Welcome to today's podcast.

It's the next episode of Family Tree Talk and my name is Helen Tovey, I'm editor of Family Tree and with me is...

Nathan Ward, hello there.

Hi Nathan, how's it going?

Yeah, it's going alright, yeah.

I've managed to do what I said last week, I've done my homework so I feel like I'm back on track, I've got a one week streak going now.

That is very good.

Do you want to give us a little recap?

What was your homework?

My homework was, I, ages ago, found a guy called Benjamin Ward on my tree.

He was my, hang about, let's see if I can remember this.

He was my great -great -uncle, I think?

I think he was.

I think he was.

My great -great -uncle.

And he, there was, on Ancestry, there was some reference to an RAF record.

So he was in the RAF.

I didn't have any frame of reference or context for this.

I wasn't sure it was him at all.

So obviously being the type person I am, I didn't pay for the full three to find out if it was a proper document relating to him.

And then with last week, with it being Remembrance Weekend, they gave three records away and found my past.

So registered for that and dug in and found out a few facts about whether it was my Benjamin.

And was it your Benjamin?

It was my Benjamin, yes.

Brilliant.

He was in the RAF.

I got a document.

I can't remember what his document's called now.

I got a document saying that he was in the RFC.

And this is in, what, the 10th of January 1918?

And then it changed to the RAF.

Is that what happened?

That's exactly right.

Yeah.

So there were the two organizations, the Royal Flying Corps, which is the Army version of the Air Force, and the Royal Naval Air Service, which is the Navy version of the Air Force.

And then on the 1st of April 1918, so just in those kind of closing six months or so of the war, they amalgamated to become the Royal Air Force.

So your guy would have been in the RAF, but he was in the Precastle, he was in the Royal Flying Corps as well.

Right.

So it was only in the RFC for what looks like three months and then it changed to RAF.

That's quite cool.

And it, yeah, it's definitely my Benjamin.

It's got his father's name, Joseph Ward, and then an address which I recognise from various other documents in my research.

Isn't that nice when all of the details add up?

It makes me so happy.

It's just nice and relaxing.

After, like, obviously the fuss that I had with Albert.

Was it Albert?

Maybe we all need a family tree because we have so many ancestors.

It's stupid.

Yeah, all of us last week when I couldn't place my missing war guy, Mr.

Burton, I didn't like that.

That took a lot of digging, didn't it?

Whereas this was just like, yes, I know that place.

Yes, I recognise this name.

It just flows, doesn't it?

It's nice when that happens.

And it's quite cool now as well to have somebody in the RAF.

What an exciting time to be in the RAF as well.

Not just because of the war, but just because of the tech and the innovation and things like that.

Yeah, definitely.

I think he was down as an engineer from what I remember on this form.

So I don't know what he did.

Well, he would have probably been maintaining the aircraft.

Yeah.

And there's so many good air museums.

You're not just like the headline acts.

the main ones, but there are lots of smaller RAF museums as well.

So it's a chance to get out, go and have a nice cup of tea and a scone and learn some more about what his life might have been like.

Yeah, that'd be cool.

I love aeroplanes anyway, so I'd be well up for that.

I actually don't feel like I've got any information about his unit at all, so I don't know where he served or anything like that.

There's a little bit on this form about the campaign that he was in.

It said he was in France from...

I'm confused now, actually, because it's earlier than the RF bit.

It said he was in France from the 26th of July in 1917.

Oh, right.

Okay, no, I'm reading this wrong.

They've just basically, this document, it says he was in France from 17 to 18 and then he transferred to the RFC in...

January 1918.

Yeah.

So he must have been in the army before then, would that suggest?

Yes.

Just the regular army that he's upgraded to the RAF or changed careers.

Cool.

So you've only got a few details to go on.

So what you might need to do is call in the military brains of somebody like Graham Bandy to take a look at the records.

So is it like the muster roll that you've got or is it search records?

I think it's the muster roll.

Yeah.

So we could ask him to take a look at those records.

He may spot further acronyms and things like that on the records, which will give us greater details.

And it might say on there, sometimes it will say, you know, where they've served to give like a timeline of dates and places, which would be handy.

Yeah.

So it's particularly got that.

It's got a few bits, but it's all.

Initials BWM.

Oh, that's a medal, isn't it?

Mm -hmm.

Oh, Nathan's...

Nathan Knowthings.

Yes, you do.

British War Medal.

Excellent.

He's got the Victory Medal as well, yeah.

So he got through it, which is good.

Yes, that's very, very good.

Tipped me out knowing stuff.

So I don't know what record this is because I've got the muster roll as well.

On the muster roll, it says something about him being a Batman.

Mm -hmm.

Which, again, I'm not quite sure what that means.

