Pretty manic so far anyway. We’ve had Rootstech. I still haven’t found time to listen to the sessions on my watch list, thank goodness for recordings. My own #Rootstech short recorded session ‘Where am I? Are you searching in the right place?‘ is now available – along with my sessions from 2024.
I seem to have wasted hours of my life on the phone to ‘utilities’ this week. First trying to understand why my normally stable internet has become decidedly flaky, randomly particularly in the morning. An engineer is booked. Then a utility company I won’t name want to change the smart meters I didn’t want in the first place (they were already installed when I moved in). Trying to arrange an appointment was not without issue. I was asked all the same questions by two different people, ‘Is there a dog?’ ‘Are the meters accessible?’ etc. Having said I had no long term disabilities the first time I was soooooo tempted to say when asked the second time ‘well only the ones I’ve developed in the last two minutes’. I did get a rant in about how I felt smart meters were of zero use to me whatsoever! Watching the meter whirl round won’t make me turn things off, if I don’t need the appliance on it won’t be on in the first place. I quite like to read my own meters so I know what to expect. Hey Ho – old school I guess. Having arranged said appointment by phone, I am still getting texts asking why I haven’t responded to make an appointment. That would be because I already have one – left hand right hand. After all that I felt in need of a lie down in a darkened room.
Then on Friday it was off ‘up north’ – well at least ‘up north’ from here, I had to de-ice the car – ever tried getting the lid off new de-icer? De-icer canisters are by definition are chilly to grasp – the solution involved a knife. The journey was in order to attend the Midland Family History Show in Malvern where I was personing the Devon Family History Society stand, chatting to friends and eating a lot. In-person get togethers are fewer and further between these days, so it made a change and in two weeks’ time we will be doing it all again in Dorset for the Really Useful Show. Now I am safely home. Mostly unpacked and still eating.
Today would have been my mum’s 100th birthday. It therefore seems very appropriate that I have just sent out the first lesson of my online course for Pharos about Putting your Female Ancestors into context. This is the first presentation of this course and I am planning to work alongside the students to tell my mother’s story. Who am I kidding? The course lasts five weeks. It took me three years to finish my grandmother’s story but at least I can have aspirations and make a start. I will get a second chance in September, as the course will be repeated then. There are still spaces on the September course, if you would like to join in.
Anyway, I have begun and today will be spent adding to a timeline, which will become the framework for my story and scanning in photographs that I haven’t yet scanned. I will keep you posted with my progress, or I fear lack of it.
It has been about ten weeks since my last update and as I am a fair-weather gardener and the weather hasn’t exactly been fair, there’s not a lot to report. The main addition is the new water butt, which was a very extravagant Christmas present. As I have much of my garden in pots, plenty of watering is required in dry spells. Strangely, the two existing, unattractive, plastic water butts, that came with the house, collect water from the tiny summerhouse and the garage respectively. It seemed strange that nothing was gathering what fell on the, much larger, roof of the bungalow itself. This led to my new acquisition, which is a former whisky barrel and believe me you could get seriously hungover just breathing in the fumes that emanate from it. The first job was to manoeuvre it into position once it had been deposited on the door step. Fortunately its arrival coincided with some visiting muscle, so with a bit of an effort, it was moved to where it needed to be. Next, it needed to be attached to the downpipe, also not totally straightforward or without incident. A couple of heavy downpours later and it was filling up nicely. The water butt is situated between the house and garage, on some unexciting tarmac. The next stage is to put some battening by the back gate and cover the mossy tarmac with chippings to match another part of the garden.
I am still waiting for temperature, health and strength and lack of rain to all align, so that I can get outside and start tidying up after winter. Most things are now showing signs of sprouting and the garden is fulfilling it’s promise from last year, with something in flower all year round. Things do however seem to be later than they were last year. The quince is barely budding but was in full flower this time last year. The camellias have been lovely and two that were behind the now moved shed can be seen this year. The snowdrops seem to have disappeared but miniature daffodils, a solitary crocus, hyacinths and grape hyacinths are all showing colour. The standard sized daffodils have flowered but are providing a meal for something. Hellebores and pansies are flowering with some wallflowers and forget-me-nots showing colour.
