tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89171316392625358442024-02-07T22:46:40.406+00:00London Roots ResearchSpecialising in London and Home Counties genealogyRosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-22334720892419471562019-10-20T15:39:00.002+01:002019-10-20T15:39:40.940+01:00Preparing for RootsTech London 2019<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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With less than a week to go before RootsTech London 2019 opens at London's Excel Centre, I thought I would give a brief update for those who are planning to be there, plus some extra information for those who may still be undecided or are unable to join us in person.<br />
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Entry to RootsTech Exhibition Hall is FREE</h3>
Firstly, for those who are still undecided, the good news is that the RootsTech London Exhibition Hall is completely FREE! This is fantastic news for anyone who likes to wander around the various stalls but is not too bothered about attending talks. There are in fact quite likely to be some free talks being given on the various sponsor stands (Ancestry, FindMyPast, FamilySearch etc.) in any case. You can register for FREE tickets <a href="https://www.rootstech.org/london/free-exhibition-hall">here</a>.<br />
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One of the most exciting things I am looking forward to in the Exhibition Hall is the Ministry Of Defence's stand, where they are offering to retrieve Second World War service records (Army and RAF only) within a three-hour turnaround. This service will still cost £30 (i.e. the normal fee), but a three-hour turnaround is far faster than their usual service. It is very exciting news for many of us, but especially our overseas visitor friends. Ideally, you will need your ancestor's death certificate and date of birth (or service number if you have it). You can read more about this service <a href="https://www.family-tree.co.uk/news/ministry-of-defence-to-offer-3-hour-record-retrieval-service-at-london/">here</a>.<br />
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You can see a map of the full RootsTech Exhibition Hall layout <a href="https://www.rootstech.org/london/exhibition-hall">here</a> (scroll down to the bottom of the page for layout and list of Exhibitors).<br />
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All Keynote and some other Sessions are being Live-streamed for FREE</h3>
Secondly, for those who live too far away, and attending is not an option, did you know that many of the talks will be live-streamed (for FREE)? The link to the RootsTech London Live-stream Schedule can be found <a href="https://www.rootstech.org/london/live-stream-schedule">here</a>. This schedule includes all three Keynote Sessions (Dan Snow on Thursday; Kadeena Cox, Nick Barratt and Steve Rockwood on Friday and Donny Osmond on Saturday). Even for those of us planning on attending, these FREE live-streamed sessions can be very useful, as it means that we can concentrate on attending other sessions while we are actually on site.<br />
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Premium Virtual Pass (£49) for those unable to get to London</h3>
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There is also a Premium Virtual Pass (for £49), which allows you to watch a further 20 sessions from the comfort of your own home, including talks by well-known genealogist Nick Barratt, FindMyPast expert Myko Clelland and DNA specialist Angie Bush, to name but three. These talks will be available around 15-20 days after the conference. Tickets for this Virtual Pass can be obtained <a href="https://www.rootstech.org/london/premium-virtual-pass">here</a>.<br />
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Discounted Conference Passes now Available</h3>
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If you're planning on attending RootsTech but haven't purchased your ticket yet, you can now benefit from a discounted pass. The RootsTech One-Day pass has been discounted from £99 to £49, and the RootsTech Three-Day pass is down from £149 to £99. The full range of current official pricing can be found <a href="https://www.rootstech.org/london/pass-comparison">here</a>. <br />
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HOWEVER, there was also a recent offer from Time Out for a <b>40% discount off all RootsTech passes</b>, so it may be that you can get an even better price using the code HALFTERM40. (I checked on my own account, and One-day passes were showing as being reduced from £69 to £41.40, using the Time Out discount code).<br />
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Preparing for RootsTech</h3>
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As a RootsTech Ambassador, I have got to know many genealogists across the globe, some of who will be fellow Ambassadors at this year's London event. Here are a couple of blog posts from fellow genies in Australia, who have written up their advice about how to prepare for RootsTech:</div>
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<a href="https://geniaus.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-conference-checklist-rootstech.html">https://geniaus.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-conference-checklist-rootstech.html</a></div>
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<a href="https://jennyalogy.blogspot.com/2019/10/one-week-til-rootstech-london.html">https://jennyalogy.blogspot.com/2019/10/one-week-til-rootstech-london.html</a><br />
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Don't forget to download the Mobile App</h3>
If you ARE planning on attending RootsTech London, don't forget to download the Mobile App. It is a great way of meeting up with friends and colleagues (although they, too, will need to have downloaded the App) as well as track which events you plan on attending etc. You can download the App <a href="https://www.core-apps.com/dl/rtlondon19?utm_campaign=qr">here</a>.<br />
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Where to Find me</h3>
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Finally, for my many genealogy friends and colleagues attending RootsTech, I do hope that I get to meet up with you at some stage. You can probably find me much of the time in the Media Hub or maybe helping out on the AGRA stand, which by chance is just opposite the Media Hub! I am also hoping to attend quite a few talks, and have interview slots booked with Dan Snow, Donny Osmond and Nick Barratt. I will be hoping to blog about some of these over the course of the Conference, so watch this space!</div>
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Hope to see many of you there!!<br />
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Rosemary Morgan
London Roots Research</div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-44958304139460809282019-08-06T17:46:00.000+01:002019-08-06T17:46:01.662+01:00RootsTech is coming to London in October 2019 - Win yourself a free ticket!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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To go straight to the Prize Draw, click <a href="https://kingsumo.com/g/d2mvv9/rootstech-london-2019-free-3-day-pass-worth-149">HERE</a>. To read more about this event, my blog posts from previous events and further details about the prize draw, please see below:</h3>
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RootsTech is a US (Salt Lake City) based genealogy conference which I have been fortunate enough to attend twice previously, in both 2013 and 2015. On both occasions, I was fortunate enough to have been selected as an Official Ambassador. See here for my previous blog posts on these two previous visits:<br />
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<a href="https://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.com/2013/03/highlights-of-day-1-at-rootstech.html" target="_blank">RootsTech 2013 Day 1 Highlights</a></div>
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<a href="https://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.com/2013/03/wow-highlights-of-day-2-at-rootstech.html" target="_blank">RootsTech 2013 Day 2 Highlights</a></div>
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<a href="https://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.com/2013/03/highlights-of-day-3-at-rootstech-2013.html" target="_blank">RootsTech 2013 Day 3 Highlights</a></div>
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<a href="https://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.com/2015/02/rootstech-and-fgs-2015-british-overview.html" target="_blank">RootsTech and FGS 2015 - a British Overview</a></div>
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<a href="https://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.com/2015/02/day-1-of-rootstech-2015-dna-story.html" target="_blank">Day 1 at RootsTech 2015 and the DNA story</a></div>
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<a href="https://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.com/2015/03/day-2-of-rootstech-2015-and-my.html" target="_blank">Day 2 at RootsTech 2015</a></div>
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<a href="https://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.com/2015/03/day-3-of-rootstech-2015-and-my.html" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.com/2015/03/day-3-of-rootstech-2015-and-my.html" target="_blank">Day 3 at RootsTech 2015</a></div>
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This year, RootsTech is coming to London from 24th - 26th October at the Excel London Convention Centre. To find out more, please follow the link <a href="https://www.rootstech.org/london" target="_blank">here</a>. I am very excited to also confirm that I have once again been selected as an Official Ambassador.<br />
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It is in this capacity as Official Ambassador that I am able to offer one of my readers a FREE TICKET to this Three-day event. Further details of what is included in the PRIZE (and what is not included), as well as details of how to enter, can be found <a href="https://kingsumo.com/g/d2mvv9/rootstech-london-2019-free-3-day-pass-worth-149">here</a>. <br />
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The Prize Draw will be LIVE from 6 p.m. (UK time) on Tuesday 6th August until 6 p.m. (UK time) Tuesday 13th August. The winner will be selected at 6 p.m. (UK time) on Wednesday 14th August. I will then announce the winner on this blog, on my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/Londonrootsresearch/posts/?ref=page_internal" target="_blank">London Roots Research Facebook Page</a> and on my <a href="https://twitter.com/rosemarymorgan">Twitter account</a>. <br />
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Rosemary Morgan<br />
<i><b>London Roots Research</b></i></div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-6286854402730345362015-03-11T18:40:00.002+00:002015-12-30T19:28:12.981+00:00Day 3 of RootsTech 2015 and my interviews with Myko Clelland, of FindMyPast, Paul Howes and Tessa Keough<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihXiMziSmljH6z8IaSxny7KFEWzX6B0Kx4V1G57MyIkkRKXC4M-Vvh5U999eIcqmUavMmLF2BIw1uems_256Q2yVmFmUaKABnoFya1gFS3l1LgwYY8UeDfwi0xd4xO1gTBRC62_zCdKEml/s1600/IMG_1239.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihXiMziSmljH6z8IaSxny7KFEWzX6B0Kx4V1G57MyIkkRKXC4M-Vvh5U999eIcqmUavMmLF2BIw1uems_256Q2yVmFmUaKABnoFya1gFS3l1LgwYY8UeDfwi0xd4xO1gTBRC62_zCdKEml/s1600/IMG_1239.JPG" width="320" /></a>The KeyNote Session on Saturday was a double-whammy, with A J Jacobs, creator of The Global Family Reunion, followed by Donny Osmond. You can watch the entire session <a href="https://rootstech.org/video/4066621600001">here</a>. <br />
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The session started with the announcement of the Grand Prize Winner of the RootsTech 2015 Innovator Showdown, which was <a href="https://www.storyworth.com/">Storyworth</a>, a service which is designed to help people record their family stories. <br />
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A J Jacobs described how he came to be organising the world's largest family get-together, the Global Family Reunion on 6th June 2015. We all had "I am a Cousin" signs under our chairs so that when A J Jacobs came on stage, we would hold them up to welcome him. He also described us how he "lived the bible" for a whole year. I found his presentation very amusing, and am disappointed that a prior engagement on 6th June 2015 will preclude me joining in the Global Family Reunion festivities.<br />
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Donny Osmond, who needs no introduction, regaled us with his family stories - as well as a bit of singing. He can still sing! He was also very amusing.<br />
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While Donny Osmond was backstage being photographed with the genealogy bloggers, I was busy interviewing Myko Clelland, Partnerships and Outreach Manager at <a href="https://www.awin1.com/awclick.php?mid=2114&id=254999" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">FindMyPast.</a> My interview with him is below:<br />
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Myko confirmed quite a few new partnerships that <a href="https://www.awin1.com/awclick.php?mid=2114&id=254999" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">FindMyPast</a> is looking into. In particular the partnership with FamilyTreeDNA could be very interesting to the UK genealogy community, who have not yet fully embraced the possibilities afforded by the use of DNA tests in genealogy research.<br />
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Later that day, I attended the Ancestry sponsored lunch, where they, too, were talking about DNA. Honestly, everyone seemed to be talking about DNA, it seems to have finally "come of age". I learnt all about Ancestry's DNA circles, and how they have recently improved their algorithms, which should produce fewer "false positives". As AncestryDNA has only just launched in the UK, I don't think many UK genealogists yet know about Ancestry's DNA circles. As the AncestryDNA test is an autosomal test, which looks at your entire ancestry within recent generations, what Ancestry try and do with the results, is to match up people who "might" share the same ancestors, in a similar way to the way the shaky leaf hints suggest people who "might" share your tree when looking at historical records. Some of the question and answer session was a little bit beyond me, to be honest, although now my AncestryDNA results are in, I'm hoping to be joined into a DNA circle very soon!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ySasOnDBc3xq4MNMN4f2Tc7eBPh-Tz_0Nz6ItKF2BJVsuU4DppSfQS6mFALnwYfZX9udyxz8_GD9iF3L2sAsW8Nja3Ld4d2S4UhZ5rsHVpz2uT79SGW6M0Q21zFqzodlqNwKG4oRdFQG/s1600/P1050445+Me+interviewing+Tessa+and+Paul+(Jill%2BBall).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ySasOnDBc3xq4MNMN4f2Tc7eBPh-Tz_0Nz6ItKF2BJVsuU4DppSfQS6mFALnwYfZX9udyxz8_GD9iF3L2sAsW8Nja3Ld4d2S4UhZ5rsHVpz2uT79SGW6M0Q21zFqzodlqNwKG4oRdFQG/s1600/P1050445+Me+interviewing+Tessa+and+Paul+(Jill%2BBall).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ySasOnDBc3xq4MNMN4f2Tc7eBPh-Tz_0Nz6ItKF2BJVsuU4DppSfQS6mFALnwYfZX9udyxz8_GD9iF3L2sAsW8Nja3Ld4d2S4UhZ5rsHVpz2uT79SGW6M0Q21zFqzodlqNwKG4oRdFQG/s1600/P1050445+Me+interviewing+Tessa+and+Paul+(Jill%2BBall).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ySasOnDBc3xq4MNMN4f2Tc7eBPh-Tz_0Nz6ItKF2BJVsuU4DppSfQS6mFALnwYfZX9udyxz8_GD9iF3L2sAsW8Nja3Ld4d2S4UhZ5rsHVpz2uT79SGW6M0Q21zFqzodlqNwKG4oRdFQG/s1600/P1050445+Me+interviewing+Tessa+and+Paul+(Jill%2BBall).JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
The other main announcement coming from AncestryDNA, is that they hope to be launching in Australia and Canada soon. This will also help to widen the database of people who have tested with AncestryDNA, which currently stands at 700,000.<br />
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Later that day, I had the pleasure of interviewing Paul Howes and Tessa Keough, both members of the Guild of One-Name Studies. Here is a photo of me doing the interview (courtesy of Jill Ball):</div>
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My interview with Paul and Tessa can be seen below:<br />
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Thank you to Myko, Paul and Tessa for taking time out of their busy schedules for my interviews.<br />
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Rosemary Morgan<br />
London Roots Research</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Day 2 of RootsTech 2015 was Friday 13th February - traditionally a superstitious date if ever there was one. Luckily I didn't see anything bad happen on that day! In fact only good things happened as I hope this post conveys.</span><br />
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</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWdbgidy8PFEF8IjSSf1b-1uQaub4yK9KHhTGmg1dE6wVZn7caXop5xeZJ4sVjR4kxv6ZwcwF3nmoeo1KmEpHgL2dGMRXFd4Ing9GOj92kT_fIkKurMNuvBxB8mwLWRD-mlGYGvZtUdVWJ/s1600/RootsTech+official+photo+with+Laura+Bush+and+Jenna+Bush+Hagen.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWdbgidy8PFEF8IjSSf1b-1uQaub4yK9KHhTGmg1dE6wVZn7caXop5xeZJ4sVjR4kxv6ZwcwF3nmoeo1KmEpHgL2dGMRXFd4Ing9GOj92kT_fIkKurMNuvBxB8mwLWRD-mlGYGvZtUdVWJ/s1600/RootsTech+official+photo+with+Laura+Bush+and+Jenna+Bush+Hagen.JPG" width="320" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Keynote session with Laura W Bush and her daughter, Jenna Bush Hager, was a real treat, as I mentioned in my <a href="http://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/rootstech-and-fgs-2015-british-overview.html">earlier post</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The interview of Laura Bush by her daughter, Jenna, showed that even a very well-known family such as theirs can enjoy talking about some very day-today issues.</span><br />
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Sadly, the Laura Bush / Jenna Hager session was not made available on the livestream and so no recording is available. </span><br />
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However, the rest of the session, featuring D Joshua Taylor, director of family history at FindMyPast is available <a href="http://rootstech.org/video/4070360451001">here</a>. As well as detailing many new datasets recently added or about to be added, Joshua described several new Partnerships, including:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a partnership to share records with the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society (<a href="http://newyorkfamilyhistory.org/">NYG&B</a>)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">a partnership with FamilyTreeDNA, to offer DNA testing services to the FindMyPast customer base. (The link is now visible on the <a href="http://www.findmypast.com/dna-tests">FindMyPast.com</a> website.)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">working with StoryPress "to help capture and share family stories" in combination with FMP data and family trees. Joshua believes that everyone shouldbe able to have their own "Who Do You Think You Are?" family story</span></li>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrgzQ2xaQO9YLJa7WWBJHkq92zZZeHy54FiaX0yMawb9BFN7mu_kBfh2UPRnU0098EDK76EGtGaK3N2P8GkGV2PiFyCg4GVcexuXlZWXN54CsrPsFwZ5cmJU-Zqnb0zcQEPD4sQqHo5IH3/s1600/RootsTech+official+photo+with+D+Joshua+Taylor+V2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrgzQ2xaQO9YLJa7WWBJHkq92zZZeHy54FiaX0yMawb9BFN7mu_kBfh2UPRnU0098EDK76EGtGaK3N2P8GkGV2PiFyCg4GVcexuXlZWXN54CsrPsFwZ5cmJU-Zqnb0zcQEPD4sQqHo5IH3/s1600/RootsTech+official+photo+with+D+Joshua+Taylor+V2.jpeg" /></span></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrgzQ2xaQO9YLJa7WWBJHkq92zZZeHy54FiaX0yMawb9BFN7mu_kBfh2UPRnU0098EDK76EGtGaK3N2P8GkGV2PiFyCg4GVcexuXlZWXN54CsrPsFwZ5cmJU-Zqnb0zcQEPD4sQqHo5IH3/s1600/RootsTech+official+photo+with+D+Joshua+Taylor+V2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Joshua then told his own family story, tracing his family back to his ancestor, William Heaps, who was sentenced to transportation to Australia, and escaped from prison, for stealing cheese, and relating this to his own love of cheese. He then showed how he had used StoryPress to make his own Family History Story.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the right are some of the RoostTech ambassadors backstage with Joshua after his KeyNote session.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4tBbsC7nHQ4HelXzQnNnE7b_8DbwmuQjrQB3zm7s6xooymaoO5a2VjjVLM6ai00-UE8Qa9M9drjGuzzr4zzXg6FpBOs1CIlY5uXPWU3Bdnz9jYbP0Zgij1gSbag8D0wCrYlnRYt6vCApe/s1600/Screenshot+2015-03-09+15.29.47.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4tBbsC7nHQ4HelXzQnNnE7b_8DbwmuQjrQB3zm7s6xooymaoO5a2VjjVLM6ai00-UE8Qa9M9drjGuzzr4zzXg6FpBOs1CIlY5uXPWU3Bdnz9jYbP0Zgij1gSbag8D0wCrYlnRYt6vCApe/s1600/Screenshot+2015-03-09+15.29.47.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Later the same day, I attended the FindMyPast lunch during which Ian Tester, Director of Partner Products, provided further details of how FindMyPast's <a href="http://www.whodoyouthinkyouarestory.com/">WhoDoYouThinkYouAre? Story </a> can help you tell your own WhoDoYouThinkYouAre? Story.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhexbnsxqLec0lQGH9I8yfiOvm85OxExQBN5CRco81L4gNSlLvGqtk199RqMEll9YQonjj8i_PX0OfkCWPblWjKLJD4buwH0KiQxf0zIWB8udYO9ddWPuzd7uhgfvQoZiGWBHy7LfYe3krx/s1600/Tahitia+and+me+preparing+for+the+interview.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Tahitia McCabe and yours truly(photo courtesy of Jill Ball)</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhexbnsxqLec0lQGH9I8yfiOvm85OxExQBN5CRco81L4gNSlLvGqtk199RqMEll9YQonjj8i_PX0OfkCWPblWjKLJD4buwH0KiQxf0zIWB8udYO9ddWPuzd7uhgfvQoZiGWBHy7LfYe3krx/s1600/Tahitia+and+me+preparing+for+the+interview.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Towards the end of the day I interviewed Tahitia McCabe, Knowledge Exchange Fellow, University of Strathclyde Genealogical Studies Programme<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20.7900009155273px;">. L</span>uckily we just about completed the interview before the evening's "entertainment" of bagpipes started, which would have completely drowned us out!</span><br />