So that's just like a private servant.

Well, not private because it's employed by the army.

The man is employed by the army, but he's a personal servant, is a better way of saying it, to an officer.

Right.

Okay, cool.

So he's not a superhero.

Well, he was a superhero in his own way, but militarily that's what it means.

But then this shows that when he's swapped over to the RAF, so he's got a thing that says AMEC 3 followed by Private 2.

Also, AMEC is air mechanic.

Right, cool.

So he's fixing the planes.

That's good.

It's really cool, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah, that is really exciting.

What was the other bit?

I got all excited about AMEC.

What was the other bit?

Private 2.

Oh, so he's...

Rank.

So he's junior, yeah.

Yeah.

Nice one.

Really nice.

So I guess the main question next would be to try and find out which units he served with in the army.

because then you can do the normal thing of trying to find the war diaries for the months that he was serving in France before he joined the Royal Flying Corps.

Yeah.

Yeah, that sounds cool.

It's quite weird, this one, because obviously I've suddenly got this extra bit of information about him that I kind of vaguely had an idea was there but didn't know what it was.

But it is quite loose and empty.

Like all the other guys, I found the battalions out quite quickly and that helped me tie them somewhere, whereas this guy is just...

It says France, but he's just blotting around.

I don't know where or what he's done.

I'm sure there's more to be found, but I have to be honest, without studying the document, I am a bit stranded.

So his service number, that would help.

And when Jen Baldwin gave a brilliant, her first award.

um webinar that she did for us so jim baldwin from find my past and it's freely available on youtube um so she did use people's names service numbers and search for them in the newspaper so find us obviously got brilliant newspaper collections because then you might get some information about which units he served with yeah so that would be one thing you could possibly try yeah that's what we need we need to know who he served with really.

Another thing is you don't happen to have any photos.

You, any distant cousins have any photos of him in uniform because that would give us lots of clues.

I don't think so.

Like I said, it wasn't until I got to Ancestry and I saw this one document that there was any inkling that there might have been somebody who served in the war.

It's not something I've been told about.

So I'll have to ask my mum and see what she knows.

Like I said, I don't think this was, like, obviously everybody knew about Tank Man.

I don't think this was known about, or not as readily, anyway.

And it's probably because, in a good way, so the poor Tank Man, he died in the war, didn't he?

So that was his closing chapter.

And to your family's credit, they didn't forget him.

And so he was, you know, although the details were pretty sparse, his memory was kept, and his memory of his military service was kept in your family.

Whereas...

for this guy luckily he lived and he went on hopefully to have a happy long life doing lots of other things so his first award experience is just a short chapter although probably a traumatic terrible chapter but it's still only part of his life so it's not been the kind of the central thing everybody knows about him no curious it's another rabbit hole for me to get lost down Another really good place, which is like the go -to answer if you don't know what to do and where to look next, is to go to the National Archives website, go to the research guides.

And they have really detailed guides on all sorts of different lines of the armed services.

So you'd be able to trace M and how do I trace an M?

And you'd be able to find other guides about the army records.

But because he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and the...

And then the RAF.

I'm not sure whether we're going to find his records.

I don't think we would find them in the soldiers' record collections.

I could be wrong.

It could be worth having a look.

Crikey.

But most of those are the ones which got bombed in the Second World War anyway.

So I think we might need to be doing some more looking outside the military collections to find out more information.

Then we can dive back into the military collections again.

Yeah.

I'm quite excited.

It'd be cool to find out, like, what planes he worked on and things like that.

Really interesting, wouldn't it?

Because, like I said, I love an aeroplane, so...

Yes.

Cool.

Sopwith camel, maybe.

Oh, maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe.

That is cool.

I'd like to give a big shout -out to Find My Past as well.

Like, obviously I'm very, very ancestry -centric, but that search engine was really cool to look at.

Really crisp, really...

Yeah?

Really clear.

Just narrowing down your research.

I've been scared to leave Ancestry, but going into that, I was like, oh, this is really nice usable search interface.

You know, like some of them are quite, I don't want to be mean about other websites, but some are quite laborious.

There's lots of fields to fill in and it's hard work and it looks a bit dated and clunky.

This didn't feel like that.

It felt modern and swish.

And I know maybe I'm just getting caught up in the athletics of it, but I liked it.

No, I think the aesthetics are important, aren't they?

Because you put a lot of time staring at them.

It's given me a little bit more confidence to dare to look outside of Ancestry as well because I was honestly quite scared to look at other websites because it's like, oh my God, there's so much information everywhere.

Will my head explode?

But I felt quite calm being on there.

