Hello and welcome to this week's podcast.

My name's Helen Tovey, I'm editor of Fabry Tree and with me is podcast co -host Nathan Ward.

Hello there.

Ta -da!

How are you, Nathan?

I'm good, thank you.

Full of aches and pains today.

I went running yesterday, went far too fast, so minimum movement for me today is my mission.

Were you trying to show off?

I was, yeah.

I've not been running fast for a long time, and I went with my run group, and I went to one of the top groups which I hadn't run with for a while, so I had something to prove.

Oh, dear.

I regret it.

I don't regret it.

I feel quite good about it.

Even though I'm aching, it's a good kind of ache, isn't it?

Yes.

Well, I say that.

I haven't done any exercise for ages.

Well, I have done a little bit of exercise.

In our village, we have this amazing thing which happens every autumn, and it's called a sheep fair, and it's happened for 787 years.

Wow.

I think it's the oldest sheep fair in the whole country.

Then it has a really cute fair, Dormans Fair, which always feels so traditional to me.

I love all the graphics.

It's got proper old fairground graphics.

None of the rides are too scary.

It's lovely.

And what else?

All the normal Morris dancing, which isn't normal.

It's fantastic.

I love that.

I actually had a go at Morris dancing.

Oh, it was so fun.

Lovely.

Yeah.

What else?

And just all the normal things.

Nice stands and lovely food and chatting.

That's quite impressive it's been going for that long as well.

I know.

Proper history, that.

Yeah, I only have to live for another 13 years and then I can go to the 800th one.

Wow.

I know.

It's really cool, isn't it?

It's really amazing to keep something going for that long.

It really is.

Yeah.

So, we have had a lovely...

message from um from a podcast listener so i'm just going to quickly read it out and um This is Virginia, and she writes, each week she enjoys our hugely enjoyable podcast.

Well, we're really pleased you enjoy it.

We enjoy doing it, don't we, Nathan?

But it's always encouraging when someone else does as well.

And she enjoys hearing about your experiences, Nathan, and particularly she had been listening to a recent episode where you've been talking about your gardening genes and how much you like gardening.

And she says that her own garden is full of memories, plants given to her by so many people over the years.

And her late dad gave her rooted cuttings of the cream -flowered rose, which he grew in the garden in their family home, and a hydrangea, which is equally flourishing.

And his irises at home were in her borders and his michaelmas daisies.

So that's incredible.

It's another thing that's just going on.

What a great way to memorialise someone.

When you go in your garden and you have those cuttings, which are from your dad, that's a really amazing thing.

And her granddad was also a keen gardener.

So she's definitely got those gardening genes that you've got, hasn't she?

Yeah.

So that's really lovely to hear of that.

And as ever with family history, like, I mean, we have to do lots and lots of hard work and there's lots and lots of paper trail discoveries, but there's all these other aspects as well.

And they're great for just keeping it in our hearts and minds every day when we're just kind of going about our lives and things.

Yeah.

It's lovely, isn't it?

It creates that connection.

Yeah.

I'm doing this because of my family or because of a memory that I have of my childhood.

By chance, Murray, who's also a podcast listener, he said, you've got to mention Phibis, but we have actually mentioned Phibis.

And this is touching on your David Hearn and your India branch.

And so obviously the families in British India society, he's absolutely right.

And we do agree that we had to have a look at that.

Neither of us have been particularly successful finding results for your family on the site, but that's no reflection on the site.

That's because we're just getting our act together on the British India Research Fund.

So apologies to everyone if this is taking a bit of a long time, but hopefully on the blip side, then what we do on the podcast, it isn't swish.

swept up family history with a team of you know 10 experts behind the scenes solidly working on it me and Nathan hopefully it's something that you can all relate to so we work full -time we have family commitments and we fit our family history in all those little nuggets and corners of the day where we can do little moments of family history so inevitably things take time and inevitably we don't have the expertise that we wish in all areas of our family history so Bear with us.

I know that's a terrible phrase, but bear with us.

We will get there to the bottom of the Indian mystery.

Also, can I add to that, we get distracted quite easily as well.

Hey!

Going off on tangents all the time.

I think it's all valuable.

I think it's all completely and utterly valuable.

I'm not going to make any apologies for those distractions.

Oh, I love them.

I love my little rabbit holes, but it's just like, well, you'll hear more shortly about my rabbit holes anyway.