I am sad that the bluetits and great-tits have deserted the garden but I am hoping they may return. Robins, sparrows and blackbirds look likely to nest and I can usually spot woodpigeons, magpies, jackdaws and herring gulls. I leave you with some signs that spring is round the corner.
Life has been full of presentations, both online and in person. Every routeway in Devon seems to be fraught with road closures at the moment, so some of the in person ones have involved ‘interesting’ journeys. On one occasion, we were foiled in both directions by signs that said ‘Road closed follow the diversion’. This on a road that had had no turnings for a mile or so and not a diversion arrow in sight. We are used to narrow twisty lanes but I swear some of the places we ended up weren’t roads – no visible signs of tarmac at any rate. Then, about a mile up a road that was barely wide enough for the car, a sign that said ‘Danger no Entry’ and a firmly barred farm gate. Cue a million point turn. The joys of presenting in out of the way areas.
I have just started delivering a monthly ‘Biography Club’ for the Society of Genealogists. The first session was met with plenty of enthusiasm and yet again, I have vowed to keep up with the attendees and fill in the gaps in my own biography. I’ve made a good start but some sections still need to be tackled. I am also coming to the end of a full Pharos course for those wanting to find out more about their agricultural labouring ancestors. As one course closes another begins and it will soon be time for the first presentation of my online course for Pharos about putting female ancestors into context. I am really looking forward to this and have deluded myself that I might keep up with the students for this one too, looking at my mother’s story. The course is full to capacity and beyond but it will run again later in the year and if you are interested, you can book a place now.
Next on the horizon is Rootstech from 6-9 March and I look forward to learning from colleagues across the world. I just have one short recorded presentation this time. ‘Where am I? Are you searching in the right place?’ My pre-recorded sessions from last year are also available.
8 March is International Women’s Day and I am presenting for the Alfred Gillett Trust. My own presentation is to be followed by telling the stories of working women, with my A Few Forgotten Women friends. You can book for this free event here. Then March is crowded with the Three Counties Fair at Malvern, which is just for fun and then the Really Useful Show in Kinson near Poole, where I am speaking.
Advance notice too that I will be giving two presentations at theSecrets and Lies conference in Peterborough in September, organised by the Halstead Trust. Early bird bookings are now being taken.
On the writing front, I have done a couple of articles for Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine. The first, on researching female ancestors, should be in the next issue. My next book, ‘A History of Women’s Work‘, due for publication in May, is now available to pre-order if you want a hardback. Paperbacks and ebooks will also be available.
Some months ago, because I teach ‘Writing and Sharing your Family History’ courses, I was given access to the, then brand new, WeAre family and local history sharing platform. I need to say first of all that this came without any strings. I am not obliged to review it, mention it, or recommend it and I have zero financial interest in the software. Platforms with similar aims have come and in some cases, gone but I was keen to give this a try. I can say that it is definitely the best sharing platform of its kind that I have seen.
When it first arrived, I had a little play. I had recently set up my own Granny’s Tales website. I do wonder if WeAre had come first, whether I would have used that instead but I was not going to abandon Granny’s Tales. What could I do with WeAre that was different/complementary to my other ways of publicising my research? One of the main features of WeAre is the ability to share your research with relatives and if you wish, allow them to collaborate. This is always a tricky one – what relatives? Lacking siblings or first cousins and second cousins numbering just six, it is pretty stony ground for me. That left my children and grandchildren. I have used Family Tree Maker software for my family trees since it was on 3½” floppy disks but I don’t have a single tree; I could never control that. This meant that I didn’t have a GedCom that I could upload containing all the family members that I have gathered in nearly fifty years of research. I did however have a ‘tree’ which just included all my children’s direct ancestors, so I uploaded that. I added my father’s brothers and a few photos and pretty much forgot about it.
