The Nosey Genealogist's: Help Me With My Family Tree
British Family Tree Research, Tips, Techniques and News
Join The National Archives (TNA)’s experts as they introduce you to the key 20th century sources for family history, including the 1939 Register, and the 1921 and 1911 Census. You will learn how to maximise your use of these popular sources, setting you on your way to discover more about your family tree.
This webinar is presented by Jessamy Carlson, Family and Local history engagement lead at TNA.
Send to Kindle
After the extremely successful virtual events held online last year, The Family History Show, Online is returning in February so that once more you can enjoy all the features of a physical family history show, but from the comfort of your own home.
The Family History Show, Online is gearing up for its return on Saturday 19th February 2022.
You’ll have the opportunity to put your research questions to an expert, watch professionally produced talks and to speak to family history societies, archives and genealogical suppliers by text, audio, video chat or email from the comfort of your own home.
You will also be able to submit your questions to the Ask the Experts panel before the show and you have a choice to either book a free 1-to-1 session or to watch the question panel at 15:30 where our experts answer your questions!
From Cradle to Grave – Jackie Depelle – Family History Tutor and Speaker
Jackie’s talk shows you how to follow the life of an ancestor, using key family history sources, plus more from maps to house history
Solving Genealogy Brickwalls: A Case Study – Amelia Bennett – Expert Researcher, Census Detective with the SOG
This talk uses an example from Amelia’s own family history where she progressed a brickwall using DNA alongside traditional genealogy research. The path to solving this brickwall had a number of surprises along the way with forgeries, quick marriages, criminal ancestors and often more questions than answers. In telling the story, methods and tools for using DNA to break down brickwalls are provided.
The Joy of Surnames – Debbie Kennett – DNA & Surname Expert and Writer
Each surname has its own story to tell. This lecture provides an overview of the history and distribution of surnames with a focus on surnames originating in the British Isles. The one-name study approach can provide breakthroughs that would not be possible by restricting research to your own family tree.
Family history and the media: behind the scenes of Who Do You Think You Are? – Nick Barratt – Historian, Author and Professional Genealogist
Exploring the impact of Who Do You Think You Are? on the way we research our family stories, with an explanation of how the show was first conceived and produced.
Ask the Experts Live Q&A Panel with Mark Bayley, Debbie Kennett, Jackie Depelle and Nick Barratt.
Submit your questions to our panel of experts before the show. Either book a free 1-to-1 session or watch the live stream question panel at 15:30 where you can ask your questions live!
Visit exhibitors, societies, archives and companies in our virtual exhibition hall. Here there will be the opportunity to talk to some of the stallholders by text, audio or video from the comfort of your own home.
Show Partners
SoG, AGRA, TheGenealogist, GenFair, S&N Genealogy
Buy your tickets in advance and save – tickets to attend The Family History Show Online are available from the website at just £7.00 each. You will also get a FREE virtual goody bag on the day worth over £10. https://thefamilyhistoryshow.com/online/tickets/
Send to Kindle
News out today from the British-owned online family history company DC Thomson Family History (the people behind findmypast amongst other websites) and The National Archives that they are entering into a joint project to make the records of 40 million civilians held in the 1939 register available online.
When they have got this data digitised, it is estimated by the company that the collection will comprise of near enough 1.2 million scanned full-colour images of documents. As the records cover the entire civilian population of England & Wales at the outbreak of WWII, this is quite a significant release for those of us researching our English or Welsh family tree.
What was the 1939 register?
It was taken on 29 September 1939 by the British Government and recorded personal details of individuals in order to issue identity cards and ration books. In later years it became the basis of the National Health Service’s records.
Findmypast say that , when complete, the 1939 register will be fully searchable online for the first time, opening up the past to a new generation of family and social historians, just as the 1911 census did on its release in 2009.
So what can we expect to find once this set becomes available to us?
