LiveMemory from MyHeritage - Just Released

MyHeritage has a new feature to enhance photos call LiveMemory^TM that “enables you to turn any still photo into a short video clip using AI. It animates the scene in the photo, reimagining it as if you had traveled back in time to watch it live. It’s the ultimate way to reminisce.”

I have used the process on a few photos from my library and it is a real treat to see people come to life before your eyes.

Watch this video to see for yourself.

And go ahead and try it for free. Get more information here.

Tree Inconsistencies: Update 3

Following up on my three previous blog posts on this subject (Checking Tree Inconsistencies, Tree Inconsistencies: Update #1 and Tree Inconsistencies: Update #2) here is another example of things to consider when checking your family tree information.

Sometimes errors are not, in fact errors. But they need to be checked, all the same.

Another item on both the MyHeritage Tree Consistency Checker and Legacy’s Potential Problems List showed there was an event date after the death date of Margaret Maitland Anderson.

A closer look indicated the conflict was with a record relating to the 1871 Canada census when she had died in 1870.

Margaret was born on 21 March 1825, in Kirkintilloch, Dunbarton, Scotland, to Gilber Anderson and Margaret Maitland. With her parents and several siblings, she moved to Canada in 1832. She married Thomas Dick in 1845 in Lanark County, Ontario. The family moved to Huron County, Ontario shortly after.

Margaret died of phthisis (tuberculosis) in Huron County on 5 April 1870. Interestingly, as part of the 1871 Canadian census, a mortality schedule was also published which included the names of people who had died in the 12 months leading up to the census enumeration.

Margaret was one of the people on the list. So, all was well with this entry, even though Legacy did not agree.

By the way, I checked this individual on the Ancestry Tree checker as well, but they did not recognize any inconsistency with the information.

Watch for my talk on this subject in 2025. More information to come in the next few weeks.

Witch Hunts and the Little Ice Age

 I have a new article, co-authored with Karin Helmstaedt, published this week in Family Tree (UK) magazine titled Witch Hunts during the Little Ice Age. The piece summarizes the persecution of individuals for witch craft, events that escalated during that cool period due to challenging living conditions.

We have compiled a long list of references about the subject including articles, books, websites and videos but did not have the space in the magazine to include them. They are shown below and include not only the ones quoted in the article but many others we think readers may be interested in.

We hope you will be able to obtain a copy of the article and enjoy reading about the events. For subscription information contact the publisher at www.family-tree.co.uk

 

Witch Hunts and the Little Ice Age

Selected References & Further Reading

Baker, Emerson W. (2015). A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. Oxford University Press. 398 pp.

Behringer, Wolfgang. (1995). Weather, Hunger and Fear: Origins of the European Witch-Hunts in Climate, Society and Mentality. German History, 13(1), pp. 1-27. https://www.uni-saarland.de/fileadmin/upload/lehrstuhl/behringer/PDF/weather.pdf

Behringer, Wolfgang. (1999). Climatic Change and Witch-Hunting: The impact of the Little Ice Age on mentalities. Climatic Change, 43, pp. 335-351. [important article for old treatises references] file:///F:/Downloads/Climatic_Change_and_Witch_Hunting%20(2).pdf

Behringer, Wolfgang. (2004). Witches and Witch-Hunts: A global history. Wiley, 320 pp.

Behringer, Wolfgang. (2010). A Cultural History of Climate. (published in German in 2007 as Kulturgeschichte des Klimas by C. H. Beck; translated by Patrick Camiller). Cambridge: Polity Press. 295 pp.

Boyer, Paul & Stephen Nissenbaum (Eds.). (1977). The Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim transcriptions of the court records, in three volumes. De Capo Press. https://salem.lib.virginia.edu/category/swp.html

Briggs, Robin. (2007). The Witches of Lorraine. Oxford University Press, 416 pp.

Clayton, John A. (2007). The Lancashire Witch Conspiracy: A History of Pendle Forest and the Pendle Witch Trials. Barrowford Press, 302 pp.

Dillinger, Johannes. (2019). The Routledge History of Witchcraft. Routledge, 422 pp.

Drake, Frederick C. (1968). Witchcraft in the American Colonies, 1647-62. American Quarterly, 20(4), pp. 694-725.