So how has your family history gone over the last week then?

Well, after our last meeting, I went straight to the internet and started researching the 36th Foot, which is a Herefordshire regiment.

And there's quite a bit on the old internet about it.

There's like an actual website.

I don't know whether it was a museum now.

Oh dear.

I don't know if it was a museum or whether it was actually their own website, but it told you like the origins of the whole.

army and where they did where they were and what they were from and who which other bits of army were incorporated into this regiment um that was interesting and they had some photographs and some paintings of different uniforms i couldn't quite work out which would have been my david's uniform yeah but it was cool to see they're all similar all of the symbols very red very regal prim and proper and quite cool looking and then i also found out like looking at the time period that my david was kicking about Can you remind us when that was then?

Very roughly.

Very roughly.

It was 18...

Very, very roughly.

It was somewhere like 1850 to 1870, let's say.

It's in that ballpark.

Anyway, I found out about the army and that regiment and they didn't actually have any, like, actual combat during that time.

It was all...

I think you mentioned this before, sort of, like, peacekeeping force or looking after the territory that they'd obviously taken over.

And the exciting thing for me was everything matched up with what we were saying previously.

So we had the record of his...

What's the phrase I'm looking for?

What is the phrase you're looking for?

Describe it.

The document where he's left the army.

Oh, his discharge paper.

His discharge, that was the word.

Yeah, his discharge thing.

It gives you a brief history of what he'd done.

And the internet agrees with where this regiment was.

It says he went out to...

They went to Barbados.

Yeah.

um and then went on to Trinidad and Tobago and then they came back briefly and went to Ireland which ties in with where he met his wife and got married and then they went out to India so as I'm reading this I'm like tick tick tick all the facts are stacking up nice that everything was just going really well yeah and it's really cool apparently they had a large outbreak in Jamaica of yellow fever where lots of them died but luckily my chap didn't so No.

And did you have to have a little yellow fever rabbit hole to find out what on earth that was?

Yeah, I was kind of like, what?

But yes, it didn't.

When you read yellow fever, oh my God, that sounds awful.

And then when I read up about it, it didn't sound that bad.

But obviously back then they didn't have the medicines that we did.

So like we do, should I say.

It's a virus of a short duration.

Symptoms include fever, chills, loss of appetite, nausea, muscle pain and back and headaches.

What I'm most impressed about is as the Queen of Rabbit Holes, I'm like, yes, he had to look up yellow fever.

So I love the fact that you couldn't resist the temptation to find out about yellow fever.

I've looked at lots of things.

I even went and found an old map of Ireland and found out where Kilkenny was.

Absolutely nowhere near where I thought it might be.

It's quite near the bottom.

And I even did what you said, where you go and find Barrack Street as well.

Oh, did you find it?

Yeah, it's not too far away from the castle, so that kind of makes sense as well, doesn't it?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, I've been researching.

I am so impressed.

So can you remember where you found those maps then, that map of Ireland?

Was that from general Googling or where did you go?

Just the internet, yes.

Nowhere in particular.

And then once I'd located it, I actually found an old map which...

I can't remember what year the map was allegedly from.

I think it might have been 1860.

So it was roughly about the right time.

Yeah.

But then to find out where the barracks street was, I just used Google Maps and zoomed in.

And it's obviously got the castle on there and a few locations.

So that was quite cool to see.

It was very cool.

Very, very cool.

Can I share a really cool little map tip that I learned?

just this in the last few days.

People might know it, but I never knew it before.

So we've been doing this wonderful course with Dr.

Sophie Kay, which is finished now.

And in there, she was teaching us about research logs, yay, and research plans and research questions.

But at one point, because she's just an avid map person, she couldn't resist telling us a little bit about maps.

And she was telling us about the David Rumsey collection.

So most of us will have heard of the David Rumsey collection.

And it's really easy to find.

You just go to David.

rumsey r -u -m -s -e -y dot com and if you're just using it for your family history i'm pretty sure most of the maps are free for you to use in your own family history research we can't use from the magazine because the licensing so it's a bit annoying but um you can use it in your family history this is the key bit so you were used to the fact that you want to go and search for um a map so if you're going to search for for a big name so a map of a county for instance or a map of a big you know larger area but this has a really funky feature top right hand corner of the davidrumsey .com website it says by text on maps and this means that you can obviously go and search for that little village or hamlet name as long as that name of that tiny little community has been is on the map then the map technology is clever enough to pull up a list of all the maps that your little place appears on.