The records contain the address, full name, date of birth, sex, marital status and occupation of individuals, as well as changes of name. Although the Register is literally within living memory for many people, information about living individuals will be kept closed for 100 years from their year of birth, or until proof of death has been authenticated.
From today, anybody interested in being kept informed about the project can register at www.1939register.co.uk.
Annelies Van Den Belt, CEO of DC Thomson Family History said: “This announcement is great news not just for British family historians and those with British relatives, but for anyone with an interest in history itself; providing a fascinating snapshot of the country as it stood on the edge of the most widespread conflict in human history.
“This significant project will bring these records to a global audience for the first time, and combined with the 1.8 billion records already available on our websites will make it easier than ever to begin your family history journey and uncover the powerful stories that lie within and that make us who we are.â€
Mary Gledhill, Commercial Director, at The National Archives, added: “The National Archives is delighted to be working with DC Thomson Family History to open up this unique record collection to the world, allowing history enthusiasts to discover more about the people at the outbreak of the Second World War. In the absence of a 1931 and 1941 census, this collection is all the more valuable to family historians trying to trace their ancestors.â€
The 1939 register project is the latest contract to be awarded to DC Thomson Family History by The National Archives. Record sets previously digitised by the company in association with The National Archives include Crime, Prisons and Punishment; outbound passenger lists; British Army Service records; Merchant Navy Seamen’s records; Maritime Birth, Marriage and Death indexes and the 1911 census.
Great news for those of us researching our recent ancestors from England & Wales. One of the most anticipated family history projects since the 1911 census.
Disclosure: Compensated affiliate links used in this post.
Send to Kindle
Some news that dropped into my inbox today…
DC Thomson Family History and FamilySearch.org to make billions of records available for people to search
More than 13 million records launched today on findmypast.com
LONDON, England and SALT LAKE CITY, Utah–Annelies van den Belt, the new CEO of DC Thomson Family History, the British-based leader in online family history and owner of findmypast and Genes Reunited, has announced a major new partnership with US-based FamilySearch.org that will give family history enthusiasts access to billions of records online and new technology to collaboratively research their family roots.
DC Thomson Family History, formerly known as brightsolid online publishing, is collaborating with FamilySearch, which has the largest collections of genealogical and historical records in the world, to deliver a wide range of projects including digital preservation, records search, technological development and the means to allow family historians to share their discoveries.
More than 13 million records from FamilySearch.org launched today on findmypast, including major collections of births, marriages and deaths covering America, Australia, and Ireland. Around 600 additional collections, containing millions of records, will follow.
The two organisations have a long history of working together on historical projects, including indexing 132 million records of the 1940 US census and two hundred years of British Army Service Records (Chelsea Pensioners) in a joint digitisation project with The National Archives.
Van den Belt said: “This is fantastic news for our customers all over the world. As a leader in online family history we will be able to offer access to a much wider variety of records dating back hundreds of years and the first batch are ready to search on findmypast. The convenience of searching many treasures from FamilySearch.org along with our own extensive collections will provide rich new insights for our customers.
“This partnership with FamilySearch will accelerate the momentum of our next phase of global growth into new non-English-speaking markets and give more people more access to more records to uncover their family history. This really cements our position as a market leader. â€
“We are excited to work with DC Thomson Family History on a vision we both share,†said Dennis Brimhall, CEO of FamilySearch. “Expanding online access to historical records through this type of collaboration can help millions more people discover and share their family’s history.â€
DC Thomson Family History is the British-based leader in online family history, which operates major online sites including findmypast, Genes Reunited and the British Newspaper Archive. It launched in America last year with its findmypast brand.
DC Thomson Family History has a strong record of partnerships with non-profit and public sector organisations such as the British Library and The National Archives among many other major archives and organisations around the world.
Send to KindleI’ve been reading a business tip today. It was all about what big company may wish to gobble up the likes of Ancestry.com in the future.