Then WeAre added features that were geared towards One-Place Studies, so I decided I would dust off my One Place Study for Thockrington and use it for that. I uploaded about forty people, wrote an introduction, added a little general stuff and promptly returned it to the back burner. Then my lovely Forgotten Womencoven friends, several of whom were also using WeAre, decided that we would Zoom and all work on our sites on a specific day. This worked really well, both in terms of mutual encouragement and also technical assistance. What one person hadn’t worked out how to do, another had. This reignited my enthusiasm for my one place study and firmed my resolve to get on and add more. We are definitely going to have more mutual help sessions to encourage us to actually get things done to our sites.
I decided to begin with Thockrington’s graveyard, adding those commemorated on the surviving stones. This will not be quick; it took me two days to do ten stones. There are fifty four. Then of course there are parish registers, censuses, wills, tax lists and all the other sources I have used, so I will need to live until I am 150 but baby steps. I can’t even say the site is still in its infancy, more like still in the womb but maybe it is entering its second trimester. I have made it live, so the others from the mutual encouragement group can see it but there’s so much to be done, that it is probably best to say that it is a soft launch!
Then, out of the blue, Edward, aged ten, asked some family history questions. I have been trying to interest young people, including my grandchildren, in family history and heritage since forever, so I grasped this straw with both hands. I was reminded that his direct ancestry was all there on WeAre. He started by looking for houses that he and his parents had lived in to add to the map. Then he wanted to chat about family history on Zoom. He was interested in ‘the medieval period, famous people who aren’t you Granny, funny names and weird jobs.’ Hmm this was something of a challenge. I quickly exhausted the possibilities of the founder of Smith’s crisps, who was my great grandfather’s cousin. I do still have Anne Balls Bulley up my sleeve but where to go next?
Then a friend reminded me that Family Search has an activity that tells you how you are related to ‘famous people’. Unfortunately, this is based on the Family Search ‘one tree’, which is stuffed full of what we will call kindly ‘creative genealogy’ aka total garbage. Last time I looked at my famous relatives, I firmly removed my connection to Princess Diana for the nth time. Fortunately Princess Di no longer features, leaving me with Benjamin Franklin, Winston Churchill, Lucille Ball, Elvis Presley and Helen Keller. Edward had heard of Winston Churchill and Elvis at least. He happily went away and found out about Helen Keller, although I have to say that the link is ‘speculative’. Of the five, the most convincing is the connection to Churchill. At least here my own line does go back to the alleged mutual ancestor. If Edward wants to add Churchill to our tree he is welcome. He can add Helen Keller if he chooses. This is not my main ‘correct’ tree, it is not public. If it sparks his interest that’s what matters. The ‘what is the evidence for this, are we sure?’ conversation can come later. The key to encouraging young people is to let them do things their way. Edward added his cats to the tree; I will take being grandparent to two cats. I am anticipating Edward’s cousin may want to add her tankful of tropical fish one by one, right down to the snails that inhabit her tank but it doesn’t matter. Give birth to fifteen guinea pigs if you have to, do whatever it takes to ignite that curiosity about the past. WeAre having fun.
The year began with family visitors, which is always very special. As a bonus, this year they didn’t include any lurgies amongst their seasonal gifts. The new year also means paying the tax bill. This wasn’t a surprise and the money was put aside but it is always a bit of a shock to see the bank balance suddenly depleted by what seems to be an eye-watering amount. Added to this, it seemed I needed to pay a different HMRC bank account, which meant setting up a new payee. I have one of those little card reader things that gives you a secret code to verify that you are not a fraudster. I’ve had the thing for ages, which is probably why it chose this moment to decide that its batteries had had enough. Before these obscure-sized and expensive batteries died a final death, they gave me a partial glimpse of the vital number. Could I guess what figures they were striving to reveal? It turns out that I could. Hurrah.