Oh, that's cool.

It's really, really cool, isn't it?

It just makes life so much easier rather than having to just get a big map, having done a broad search and then having to do comparison with a modern day map to try and orientate yourself and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Really, really helpful.

Obviously, there are sometimes lots of places with the same names.

You have to be careful.

If you've got an unusual place, then all of those people, all of those places are going to be your place, aren't they?

Yeah, that's brilliant.

So nice.

I love it.

Might as well have a go.

Yeah, you will have to have a go.

So, my big news.

I thought you'd already done your big news.

No, that's not my big news.

So my big news, I went and did everything that I've just said, did this initial internet splurgy research.

So it was more background information than actual person related, which...

It's quite new for me.

I don't normally do that, do I?

So it was quite cool learning the history and stuff.

Nice that it all matched up.

Very excited.

They went and told my mum all this.

Mum found somebody who was in the armed services, blah, blah, blah, 1800s, blah, blah, blah.

Went to Trinidad and Tobago, went to India, got married in Ireland.

Oh, yes, I know all this.

Oh, good, great.

I've got loads of documents in my big steel box.

And I was like, what?

And I've allegedly looked through this box.

So my mum then went and got me all these documents and I've got loads more information about this David Hearn.

Wow.

I've got his initial, I don't know, when he first joined the army, I've got his first initial document of how, you know, where he is and what he's done.

And then I've got like an active service record sort of form for him.

And then I've got like other documents about his clothing rations and his food rations.

Yes.

All sorts of stuff.

So it all matches up with everything else we've got.

So my mum says this comes from...

The Hearn line is my dad's mum's line.

And my mum was at some point given all this information by somebody on that side that knew that my mum vaguely liked family history.

So these guys had gone and done a lot more thorough research on the Hearn line, which I admittedly...

I think when I went through that box at first, I was like, I'm not interested in the hern line.

It's not the ward line.

It's not the wood line.

It's not direct, even though it is on my paternal side.

That's an interesting question, right?

It's on my paternal side.

It's my dad's mum's family.

Yeah.

But then I'm following the mother line on that side.

Yes.

It's still paternal.

Well, it's your paternal side of your tree.

But for your dad, it's his maternal side of his tree.

Yeah.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Ignore me.

No, it's fine.

It is confusing, though.

It is confusing because it depends who you're speaking to.

So if I was speaking to my dad and his sisters, I'd be like, our family tree.

But by that, I mean my paternal side of the tree.

But for them, it's their tree, isn't it?

Yeah.

Because I'm a descendant of that bit.

So I have all of their ancestors, plus I have my maternal side.

Right.

Yeah.

It doesn't make sense.

It's just quite a weird thing, isn't it?

Because I'm obviously obsessed with different surnames.

So I associate that with the maternal line.

But obviously, there's always a female side to each side.

I love so much about what you've just said as well about the fact that your mum already had those papers, but they meant nothing to you when you first looked at it.

And it really does show the value of us.

doing our own family history even if like you can in some ways think oh that was a waste of time you already had that information but that kind of sense of discovery and like gradual realization and that sense of understanding and you going off and finding where barrack street was finding where kill kenny was finding what the uniforms looked like gradually piecing it all together I'm sure it cements it better in your brain.

It's more rewarding.

It's more exciting.

It's more interesting.

Whereas if someone just plumps a big kind of semi -digested load of stuff and goes, this is about your ancestor, it takes all of the detective work away from it, doesn't it?

It feels like a done deal, doesn't it?

Like, I think I've said it when we first started, it felt like that box was cheating.

Yeah.

And it isn't cheating, but it definitely would take the thrill of the chase away.

I've fleshed out this David Hearn in my own head now and all that this extra stuff I've found does is it fleshes him out even more whereas before like you said I would just read it and be like okay yes Tiki did this yes that and I wouldn't have any I know I haven't done what he's done but I've sort of been on the voyage with him trying to find out where he's been and where he's what he's done so it's it's like Indiana Jones when you see them doing traveling and you plot maps and he's got a little dotted line like that's going on in my head whereas those documents if I looked at them cold I'd be like okay okay okay just facts whereas now it's like oh my god this is true and oh and he did go here and wow this is really cool yeah and and you also it's great for you and your mum because you basically it's like you're both verifying each other's work then and presumably at some point you're you're going to come or you have a wedding you're going to come up with variations between what she's found and what you found and that's that's no problem that kind of indicates either one of you's made a little simple mistake or it's a difficult area of research but it's really great to have that kind of collaboration when when your things do match up yeah it's it's really cool as well and like whoever's done this initial research um for my mom i think it was like a great one of my dad's And obviously this is pre -internet times that this was done, but they've like photographed, photocopied pages from an encyclopedia about the 36th.