Federici, Silvis & Alice Markham-Cantor. (2003). How social turmoil has increased witch hunts throughout history. Scientific American, May issue.   https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-social-turmoil-has-increased-witch-hunts-throughout-history/   

Gent, Frank J. (2017). The Trial of the Bideford Witches. Independently Published, 78 pp.

Godbeer, Richard. (1993). The Devil’s Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England. Cambridge University Press, 268 pp. [search on Ancestry.com; browse on Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/devilsdominionma0000godb_p8m2]

Goodare, Julian, Rita Voltmer & Liv Helene Willumsen (Eds.). (2020). Demonology and Witch-Hunting in Early Modern Europe. Routledge, 402 pp.

Helmstaedt, Karin. (2023). Remembering my ancestor who was burned as a witch. Deutsche Welle, Culture / Germany, 30 April 2023. https://www.dw.com/en/a-witch-in-the-family/a-65447802

Hudson, Chris. (2016). Witch Trials: Discontent in Early Modern Europe. Working Paper No. HEIDWP11-2016, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, International Economics Department, Working Paper Series. https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/156127/1/871678241.pdf

Kieckhefer, Richard. (1976). European Witch Trials: Their foundations in popular and learned culture 1300-1500. University of California Press, 181 pp.

Lamb, Hubert H. (1977). Climate: Present, Past and Future, Volume 2 – Climatic History and the Future. Methuen & Co. Ltd., 835 pp.

Leeson, Peter R. & Jacob W. Russ. (2017). Witch Trials. The Economic Journal, August, pp. 2066-2105. https://www.peterleeson.com/Witch_Trials.pdf

Levack, Brian P. (2013). The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America. Oxford University Press, 644 pp.

Maxwell-Stuart, Peter G. (2011). Witch Beliefs and Witch Trials in the Middle Ages: Documents and readings. Continuum International Publishing Group, 228 pp.

Miguel, E. (2005). Poverty and Witch Killing. The Review of Economic Studies, 72(4), 1153-1172. http://emiguel.econ.berkeley.edu/assets/miguel_research/45/_Paper__Poverty_and_Witch_Killing.pdf

Oster, Emily. (2004). Witchcraft, Weather and Economic Growth in Renaissance Europe. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18(1), pp. 215-228. https://www.sfu.ca/~poitras/jpe_witches_04.pdf

Pfister, Ulrich. (2010). Consumer Prices and Wages in Germany, 1500-1850. Center for quantitative Economics. 45 pp. https://www.wiwi.uni-muenster.de/cqe/sites/cqe/files/CQE_Paper/CQE_WP_15_2010.pdf

Potts, Thomas. (1613). The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster (Reproduced as Potts’s Discovery of Witches, introduction by James Crossley, 1845. https://archive.org/details/pottsdiscoveryw01pottgoog/page/n9/mode/2up)

Rummel, Walter. (1991). Bauern, Herren, und Hexen. Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft 94, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 424 pp.

Scott, Susan & Christopher J. Duncan. (1997). The mortality crisis of 1623 in north-west England. Local Population Studies, 58(Spring), pp. 14-25.    http://www.localpopulationstudies.org.uk/PDF/LPS58/LPS58_1997_14-25.pdf

Shepheard, W. Wayne. (2018). Surviving Mother Nature’s Tests: The effects climate change and other natural phenomena have had on the lives of our ancestors. Unlock the Past, 179 pp.

Shepheard, Wayne. (2023). Genealogy and the Little Ice Age. Unlock the Past, 82 pp.

Voltmer, Rita. (2008). Hexen: Wissen was stimmt. Verlag Herder, 128 pp.

Zarrillo, Dominick. (2018). The Icelandic Witch Craze of the Seventeenth Century. The College of New Jersey. file:///F:/Downloads/The_Icelandic_Witch_Craze_of_the_Sevente%20(2).pdf

Old Treatises

Kramer, Heinrich & Jakob Sprenger. (1486). Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches - English Translation by Montague Summers) https://ia803003.us.archive.org/13/items/b31349717/b31349717.pdf

Molitor, Ulrich. (1489). Opusculum de sagis maleficis. (Concerning Witches and Sorceresses) https://ia601600.us.archive.org/25/items/de-lamiis-et-pythonicis-mulieribus/De%20Lamiis%20et%20Pythonicis%20Mulieribus.pdf

