Census Sensibility

This is a continuation of my post Who Do We Think We Are? I fully expect some feathers to be ruffled by the following but also truly believe that without some harsh comments and discussions, true progress (in any field) cannot be made. I also want to preempt this all by underlining that the work of people and organisations in the previous WDYTYA? Live shows was really wonderful and everyone should be proud. Shows like WDYTYA? Live and RootsTech need to be "shows" (to an extent). The life-blood of such events is not those of us who are already in the industry. While it is a great opportunity for us to network and meet up with friends and colleagues, in order for it to be a success, there needs to be some "layman" bums on seats and so the appeal needs to be broad. What this means is that it needs to draw a crowd and how do you do that? By having fun and appealing things at the event.  WDYTYA? Live  attempted this by having "stars" from the show ap

It's now been a month since Who Do You Think You are? Live was held at the NEC in Birmingham. I attended all three days and got to see and experience the event from a number of perspectives - as an attendee, as a student/professional genealogist and as a speaker. My biggest take aways from the show this year were that attendance was clearly down, some big names were missing (The National Archives, for example) and local genealogical societies were a bit thin (where was Sussex and Kent, and also Scotland was not very well represented). As Steve mentioned on his blog  and Jane mentioned on hers , there was a high number of non-genealogical stands at the show and I felt quite sorry for the women trying to give away free wine samples at 10am. Also, while the free massage was nice, the number of orthopedic and life insurance stands was a bit of a concern. As someone who's recently turned 40 I don't like being reminded of such things. As a genealogy nerd I loved wander

Well, WDYTYA? Live 2017 is now over and most of us are back home, resting (well, as there's no rest for the wicked, I know this is not the case for most of you). This year I had to pleasure of presenting a talk about how to get kids into genealogy. This was for the Society of Genealogists and I'd like to thank Else Churchill for the opportunity. I really enjoyed it, and my audience smiled and laughed in all the right places. For those of you who missed it, here are my slides ... they're rather, erm, loud. Just like me. If you have any questions, please get in touch!

I have been rather neglectful of my blog, my last entry was around the time I moved from France to England, so I'm going to firmly blame the move for the lack of posts for the past 7 months. There, blame shifted nicely. This is a blog, so it needs a nice reflective writer-type-picture and thoughtful caption. I have continued my studies with the University of Strathclyde, and am now onto the Postgraduate Diploma year. Unlike the Certificate year, the Diploma focuses on a mix of learning modules and smaller assignments with larger etudes and an over-arching research project at the end. The idea is to move as seamlessly as possible from "classroom" learning to academic research - something which is essential for those of us planning on progressing to the MSc year, which is exclusively based on a dissertation. One thing which I have noted this year, as my circumstances have changed and I am no longer working full time, is this - I HAVE NO IDEA HOW PEOPLE WHO WORK

Yesterday I submitted my final assignment for the Postgraduate Certificate in Genealogy, Palaeography and Heraldry with the University of Strathclyde. It's been an interesting 9 months, not without struggle, but I am pleased to be done and (although I am waiting on a final mark) I am very proud of what I have achieved. I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at the end of 2015 and since July of last year have been dealing with quite severe symptoms of this disease. When I began the PG Cert I did consider whether or not it was a wise decision, given what I was going through and what was likely to come but I decided to give it a go. The support I received from the staff at the University was nothing short of amazing. They were completely understanding, flexible and gave me great advice all along the way. I had a couple of bouts of being in hospital (including one where I got a lumbar puncture which resulted in me not being able to sit or stand for more than 10 minutes at a time f

Have Swedish family history and not sure how to get started? I share how to get started in this guest blog post for MyCanvas ! Learn common Swedish genealogy words, and tricks to untangling Swedish family names.

Some months ago I posted about the mystery in my family of my grandfather who discovered he was adopted when he was in his 60s. As a genealogist, I had been researching his birth family to no avail for a number of years. I finally had a breakthrough last year when I found evidence of his (alleged) birth father's subsequent marriage, children and so on. After being in touch with my (alleged) great-grandfather's descendant, Paul, for some time, he finally did an Ancestry DNA test and we've been waiting for the results to come through. It's been quite a nervous wait - what if I was wrong? I was in a business meeting the other day and got onto the topic of DNA testing and genealogy with the client. I decided to show them my research and also my DNA test results (I am always  happy to talk about genealogy, especially if there's a chance I can give someone else the bug). Logging into Ancestry DNA I saw there was a new match and that this match was listed as being a p