A week or so ago I added a few snippets of information to the Wing One-Place Study website and forgot to tell you about them.
Just a quick note to say there is a new page up on the website - this lists cases for Wing residents found in the Rolls of the Court of Common Pleas in the 1418 to 1519 period. The cases were very kindly provided to me by Vance, who is a descendant of the early MEADs of Wing and is part of the volunteer team indexing these rolls for the Anglo-American Legal Tradition.
I wasn't previously aware of this website but it's a very exciting one if you are interested in early legal cases in Britain - they have the permission of the National Archives to digitize and put these records online, all for free, so if you have traced your family quite far back and are aware of a court case involving them it's worth taking the time to figure out how the AALT website works and see if the image is there so you can read all the details (possibly assuming you can read Latin, or course). I'll be spending a bit more time looking around myself, there's so much material there!
Google recently announced that its Google Reader service will cease at the end of June. This is sad as it's a useful service for delivering RSS feeds, but also potentially good as we might see some innovation from other companies in RSS feed management and delivery.
I use Flipboard on my iPad to read all the blogs I follow, however it doesn't have any kind of feed management tools at the moment so I'm hedging my bets and also trialling Feedly. The upshot of all this is that I'm using it as an opportunity to review the blogs I'm subscribed to and cull those that are no longer active or no longer relevant to me - and if you use RSS feeds I bet you'll end up doing the same thing over the next few months too.
As you may have noticed I don't blog a lot - this is not my primary web presence for either genealogy (see http://wing-ops.org.uk/ and http://one-place-studies.org/) or me generally, and I don't blog just for the sake of it. I'll still be posting to alert you to updates on the Wing-OPS website, or other random genealogical bits and bobs as the mood takes me, but there's no regular schedule. So if I don't make it through your culling process I won't be offended - in fact I won't even know! But rest assured I'll be happy that you are maximising your genealogy time by using great tools like RSS to get the information you want or need.
If you spot a great new tool that you're planning to use to manage your genealogical RSS feeds going forward, do let me know in the comments.
There's some other, non-Wing genealogical goals I have this year:
Version 5 of Family Historian is due out next month. I plan to upgrade to this version. Furthermore, I plan to actually read the manual and work through any suggested tutorial material. The mailing list for this software inevitably makes me feel like a complete newbie as I simply haven't explored diagrams, queries and the like in any logical manner, and there's no point having top-class software if you aren't using it properly. 2012 is the year!
Another good idea would be to work through and update Family Historian by family so that sources and the like are consistently recorded. I have a bad habit of getting underway, then putting things to one side and returning three months later only to have no idea which family I was working on and where I might have been up to. For some reason I seem to have a mental block as far as getting a good system going for tracking that sort of thing.
I'd like to write some more articles for the One Place Studies website. While maintaining the index section of this website doesn't take too much time, I didn't add as much new content as I'd like in 2011.
I should also do some actual family history work on my own actual family tree. Poor neglected thing. I think I should just pick a couple of surnames that I haven't really worked on much (both on my Dad's side, as I 've already written up mini-books for Mum's side) and get stuck in revisiting the information I have, updating Family Historian, then expanding their stories. WILLSON of Lincolnshire and Islington, and PACKER of Sandford, Devon, step on up!
Now that I have "real" genealogy software, I had to convert my existing data. The initial steps were relatively simple - export from PAF to GEDCOM, import GEDCOM into Family Historian, hope for the best. Unless a really obvious error is flagged by the import process, you can only look to see that everything looks approximately okay (because we all have photographic memories and can remember all the details of the hundreds or thousands of people in our family tree off the top of our heads, right?), then look at some sample individuals you do know well to see exactly how everything has translated across into the new software.
First comment: I really should have some official sources for myself, my brother and my parents. My dad was the only one with an external source - look, I can prove he exists as I have a copy of the birth announcement in The Times (London). Turns out I (or, rather, my genealogy software a.k.a. my other brain) even know what hospital he was born in!