It began from the premise that family history was big business, with the more of us turning to online resources such as the subscription sites run by Ancestry who have grown their revenue every quarter since they went public on the New York Stock Exchange.
I have always thought of Ancestry as being one of the big players in the genealogical market. But this article, by The Mottley Fool, talks about the possible threat of a larger company than them entering the market. The likes of Facebook, Google, or Microsoft being their assumed predators.
All three of these organisations could take advantage of the massive amounts of information that they have acquired, plus the technological skills of the programmers that they employ to build a more streamlined search website than what is already on offer in the market.
As The Motley Fool points out Facebook has its Timeline feature, which is an indication that they have noticed the potential of our hobby. There is Google, a big player in organising information, to consider as well. Meanwhile, Microsoft have something called Project Greenwich which allows its users to collect together their photos, links, scanned objects, and potentially more information to create chronological timelines about specific events, people, places, or things. It would not take much for them to turn this into an interactive timeline of our family history.
It is suggested that by providing such a timeline that this would encourage people to remain as members of sites like Ancestry for longer and thus defend them against the problem of membership churn. The article concludes that perhaps these firms will go down the partnership route, or that Microsoft licenses its technology to the likes of Ancestry.
But who knows what will be on offer to us in the future in researching the past online?
Send to KindleWhen I was at Olympia I had a chat to Mario Ruckh from MyHeritage.com, one of the most popular family networks on the web. They had just announced that they has surpassed the 3 million registered user milestone in the United Kingdom, which is some figure! So with more than one in every twenty people in the UK now using MyHeritage.com, online family history would seem to be becoming a part of the fabric of internet life for the mainstream.
So what is it? Well they say it is a mix of social networking and genealogy, where MyHeritage.com provides a free and private place online for families to explore their history and keep in touch.
When the camera stopped rolling they gave me one of their press packs and from this I can report that there are currently over 3,176,905 registered users of MyHeritage.com out of a total UK population of approximately 62 million. More facts, for those that like them, are that the Global membership of MyHeritage.com has risen steadily since the website launched in November 2005, indicating a rising trend for researching roots, and collecting and sharing family memories online.
I always knew that this hobby was growing, but now I know that I’m not alone here!
When measured by the number of registered users for MyHeritage.com, there is more interest in family history in the UK than any other European country.
“Our phenomenal growth in the UK and around the world indicates that family history is transforming into a popular mainstream activityâ€, said Laurence Harris, UK Genealogy Manager at MyHeritage.com and a researcher for the BBC’s WDYTYA (Who Do You Think You Are?) programme. “By enabling people to explore and share their family histories on the web for free, MyHeritage.com is helping drive this trend. We’re delighted to provide the British people with the tools to discover their rich and diverse family historiesâ€.
With one of the longest and most celebrated histories, and as a nation rich in multiculturalism, the British Isles present fertile conditions for the genealogy market.
For people wishing to trace their past, MyHeritage.com’s free Smart Matching™ technology has already helped hundreds of thousands of people discover ancestors and locate long-lost relatives, reuniting families whose ties have been broken by time and fate. The technology matches between the people in a user’s family tree and more than 700 million people in 17 million other family trees on MyHeritage.com.
With over 54 million users, huge global reach and support of 36 languages, MyHeritage.com helps users find and reunite with family members all around the world. Several dozen user stories can be found on the MyHeritage Blog, including some exciting stories from the UK. People wishing to begin tracing their roots can visit www.myheritage.com and start filling out their family tree today.
A completely free basic site comes with Smart Matchingâ„¢, Family Tree Charts, social networking features for family members and more. A premium subscription can help take family history research one step further with enhanced features for finding, documenting and sharing family history.
MyHeritage.com were exhibiting at the WDYTYA (Who Do You Think You Are?) show at Olympia, London, between the 25th-27th February at stand 505 in the National Hall and that was where I recorded this interview.
Send to Kindle