Plantsch, Martin. (1507). Opusculum de sagis maleficis. [in Latin] (A treatise on witchcraft) https://books.google.ca/books?id=CqpSAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Scot, Reginald. (1584) The Discoverie of Witchcraft https://ia800201.us.archive.org/32/items/discoverieofwitc00scot/discoverieofwitc00scot.pdf

Roberts, Alexander. (1616). A Treatise of Witchraft. https://archive.org/details/b30333416

Bragge, Francis. (1712). Witchcraft Farther Display’d. https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/pdf/b30545158

Boulton, Richard. (1722). The Possibility and Reality of Magick, Sorcery, and Witchcraft, demonstrated, or a Vindication of a Compleat History of Magick, Sorcery, and Witchcraft. https://archive.org/details/possibilityreali00boul/page/n3/mode/2up

Websites & Online References

Boston Public Library: Salem Witch Trials https://guides.bpl.org/salemwitchtrials/home

Cornell University Witchcraft Collection https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/witchcraftcoll/

Early Modern Witch Trials https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/early-modern-witch-trials/

Germanna Foundation newsletter, Spring 2016 https://germanna.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Germanna-Foundation-Newsletter-Spring-2016-web.pdf

Lancashire County Online Parish Clerk pages https://www.lan-opc.org.uk/

Pendle Witches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendle_witches

Wellcome Collection: Names of the Witches (in Scotland) 1658 [search on Ancestry.com] https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/pdf/b19111319

Witches and Witchcraft on The Online Books Page begin: https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/browse?type=subject&index=185238&key=wit%20and%20humor%20african%20american&c=c

Witchcraft Bibliography https://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ld.php?content_id=32757238

Witchcraft & the law in early modern Europe & USA: Home https://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/law-witch

Witchfinder General Project (Scotland) http://witches.is.ed.ac.uk/death/

Videos

1612: The Disturbing Witch Trial That Shook Britain | The Pendle Witch Child | Chronicle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQrva6RAkak

Dark Age Britain’s War with Witchcraft: A century of murder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBBHfZwjxYY

Death in the Dark Country: the Pendle Witch Trials https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wegs_uHDZiE

Witches – A century of murder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpic8sIh2JM

The Evil Career of Matthew Hopkins the Witchfinder General https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvVm29b1EP4

Why Witch Hunts are not just a Dark Chapter from the Past  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2Q1Vo9kduo

 

Remembering my mother

Today is the 50^th anniversary of the death of my mother, Norma Mabel (Miller) Shepheard (1917-1974). It has been a long time, but she is still part of our fondest memories. She died way to young but in her short time on Earth she had a major impact on all those around her, especially her children.

Curiously I read something in the comic pages this past week (Pearls Before Swine, 26 September 2024) that so clearly describes how we might feel about losing someone close. Sometimes you find perception in the strangest places:

A main character asked a local seer: “Oh, Wise Ass, when a magician makes himself disappear, is he really gone?”

The seer replied, “No, he’s just somewhere else that you can’t see.”

The character then commented, “So it’s sort of like when someone you love dies. It might look like they’re gone but really, they’re just somewhere else, like in your heart. And that’s its own form of magic.”

The seer’s comment, “Sometimes there’s nothing I can add.”

I can add nothing either. She’ll forever be in my heart.

The care and selflessness of mothers, grandmothers, sisters and aunts

We have more than a few stories about mothers, grandmothers, sisters and aunts in past family lines who made special efforts to care for their children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews.

I was reminded of such events by discussions this past week with a friend and her recent experience with illness in her family and the support she has been able to offer as a mother and grandmother.

My 2^nd great grandmother, Susanna Pearson (nee Davis), was shown on the (April) 1891 census in the Torquay, Devon home of her daughter, my great-grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Shepheard, where one month old grandson, my grandfather James, also resided. Susanna moved from her home in Leamington, Warwickshire, to look after Mary (and James of course) who was ill and probably bedridden. Great-grandfather James was in service and was required to live in the home of his employer elsewhere in Torquay. Mary died in October so it would not surprise me if her mother stayed until the end. Susanna and my 2^nd great-grandfather, Charles, took the little boy into their care in their Leamington, Warwickshire home. He was there for about a year, until they could no longer look after him because of their own failing health.