So it's the same kind of research, only they've done it in a way that was there for them back in, I don't know, the 70s or the 80s, whenever it was done.

But they've like photographed a map of India and they've circled like five different regions.

And it's wonderful.

The sky's been, so they were following the journey too.

So there's a lot.

I don't even know where to begin.

I've got like a Chelsea pensioner's certificate.

This is to certify that Corporal David Hearn, late of the 36th Regiment, was admitted an out -pensioner of Her Majesty's Royal Hospital at Chelsea.

So that is just him being a Chelsea pensioner.

Him being a Chelsea pensioner, but it means rather than him living on the premises, he would be living back home in his own community, which was that, Patsy?

Anyway, wherever it was.

No, it wasn't.

These guys actually never got to...

I thought they did, but these guys didn't get to put it.

It's the generation after that did.

Yeah.

So wherever he was living, then he would just get paid his pension locally.

Right.

But yeah, there's a cool little document and it's everything I've just said it says.

And then on the side, it's got like, it tells you how old he is, how tall he is, the colour of his eyes, the colour of his hair and his age.

So it's fancy when you receive that.

then i've got loads of weird things like account books of like his savings and yeah and an account book for the regiment and that tells you like the conditions of things that they have to do to get certain medals within this unit so it talks about rewards for good conduct and they find they get paid extra money if they get these good conduct rewards and all sorts of i've not read through all of it but it's pretty cool to see and then later on i think it's in this document It shows you that he did receive, I mean, you mentioned it last week, he received four commendations for good conduct.

And I think in this document, it actually says he got a medal for it as well and he got a bonus.

It also says he joined at the age of 18 and three months, which I've not checked this detail yet, but I feel like he was 16 when he signed up.

So I think he might have lied.

But again, I might be totally wrong there.

It's a cool little document.

Very, very cool.

What else does it say?

Oh, service abroad.

So I don't know when this document was started in terms of his being in the army.

Oh, it do actually, it says at the beginning.

He joined on the 30th of October, 1851.

But then it actually says service abroad and it tells you where he landed.

So it says landed in the West Indies on the 29th of April, 1853.

Landed in, I can't even read that.

Oh, it probably says Ireland.

It says Ireland.

Landed in Ireland in 1857 and then landed...

It says embarked for Bengal, East Indies, on the 4th of August, 1863.

It's pretty cool.

When he was promoted, he was promoted on Christmas Day.

And it tells me of his children.

It tells me whether he's distinguished himself.

It tells me of his marriage.

It's a really cool document.

And as you were saying, I would look at this before and none of those names or the details would mean anything to me had I not done any of the previous research.

It mentions the names of his children on there.

It does, yeah.

So what details does it have for the children?

It just says David, which is the first child, my great -great -grandad.

Then for parish and town, it just says in the 36th Regiment, as opposed to saying, look now, which is where...

was born yeah but that so their dad's military records what I'm trying to get at is that's that's part of their childhood history isn't it where they lived what their life experience is like yeah it's not just it tells you a lot about David but it also tells you a lot about that little nuclear family it does and like obviously They do a lot of moving around, so there's a lot, it's not mystery, but there's a lot of tracking for all of them.

But I actually find that quite enjoyable and almost a little bit easier because of the unique names and places that they've been.

You kind of know it's a bit more solid when you see Lucknow appearing as someone's place of birth.

It's not common, is it?

True.

And sometimes it's interesting because military service sometimes goes in families.

So it'd be interesting whether any of his sons joined the army as well.

I don't think they did.

And jumping the gun, I don't really want to talk about this yet because I've not done any research on it.

But within these documents about David, there is a World War I record for someone called Alfred Hearn.

So I've got some World War I.

Again, it's the exciting uncle, probably, has joined the war effort in World War I.

So I've got some stuff there that I can actually look at.

Yeah.

But I don't want to talk about that yet.

I'll talk about that next time.

But yeah, I've also got like references from squad commandery type people for David when he's left the services.

