The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

Pyxis

vivatifosi wrote: »

I took that course last year. It was very good.

Sorry. My memory is so carp!

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

Sorry. My memory is so carp!

http://memorise.org/ might help

PasturesNew

I just randomly poked at the tree of somebody I used to know socially ... we were in the same club and 40 years ago we holidayed at the same camp site for a week .... lost touch about 35 years ago, but names stay with you. Her/sibling/parents and me/sibling/parents.

So there I was: Her parents died 2010/2011... so who were their people ... found them going back - and then OMG .... I've discovered an 1843 murder of husband/children and execution.

The murdered husband, William, is somewhere in her tree:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Dazley

vivatifosi

Pyxis wrote: »

Sorry. My memory is so carp!

What are you apologising for?

It has come up again and is free. A great chance for anyone interested to take it. I'm sorry if I came across as snarky. I'd just got off an overnight flight with little sleep and very jet lagged.

What I like about the online courses is that you get to meet other people online and chat about your common interest in certain areas of genealogy. A bit like the NPT..

My favourite bits were learning the genealogical proof standard in detail. There is so much incorrect info on trees on the net that I wish people had read that. Also the bit on the different DNA tests and what they do was fascinating.

Pyxis

vivatifosi wrote: »

What are you apologising for?

It has come up again and is free. A great chance for anyone interested to take it. I'm sorry if I came across as snarky. I'd just got off an overnight flight with little sleep and very jet lagged.

What I like about the online courses is that you get to meet other people online and chat about your common interest in certain areas of genealogy. A bit like the NPT..

Oh you didn't come across as snarky at all! :A

No, it's just that I annoy myself when I don't remember things people have already told me!
(It's a focus thing...... a feature of the ADHD )

It also means that I often don't remember what I've told to whom, so can repeat myself. I'm in several different groups, for example, so it can happen.
I always preface it with "If I've already told you this, shut me up!"

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

There is so much incorrect info on trees on the net

The problem is inexperience, not realising others might read/believe it and cost.

My tree isn't online, none of it is authenticated as I can't afford the certificates.

It takes a lot of time/effort/cost to truly "prove" anybody on the tree is "the right person" and not just a "leap of guesstimate as he's got the right name and is in the right village"....

Getting access to/sight of things like the church daybooks, !!!!!!!y, settlement/removal notices, etc etc is way out of the ability/budget of the majority of people.... so what you do is "cobble together something that's probably a good guess - and I'm just doing this to see/have fun".

Most people will simply be doing it "because they can" and without the budget to be able to provide, find, prove documentary evidence over every tiny person in their tree.

Without access to the correct archive etc getting the evidence/proof is pretty unattainable for the majority of people.

My grand-f might've died in England.... to try to see if he did I'd have to order every death certificate of everybody with his name - just to see if he happened to die with a known family member by his bedside who registered it. Very long shot .... and there goes £400, say. Although that one's extreme.

Or Elizabeth, seen in the Workhouse in 1891 Census who then disappeared.... a physical visit to the archives 250 miles away (and I think the archives are currently unavailable due to being moved to a new building) .... and spend several days pawing through the Workhouse records to see if there were any clues as to whether she WAS the Elizabeth I think she was, was the baby with the same surname hers, who was the father, how come the strange double-name of the baby (registered with two separate surnames) ... and when did she leave the Workhouse and to go where. One person on a tree of 1000.

Too hard, too expensive, for most people - so you just have to toss them into the tree and shrug.

And that's why mine's not published, as I have no documentation for anybody.

ivyleaf

Pyxis wrote: »

If anyone is thinking of following in Pastures' footsteps, Futurelearn have a free introductory online course in "Genealogy: Building your Family Tree" available now.............

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/genealogy

Ooh, thanks for that! I've told DD1. My brother was the one doing our family tree, but he's now died, and DD1 said she'd like to continue it

ETA Re not remembering whether you've told people stuff or not - I have 3 children and frequently discover that I've told one of them an item of family news once, another one twice, and the third not at all

vivatifosi

PasturesNew wrote: »

The problem is inexperience, not realising others might read/believe it and cost.

My tree isn't online, none of it is authenticated as I can't afford the certificates.

It takes a lot of time/effort/cost to truly "prove" anybody on the tree is "the right person" and not just a "leap of guesstimate as he's got the right name and is in the right village"....