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Here I am with Tahitia in the media studio, at the start of the interview. During the interview Tahitia mentioned the University of Strathclyde Summer Institute of Genealogical Studios' summer courses, details of which can be found <a href="http://www.strath.ac.uk/genealogy/summerinstitute/">here</a>. Personally, I'm rather tempted by the 5-day "Practical Applications of Genetic Genealogy" course.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My interview with Tahitia can be found here:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hjql1HbhYNg/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hjql1HbhYNg?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thank you to Tahitia for taking time away from her Strathclyde booth to grant me this interview.</span></div>
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Rosemary Morgan</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">London Roots Research</span></div>
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One of the key topics that I decided to pursue at RootsTech this year, was the topic of DNA. This was partly for selfish reasons as I have now tested with two of the three main companies (FTDNA and Ancestry DNA) and I wanted to try and better understand my results. But it was also because I believe that the launch Ancestry DNA in the UK earlier this year will have the effect of encouraging a much wider pool of genealogists and family historians in the UK to test for DNA. Up until now, I have pretty much ignored DNA in my professional genealogy work, leaving this to the "DNA experts". But I do not believe that this is necessarily a good move any more. I now see DNA testing as just one of the pieces of evidence that could be used to piece together a person's family history background, especially where brick walls are concerned, and that we professional genealogists should ignore it at our peril.<br />
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Day 1 of RootsTech started early for me, at 7 am, for a VIP breakfast with FindMyPast. I was so pleased to discover, via a private Twitter conversation with Myko Clelland, that I was on the invitation list, even though I hadn't actually seen an official invitation (but I won't hold that against them). At the breakfast, <a href="https://www.awin1.com/awclick.php?mid=2114&id=254999" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">FindMyPast</a> made a few key announcements, one of which was a new partnership between FMP and FamilyTree DNA, the full press release of which can be seen <a href="http://findmypastus.opblog.brightsolid.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/02/Findmypast-and-FamilyTreeDNA.pdf">here</a>. So this was a great start to my DNA day at RootsTech. Unfortunately the details were, and still are at the time of writing, fairly sketchy and we don't really know exactly what this partnership will mean. However, as long as FMP will be marketing some sort of DNA test with FTDNA (which they suggest is the case), then this, along with the move by Ancestry UK into DNA, has to be good news.<br />
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The breakfast also included a question and answer session with Annalies Van Den Belt, CEO, <a href="https://www.awin1.com/awclick.php?mid=2114&id=254999" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">FindMyPast</a>, where D Joshua Taylor, Director of Family history at <a href="https://www.awin1.com/awclick.php?mid=2114&id=254999" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">FindMyPast</a> posing her some of the more common questions which are asked of <a href="https://www.awin1.com/awclick.php?mid=2114&id=254999" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">FindMyPast</a> in the US. In accepting the breakfast invitation I had missed the Blogger's private visit to the Exhibition Hall, which I would have liked to attend, but then you can't do everything. However, a friend and colleague, Tessa Keough has written a lovely blog post all about a first timers' experience of the RootsTech Exhibition Hall which you can read about <a href="https://www.blogger.com/t%20http://youtu.be/wwmGNEAKOjM">here</a>.<br />
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At 8.30 am, I then moved on to the RootsTech Opening KeyNote session, which can be viewed again <a href="https://rootstech.org/video/4050134760001">here</a>. The session started with D Joshua Taylor, President of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS), and Director of Family History at <a href="https://www.awin1.com/awclick.php?mid=2114&id=254999" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">FindMyPast</a>, appearing alongside fellow <a href="http://www.originsitaly.com/tag/genealogy-roadshow-2/">Genealogy Roadshow hosts Kanyatta D Berry and Mary Tedesco</a>, updating the audience on the <a href="http://www.preservethepensions.org/">Preserve the Pensions</a> (War of 1812) digitisation project:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW3MeQQDrgf5R3MCzvPiu3e-HVDSct5c5gq_0LFdDXuA0CVwWkRllTsnu5CyAy3AxyeYcC7zNg5YPKzUA6KVCC_Ky-x8dX8KA5pcjVG7KDD2qRy_b6SP_ZxzlUd6xSXN7tmoCJu0HVo7AE/s1600/Joshua+Taylor,+Mary+Tedesco+and+Kenyatta+Berry+RootsTech+cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW3MeQQDrgf5R3MCzvPiu3e-HVDSct5c5gq_0LFdDXuA0CVwWkRllTsnu5CyAy3AxyeYcC7zNg5YPKzUA6KVCC_Ky-x8dX8KA5pcjVG7KDD2qRy_b6SP_ZxzlUd6xSXN7tmoCJu0HVo7AE/s1600/Joshua+Taylor,+Mary+Tedesco+and+Kenyatta+Berry+RootsTech+cropped.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Dennis Brimhall, CEO, FamilySearch, then continued the session, wowing us with various statistics about the growth of the RootsTech phenomenon and thanking many of the FamilySearch partner companies, including Ancestry, FindMyPast, MyHeritage and a newcomer to the mix, Family.me. (Note to Brits: no sign of our very own third provider TheGenealogist - perhaps I should contact them for next time!). Dennis Brimhall also described the brand new FamilySearch Discovery Centers, which had just been launched after successful beta testing, and which you can find out more about <a href="https://familysearch.org/discoverycenter">here</a>. As well as the site in Salt Lake City, which I had already visited, FamilySearch is planning to develop similar centers in Seattle, Philadelphia, and also in London (via a partnership with FindMyPast). These centers are really aimed at bringing Family History discovery to a wider, and probably younger, audience, by appealing particularly to families.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Denis Brimhall, CEO, FamilySearch, talking about Family History Discovery Centres</td></tr>
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The Keynote session then continued with Mike Mallin, Chief Product Officer, MyHeritage, who talked about how MyHeritage can help people discover their own family histories, giving some very relevant examples from his own family and elsewhere.<br />
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Finally Mike introduced Tan Le, founder and CEO, Emotiv, to tell us her amazing story, of escaping from Vietnam, age 5, with her sister, her mother, and her grandmother, and of early and later family life in Australia. As I said <a href="http://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/rootstech-and-fgs-2015-british-overview.html">previously</a>, Tan Le's story was very moving, and at the end of the presentation, Bloggers were permitted to go backstage for a photograph with her:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_CV6B3co_kSiRFmeeZUevzzERyr7sU3Nm7PcnKSqtc1Wl5XJaLPxeTDFeW3V_Wu-WL2g_uAJRjpoVr67Oafq1Az95HF0n5IAfcNIMmyAiSgGZMG1t99kPPxBkfjLIAmB0lgr3VS3UL0ep/s1600/RootsTech+official+photo+with+Tan+Le+cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_CV6B3co_kSiRFmeeZUevzzERyr7sU3Nm7PcnKSqtc1Wl5XJaLPxeTDFeW3V_Wu-WL2g_uAJRjpoVr67Oafq1Az95HF0n5IAfcNIMmyAiSgGZMG1t99kPPxBkfjLIAmB0lgr3VS3UL0ep/s1600/RootsTech+official+photo+with+Tan+Le+cropped.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From L to R: me, Caitlin Gow, James Tanner (behind), Jill Ball, unknown person (behind), Tan Le, Lynn Broderick (behind), Sharn White, Pauleen Cass (behind) and Linda Robbins</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Now turning to the DNA side of things. I had already set up an interview session for later that day, with CeCe Moore and Angie Bush, genetic genealogists. I was therefore keen to do my background research!<br />
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I had already attended (virtually) two very interesting talks at the APG Professional Management Conference in January, one by Angie Bush and the other by CeCe Moore. As I am a bit of novice when it comes to DNA, these talks actually blew me away with the complexity of the DNA science that they have successfully used in the US to discover the parentage of both adoptees and those with unknown parentage. <br />
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I had also attended CeCe Moore's talk on the first day of the FGS conference (FGS Society Day), the day before the official start of RootsTech, entitled "Bringing Your Society into the 21st Century with a DNA Interest". Although this talk was mainly aimed at encouraging Family History Society's to start DNA Interest Groups (DIG's), CeCe did go over some of the DNA basics in that talk. However, for a really good introduction to basic DNA, I would strongly recommend Diahan Southard's talk, entitled Getting Started in Genetic Genealogy, which I didn't attend live, but which can be viewed on the RootsTech website <a href="http://rootstech.org/video/4052965123001">here</a>.<br />
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In order to do my background research I also attended CeCe Moore's talk entitled "Exploring Family Stories with DNA from PBS' <i>Finding Your Roots </i>with Henry Louis Gates Jr". This was potentially a very interesting talk, but as I haven't watched the PBS show she described, some of it was a bit lost on me I'm afraid.<br />
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Finally, towards the end of the day, I interviewed CeCe Moore and Angie Bush. Before you watch this, however, I'd like to make just one small clarification regarding 23andMe launching in the UK: although I mentioned in this interview that 23andMe had only just launched its DNA tests in the UK, their non-health related DNA tests have in fact been available to people in the UK for several years. It is the "health-related" element of the DNA test that 23andMe has recently launched in the UK.<br />
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Rosemary Morgan<br />
London Roots Research</div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-17889445402492418232015-02-23T16:05:00.002+00:002015-02-23T16:11:28.292+00:00RootsTech and FGS 2015 - a British Overview<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Like many of the other RootsTech bloggers this year, I chose not to blog from the Conference itself. There was just so much to see and do, what with having two Conferences combined (RootsTech and FGS), a much much bigger exhibit hall than previously, and so many genealogy friends and colleagues to network with - including a large number of Australians visiting this year.<br />
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I had originally intended to post all my RootsTech blog posts last week, but having arrived home, I promptly fell ill with a nasty cough / cold virus which totally knocked me out. So I'm afraid I'm about a week late with these posts. This one is just an introduction and overview.<br />
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In the two years since I last attended RootsTech, I seem to have become more well known in genealogy circles, despite not being a very active blogger. I guess its my quite large following on Twitter. Several people I spoke to said "oh yes I know your name" which was very nice, even though sometimes I didn't always recognise theirs. A case in point was Hilary Gadsby, from Wales, who had travelled out on her own to RootsTech for the first time; an enthusiastic genealogist, with ancestral roots in Hampshire, Hilary and I followed each other on Twitter, but she hadn't really appeared on my radar before; here is Hilary's blog, <a href="http://genemeet.blogspot.co.uk/">GeneMeet.</a><br />
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I also enjoyed meeting Jenny Joyce, a professional genealogist whose blog is the aptly named <a href="http://www.jennyalogy.blogspot.com.au/">Jennyalogy</a>, whom, I was rather embarrassed to discover, I didn't follow on Twitter (I do now, Jenny!). It was lovely to meet both Hilary and Jenny, as well as reconnect with many other old friends.<br />
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I intend to post several new blog posts over the coming days. In particular I conducted video interviews with:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Angie Bush and CeCe Moore, Genetic Genealogists in the US</li>
<li>Tahitia McCabe, Knowledge Exchange Fellow, University of Strathclyde Genealogical Studies Programme</li>
<li>Myko Clelland, Partnerships and Outreach Manager, FindMyPast</li>
<li>and Tessa Keough and Paul Howes, both members of the Guild of One-name studies, who were there partly promoting the Guild</li>
</ul>
The Keynote Sessions were spectacular, as usual. Tan Le's story and her storytelling skills were simply amazing. I would recommend watching her session. You can find it <a href="http://rootstech.org/video/4050134760001">here</a> (at 59 mins in).<br />
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I really didn't think I would particularly enjoy seeing either Donny Osmond or Laura Bush, but they both blew me away, and especially Laura Bush when her daughter, Jenna Bush Hagen interviewed her on the couch. Wow, I have some way to go in my interviewing skills! It's a shame that this was the only Keynote session which is <b>not</b> available on the live recordings. The other recorded sessions, including Keynotes and some classes, can be found <a href="http://rootstech.org/video/4050134760001">here</a>.<br />
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The major players, Family Search, Ancestry, MyHeritage and FindMyPast, all had major announcements to make at RootsTech and I will be reporting on some of those in forthcoming posts, especially the announcements which relate to the UK genealogy community.<br />
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I will also be taking an in-depth look at what's new in the world of DNA in genealogy, with all the main players (Ancestry, FamilySearch and FindMyPast) again announcing something new in this field.<br />
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I enjoyed the socialising much more this time at RootsTech, but maybe that was because I knew more people and so I felt more comfortable. Notable evening events included the Australian pizza evening on the Tuesday, to which selected Commonwealth guests were invited and the RootsTech Official Ambassadors' dinner on Wednesday:<br />
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Finally, I must thank the wonderful Pat Richley-Erickson (aka DearMYTLE) and her husband Gordon for hosting an amazing After-Party for Official Bloggers. The photo below shows DearMYRTLE conducting her regular Saturday evening Hangout on Air, while being observed by many of the 40 RootsTech blogger guests:<br />
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Rosemary Morgan<br />
London Roots Research</div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-66834886609987868822014-12-19T10:34:00.000+00:002014-12-19T10:34:35.906+00:00RootsTech and FGS 2015<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
After my unsuccessful attempt to get to RootsTech 2014 earlier this year, I am pleased to announce that I fully intend to be at RootsTech 2015 (Feb 12th -14th 2015) and I have been invited to be an Official Ambassador. For those of you who don't know I had to cancel at the last minute in 2014 due to illness. The new role of Official Ambassador reflects the wider variety of media used by such "Ambassadors", who don't just blog, but are active in promoting RootsTech across a range of media, including Blogging.<br />
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This year, RootsTech is combining with the FGS Conference so I shall expect an even wider selection of talks than in previous years. For anyone who is interested - and maybe still considering attending in person - the current list of RotsTech speaker sessions can be found <a href="https://rootstech.org/bc/content/pdfs/Documents/Schedule2.pdf?lang=eng">here</a>, with exact dates and times still to come. The FGS speaker schedule can be found <a href="https://www.fgsconference.org/program/schedule/">here</a>.<br />
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However, if you are unable to attend Salt Lake City in person, the main Keynote sessions - as well as some of the smaller ones - will be able for online viewing as in previous years. <br />
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There are five Keynote speakers <a href="https://rootstech.org/agenda/keynotes?lang=eng">already announced</a> (more announcements can be expected soon):<br />
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Laura W Bush, previous US First Lady, and her daughter, author, Jenna Hager</li>
</ul>
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<li>A J Jacobs, author and journalist who is currently helping to build a family tree that connects the whole world</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Donny Osmond, singer, actor and TV host</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Nathan Furr, PhD, <span style="font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif;">Assistant professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at Brigham Young University and a visiting scholar at INSEAD and ESSEC</span></li>
</ul>
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So watch this space for more reports, both before and during the event itself!<br />
<br />
Rosemary Morgan
London Roots Research</div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-62660553956991580692014-02-06T14:13:00.001+00:002014-02-06T14:13:31.618+00:00Not now going to RootsTech 2014<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvnhq1MQLPHYdx9IBWaGNvPKi05dMMNcOeJNEchj9GZ6ixCY3cCz58_-KAhkJqzOrnJMgdVjDjk8BYQHtYzGx2xzu_JhDMrfLUGmej4dmYB8CDl95Vwi6C94zz-B5y7IFPwcBaoVuuz4FX/s1600/IMG_0732.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvnhq1MQLPHYdx9IBWaGNvPKi05dMMNcOeJNEchj9GZ6ixCY3cCz58_-KAhkJqzOrnJMgdVjDjk8BYQHtYzGx2xzu_JhDMrfLUGmej4dmYB8CDl95Vwi6C94zz-B5y7IFPwcBaoVuuz4FX/s1600/IMG_0732.jpg" height="200" width="150" /></a>Well there I was, on Monday 3rd February, all packed up, taxi booked, checked in to my flight and ready to leave for Salt Lake City! I had got over the bad cold I'd had earlier in January - or so I thought! But during Monday, I developed a nasty hacking cough, and was starting to feel slightly unwell. By 3 am on Tuesday 4th I was feeling so ill I knew I couldn't get on an aeroplane and would have to cancel. I was gutted!<br />
