Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2024 i Family Tree UK

This year is going by in an absolute blur but I’m having an fabulous time learning all sorts of genealogy gems from the expert authors and webinar presenters that Family Tree is delighted to bring you. I know you won’t fail to be inspired too, when you turn the pages of this lovely edition of the magazine. Chris Paton is encouraging us to really dig deep into an ancestor’s locality and find out what their life experiences would have been like. Where was their home? What condition was it in? What was their line of work... and what impact did that have on their living conditions and family sizes? Why did they move to an area, or street? And what was it that made them move away? These are all…

All families have mysteries, secrets and even scandals – or at least events that would have been regarded as scandals at the time. But how do we, the family’s historian, deal with them? Should you share them? Tell them? Write them down? Charlotte Soares reflects on this potentially sensitive but very important aspect of our family history endeavours Iwas told when I was growing up that the rules of polite conversation were never to talk about religion, sex or politics, all subjects that could cause heated arguments. Add to that genealogy scandals! I feel I need to have a little black book for those off-the-record stories not for publication or to be repeated. Of course, I am not at liberty to divulge any secrets here, but most families have one…

Helen Tovey repor ts on news from the world of genealog y. Do you have a stor y to share? Please email helen.t@family-tree.co.uk From the ever-increasing use of AI for generating and indexing content, to the production of printed publications and boots-on-the-ground family history tours of a lifetime, RootsTech 2024 showcased a huge range of genealogy companies and projects from around the globe. Note: The news pages in this issue of Family Tree cover some of the technology, AI and DNA developments, and are more US-focussed than usual, due to RootsTech. AI innovations The past few years have seen machine learning and AI increasingly enlisted by genealogy companies and the last 12 months has seen the pace of change only grow. For instance, Storied employed AI to transcribe and index…

Ithought about taking a DNA test for years. My paternal grandfather was illegitimate and so was a greatgrandmother and her mother! But I hesitated. If I’m honest I wondered whether spending that amount of money would be worth it and, more importantly, whether it would help with any of my ‘missing father’ brick walls. I watched as prices slowly began to fall and the choice in tests grew. I finally took the plunge in 2017 at a family history show where there was a tempting, too-good-to-resist offer on a FamilyTreeDNA test. And, oh what an exciting, educational and sometimes frustrating area of genealogy it opened up! Goodness, I was naïve, having done little DNA research despite being a long-standing family historian. It was a steep learning curve and I made…

It’s not often you come across stories about your ancestors when they were young. But when they’re wealthy or titled, and people want to write (and read) about them, then it’s surprising what you can find. The Victorian press, though, seems as full of scandal and tittle-tattle as any of today’s tabloids, and the mischievously named Truth has more embroidery in one of its articles than in Vicomtesse Mina’s entire wardrobe. Fittingly, the young Mina Sheppard is the star of this first piece from Truth. I can just picture those bouncy brown curls… ‘Mr Shepperd had a French wife and a very pretty and very lively daughter. The baptismal name of the youthful Miss Shepperd was Mina. Her parents came to live with her in Paris when Louis Napoleon rose…

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In English heraldry there is no such thing as arms associated with a name. There are only arms granted to an individual and his descendants. The original purpose of a coat of arms was to enable knights to recognise one another, even when their faces were completely hidden by armour. The original purpose of a coat of arms was to enable knights to recognise one another, even when their faces were completely hidden by armour It follows from this that each coat of arms must be unique (not associated with a name), and – as knights were an elite class – coats of arms acquired a status. Many people must have inherited something with a coat of arms on it. But is it genuine? Have those arms at any point…

Have a go! Look out for the questions on the Academy pages, suitable for beginners, intermediate and more advanced. To save you hunting for the answers, we will circulate them in the FREE Family Tree enewsletter. Simply sign up by 21 April www.family-tree.co.uk/account/register/ Harry writes: I am trying to find information regarding the parents of my 2nd Great Grandfather, George Fry, a Block cutter, who was born c1811 in Bristol (if the census is to be believed). He (apparently) married Mary Ann Burcher (née Saysell) although I cannot find a record of marriage for them and any information I have isn’t consistent. In the 1841 Census they are living at Charlton Kings, Cheltenham. He is aged 25 and was born ‘out of county’. In the 1851 Census they are living…

Different tracks, same passion I enjoy the thoughts and stories expressed by Diane Lindsay in every issue of Family Tree magazine. But her latest contribution in the February 2024 issue topped them all. We have very different backgrounds, her having been born and raised in an old country, while I was born and raised in one with much less antiquity. We both share an avid interest in history. Diane found much of hers around her place of origin. My interests in the subject developed through tracing my roots in far off places. What she had to (very expressively) say about ordinary people also fits my own ancestral families: not entirely humble, perhaps, but regular folk “eking out a hard living.” Today we are both obsessed family historians, looking at defining…

What is it about family history that gets some people edgy enough to become, frankly, a bit rude. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s been suggested I care more about the dead than the living, sometimes by people who wouldn’t know a passion if it came and bit them on the derrière. I’ve heard it said our profound interest in the past is negative, even morbid, as though curiosity about those who came before must somehow deny the present and insult the future. It’s not as though we’re digging up bones for a living, though if we were we’d be called archaeologist, palaeontologist, or forensic pathologist. Personally, I like to think we’re silent witnesses to the equally important lives of those who made us who we are. I first…