So just to clarify, was there one of the things you liked about Find My Past, the way you can go through and then...

browse through the list of possible record sets click click click choose which ones you want to search within so you can have quite an organized search did you like that i like that and i like the way it narrowed it down as well as you started adding your criteria it's just fun that's really fun isn't it the number dropping and dropping it's like yes yes yes you know instead of it being this massive too much to handle it was like narrowing that field so that was really cool it is really helpful isn't it and it makes you feel It gives you a sense of progress that you are getting warmer.

You put in your first few search terms and it might say there's 800 ,000 people by those few terms you put in.

As you add more and more and you get down, there's three possible records, which, yes, it is exciting.

Yeah, it was good.

A new level of geekdom for me there.

Yes.

I love a good menu.

Yeah, but it's important.

It's really important because...

you know conversely when you do a search and even though you've specified um you what you want sometimes you get thrown back loads of things that you don't necessarily want and you just feel like you're wasting your time and getting confused definitely it's good i know i might not have mentioned this before but um particularly once you start using as every there's always a reason to do this but another reason to do this is if you start using more than one website you're really going to have to have a research log to um record um Where you've been looking at what you've found and not found.

What's a research log?

Anyway, you will understand again.

It's like a little reminder to each of us, isn't it?

When we do something new.

But it's a good plan.

It is a good plan.

Yeah.

So what about on the work front?

I've seen you've been doing some...

quite exciting work which I don't know whether you shared yet but um putting together a list of family history gift ideas yeah just um I've been building by the way I want everything on the list all right okay that's great yeah just it's just thinking out of the box isn't it like obviously it's getting to the festive period so um people are thinking about Christmas gifts and just thought it'd be good to put an email together that's actually just showcasing things that people might want to buy like hopefully slightly out of the ordinary, but relating to family tree and family history.

I liked your choices on the list because some of them were definitely mainstream family history things.

And then there were other little things which are kind of cutesy.

But I love that because it's sort of, partly I just love it for itself, but partly it's a way of sneaking family history into other people's lives in the family who aren't necessarily.

family historians so he had like some baubles with names in and little trees with names on so they're very visual and non -family historian friendly aren't they?

It's like cute bespoke family orientated things which obviously hopefully Christmas is all about for a lot of people gatherings and getting together and bringing everyone together so they just seem like perfect Christmas gifts don't they and then other things like we've discussed on the podcast before I went away and played one of those escape room board games which i'd never done before but it was using my sleuthing skills so it's just just things like that tell me about that then that sounds cool it was the same thing i mean we've been we've discussed it before but it was like it's in escape room but it's in a board game so it's a one -time use game and you get a little you get a set of cards that have various functions one of them being telling you what the next clue is you have to unlock various doors or locks to find the next clue and it gives you like two or three clues to start with and one card that'll say something about a color then you've got to find something vaguely related to this color in this book in this book and then it just sends you on a journey in a mystery and i don't want to talk about it too much because i won't want to ruin it but you end up like having to fold the the book that you're looking at and then there'll be secrets hidden on the box of the actual game and All sorts of weird bits and bats.

It's like a euphoric moment.

Every time you find one, it gets you to the next clue.

You're like, yes, I'm a legend.

And it was just really cool.

But it is, it's that research skills aspect of it that's like you're looking at the finer details on all these documents within this game to try and escape this.

Well, on this one we did, you're in an abandoned cabin that suddenly gets locked and you can't get out.

And the object is to try and escape.

It was just so good.

That is definitely, that's the family history mindset, isn't it?

But that'd be cool.

Yeah, definitely.

I think that's a really cool Christmas gift.

If I got that for Christmas, I'd be like, wow, that's a really cool thing.

And it's like...

You've already done it, but yes.

Yeah, I mean, there's loads of them.

There's about 20 different variations.

So yeah, I'll definitely go back to them.

So yeah, that's what I've been doing.

It's been good fun.

It's like shopping and I'm getting paid for it.

So you've been doing your family history for nearly a year.

And you've got a bit of an insight now into how a family historian's mind ticks.

We probably have lots of different ways that we all get a little bit of different things out of doing a family history, but there's some common things as well, aren't there?

So is doing your family history, does it feel like how you thought it was going to be or did you have no preconceptions?

That's a tough question.

I guess...

This sounds awful now, no offence everyone, but I guess I felt like it was going to be quite a stuffy, boring thing.

I think any preconceptions I had were from my childhood of having to sit in a library for hours on end, playing with my toy cars, whilst mum and dad went through the microfilms.

And I was just sat being both senseless with that.

So I think I had that lodged into my mind, thinking, God, I can't deal with that.

And obviously when I first started, it was all about just finding out if I was a Viking.

I wasn't actually going into it thinking I'd be getting this absorbed into it.

But yeah, it's nothing like I thought it was.

I just thought it would be quite straightforward facts and figures and bish bash bosh and then you don't think about it.

