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.

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!!

There have been some more excitements on the family history front lately. Having discovered new third cousins, just a week later, I was contacted by the great niece of my father’s life-long best friend. The best friend had written his memoirs, mentioning my father and my contact also had photos that I didn’t have. As my father died when I was nine, these memories were particularly precious. The way in which she found me was also amazing. She didn’t go searching for the descendants of my dad, instead she had Googled a place name, where her great-uncle had been during the war. On last year’s VE day anniversary, I had blogged about my dad’s wartime experiences. He and his friend had joined up together, so the place was mentioned and my blog came up on her Google search!

Along with half the genealogical world, I am signed up for next week’s RootstechConnect. If you haven’t yet registered, go ahead now, it is free. There is an unbelievable amount on offer. An optional aspect of this is to join ‘Relatives at Rootstech’ via the Family Search website. This means that, during the conference, you can contact those who appear on the same composite family tree as you. This tree is hosted on Family Search and for it to work, you have to have a least an outline tree there. This was something that I had resisted up until now but as I lack any living ancestors, I thought I would go for it. It actually doesn’t take long, as you only have to add three or four generations before you link up with the worldwide tree that is already there. There are minor frustrations, as you have to lop off some of the wildly speculative connections that others have added but this was soon accomplished. As of today, I have 69 relatives at Rootstech.

Adding to the Family Search tree also enables you to have a bit of fun seeing if you are related to anyone famous; although many of the possible celebrities are American. I really don’t subscribe to the cult of celebrity and I would far rather be connected to interesting lesser known individuals but it seemed rude not to give it a whirl. For about ten minutes I was Prince William’s tenth cousin once removed. I was mildly interested enough to see if the suggested link held water. It didn’t. After a bit more pruning, I was left with an alleged relationship to an obscure US President. Suffice it to say, that was wrong too but by then I’d lost the will to conduct any more tree surgery.

I have been revisiting one line of my daughters’ ancestry and have been able to add a few generations. When one of them was very small (I won’t say which one to project the guilty) she decided that she was going to name her future children water filter and fish tank; this decision passed into family lore. So there I was, delving into a Wiltshire parish register, only to find that her x times great grandfather had the christian names Fish Coppinger. I checked the original and also a military record and that really was his name. I hoped that would be a clue to earlier relatives but although Fish Coppinger (in this case Coppinger was the surname) was a notable individual, he certainly doesn’t seem to be a relation of the Wiltshire agricultural labouring family that I was researching. I suspect they named one of their fifteen children after the local landowner, in the hope of preferential treatment.

FindmyPast are rolling out new ways of viewing documents. I haven’t had much change to explore yet but after the initial, ‘oh no this is awful’ reaction, that usually accompanies anything new, I have discovered some distinct advantages. I am a fan of the new ability to go straight from image to transcription without going back out to the results. Moving to adjacent images is also now easier.

Oh and the being in two places at once thing. This is an art I appear to have now perfected. I was giving a Zoom talk the other day, whilst my friends were in a meeting of a different society. It seems that someone in their audience was multi-tasking, as they were able to hear a snippet of my talk being relayed by someone who hadn’t muted themselves and was in one meeting, whilst listening to mine.

The really exciting news is that I will be joining the ranks of the vaccinated next week and just to prove that spring it on the way, this lone daffodil has been bravely blooming in my garden for the past couple of weeks.

Since returning from the frozen north, in between wall-to-wall Zooming and another weird allergic reaction incident (see below), I have been revisiting a branch of my daughters’ ancestry. It is so long since I last looked at this family that the documents that I wrote, telling their story and recording my research path and sources, no longer open. Fortunately, I have hard copies, so can retype. My version of this line stops with Thomas and Sarah Kear of St. Briavels in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. Other researchers have extended Thomas’ ancestry further but this was all I was confident of and indeed still is, although I am pretty sure where it goes next.

Looking again at the evidence, I realised that there were two Thomas and Sarah Kears in St. Briavels and neighbouring Newland, having nine children between them from 1765-1789. The obvious way to distinguish between the two families was to assume that those baptised in St. Briavels were one family and those in Newland were another and certainly this did not lead to biologically impossible families. By now some of you will be wondering if this was in fact all one family, as did I but it was definitely two families; there are two burials for both Thomas and Sarah Kears, all in Newland. God bless them, both Thomases and one Sarah left wills and this sorts t’other from which. One Thomas was a maltster and the other a coal miner. Although both have sons called Thomas, the dates of their baptisms and a property that continues through the family makes it clear that the St. Briavels Thomas and Sarah are the correct ones for my daughters’ line.

Next to look for marriages of Thomas Kears and Sarah …….. . Yes, as expected, there are two, seven years apart, both in Newland, both a year before the baptism of the eldest child and guess what both Sarah’s have the SAME surname – James. Then of course there are the two Thomas Kears baptised in Newland within a month of each other in 1745……… almost certainly neither of which are the one I want!

It is always worth returning to old research. This time I discovered the sad story of a family member who took his own life and was drowned, according to the coroner, ‘asphyxiated by upper dentures’.

Ignore what is below if you are just here for the family history.

Now the weird allergy thing, sorry but some people did ask (never ask, never). Some of you will recall that, earlier in the year, I received free (but unwanted) botox courtesy of an adverse reaction to who knows what. Friday I was happily Zooming away, looking as normal as I ever look. An hour later I went to drink a cup of coffee and realised that my mouth was seriously swollen. Ring 999 said Dr Google. I was reluctant to do this so went for 111 instead. The call handler quickly decided that this was above their pay grade and I was passed to a paramedic who actioned the ‘super-fast, highest priority’, emergency ambulance. I explained the difficulties with finding my house and precise instructions were relayed. By this time, I was sat clutching the emergency epi-pen that I’d been given last time and the paramedic talked me through its use, in case I needed to self-administer it. I was once trained in the application of these things but it was so long ago that I had retained nothing of this potentially helpful information. After half an hour, the paramedic says he will get off the line in case the emergency ambulance needs to ring. I ask how long it might be. ‘Any time now, you are top of the list, as if you are having a heart attack.’ I have packed my emergency ‘going to A & E’ bag. I have arranged back up if I don’t get back in time to host a meeting in the evening and I am sat on the stairs with shoes and coat on and the door open. I debate how bad one has to be to use the emergency epi-pen. I can still breathe and talk, so I am thinking not now but of course once one isn’t breathing …….. After an hour and a half, the ambulance arrives, they’ve been deployed from another area due to volume of calls. Don’t get me wrong, I love the NHS and they do an amazing job in the face of ridiculous underfunding. I am also aware that the downside of living in the middle of nowhere is that emergency services don’t get to you so quickly but an hour and a half for absolute highest priority does seem a tad overdoing it. Just as well I wasn’t having a heart attack.

I was treated in the ambulance for an hour, give oxygen, medication was organised and as I didn’t seem to be getting worse, I was free to go, with strict instructions to seek urgent help if it recurs. Still absolutely no idea what is causing this and this time the rash (which came first last time) developed later and much less severely. Next step will be parting with copious amount of blood to see if they can work out what is going on. Ah well, life is never dull.