It has been full on family history on many fronts since the visitors departed. I’ve finished a magazine article. My new book is signed off and is due out in May, pre-orders should be opening up soon. I love they cover that Pen and Sword have chosen. I’ve also, rashly, signed a contract for another one. Will I ever learn? Not totally unrelated, is the work I’ve been doing towards the next Forgotten Women Friday collaborative research day for the A Few Forgotten Women project. This one is to be about women associated with Dorchester Prison.
My Pharos Agricultural Labourers online course has started again this week with a full, enthusiastic cohort. Next up on the Pharos front will be the first presentation of ‘Putting your Female Ancestors into Context’ in March. This filled up so quickly, that I agreed to take more students than usual. This means that there are still just two spaces left, if you want to come along for the ride.
I’ve have been giving talks like, well, like someone who gives an awful lot of talks I suppose. I’ve been out and about in person chatting about herbs and plague and online with the history of prostitution, marginalised ancestors and writing your family history amongst other things. This has taken me to Northern Ireland, to Surrey to Lincoln and other points in between. I have also recorded talks for future broadcasts. Rootstech is on the horizon. The pre-recorded talks have not yet been announced but there will be a short session from me in there, when I will be talking about British administrative units, do you know your townland from your wapentake, or your riding from your peculiar? If not, seek out my ten minute chat when Rootstech opens next month. Even better, online attendance is free. Legacy Family Tree Webinars have announced this year’s programme and I will be popping up there too later in the year. It is a fascinating programme, well worth the subscription.
The volume of talks in a sort space of time has obviously been getting to me, as on the night before two talks Monday I had a bizarre dream in which I had double booked myself and my mother was going to deputise for me. A couple of issues with this. She isn’t actually alive and she’d decided she was going to talk about red wine, a subject about which she knew nothing in life.
A little late to the party, I’ve been playing with Family Search’s full text search facility, which is in experimental mode and can be accessed at https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/ once you are signed in to Family Search, which is free. This allows you to use AI generated transcriptions to search for names within the body of a document, such as the beneficiaries in a will for example. My take on this is that there is loads of good stuff on there and this has the potential to be brilliant but as yet there are still some drawbacks, which is understandable, as this is still being trialled. AI’s palaeography skills are pretty basic and mistakes are made that would not be made by a human, such as ‘Michael wears’ for Michaelmas,, rendering the sentence nonsensical. Searching is clumsy. It is very difficult to narrow down the results. You need to ignore the headings, which are often very misleading. Documents labelled Warwickshire, for example, turn out to also include many other counties. Having said that, it is definitely worth a play but make sure you have a few hours to spare first.
I’ve even found time for some of my own research and am deep down a rabbit hole following the story of a several greats uncle who was transported. It will be coming to a Granny’s Tales site near you shortly.
Life has been busy busy as usual and not just because of the season. Here is a quick round up of various family and local history related activities. I’ve just finished leading my Pharos course on the illnesses of our ancestors. It was only a small group this time but they were very keen and have done plenty of research to share with the rest of the group. Next up will be Agricultural Labourers in January. I am also very excited about my Female Ancestors course, which is, thankfully, now written. It did take me down some rabbit holes, as I decided that I should provide some sample answers, which basically meant me doing the course myself. I spent a lovely couple of days looking at my great grandmother’s life as a housemaid and I am very grateful to Mrs Beeton for providing such a comprehensive guide. I’d have been worn out before breakfast. To top it off, “On leisure days, the housemaid should be able to do some needlework for her mistress,—such as turning and mending sheets and darning the house linen, or assist her in anything she may think fit to give her to do. For this reason it is almost essential that a housemaid, in a small family, should be an expert needlewoman; as, if she be a good manager and an active girl, she will have time on her hands to get through plenty of work.” You can read Clara’s story on my Granny’s Tales website, which also has a few more additions and tweaks.
