While manning a family history help desk I was talking to 2 people who were total beginners but had brought some family information with them namely a couple of certificates.
As I was explaining what information, very useful information was included in certificates I was also sketching out a rough, very rough, family tree based on the info given on the certificates. My sketching, without a ruler was not good and it was hard for them to follow as from the census we had found a child with grandparents - so a generation was missing. This made it even harder.
How could I make it easier to explain and more importantly make it easier for beginners to understand. Well, not always beginners as sometimes even more experienced family historians need to draw a tree to understand who goes where and how they all fit it.
Paper came out along with pencils and a vry big rubber, oh and don't forget a non-dogearred ruler ! The first few attempts I kept missing out a generation on one side - silly me ! Time to concentrate. Eventually I had a good enough prototype to take to my better half and say draw that for me on the computer.
Less than 24 hours later I have a workable mainline with siblings tree and uploaded it to the charts and forms section of my site.
Now it should be easier to follow generations and add siblings as children of siblings are also family members - there's not a lot of space for dates and if you run out of space for siblings, start another sheet, with a ref no. that way you know who fits into the great scheme of things.
Back to the transcribing, I've lots of things in the pipeline and I've been working on a war memorial for a church in Whitby. Not only did the church include those who died but also those who fought, which is very interesting but sad when you see brothers who went away and not all came home. That will be uploaded soon.
Now the nights are drawing in I will, I promise, transcribe a great deal over the winter and add lots for you to peruse.
Thursday 24 September 2009
Monday 7 September 2009
Royston Cemetery
Yes, a good title for a Blog.
My cousin and I have been doing a joint effort on the family trees of his close relatives spouses - Shephe(a)rd from Royston/Barnsley.
Well, we found them in the census of 1911 and followed them back in the previous decades. It was then that we came across an Albert Edward Shepherd V.C. who died in the 1960's. The trail lead to a family member originating in Shropshire - coming up to Yorkshire following the coal fields, as a lot of our relatives who were miners did.
As the trail was getting cool and it was a nice day on Sunday, off I went to Royston, killing two birds with one stone, snapping the memorial and looking for Shepherd and Lees family in the cemetey. But..... finding our Albert Edward was a daunting task as I knew the headstone was quite small and white. When you want a white headstone, what colour are all the headstones, yes.... white !!
I accousted..oh ! asked a few people if they knew of Albert E, most said yes but where he was, they had no idea. But I did find a small leaning headstone, rather dark in colour to Rosezillah, the wife of A E Shepherd V.C. But where was Albert. Then I struck gold..... a lady who I had asked had been looking at the headstones on her way back to the car, she asked a gentleman if he knew where A E was.....no he replied and she very kindly came all the way back to me, just to tell me what she had done and confirm the name......... How nice some people are.
As the gentleman walked down the path I too spoke to him. He wondered why I was looking for his headstone, I passed on my reasons and bid him farewell. I was meant to speak to him for as I turned and walked away, he called me back and I turned .....well whose grave was I stook next to.. You've got it, good old A E's. It all turned out that he knew A E, he was older than my new friend, who told me he was a small man but had a good heart. What a better way to be remembered.
We again parted and I wondered off to photo the memorial with its new plaque to A E. At the back of the town memorial stood a gate. I knew of A E's grave and his shiny new plaque but the gate was a surprise, a nice surprise as it was given by his regiment in the 1960's in remembrance of Albert and his V.C.
A quick chat to the verger in the church and I learnt that both the memorial and the gate had been moved from their original position to within the church boundary. She said that the gate was now beginning to look its age, but they had felt that it should be left to age gracefully and hence the new plaque.
That was my Sunday lets hope the Heritage Weekend next week will be just as nice. You can find out whats on in your area by a simple google search for Heritage Weekends.
Happy searching
My cousin and I have been doing a joint effort on the family trees of his close relatives spouses - Shephe(a)rd from Royston/Barnsley.
Well, we found them in the census of 1911 and followed them back in the previous decades. It was then that we came across an Albert Edward Shepherd V.C. who died in the 1960's. The trail lead to a family member originating in Shropshire - coming up to Yorkshire following the coal fields, as a lot of our relatives who were miners did.
As the trail was getting cool and it was a nice day on Sunday, off I went to Royston, killing two birds with one stone, snapping the memorial and looking for Shepherd and Lees family in the cemetey. But..... finding our Albert Edward was a daunting task as I knew the headstone was quite small and white. When you want a white headstone, what colour are all the headstones, yes.... white !!
