Brothers Lost

I lost two brothers in the last few months. You don’t always think about the men your sisters married as brothers, but they were the only ones I had since my own (natural) brother died at the age of two in 1950. 

Both of my late-found brothers lived into their 80s, as I have now. That’s an accomplishment these days and one we all shared. 

We did not do the things that brothers growing up together did, since we came into each other’s lives later in life, the first when I was about 14 years old and the other when I was in my late 40s. Roy joined my family in 1960; Ernst joined in 1992. We had relationships based on what adult families have, centred around our respective individual families and on our personal interests developed after childhood. 

We were raised in very different circumstances. One brother was from a small rural area of southern Manitoba, the other was from a small rural area of Denmark. I was a city boy from Calgary. What each of us had in common, though, were strong individual family ties and values. We were relatively close in age: them seven and two years older than me, gaps that became less important or significant over the decades we knew each other. We aged in tandem, eventually acquiring physical problems and limitations not unique to gender or genetics but probably largely from just living longer. 

We enjoyed each others company during special family get-togethers: Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving dinners; quieter visits to our individual homes; celebrations of our children’s and grandchildren’s activities and milestones; and just general and friendly exchanges of conversation and ideas. We did not vacation together but did share the times and experiences we each spent in similar and different places. 

Our work and life experiences were different as well which brought other perspectives to our own lives. We could discuss sports, politics, philosophy, municipal affairs, children’s traumas, sisters (our common bond), and attitudes of youth (not necessarily our own of course). 

 We did not see each other much in the last few years. Age, distance, health and families tend to be drivers of what we can do in later life. Telephone and electronic communications have their place, but you do miss the in-person get-togethers. The death of my oldest sister, who Roy married, a decade ago and our move away from Alberta more recently resulted in disruptions to what had been more regular visits. At the end it is always a regret that one could not spend more time with people they had become close to. 

Relationships like I have had with these brothers, are a reminder that families are not just made up of blood-related individuals but include all those people who we are fortunate enough to have join us in a wider group, bonded by love. 

To paraphrase Ernest Hemingway: Every person has two deaths, when they are buried in the ground and the last time someone says their name. In some ways people can be immortal. Both my brothers were loved in life they will be missed. While their physical presence is no longer with us, they will certainly be immortal to all of us who are left to remember them. 

RIP Roy and Ernst.

Roy (1938-2026), Ernst (1943-2026) Pictured in the year they became part of my family, Roy in 1960, Ernst in 1992.

Writing for Publication or ... how to put your story together for publishing ... almost anywhere

I will be presenting a talk to the Society of Genealogists on Saturday, August 2nd, about how to help family historians write their stories for publication .

The presentation will cover why to write, what to write about, who to write for and how and where to make what you write accessible.

My remarks will be based on my own experience with publishing and editing family history related information, primarily as blog posts and articles for genealogical society journals and commercial magazines.

Come join me and perhaps get some information about how you can get your stories our there.

For more information see:

https://portal.sog.org.uk/Event/view/2413927 

Tour of Legacy Family Tree Genealogical Software

 Join me on Saturday June 20th to discover how to organize, preserve, and share your family history with powerful, user-friendly software. Explore features, reports, charts, and tools to manage your research effectively. To book your place go to the Society of Genealogist webpage: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?pli=1#inbox 

My Legacy Family Tree Genealogical Software Presentation

Do you use a genealogical software program to organize and store your family history information?

If you are still looking for the right one, or even if you have a program on your computer that you like working with, you may be interested in hearing about Legacy Family Tree Genealogy Software (Version 10).

Legacy is a robust software system that allows family historians to easily compile, track, preserve and share information about their ancestors. In addition to storing basic data about individuals and families, users can illustrate the information in many types of chart formats, create reports about people, families and whole family lines, and create heirloom family history books.

I will be presenting my thoughts about the program, based on my own experience, in a talk to the Society of Genealogists on June 20, 2026. You can find out more by booking your space on the SoG website. https://portal.sog.org.uk/Event/view/2387628

Testing MyHeritage’s Scribe AI

MyHeritage recently released their software process to transcribe old documents called Scribe AI. This is a subject I have been interested in for years, having written about it here and in some articles, and made it part of several presentations. My blog posts: Reading and Transcribing Old Handwritten Documents: Transkribus; FamilySearch Full-Text Search ... and other AI processes for reading old handwritten documents; FamilySearch’s Full-Text Search Exploration Revisited.

