Welcome to the Family History Social

As the premier UK family history event approaches, will you be visiting London Olympia this weekend for Who Do You Think You Live 2013?

The world's leading family history event starts this Friday (22nd February) at 10am and promises to be another great show. From all the major online resource providers such as TheGenealogist, to libraries, museums and dozens of family history societies there is a wealth of useful information to be found.

The show encompasses the best in the field of family history, from informative workshops, expert talks and general products and services. Mark Bayley, online expert from TheGenealogist will be providing an in-depth talk on 'Breaking down those brick walls' amongst a number of informative talks to help the family history researcher. Celebrity speakers this year having featured in the recent Who Do You Think You Are? TV series include- William Roache, Samantha Womack, Gregg Wallace and John Barnes who are all scheduled to speak in the Celebrity Theatre. There's more details at www.WhoDoYouThinkYouAreLive.com which includes full timetables for talks and a list of exhibitors. We hope to see you there in what promises to be another busy and exciting show!

TheGenealogist has just added over 10 million death transcripts to the website, bringing the total number of death records to now over 52 million available on the website for subscribers to access covering the years from 1910 to 2005. These transcripts can be used with a tool that lets you search across all the Birth, Marriage and Death transcripts, with built in SmartSearch technology, enabling you to find potential parents from a birth, potential children to a marriage and potential birth records from a death record. Here we take the example of well loved comedy actor Ronnie Barker who sadly died in 2005. This is one of the later records, the collection on TheGenealogist now dates back to 1910. From here,  the researcher can find birth records and further continue their search.

One mouse click and you have a copy of his death certificate:

It allows the family history researcher to find records quickly and easily and from just a death record, it's now possible to discover the birth date of the person, their parents, siblings and really progress your search. There is more information from this link to the news page on TheGenealogist.        

An interesting trend has been developing with more data CD's now being made available as instant downloads, giving researchers the opportunity to get hold of records quicker than ever, without having to wait for the post! S&N Genealogy Supplies have now made more unique research records available in a downloadable format as an alternative to purchasing on CD. It's an added benefit for those family historians keen to get stuck into their research as quickly as possible and who want their data instantly.

Another advantage of the instant downloads is that with no postage and packing costs, customers can receive the information at a reduced price, useful for the genealogist on a budget or looking to save money. S&N Genealogy Supplies have download prices starting from £5 so it is good value for money. The instant downloads are available as pdf document copies of the data CD. A simple click of the mouse gives you access to the records you need. From Parish Records to Kelly's Directories, Post Office Directories, Pigot's Directories, Court Guides, County Books, Barrett's Directories and much more, there's an ever increasing selection of reference material now available to download instantly. S&N Genealogy Supplies also offer download protection, customers can login to their account to 're-download' them at any time. With the ability to search quickly by county, it is possible to search for the area required and find the resource you are looking for. More details can be found at Genealogy Supplies  where you can start your search. More information can also be found by calling S&N Genealogy Supplies on 01722 716121.

After recently upgrading my RootsMagic software to Version 6, I was pleased to find out a new App has been developed to have access to your family history research data when you're out and about! The new RootsMagic App has been launched for use on the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. It gives you access to your family tree at your fingertips wherever you may be. You don't need the internet, the data is all stored on your device so you can access it anytime and anywhere!

It's handy when you're out and about exploring those local areas your ancestors may have lived or visiting relatives who are interested in your work. The new app provides the perfect companion to your desktop RootsMagic software, allowing you to reference your database research and to check your data and also to show others your findings. It's a completely free useful tool that is a great addition to RootsMagic Version 6. What's on the App?

• Easily search and explore your family tree
• View pictures, notes and sources - all of your RootsMagic data is available inside the App.
• View your sources, to-do items, research logs, media, addresses, repositories, correspondences and places.
• Tools and calculators- including a perpetual calendar, date calculator and relationship calculator.

It's a great tool when you're out and about- just look up your genealogy data on your iPad or iPhone! For more information on the App, please contact S&N Genealogy Supplies on 01722 716121.  

As documents are increasingly required to be kept and stored electronically, it's becoming more important to be able to scan your precious documents, photos and other memories for quick access and safe keeping and also to avoid having to keep taking the originals out of their album or frame. However, what is the best type of equipment to use to achieve this? I've looked around and came across the 'Flip-Pal' mobile scanner as pictured below:

It's easy to scan relatives' photographs and document without fear of damage, or to take the scanner to libraries or archives to scan documents and save on prints. Also using the screen protector, you can scan medals and other items that may scratch the glass without worry. I purchased the Flip-Pal scanner and the following great features really stood out: It's Mobile- compact light and durable, cordless and battery powered. Highly accurate- high quality digital images of 600 & 300 dpi resolution. Colour is true to the original.