Second comment: for census records I had previously been adding two separate events/attributes in PAF, one for the census and one for the residence(assuming the address was more specific than just the name of the village). Family Historian enables you to attach both a place AND an address to any fact, so I would now need to go through and consolidate the census information together into one fact. Also on the address front, there's a nice feature to list all the places in your database, identify the near-duplicates, check out which records they are attached to, and tidy them up so they are recorded exactly the same if appropriate - nice!
Third comment: I use the Notes field in PAF to record the research process for that person, search terms I used, records I know exist and might be useful but that I can't access, general comments or snippets about that person, and more. This has come across a single note for each person but can now be split up into different types of notes in Family Historian (including notes that apply to the family group rather than the individual).
Fourth comment: I seem to be avoiding looking into the whole source citation area - I suspect there is some cleanup required on this part of the conversion. A perfect time to tidy up all those sources, but possibly a big job. I'll ease into it by reading the chapter in the Family Historian guidebook first!
I've finally done it - I've purchased genealogy software. After almost a decade of genealogy in my life, it was certainly time! No longer will I putter along in PAF (although I'm sure it will continue to sit on my USB drive in case I ever need to refer to it while out and about), I have a shiny new copy of Family Historian to use instead.
Of course, timing not being my strong point, I chose to purchase this now knowing full well I'm going to be reformatting the computer in a few weeks time so will have to reinstall it. But, on the other hand, shiny Christmas present for me!
When the shiny present feeling has worn off, I'll be sure to post on the trials and tribulations of converting and checking my PAF data.
The first custom map I created using Google MyMaps shows the location of mills in Wing. Over at the One Place Studies website I created a map showing the location of each one place study listed. This was intended to make it easier to identify neighbouring one place studies, which of course could be across county or country borders. I hit a small snag, though, when I got to the 201st study - after 200 markers Google MyMaps paginates the list of markers. The impact of this is that when looking at the embedded map you don't see any markers on the map that aren't on the first page of the marker listings (or, rather, aren't on the same page as the page I happened to be sitting on when I created the link to embed a particular view of the map). This was really disappointing as it destroyed the whole purpose of the maps.
After much wailing, this has now been fixed, and in case I ever have the same problem (or anyone else out there has the same problem) I thought I would document the process. I figured this out thanks to helpful posts on the Google MyMaps support forum which lead me to here and here.
Firstly, I had to combine the two existing maps I had created, England and non-England, back into a single map. For those wrestling with their own MyMaps, you need to Edit the source map you want to copy from, right-click on the View In Google Earth link and copy the link location, then go into the destination map, Edit and Import.
Secondly, I had to re-order the markers on the newly combined map back in the order I wanted them in and save the new map. Random isn't such a good option going forward should I ever need to find and edit a marker!
Thirdly, Edit the new map and copy the Google Earth link location for it, then paste that into the Search Maps box up the top and click on Search Maps. What this essentially does is enable you to see a virtual dynamic copy of your original map, without paginating the markers, that automatically updates when your underlying saved MyMap is updated.
Fourthly, while you have the virtual map open (and without saving it), you can then use the usual Link options to create the link to embed the desired map view into your webpage. Should you need to create any new embedded links at a future date you can repeat the third and fourth step to access the virtual map again.
The really good news is that doing all that seems to have fixed the glitch whereby the links in most of the markers weren't opening up in the whole webpage - but now they do! This problem was quite frustrating as it meant that anyone using those links weren't actually getting to the website they wanted to visit and could only view it in a comparatively small window. It also gave the impression that the information in those studies was part of the One Place Studies index site which was the last thing I wanted - everyone working on a one place study deserves their due credit for their hard work in providing that resource!
If you haven't checked out the One Place Studies website yet, take a look and see if anyone is working on a study for any of your ancestral places. If you have your own genealogy website, how might Google MyMaps help illustrate what you are doing?