Using AI in searching for and transcribing old records is probably the most useful aspect of the new technology. Simply improving writing techniques or results using the assistance of programs such as ChatGPT is interesting but does not advance anyone’s knowledge of their family history or use of old documents.

Scribe AI is another program that allows one to quickly transcribe old handwritten records. Some that I have experimented with or used include FamilySearch’s Full-Text Search, Ancestry’s Document Transcription Tool, Microsoft’s CoPilot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. And, of course, I have laboured over my own transcriptions having gained some expertise in reading old handwritten documents over the past several years.

The available options for AI uses have varying degrees of success, dependent on the quality of the writing, the age of the document, the handwriting style, the type of preserved record and the language used. As the tools become more widely used, the results will undoubtedly get better. Each program improves as it is used to transcribe more documents and “learns” how these documents are created.

So how did Scribe AI stack up in my testing?

I have recently been reviewing the history of Dunwich, a lost town along the east coast of Suffolk. It was a vibrant commercial hub for hundreds of years from before the Norman Conquest in the 11^th century to well into the 16^th century. All during that period, the coastline was being eroded away by waves, currents and storms in the North Sea.

Hundreds of buildings, including many churches have been destroyed. In most cases, the records of people who lived there were also lost. One set that has been preserved are the baptism, marriage and burial registers for St. Peter Church from the time of the Reformation to the middle of the 17^th century when the church was abandoned. The last vestige of the building itself went into the sea in 1697.

Some family history websites have indexes of these old records, but nowhere are the actual images of the registers published. The Suffolk Archives has a microfilm copy of the register, but the original document is now at the British Library.

I engaged a genealogical consultant to photograph the document which is amazingly complete except for much of the middle of the book which was seriously water damaged. I am now going through the entries to transcribe the information and see what I can learn about the history of the people who lived in Dunwich before it was gone forever.

I selected one page from the 1654 marriage register and uploaded it to the MyHeritage Scribe AI site to see how it would look at the document.

Apart from some spacing and capitalization issues and the older style spelling (e.g. “marriage” instead of “marriage”) used by the writers, the result was quite good. If we discount these differences, there were only 11 errors (highlighted in yellow) in 322 words (3% error rate). The unfortunate part was that they were almost all surnames. That would not be unusual considering we are looking at names we are not used to seeing but it does emphasize that these are exactly the things we should pay careful attention to. By the way I tested the document with Transkribus and the error rate was 16%.

An interesting aspect of the Scribe AI process is that, in addition to the transcription, they also provide notes on: the historical context of the document; details mentioned including those of principal individuals and associated individuals; key findings; and suggested next steps.

Among those next steps are good reminders about searching historical record collections for the named people, consult local archives for more information about the area, look for wills and probate records and investigate local area histories.

I also had Scribe AI look at a page of baptisms from 1539 to 1542. These are reasonably clear, compared to many other pages in the register so I was hopeful that the AI transcription would be helpful.

It was! Compared to my transcription, there were 11 errors (highlighted in yellow) out of 420 words. I ignored some old-style spelling and some spacing problems. The errors were split between most names (25 last names and 3 forenames) and dates (17). The Roman numerals gave Scribe a bit of a problem.

The baptism transcription test result also included many notes about historical context, details mentioned, key findings and suggested next steps. Among those suggestions were to have a look at other parish collections on MyHeritage, particularly marriages, keep in mind spelling variations in surnames and checking probate records.

In my limited tests, the results of Scribe AI were very good. I am sure doing more, and inputting corrections to the errors I found, the results might improve. I did try a page that was severely water-damaged, and it had, predictably, poor results. It did remind me that much of the page was illegible, though.

I recommend using Scribe AI for any old documents you might want to have transcribed.

I also recommend you continue to use FamilySearch’s Full-Text Search to find those old documents and use their transcription process. You might want to copy those documents to MyHeritage’s Scribe AI and compare the results.

Frosts, Freezes and Fairs

On December 11, 2025, I had the distinct pleasure of listening to a talk by Ian Currie speaking to the London Westminster & Middlesex Family History Society, about Frost Fairs and Freezes.

Ian led us through an entertaining and fact-filled summary of major cold events in Britain, including some of the periods when the Thames and other major rivers froze over. The subject was particularly of interest to me in my research of weather and climate changes and how they affected families and communities.