A 3^rd great-grandmother, Ann Shepheard (nee Symons), along with one of her daughters, Jane, came from Cornwood, Devon to the home of a brother-in-law in Plymouth, to care for him and his three-month-old daughter when sister-in-law, Thomasin Short (nee Shepheard) fell ill. Ann was shown there at the time of the (June) 1841 census just after the new mother died. No doubt she had arrived before the woman was incapacitated and stayed to care for the family. Baby Thomasin ended up living with another aunt for several years. She also received financial support from other relatives.

Coincidentally both young women died of phthisis (tuberculosis), 50 years apart.

My wife was very involved in the well being of her mother in the latter’s late life visiting her regularly and taking care of her needs, in her apartment while she could live on her own, and later in the care home before where she spent her last days.

One of my sisters lived with our mother for several months before Mom moved from the city of Calgary to a new home in British Columbia. Mom became ill with what we knew only later was the early stages cancer. My sister cared for her immediate needs and provided much needed companionship while our dad was setting up a new business.

These are just a few stories I have uncovered so far through my family history research that show the love and support family members had for each other, perhaps especially the mothers, grandmothers, sisters and aunts who primarily took on the direct supporting roles. 

In most families I believe it generally is the females in families that provide for the assistance and ease of the burdens of older or sick relatives. While my wife and I are not unable to fend for ourselves, our daughter and daughter-in-law both go out of their way to do things for us whenever they can. Not that men don’t care or offer whatever help they can. But it’s different.

Tree Inconsistencies: Update #2

In my last blog post on this subject I stated that, according to MyHeritage, I had 493 inconsistencies in my family tree. I went on to explain how to recognize such errors or problems on MyHeritage and on my Legacy software.

Some have been easy to find and correct; others have involved doing some additional research.

One example on the Legacy Potential Problems List showed that for William Henry Colman the “birth date is bad.” That could mean a lot of things, so I looked at the detail on his record. It turned out that I had just missed putting in a space between the month and the year and Legacy did not recognize the format. Having corrected the date for William Colman’s birth also took care of the notes on each of the five problems noted on entries for his children that showed Father’s birth date was bad. (The pages from my Legacy program are shown on the accompanying slide taken from my talk.)

I have been slowly working my way through the error as identified on both MyHeritage and Legacy. But on a recent email from MyHeritage they told me I now had 497 issues. It seems it’s getting worse, not better.

One of the issues on the latest message was for Mattie Miller, a supposed 2^nd cousin, twice removed. Apparently, the birth of Mattie’s mother was too close to her own: just 15 years apart. Now, that could have been right, but it was suspicious. So, I thought I should do a little more research on the family.

The mother in question was Anna M. Keith (1868-1949), according to my Legacy program, a 1^st cousin, three time removed. She was the daughter of Mason Parks Keith (1812-1879) and his second wife, Lucinda Francis Robinson (1830-1910). They were married in Indiana in 1856, a month after the death of his first wife in the same year.

Mason Parks was the son of my 3^rd great-grandparents Samuel Adkins and Isabel (Parks) Keith. I had quite a bit of information on the Keith family, mostly collected by my aunt and a cousin. But not much on grandchildren of Samuel and Isabel. The Keith family migrated to Indiana from Kentucky around 1820.

Anna married John Miller in Indiana, but I did not have a marriage record. From census data, it appeared they had seven children together, including Mattie, born in 1883. The 1900 census showed five of them still living at home. I started to look at each of the children to see if any information might shed light on dates and relationships.

I found a 1957 death record for Mattie’s brother, Clarence. Surprisingly it listed his mother’s named as Elizabeth Carlile, not Anna Keith. His obituary said the same thing. There was a note on the Find a Grave website, however, that indicated his mother might have been named Clark.

Mattie lived until 1968. Her obituary named children from several marriages, which I found to be to Jerrad Tobias, Alva Eacret, Daniel Garriott and Loren Rutledge. Each of the marriage records showed her mother as Elizabeth Hobson or Hopson. The obituary of her father John Miller, named Mattie Nail as a surviving daughter, indicating another marriage. From this data, I had another line to research.

I have found limited data on Elizabeth Hobson. There is information on Find a Grave that shows she was born in 1860 and died in 1887 which would be consistent with an 1881 marriage to John Miller, who is also listed on the site, and a death prior to the births of his other children by Anna Keith, the first in 1889. There is still a great deal to do on the family line, particularly as to how the names Hobson, Carlile and Clark fit, it at all.