So it says, I've got two different references and this is really tricky to read, but I'll give it a go.

Look, Corporal David Hearn, 36th Regiment, has served with the regiment 21 years and has been placed in many situations of trust and has always given entire satisfaction to the officers of the regiment.

He was for years mess waiter and in charge of the plate and stores of the regiment.

I can recommend him as a hard -working and steady soldier.

Was he the one who went on to be the butler?

Yes.

Perfect.

So the plate, that means the regiment's silver.

So when the officers have their lovely dinners, they would have lovely candelabras and table decorations and knives, forks and spoons.

So in their officer's mess, which is their dining room, they would have loads of lovely acrimons to make sure they had.

dining style, which is suitable for officers of the British Army.

And so he looked after those when he was in the army.

So he's got exactly the skills needed to go and be a butler in a wealthy household in Sydney Street.

Yes, definitely.

There's another one as well, which pretty much echoes what that one says, but it sort of does emphasise more about being like a butler as well.

This one's from, what year?

1868.

Being about to leave the 36th Regiment for a time, I have much pleasure in certifying to the valuable service of Private David Hearn, which he has so long rendered to the officers of the Corps.

Private Hearn has served nearly 17 years.

Hang on, what is that last one, sir?

21 years.

So this one was earlier.

He's served nearly 17 years in the 36th.

He has been a servant to officers for nearly 10 years and has served for about five years as mess waiter in the officers' mess.

He has always...

I can't read that word.

Born a most keen and exceptional character, is most willing, active and intelligent, and I strongly recommend him as an excellent and trustworthy servant.

I should be glad to hear of his success.

Are you really proud of him?

Yeah, he seems like a right good lad, doesn't he?

He really does, yeah.

Yeah, there's that other one, like I said, where it tells you about him getting medals for good service as well.

Just all right, cool stuff, isn't it?

It's so funny that I did dismiss all this stuff before.

I've got other documents that I'm not as interested in and I probably should maybe give them a bit of attention, but I've got the monthly settlements and clothing account and savings account for David Hearn.

It looks like it's part of his service documents that have been given to him, but it's like his clothing rations and his bank statements.

It is really cool.

So, William Bandy, in the articles in Family Trees, we've been running lots of military articles for the last few months.

We've still got a few more to come.

We're trying to go a little bit more in depth than we sometimes go with our articles.

And he's talking about the amount of details you can get.

And I think sometimes soldiers had to pay for their uniform out of their pay.

And it will itemise what their kit comprised.

The army was very keen to try and encourage soldiers to save their money, like save some of their wages.

So they weren't left high and dry when they kind of came out of the service at the end.

You embark on their new phase of their life once they finish serving in the army.

Because you're relatively young, aren't you, when you come out of the army?

That all matches up with those documents.

They seem very sort of officious and boring, but I guess it does make sense that they do need to look after themselves, don't they?

Mm, mm, mm.

Crazy that they have to pay for their own clothing, though.

I think that's right.

I should remember, but we mentioned it very recently in an article very, very recently, and I'm pretty sure they did.

We shall have to check that.

Okay, it's in Family Tree.

It'll be in November.

November issue.

Yeah.

Everything becomes a blur.

I've already read the December and January articles, so maybe it's not come out yet, but I think it has come out.

I think it's a November issue.

Anyway, there's lots of information.

It's a really, really cool series.

Graham's actually going to be doing a masterclass, which, with your newfound military interest, you'd probably like to come along to, Nathan.

So it's going to happen on the 4th and the 11th of November, and he's going to have two really chunky sessions where he's going in -depth.

helping us learn about what it was like to be in the British Armed Forces from earlier, from a century earlier than your guy, so from like the 1760s going up to the mid -20th century.

Right, brilliant.

All the armed forces, because sometimes when you get an old photo and you're not even sure really, you know, necessarily whether it's Army or Navy, it's hard to work it out when it gets further back in time, you can't.

Yeah.

So he could be helping us make sure we've got the right service.

know where to look for records, the records which are digitised, the records which aren't digitised, how to, all the things you're doing, fleshing out about the regimental history.

It's going to be covering all that sort of stuff.

Lovely, that sounds really good.

Oh, it'll be really, really good, yeah.

I did remember working on one of his articles and there was a picture of a woman who was, she was a post office worker, but her uniform looks so prim and tidy, it looks like she's in the military, so that was quite a funny one to look at.

