Trees that go Out on a Limb

Over my years as a Family History researcher, I have been constantly amazed by some of the errors and misinformation I've found in online family trees.  So many people make assumptions, ignore the basics of biology and put their (clearly incorrect) family trees online for others to copy - and the copiers accept their incorrect data without questioning errors which should be clear at a glance.

So without mentioning names or pointing fingers, here are some of the more eye-popping errors I have come across that really should leap out at researchers.

• Children cannot be born before their parents.
• Children also cannot be born to a mother who is 8 years old.  Or 94 years old. 
• Children are highly unlikely to be born to a father who is 89 years old (while this MAY be biologically possible, it is unlikely and deserves a bit of fact checking).
• A child cannot be christened 7 months before they are born.
• Full siblings cannot be born 4 months apart.  While medical technology may be making this possible today, it really wasn't possible in the 1840s.
• A woman cannot marry 3 years after she has died.
• A man cannot enlist in the army 5 years after he has died.
• No one can die in the decade before they are born.
• A man cannot be buried 17 days before he dies.
• In 1883 a child could not be born in England and christened in Australia 5 days later. 
• Yes, people do move around.  But they will not usually have three children born on three different continents in the space of three years.

I can hear people out there laughing out there at some of these errors, but remember I've seen each of them included in someone's online family tree.  And believe me, getting these errors corrected can be next to impossible.

So the next time you are looking at an online tree that intersects with your family, remember to treat it with a degree of caution.  Not everyone is a meticulous researcher, and sometimes a simple typing error will lead to confusion.  Treat online family trees as hints at best, and always look for corroborating evidence, the sources a person has cited, anything to confirm names, dates, places and details.  Don't follow others out onto a shaky limb.

Ancestry News

Major family history website Ancestry has announced that it is acquiring UK military records website Forces War Records.

Ancestry, which holds over 24 billion family history records from 80 countries, has purchased Clever Digit Media, which owns and operates Forces War Records as well as family history research service British Genealogy.

Since it was founded in 2010, Forces War Records has transcribed 26 million Commonwealth military service records from the First and Second World Wars and other conflicts, two million of which are exclusive to the site.

Ancestry has not yet announced what the acquisition will mean for Forces War Records’ collections, but an Ancestry spokesperson said they expected it would be “business as usual” for the site.

In further Ancestry news, it has been announced that home access to Ancestry Library Edition will continue until 30 September 2021.  Ancestry made the decision back in April 2020 to allow this database, normally only accessed in the library buildings using our public PCs or wi-fi, to be accessed from home while the CoronaVirus pandemic impacted library access for many.  So Campaspe Library members can continue to access this fantastic genealogical resource from home.

To access Ancestry Library Edition, you need to go to the Campaspe Regional Library web page at https://www.campaspe.vic.gov.au/library  On the left hand column, click on 'Genealogy' and then on 'Databases'.  The link for Ancestry Library Edition from home is at the top right.  You will be prompted to log in using your library card number and PIN, then follow the prompts to Ancestry's page and continue researching your family history from the comfort of home.

A Rose by Another Name?

Many families have their own traditional names which are passed down generation by generation and occur frequently in the family tree.  In many countries there are naming traditions that are frequently followed, some of which might seem quite strange to us today.  There are names which go in and out of fashion, especially in response to Monarchs and other prominent people of the time.

In my own family, one naming tradition which took me aback when I first encountered it was the habit of reusing a name given to a dead child.   In my Green family a few generations back I have three Isaacs in one generation - the first two died young and the name was reused for the next-born son each time.  Eventually persistence paid off and the third Isaac Green in that family lived well into his 90's.  His father was named Isaac as well, and the name crops up in several other generations.  In my mother's Pummeroy family William and Alfred are popular, and recur several time across the generations.  This can create an additional challenge in making sure any information I find is linked to the correct person - I have a newspaper article from Trove that mentions William Pummeroy - and I have four of them alive at the time that the article could be referring to!

In my Irish family line, the tradition of naming the first son for the paternal grandfather (not a habit unique to Ireland by any means) also causes me headaches.  My ancestor James Mulholland had 5 sons, 4 of them living to adulthood.  These 4 adult sons - James, Patrick, David and Henry, ALL went and named their first son James!  As they all lived in fairly close proximity, this means I have 4 men named James Mulholland living within a few miles of each other, born within 5 years of each other - and two of them married women named Mary.

Abbreviations and nicknames also complicate my research - my father's second brother Ernest was always known as Squib, sometimes even on official documents.  In my mother's family, I have great- aunts Thelma, known as Lalla ; Elizabeth, known as Betty and Pricilla, known as Illa.  Another Elizabeth, in my father's family, was always known as Betsy, even in census records, on her children's baptism records and on her own death record.

All these various name usages can throw up roadblocks and cause mistakes in my research.  Recurring names make it difficult to ensure I am researching the correct person any time I locate new information, and nicknames, spelling changes and wholesale name changes can mean I completely miss relevant records because I don't know the name variation used at the time.