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Luckily there are ways of enjoying the RootsTech experience remotely. I did this in 2012, and it was this experience which encouraged me to attend in person in 2013. This year, sadly, I have had to downgrade to the "remote blogger" status. I won't be doing any live interviews (obviously), but if I'm well enough I shall endeavour to summarise each day's events, based on the live stream plus info from Twitter posts.<br />
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There are other remote "official RootsTech bloggers", including Thomas MacEntee (<a href="http://geneabloggers.com/">geneabloggers</a>) and Jill Ball (<a href="http://geniaus.blogspot.co.uk/">geniaus</a>), who are both on the <a href="http://www.unlockthepastcruises.com/cruises/4th-cruise/">Unlock the Past 4th Genealogy cruise</a> in southern Australia, along with fellow UK genealogist Chris Paton (<a href="http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/">BritishGENES</a>). However, I suspect that these guys have their work cut out following what's going on "down under" and Tom is giving loads of talks! <br />
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So for the rest of us, what's in store? The live stream sessions start at 8.30 am US MST (3.30 pm UK GMT) and continue until 6 pm US MST (1 am UK GMT). If you can't watch all the sessions live, don't worry they will be uploaded for later viewing shortly after the end of each session. You can see the full list of the live stream classes <a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865595343/15-RootsTech-classes-to-be-streamed-online.html">here</a>. But remember, the Keynote Sessions will also be live streamed (8.30 am MST / 3.30 pm GMT).<br />
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Where will the live stream posts be? Go <a href="https://rootstech.org/">here</a> where you will already see the video stream link: www.rootstech.org.<br />
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Rosemary Morgan<br />
London Roots Research</div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-75386420258871376702014-02-03T15:44:00.002+00:002014-02-03T15:44:47.345+00:00Preparing for RootsTech 2014<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I pack my bags for my flight to Salt Lake City tomorrow, I thought I'd write a short post about what's in store for my readers over the next week or so. The weather currently looks bright, with blue skies, and I'm starting to get excited.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Image courtesy of WeatherBug.com webcam, Salt Lake City</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As an Official Blogger I hope to be blogging regularly about some of the main events, especially the Keynote Speaker events. But for those of you not coming to RootsTech (the large majority I imagine), you can watch many of the RootsTech sessions online, from the comfort of your own armchair. You will find the list of classes being broadcast live on the Internet, on the </span><a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865595343/15-RootsTech-classes-to-be-streamed-online.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Deseret News blog</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. The Keynote sessions (from 8.30 am to 10 am) will also be broadcast "live".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For UK viewers, the time difference actually works slightly in our favour, as the Conference runs from 8.30 am to 6.00 pm (MST or US Mountain Standard Time) which is 7 hours back from the UK (Greenwich Mean Time). So the sessions will be running "live" in the UK from 3.30 pm through to 1.00 am - not so good if you are a morning person I suppose! However, these broadcast sessions will also be available for viewing later, hopefully shortly after the end of each session. So you won't need to stay up late into the night (unless you're a genealogy addict of course!).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For my readers who are attending the <a href="http://www.unlockthepastcruises.com/cruises/4th-cruise/">Unlock the Past 4th Genealogy Cruise</a> in Southern Australia, the time difference will make it a bit more difficult. Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart are all 11 hours ahead of the UK, and therefore 18 hours ahead of Salt Lake City (Adelaide is half an hour different to these cities - how weird is that?). Anyway, for those in Southern Australia, the RootsTech "live" sessions will be running from approximately 2.30 am to 12 pm, on the following day (i.e. from Friday 7th to Sunday 9th). This time difference will definitely suit the "early birds" better! But as I said before, these sessions will also be available to view later.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For anyone who is still confused (or located elsewhere in the world), there is a handy time difference calculator <a href="http://www.happyzebra.com/timezones-worldclock/difference-between-Salt%20Lake%20City-and-London.php">here</a>. (I've put Salt Lake City time in London here as the example).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The link to "live" broadcast sessions (as well as the "catch up" recordings) should be available from a direct link from the <a href="https://rootstech.org/">RootsTech website</a>, although the link isn't there yet, as I write this post (Monday).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As well as the main RootsTech conference on Thursday 5th, Friday 6th and Saturday 7th February, with the three Keynote Speaker sessions, I shall also be attending the <a href="https://rootstech.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/RootsTech_2014_Innovator_Summit_Flyer.pdf">Innovator Summit</a> on Wednesday 4th February, as well as several social events, including both the FindMyPast and the Ancestry <a href="https://rootstech.org/events/hosted-lunches/">catered lunches</a> and <a href="https://rootstech.org/events/friday-night-at-the-library/">Friday Night at the Library</a>, where the Family History Library stays open late until 10 pm, especially for Conference attendees. So do watch this space for further blog posts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The only thing that might prevent me from posting regular blog posts is my health. I am currently suffering from a bit of a cough virus, and I'm really hoping that the long flight tomorrow doesn't aggravate this and knock me out completely!! So, as well as all my "techie" items (laptop, iPhone, iPad, Kindle and regular camera), I am now also packing a First Aid kit of my favourite cough / cold medicines. I know I'm not going trekking into the jungle but I do like to have my own familiar brands of cold / cough remedies with me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are nowhere near as many UK genealogists venturing over to RootsTech this year, compared to last year (partly, I suspect, due to the change of date, back from late March to early February). But I do know of one or two. I have already made plans to meet up with fellow London-based family historian Amelia Bennett, and I hope to be interviewing her during the Conference for my blog. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I will of course be meeting up with the other <a href="https://rootstech.org/about/bloggers/">Official Bloggers</a>, or at least those attending in person (as some will be blogging remotely). I would also love to meet up with any other Genealogists, family historians or genealogy bloggers who would like to meet me in person, whether they know me through Twitter or elsewhere. So if you're there at RootsTech and want to say "hi", do please come along to the Media Hub in the exhibition hall - you can't really miss it. This year it will be located close to the middle of the exhibition hall (see <a href="https://rootstech.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/RootsTech-Numbered-Expo-Hall-Map-FINAL-1213.jpg">map</a>), next to the Demo Theatre and the BackBlaze stand.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQVXctPuUOhuUD4Dy9CPiVYBfSmywHdyvn5GExRalA4Tp8FXouSSxNl0R8E7F0h9Dj5XVC9mvp8USbx73xz_JwPKSK2uPSeuvEAiv6IPe0txgwUfiozklT0-UEAR1SMO1ksl49UlgTrUQ0/s1600/expo-hall-main.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQVXctPuUOhuUD4Dy9CPiVYBfSmywHdyvn5GExRalA4Tp8FXouSSxNl0R8E7F0h9Dj5XVC9mvp8USbx73xz_JwPKSK2uPSeuvEAiv6IPe0txgwUfiozklT0-UEAR1SMO1ksl49UlgTrUQ0/s1600/expo-hall-main.jpg" height="188" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">RootsTech Exhibition Hall, 2013</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;">Finally, I hope to be reporting on some of the exhibitors in the Exhibition Hall this year, which I didn't do much last year. So watch this space!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;">Do come back and visit here regularly over the next week - I will do my best to update you on what I'm up to and what is going on in the RootsTech world.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rosemary Morgan</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">London Roots Research</span><br />
<br />
<i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">Disclosure: As an Official blogger for RootsTech 2014, I have received a complimentary registration for the conference. This does not influence my views or opinions of the conference or the sponsors in any way. </i></div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-86690629076513197962013-12-05T18:51:00.000+00:002013-12-05T18:51:03.615+00:00RootsTech 2014 Official Blogger <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Now that I've booked my flight to Salt Lake City, I can reveal that I have once again been invited to be an Official Blogger at RootsTech 2014 (6th - 8th February), and that I shall also be attending in person. Yes, this year there are a few Official Bloggers who will be blogging remotely. In particular both <a href="http://geneabloggers.com/">Thomas MacEntee</a> and <a href="http://geniaus.blogspot.co.uk/">Jill Ball</a> had previously committed to participate on <a href="http://www.unlockthepastcruises.com/cruises/4th-cruise/">Unlock the Past's 4th Genealogy Cruise</a> in Southern Australia in February 2014, when RootsTech announced the February date for RootsTech 2014. So although they are listed as Official Bloggers, they will be not in fact be attending in person. The full list of official bloggers can be found <a href="https://rootstech.org/about/bloggers/">here</a>.<br />
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The RootsTech team have recently completely relaunched their website, and to my mind, it is much improved. So if you haven't looked at it recently, you might wish to take another look. You can find it <a href="https://rootstech.org/">here</a>.<br />
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It seems that the people at RootsTech have listened to some of the feedback that we gave them from last year. We complained that many of the classrooms were too small, so they have moved the conference into a bigger space, with larger classrooms and more exhibition space:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic9vbiv3uHVZslj5_cXLLJkjyLnQfJD7T0pb_j4PznEL9m-WKYYeFFfneSEOvPQCdO-Ps1ojtWfs1t0cn8kJHBSe9oLSdZMo4gb1BxPnPE-DGQ-Cs3MZEke9HEASP4lgKQZRtE6VbS2Tct/s1600/floor-plan-large.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic9vbiv3uHVZslj5_cXLLJkjyLnQfJD7T0pb_j4PznEL9m-WKYYeFFfneSEOvPQCdO-Ps1ojtWfs1t0cn8kJHBSe9oLSdZMo4gb1BxPnPE-DGQ-Cs3MZEke9HEASP4lgKQZRtE6VbS2Tct/s400/floor-plan-large.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Some of us complained that there were not enough sessions for the advanced genealogist, so this year, I believe, there are more sessions marked up as advanced. Finally the <a href="https://rootstech.org/schedule-info/schedulebuilder/">Schedule Builder</a> is now available on the main RootsTech website, as well as an app for downloading on an iPhone, iPad or Android device. This will, hopefully, enable more people to use this very useful functionality.<br />
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Another recent announcement is that the Opening Night Social will now be free of charge and those of us who purchased tickets for this event have had our fee refunded. This may also be as a result of the feedback from last year. Anyway, it's great that it's now free!<br />
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Finally, the latest announcement from RootsTech is the identity of the Opening Keynote speaker, on Thursday 6th February, who is Ree Drummond, an award-winning blogger and New York Times best-selling author. I must admit to not being familiar with Ree Drummond, but I look forward to hearing her speak, as the RootsTech Keynote speakers are usually great value. The full list of Keynote speakers can be found <a href="https://rootstech.org/schedule-info/keynote-speakers/">here.</a><br />
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I will be blogging regularly in the lead up to RootsTech, as well as during the conference itself, so watch this space for more information in due course.<br />
<br />
Rosemary Morgan<br />
London Roots Research</div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-42595307018908575402013-07-15T13:37:00.000+01:002013-07-15T13:37:30.824+01:00London' s Brompton Cemetery records now online at DeceasedOnline<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 20th June, I was fortunate enough to be invited, by <a href="http://www.deceasedonline.com/">DeceasedOnline</a>, to the launch of the Brompton Cemetery's burial records online. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU33R4TVwR6RLpLv-I4vR5g_fYRsqX4TGrtWt8cTwnG6wQrU3dt4JXGffIKHrHVDJNzyzYvIcqp9bZk2Zc5Os1Utaa91RQZVtA6ehn8ojtFwJurm1q6pOI4lN2FSgaTAydwLmi2AWsonFv/s1600/IMG_0440.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU33R4TVwR6RLpLv-I4vR5g_fYRsqX4TGrtWt8cTwnG6wQrU3dt4JXGffIKHrHVDJNzyzYvIcqp9bZk2Zc5Os1Utaa91RQZVtA6ehn8ojtFwJurm1q6pOI4lN2FSgaTAydwLmi2AWsonFv/s320/IMG_0440.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The Chapel and some monuments at the Brompton Cemetery</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The event was very well attended, with the Mayor of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea making the welcome address. The </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.brompton-cemetery.org/">Friends of Brompton Cemetery</a>, the media including the BBC, and numerous genealogists and historians, were all present, including genealogist Nick Barratt, who gave a talk about the importance of death records for family history research. There was also a special guest, Janet Ellis, a keen family historian, who had found her ancestors' burial records at the Brompton Cemetery within minutes of them going online at <a href="https://www.deceasedonline.com/servlet/GSDOSearch">Deceased Online</a>. You can read her story, which was picked up by the BBC, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-22974465">here</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Brompton Cemetery was originally set up in 1837, with the first burial taking place in 1840. Originally set up as a private enterprise, it was nationalised 10 years later and is the only cemetery in England to be run by central government. This might explain why the original burial records, along with other records relating to the Brompton Cemetery, are at the <a href="http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/details?Uri=C16622">National Archives at Kew</a>, and not, as is more often the case with burial records, at a local authority archive. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Originally coming under the auspices of the Board of Works, the </span><a href="http://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/brompton-cemetery" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Brompton Cemetery</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is now managed by the </span><a href="http://www.royalparks.org.uk/" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Royal Parks</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTmLsp-puoZV9T27NZjEnmzupOqq7mBWqz2_y5tEOtoZhY8d9KpcPZRyQVADfL_lnoZ7bnXUsdPWTnhP-jhuWJQE2Q1qFUOEeizQJaSvtScBrR78O367CecoFQOSHe62DqMCNGycXIiajp/s1600/IMG_0442.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTmLsp-puoZV9T27NZjEnmzupOqq7mBWqz2_y5tEOtoZhY8d9KpcPZRyQVADfL_lnoZ7bnXUsdPWTnhP-jhuWJQE2Q1qFUOEeizQJaSvtScBrR78O367CecoFQOSHe62DqMCNGycXIiajp/s320/IMG_0442.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The grave of Emmeline Pankhurst at the Brompton Cemetery</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 39 acre (16 hectares) site lies on the western border of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, between Fulham Road and the Old Brompton Road, next door to Chelsea Football club. There are 206,000 people buried there, with around 50,000 monuments, and it is still a working cemetery, with 70 - 80 burials a year. The cemetery was popular with the Military and for those with an international connection. It is still popular with the Russians and Poles. Some of the famous people buried here include <a href="http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1927">Emmeline Pankhurst</a> (see photo left), the famous suffragette, <a href="http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=12448">Sir Samuel Cunard</a>, and <a href="http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=10745621">Bernard Levin</a>. In fact, the <a href="http://www.findagrave.com/php/famous.php?page=cem&FScemeteryid=658429">Find A Grave website</a> lists 92 famous people buried here.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The founder of the <a href="http://www.brompton-cemetery.org/">Brompton Cemetery</a> was the architect, Stephen Geary, who also founded both the <a href="http://highgatecemetery.org/">Highgate Cemetery</a> and the <a href="http://www.fonc.org.uk/">Nunhead Cemetery</a>. These cemeteries, along with <a href="http://www.abney-park.org.uk/">Abney Park</a>, <a href="http://www.kensalgreen.co.uk/">Kensal Green</a>, <a href="http://www.fothcp.org/">Tower Hamlets</a> and <a href="http://www.fownc.org/">West Norwood</a>, are known as "The Magnificent Seven" cemeteries of London. They form a ring of suburban garden cemeteries around London, opened between 1833 and 1841 as London was growing in size and traditional parish church burial grounds were overflowing. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdkeE386pk3iOsYhKABTT4OkdDrzfAV6qdLTSKpvoQOOeMcqT5ZE3UA-xchRecotTTuL-NL7BjSzMxGXa1AG8TsD3WGJa0K2htFz1PoUiLmNLPuRYYLGOu3Qeswrjga97j-Fi7yP4hOnJy/s1600/IMG_0441.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdkeE386pk3iOsYhKABTT4OkdDrzfAV6qdLTSKpvoQOOeMcqT5ZE3UA-xchRecotTTuL-NL7BjSzMxGXa1AG8TsD3WGJa0K2htFz1PoUiLmNLPuRYYLGOu3Qeswrjga97j-Fi7yP4hOnJy/s320/IMG_0441.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">A selection of the monuments at the Brompton Cemetery, London</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://www.deceasedonline.com/servlet/GSDOSearch" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Deceased Online</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is in discussion with all of the local authorities responsible for the London Magnificent Seven cemeteries; several were in attendance at the Brompton Cemetery launch party on 21st June, and seemed very keen to look at the Deceased Online website. Let's hope, for the sake of genealogists everywhere, that the talks come to fruition.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.brompton-cemetery.org/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Friends of Brompton Cemetery</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> are very active and their annual Open Day is on Sunday 21st July, where there will be Guided Tours taking place all day. They also offer Guided Tours every Sunday during the summer months and on two Sundays a month during the winter. I strongly recommend a visit if you're in London and have never been.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Personally I was intrigued to find out more about the Brompton Cemetery, as my own gg grandfather, Edward Clifford, the Mathematician who sadly died following a carriage accident on Christmas Eve (which I wrote about <a href="http://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/fatal-accident-in-london-on-christmas.html">here</a>), was actually living in the "hamlet" of Brompton Vale, Kensington, on the night of the 1841 census. So I thought that he might have also been buried there, even though he actually died in Charing Cross Hospital, Strand.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the event, I didn't find Edward Clifford in the Brompton Cemetery records, but I did later find that both of his "in-laws", the parents of his "wife" (they never actually married), my gg grandmother, Emma Frances Ray, were buried there: Stuart and Elizabeth Ray died in 1855 and 1866 respectively. I already had their death certificates, but it is nice to know where they are buried. Unfortunately I only discovered this after my visit, so I need to go back and look for the graves. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.deceasedonline.com/">Deceased Online</a> doesn't just cover London. Their coverage is throughout the UK, including many parts of Scotland. The London coverage currently include cemeteries in the London Boroughs of Brent, Camden, Harrow, Havering, Islington, Merton and Newham, and the Royal Borough of Greenwich as well as the privately owned </span><a href="http://www.mpark.co.uk/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Manor Park Cemetery</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, and now of course, the Brompton Cemetery. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To use Deceased Online, you need to register as a new user <a href="https://www.deceasedonline.com/servlet/GSDOSearch?AcctView=LoggedIn&SrchView=Basic&lang=E&sessionid=771044219&DetsView=Register">here</a>, all searches are free of charge, and there is a nominal charge to download an actual record. There are currently no subscription options available. To search for London records, I suggest using the Advanced Search and selecting "London" in the Region box. Happy Hunting!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rosemary Morgan</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">London Roots Research</span></div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-1003211572849917272013-05-31T15:04:00.000+01:002013-05-31T15:05:25.270+01:00Surrey Parish Registers (1538-1987) now on Ancestry<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I had known for a year or so that <a href="http://home.ancestry.co.uk/">Ancestry</a> were busy digitising the Surrey Parish records from my local archive, the <a href="http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/recreation-heritage-and-culture/archives-and-history/surrey-history-centre">Surrey History Centre</a>. I also knew, from my visit last week, that <a href="http://home.ancestry.co.uk/">Ancestry</a> had a supplied a bank of brand new computers so that visitors to the Archives could access the new databases when they came on stream. What I didn't know was <i>when</i> they would be put online. The staff last week were simply saying <i>"later this year"</i>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUeJUD3W2x1p_4gjrIiKBzvpa1fREDG2bPTHoFTRwOwH-mbAfUJlAgRq2W3PmpMNvkvdgaVxQ9M5t7Tf00e8I3JnRBMYIi6o0bZ8EKWlqHvoFbyyURoqgllc1SSSYH8EQQOEYKyhV3xjbC/s1600/woking_surrey-historyctr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUeJUD3W2x1p_4gjrIiKBzvpa1fREDG2bPTHoFTRwOwH-mbAfUJlAgRq2W3PmpMNvkvdgaVxQ9M5t7Tf00e8I3JnRBMYIi6o0bZ8EKWlqHvoFbyyURoqgllc1SSSYH8EQQOEYKyhV3xjbC/s320/woking_surrey-historyctr.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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So it was with some surprise that yesterday morning, just as I was leaving the house for a rare family day out, that I received an email informing me that the Surrey Parish registers were now "live" on Ancestry. Here is the Ancestry <a href="http://www.ancestryeurope.lu/press/press-releases/uk/2013/05/05">announcement</a>, explaining the full scale of the Collection (2.6 million records) and giving some examples of famous people who can be found in the records. The Surrey County Council announcement of the release can be found <a href="http://news.surreycc.gov.uk/2013/05/30/kate-winslet-and-sir-laurence-oliviers-ancestors-feature-as-historic-records-go-online/">here</a>.<br />
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The records online so far include four main databases, the organisation of which will look familiar to anyone who is used to using Ancestry's London Collection:<br />
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><a href="http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=4772">Surrey, England Baptisms, 1813 - 1912</a></li>
<li><a href="http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=4786">Surrey, England Burials, 1813 - 1987</a></li>
<li><a href="http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=4779">Surrey, England Marriages, 1754 - 1937</a></li>
<li><a href="http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=4790">Surrey, England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials 1538 - 1812</a></li>
</ul>
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Although a note at the bottom of each of the above pages suggests that the records are incomplete after 1900, with more to be added during 2013, an Australian client of mine managed to find her great grandmother's burial in Claygate in 1937 earlier today. So it's definitely worth checking even if you're interested in later records!<br />
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This large batch of Parish records should help many people with London, especially south London, ancestors. Although Ancestry's <a href="http://www.ancestry.co.uk/uklma">London Collection</a> has been online for a few years now, and has more recently been complemented by the <a href="http://www.findmypast.co.uk/content/westminster-collection/about">Westminster Collection</a> on FindMyPast, the lack of Surrey records online has been a major stumbling block for some of us with London ancestors. <br />
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The new collection includes not only many rural parishes, from the middle and the south of the County, but also many of the old County's northern parishes which we would nowadays think of as London. These include parishes such as Kingston, Richmond, Wandsworth and Wimbledon, which we normally associate these days with London. A detailed map of Surrey showing the location of the various parishes can be seen <a href="http://www.wsfhs.org/pages/parishmap.php">here</a>, courtesy of June Rudman and the West Surrey Family History Society.<br />
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Surrey History Centre is holding a special Surrey Parish records launch event on Saturday 6th July - more details <a href="http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/recreation-heritage-and-culture/archives-and-history/heritage-events">here</a>.<br />
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Finally, it is not only the Surrey Births, Marriages and Burials which are going online. The full Surrey Collection, to be available online by the end of 2013, is listed <a href="http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/recreation-heritage-and-culture/archives-and-history/surrey-history-centre/surrey-records-online-in-2013">here</a> and includes:<br />
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li> Electoral Registers</li>
<li> Land Tax Registers</li>
<li> Freeholders' Lists</li>
<li> and <i>much more</i></li>
</ul>
<br />
Rosemary Morgan<br />
London Roots Research</div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-81110099605752001652013-03-26T22:37:00.000+00:002013-03-26T22:41:54.873+00:00Highlights of Day 3 at RootsTech 2013<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The excitement at RootsTech 2013 continued into Day 3, starting with the Keynote speakers: </span><br />
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">David Pogue, <a href="http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/" target="_blank">personal-technology columnist</a><a href="http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/" target="_blank"> of The New York Times</a> and regular columnist for <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/author.cfm?id=2544" target="_blank">Scientific American</a>. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ori Soen, Chief Marketing Officer of <a href="http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/login-to-myheritage.php" target="_blank">MyHeritage</a></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ori was assisted by James Tanner, genealogy blogger at <a href="http://genealogysstar.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Genealogy's Star</a>. James stepped in at the last minute to help with the <a href="http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/login-to-myheritage.php" target="_blank">MyHeritage</a> presentation when their founder and CEO, <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px;">Gilad Japhet had to pull out for personal reasons.</span></span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">David Pogue gave us a wonderful start to the 3rd and final day of the conference, with some great jokes and comedy sketches relating to personal technology and gadgets. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He also described the current technology trends, from Web 1.0, where the website creator provides the content (e.g. The New York Times website), to Web 2.0, where the audience create the input (e.g. Facebook, Wikipedia, Craigslist), and the next big wave, "augmented reality", which according to Wikipedia is <i>"</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic; line-height: 19.1875px;">a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic; line-height: 19.1875px;">augmented</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic; line-height: 19.1875px;"> by </span><i>computer-generated</i><span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic; line-height: 19.1875px;"> sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or </span><i>GPS</i><span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic; line-height: 19.1875px;"> data</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"><i>"</i><i>. </i>Examples of augmented reality include apps such as:</span></span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19.1875px;"><i>London Tube</i>'s <i>"Your New Eye"</i>, which shows you where the nearest tube station is and even where the underground lines run under the road. (Sounds cool - trying it out tomorrow in London!)</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19.1875px;"><i>Word Lens</i>, which instantly translates words visible through the camera lens, into Spanish, Italian or French (and vice-versa)</span></li>
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<li> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 19.1875px;">and <i>Ocarina</i>, which turns an iPhone into a flute-like musical instrument, which he proceeded to demonstrate: </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">David also showed us that he is not just a technology geek, he is a talented composer, singer and musician to boot! I had already noticed the grand piano on the stage, but had not anticipated such an amazingly humorous performance from a technology journalist - WOW is all I can say!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I couldn't resist recording one of the songs he sang (Sounds of Silence) and posting it below (apologies for the poor quality of my recording - you should be able to watch a much better quality when RootsTech post the Saturday recap videos <a href="http://rootstech.org/" target="_blank">here</a> in due course). David also sang My Way, but unfortunately my phone ran out of storage space half way through!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After his Keynote, David Pogue was interviewed in the media hub by Jill Ball, Australian genealogy blogger at </span><a href="http://geniaus.blogspot.co.uk/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Geniaus</a>; <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">she ta</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">lked to him about his early career working in musical theatre and his move into technology journalism. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You c</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">an watch her interview </span><a href="http://geniaus.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/a-steinway-at-rootstech.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the second, MyHeritage presentation, Ori Soen described how <a href="http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/login-to-myheritage.php" target="_blank">MyHeritage</a> was founded by Gilad Japhet in 2005, from his own home, and has now grown to be the second largest family history company in the world. Their 75 million users use the site to build their family trees, and automatically connect to other trees and records using the MyHeritage <i>"smart matching facility".</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">James Tanner, a blogger at Genealogy's Star and a MyHeritage user, went on to explain that the <a href="http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/login-to-myheritage.php" target="_blank">MyHeritage</a> matching facility works by not only matching user-contributed trees, but also a wide range of genealogy records, which from April, users will also be able to save as attachments to their trees. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In terms of databases, <a href="http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/login-to-myheritage.php" target="_blank">MyHeritage</a> was one of the first sites to complete the transcription of the 1940 US census last year, and in April it will also upload all the other US censuses, from 1790 to 1930. One of the main strengths of <a href="http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/login-to-myheritage.php" target="_blank">MyHeritage</a>, however, is its large user base outside the US and Western Europe. Based in Israel, it has particularly strong coverage in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, so is ideal for those whose family backgrounds include those regions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally James Tanner announced that the first 500 people to sign up to a <a href="http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/login-to-myheritage.php" target="_blank">MyHeritage </a>account after the Keynote session, would receive a free 6 month subscription to the MyHeritage PremiumPlus account (which is worth £7.95 a month in the UK). Needless to say the MyHeritage stand was extremely busy for the next hour or so!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My video interview on Day 3 was with Geoff Swinfield and Di Bouglas, of </span><a href="http://www.gsgs.co.uk/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Geoff Swinfield Genealogical Services</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. As RootsTech first-timers I was keen to get their thoughts</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> on what they liked best about RootsTech, how it compares to Who Do You Think You Are? Live in London and what it offers the British genealogist. You can listen to their interview here:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well that was the end of RootsTech 2013. I hope you have enjoyed reading my Daily Highlight blog posts and watching my video interviews. I hope to be able to return next year for more of the same.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was a picture taken from the aeroplane as I left Salt Lake City. Next year, I definitely hope to combine RootsTech 2014 with some Utah ski-ing. It looks so tempting!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rosemary Morgan</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">London Roots Research</span></div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-64924261727871147422013-03-25T23:02:00.000+00:002013-03-26T14:05:41.703+00:00WOW - Highlights of Day 2 at RootsTech 2013<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">On Friday, the second day of RootsTech 2013, the word of the day was WOW! The first Keynote speaker was <b>Jyl Pattee of <a href="http://momitforward.com/" target="_blank">Mom It Forward</a></b>, a digital agency and network of social media influencers. Jyl </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">encouraged us to look for the "wow" factor in life, quoting Hilary Cooper: </span><i style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." </i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">Jyl asked us to think about the small moments that, on a daily basis, can take our breath away, and then to think about ways to:</span></div>
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<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">Create the WOW</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">Capture the WOW</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">Archive the WOW</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">and Share the WOW</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">In an example of "creating the WOW", Jyl described her own 10 year challenge to jump in every single state in the US, which she finally achieved last November, and in order to "capture the WOW", she took photos of her jumps and used </span><a href="http://instagram.com/" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;" target="_blank">Instagram</a><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;"> to share them on social media such as Twitter. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">In another example, Jyl also told us how she interviewed and recorded her grandmother by telephone, over several weeks, and has recently used these to create a video montage of her grandmother's life story, to share with her cousins on </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;" target="_blank">YouTube</a><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">Jyl also described how her grandmother's recipe for Banana Cookies had been a uniting theme in her family - and she showed a video of her making the cookies at home with her two sisters. And as Jyl had very thoughtfully put a postcard of the recipe on every seat in the conference hall, I thought I would include it here, for those of you who either didn't get one or were watching online. Of course the video of Jyl and her sisters making the cookies is still online </span><a href="http://rootstech.org/?start=0&id=K2&video=2245338986001" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;"> at RootsTech if you'd like to watch it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">The second Keynote speaker on Friday was </span><b style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">Tim Sullivan, president and CEO of Ancestry.com</b><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;"> and he didn't disappoint, giving us some more WOW moments! Tim
Sullivan announced that:</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -18pt;">Over the next three years Ancestry will be digitising 140
million pages of US probate records (WOW), dating from 1800 to 1930 in a major deal
with FamilySearch - these records have already been filmed by FamilySearch and
Ancestry is working with the various authorities, to acquire the online
publishing rights.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -18pt;">Over the next five
years Ancestry will be spending over $100 million (WOW) on digitising and indexing new
content for Ancestry.com, Fold3 and Archives.com.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -18pt;">A new version of the Ancestry iPhone and iPad
app (version 4.1) will soon be available, which will enable photos, and photo
sharing via Facebook and Twitter as well as providing a photo match service with other
peoples’ trees. These changes are designed to appeal to the next generation of
genealogists and over one-third of new Ancestry registrations currently come via their mobile app. (WOW)</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Finally, Sullivan announced that the price for Ancestry’s DNA test was being reduced to $99. Although not available in the UK (as far as I know), the fact that DNA prices are tumbling is good news for genealogists everywhere!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">In a surprise move, Tim Sullivan also appeared to ask for forgiveness about the number of mistakes in Ancestry member trees, a fact which has become a hot topic recently among genealogists. However, he urged those of us with private trees (and I'm afraid that includes me), to open up our trees in the interest of </span><span style="line-height: 24px;">collaboration and sharing:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">My video
interviewees for Friday were Else Churchill, genealogist at the </span><a href="http://www.sog.org.uk/index.shtml" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;" target="_blank">Society of Genealogists</a><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;"> in London and Alec Tritton , chairman of </span><a href="http://www.halsted.org.uk/" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;" target="_blank">The Halsted Trust</a><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">. Although Alec had been to RootsTech before,
this was the first time the Society of Genealogists had been represented. I therefore talked to Else about her first
impressions of RootsTech and also how it compared to Who Do You Think You Are?