We had a lovely time playing Victorian parlour games at my no longer quite so local history group. The power cuts in the aftermath of Storm Darragh added verisimilitude but we soldiered on by candlelight. The game of large scale Nine Men’s Morris was taken very seriously. Charades, using carol titles led to some hilarity. Ok, maybe including We Three Kings was a mistake.
There have been talks to give, both in person and online and Mistress Agnes has had a couple of outings. The good thing about in person talks at this time of year is that they come with seasonal refreshments. Best not the imbibe the mulled wine before the talk, I’ve learned. I’ve also chatted to the Society of Genealogist’s Book Club about Sins as Red as Scarlet. Not the lightest of holiday reading but I am glad that most realised what I was aiming at with this book.
On the subject of books, I have some proofs to read and have just signed a contract for what will be my third non-fiction book for Pen and Sword. I am really looking forward to the research for that one. A not totally unrelated activity is some preparation for the next collaborative research day with A Few Forgotten Women. This one is looking at inmates and staff from Dorchester Prison. There’s potential for some good stories there.
There’s plenty going on next year too, with nine talks in January alone. Why does this always seem like a good idea at the time? I am also looking forward to helping a new cohort to write their life stories with the Society of Genealogists in the spring.
I’ll finish with a non-historical incident, which may well be illustrative of me having too much on my mind. My breakfast of choice is granola, fruit and yoghurt. The fruit is usually frozen berries, which I take out each morning, ready to defrost for the next day. To be honest, I am surprised this is the first time this has happened but this week, I poured the granola in the wrong bowl, so that I had a mixture of frozen berries and granola. I know I could have just thrown it away but waste not want not, so I tried to separate a bowl full of granola and berries. Not just large lumpy berries oh no, some were blueberries and teeny tiny cranberries. It felt like some kind of reality TV challenge, not one at which I would excel.
This may be the last post before the holiday season, so I will leave you with Season’s Greetings from the family postcard collection.
Although I said that there would be no more updates until spring, I thought I would just mention the recent storm, which reached over 80mph in my little corner of the country. Fortunately, the garden itself is relatively sheltered so the damage could definitely have been worse. The smallest pots of heather in the front garden blew over and in a couple of cases came out of their pots. The chrysanthemums ended up on their sides but managed to retain their earth and a few plants look a little wind blown. The main casualty was the back fence, which has a distinct list to starboard. In order to prevent it leaning further ,or giving up entirely and lying down (and who could blame it) whilst it awaits proper repair, the fence mender of my acquaintance decided an interim remedy was required- at least I hope it is interim. I kid you not, he has tied it to the pond. He probably has memories of just how heavy said pond was to manoeuvre into position.
Although I don’t really like buying plants by mail order, as I like to see what I am buying, there were three things on my must have list that I hadn’t seen all year in any of my garden centre forays. I decided that now was the time to treat myself, so somewhere in the garden is a guelder rose, a windflower and a mock orange. They don’t look much at the moment but I am hoping that they will survive.
It is obviously not a great time of year for things to be in flower but one or two things are braving the December chills, Randomly this includes a honeysuckle, which is in part of the garden that gets zero sun at this time of year. Mind you Storm Darragh kindly deposited a fine layer of sand all over my windows, so it is tricky to see what is going on in the garden, unless I venture outside.
Having moved the week before Christmas last year, I missed all the excitement and anticipation so I was determined to start early this year. There was no time for considered placement of decorations when I was in the throes of moving, so the tree went in the conservatory. It was in full view of the living room but somehow wasn’t the same, so this year, into my tiny living room it had to go. This has involved a certain amount of furniture removing and I am not sure how or where I am going to put the dining table up but I’ll cross that bridge when the time comes. I do love Christmas traditions and I am proud that my tree contains ornaments that span nine decades. The earliest my parents had when they first married in the 1940s. The family come for Christmas each year, with copies of historic family photos strung up on peg lights that are designed for Christmas cards. Not many people have their 4x great grandfather observing the festivities.