But as it is, you think about it all the time and then you get to know these complete strangers that were just words on a page at one point.

Yeah, it's completely different, isn't it?

And it's somewhat erratic and mental, which I quite like.

I guess maybe that's just me.

Well, maybe it's me as well.

No, I think you're right.

It is erratic and it's so unexpected.

It's rare that something pans out as it should do.

Yeah, it's almost quite upsetting when it does.

I think I said the other week I did a bit of research and got back three generations and didn't hit any stumbling blocks or brick walls.

And it was like, this is a bit weird.

It felt wrong to actually get through that way.

But equally, obviously, I think, I don't know whether it's your influence, but I quite like the stumbling blocks and the rabbit holes.

So, yeah.

Well, as long as you like them, I don't care what the influence is.

Because you're going to have them, so you may as well enjoy them and view them as a fun...

puzzle back to your board game thing fun puzzle definitely I do enjoy them and obviously like I've said for next week I'm going to look at my research log and find all the rabbit holes that I've not done in the last year but I do feel sweaty about that we actually had someone on social media comment about that Marilyn who's from Canada she said that she just finished listening to the last episode of the podcast and she loved how I did my run to on a tank man And she says she's been learning so much from me, you, and the whole journey.

And she's, yeah, just really enjoying it.

Well, that's nice of her.

It's nice of her to listen and nice of her to message.

Very lovely.

And she likes the rabbit holes as well.

Yes.

Which is good, but then even reading that message, I was like, Canada, oh, my God, I've got a rabbit hole.

Like, literally, I can't remember how far back ago that was, but I found somebody who emigrated to Canada.

I remember now.

I haven't followed that up at all.

No.

So, yeah, instant sweats there.

That's one for next week.

Yes.

Or maybe even the rate we're going next year.

There's so many things to follow up.

I think it just happens.

If anybody's listening to this and they don't keep accruing more and more things that they wish to find out, then let us know because I think it's just impossible not to.

The more you find out, the more...

another horizon opens up or something else happens and you want to keep finding out more definitely I think it's when you get beyond the initial record types as well well for me it is anyway I love the chatting backwards going through birth marriage death etc but when you get these odd like a lot of the war documents and as I've said before I've had like pub landlord ownership transfer records and Just really obscure records that aren't the run -of -the -mill ones.

That's what really hooks me and I'm like, what is this?

And then that's when you research and it's like, I need to find out about everything to do with this.

Again, your influence.

It's really cool.

It is really cool.

So with the genealogist, so the mindset is definitely like a puzzle thing.

So with the skill set, what do you think we need as skills?

Wow, you're asking all the tough questions today.

I've just been thinking about it as well.

Because what I do on the planning for the new articles coming up for the next issue of the magazine, then it's always trying to think, how are people ticking?

What do they actually need to know to get loads out of their family history?

So I'm picking your brains.

This will be useful.

But it's something I'm reflecting on as well in its own right.

I guess for me, I think I mentioned it quite a bit.

I've got like two brains.

I've got like an analytical brain that just wants facts and figures and to get back.

And then I've also got the whimsical brain that wants to find a story and get involved.

So you've got two different skill sets there, I guess, haven't you?

You've got one that's just like really good with data, looking at facts and figures.

You have to obviously be curious.

You have to want to push on beyond what you see.

Because you could just literally take a document as cold fact and then not do any research beyond that and just chat.

I guess that's what a quick index tree becomes, isn't it?

But you've got to want to be quizzical, I think, to get the most out of it.

You've got to really sort of delve deep.

I don't know what other skills.

This is a tough question.

Peak -headedness, is that a skill?

Yeah, I think stub, yeah.

You need to be a bit stubborn, don't you?

have a willingness not to move for several hours.

Although, to be honest, once you get going, you don't even notice.

And not to give up.

Like, you just want to keep going.

Yeah.

I'm not going to get defeated by this.

Definitely.

I think, I mean, I'm speculating now, but I imagine there's probably a lot of, like, weekend family tree -ers who come in and think, I'm going to do my family tree, jog on to Ancestry, get a couple of layers back, and that's it.

They never do it again.

You have to have that sort of, if you want to do it properly and get into it, you have to have a bit of stubbornness about you.

Yeah, uncompromising.

Like, I don't mind what other things I should be doing.

This is happening.

Yeah.

90 % of family tree researchers are actually runners.

Very stubborn people.

It's not a true fact, but it's that same mindset, definitely.

I think that helps.

You mentioned a moment ago about, how you think Christmas is definitely a time for family.

And I definitely, definitely agree with that.

But I also think Christmas is a time for family history because family history is very comforting, isn't it?

So we all have family history.