Live in London. I also asked Alec for his impressions of RootsTech and about the </span><a href="http://www.exodus2013.co.uk/" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;" target="_blank">Exodus 2013 Conference</a><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;"> being organised by </span><a href="http://www.halsted.org.uk/" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;" target="_blank">The Halsted Trust</a><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;"> later this year in
Leicestershire, England. You can see the full
interview here:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">On
Friday evening I attended the RootsTech “Late Night at the Library” session at the <a href="https://familysearch.org/locations/saltlakecity-library" target="_blank">FamilySearch library</a>, which is located literally just across the road from the Conference Centre (so very handy for the odd bit of research).</span><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;"> As this was my first visit, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">I hadn’t quite
appreciated how large this library was, with Great Britain and Ireland having
their own floor!</span><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;"> The </span><span style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 150%;">pictures below hopefully give you an idea of just how user-friendly this library, with everything you could want
(including vast numbers of microfilms) simply available on open shelves, with no restrictions on what you take into the library:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rosemary Morgan</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">London Roots Research</span></div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-54236482235407698732013-03-23T05:24:00.000+00:002013-03-26T14:03:33.209+00:00Highlights of Day 1 at RootsTech<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Yesterday was my first day at RootsTech 2013, and what an exciting day it was!<br />
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First of all, at 7.30 am, the official bloggers had early access to the Exhibitor Hall, for a guided tour of the exhibitor stands:<br />
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Next up were the three Keynote speakers:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidpY7_stKnNhC1VFdfWriKehuxRPrC12OVfMAup_fApO2Ixrbo8nPrMCpzjPvdjFEHpUO2KkTP84OUKEgcivkVtpDwRs8Q4F4jE1wlBBpR3q6OYJ1DhHJw2RHngB2-LJXaYVRRyJp0rK2I/s1600/IMG_0361.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidpY7_stKnNhC1VFdfWriKehuxRPrC12OVfMAup_fApO2Ixrbo8nPrMCpzjPvdjFEHpUO2KkTP84OUKEgcivkVtpDwRs8Q4F4jE1wlBBpR3q6OYJ1DhHJw2RHngB2-LJXaYVRRyJp0rK2I/s200/IMG_0361.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dennis Brimhall, CEO of FamilySearch</span></td></tr>
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<li>Dennis Brimhall, CEO of FamilySearch, first of all congratulated the large number of volunteer indexers on the success of the 1940 census. He then went on to explain how FamilySearch is aiming to attract more people into researching their family histories than is currently the case, and in particular, they would like to lower the average age of people researching their genealogy by engaging the younger generation in family history. With this goal in mind, he described a change in emphasis taking place at FamilySearch, moving away from just researching and connecting names and dates and encouraging us to make greater use of story telling and photographs to add more "flavour" to our family trees. He left us with the following thought <i>"What would our great great great grandchildren wish that we would have done"</i>. </li>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Syd Lieberman</span></td></tr>
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<li>Syd Lieberman, nationally acclaimed story teller, author and teacher, told us some wonderful stories about his parents, his grandparents and his grandchildren. He is a wonderful speaker and storyteller, and the message coming across was <i>"don't forget to pass on your stories to your descendants"</i>.</li>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Joshua Taylor, FindMyPast USA</span></td></tr>
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<li>Joshua Taylor, Business Development Manager, North America, for brightsolid online publishing, creators of FindMyPast.com, came across as passionate about genealogy, having chosen from a young age to get involved in family history. Joshua reiterated the desire to engage the younger generation in family history, and especially Generation "Y" who no longer watch cable TV but do everything on their mobile devices. He felt that the challenge, especially for developers, and others involved in genealogy, is to find ways of engaging with this audience, and postulated that the answer might be through family history gaming!</li>
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I then had the privilege of interviewing two of my fellow Strathclyde PG diploma students, Marie Dougan of <a href="http://www.ancestralconsultants.com/" target="_blank">Ancestral Consultants</a> and Jeanette Rosenberg of <a href="http://www.jgsgb.org.uk/" target="_blank">The Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain.</a> I asked them both:<br />
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<li>what had brought them all the way to Salt Lake City from the UK</li>
<li>how they thought RootsTech compares to the largest British genealogy show, <a href="http://www.whodoyouthinkyouarelive.com/" target="_blank">Who Do You Think You Are? live</a> and </li>
<li>what they hoped to get out of their time at the conference and in Salt Lake City in general</li>
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and what their main "take out" was from the Keynote speaker session this morning. You can listen to the full interview here:</div>
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The highlight of the day, however, had to be a private tour of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir facilities, followed by a special "mini concert" for the benefit of RootsTech attendees. It was a simply magical experience and one that will stay with me for a long while:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Salt Lake City</span></td></tr>
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Rosemary Morgan<br />
London Roots Research</div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-9355385704171249282013-03-21T04:42:00.000+00:002013-03-26T14:44:44.886+00:00The day before RootsTech 2013<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have finally arrived at RootsTech 2013, my first ever trip to Salt Lake City. Some of you will know, from my Twitter feed, that I am no stranger to business trips to the USA, so arriving here on business feels quite familiar and comfortable. The most challenging aspect of my travel yesterday, was the three and half hours spent queueing at Dallas airport to get through immigration, then customs and finally re-entry through security for my onward flight to Salt Lake City.<br />
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However, today has more than made up for any inconvenience suffered yesterday. I spent most of the day at the <a href="http://www.apgen.org/conferences/index.html" target="_blank">APG Professional Management Conference</a>, along with fellow genealogist, Marie Dougan, of <a href="http://www.ancestralconsultants.com/" target="_blank">Ancestral Consultants</a>. In the morning, we had a most interesting session on American court records, given by Judy G Russell, of <a href="http://www.legalgenealogist.com/" target="_blank">Legal Genealogist</a> fame. Many of the lessons of this hands-on session, although using American court records, could easily be applied to UK court records, so I now feel inspired to try and use these more in my own genealogy practice. Over lunch it was great to chat to Lynn Broderick, who blogs at <a href="http://thesingleleaf.wordpress.com/author/thesingleleaf/" target="_blank">The Single Leaf</a>, whom I had met in February at <a href="http://www.whodoyouthinkyouarelive.com/" target="_blank">Who Do You Think You Are? Live</a> and Thomas MacEntee, of <a href="http://geneabloggers.com/" target="_blank">Geneabloggers</a>.<br />
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In the afternoon I attended two fabulous genealogy marketing sessions: First of all, Thomas MacEntee, of <a href="http://geneabloggers.com/" target="_blank">Geneabloggers</a>, talked about how to run an effective marketing campaign, largely based around new media marketing such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs and Pinterest. Thomas gave us lots of ideas on how to improve our social media presence, not least by using analytics more. Then Lisa Louise Cook, <a href="http://lisalouisecooke.com/" target="_blank">Genealogy Gems</a>, showed us how to use YouTube in our genealogy marketing, which was very timely as I hope to be incorporating some videos from RootsTech into this blog over the next few days.<br />
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This evening, I attended the official bloggers dinner, hosted by FamilySearch at the Lion House restaurant, which was simply fascinating, finally getting to meet so many genealogists whom I had previously known only "virtually", via Twitter or their blogs:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Dear MYRTLE and Mr MYRT, of <a href="http://blog.dearmyrtle.com/" target="_blank">Dear Myrtle</a></li>
<li>Amy Coffin of <a href="http://wetree.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">We Tree Genealogy Blog</a></li>
<li>Nancy Shively of <a href="http://www.gatheringstories.com/" target="_blank">Gathering Stories</a></li>
<li>James Tanner of <a href="http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Genealogy's Star</a></li>
<li>Randy Seaver of <a href="http://www.geneamusings.com/" target="_blank">Genea-Musings</a></li>
<li>and the <a href="http://ancestryinsider.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Ancestry Insider</a></li>
<li>Finally, a special mention to Jill Ball, of <a href="http://geniaus.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Geniaus</a>, who has been doing a fab job of looking after me as a new official blogger.</li>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amy Coffin, Dear MYRTLE and Mr MYRT</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jill Ball and Nancy Shively</span></td></tr>
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I was made to feel very welcome by the RootsTech and FamilySearch team, who made a special point of introducing me as their first official blogger from England. During dinner there were several presentations by the FamilySearch team, included some previews of tomorrow's announcements. I won't spoil the fun by saying too much here, but suffice it to say that <a href="http://familysearch.org/">FamilySearch.org</a> will be changing yet again (oh yes it will!), and in particular the home page will become much more "user friendly". Here is a preview of what it might look like:<br />
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Watch this space for more details - and don't forget to watch the live streamed RootsTech sessions <a href="http://rootstech.org/#streaming_schedule" target="_blank">here</a> to find out more!<br />
<br />
Rosemary Morgan<br />
London Roots Research</div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-5213410502792887212013-03-17T17:54:00.001+00:002013-03-17T17:54:33.850+00:00On my way to RootsTech 2013<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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As I prepare to leave for Salt Lake City, to attend the 3rd RootsTech conference next week (Thurs 21st - Sat 23rd March), I am a little unsure of what to expect. As with any trip in mid March, a combination of clothing types is recommended and I am also taking both my laptop (for blogging) and my ipad (for travelling and note-taking in sessions) with me, hoping that this won't be "overkill". I am also taking my latest gadget, my <a href="http://www.newtrent.com/" target="_blank">New Trent Powerpak icarrier</a>, to keep both my iphone and ipad charged while I am travelling. I am definitely NOT "travelling light!"<br />
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For anyone unable to attend RootsTech in person, I can recommend catching some of the sessions through the RootsTech free streaming facility. I did this last year, and found it immensely informative. In fact it was watching those sessions, and the accompanying chat on Twitter, that got me interested in attending in person. The announcement of which sessions are to be streamed live can be found <a href="http://rootstech.org/#streaming_schedule" target="_blank">here</a> and you can use the same link to watch the live webcast window when it appears.<br />
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As you probably know I have been invited to attend RootsTech this year as an "official blogger", and in that role, I shall reporting back from as many of the talks as I can possibly get to. However, I am not superhuman and when faced with the choice of 15 talks for any one time slot, I will simply have to go with my instincts as to which one to attend. I will, however be attending all the Keynote sessions which kick off at the start of each day, so if you're watching the live streaming, you can look out for me in the audience! Before Thursday, I shall be taking a look at the detailed Conference schedule on my <a href="http://app.core-apps.com/rootstech2013" target="_blank">RootsTech app</a>, and selecting which sessions to attend.<br />
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I also plan to interview several fellow genealogists over the course of the three days, and if all goes according to plan, I shall be posting the video links here on this blog. At present I have interviews booked with Marie Dougan (of <a href="http://www.ancestralconsultants.com/" target="_blank">Ancestral Consultants</a>), Else Churchill (of the <a href="http://www.sog.org.uk/index.shtml" target="_blank">Society of Genealogists</a>), Alec Tritton (of the <a href="http://www.halsted.org.uk/" target="_blank">Hasted Trust</a>) and Geoff Swinfield and Di Bouglas (of <a href="http://www.gsgs.co.uk/" target="_blank">Geoff Swinfield Genealogical Services</a>).<br />
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But of course, conferences are as much about the networking as about the talks themselves and RootsTech is no exception - there seem to be plenty of networking opportunities for me to get stuck into! As well as the Official Blogger's dinner on the Wednesday evening, which is invitation only, there are plenty of social events open to all RootsTech attendees, from the <a href="http://rootstech.org/events/lunches" target="_blank">Hosted lunches</a> (some of which sold out very early on) to the <a href="http://rootstech.org/events/evenings" target="_blank">Special Evening Events</a>, some of which I shall be attending. I have also signed up for <a href="http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2013/03/update-eogn-dinner-after-the-rootstech-2013-conference.html" target="_blank">Dick Eastman's EOGN Dinner</a> on the Saturday evening, after RootsTech, which already has 60 people signed up!<br />
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Do come back and visit this blog regularly over the next week - I will do my best to update you on what I'm up to and more importantly, what is going on in the RootsTech world.<br />
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Rosemary Morgan<br />
London Roots Research<br />
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<i style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;">Disclosure: As an Official blogger for RootsTech 2013, I have received a complimentary registration for the conference. This does not influence my views or opinions of the conference or the sponsors in any way. </i></div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-19336917283905881572013-03-08T18:37:00.004+00:002013-03-10T12:36:43.044+00:00Emma Frances Ray - the intriguing story of my gg grandmother<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In honour of International Women's Day 2013, I have decided to write about my most intriguing female ancestor, my great great grandmother, Emma Frances Ray. <br />
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Emma Frances was born on 21st July 1808 and baptised at St James Piccadilly, on 18 Sep 1808, the daughter of bookbinder Stuart Ray and his wife Elizabeth. She was the second of 11 children of Stuart and Elizabeth, all of whom were baptised at St James' Piccadilly. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfnXwceu93tcDtDiZAZ1P1jUztZteC1jlZnGP6gTau4ruNqg8_S0G7jh3bhSY0EW25nEiwmutb8rxSaazbBktVJ5rJ6QAuijMg0PxAs1T0ujL1UvhiByxQXOL-xFLAE8lafWRZ4DkJQ4yq/s1600/St+James+Piccadilly+Westminster+Baptisms+1808+Frances+Emma+Ray,+daughter+of+Stuart+&+Elizabeth+Ray+cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfnXwceu93tcDtDiZAZ1P1jUztZteC1jlZnGP6gTau4ruNqg8_S0G7jh3bhSY0EW25nEiwmutb8rxSaazbBktVJ5rJ6QAuijMg0PxAs1T0ujL1UvhiByxQXOL-xFLAE8lafWRZ4DkJQ4yq/s400/St+James+Piccadilly+Westminster+Baptisms+1808+Frances+Emma+Ray,+daughter+of+Stuart+&+Elizabeth+Ray+cropped.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmEVOIAqQUnXjyf3moKqf64Ep4MjVkOguqJkDxkI2GWuYMKtrcmx3W0DOA1zIVj3P9oWq-e2H3ndawSdkGdxL_LFfvhAkqcP4geBIMPfCeIp1jpXEe5MblRYAnbFonplK8Xb1Et1mf332d/s1600/Duke+Street+St+James's+_+Ryder+Street+-+Google+Maps+cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmEVOIAqQUnXjyf3moKqf64Ep4MjVkOguqJkDxkI2GWuYMKtrcmx3W0DOA1zIVj3P9oWq-e2H3ndawSdkGdxL_LFfvhAkqcP4geBIMPfCeIp1jpXEe5MblRYAnbFonplK8Xb1Et1mf332d/s200/Duke+Street+St+James's+_+Ryder+Street+-+Google+Maps+cropped.jpg" width="200" /></a>The Ray family lived for a while in Norris Street, Westminster (just off Haymarket), before settling in the mid 1820's into 43 Duke Street, St James', just off Piccadilly, where they lived for many years, and where Stuart Ray carried out his bookbinding business until he died in 1855.<br />
Today, number 43 is occupied by St James's Auctions, specialising in coins, metals and bullion (see current photo thanks to Google Maps).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj45_03KLGJO44QS6HLujpcJMyjFwHEbwbg5HrP0bxBrzciDV_pgEYE24fypYkjpQ3Dl4W9uTYJlkXz5q_szU-LKS-qdQfgNmgP0XAxRUPKG3nlkDA1dTWX6SFa3zkb2PjD3ODprd4YEq8T/s1600/1837+St+Margaret's+Westminster+Marriage+of+Joseph+Tanner+and+Emma+Frances+Ray+cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj45_03KLGJO44QS6HLujpcJMyjFwHEbwbg5HrP0bxBrzciDV_pgEYE24fypYkjpQ3Dl4W9uTYJlkXz5q_szU-LKS-qdQfgNmgP0XAxRUPKG3nlkDA1dTWX6SFa3zkb2PjD3ODprd4YEq8T/s400/1837+St+Margaret's+Westminster+Marriage+of+Joseph+Tanner+and+Emma+Frances+Ray+cropped.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
On 27 January 1837, Emma Frances Ray married Joseph Tanner, at St Margaret's, Westminster, by licence (see parish record right).<br />
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However, at the time of this marriage, Emma Frances Tanner already had a daughter, Emma Lizzy, who was born on 18th July 1835. She then went on to have a son, Joseph Henry Tanner, who was born on 17th April, 1837. <br />
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Both these children were baptised on 4th February 1842, at Holy Trinity church, Brompton Road, Kensington (see parish record below). She named the children's father as Joseph Tanner, gentleman, but gave their address as 43 Duke Street, Westminster. This was her parents' family home, with whom she was living, with her two children, in the 1841 census, as "independent" but with no Joseph present. So already, I have a few questions: why didn't Emma Frances marry Joseph Tanner before their first child was born? Was Joseph Tanner already married? Why is he not present in the 1841 census? Was he already deceased?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCNx-wgQqL28Ak34dqM_4eXW4EQfhXIhOUX6PPlGlkjjDY3Nt6aYo8AN6jo6yh7McFC_G978AY57XEdqhRARZXuPUIaV9E0UkvVlSXrM_RLaLnzh-Y0l33PZHZmKKoBam9qY-QiEl4Gx-n/s1600/1842+Holy+Trinity+Brompton+Road,+Kensington+Baptism+of+Ema+Lizzy+and+Joseph+Henry+Tanner,+dau+and+son+of+Joseph+and+Emma+Frances+Tanner+cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCNx-wgQqL28Ak34dqM_4eXW4EQfhXIhOUX6PPlGlkjjDY3Nt6aYo8AN6jo6yh7McFC_G978AY57XEdqhRARZXuPUIaV9E0UkvVlSXrM_RLaLnzh-Y0l33PZHZmKKoBam9qY-QiEl4Gx-n/s1600/1842+Holy+Trinity+Brompton+Road,+Kensington+Baptism+of+Ema+Lizzy+and+Joseph+Henry+Tanner,+dau+and+son+of+Joseph+and+Emma+Frances+Tanner+cropped.jpg" /></a><br />
However, the plot thickens! I am still not sure what happened to Joseph Tanner (did he die, disappear or marry someone else?), but in February 1842, when Emma Frances baptised these two children, she must have already been 7 months pregnant with twins by great great grandfather Edward Clifford, as they were born on 6th April 1842. In fact the choice of place for the baptism may have been influenced by him, as in the 1841 census, Edward Clifford was found living in Brompton Vale, Kensington, not far from Holy Trinity church.<br />
