It's Live!

Much excitement here at Piece of String HQ.  My husband has managed to wangle his work diary to enable me to go to Who Do You Think You Are? Live!

 

I suspect that I am going to be quite underwhelmed when I actually get there - such events are often quite frustrating due to the crowds.  However, I will not let that spoil the anticipation.  [He works away and it is usually impossible to pin down a whole day when he can take over dog, children, children's social lives, etc.  Trying not to think about the number of times he has changed his plans at the last minute...]

 

I am highly amused by the use of the term Live for the show, I must say.  I mean, it is a show about, mostly, searching for people who are anything but live.  However, it appears that this title is justified by the celebrity visits - people who have had their family trees done for the television shows.

 

And one of my main reasons for going is, in fact, to try to see the interview with Alistair McGowan on the Friday.  It was his episode of WDYTYA? back in 2007 which gave me the first real leads into my Anglo Indian ancestors.  I had had a lifelong interest in my family tree and as a child, had interviewed grandparents and others.  But despite some cursory searches online, I had not got very far with my dad's family.  It all felt a bit needle in a haystack and I had abandoned those lines for a quite a while.

 

The McGowan episode was a real turning point though, as mentioned before on this blog.  I had watched so many previous WDYTYA? programmes just out of interest.  I watched that one with a pen and paper in my hand.  McGowan genuinely had no idea that he had any Anglo Indian blood from his father.  It was fascinating. (Look on YouTube and you can see his reactions if you have not seen his show.)  As soon as the programme ended, my dad called to ask if I had seen it.  He couldn't quite believe it either.  I was already online at that point!

 

Being so inexperienced in genealogy then, that was my first foray into British Library India Office records!  (http://indiafamily.bl.uk/ui/home.aspx).  I only found one or two mentions of the surname Shaller but it was enough to give my search fresh impetus and spur me on to look for new online resources (Family Search, Families In British India Society, etc) which had not really existed when last I had attempted that particular line.  Strangely, my brickwalls on Shaller are now mostly back in the UK as they are pre-1837.  The Indian bit is as complete as I could have ever hoped.  Always looking though and open to new sources.  Plus I obviously have a number of other Anglo Indian surnames to work on and they are proving harder to crack.

 

I am not really sure what seeing Alistair McGowan Live is going to contribute to my research, come to that, but it feels important to hear what he has to say - if only because he was lucky enough to go to India to see his dad's home and meet some relations.  So, a day of mooching around family history exhibits, and hopefully attending the interview and some workshops, awaits me.  Well, got to get your genealogy kicks where you find them...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ooo Source-y!

Well this weekend I did my last webchat for the Organising Your Genealogy course (as whittered about in previous posts!).  It has been just three actual lessons but boy has it given me a wake-up call.  Each week has crammed in so much information that my head is still spinning!

 

This week we covered sources.  Both protection/use of original sources such as documents (acid free tissue paper and so on, apparently, are needed) and the correct usage for citations - forms, information to include etc.  It got quite academic in the end.

 

It has made me realise just how carried away I got at the beginning of my family research.  I had always had an interest in my family history and had made a couple of hand drawn family trees when I was a teenager and my grandparents were still alive.

 

However, I started again four ago in earnest.  I was looking for an original christening present for my gorgeous nephew.  So I agreed with my sister-in -law's sister that each side would provide family tree material.  She wisely employed someone to do this for her.  I, in my enthusiasm, decided I could do it myself!  Typical, some might say...

 

The amount of information that was by then available to me was astounding.  I had never really attempted to get any further back than whatever my grandparents and great aunts could actually remember.  In part, I had been put off with my father's Anglo Indian side by the difficulty of getting any data.  I had made a new effort using some of the sources referred to on Alastair McGowan's Who Do You Think You Are? [when he discovered for the first time that he was Anglo Indian.].  However, these yielded little new information.

 

What a revelation to find Families In British India (FIBIS), the British Library India Office records and the National Archives catalogue on line and searchable!  And that was just the free basic stuff for starters.  I remember being up until one o'clock in the morning many times in the weeks before the christening - completely overexcited about following the newly revealed trail that I had begun.  I took out an Ancestry subscription there and then!  Totally carried away. Made no attempt to see which subscription service would best suit me or anything.  (FYI, do check them all out before you choose.  SO much better!)

 

Of course, in the rush to see as much as possible, I ended up with a pile of notes and hurriedly drawn trees.  I did not, unfortunately, write down the sources properly...

 

Having now read The Ten Commandments of Genealogy, as recommended by my tutor for the sources lesson, I can see that I basically broke many rules that first week - because I did not know any better.

 

I did produce a tree of sorts for the christening day.  However, as detailed in my very first post on this blog, my brother and his son are still waiting for me to produce the "final" document.  Hence "how long is a piece of string"...
 

I am sure that there are items on those original scribblings that, for the life of me, I could not find again.  Worrying.  I need to re-trace those steps somehow.

 

So herewith are my own commandments of genealogy - at least for the next few months:-

 

1)  Thou shalt finish the trees that thou has started - at least, pursue no further lines of investigation until...

 

2)  Thou has provided sources for every item on said trees.

 

3)  Thou shalt finish the new filing system and buy a cabinet for it to reside in, rather than leaving piles of folders on the window sill...

 

4)  Thou shalt learn how to use the new Family Tree Maker software to assist in this process.   There is no excuse for scribbled trees all over the place in this day and age.  It is time that thou grasped that nettle!

 

I am actually looking forward to getting more organised.  I highly recommend Pharos courses.  They are reasonably priced and convenient; their materials are excellent.

 

Just be prepared for the real work to start after the course!