Yes, it's true, it's really true.

It's really hard to kind of tell as time goes by.

Things stop being normal to us, don't they?

Certainly do.

So I don't really know where to go now with my David stuff, whether I should leave him alone for a bit.

I've got, it will be interesting to track him around India a bit more.

And like I say, I've got that map now, which actually has like five or six locations circled.

this this great aunt or whoever it was has managed to track his his life in india you know i think while you're in the kind of zone i think you should do that because you've got those five or six place names in india but and you're assuming because he's based there there's going to be a military base there but you probably don't know much else about and i don't either about those place names so it'd be really fun to find out what were those cities or places like at the time he was there.

How large were they?

Which other military units were based there?

Are they near the coast?

Are they inland?

What sort of environment are the family living in?

Are they living up mountains?

Where are they?

What's it like?

Yeah, it all sounds really cool.

A part of me doesn't really believe you can find that sort of information there as well because it sounds really in -depth searching.

Well, it will require more effort, but you will be able to do it.

And it will just give you so much more of a feeling and understanding.

And potentially, you know, from the period that you're in, potentially if there are, to learn more about what the children got up to then.

Because once you get to the 1870s in England, then children are having compulsory.

elementary education so you know what sort of school provision is there through the 1860s for these kids army kids out in india because army kids you know modern time would go to army schools yeah right army kids with their dad's regiment or they would go be sent back to the uk to go to an english school as a border so it's quite a weird experience being an army child yeah so it's quite interesting though to see what what would they be like for your ancestors So I think you should stick with that.

And then my other bossy thing I think you should do, and this is something I'm bossing myself with as well, is you found out all this wonderful stuff and I literally think you need to, it doesn't have to be a pen, you type it up, or pen and paper, whichever you like, but write down, I've been finding out this, I've been finding out that, make it into readable material or record it on your phone as audio.

Because at the moment it's lots of documents.

And your mum had all this information and it's in lots of documents in a trunk.

And now you have got lots of documents, some similar, some different to what she had.

But again, scroll forward 20, 30 years and your sons, they open up your metal trunk or your equivalent of it.

So you've got your mum's metal trunk and your metal trunk.

And it's still just kind of like data, isn't it?

Yeah.

I was going to ask this question as I was researching all this.

I was double checking the facts to make sure he was placed in the right places to go with the whole journey that his unit did.

And like, okay, when did he get married?

Oh yeah, that matches up with when he got married in Ireland and that's when the regiment had come back, et cetera.

But when I look at it on Ancestry, I've got on his timeline, it's like he was born, he was seen in this census, he's married, he had kids.

All the in -between details are missing, aren't they?

It's like, how do I like chronicle it all on Ancestry?

Can I put a note in and like start typing away?

He's got this job, but he's doing this and he's been to here.

Yes.

So there's a few different things you could do.

So if you want to stick with Ancestry, then you can add information.

Let me just pull up the tree so I say the words right.

But there's space in there that you can write a mini life story for him.

And then also on his timeline, you can add.

Yep.

Because if I'm doing it for him and talking about his wartime, I obviously want to mention that he's gone over to the West Indies, he's come back, he's gone to the East Indies.

Would I put them as three separate events or would you just chronicle that as a little story?

I would do, sorry to be annoying, I'd do both.

So what you need is, you need...

You need a timeline, which, because if you just put it in as one military fact, the first time he, like with his attestation paper, go right, he joined up when he's 18 years, three months.

In your little ancestry timeline, that one military fact is just going to be one little military fact, and it's not going to give you that interwoven fabric of the family that, okay, he joined up when he's 18, and then it won't give you all those markers of where he served, and it won't.

show the implication on his child's life.

Whereas if you put that he, if you break it down and add it as lots of separate military facts, you can put his, add his attestation paper.

So add a military fact with the date when he signed up to the army, add a copy of the documents, so take photos on your phone and add them in.

And then...

when he sails for Barbados add that in as a fact because then you're going to see that woven when it says birth of second child and then you're going to see two months later he sails to Barbados or you know whatever it is you're going to see that all woven together because that's what I want that's I think that's how I work the best I like to see the timeline page it really helps me just get a sense of who they are where they are and what they're doing yeah so what you've presumably got so far in your tree on ancestry is the information that you found within ancestry and when when you found stuff you've added it and so that ancestry really helpfully populate it into that timeline of information that you found about that ancestor but if you go to david hearn's profile page and then go to this timeline and just in the top right hand corner of where his timeline is it says add and you press on add and then it says select event type And there's loads of event types.

