream records. He recommended this from the family search wiki and similar pages for other countries. Ok so the list is shorter than the number of books on these topics that I own but it is a good start and we were invited to add to the content.  I just need several more lifetimes to do all this.

Encouraged by Twitter traffic, I then took a look at what #21dayfamilyconnectionsexperiment was all about, although I am not sure that I am any the wiser. Creative Storytelling Techniques borrowed from Photography from Laura Hedgecock was next, a novel idea and Laura’s photographs are stunning.

I learned about The Genealogist’s new Map Explorer feature. Something else to tempt me to take out a subscription, although I always told myself I’d wait for the rest of the Valuation Office Records to be added before adding to my subscription list. I did ask the question; it will be a while.

The final talk of my weekend was Shortcuts to Success: solving English genealogical conundrums with Else Churchill. Now to tackle those relatives at Rootstech. Only 20% are on my maternal side and 121 of the 269 descend from the same couple!