....Too hard, too expensive, for most people - so you just have to toss them into the tree and shrug.

And that's why mine's not published, as I have no documentation for anybody.

Sorry to shorten your post. My sense of the GPS is it isn't about having certificates for everything, it's more about knowing what is true and what isn't. For example, For my GGG grandfather, he was part of a One Name Study. I know that he is correct because I can track the generations back and forth through BMDs and censuses, and in fact through the one name study site, I know his father and his father's father (along with the names of their wives). I don't have the certificates for this, but I can see the evidence trail that someone else has put together, it is exhaustive and it is good. That was quite lucky. So as my GPS I put in that my source is the One Name Study.

I've probably spent about £200 on my tree. About half of that was on a DNA test, £36 was on software to pull it all together and the rest on certificates and downloads. I only buy paperwork if I need it or am truly interested about why someone died, and only then for my direct line. For example my gg grandfather died young and I thought he might have had an accident related to his job, but he actually died of TB. That I could only find out by buying his death certificate. The vast majority of everything else has come from free info on FMP, Ancestry or Family Search, plus a few other more obscure sources. Another way I'm lucky is that most of the surnames in my tree are unusual. Or I thought they were until a couple of weeks back I found a Smith in my direct ancestry...

The issue is more that something is posted as fact without anything to back it up, because that then gets copied multiple times and becomes someone else's fact, and someone else's. I think what you are doing is great... because even if you were to post about your relatives, you'd say just that... that you think that this is correct but you haven't been able to prove it.

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

....

What I do is check every source for every clue and "prove" it from every available source. I also document where every piece of information comes from.

I found one tree that said my GGG-gf married a woman in a town 20 miles away and I put it on the tree with a note "madness, can't possibly be right" - but then the GRO opened up and I went there and saw their final child's mother's maiden name matched the surname of the woman 20 miles away, so I've now got that down as "that kind of looks more likely now", but I'd still prefer more evidence, even though the surname is peculiar, so there are fewer opportunities of somebody with the same name becoming included just because they had the same names.

If I have a person's birth I like to have it on:
FreeBMD
FreeREG
Matching all the Censuses
Newspaper announcement
Familysearch transcription
Original PRs as/when they become available
FMP/ANC
Local archives searches

If somebody dies I'll check FreeBMD, FreeREG, Newspapers, FS transcriptions, PRs as/where, Wills/probate, Deceasedonline ... and then finally any other trees online that indicate the same and might have another source.

I also widen the DoB search across 10 years to see how many other people have the same name/location/birthdate and if there are 2-3 who are similar I write a note in to watch out for these others with the same name/location so I am reminded to be aware of duplicates that might not be the right person.

If I'm completely stuck on somebody I will toss them into the ancestry trees to see if they seem to appear in anybody's tree - and if there's any clue there as to where I could/should be searching.... but I don't "trust" those, I just use them as clues to narrow down a death (it's usually deaths) to a county.

I also cross-check their ages through their lifetime, so I can spot if I've still got the same person. A wife can die and they can remarry another one with the same name easily enough! My GGG-gf ran off with a woman who had the same name as his wife and they presented themselves as married in the Censuses even though they never were.

I always assume that anything I have can be wrong and so am perpetually prepared to check/double-check everybody and anybody against any new sources, or to revisit somebody and have a fresh look at the data to see it still all stacks up.

To date, I've spent about £30. Mum's marriage certificate, mum's half-sister's birth certificate, a transcription of the county assizes indexes covering about 15 years to get mum's father's name and a couple of £1/month offers on FMP.

vivatifosi

Has anyone else following the Falcon Heavy launch in the USA?

I was hoping to watch it take off while I was in Florida but it has been delayed several times. Latest launch date update is Feb 6th. The rocket is the biggest to take off from Kennedy Space Center since the Apollo programme was canned in the 1970s.

It has a two day launch window, not because of weather or trajectory like other rockets, but because if it isn't done my then, it could be hit by the government furlough. Although Falcon Heavy is a SpaceX rocket and therefore bankrolled by the private sector, KSC is a government launch complex and will be shut down if budgets can't be approved.

Here's some more info if you are interested.

https://www.investors.com/news/spacexs-falcon-heavy-has-very-little-wiggle-room-against-this-spoiler/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42692673