If it didn't have the event type you want, you can make up your own one.

But it has got military, so I would probably just go with military.

Oh, wow, yeah.

If you wanted to name it different, you can make your own one.

Add military and then add his attestation paper.

Yeah.

That's really cool.

And you can add his discharge at the end.

You can add the fact he's a Chelsea pensioner.

All of these things.

When he gets promotions.

you can say, add that in as like promoted to corporal.

I think he was promoted to corporal, wasn't he at some point?

He was, yes, on Christmas Day.

Yeah, so you can add in all of that because that will give you, like I can show you one of my great grandpas and he's the only one I've done loads of this for and it does make his page look a bit bonkers.

But I think it's cool.

Basically, you can't have too much information.

So I'd have it in the timeline because that's really, it makes heaps and heaps of sense.

But then I also think you need to write it up as a narrative.

So this is somebody who served in the military.

They only served during the First World War, but I've got loads and loads of military service points.

Yeah.

I think it's worth it, isn't it?

Because, you know, exactly each time he got promoted, each time he got an award.

Yeah.

Well, as you've said before, it's charting all this information that could potentially be lost.

Like if you hand things down and you haven't put them on your tree or...

or on your research log when you hand it down to the next generation if they decide not to do the deeper research then you just end up diluting that information don't you because it'll probably get less and less if you keep it all together then it's it's fully fleshed out yeah and also if you if you just want to tell your sons like oh you've got a how many times great grandpa and he's called david and he had four kids they're like all right whereas if you go you had a great Grandpa I've heard many times who's had four kids and he signed up when he was 18 and he travelled the world and he worked here and there and his kids were born here, there and there.

And suddenly it's a whole different experience of hearing about an ancestor's story.

And people often say how valuable it is to children to hear about family history because you learn about, you see it on Who Do You Think You Are on the telly, you see people overcoming difficulties, living through tragic times.

having lucky breaks, being really brave, being resilient, being courageous.

They're our own personal inspiring storybook of like, just keep going.

Everyone's tough times and nothing new.

So it's cool, isn't it?

It is.

It's just a way to get people more interested as well.

Yeah.

More than just facts and figures.

Because, I don't know, you know when you're putting the pages in the magazine together, do you ever stop and read Jill Shaw's articles every month?

From time to time, really, yes.

Yes.

So when you first look at them, it's just two pages and it's normally rammed to the gills with words and maybe you might squeeze a tiny picture on.

But when you actually stop and read them, her writing is an absolute delight.

And I kind of envy her because what she's effectively doing is every month she's writing up a two -page summary of what she's been finding out that month.

Obviously, she would have found out other things as well, probably, but she hasn't got that space.

Or you need to kind of focus on the story, don't you?

Otherwise we'll all get confused if she mentions everything she's done that month.

But she's writing it up as a wonderful summary.

So it's so readable and passable on and shareable, that written thing.

Yeah.

She's got a permanent record of it as well.

She's got a permanent record of it, yes.

Nice.

Yeah.

Do you think you're going to give that a go?

Which bit?

The writing up a bit.

Yes, I'm going to have to because...

I feel like I've got a lot of information that isn't on Ancestry now, so I need to put it somewhere.

If I'm perfectly honest, I feel like my research log's a little bit messy and a little bit loose at the moment, so I think I want to put it on his entry.

I feel like I've gone very focused in the last few weeks on just a couple of people.

It is fine, it's good, and I like it, but I actually don't think my research log's the place to put all that information.

It's too much.

I think even on your research log, you can even just put a mini summary saying, I've been tracing the military service of David Hearn.

I shared this with my mum and she shared the fact with me that she'd already done the same.

And so a cousin, whoever it was, who's helped to see ancestry timeline and wherever you're going to do your written summary for details and then write all, have your written summary and have your ancestry timeline with the documents attached to it.

That would actually be more digestible for the future.

Yeah, that's cool.

It terrifies me, though, because then it's like, well, if I've done it for this guy, I'm going to have to do it for everyone.

We can't do it for everyone.

That's how I work.

It's like, oh, my God.

I know.

I do know what you mean.

I'm feeling like my research log is a bit lacklustre and I have all my family history backed up in two different...