Versatile- scan any size original, from coins to newspapers, including large documents. It's quick & easy to use- push one button to scan in seconds. Insert the SD card from the scanner into your computer to see the digital images. The Digital Creativity Suite it comes with is Windows & Mac compatible. It allows expert photo editing , digitally repair damaged photos in seconds. With Corel Paint it's also possible to turn old family photos into works of art! The Flip Pal Scanner starts at £129.95 and is available at Genealogy Supplies After testing it out I've been really impressed with just how good this mobile scanner is. Handy to carry about and not in the least bit awkward to use, it's something every family history researcher should have. Having a copy of your work is as essential and important as the original document so for peace of mind this is well worth the money. It also means you are fully prepared should you come across that golden nugget of information when  you are visiting a relative or are in your local library when you come across that valuable photo or record!

When researching your family tree, to really get a feel for how our ancestors lived and what important events happened in their lifetimes, other sources of information are often required. In Victorian times, an excellent source was the Illustrated London News, the world's first illustrated weekly newspaper. Founded by Herbert Ingram, a printer from Nottingham ,he moved to London and started the paper in 1842. The first issue appeared on Saturday 14 May 1842. Herbert Ingram initially wanted a paper that concentrated on crime reporting, but his partner, Henry Vizetelly, convinced him to cover more general news of the time to appeal to a larger audience. With articles mainly covering the capital but also covering events abroad including conflicts and wars, it gives an interesting snapshot into life at the time and the journalistic take on big events of the time. By 1863, The Illustrated London News was selling more than 300,000 copies every week, much higher circulation figures in comparison to other British newspapers of the time. Using larger circulation newspapers or more local regional newspapers, it's possible to find out information about the life and times your ancestor experienced and even if they appeared in the local papers. If they were famous, reputable at a certain skill or well known, there's a chance they may have appeared in the local newspaper. My subscription to TheGenealogist has enabled me to get a flavour of events in Victorian times with the increasing numbers of newspaper issues they have now available online. They have recently added issues for the decade from 1870 to 1879. This means there is now a collection available from 1842 to 1879 giving a real feel for newsworthy events in the  mid part of the century. Examples of what can be viewed. I've listed a couple of the screenshots to show what is available on TheGenealogist. Around the time of The Great Exhibition the Illustrated London News devoted a number of pages to the exhibition and the main people involved. Below is a page taken as a screenshot from the newspaper.

A Christmas issue...

More specific articles, this one is looking at the celebrated French chef, Alexis Soyer.

It's definitely worth working your way through the newspaper articles- just to add a bit more background to how your ancestors lived, it helps give you a feel for how things were for them all those years ago!

Linking together the life of a relative can often be a difficult and time consuming task if you don’t have much prior information to go on… however, I've found with my subscription to TheGenealogist that this process can be a whole lot simpler with its unique ‘SmartSearch’ facility.  This has been further enhanced by the addition of 14 million newly transcribed death records from 1960 to 1983 to add even more power to the search feature. With the total of 26 million death records for England and Wales from 1960 to 2005 now available on TheGenealogist, using the unique ‘SmartSearch’ feature, I've discovered we can now go from the death record from 1960 to 2005, to a birth record, to finding the parent’s marriage to tracing siblings in very easy steps. The team at TheGenealogist tell me by Christmas the records should stretch back to 1930 adding even more power to our fingertips! As an example, I've used one of the newly transcribed death records on TheGenealogist to see a prime example of how the new records can really benefit your family research. I’ve taken the records of legendary T-Rex guitarist and vocalist, Marc Bolan, who tragically died in 1977 at the age of 29.

His real name was Mark Feld which we can now use to search the death records on TheGenealogist.

 

The ‘SmartSearch’ facility allows us to jump straight to his birth record which links to his parents and potential siblings. Mark didn’t have a brother or sister but we can find full details of his parents Simeon and Phyllis (including marriage record below) which allows us to move onto the next stage of the family tree.

In my opinion, the 26 million death records now transcribed on TheGenealogist really enhances the ‘SmartSearch’ feature. From a death record it’s now easy to jump to past generations with just a few mouse clicks. You can now start your research with just the basic data and still find results quickly. Searching is now quicker and easier than ever.    

As a keen user of the family tree software, RootsMagic,  I was pleased to find out this week that the newly updated Version 6 has now arrived in the UK. It comes with a number of handy new features and the improvements are good enough to keep it up there with the best of the family tree software currently on the market. RootsMagic is ideal for both the newcomer and experienced researcher, I've found it produces great looking family trees, charts and reports. It's invaluable to those family historians who wants to keep everything nicely organised. So what are the new features? With my brand new copy, which I 'road-tested' this week, I found the following features stood out the most for me: Online Publishing -the software can create visually attractive, dynamic websites with pedigree, family and individual views as well as supporting notes, sources and media. Combined with the free My.RootsMagic.com hosting service, your family history has an online home with just a quick click of the mouse. Live Timeline View - A live-edit panel on RootsMagic's timeline view makes this one of the most powerful editing features. Make corrections to your data while viewing it in context with other family members' life events. I found this feature very useful. Find Everywhere- with just a single search you can now find every record in your file containing the text you want. Quickly find people, families, notes, sources, places, to-do items, research logs and more. You can then edit those records directly from the search results.

WebTags- attach links to websites for any person, source, citation, place or research log item and instantly jump to a web page tagged to a record. CountyCheck Explorer - look up a county, state, or country from a multi-national database. It can even show you historical county boundaries. This is particularly useful for keeping an eye on those confusing UK county boundary changes over the years which can throw a family historian off the scent in their ancestor search.