Sadly, not everyone has happy memories of Christmases past, nor are they able to enjoy Christmas present. If your childhood Christmases were special, do record your recollections for future generations. You can read mine here. I’ve also written about the historic Christmas tree decorations, how many did you have on your childhood trees and do you still have them?
It has been a while since the last gardening update but that probably reflects the time of year and the fact that I was away for the whole of September. As I hadn’t asked anyone to water the garden while I was away, with much of the garden being in pots, I was wondering what would survive a month of neglect. Every pot was moved to the shadiest part of the garden and stood in an old paddling pool and other similar, water-filled receptacles, as my fingers remained firmly crossed. I think I must have done too good a rain dance, as Devon was deluged in September, which was good for my plants, as everything survived but less good for my local friends and neighbours. By contrast, I had lovely weather in the north.
I have now almost seen the seasons round in this garden and the winter jasmine is starting to bloom again. The robin has returned to the garden and I have had solitary glimpses of a great tit and a wren. The potato crop has been harvested. ‘Minimal’ is the word that springs to mind. The geraniums have been moved into the summerhouse for the winter and the garden chair has been dismantled and squeezed into the shed.
The three large chrysanthemums in pots, that I mentioned last time, have flowered. They were sold as being white, yellow and rust coloured. I guess one out of three isn’t bad, as I have rust, paler orange and dusky pink. They are past their best now but have been glorious. A piece broke off the rust coloured one and we shoved it in a pot. It has rooted and is now flowering! I also have yellow and white chrysanthemums in a hanging basket. Other additions include a Capsicum, a Hosta and a Michaelmas daisy, which I brought back from holiday, along with some rue. The Michaelmas daisy isn’t looking too healthy but maybe it will revive.
There’s been some more moving. One of the many sheds is an unsightly plastic affair that houses the bins. It was on view from the conservatory, so we moved it to the other side of the tarmacked area. It is now on view from the converted garage room but you win some you lose some. Fortunately, this was a great deal less effort than other shed moving escapades. In the place where it once stood is a new plant trough. This was bought especially for a climbing Josephine Bruce rose. In truth, I am not generally a great roses fan, well only the chocolate sort but I particularly wanted this as it was my father’s favourite flower and it climbed all over an arch in my childhood garden. I had been told that it was also the rose in my mother’s wedding bouquet but it seems that it wasn’t bred and introduced until three years after they married, so maybe it was just a similar rose and they thought it was the same. Said rose arrived in the post as a ‘bare root’ specimen. This basically means that it has to be planted straight away. ‘Straight away’ turned out to be the coldest day of the year, when much of Devon was under several inches of snow. Fortunately my little corner had escaped with just rain, although it was pretty jolly chilly and not ideal for any kind of gardening. Now I just have to work out how to keep it alive.
Up until a few weeks ago, my garden was 100% not overlooked. Then an over the back neighbour dug up a large buddleia, giving me just a tiny corner view of their conservatory and vice versa. Just at this time, the fisherman of my acquaintance acquired an eight foot high evergreen tree thing, species unknown, in a pot, that was surplus to someone else’s requirements. ‘We could stand it in that corner’, he says. Not really my choice of plant but I thought it might serve a purpose at least for now. I particularly wanted to keep it in the pot, partly because it may be a temporary acquisition and also to stop it growing much more. The corner in question in on the raised bed. We then had to get a very heavy, eight foot high tree up on to a two foot high raised bed. Undaunted, scaffold boards were arranged to provide a slope up to the raised bed. The plan was to lay the tree down and roll the pot along and up the boards. The trouble was that the pot was not cylindrical but was noticeably wider at the top than the bottom. This, of course, means that, when rolled, it went round in circles and not in a straight line. By dint of ‘roll a little, straighten, repeat’ the tree was elevated into position. It doesn’t completely block the gap left by the buddleia but it helps. I am a fair weather gardener so it may be spring before the next gardening update.