So one is the working one and one's the backup one.

But then sometimes I do this terrible thing of working out of the wrong folder, which I knowingly do when I do it is because of where I am, where I'm working.

So at the moment I'm going through to make sure I've got everything is properly in both places.

And then I've got so many half -baked things that I haven't followed up.

So I'm like, you're not allowed to start anything new.

I've got to just...

Have a bit of a wrap up, end of year wrap up.

It's been the last few months of this year.

Just sorting myself out a bit.

Sounds like a good plan.

Yes.

I keep saying it, but I think I've got probably about 20 rabbit holes that I've marked I want to look at and I haven't done.

It'd be quite cool to go back to them now.

Like, I think rightfully so, I didn't do them at the time.

Whereas now I feel like my research skills are better.

Yeah.

Probably look at them and be like, well, that's not that much of a rabbit hole.

I'll be able to just...

follow it through better now so I do need to sit down and go through everything I've done in the last almost year and yeah yeah a few bits it's like it's very occasionally you hear somebody say oh I finished my family history and literally my mind boggles when somebody says I'm like oh have you managed to do that the end I literally cannot comprehend the concept of having finished it no What they mean to say is the stuck.

I think you can get to a stage where you want to write it up.

I think that's totally good.

And I think the writing up as you go thing is, you know, I banged on at you that you need to keep a log right from the start because I didn't and I wish I had.

And then now I'm thinking more and more, I think you need to start writing it up.

You've been going for nearly a year and I think you need to write, even if you just write up an overview summary.

I've been doing my family history for a year and this is what I found.

You literally get one side of A4 and write a very broad brush thing and then you could do other one sides of A4.

This is maybe how I found out about it in the military.

Other little pocketed bits of research you've done.

Yeah.

It's very interesting to see how I'm sort of growing and changing.

Maybe not even me, maybe just the nature of how the research has gone.

It's pushing me further.

I've said it before, I was never interested in stories.

But to actually start writing up a family history is, again, something that I'd never think I'd be interested in.

I'd be like, well, who wants to read that?

It's just for me.

But it isn't just for me.

It's then honouring these people as well, honouring their memories, because all this information could be lost if no one charts it or logs it.

And I might have these documents, but maybe nobody else has these documents that my mum's got in this folder.

And also, even if the documents are around in lots of different places, lots of the records that we use when we get them out of archives, well, most of them are, you know, they're public records and they weren't created for family history purposes.

By doing our family history, we pull together a selection of these documents and we make them into a life story.

But when they're just sitting there on their own separate shelves in their own different parts of the archive or even multiple archives across the country, they're not a life story.

They're just a few little fact sheets, aren't they?

Yeah, little fragments that don't tell the whole story.

Yeah.

So you're making the story.

I'm making my work for myself.

You are.

You are.

So I think we've both got our work cut out.

We do, we do.

And there's a little part of me as well, I don't want to talk about it and I don't want to look at it, but the guy who's in the World War I scenario, now I've found those documents, my eyes have widened and I'm like, ooh.

I think that's allowed of you.

I think you've got to do a mixture, David.

And is it Albert or Alfred?

What did you say?

It's either Albert or Alfred.

I literally, it's Ahern and I've laughed.

I had a quick scan and it's one of those ones where it's been scrawled and it could be either Albert or Alfred.

Yeah.

I don't think I have this guy on my tree yet.

So I need to find out who he is on the tree first.

And then I see, I mean, I'm excited by that already.

Yes.

Yes.

But yes, maybe I should make up writing up David my job because if I don't do it now, I'll forget all these details later on.

So now is the better time to say, right, do the story side of it first.

Yes.

And do it with the...

frame of mind like a job worth doing is worth doing imperfectly so it doesn't have to be perfect but just write it up a little bit yeah you can write it up perfectly if you want but if time's pressing which it always is better just to write up something isn't it yeah well I mean I obviously don't have all the facts through I have little tidbits that are just there ain't no fun there and they all it's just nice that they all tie together I can't tell you how how much glee I felt when I went onto Wikipedia and looked at the 36 And it charted the sort of the years that he was moving about and all the locations matched.

It was just like this.

It was so satisfying.

Sad, but satisfying.

No, good.

Otherwise, you've got a research problem on your hand if you're not checking out.

That's true.

That's true.

Yeah.

Okay, so shall we reconvene then next week to see how we get on?

Let's.

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