It is clear now that Mattie’s mother was not Anna Keith but Elizabeth Hobson. A rather innocuous issue on the MyHeritage Tree Checker has resulted in a whole new family line to look at and a realization that the person named in the problem is not a blood relative.

Genealogy and the Little Ice Age Presentation: NEW

There is a new version of my signature talk about Genealogy and the Little Ice Age on Legacy Family Tree Webinars, as of today.

I re-recorded the presentation that was originally done in 2018. The new version has been streamlined to some extent, with fewer slides on some topics and extra information offered on other, more important topics. The format was also changed from a 4:3 size to 16:9, offering a larger viewing area.

Since first giving the talk, I have done considerably more research about the subject and found many more great examples of events that transpired during the Little Ice Age period. The new version contains some of these summaries.

I have also expanded the sections explaining where and how to find information about the epoch and how to relate data to family history research.

The new talk will be live on 29 August 2024.

If you are a member, tune in then and watch.

If you have not yet subscribed, I highly recommend doing so. Presently LFTW offers 2,252 presentations by 418 speakers, who also have put up 8,783 syllabus pages.

https://familytreewebinars.com/

Tree Inconsistencies: Update #1

On 31 October 2023 I wrote about inconsistencies in my family tree published on MyHeritage. They had been sending my periodic emails about problems their Consistency Checker program recognized in my data. At the time, there were 493 of them of various types but mostly date related.

I began looking at the problems and making corrections, thinking I could get a quick handle on a remedy or remedies. Almost a year later, I have not found the time to get all the problems fixed. In fact, even having made several changes, the latest email from MyHeritage says there are now 497 issues. I have added much data to my tree so I can only think that their program is getting more sophisticated and picking out ones that had been identified previously.

I looked further into the whole subject of tree inconsistencies and to programs one could use to identify and fix them. I even put together a talk about it to the Family Tree Gadgets Club in December. If you are a subscriber of the Family tree magazine you can join their Family Tree Plus and get access to many videos and other information.

As part of my review, I went back to my Legacy tree software. Part of their program is a Potential Problems Report which does the same analysis to identify inconsistencies. Legacy noted 1,058 records as having problems. So, I seemed to have had a bigger situation than I would have thought.

The Legacy report grouped the potential problems in many more categories, some of which correlating with MyHeritage groups, but many that did not. Why the different ones were not picked up by the MyHeritage Consistency Checker I don’t know.

A close inspection showed that there were some interesting categories that were certainly worth reviewing, that MyHeritage did not reveal, particularly regarding individual family dynamics. That list looks pretty complicated, but the records can be grouped into just a few main categories.

Legacy Potential Problems Major Groups

·         Childrens’ Births (704)

·         Birth spacing (416)

·         Related to Marriages (288)

·         Text 158)

·         Chronology (135)

·         Punctuation (31)

·         Bad Dates (30)

Most of the questions regarding births have to do with the spacing between children in any one family (416 of 704 records highlighted). Historically, one might find spacing of children of one to three years. When the gap is great than five years, consideration should be given as to whether the children were from the same family or whether there might have been another child in between them that you have not found yet.

MyHeritage did not catch this kind of discrepancy of spacing.

The other problem with births relates to the marriage of the parents (288 of 704 records were questioned) There was a large number of children noted (143) who were born more than 20 years after the marriage of the parents which seems inordinately long. Again, one could question whether these children should properly have been included with another family that had parents of similar names.

There were also 54 children whose birth came a few years after the parents’ marriage which again might suggest there could have been other children born before them. For 11 children on my list, one of the parents was recorded as being younger than 13 years old. That will almost assuredly be an error of the birth dates of either the child or parent.

There were 104 children born before the parents were married. And 65 children were recorded as being born too soon after the parents’ marriage, but we all know that the first child can come any

time; it’s the second one that takes nine months.

Problems were noted for 158 individuals for whom there were questions in the text:

·         Descriptive words such as “unknown”, “infant” or “baby” found in the name (68)

·         The husband and wife had the same surname (72)

·         There was a salutation (Mr., Mrs. Miss) in the name field (13)

·         There were multiple names in the name fields (5)

When you don’t have all the information about a name, sometimes words like “unknown” are often used, at least by me. I certainly have situations where people with the same last name married each other, a few being first cousins. Again, without a forename defined, old records often used a salutation that indicated their status in the community. Where there is confusion about the spelling of a name, or an alias might be recorded, I have, on occasion put both in the name field.