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Edward Clifford and Emma Frances Tanner went on to have four boys, the two twins (Edward, my great grandfather, and Frank), followed by Stuart and Robert Henry. I have the birth certificates for the two twins; Emma Frances registered them on 10th May 1842, naming them as Edward Clifford and Frank Clifford, with their father's name blank, and her own name as Emma Frances Tanner. So they are listed in the index as Edward Clifford Tanner and Frank Clifford Tanner.<br />
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The birth registration of their third son, Stuart Clifford, has not been found, but by the time their fourth son was born, on 5th October 1846, his mother's name is shown as Emma Frances Clifford, formerly Ray (no mention of Tanner), and the father as Edward Clifford, clerk in Her Majesties customs. As far as I know, however, Edward Clifford never actually married Emma Frances and no baptism records have been found for any of the four boys, who all went on to use the Clifford name later in life.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEQVmT3TZABXOeNcfkT4-W42WdEzZymolT4ch1Wlprdr9GBUyLpH6ce7vvMnA5Zw-L78Vtyr7h_skAYW98RAJSgbVuPB2NnXlc5jgUN3rgBaYZCoXbUjHFD6zGvB6iga5bgzwKZK7D0Lei/s1600/9+Chapter+Street+Westminster+-+Google+Maps+cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEQVmT3TZABXOeNcfkT4-W42WdEzZymolT4ch1Wlprdr9GBUyLpH6ce7vvMnA5Zw-L78Vtyr7h_skAYW98RAJSgbVuPB2NnXlc5jgUN3rgBaYZCoXbUjHFD6zGvB6iga5bgzwKZK7D0Lei/s400/9+Chapter+Street+Westminster+-+Google+Maps+cropped.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
By the time of Robert Henry's birth, Edward and Emma Frances were living together at 9 Chapter Street, in the parish of St John the Evangelist, Westminster. This was also the address given for Edward on the inquest into his untimely death in 1848, which is described <a href="http://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/fatal-accident-in-london-on-christmas.html" target="_blank">here</a>. It is an area of Westminster which has recently been undergoing considerable "gentrification" (see current photo courtesy of Google maps).<br />
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I imagine that Emma Frances would have been distraught at Edward's death, with 6 children, aged between 2 and 13, to look after when he died.<br />
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By the time of the 1851 census, Emma Frances had married again, so presumably Joseph Tanner was deceased by then. She married Thomas Newland, a tailor and widower, in the parish of St Mary Lambeth. I am not sure why they crossed the river to marry, giving their address as 16 High Street, Lambeth, possibility for reasons of anonymity. In the 1851 census, we find them both living at 9 Chapter Street, Westminster, with two of his children, her four Clifford boys and 5 month old Frederick Thomas Newland. On the birth certificate of Frederick Thomas Newland, she gave her name as Emma Frances Newland, late Tanner, formerly Ray, which would suggest that she never did marry my great grandfather Edward Clifford.<br />
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By 1861, the Newland family had moved to 50 Chapter Street, and in 1871 they had moved again, but not far away, in Upper Garden Street, adjacent to the church of St James the Less, Westminster. By the time of the 1881 census, Emma Frances Newland had again been widowed and was living with her son, Robert Clifford, a drover, his wife and their three children in Romney Street, Westminster, close to Lambeth Bridge.<br />
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Family stories suggest that Emma Frances Newland died in St George's workhouse and I found a probable death of "Fanny" Newland, age 79, "unknown of Lambeth" in the St George's workhouse. I can't help feeling that Emma Frances had a difficult life, and ended it with no family to take care of her. She is definitely my most intriguing female ancestor!<br />
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Rosemary Morgan<br />
London Roots Research</div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-5375829235426403472013-03-07T17:35:00.000+00:002013-03-07T17:36:10.298+00:00RootsTech 2013: The Brits are coming<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two weeks today is the start of America's largest genealogy conference, <a href="http://rootstech.org/" target="_blank">RootsTech 2013</a>, where I am proud to have been selected as an official blogger. As this is my first trip to both RootsTech and Salt Lake City, I am not entirely sure what to expect, but I shall be blogging and tweeting while I am there to keep all my followers up-to-date with my impressions, news and gossip. I also hope to have the chance to interview some speakers and attendees, aiming to focus on international issues. </span><br />
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My interest in RootsTech started when I was able to watch many of the live streamed broadcasts last year, from the comfort of my own home. Over the course of the following few months, I started to feel that, as a professional genealogist, I wanted to to attend this important conference in person. I knew <a href="https://twitter.com/AudreyCollins23" target="_blank">Audrey Collins</a>, of The UK National Archives, had attended before and when she told me she would going again this year (albeit in a private capacity), I decided to book my conference place, my flight and my hotel. This was back in October 2012.</span><br />
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Then at last months <a href="http://www.whodoyouthinkyouarelive.com/" target="_blank">Who Do You Think You Are? live</a>, I discovered that, in addition to Audrey, a number of other UK genealogists would also be attending RootsTech this year, including:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://twitter.com/dougangene" target="_blank">Marie Dougan</a>, of Scottish based genealogists, <a href="http://ancestralconsultants.com/" target="_blank">Ancestral Consultants</a>, and ex-Strathclyde student, will not only be attending, but she is running an international panel session with American <a href="https://twitter.com/acivory" target="_blank">A C Ivory</a> and Australian <a href="https://twitter.com/geniaus" target="_blank">Jill Ball</a>, of <a href="http://geniaus.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Geniaus</a>, entitled <i>"The Genealogists' Gadget Bag".</i></span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://twitter.com/SoGGenealogist" target="_blank">Else Churchill</a>, of the London-based <a href="http://www.sog.org.uk/index.shtml" target="_blank">Society of Genealogists</a> will be attending and also giving a talk at the Family History Library the day before RootsTech, entitled <i>"<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">Treasures of the London Society of Genealogist On Site and Online". </span></i></span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><a href="https://twitter.com/HalstedTrust" target="_blank">Alec Tritton</a>, chairman of the <a href="http://www.halsted.org.uk/" target="_blank">Halstead Trust</a>, will also be in attendance, and rumoured to possibly be speaking.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><a href="https://twitter.com/ettenaeJRR" target="_blank">Jeanette Rosenberg</a> and her partner Mark, of the <a href="http://www.jgsgb.org.uk/" target="_blank">Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain</a>, another ex-Strathclyde student.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><a href="https://twitter.com/GeoffatGSGS" target="_blank">Geoff Swinfield and Di Bouglas</a>, of <a href="http://www.gsgs.co.uk/" target="_blank">Geoff Swinfield Genealogy Services </a>who, like me, are attending RootsTech for the first time.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.brucedurie.co.uk/" target="_blank">Bruce Durie</a>, founder and ex-Director of the </span><span style="background-color: white;">Genealogical, Heraldic and Palaeographic Studies Programme at Strathclyde University, where yours truly studied for the PG Certificate and Diploma.</span></span></li>
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course there may be other UK Genealogists attending RootsTech 2013, whom I am not aware of (or dare I say I might have forgotten about). If you are British and heading off to RootsTech 2013, do please let me know. </span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those who cannot attend in person, there will be live streamed sessions as in previous years. Please keep an eye on the <a href="http://rootstech.org/" target="_blank">RootsTech </a>website for more details.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those who are going, I'll see you there!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rosemary Morgan </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">London Roots Research</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22px;"><i>Disclosure: As an Official blogger for RootsTech 2013, I have received a complimentary registration for the conference. This does not influence my views or opinions of the conference or the sponsors in any way. </i></span></div>
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Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-89958598517769929192013-02-20T16:44:00.002+00:002013-02-20T17:29:31.011+00:00WDYTYA? Live 2013 vs Rootstech 2013 and the Globalisation of Genalogy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaxBr3p-EEBbZKGm0clvf3vSB9l4HC0N7sW1JBWuiGuvRjVeySt2joo2aiUlpq7AD-mD1IG9X_lCnY_tfoQ44TwfCCySegmGgWvcN0f05LI1_64XD15ia2lEoP9B6ttiWa-TGJkgzoTYCJ/s1600/IMG_0012.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaxBr3p-EEBbZKGm0clvf3vSB9l4HC0N7sW1JBWuiGuvRjVeySt2joo2aiUlpq7AD-mD1IG9X_lCnY_tfoQ44TwfCCySegmGgWvcN0f05LI1_64XD15ia2lEoP9B6ttiWa-TGJkgzoTYCJ/s200/IMG_0012.JPG" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhSRE5XobFLRw3QLWh9bOEWDyUyeoqJfFZiEjNUn2zfoTBSR2coTyCCkylQ2ftLA20i5xGgrjKSKWeBmWtlmVMlukA1G5ipJbhj7BC8mGHhMA0kKVD6r6zKbp6IxFA5Llaf27vouwBdyp2/s1600/IMG_0010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhSRE5XobFLRw3QLWh9bOEWDyUyeoqJfFZiEjNUn2zfoTBSR2coTyCCkylQ2ftLA20i5xGgrjKSKWeBmWtlmVMlukA1G5ipJbhj7BC8mGHhMA0kKVD6r6zKbp6IxFA5Llaf27vouwBdyp2/s200/IMG_0010.JPG" width="200" /></a>This week, much of the UK genealogy community is readying itself for the annual, 3-day <a href="http://www.whodoyouthinkyouarelive.com/" target="_blank">Who Do You Think You Are? Live</a>, at London's Olympia, which claims to be the "biggest family history event in the world". This show grew out of the <a href="http://www.sog.org.uk/" target="_blank">Society of Genealogists</a>' annual fair, which, until 2007, was held at the Royal Horticultural Halls in Westminster. Sadly I didn't manage to attend many of the original events as they were held over the early May bank holiday when I was often away. But after the Society teamed up with the very popular TV series, Who Do You Think You Are?, it transformed into a much larger event and was moved to February. Since then I haven't been able to stay away. These are a few picture I took at last year's event. I had meant to blog about it later but got too busy!<br />
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Although WDYTYA? Live is still primarily a UK focussed event, this year's theme is immigration and emigration. So shall we expect more of an international focus? There certainly seem to be a few more talks focussed on overseas ancestors and their records, fitting with the "migration" theme. I also know of at least one specialist genealogy tour group coming over from Australia, specifically for the event: Liz Doyle, of <a href="http://customisedheritagetours.vpweb.com.au/default.html" target="_blank">Customised Heritage Tours </a> is bringing a small group to London and is already taking bookings for 2014! However, I suspect that the focus of WDYTYA? Live will remain primarily British.<br />
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In a few weeks time, there is another large genealogy event, <a href="http://rootstech.org/" target="_blank">Rootstech 2013</a>, being held from March 21st - 23rd in Salt Lake City, Utah, which I shall be attending for the first time. From what I can tell, Rootstech is more of a Conference with an Exhibition hall (Expo) attached; whereas WDTYTA? Live is more of an Exhibition hall with talks alongside. I am really looking forward to both and it will be interesting to compare them. <br />
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If anyone is still thinking of attending <a href="http://rootstech.org/" target="_blank">Rootstech 2013</a>, their early bird pricing ($149 for the full 3 day conference) has been extended to 22nd February. According to the <a href="http://ancestryinsider.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/rootstech-early-bird-sleeps-in.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+AncestryInsider+(The+Ancestry+Insider)" target="_blank">Ancestry Insider</a>, there will then be a last chance price of $179 before the final price of $209 kicks in.<br />
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Although I expect Rootstech to be more American in flavour, I know of quite a few British genealogists going this year, several, like me, for the first time. If you can't make it but would like to follow what is going on at Rootstech 2013, some of the talks will be live-streamed (I watched many of these last year) and I shall also be blogging from inside the conference. As the first <a href="http://rootstech.org/bloggers" target="_blank">Rootstech official blogger</a> based in the UK, I am aiming to report on issues of interest to UK genealogists as well as feed back what the UK genealogists think of Rootstech. Originally started with a definite "technology" focus - there is still a "<a href="http://rootstech.org/for/developers" target="_blank">Developer Day</a>"- this year sees the addition of a new "<a href="http://rootstech.org/gettingstarted" target="_blank">Getting Started</a>" track, aimed particularly at beginners. So it looks as if Rootstech is now aiming straight at the mainstream genealogy community in much the same way as WDYTYA? Live.<br />
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While writing this post, I have also been contemplating the increasing globalisation of the genealogy world. The major online providers (<a href="http://www.ancestry.com/" target="_blank">Ancestry</a>, <a href="https://familysearch.org/" target="_blank">FamilySearch</a> etc) are already working hard to bring us more and more access to global archives. Some genealogists already offer to carry out research internationally while others tend to specialise geographically, simply due to the traditional nature of paper records. But as more and more archives chose to digitise their collections, largely for reasons of preservation, I suspect that the availability of online sources will only accelerate. The skill of the genealogist will be "knowing where to look" and then, putting the whole story together. <br />
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Over the past year I have worked for two separate clients whose ancestors travelled widely, as merchants, in the early to mid 19th century, from as far afield as China, Singapore and Thailand, to Vancouver, Virginia and Jamaica. These ancestors disappeared from (or never appeared in) the UK censuses because they were simply living and working elsewhere. They weren't actually emigrants as such, because sometimes they (and their descendants) returned home at the end of their lives. In both my cases, they sent their children home to be educated. But without the wonderful availability of online sources, especially the wealth of information on sites such as Google books, I doubt it would have been possible to track down these families, the trail would simply have gone cold. I am therefore writing this with an increased optimism that this increase in global genealogy is only a good thing for the future of our family histories.<br />
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I shall be attending both WDYTYA? Live and Rootstech 2013 with these thoughts in mind.<br />
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Rosemary Morgan<br />
London Roots Research</div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-37888032668561882642013-02-12T16:15:00.000+00:002013-02-12T16:15:44.720+00:00Official Blogger at RootsTech 2013<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
As many of my readers will be aware, I shall be attending my first ever <a href="http://rootstech.org/" target="_blank">RootsTech 2013</a> conference in Salt Lake City next month (from 21-23 March). In fact, this will be my first visit to this city, which is rich in genealogical history due to the presence of the world-renowned <a href="https://familysearch.org/locations/saltlakecity-library" target="_blank">Family History Library</a> run by the Church of Latter Day Saints. <br />
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This year is the 3rd annual RootsTech conference and boasts a 40% bigger Expo Hall than previous years. It has also expanded its<br />
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For those of you who have been following me on <a href="https://twitter.com/rosemarymorgan" target="_blank">Twitter</a> or <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Londonrootsresearch" target="_blank">London Roots Research on Facebook</a>, you may also know that I have been invited to be an <a href="http://rootstech.org/bloggers" target="_blank">Official Blogger for RootsTech 2013</a>. I intend to blog about RootsTech 2013 from a UK perspective, both while I am there, and possibly after I am back home. I will be blogging about it <a href="http://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">here</a> on my London Roots Research blog.<br />
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My aim is to summarise the most interesting parts of the event, from the point of view of the UK genealogist, amateur or professional. I also hope to interview some of the UK genealogists attending RootsTech 2013 as I believe that this year there will be a larger UK contingent than in previous years. <br />
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Finally, if anyone reading this would like to attend RootsTech 2013 but hasn't bought a ticket yet, the Early Bird pricing for the 3-day passes expires this Friday, 15th February. You could save $70 on the full 3-day pass if you're quick!<br />
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Rosemary Morgan<br />
London Roots Research</div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-13621728020123770762013-01-03T19:34:00.000+00:002013-01-03T19:34:41.667+00:002012 My Genealogy Year <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This last year has certainly been a bumper genealogy year for me. I have just reviewed my <a href="http://www.londonrootsresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012_01_01_archive.html" target="_blank">Genealogy Goals for 2012</a>, which I wrote on 12th January 2012 and although I knew there were several goals that I hadn't achieved, I was pleased to see that I managed to achieve quite a few of them.<br />
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I am not going into detail about which goals I did and didn't achieve, except to say that I didn't create a website or blog very frequently this year. This was largely because client work has kept me very busy! I shall, however, list below some of the highlights of my genealogy year:<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
January</h3>
At the start of the year, I joined the <a href="http://www.apgen.org/" target="_blank">Association of Professional Genealogists</a> (APG), as I wanted to be part of a professional genealogy association and at the time I didn't feel ready to join as a full member of <a href="http://www.agra.org.uk/" target="_blank">AGRA</a>. Joining APG turned out to be a great idea, as their President, Kenyatta Berry, invited any APG members (and some non members too!), to a fabulous networking drinks and supper event at Pizza Express on the Saturday evening after the February Who Do You Think You Are Live show. This turned out to be a great event for catching up socially with many genealogy friends and colleagues.<br />
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I also started writing up my husband's ancestry, which I have researched thoroughly but have got stuck with a "brick wall" in London! This project still isn't finished because client work took precedence - I hope to be able to proceed with this in 2013.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