And then depending on what stage we're at in our life, we may have family, more or less family.

Like our family around us is like a movable feast, isn't it?

And so sometimes...

We have more family in our lives and less family in our lives.

So I think family history is just there.

It's not, in a funny way, it's not changing.

So I think it's good if you're wondering what to do with yourself over Christmas, because we all have this idea that there's everybody spending loads of time with family over Christmas.

But if we're honest and we read newspaper facts and so that, there is a big loneliness.

kind of almost like an epidemic across the uk at least of many more people living by themselves not necessarily with close family collections so i think family history is a huge solace and really fun way to spend time it's a good winter project i couldn't advocate it definitely it's um it's got that hibernation feel doesn't it like look up warm get i mean i've got this fake vision that i've got an open fire i don't have an open fire but sit in front of an open fire with a blanket on, get my laptop out, maybe a glass of red wine and just lose yourself in family history.

It is nice and it is kind of warming, isn't it?

Yes, I just wanted to give a shout out for the many different ways family history is good.

We don't need to tell anybody listening to the podcast that anyway, they already know that.

They know, they're here for the reasons, aren't they?

Yes.

So shall I say what I've been doing over the last week?

Please do.

Well, as ever, I have been doing what I said I would do, but I haven't finished doing it.

And so one of the things I said I would do is make a little picture book for my grandchildren, which sneaks some family history into it.

So I'm fine with my side of the family.

I'm getting photos of babies and things.

I've already got all of that.

But then I need to get some photos of the baby's dad's side of the family.

Because as soon as you, as soon as there's another descendant, then your segment of the family tree is smaller, isn't it?

So the family history I've done so far goes down to my daughters.

That's 100 % of their family history.

My grandchildren, I've only done, haven't even touched on the other side.

50%.

Bye.

Yeah.

I'm not going to make it too heavy and big.

I just need to go back to their grandparent level and their aunts and uncles.

People who they know.

It sounds like you're going to make it big.

It sounds like you're actually just going to end up doing everybody's family tree.

No, no, no.

Yes, but I am.

Yes.

It has expanded a little bit than what I thought, but I'm going to keep it under control because there's that blooming deadline of Christmas, isn't there?

Yeah, yeah.

So that's one thing.

And then in my normal interfering way, I've been trying to write up some memories of other people, which is a tricky thing because you kind of don't want to misinterpret it.

You don't want to put words in their mouth.

But also I'm like, if no one else is going to do this, I'm going to write this down.

This is important.

So there's a few people whose memories I've kind of commandeered.

It's a minefield.

That's really good, though, because I...

Personally, I think about that and I think I find that hard to be motivated to do that.

That seems like a hard thing to do, to actually transcribe somebody else's memory when you're already doing all of your own tree stuff anyway.

And I know it might be part of your tree stuff as well.

Well, I know what you mean.

It doesn't feel like traditional...

family history research in as much as you're not looking at records.

But it does feel as though if time's pressing, I'm like, this needs to be at the top of my to -do list because with no offense to any of the big data sites, you can go back there at a future date and find that information in one year's time, two years time, 10 years time.

Whereas memories are much more fragile and they are often just recorded in our heads.

And they sometimes, well, with any of us, there's a time limit, isn't there?

There is, yeah.

That makes me a bit sweaty, actually.

Sorry.

But yeah, no, because I've got that great aunt that I was going to get to verify a few pictures and ask her about my great -grandad, and I haven't done that.

And that is, like you said, there's a finite amount of time for that to be allowed, so it is something to jump on.

Does she live relatively close to you?

Unfortunately not, no.

She lives at the complete other end of the country.

But like I said, I was meant to be writing her a letter because I thought that would be cute, but I haven't done it.

Again, had that to rabbit hole list.

But that should be top of my list, I think, to be honest.

Like you said as well, as we're discussing Christmas, it's a time where people get together, so there's that potential to grab a few of these stories during the festive period.

Even pick up the phone then, because it's that thing, if a job's worth doing, it's worth doing badly.

So even if you don't do your perfect plan of writing her a letter and then turning up with a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates and spending all afternoon eating biscuits with her, getting all the lowdown on everything she knows, even if you pick up the phone, talk to her, and she will say stuff that you'll be so pleased you had, I'm sure.

sounds good you could get your mum to help you yeah I could although yeah I just feel like I get contradictory information from that lot now anyway so maybe maybe I want to avoid it yeah but I sometimes I do I do I used to get really almost like a little bit angry about contradictory information but you said whatever last time and then I've got older, not particularly wiser, but I have learned to just not get the stew about contradictory information and go, all information is valid.

There'll be a reason why those facts are given.

And it could be that somebody's just simply misremembering it and they're all prone to that.

But the more information from the more people about the same thing.