Seen the new-look Google Image Search yet? It hasn't yet been rolled out to google.co.uk or google.co.nz but is operational on google.com.
In a nutshell it's prettier (particularly if your ancestors were from West Lulworth in Dorset and you were searching for photos of that particularly stunning location!), has a lot more images on the first results page, has a pop-up box as you mouse over images to give you more information about the image, and has better filters including image size and predominant colour palette.
I can't help thinking that all this ease of use may lead to increased copyright breaches - remember to ask permission to use any photos you find on the internet unless they are clearly tagged with a Creative Commons licence or similar, and follow any attribution or other rules attached to the image.
Note that I haven't bothered hyperlinking to Google in this post as your browser will probably auto-direct you to your local version of Google - if this isn't google.com you should have a link on the local version page whereby you can "Go to Google.com".
As in the past, the search function may bring up some not-so-accurate images based on the words surrounding the image - I found a familiar image when searching for Wing Buckinghamshire...
Dick Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter had a wee gem in it this weekend that I hadn't seen before - check this out. I look forward to seeing what WDYTYA discovers about Alexander Armstrong's real family tree!
Thomas at Geneabloggers has suggested that we post some info about the power under the hood, the technology that we use to support our genealogy activities. So, just this once, I'll play along with the rest of the meme-rs. I can't help it, it's the tech geek in me coming out, although I'll cut it short as I'm under orders to locate some dinner....
* Hardware: The desktop computer's pretty elderly now but it runs an AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core processor at 3.02GHz, 4Gb RAM, with Vista Ultimate 64-bit. The baby computer is an Acer Aspire One netbook.
* External storage: Seagate 500Gb external desktop drive for backups (lives offsite, under my desk at work).
* Online storage: don't use. Those with NZ broadband costs/speeds/datacaps will understand why.
* Backup: GFI Backup 2009 Home Edition (freeware!)
* Virus protection: AVG (freeware!)
* Mobile media: iPod Nano (blue - if I'd bought it myself it would have been a (Product) Red - you did need to know the colour, right?) on which I can listen to the various genealogy podcasts
* eBook Reader: Kobo (I'll be blogging regularly about my genealogy/history finds for this)
* Browser: Firefox. There is no other.
* Blog: Blogger.
* RSS: I read blog feeds using the Blogger Dashboard, and other RSS feeds direct in Firefox
* FTP: FireFTP (extension for Firefox) gets my website updates where they need to be
* Accounting: you don't really want to go there with an accountant, do you?
* PDF generator: doPDF
* Genealogy database: PAF - yes, I know. The only full genealogy program I've seen that I liked is Family Historian, but it just doesn't work at all on a netbook screen so I haven't been able to justify the price (refer: Accounting).
* Genealogy tools: key tools off the top of my head are Transcript, Genopro, and Parloc
Recently I was chatting to @OutlookChick on Twitter about using Microsoft Outlook for genealogy. Long story short, I've just guest-blogged on her Arrow Tips Outlook blog about it - check it out and let us know what you think.
This week I downloaded Transcript, a freeware program to help you transcribe from image files into a Rich Text file. This program loads the image in the top half of your screen, and you can type in the editor in the the bottom half of the screen.
I've tested it out by transcribing the 1895 Kelly's directory using it, and I do think I'll keep using it. It's not perfect - most notably I'd love it if it could save in plain text format or HTML format natively (so I don't have to open the RTF file and resave as TXT, then open and resave the TXT file as HTML if I'm transcribing something for the website). I'm also still experimenting getting images extracted out of PDFs so that they can be opened in Transcript. But overall the program is sensible and streamlined, features I always appreciate!
Just back from an evening visit to the Family History Centre at the local LDS, and my new netbook (Acer Aspire One D150 for those with enquiring minds) acquitted itself very well. Light to carry, quick to load up, and much much easier to type up wills than to attempt to read my handwriting at a later date!
