Well, I attended the WDYTYALive family history show in London on Friday 26th February. A busy and tiring day, but I managed to visit most of the stalls I had prepared questions for, and received welcome advice, before my first day’s seminar at 12:30am. The remainder I visited dodging between the seminar schedules.

Tony Robinson signing autographs

The actor and historian, and UK face of Ancestry.co.uk, Tony Robinson, presented The Journey of a Record at the Ancestry Academy, and visitors through the day could hear beginner, intermediate and advanced talks, with the main advanced presentation being given by genealogy and history expert Dr. Nick Barratt (personally, I felt a little too much cross-over between content of the latter two that I visited).

Gill Blanchard’s talk on Norfolk ancestors was welcome, since I may have to trace there (as confirmed by a visit to the Norfolk FHS stall).

The talk on the 1910 Valuation Survey (‘Lloyd George’s Domesday’) given by Peter Park was ‘different’ but useful, amongst other things highlighting how the occupier of property is not necessarily the owner, and that occupation could change a lot within a short few years.

All-in-all, another worthwhile visit, and the extra CDs I bought from KFHS have already this weekend yielded tree expansion and clarification around Birchington, Chartham and Challock!

Ancestry Intermediate

It would appear that the Twitter plugin I use, Tweetmeme, has a slight problem with the update. The tweet counts are not being displayed. Guess that will follow shortly when the developer has caught on & updated it.

Nevertheless, it does appear to correctly post a tweet.

Hope this does not spoil your experience …

Just updated the blog back-end again. Thankfully, pain-free.

Let me know if you guys find anything amiss!

I was searching today through the British Army WWI Service Records, 1914-1920, on Ancestry in an effort to find information of my 2nd cousin 3 times removed, William FAGG, born 1882 in Kingston, near Canterbury. The index indicated that I would find 3 images for him. I thought I’d tried my luck and click forward one more page …

To my surprise, I found a further seventeen images, indicating that he enlisted in the Royal Garrison Artillery Reserves for the duration of WWI (having already served the R.G.A between 1899 and 1907), but later re-enlisted in 1919, for one year at the age of 37, into the Royal Engineers (Inland Waterways & Docks) within weeks of being demobbed.

William’s military records also suggested that his brother George served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and his brother James served in the Navy. He was also living with his (as yet undetermined) sister Miss ‘A’ FAGG in Ramsgate during the period around the First World War. I now have two more brothers’ records to locate, and a sister (at least) to find!

Seek and ye shall find … !

Found a great little site today: World War One Photos. Photographs & Pictures of The First World War

As well as photos (including things such as obituaries), it is also a source for poetry, art, postcards, music & songs and propaganda posters.

Soldiers are searchable by regiment, and some items can be purchased.

Give it a look!

Thanks to Roots Television for the suggested Google Scholar search engine (give it a go at http://scholar.google.co.uk), I am finding more sources which reaffirm the link between Sir Robert Baldock and the BACON family.

Now if only I can find a link back to Sir Robert …. I am hoping that I may get some clues from the Norfolk FHS at WDYTYALive show at the end of the month!

Last night I got back into looking through my resources for the village I grew up in, St. Nicholas-At-Wade, and starting hunting down family members.

After a lot of digesting (which is still going on!), I am now finding names appearing in my tree which I recognise from growing up in the village!

Included amongst these is the unfortunate story of a mother and her 11-year-old daughter who died at Sarre in 1940 during a World War II air raid.

Families we knew, talked to and played with at school are now appearing as (distant) relatives.

It all brings more tangible meaning to the phrase ‘It’s a small world’ ….

I had not noticed that, due to conflicting plugins, my page menu sidebar has not been displaying as desired.

I have changed some plugins and (I believe) things now look a lot better.

To all my new (and as yet unknown) antipodean relatives ….

Happy Australia Day!

I have finally got around to updating my tree on Ancestry.co.uk ! It took a while to merge in (it has been a while since it worked in Family Tree Maker), but I got there eventually, hopefully without mistakes.

I can now make use of the ‘hint’ feature for my new data – something I find to be one of the best things about FTM. It’s a lot quicker than manually searching on their website!

Still, I will be attending some Ancestry seminars at the Who Do You Think You Are Live! exhibition in London at the end of February, so I hope to be better armed with the skills to make the most of their website.

Exhibition review at a later date ….