So you ask your mum and your great aunt, you get different information.

But there might be some overlap information between that.

You can see.

a truth will emerge.

Yeah.

Some people are more prone to make a story a bit glossier than it is.

I don't want to say lie, but you know what I mean.

I know exactly what you mean.

If you have more people, the people who are prone to exaggeration, you could get a clearer reading on that.

I think the thing I find weird is that Again, this is my own fault, but I get presented with one or two facts about various ancestors.

And this is not when I'm doing my family history research.

This was as a child or growing up.

I've been told this fact.

And then I base all my preconceptions, all my thoughts about that person on this one fact.

And it's a minuscule part of their life, or it might have just been a hobby, or it might have just been a moment in time.

So I build this profile up in my head of a person.

I'm basically talking about my great -grandad right now.

The whole thing about the...

He had birds.

He had a van.

Well, he didn't have a van.

I made that up.

He used to breed, like, budgies or canaries.

But as a child, that was such a strong memory in my head.

I never met him, but this is what I thought of him.

And obviously, again, I'd be playing with toy cars at my nonna and grandad's and they'd have the...

Is it, like, Rinkton's Tea or whatever it's called?

They had like a special Christmas offers where you get like vintage cars that had.

Oh, lovely.

Yeah.

Yes.

They had their scripty font on saying, oh, this is how we used to deliver tea back in the old days.

So in my head, that was what the budgie van looked like.

Anyway, I've built up this massive thing.

And then it wasn't until I actually go and do the research that I realized it wasn't his job.

He didn't do it all the time.

He was an electrician.

He was a lamp lighter.

You know, he had all these other things going on.

And this one thing that had come from my family, that was about him.

That was the one thing I was always told.

So it became the biggest thing about him.

Sorry, I'm laboring this point in a weird way, but it's that thing where you're given a little bit of information and that becomes instantly all the information.

And it isn't, is it?

No.

And that's the hard part with like the oral history stuff from my family.

I've just got these very particular strong stories.

that I've then reinforced in my own head and made stronger stories until I started doing the research.

That's the key, your last bit, until you start doing the research.

So those, his, what did you call it, his bird -loving hobby, passion, then that's a fantastic detail that you're unlikely, you might find it in the newspapers if he was selling them or winning prizes or whatever.

But that's a beautiful detail and...

Probably that's like how you love running.

It's not going to say on the census that you love running.

Yeah, they're going to know that you're a designer.

Whereas the fact that you love running and then your great, great grandchild loves running and they go, oh, great, great granddad Nathan loved running as well.

That's why I love running.

And that gives that sense of, that's what you hear on Who Do You Think You Are, you know, the TV series, the whole time people have that sense of connection.

You feel bonded by common points.

That oral history is wonderful and that shows how precious it is because you're not going to find it anywhere else.

So it's not a piece of misinformation, but it is up to us to keep remembering that one little fact alone is just one little fact.

It's just telling a part of an aspect of somebody's life.

Yeah.

And the other part of the fact could be that his wife hated birds and kept cats.

I'm making that up.

But that kind of adds another, well, the nasty aspect to the memory issue.

But it's useful to know all of this stuff, isn't it?

It is.

Yeah.

I know that's a horrible thing to say, sorry.

But life's complicated is what I'm trying to say.

Yeah.

It's just that weird thing, isn't it, of piecing things together.

from very small facts.

If they're not in documents, if it is just passed down from your family.

And obviously, again, I've had this before with the whole, oh my God, I'm going to say her name again.

Marianne Briggs, Wood Briggs, Wood Briggs, whatever.

It was always thought she was married three times.

And like, even when I presented all the facts to my great auntie, she still didn't believe it, that it was only twice.

And actually her husband, anyway, whatever.

They had a blended family, didn't they, from her husband's side?

Yes, yes.

So I guess it makes it a bit more challenging.

I was like, don't argue my facts that I've found out.

I don't have the energy or time to disagree with you.

It is frustrating, though, when people won't agree, but that's probably good for us as well, to have our conclusions challenged.

It is frustrating as well.

It is very frustrating.

That's why people get so cross when there's mistakes on other people's online trees and they get in contact with them and say there's a mistake and then the other person is quite happy to blithely carry on with the perceived mistake.

It makes me furious.

People write into me quite often.

Very cross.

And you can see why, because if somebody's trying to diligently record an accurate version of their own family history, then it's very annoying if there's misinformation out there.

But probably if we're honest with ourselves, We are all prone to some level of misinformation, not on purpose, just because we do our best and we sometimes make mistakes.

Yes.

I mean, I have questions on that as well.

Obviously, I did my research the other week on Albert Hearn, who obviously died in the war.

Now that we've found out, we've established that.