Playing around with the websearch feature......you know what would be really smart? Having the Google search string automatically look for females under their married name(s) as well as just their maiden name. The search string uses several "or" variations on the name to increase the chances of getting a hit, but it doesn't include the married name.
I currently use the free PAF software from FamilySearch.org. When I started out on this journey I wasn't quite sure exactly what I would want in genealogy software and I can be rather picky when it comes to software, so initially a freebie product was the smart choice.
I've never actually gotten around to moving on though! I've done the rounds of evaluating the various products out there a few times, the last time over a year ago when we moved to Vista Ultimate 64-bit, on which several products refused to install or run even when their vendors claimed they could! I came to the conclusion that I fancied Family Historian, a solid British-oriented program - but couldn't quite justify the price.
RootsMagic is currently offering their upcoming version 4 as a public beta operational to the end of this month, so I decided to take a look. It converted my PAF file without having to first export it to a GEDCOM, and seems to have a clean and efficient use of space in its user interface.
When viewing an individual there's a tab to run a websearch on that individual, with the search string optimised to increase your chances of getting a relevant hit - I will be looking at this a bit more to see exactly how optimised. I sent it looking for one of my COLES ancestors in Google, and hey presto it came back with a Methodist circuit baptism for his son, who shared the same name. Score! Then I sent it off to search Rootsweb and it came back with an Abney Park Cemetery burial entry for both father and son - I had known the son was buried there but not the father, my direct ancestor. Score! (Incidentally if anyone reading this is in London and fancies a trip to Abney Park see if they can find the memorials I'd love to hear from you) I was impressed at how quick and easy this feature was - slightly less impressed at the fact it seems to use the IE interface for the websearch, even though my computer is set to use Firefox as its default browser, but that's a minor quibble.
I was also pleased to see that the individual summary report doesn't abbreviate entries. PAF does this in order to fit any given field's contents into the space allowed in the report, leading to oddities like "Church St, W, B" printing as a residence instead of spelling out Wing Buckinghamshire in full - which, frankly, is pretty important information I want on my printouts! No problems with RootsMagic though, it will print the entire entry by scrolling onto a second line if it has to. On the negative side, the report starts a new page before beginning the source citations - why not have the option to run it directly after the main text of the report so you can save paper?
I do prefer a British-written program though, and here's an example why. RootsMagic has a gazetteer in it, which when you search for Wing will bring up both the Buckinghamshire and Rutland villages with that name - a good start. However, highlighting the Buckinghamshire entry and clicking Online Map sends you off to the LiveSearch Maps website which shows you the Rutland one, not the Bucks one. I had a similar false result when clicking on Great Tew, Oxfordshire (Great Tey Road in Colchester, Essex!). A UK-written program would be designed to integrate with UK resources and to pass instructions to those resources in a way that made sense for UK conditions. If software isn't optimised for UK genealogy I can guarantee there's going to be "features" which are either unusable or will annoy me every time I use the program, and I'm not prepared to pay for that.
I'll be downloading the demo of the next version of Family Historian once it comes out (also imminently) as a comparison.
I haven't done much on the genealogical front in the last week or so. I should be busily working through DearMyrtle's February checklist, in particular crosschecking between the hard-copy information in my newly sorted ringbinders against the electronic information in my PAF file, but instead I've been busy making tomato sauce and pasta sauce with my tomato harvest, and........
I've finally gone ahead and purchased the latest upgrade to Adobe Lightroom, the program I use to process digital photos, so I've been getting distracted with that! I shoot in RAW, which means that less processing is controlled by the camera - one good thing about this is that as more sophisticated software is released you are able to go back and reprocess your photos to get a subtly better result. This is particularly handy when they are travel photos from the other side of the world and you don't have a chance to retake them.
Unfortunately a rubbish photo is still a rubbish photo. While I've been trying to tinker with the photos I took when visiting Wing in 2005, running around in the rain on a tight schedule, they're still not up to scratch - right now I have a slightly displeased expression on my face, somewhat like this cherub on a fountain at Ascott House: 
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