Getting the dates right is a common problem, with errors often made, at least in my case, by careless inputting of data. Of the 135 chronology problems, 104 of them had to do with the birth dates of children preceding the marriage date of the parents. Some children, of course, were born before the parents got hitched, but all those highlighted need to be rechecked.

I had 14 marriages of people aged 13 or under which are probably wrong. Then I had 17 miscellaneous problems including:

·         Birth date after burial date

·         Burial date before death date

·         Christening date before birth date

·         A marriage date after a death date

·         Events in an individual’s life recorded before their birth or after their death

It is likely that these kinds of errors are, again, carelessness in inputting data. Thirty-one potential problems had to do with punctuation or symbols being used or spacing errors of elements of a date, which my Legacy program frowns on.

Bad dates were indicated for 30 entries, mostly to do again with the format Legacy did not like.

While there may be good reasons for many of the problems indicated, all of them needed to be looked at to be sure information was recorded accurately.

MyHeritage Consistency Checker Categories

·         Text (317)

·         Children’s births (79)

·         Chronology (38)

·         Other (89)

Breaking down the problem list in groups we find the MyHeritage Consistency Checker was not as detailed as the Legacy summary.

Almost 60% (317) of the Consistency Checker issues had to do with text problems:

·         Inconsistent last name spelling (189)

·         Siblings sharing a first name (70)

·         Inconsistent place name spelling (31)

·         Married, or groom’s name is the same as the wife’s maiden name (21)

Children’s birth dates and general chronology problems (123) combined were 23% of the total versus nearly 79% for Legacy.

Under an ‘Other’ category, 61 people were not shown as deceased but likely were because of their birth dates.

Another 25 individuals were categorized as “disconnected from tree” which was a curious phrase. Many of these entries are duplicates that I should have deleted. Some were added as possible family members, but I had not decided where they fit.

The fewer issues on MyHeritage than were found with Legacy is more likely due to the parameters set out to compare dates rather than a criticism or incompleteness of the results

Over the next few blog posts, I will look at some of the specific problems identified by MyHeritage and Legacy and what I learned when looking to fix them.

All About That Place 2024 Presentation

I am presenting a short presentation to the to the 2024 All About that Place program (27 Sep – 6 Oct 2024) sponsored by the Society of Genealogists.

From the SoG: All About That Place 2024 aims to help participants to put their ancestors ‘in their place’ - both in terms of location and social-historical context. An accompanying electronic task workbook will encourage participants to take action on everything they learn from watching talks. All About That Place is a community. It strives to foster active audience participation and engagement, to deliver an experience that stands out from the crowd.

My talk will be about a shipwreck my great-grandfather was involved in. I wrote about it in a blog post on 16 September 2020. In the presentation I’ll talk a bit more about the event and shipwrecks in general. I will also offer some tips about how to find information about old ships and crew lists.

Come and join the dozens of presenters in the show. Subscribe for information on the All About That Place 2024 webpage. https://www.subscribepage.com/allaboutthatplace

A great feature of the event is that it's FREE!

Society of Genealogists Presentation

On August 8th, this week, I am presenting my talk about Stormy Weather: events that changed our ancestors' fortunes. It is not too late to register if you are interested in hearing about how such events played havoc with people and communities in the past. To register click on the logo to the right or go to the SoG website here. 

What clubs did your ancestors belong to?

Growing up, my parents were involved in many different clubs. They developed life-long friendships with members of these social and professional groups. Joining these associations, both formal and informal, I suspect was a habit and lifestyle they brought to the city from their rural roots, where neighbours often gathered for community events.

Joining groups of people for social relationships or occupational connections is part of being a member of a community. Often such associations started as a student and progressed in adulthood as interests developed or changed. Volunteering was a driver of memberships in service clubs of business-people or meaningful charities.

Among the groups my parents were involved with were the Kiwanis Club (for business people and service to the community), the Movie Club (for people interested in taking home movies) and the square dance club (for fun and social connections).