February</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Surrey History Centre nominated Archive of the Year 2012</td></tr>
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In February I attended the WDTYTA Live exhibition as usual, but this year, for the first time, I helped out on the Ask An Expert stand, where I found that I was able to help others either starting out, or who had got stuck in a particular area.<br />
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As well as attending several interesting talks and meeting quite a few of my Twitter genealogy friends for the first time (thanks to the rosettes provided by Else Churchill of the <a href="http://www.sog.org.uk/index.shtml" target="_blank">Society of Genealogists</a>), I also managed to catch this photo of some of the staff of my local archives, the <a href="http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/recreation-heritage-and-culture/archives-and-history/surrey-history-centre" target="_blank">Surrey History Centre</a>, as they were nominated <a href="http://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/surrey-history-centre-archive-of-the-year-award-2012/" target="_blank">Archive of the Year</a>, by Nick Barratt and his team at <a href="http://www.your-familyhistory.com/" target="_blank">Your Family History</a> magazine.<br />
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It was also in February that I received the death certificate for John Charles Clifford, who turned out to be my criminal ancestor, James (not John) Charles Clifford, and which started my search among convict, prisoner and <a href="http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/" target="_blank">Old Bailey</a> records - see <a href="http://www.londonrootsresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012_10_01_archive.html" target="_blank">separate post</a> about how the death certificate lead me to find out about this criminal ancestor of mine.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
March </h3>
In March I started research for a new client, into three generations of "well-to-do" lawyers who had trained at Lincoln's Inn in London. I was able to produce a very detailed report for my client, who knew very little about their late grandfather, other than the fact that he had been a judge in Sudan. I managed to find out plenty of genealogical information, going back three generations, and back this up with school and university records, passenger records, Wills and plenty more. Later in the year, I was able to co-ordinate the presentation of my findings with a visit of Lincoln's Inn for my client, organised by the Society of Genealogists (see July below).<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
April</h3>
In April, thanks to a referral from house historian, <a href="http://www.ellenleslie.com/" target="_blank">Ellen Leslie</a>, I started researching a Scottish / English family, for clients who knew very little of the family background of their late father. They had been searching for years and had more or less given up ever tracking down his mother, whose name they knew, and Will they had, but very little else. At Easter, I was delighted to be able to tell them that their grandmother was in the 1911 Scottish census, living in Edinburgh. The final proof came when I compared the signature on her Will, with that on the death certificate of her mother, whose death she had registered. This then opened up a whole new research project, researching merchant seamen records at the National Archives, scouring newspaper articles from China, Canada and elsewhere as well as English, Scottish and Canadian genealogy records.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiybBUxYcCZdlHvq8AOPGWALZrggtcFJQBBjinAf8alHwkSZVOtCbo6mkuyWLBEKUaff7AYmLJxM2jacosX84p2ftHQbTtYWHCnP9XO1UfYACNnNEdJA13hP9BrmQWhJihpudhrw7XVVLlp/s1600/IMG_0085.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiybBUxYcCZdlHvq8AOPGWALZrggtcFJQBBjinAf8alHwkSZVOtCbo6mkuyWLBEKUaff7AYmLJxM2jacosX84p2ftHQbTtYWHCnP9XO1UfYACNnNEdJA13hP9BrmQWhJihpudhrw7XVVLlp/s320/IMG_0085.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Caroline Shenton and guests at the Parliamentary Archives</td></tr>
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I also attended a tour of the Parliamentary Archives, courtesy of <a href="http://www.londonhistorians.org/" target="_blank">London Historians</a>. The tour was guided by the very helpful and enthusiastic Caroline Shenton, archivist at the Parliamentary Archives. The highlight of this tour was visiting the storage of very old parchment records, which are stored in the circular Victoria tower (see photo left). I haven't yet used the <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/parliamentary-archives/" target="_blank">Parliamentary Archives</a> for research purposes, but hope to have an opportunity of doing so soon.<br />
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
May </h3>
In May I attended a "Behind the Scenes Tour" of <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/" target="_blank">The National Archives</a>, again courtesy of London Historians. I had taken this tour before, many years ago, but much had changed. A particular highlight was seeing all the wonderful preservation work that goes on behind the scenes. I really enjoy my trips to the National Archives, and a particular highlight is to watch the growth of the four baby swans throughout the year this year. I don't seem to have a photo of them in May, but a TNA blog post recorded their early life <a href="http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/very-fine-swans-indeed/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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It was also in May that I was invited to join the Education Committee of the <a href="http://www.sog.org.uk/index.shtml" target="_blank">Society of Genealogists</a>, by Nick Barratt and Angela Buckley (outgoing and incoming chair respectively). I have since attended my first meeting, have been confirmed as a fully fledged member of this Committee, and hope to be able to make a significant contribution in 2013.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
June </h3>
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In June I was pretty busy with client research and finishing off their reports. At one point I remember feeling a bit overwhelmed by having five clients on the go at once, two of which involved writing quite lengthy reports. I resolved not to get myself into that situation again!<br />
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I found myself at the <a href="http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/visiting-the-city/archives-and-city-history/london-metropolitan-archives/Pages/default.aspx" target="_blank">London Metropolitan Archives</a> on two occasions this month, meeting up on the first occasion with a genealogy client from Canada and on the second with amateur genealogist, twitter friend, writer and blogger Suzie Grogan. Suzie was researching her own ancestor, Sarah Hardiman, who spent fifty three years locked up in the Banstead mental asylum. I sat next to Suzie as she turned the pages of the admission and discharge ledgers of this Asylum and we gazed in horror at the number of women who had been locked up for reasons such as "disappointed in marriage". Suzie has blogged further about poor Sarah Hardiman's story <a href="http://nowrigglingoutofwriting.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/sarahs-story-family-history-and-poetry-from-the-darkest-places/" target="_blank">here</a>. <br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
July</h3>
In July I met up with Liz Doyle of <a href="http://customisedheritagetours.vpweb.com.au/" target="_blank">Customised Heritage Tours of Australia</a>, who was visiting the UK with a couple of her clients for their family history journeys. I had earlier researched the ancestry of one of these clients, whose family had centred around Chipstead and Banstead in Surrey in the early 1800's. By chance I have friend who lives in Chipstead and who had contributed to book about the history of the village. So we all met up for a pub lunch, discussed Chipstead historical matters, and I presented the client with a copy of the Chipstead book. It was great fun.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLgAYIGXC01xylp4E46G48KmdiSScMfRaqqMAKXnCekDWvQrpzaibT1v-bKWm7v11bdxPyH97KFsv6D0G-e8xDLMj44wlDyeXgeBXrNpK4XBIIdQrt62mrgZyzkkI7fCxLjJ3x61dsxx7k/s1600/IMG_0176.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLgAYIGXC01xylp4E46G48KmdiSScMfRaqqMAKXnCekDWvQrpzaibT1v-bKWm7v11bdxPyH97KFsv6D0G-e8xDLMj44wlDyeXgeBXrNpK4XBIIdQrt62mrgZyzkkI7fCxLjJ3x61dsxx7k/s320/IMG_0176.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Great Hall at Lincoln's Inn </td></tr>
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I also visited Lincoln's Inn, courtesy of the Society of Genealogists, with the client I mentioned earlier. The tour was most interesting and the buildings were amazing. I was particularly struck by <a href="http://www.lincolnsinn.org.uk/index.php/history-of-the-inn/historic-buildings-ca/the-great-hall" target="_blank">The Great Hall</a>, with its enormous painting by G.F. Watts, entitled "Justice" (see photo left). G F Watts (1807 - 1904) spent much of his life in Compton, Surrey and the <a href="http://www.wattsgallery.org.uk/" target="_blank">Watts Gallery</a>, which has recently been refurbished to a high standard, is well worth a visit if you are ever in the area.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV_HcC7XT4XJ8NPwGML29Do2XJeQ_l0ibqvVFJ_l_ytFb49lWunWY6AYvsnAPX64Tg0ln3eqe7W93IbKjsZiB8pfdsp9ViU4zKdTpNjlZmlqxc-oJeCUC3bL4TQvGuciPhANyDhUTghuXr/s1600/IMG_0190.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV_HcC7XT4XJ8NPwGML29Do2XJeQ_l0ibqvVFJ_l_ytFb49lWunWY6AYvsnAPX64Tg0ln3eqe7W93IbKjsZiB8pfdsp9ViU4zKdTpNjlZmlqxc-oJeCUC3bL4TQvGuciPhANyDhUTghuXr/s320/IMG_0190.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby swans at The National Archives, Kew, July 2012</td></tr>
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I visited TNA several times in July for various client research projects. In early July, I managed to combine my visit with an evening talk organised by the Friends, entitled <a href="http://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php/the-silken-paper-trail-openness-and-the-national-collective-memory/" target="_blank">The Silken Trail</a>, where P<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">rofessor the Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, President of the Friends of The National Archives and Professor Lisa Jardine CBE, non-executive Director of the National Archives, </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 21px;">explored various issues surrounding the value of our archival heritage and the importance of sustaining 'the collective memory of the nation’.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent;">At the end of the month, the sun came out (after much rain) and on this visit, for an Australian client, </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">I photographed the baby swans.....they were only two months old and looked much younger (and cuter!) than the photo suggests.</span></div>
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
August</h3>
In August, I was, like many others, distracted by the Olympics........Genealogy took a back seat, and yours truly had a back seat at one of the Beach Volley ball semi-finals at Horse Guards Parade, with the fabulous backdrop of Westminster and the London Eye:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic1VL7emD83CWUBSY9c-BsrzLwD9z_RTvL0cDpDAjQOf7n3ZeBKwk5e4u6_K6BxEVN4lYradCqY72_12Ln7bD2bVguTdlaBXQf5C4Roznwrcj_UMIxTyx4-bz6bCuhPSUUDwgPovikHrzR/s1600/IMG_0197.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic1VL7emD83CWUBSY9c-BsrzLwD9z_RTvL0cDpDAjQOf7n3ZeBKwk5e4u6_K6BxEVN4lYradCqY72_12Ln7bD2bVguTdlaBXQf5C4Roznwrcj_UMIxTyx4-bz6bCuhPSUUDwgPovikHrzR/s320/IMG_0197.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beach Volley Ball Olympic semi final, Horse Guards Parade, August 2012</td></tr>
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
September</h3>
In September I started researching the London and Scottish ancestry for my latest Australian client, my sixth Australian client this year. This has proved to be an ongoing project as I help him progress his family tree back beyond the 1760's. It is especially complicated as this particular ancestor not only has a very common name, but he moved around in London, and his family appear to have moved around a lot in Scotland too, as well as being involved with merchants trading in East India and Siam (now Thailand). <br />
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The highlight of this research to date has been finding two very large bankruptcy files in the National Archives, for both the ancestor in question and a possible cousin, which have given us many clues to follow up in 2013. I have also found the indexes of <a href="http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/help/index.aspx?407" target="_blank">Wills and Testaments on Scotlandspeople</a>, which are free to view, extremely useful in trying to sort out all the people with similar names!<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
October </h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRc7srddqLwHBzS-ak04M1ZL6NXJyh2-FqYxIhojzaFSRyxIqAIqa_ZoPDyUYT8MiaOFatsX7T3-KMOeJMXVPzQXNPa7CZDleJPZsSrq0qYHOvQ-lrzCiUYDL-jSp8J-lt6vVXDyDuin9f/s1600/IMG_1070.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRc7srddqLwHBzS-ak04M1ZL6NXJyh2-FqYxIhojzaFSRyxIqAIqa_ZoPDyUYT8MiaOFatsX7T3-KMOeJMXVPzQXNPa7CZDleJPZsSrq0qYHOvQ-lrzCiUYDL-jSp8J-lt6vVXDyDuin9f/s320/IMG_1070.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Growing swans at The National Archives, Kew, Oct 2012</td></tr>
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In October I attended the <a href="http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/recreation-heritage-and-culture/archives-and-history/surrey-history-centre" target="_blank">Surrey History Centre</a> open day, which featured yet another "behind the scenes" tour. (In writing this I realise that I have attended several archive tours this year). The Surrey History Centre is a valuable repository for anyone with either rural Surrey, or even urban Surrey (i.e. London south of the Thames), roots. It is also my local archive. An exciting development for 2013 will be the digitisation of many their records, by Ancestry.co.uk. You can see the full list <a href="http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/recreation-heritage-and-culture/archives-and-history/surrey-history-centre/surrey-records-online-in-2013" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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I photographed the swans at The National Archives again - this time they were no longer babies, but were maturing well.<br />
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I also booked my trip to <a href="http://rootstech.org/" target="_blank">Rootstech 2013</a> in Salt Lake City in March 2013. I am really looking forward to this trip, especially as there are now a few UK "genies" attending.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: left;">
November</h3>
November saw the annual <a href="http://www.wsfhs.org/pages/openday2012.php" target="_blank">West Surrey FHS Open Day and Family History Fair</a> which takes place every November in the Woking Leisure Centre. I managed to attend a talk on Leather Workers given by Ian Waller at the <a href="http://www.sog.org.uk/index.shtml" target="_blank">Society of Genealogists</a> in the morning and then rush back to Woking in time to catch a talk by Sharon Hintze, director of the <a href="http://www.londonfhc.org/" target="_blank">London Family History Centre</a>, in the afternoon. Sharon Hintze's talks are always informative and amusing and this one was no exception.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCA9xYLR7nwQ_6Kerzio8cO5cc_2LPC82gh2kuSGzcQKvbmWNvjYK4JWfhgs3XDYAb8Ek6hze8p633zPDGWiXz5c5wZSlgJCEfY8qaA04qQgvUr9r21wEBy9Vd1GUj2-A533KFfnqNd694/s1600/IMG_0249.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCA9xYLR7nwQ_6Kerzio8cO5cc_2LPC82gh2kuSGzcQKvbmWNvjYK4JWfhgs3XDYAb8Ek6hze8p633zPDGWiXz5c5wZSlgJCEfY8qaA04qQgvUr9r21wEBy9Vd1GUj2-A533KFfnqNd694/s320/IMG_0249.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mature swans at The National Archives, Kew, Nov 2012</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I also visited the National Archives for some client research (naval records, wills and death duties) and attend an interesting talk given by Kathy Chater on <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tracing-Your-Huguenot-Ancestors-Historians/dp/184884610X" target="_blank">Tracing Your Huguenot Ancestors</a>, which she has written a book about.<br />
<br />
I admired the four baby swans again... this time they were looking quite mature and starting to fly.<br />
<br />
At the end of the month, I attended my final talk of the year at the <a href="http://www.sog.org.uk/index.shtml" target="_blank">Society of Genealogists</a>. This one was given by Paul Blake and was called "Deptford to Battersea: Researching ancestors from the Southbank". I have ancestors of my own who lived in this area, and many of my clients also have ancestors who lived at least part of their lives south of the river, so this talk was most interesting and relevant.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
December</h3>
<div>
December saw me finalise a number of client research reports, prior to the busy pre-Christmas season. There were no visits of particular genealogical interest, but I did agree to volunteer at the Society of Genealogists' Ask An Expert Stand at the <a href="http://www.whodoyouthinkyouarelive.com/" target="_blank">Who Do You Think You Are Live 2013</a> show at Olympia in February 2013. I look forward to meeting up with many of my genealogy friends there too!<br />
<br />
Happy New Year!</div>
<br />
Rosemary Morgan<br />
<a href="http://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">London Roots Research</a></div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-51890757611498892212012-10-29T16:43:00.003+00:002017-05-12T16:05:02.822+01:00Discovering my Convict Ancestor in Old Bailey and Prisoner records<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Background</h4>
All I really knew about my ggg grandfather, Charles Clifford, was that he was a saddler, who lived in the Old Kent Road, and that he had four children (Charles, Edward, James and Charlotte). Much of this I had learnt from distant cousins whom I met through the <a href="http://www.lostcousins.com/" target="_blank">Lost Cousins</a> family history website, after tracing my own family back to our mutual ancestor, his son, Edward Clifford, my gg grandfather, whom I wrote about in an <a href="http://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/fatal-accident-in-london-on-christmas.html" target="_blank">earlier post</a>. Subsequent research led to finding Charles' wife Ann (neé Chalkwright or Chalkred), whom he married in 1791 at Christ Church Newgate Street (also known as Christ Church Greyfriars), Middlesex and the baptisms of their four children between 1793 and 1805 in the <a href="http://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/spotlight-on-parish-of-st-george-martyr.html" target="_blank">Parish of St George the Martyr</a>.<br />
<br />
The same cousins also told me about a family story that "Charles Clifford was a caterer in the King's Bench prison" but I didn't really understand what this meant at the time, or indeed where the information could have come from. I knew that the King's Bench prison was one of the Debtor's prison, but I didn't understand why a saddler would be working as a caterer.<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Finding Charles in the Death Duty Records at TNA </h4>
I was pretty sure that Charles died before 1841 as he was nowhere to be found in the 1841 census, and I found the death of his widow, Ann, on 21 January 1841 in St George's Workhouse, Southwark. I managed to find Charles Clifford's death confirmed in the <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/deathduty.htm" target="_blank">Death Duty records at the UK National Archives</a>. The death duty record was dated August 1841 and gave a date of death of 21 April 1840. I knew this was the correct entry because the death duty record mentioned the next of kin as his daughter Charlotte Rafter (neé Clifford), with the address tying up with where she and her family were living on the 1841 census.<br />
<br />
I then searched the GRO Death indices for a relevant entry for a Charles Clifford who died April-June 1840. There was only one suitable entry for that quarter, a John Charles Clifford, whose death was recorded in Greenwich. Thinking that this didn't sound very plausible, with a different first name and dying in Greenwich (none of my Clifford family had lived in that part of London), I let it go. After all, I now had Charles' date of death from the death duty register - and was enough evidence for me. How short-sighted a decision that turned out to be.<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Death Certificate </h4>