But at the time I mentioned, didn't I, that there was somebody on Ancestry who also had him, but has him married and living a complete different life.

So have you contacted that person?

Well, I haven't.

That's what I'm saying to you.

Do I have a duty to contact them and say, you're wrong, in a polite way, say, oh, you might have miscalculated here?

Or do I just leave them at it?

Or would I, I guess, would I check how active they are?

And if they're not active, then it might just be that they're just a weekend.

family tree, they've plonked it together and gone off with their lives and that's it.

Or see if they're more active and be like, okay, you might have some information that's wrong here.

Or do I just leave it alone completely?

Well, I mean, he's a relatively close relation of yours.

What the problem is, mistakes have always happened in family trees ever since people have made family trees.

But with online family trees, it just makes it so much easier for us all.

You just make your own mistakes.

You then can copy other people's mistakes.

And that's where the kind of problem of today's family historians are.

And then once, if someone has a flourishing tree, because rather than getting stuck at a brick wall, they've added two and two, made five, cracked on with it.

And it doesn't matter if it's got a shaky problem in there.

And so they carried on building their tree forwards and backwards from this mistake point.

Other people, when they're copying, if they're looking down a list of trees and if they haven't, been brainwashed by excellent people like David Annell and Sophie Kay and Jen Baldwin, all those people who encourage us to be really rigorous researchers.

There's loads of them, I'm just picking a few names.

But they haven't been brainwashed by them to keep thinking rigorously about their research.

If you look at somebody's tree and it's got thousands of people on it and 17 other people all agree with this big chunky family tree and they're all showing that albert hearn um went on to live a long happy life and have several children and then there's just you going wait a minute he didn't he didn't he died and everyone's like oh it's just one little person there with a few hundred people on the tree what do they know and so your tree doesn't look like the confident route to copy does it no have the safety in numbers thing so i think you could reach out to the person but maybe they start with like you've got it wrong you're going to need to crop this whole bit off your family tree but maybe you could just reach out to them go oh I've got Albert Hearn in my family tree and you know just like to touch base with you and we can compare notes and strike up a conversation because presumably if you go back to the generation before some point they hopefully their research will be accurate and you are going to be relatives of some kind Yeah.

Yeah.

Unless they've completely just adopted your Albert into their tree completely wrong.

I think it all, I haven't done a deep dive, but it looked to all pretty much match up on that line until it became the details about Albert's life.

Because I think he gave it to me as a hint saying, oh, we've got potentially a hint for his marriage here.

And I'm like, but wait a minute, I think he died.

And then I saw that one of these trees was in the hint as well.

So as long as the researcher hasn't traced themselves from them to Albert Hearn, with Albert Hearn as a direct ancestor, then you can give them this information that Albert Hearn sadly died in the First World War and so that bit of their tree's wrong and it's not the end of the world for them because...

They will have to just go to their ancestry tree, if they were going to listen to you, find their little Albert Hearn, who is likely their great uncle or great great uncle, or even maybe three times great uncle, whatever, depending on what generation they are.

And they just crop his subsequent history after the death date that you give them off.

So the rest of their tree can stay intact.

If they've gone really awry and they've somehow made Albert Hearn live and have a few children and they've traced Fords from some mystery.

So presumably they found records for these children.

So they've traced Fords or if they're tracing Fords or backwards, they should be tracing backwards in time.

But let's say they've somehow they've got them with Albert Hearn being their great grandfather, then they could.

soon feel pretty tragic because you will be telling them that Albert Hearn is not their great -grandfather and they've now lost a quarter of their tree.

A quarter of their tree?

No, their tree.

You're not making this sound appealing at all.

But you can look on the tree and see how they're related to Albert and then you can...

I think striking up a conversation is good because, I mean...

Let's say, you know, wherever we are in life, if someone just comes along to you and goes, oh, you've got that wrong, or if someone barges you in the supermarket or does something road ragey at you, it gets your hackles up.

Even if you do something silly when you're driving, if someone waves their fist at you, then you're not happy about that.

You feel indignant, don't you?

It's not a good way to have a communication with somebody.

Whereas if you can strike up a conversation and say you're interested in...

and you've found some different details where they like to converse, then I think you might have better luck.

I'll be interested to know.

Give it a whirl.

Just ping off a message.

That's a good way to do it.

I think I might add that as a rabbit hole, though, as opposed to a pressing matter.

But it's that weird balance as well of feeling like, is this my duty as a conscientious researcher to make sure I share this information?

That's a really good question.

I don't know whether it's your duty.

I kind of feel as though because of the copying factor, it is a little bit of your duty, not to the person who's made a mistake, because very often they don't care.

But if you can kind of ameliorate it a little bit so that things don't mushroom, then that will benefit some poor unsuspecting soul in a few days or weeks or years' time.