In my own experience, as a student I was part of the Boy Scouts, bands and orchestras (with and outside of schools), the Rundle Group (a university club for geology students)

As an adult I participated with: the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists (a professional society) and family history societies (pursuing genealogical research).

Farm life in the early 1900s meant people were physically separated during their workdays so community activities centred around churches and schools dominated their social life: after work, on weekends, and for special holidays. Volunteering was a way of life. People came together to organize events to raise funds to help neighbours in distress, provide capital for recreational and other facilities, or just for fun.

Regular community parties and dances were the best way for young people to meet, outside of school. Because of their different ages, my parents would not have met at school but at community events. In fact, they were introduced by my father’s cousin who was staying with my mother’s family and got to know each other at local dances and parties.

KIK Country is a collection of histories of families and events for the Kathryn, Irricana and Keoma areas northeast of Calgary, Alberta. This is where my parents were raised and where my father was born. It contains hundreds of short summaries of local families who lived in the region.

Besides the hundreds of summaries of individual families, the book contains historical information about: the indigenous population of the time; the irrigation system; the railroads; local villages and municipal histories; agriculture history, methods, livestock and general industry; local churches; schools, school clubs and professional groups; social, professional and volunteer organizations; sporting groups; military service; and many plain articles of interest.

I actually found a bunch of new stuff, including copies of photos I had not seen before, while writing this piece.

By the way, the book can be browsed online in the digital collections of the University of Calgary. https://digitalcollections.ucalgary.ca/archive/K-I-K--country-2R3BF1OVWXP_W.html Their “Local Histories collection features books describing the history of Canadian small towns, rural areas, and large cities.” It’s a wonderful resource. I have found a great deal of information about my ancestors, including photos not in our family albums in this one publication.

The important part in the book concerning what this blog post is about are the descriptions of the many organizations in which people participated and that brought them together to form a vibrant community: home and school associations, community associations, Odd Fellows Lodge, Masonic Lodge, Order of the Eastern Star, Camp for the Modern Woodmen of America, Lions Club, farm workers locals, and several ladies aid groups.

For the young people there were: the Sunshine Girls Club, Cadet Corps, Junior Grain Club, 4-H beef Club, 4-H Field Crops Club, 4-H Engine Club, 4-H Clothing Club, and Cubs Scouts. There were organized teams for softball, baseball, curling and hockey for both children and adults.

In addition to the family histories, it is very interesting to read about the various clubs and events with which my ancestors participated, particularly those that raised funds for local projects. These demonstrate the closeness of the community and its members.

It’s easy to see how people growing up in such places took with them the idea of belonging to other groups where there were friends to be made, new experiences to enjoy and with a spirit of volunteerism where other people could be helped.

Clubs and societies have been around for a long time, of course. Here are some interesting books from which you can learn about them:

Clark, Peter. (2000). British Clubs and Societies 1580-1800. Oxford University Press.

Thompson, F. M. L. (Editor). (1990). The Cambridge Social History of Britain, 1750-1950. Three volumes. Cambridge University Press.

A Complete and Humorous Account of all the Remarkable Clubs and Societies in the Cities of London and Westminster. (1756). https://archive.org/details/b30510466/page/n3/mode/2up

My Favourite Photo (learning how to make images better for publication)

I am giving a presentation to the Family Tree Genealogy Gadgets Club in September about Creating Visuals for Publication. See the information at the end of this post to find how you can join in.

I use a lot of images in my blogs, published articles and presentations. Some are photos of people. Many are diagrams, graphs or copies of documents from parish registers, books and articles or websites.

All are useful in demonstrating the subject matter of my publications and talks. In my presentations, particularly, I like to have colour and images that attract attention and keep interest. Not to be too critical but slides with a lot of text, that presenters just read, leave me cold, even though those speaking are probably very knowledgeable in their areas.

With too much text on the screen, I suspect participants spend too much time trying to read the information (many likely cannot keep up), lose their place in the talk and mss important things the speaker is trying to impart. I confess I do read a lot of my text, mainly so that I don’t forget to say something, but I try not to put too many words on the slide.

Many images need to be cleaned up and put for publication, whether in a magazine, a book, a family summary or a presentation. I use MyHeritage a lot for this as I mentioned in previous posts: MyHeritage Photo Repair (26 May 2021) and Using MyHeritage’s Photo Improvement Processes (28 Feb 2022). Before I publish, I use my Adobe Photoshop software to put them in the best format.