I accousted..oh ! asked a few people if they knew of Albert E, most said yes but where he was, they had no idea. But I did find a small leaning headstone, rather dark in colour to Rosezillah, the wife of A E Shepherd V.C. But where was Albert. Then I struck gold..... a lady who I had asked had been looking at the headstones on her way back to the car, she asked a gentleman if he knew where A E was.....no he replied and she very kindly came all the way back to me, just to tell me what she had done and confirm the name......... How nice some people are.
As the gentleman walked down the path I too spoke to him. He wondered why I was looking for his headstone, I passed on my reasons and bid him farewell. I was meant to speak to him for as I turned and walked away, he called me back and I turned .....well whose grave was I stook next to.. You've got it, good old A E's. It all turned out that he knew A E, he was older than my new friend, who told me he was a small man but had a good heart. What a better way to be remembered.
We again parted and I wondered off to photo the memorial with its new plaque to A E. At the back of the town memorial stood a gate. I knew of A E's grave and his shiny new plaque but the gate was a surprise, a nice surprise as it was given by his regiment in the 1960's in remembrance of Albert and his V.C.
A quick chat to the verger in the church and I learnt that both the memorial and the gate had been moved from their original position to within the church boundary. She said that the gate was now beginning to look its age, but they had felt that it should be left to age gracefully and hence the new plaque.
That was my Sunday lets hope the Heritage Weekend next week will be just as nice. You can find out whats on in your area by a simple google search for Heritage Weekends.
Happy searching
Friday 4 September 2009
Heritage Weekend 2009
Well, it dosn't seem like 12 months since I was out and about last September and I must admit that I've not completed some of the memorials or headstone I photographed then.
This year my plans to go to new places have been scuppered and my weekend seems to be limited to Sunday.
The places that open locally are the same year after year - we need new local places to open their doors.........PLEASE as I look forward to this time of the year.
This year my plans to go to new places have been scuppered and my weekend seems to be limited to Sunday.
The places that open locally are the same year after year - we need new local places to open their doors.........PLEASE as I look forward to this time of the year.
Help from others
Over the past few days I've received very nice emails from people who have taken their time to find info on casualties of WW1 that that have been missing from a few war memorial transcripts.
This has been very good for me as there is only so much time I can spend looking for a name - sometimes its not always that obvious and the emails that have been received have enabled me to add full names, dates and other into to these men.
I've also had an email saying I had the wrong info for one man - we all make mistakes. I looked into it but with no additional info on CWGC it was hard to pin point this man in the census. I basically worked on the average age of a casualty having him born around 1895 +/- 5 years or so. Only one person with that name fell into that criteria. His information on death, burial and birth were correct but his parents according to a relative were wrong.
I did another search for this man and laid out my case for his parents in my email to the relative, but did point out how I had come to that conclusion.
A reply came and included info that I could not have known - info from certificates giving dates and names - I then went onto the census armed with this and gottcha found him straight away. Only to find him as being born a lot earlier than is the norm.
So thanks to this email, I was able to correct the parents of this man. I appreciate the time that people take to email me with alterations and additions and try to amend info where possible.
I've just been working on a couple of war memorials for North Yorkshire - Egton, Egton Bridge and St Ninian's Catholic Church, Whitby. It's nice to work out of area, seeing new birth places for people and new names, many names being confined to small areas.
This has been very good for me as there is only so much time I can spend looking for a name - sometimes its not always that obvious and the emails that have been received have enabled me to add full names, dates and other into to these men.
I've also had an email saying I had the wrong info for one man - we all make mistakes. I looked into it but with no additional info on CWGC it was hard to pin point this man in the census. I basically worked on the average age of a casualty having him born around 1895 +/- 5 years or so. Only one person with that name fell into that criteria. His information on death, burial and birth were correct but his parents according to a relative were wrong.
I did another search for this man and laid out my case for his parents in my email to the relative, but did point out how I had come to that conclusion.
A reply came and included info that I could not have known - info from certificates giving dates and names - I then went onto the census armed with this and gottcha found him straight away. Only to find him as being born a lot earlier than is the norm.
So thanks to this email, I was able to correct the parents of this man. I appreciate the time that people take to email me with alterations and additions and try to amend info where possible.
I've just been working on a couple of war memorials for North Yorkshire - Egton, Egton Bridge and St Ninian's Catholic Church, Whitby. It's nice to work out of area, seeing new birth places for people and new names, many names being confined to small areas.
New Start
After all the times I've said I WILL keep up with my blog and keep those of you informed on what I get upto in finding new info to add to www.wakefieldfhs.org.uk Wakefield Family History Sharing - and then I digress and something else takes priority.
I PROMISE now that a new blog has been sorted, there should hopefully, be no more problems in uploading and saving our little chats.
I PROMISE now that a new blog has been sorted, there should hopefully, be no more problems in uploading and saving our little chats.
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