The 1921 Census of England and Wales

Under the 1920 Census Act, the 1921 census for England and Wales cannot be published online until over a hundred years have passed. Family history website Findmypast has been awarded the exclusive contract to publish the records, and despite delays to the project caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the records are due to be released in early 2022. The 1921 census for Scotland is due to be published on ScotlandsPeople in the latter half of 2021.

The first national census was in 1801 when the population of England and Wales was something like eight million people. At the time it was done to see whether the nation had enough fighting men for the Napoleonic Wars and if the people could feed themselves, so the census asked very broad questions about agriculture and trade but not much more. It wasn't until 1841 that the census asked names like a modern census does.

By 1921 there were 38 million people in England and Wales. Because it was the first census after the First World War, the impact of that conflict influenced the questions asked, with children asked whether their mother or their father or both were dead. It was also the first time people were asked whether a marriage had been dissolved by divorce, and they were asked about the workplace of their employer. When the census is released, people will be able to see who their relatives worked with.
The 1921 Census was also the first time the RAF had been included, so it includes RAF staff in overseas stations. While the 1911 census asked about the length of the present marriage, the total number of children born and the number still living, in 1921 it only asked about how many children or stepchildren the family had, and how many were still alive.

The impact of the First World War can also be seen in the ages of the population. About 700,000 men died during the War, completely changing the adult male population. Another impact of the was is in children, with a big reduction in the number of 2, 3 and 4-year-olds compared with the number of 5, 6, 7 and 8-year-olds. The birth rate had dropped dramatically during the war, because men were away. But then what you see in the 1921 census also is that there were a large number of 0 and 1-year-olds, because a whole bunch of babies had been born as men returned from the war.

It is also worth noting that the 1921 census itself was delayed. It was due to take place in late April, but was put back to June because of a coal miners’ strike.

Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day, a day when we celebrate and thank our mothers.  For many mothers out there, this special day has its own special traditions, from breakfast in bed to flowers to visits or phone calls from adult children.  Every family has its own way to celebrate the day.

Celebrations of mothers and motherhood can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who held festivals in honor of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele, but the clearest modern precedent for Mother's Day is the early Christian festival known as “Mothering Sunday".  The modern Mother's Day began in the United States, at the initiative of Anna Jarvis in the early 20th century.

For people like me, whose mothers have passed away, Mother's Day is a special time to remember our mothers and reflect on their lives and the influence they have had upon the people we are.

My mother, Joy Patricia Green (nee Pummeroy) was born 24 January 1942 in East Brighton, Victoria and died 8 May 2015 in Echuca, Victoria. 

Joy Pummeroy, age 11

A city girl, my mother 'went bush' in her twenties, taking up posts as a governess at outback properties in southern New South Wales, near the town of Wentworth.  This was where she met my father, Peter Green and where my sister and I were born.

My mother's mother, Gladys Daisy Pummeroy (nee Clark) is the only grandparent I can remember, and was another major influence on my life.  She was born 30 June 1906 in Brighton, Victoria where she lived her entire life and died 5 August 1995.

Gladys and Joy Pummeroy, January 1967

While I will not have the opportunity to celebrate Mother's Day with these two wonderful women, I will certainly take some time to reflect upon their lives and the stories they have given me, safely recorded in my family history.

WDYTYA Magazine

The latest issue of Who Do You Think You Are magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines. 

Inside this month’s issue

• Family trees online
  Free family tree builders, tested
• Motor city
  Stories from Coventry’s car industry
• Wedding traditions
  From wedding rings to white gowns, discover the history of wedding rites
• Agricultural labourers
  Think ‘ag lab’ ancestors are impossible to trace? Think again!
• Reader stories
  ‘My great great grandfather sold spuds to Queen Victoria!’
• Plus…
  The best websites for tracing policemen, searching Royal Marines records, how to find old parish boundaries and much more…

Genealogy and Copyright

This morning I read an interesting blog post by Judy Russell, the Legal Genealogist - to read Judy's full post please use the following link : Judy G. Russell, “About that swiped photograph…,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 30 April 2021)..  Judy's post prompted me to think about photographs and images I use in my own genealogy, and whether I have properly documented and cited them.

For the most part I am all good (phew..) and have recorded where/when I found things, not reused photographs and images in ways I shouldn't, and have kept well within the guidelines of the websites I use.  Should I ever decide to PUBLISH my research, however, I will need to do a lot of backtracking and permission gathering.

Many of the websites I have used for my genealogical research - and the physical repositories, archives, libraries, cemeteries and so on - allow for the use of the materials they hold for personal use only.  So while I can download images and data for my own family history research, I cannot use them in a published book, even if it is only a very limited publication, without first obtaining their specific permission.  I also cannot upload them to another website - for example taking an image from Ancestry.com and uploading it to my tree in  FamilySearch.

Judy places emphasis on the need to check the terms of use for the websites we use, and make note of how the images and information they contain can legally be used.  While the temptation to use shortcuts can be enormous, if those shortcuts mean we are violating someone's rights or the rules of a website, we open ourselves up to legal action.

Copyright and Terms of Use can be confusing and difficult to navigate, but the bottom line will always be that it is doesn't belong to us and we do not have proper permission, we shouldn't reproduce, reuse, or upload photographs and images without checking first.  And if in doubt, just don't.