  RootsMagic Version 6 is now available from Genealogy Supplies For those that recently purchased Version 5- there is a special offer of free upgrades for those customers that purchased after 21st August 2012. Please contact S&N Genealogy Supplies on 01722 716121 for more details.

Tracing your family tree can often lead to some fascinating discoveries, surprising everyone in the family.  Some discoveries are good, some can be very tragic. As we approach the 11^th November and Remembrance Day, we take a look at one family and how the war altered their family history. Using the ‘smart search’ features on one of the research websites I use- TheGenealogist.co.uk , we demonstrate how technology can help us remember those heroes of yesteryear.

This is a comprehensive way to trace your family history online through the years. The sophisticated ‘master search’ facilities allows us to follow a family and get a snapshot of their lives. With this example, we take a look at the family of Benjamin Freke, a family butcher from Bristol. Born in 1871, using the Master Search facility on TheGenealogist we find him.

From the 1901 Census listed here, we find the records of Benjamin’s two children, Frank and Albert. From here, we can find the birth record for (Benjamin) Frank Freke born in 1899.

Frank and Albert (pictured above) are again picked up on the 1911 Census, as can be seen from the genealogy website I use:

In 1911, Frank is now 12 and still classed as a scholar with his younger brother and probably destined to work in the family business in Bristol. On the census, he is listed by his middle name ‘Frank’ rather than his first name Benjamin, which can often confuse researchers. Frank was growing up in troubled times and with the dark clouds of war gathering, he would find himself by 1917, at the age of 18 obligated to join the fight against Germany. The next fact we find about Frank is his listing on the research website where we find he was tragically killed in 1918 at just 19 years old. We search in the ‘World War 1 Deaths’ section and find the details for Benjamin Frank Freke.

Private Benjamin Frank Freke is tragically killed in 1918 as is confirmed in the war death records as documented online.

Using online family history research websites can help you find the heroes in your family. Using modern technology to find information about your family can lead you to discover things about them you never knew, including tragedies such as this one where a family loses a son in the Great War.  

If you live near to a major town or city, or are a determined genealogist, chances are you will have visited family history fairs that are staged around the U.K.

Organised by local and regional family history societies, the fairs feature data products and other items of interest to both the keen amateur and professional family history researcher. Books, maps, Data CD's and advice and guidance is available aplenty from the numerous stalls.

The great thing about family history fairs is that information is available from both the 'host' society on local genealogical matters and also societies from other areas of the UK that attend the fairs. This gives the researcher the opportunity to ask for (and buy) information on areas of interest relevant to their family history. It's also a useful exercise if you've hit that research 'brick wall' and are struggling to know which direction to turn next. Asking a local expert can make all the difference and help you overcome that research hurdle.

The typical family history fair will also feature guest 'talks' and occasionally the presence of companies that provide products and services that can be used by the family history researcher. The talks are well worth attending, providing informative, useful information that can only help you in your research. Often the talks are given by leading 'personalities' in the industry, such as Nick Barratt who formerly assisted on the BBC 'Who Do You Think You Are?' programme and Mark Bayley, Head of the Online Division from TheGenealogist.co.uk who provide nuggets of help and advice for the family history researcher. As well as the local family history fairs, there is also the major fair, held at Olympia in London. Organised by 'Who Do You Think You Are?, it is by far the largest and features the widest selection of genealogical products and services available. As the online method of research is becoming more commonplace and more essential for the researcher, it is worth taking advantage of the show 'offers' that are often available at these events. You will often see a special discount available for online subscriptions to family history research websites and it's worth taking advantage of these offers. Just look out for the stands at your next local show, often they can demonstrate how the website works and what records it contains so you get a feel for what the site looks like.

If you're unsure if there's a family history fair near to you, it's worth a Google search to find your local city/town/ county society and they will have a page dedicated to when the next local fair is scheduled. Then enjoy your visit! The current schedule published so far for Family History Fairs for 2013 is: 2013 January Sun 27th       Bracknell Family History Fair (Bracknell) February Sat 16th      FHS of Cheshire Family History Fair (Northwich) 22nd to 24th  Who Do You Think You Are? Live (Olympia) March Sun 3rd       Merseyside & Cheshire Family History Fair (Port Sunlight) Sat 16th      Harrogate Local & Family History Day (Harrogate) April  Sat 13th      City of York Family History Fair (New Earswick) Sat 27th      Family History Fair (Pudsey) May Sat 4th        Gloucestershire FHS Family History Fair (Gloucester) Sat 11th      Sussex Family History Fair (Haywards Heath) Sat 11th     Scottish Association of FHS's (Galashiels) Sun 19th     Kent Family History Fair (Maidstone) June Sat 1st        Sheffield & District FHS Family History Fair (Sheffield) Sat 29th     Yorkshire Family History Fair (York) September Sat 7th        The National Family History Fair (Newcastle) Sat 21st      The Yorkshire Group of FHS's (Doncaster) October Sat 5th        Oxfordshire FHS Open Day & FH Fair (Woodstock)