It's like you said the other week, the fact that I've got the letters from the king saying about the death, etc.

It backs me up quite well.

It is.

It's like if it was an antique you had, you've got provenance there, haven't you?

You've got written contemporary paperwork saying this is exactly what happened.

Yeah.

I'll ponder on that one as to whether I do that or when I do it.

Okay.

Okay.

No pressure.

No.

Yes, it's not a very helpful answer.

If anyone else has stronger opinions and different opinions, we would be fascinated to hear.

And it's a really useful topic because it's something we all encounter the whole time.

Yeah.

There's so many layers to it, isn't there?

There's like the duty to that ancestor to make sure they're represented well, the duty to the rest of the family history community, because obviously it is the database and people are following that.

Like you said, if...

strength in numbers people then just think that's the truth you are perpetuating a false truth and then there's just like been nice to people as well people well i don't know interesting and there's even like the it is it is partly to make sure that that particular ancestor is honored correctly particularly as they did pay such a major price at the ultimate price but it's also for your or anyone's understanding of that branch of the family because if you don't know that that son died, then your sense of those parents' life is different because it's back to the thing of not having one data point, of having, collecting as many pieces of information as possible and doing all the things that we do do, that we turn those details over in our hands.

You like making them into a timeline.

So when you can see that that son died at that stage in those parents' lives and perhaps other things happened.

Not to be too tragic, but it just happens.

People might lose their jobs at the same time.

Another child might have died in the Spanish flu at a very similar time.

Two of their sons might have died.

Without knowing all of the facts and having them correct, you don't get a sense of the pain that people had to live with much.

Not that you want people to live too poorly.

One of the things that people find really comforting about family history is the feeling of...

back to how much you think you are a few minutes ago but that feeling that your ancestors and family have persevered and lived through trials and tribulations and had struggles and got out of bed the next day and carried on and people find that a very comforting thing to learn about the people who've come before them that life wasn't always peachy and had to get on and it's not to be mean it's not trying to say Pull your socks up, it's definitely not that, but it's trying to say life can be really hard, but people, you can keep going, you can keep persevering and good times will happen again.

People do find that comforting and I think that's why they should do.

Yeah, definitely.

But if you don't know all the things that have gone wrong, you're not going to get that lesson.

Or you follow it too far and then you end up following somebody's hardships that aren't even related to you.

Well, that's true too.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

So, Nathan, with this busy time of year, do you think we should quickly decide what we're going to do over the coming week?

Well, it's our birthday next week.

That's so exciting.

My homework will just be to do the rabbit holes.

If I'm perfectly honest, I'm going away.

I'm off running in Spain, so I won't have time to actually do any actual proper research on my tree.

But we did say we were going to look at our rabbit holes.

Okay.

So I'm going to do that.

See how many I've missed over the last year.

Yeah, yeah.

Celebrate that a bit.

You've celebrated some right word.

Yeah, yeah.

I still want to challenge you to come up with some songs that represent who you are.

Okay.

Okay.

Because that'd be fun, wouldn't it?

Okay.

Are you going to do that as well?

I'm going to try.

I mean, I know more than 10 songs, though, so...

Okay.

It'll be harder for me.

Okay.

Have you got anything else planned?

I've got to finish that little book, so I just need to get some photos from the other side of the family, and I need to...

Helen.

What?

Is it a little book anymore?

No, it is a very little book.

It's for babies.

One of the readers will be ten months old.

It's only a thousand pages now.

Yes.

No, it's just a little tiny book.

It might be more than one little tiny book, but they're going to be...

I think there's a limit to the number of pages you can do when you do these baby board books.

So, yeah, do that.

And look at some of my rabbit holes.

I have been trying to go back to them.

Yeah.

It's weird because in doing this, it's going to be like, oh, yeah, let's celebrate a year of doing this podcast.

And actually, the celebration is just going to give me fear for all the stuff I've not done.

Anyway, we'll do it.

We'll do it.

We'll soldier through.

We will.

And if anybody is listening to this hot off the press and they like the idea of joining in with our birthday podcast, you have to act quickly because we have to record everything a few days before you hear it.

So if you're listening to it on the Monday that it comes out and you can get us a list of your songs a couple of days later, then we could read out a list of your songs.

That would be really fun.

So as Nathan says, if you want to list...

potentially 10 songs if you're like me it's allowed to be fewer and if you're if you're mad about music it can be longer make it as long as you wish songs that you feel sum up you and your life your values all of that whatever yeah whatever makes you maybe a top three 10 might be a lot okay okay i could tell you my top three off the top of my head but i will wait we'll find out next week yes cliffhanger Okay, have a good week then, everybody.

Thanks for listening.

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