One of the examples I am using in my talk is a photo taken of me and my mother in 1947. It is one of my favorite pictures. The original snapshot was a bit washed out and not framed as well as it could have been.

So, using Photoshop I used the brightness/contrast adjustment to improve it. Then I trimmed it and centred the people.

It was not bad but on closeup was still a bit fuzzy. So, I ran it through the Enhancement process at MyHeritage. The resultant image was much sharper.

Then I wondered, what might we have looked like if my dad had been using colour film? MyHeritage has software for that as well.

It was not the best result that I have obtained using this process, but it was still pretty neat to see it. It is now framed and on the bookshelf above my desk.

There are many tools you can use to produce informative and attention-getting visuals for your article, presentation or family history writeup. I encourage people to look at all the options. One drawback, of course, is that some will cost a bit of money for software programs or subscriptions to sites, like MyHeritage, that have processes to help modify images. I don’t know of a way around that unless you have a knowledgeable friend or relative, or a child or grandchild that can help.

Come and hear my presentation in September.

The session is available two ways:

1. to those on a 7-day free trial to Family Tree Plus (to take a free trial see www.family-tree.co.uk/membership)
2. to members of Family Tree Plus (£7.99 a month for existing Family Tree subscribers; £9.99 a month for non-subscribers) - for details, see here.

If you have any queries about the presentation or about Family Tree Plus, please email enquiries@family-tree.co.uk

Genealogy and the Little Ice Age: The Poor Laws

I am giving a talk this week (11 July 2024) to the Society of Genealogists about Genealogy and the Little Ice Age. You can still register to hear the presentation here.

Among the many results of the climatic change from the bountiful times of the Medieval Warm Period was the widespread migration of people, in many cases to far-flung locations around the globe.

Because of the harsh physical conditions that existed during the ensuing colder Little Ice Age, employment in the agricultural sector was reduced. Large numbers of people, primarily the poor and laboring classes, ended up moving to neighbouring communities and into urban areas in search of new lives.

These shifts into towns and cities resulted in a whole new dynamic in those urban areas. The greater concentration of people with different backgrounds and experiences forced into a large social and cultural melting pot led to interpersonal conflicts, expanded political expression, property ownership changes, spread of diseases and all the other good and bad things that go with city life.

The timing of the Little Ice Age, with the downturn in living conditions and initial widespread death, was the catalyst for more government involvement, some of it to provide welfare for destitute citizens, some of it to control the populace.

Initial efforts through the 16^th century were directed to protecting employers and landholders from the loss of labourers as destitution led to mass migration into towns. It would be decades and intense suffering through the cold period of the Little Ice Age before specific acts to assist the poor were formulated.

All the early Poor Laws attempted to restrict the movement of people and fix wages. They ended up being pretty much ineffective as people invariably went where work was available and employers who needed workers hired anyone they could find.

The Poor Acts of the 1550s were the first to formally address poverty but these laws merely downloaded the responsibility, creating collectors of alms in each parish. Local authorities and residents, primarily the churches, were obliged to request, record, and distribute charitable donations for poor relief.

Note that it was not until the early 16^th century that parishes finally began keeping records of marriages, baptism and burials that could be used to keep track of people. The Poor Laws further provided that each parish would keep a register of all its “impotent, aged, and needy persons” and the aid they received. In all of this legislation, and in the parish lists, then, both to control as well as assist people, it was required that individuals could be identified which then stimulated the use of surnames begun in the 14^th century.

Important Acts of the British Parliament:

·         1349 Ordinance of Labourers

·         1351 Statute of Labourers

·         1388 Statute of Cambridge

·         1494 Vagabonds & Beggars Act

·         1530 Vagabonds Act

·         1536 Act for Punishment of Sturdy Vagabonds & Beggars

·         1547 Vagabonds Act

·         1552 Poor Act

·         1555 Poor Act

·         1563 Act for Relief of the Poor

·         1572 Vagabonds Act

·         1576 Poor Act

·         1597 Act for Relief of the Poor

·         1601 Poor Relief Act

·         1662 Poor Relief Act

·         1722 Workhouse Test Act

·         1782 Gilbert’s Act

Get a copy of my book, Genealogy and the Little Ice Age. Information about it can be found on this website here.