A few years passed, but earlier this year, I decided to splash out on "killing off" some of my own ancestors. After all, this is a practice that I teach all my clients, as I have always believed it to be of great importance in helping to complete the family history story, and avoiding mistaken identities. So I sent off for a few GRO death certificates and decided to include John Charles Clifford for luck.<br />
<br />
When it arrived, at first I thought it was yet another "wasted" certificate, but when I looked into a bit more closely, I realised it that was indeed my ancestor, Charles Clifford. Not only did I now have his actual death confirmed, but the certificate told me that Charles was a convict who died on the "Unité prison hospital ship". I was suddenly faced with a criminal in my past who died on a prison hulk!<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNe21QKSlzPUKV5zqzZu3FFxukEDdbeebba7_sLVwP7YeE81dvROjHRDUP0JEw5bRkDRzJZuzfiY99I5V5E_lxNoWIYrts2a_TCORhB5P_iAlx4p1BSQbeLVR2WvvkEwxAHwVB2qBUbguc/s1600/prison-hulk-defence-and-convict-hospital-ship-unite-docked-at-woolwich_i-G-17-1752-A7O3D00Z.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNe21QKSlzPUKV5zqzZu3FFxukEDdbeebba7_sLVwP7YeE81dvROjHRDUP0JEw5bRkDRzJZuzfiY99I5V5E_lxNoWIYrts2a_TCORhB5P_iAlx4p1BSQbeLVR2WvvkEwxAHwVB2qBUbguc/s1600/prison-hulk-defence-and-convict-hospital-ship-unite-docked-at-woolwich_i-G-17-1752-A7O3D00Z.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">The "Defence" hulk and the "Unit</span><span style="font-size: small; text-align: left;">é"</span><span style="font-size: small;"> convict hospital ship, off Woolwich</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Prison Hulk Records on Ancestry </h4>
Armed with the information that Charles Clifford was also known as John Charles Clifford, I then searched for him in the recently added <a href="http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=1989&enc=1" target="_blank">UK Prison Hulk Registers and Record books, 1802-1849</a>, on Ancestry. Here I found a "James Chas Clifford", on board the hulk ship Ganymede in June 1839, the year before he died. This looked promising as the record showed that he was a 72 year old harness maker with a wife and four children, all of which sounded too close to my own "Charles Clifford", to be a coincidence. The prison hulk record showed that this James Charles Clifford had been convicted at the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court (not a minor crime then!), that his crime was perjury, and that he was convicted on 8 April 1839 and sentenced to one month and 7 years. I also found Charles James Clifford in the <a href="http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=1590&enc=1" target="_blank">England & Wales Criminal Registers, 1791-1892</a>, also on Ancestry, confirming both the crime and the sentence. But what had Charles actually done to be found guilty of Perjury? I knew he had been in the King's Bench, which was the debtors' prison, but this crime was now sounding much more serious!<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Old Bailey Records Online </h4>
I turned to the <a href="http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/" target="_blank">Old Bailey records</a> to find out more. <a href="http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=def1-1423-18390408&div=t18390408-1423#highlight" target="_blank">Here</a> I found the full description of the Court Case relating to James Charles Clifford. It seems that he was accused of deception during a previous court case, referred to as Clifford vs Parker. This involved a dispute between James Charles Clifford and a Lady Fanny Parker regarding money bills paid to him for employment as her cook, while they were both in the Kings Bench prison. It sounded as if James Charles Clifford lied about the amount of money that had been due from Lady Fanny Parker, in order to extract more money from her.<br />
<br />
I was still suffering from disbelief that this was indeed my own ggg grandfather, father of my gg grandfather, Edward Clifford, the Mathematician, when I came across the name John Rafter, who was also implicated in this web of deception (with another previous case, Rafter vs Parker, referred to). John Rafter was Charles Clifford's son-in-law, who had married his daughter, Charlotte, in 1824, and whose descendants I had already traced. Although the plot was thickening, I knew this had to be my ancestor.<br />
<br />
James Charles was found guilty of Perjury by the jury, and was sentenced to one month in Newgate prison and 7 years' transportation. In fact he was never transported, as he died on board the Unité prison hulk ship two years after he was sentenced.<br />
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Criminal Petitions at TNA </h4>
<div>
I thought there was a chance that Charles' transportation sentence might have been commuted down to a prison sentence, by a lenient judge, following a petition from his family. I had already come across cases of death commuted to transportation. So last week, on a visit to the National Archives, I decided to carry out some further research into their records for <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/research-guides/transportation-australia.htm" target="_blank">Criminal Transportees</a>. Here I found James Charles Clifford listed in the Indexes to Criminal Petitions for 1838 - 9 (HO19/8), from which I was able to identify the location of the actual petition (s) (HO17/91). </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3TZ1VX4Nh45SyY-HXmyFjGKDG81NWAKJFdTMcw9VIQYDA7wZy544Y0H9bGnOrzcbYtqAOUkESe77OZt9DYi1hB30TAsfQe_DkL1wLNwEXLzae4qsrEm0mOWS-tLhoxaeULkkq4fRl1q3j/s1600/IMG_0240.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3TZ1VX4Nh45SyY-HXmyFjGKDG81NWAKJFdTMcw9VIQYDA7wZy544Y0H9bGnOrzcbYtqAOUkESe77OZt9DYi1hB30TAsfQe_DkL1wLNwEXLzae4qsrEm0mOWS-tLhoxaeULkkq4fRl1q3j/s320/IMG_0240.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Petition for clemency by James Charles Clifford</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
Here I found just one sheet of paper (unlike some of the other petition files which were large bundles). It was a petition written by the prisoner himself, asking for clemency given his age (72 years) and declining health. He asks for his sentence of "transportation" to be commuted to "imprisonment in the penitentiary or such other manner". It was signed my ancestor, J C Clifford, but the document refers to his name as James Charles Clifford. So I now I also know that this must be his correct name and the death certificate, stating his name as John Charles Clifford, is incorrect, possibly because he had always known as Charles, or J Charles, Clifford.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Somewhat surprisingly there were no petitions from his wife or any of his four children. I do wonder why, but I will probably never know.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
What next?</h4>
<div>
On the death certificate for John Charles Clifford, the cause of death was given as natural causes and the informant is the Coroner for Greenwich, Kent. This suggests that there was possibly an inquest, and if I could find a surviving record of the inquest (not all survive), this may lead to further information about his family. But the combination of the death certificate and the prison records have already given me new information to go on, as I now have a more precise name for Charles Clifford, i.e. James Charles Clifford. I also have a better idea of his date of birth, as in 1838 he claims to be 72 years old. He was therefore likely to have been born c. 1766. Of course, I still have no better idea of where he was born, but I do know from the Clifford Association, of which I am a member, that there were a large number of Clifford's who originated in the area of south east London and Kent. I shall carry on looking for clues.</div>
<div>
</div>
However, the lesson of this story is that it always pays to send off for death certificates, even if you think you know the date of death from other records. There is often more to learn.<br />
<br />
<br />
Rosemary Morgan<br />
London Roots Research</div>
Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-90208724653851161152012-02-07T19:48:00.000+00:002012-02-07T19:48:01.612+00:00Have you found Dickens connections in your family tree?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOhbY9WGTSStS6PkKclnQ19EXSk3MROZSFn5rs0g_bXHqzR7v8zwpbzumCo7DX7w_uHzzqj8CU4dzqkuXf9-5cHt0qGb32YNUtue41UvS7DrUzhK-2OhY-NRSbs1UAwAjzUzR5tKwrIQRo/s1600/StGeorgeTheMartyr1830.jpg-for-web-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOhbY9WGTSStS6PkKclnQ19EXSk3MROZSFn5rs0g_bXHqzR7v8zwpbzumCo7DX7w_uHzzqj8CU4dzqkuXf9-5cHt0qGb32YNUtue41UvS7DrUzhK-2OhY-NRSbs1UAwAjzUzR5tKwrIQRo/s320/StGeorgeTheMartyr1830.jpg-for-web-large.jpg" width="277" /></a></div>As we celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens' birthday today, 7th February 2012, I am reminded of the period of his lifetime, 1812-1870, when my own ancestors were living in London and have been pondering how their own lives must have been during this period. Did any of them brush up against this famous author, I wonder, or even provide inspiration for some of his characters?<br />
<br />
I certainly have ancestors who had links to St George the Martyr, Southwark (shown opposite), often referred to as Little Dorrit's church because Dickens set several scenes from the novel Little Dorrit in the area around the church. (see my earlier post about the church and parish of <a href="http://www.londonrootsresearch.blogspot.com/2011/06/spotlight-on-parish-of-st-george-martyr.html" target="_blank">St George the Martyr</a>)<br />
<br />
My own gg grandfather Edward Clifford, whom I wrote about in an earlier <a href="http://www.londonrootsresearch.blogspot.com/2010/12/fatal-accident-in-london-on-christmas.html" target="_blank">post</a>, was baptised at St George the Martyr in 1799, along with his sister Charlotte. Charlotte also went on to marry her husband John Rafter in 1824 in the same church. These baptism and marriage records can be found either at the <a href="http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/LGNL_Services/Leisure_and_culture/Records_and_archives/" target="_blank">London Metropolitan Archives</a> or online on <a href="http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/group/london_met_archives" target="_blank">Ancestry's specialist LMA parish register collection</a>.<br />
<br />
According to newspaper reports, I also have various ancestors who seem to have been in and out of the debtors' prisons of south and east London, including the Marshalsea, where Charles' father, John and the rest of the family found themselves living for a period in 1824. So did they met there I wonder?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisRn91mHDyTcMP8OA-NdfQhjZCZDePCVlZhp9S6nywZirT8r59XgxFHcX6BB2nxpcmbIsANZLmlSR1k21USMLcSWfZRe_feMyuW8dzJ6DIbkIIx3RE3E7X-MeYjb3z3o3qcpnvbmr0UKbx/s1600/800px-Doctors_Commons_Plaque.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisRn91mHDyTcMP8OA-NdfQhjZCZDePCVlZhp9S6nywZirT8r59XgxFHcX6BB2nxpcmbIsANZLmlSR1k21USMLcSWfZRe_feMyuW8dzJ6DIbkIIx3RE3E7X-MeYjb3z3o3qcpnvbmr0UKbx/s320/800px-Doctors_Commons_Plaque.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In 1828 / 29, Dickens worked as a reporter for Doctors' Commons, in Knightrider Street. Doctors Commons, also called the College of Civilians, was a group of lawyers practising civil law in London. It was also the home of the ecclesiastical and admiralty courts which had jurisdiction over marriage licences, divorces and registration of wills, until it was replaced by the Court of Probate Act in 1857. The building was then demolished in 1867, and these days its original location is marked by a blue plaque, which can be found on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_building" target="_blank">Faraday Building</a>, on the north side of Queen Victoria Street.<br />
<br />
My own ancestors, Charlotte and John Rafter, registered the death of her late father, Charles Clifford, for death duty purposes, in 1841, giving her address as 21 1/2 Lambeth Hill, Doctors Commons, London. So this is another link between Dickens and my Clifford family.<br />
<br />
I am still researching my own and my husband's London ancestors, looking for links to Charles Dickens, either in his writing or to places where he lived. I'm pretty sure I have ancestors who lived not far from Dickens, and have been checking him out on the censuses as follows:<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiccQiuRdkDmR5mj_JIsaHybIrRIehrAlPAzBSiXoHkWm9fNffHmzPrr3ep8JcASIiwkklsluyFSVjRHLOJtd9UYv9Kh46mxuhqlOO51ERM8aWyAYXtys9FbWtgbmmWXjyrdloJ4xaCKRhU/s1600/220px-Charles_Dickens_1850.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiccQiuRdkDmR5mj_JIsaHybIrRIehrAlPAzBSiXoHkWm9fNffHmzPrr3ep8JcASIiwkklsluyFSVjRHLOJtd9UYv9Kh46mxuhqlOO51ERM8aWyAYXtys9FbWtgbmmWXjyrdloJ4xaCKRhU/s200/220px-Charles_Dickens_1850.jpg" width="171" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 15px; text-align: left;">Photograph of the author, c. 1850</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>In 1841 Charles Dickens is found living at Devonshire Terrace, St Marylebone, Middlesex with his wife Catherine and their four eldest children: Charles, Mary, Catherine and Walter;</li>
<li>In 1851, Charles is found living at 34, Keppel Street, Saint George Bloomsbury, Finsbury, Middlesex, with his widowed mother and siblings Alfred and Augustus;</li>
<li>In 1861 Charles is found living at 3 Hanover Terrace, St Marylebone, Middlesex, with three of his children and his wife's sister, Georgina Hogarth who was his housekeeper.</li>
</ul><div><br />
</div><div>I am now off to see how close my Londoners lived to these addresses - I must admit they all sound very familiar! </div><div><br />
</div><div>Have you found any connections to Charles Dickens in your family tree?</div><div><br />
</div><br />
Rosemary Morgan<br />
London Roots Research<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div></div>Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8917131639262535844.post-80860169911650980332012-01-12T23:15:00.001+00:002012-02-09T23:11:08.200+00:00Review of 2011 and my Genealogy Goals for 2012<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've been a bit slow sorting out my New Year goals this year. I don't really have an excuse, except that I've been busy catching up on various genealogy bits and pieces, which I'd put to one side during November and December, while I worked on a non-genealogy work project (good for the bank balance!).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also checked back to my <a href="http://www.londonrootsresearch.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-top-10-new-year-genealogy.html" target="_blank"><b>Top 10 Genealogy Resolutions for 2011</b></a>, and although not all of them have been achieved, I was pleased to see how many of them I did indeed achieve. The biggest one, for me, was definitely obtaining my <a href="http://www.strath.ac.uk/genealogy/" target="_blank"><b>PG Diploma in Genealogical Studies at the University of Strathclyde</b></a>. Although it was a huge amount of work, I found it a most satisfying experience. The PG Dip took up much of my energy in 2011 until August, but it is now serving me well in my genealogy client work.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Interestingly, I note that this time last year, I did not even mention "developing client work" as one of my resolutions, and I indeed I have not directly sought out these clients. But "word of mouth" is a wonderful thing, and since completing my PG Dip, I've been lucky enough to have a continual source of client work on the go. This has lead me to rethink my goals for 2012, as I am really enjoying the research I am doing for others, either building their family trees from scratch, or helping them to break down their brick walls, especially in and around London.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So.......for 2012, my Genealogy goals are as follows:</span><br />
<ol><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Join at least one professional genealogy association</b> such as <a href="http://www.apgen.org/" target="_blank"><b>APG</b></a> and / or <a href="http://www.agra.org.uk/" target="_blank"><b>AGRA</b> </a>(since I started writing this list I've actually now joined APG so I've already achieved this one).</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Blog more regularly</b>. I have a long list of possible topics to write about, but don't seem to get around to completing them. I am very aware that my latest blog post dates back to last September, which I am rather ashamed about. My only excuse is my late summer holiday combined with taking on that non-genealogy work.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Attend all three days at <a href="http://www.whodoyouthinkyouarelive.com/" target="_blank">WDYTYA Live</a></b> - actually this is something that is already well on the way to being organised. I am helping out on the SoG Ask an Expert Stand as well as the main SoG stand. I have also offered to help my local family history society, the West Surrey Family History stand, so I may spend some time there as well. This brings me to my next goal, which is to:</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Get more involved with my local family history society (<a href="http://www.wsfhs.org/" target="_blank">WSFHS</a>) and my local archives (<a href="http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/recreation-heritage-and-culture/archives-and-history/surrey-history-centre" target="_blank">Surrey History Centre</a>)</b>. Sometimes genealogy work can be a lonely business and getting out of the house and sharing experiences with others, is good for the soul.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Make more regular visits to the London archives</b>. The archives which I am aiming to visit more regularly include <b><a href="http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/LGNL_Services/Leisure_and_culture/Records_and_archives/" target="_blank">London Metropolitan Archives</a>, <a href="http://www.sog.org.uk/index.shtml" target="_blank">Society of Genealogists</a>, <a href="http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/Services/LeisureCulture/LocalHistory/Archives.htm" target="_blank">Lambeth Archives</a>, <a href="http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/200330/family_history_research/2072/family_history_library" target="_blank">Southwark Archives</a>, <a href="http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/libraries/archives/family-history/" target="_blank">Westminster Archives</a></b>, and of course <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/" target="_blank"><b>The National Archives</b></a> in Kew.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Write up my own and my husband's family histories</b> - obviously the feasibility of achieving this will depend upon having some spare time to do this! But as I write up my own family history I am sure I will learn more aspects that will help me with future client work.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Explore the possibility of writing a family history related book</b>. I already have an idea for a book, about a particularly interesting character in my family, but I need to progress this by writing a plan, gaining approval from the rest of the family and exploring publication options.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Develop a London Roots Research website</b>. This was one of the goals from 2011 that I didn't achieve last year, but that I would very much like tackle this year.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Continue to develop my client work in and around London</b>, building family trees, finding new ways of presenting them, and helping others to break down their brick walls in and around London. I find I learn so much from each new client that I take on, and gain tremendous satisfaction from helping them.</span></li>
</ol><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well that should keep me busy! I doubt I will achieve all of them but I do find it useful to set them out as a start to the year ahead.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wish all of my readers a very happy and healthy New Year and hope you enjoy sharing my progress along the way in 2012. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rosemary Morgan</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">London Roots Research</span></div></div>Rosemary Morganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14415524272755182489noreply@blogger.com8