The talk was recorded but only available to society members for a short time. What came to light for me, though, was a publication by Ian titled Frosts, Freezes and Fairs: Chronicles of the Frozen Thames and Harsh Winters in Britain from 1000AD. The book was published by Frosted Earth in 1996. It is relatively short – 89 pages – but a marvelous summary highlighting cold winters in Britain over the past millennium. It contains many high-quality reproductions of images showing frost conditions: formal artwork, newspaper clippings, drawings and photographs.

My great regret is that I did not find the reference when I was doing my own research into Mother Nature’s impact and the Little Ice Age (I blame it on a less than complete Google search.). I have written and presented talks about these subjects extensively over the past several years, including about many of the most severe frosts detailed in Ian’s book and talk.

As with many publications, many decades old, the availability of the book is somewhat limited. I purchased my copy from Thrift Books Global LLC, mainly because it offered quick delivery. It is available from Amazon and a few other notable book sellers.

If you want to know more about London’s history, especially events that occurred during the Little Ice Age, then this would be a fine addition to your library.

The Cost of Doing Genealogy

 Nothing is free! That adage also applies to family history pursuits.

Whatever information we seek or use as family historians is available because of hundreds of volunteers’ or paid-for hours were spent in searching for it, in many cases transcribing it and providing a means of presenting it for others to read and use.

One of the groups of volunteers is the Online Parish Clerks (OPCs), of which I am one. In one of my earliest blog posts in 2013, I stated that: The tasks of OPCs are primarily to compile reference material for their adopted parish or parishes in the form of transcripts, extracts, abstracts, indexes and copies of original records. Data is collected from as many sources as possible, emphasizing both local history and genealogy. Many OPCs maintain websites where data may be stored for browsing or source references may be listed. I also published an article about OPCs in the Summer 2012 quarterly journal of the Utah Genealogical Association.

Over time much of the data that OPCs uncovered was published in major commercial sites and was available through paid subscriptions.

Today, many of us serious family researchers use both free and commercial sites. We might have our own subscriptions or use the facilities of family history society offices or public libraries to access the databases.

·         FamilySearch was established by the LDS Church that has put enormous amounts of information on their free site. This is still a primary place for all genealogists to visit.

·         I have full access to the data through subscriptions from the major commercial providers: Ancestry, FindMyPast, MyHeritage, Newspapers by Ancestry, The Genealogist and The British Newspaper Archive.

·         To obtain other data and documents for which fees may be required, I regularly use the UK General Record Office, National Library of Scotland (for maps), ScotlandsPeople,. The Box Plymouth (formerly the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office), The National Archive (UK) and a myriad of other local record offices, private companies and family history societies around the world.

·         I currently have memberships in six family history societies (there have been more in the past) from which I can obtain information about people and communities relevant to my studies and hear talks from local epxerts.

·         I have been known to spend several hundred dollars a year on books and documents, in hard copy and digital form.

·         I have used the services of professional consultants who are experts in certain localities or specialties.

·         I currently have two genealogy magazine subscriptions (there have been more in the past) to aid in my studies.

·         Over the past 15 years I have signed up for dozens of courses, conventions and presentations to keep up with new research ideas and techniques. It is always useful to hear from specialists in various aspects of studies or geographic areas. The many courses I took with Pharos Tutors really gave me a solid base in family history research. Subscriptions to Legacy Family Tree Webinars and Family Tree Plus give me ongoing access to talks and articles about many specialty subjects.

Over the past five years, I have spent, on average, $2,600 per year on sourcing family history information:

Wayne’s Annual Genealogy Expenses
Category	Five-Year Average
Commercial Subscriptions	$1,450
Periodicals Subscriptions	$200
Books, Documents, Consultants	$550
Society Memberships	$280
Courses, Webinars	$120
Total	$2,600

 It is not convenient or possible for me to access any of the sites I use from anywhere but home. Occasionally the major commercial sites offer a few days to access certain types of data for free but never the whole of their inventory at the same time. So, if I want to continue to work as a genealogist, basically full-time, I must spend the money.

I am fortunate in having been able to earn income over the years from publishing books and articles, making presentations and providing research consulting services. These funds have been used to offset my subscriptions and purchases of material in the form of books, magazines and documents. On balance, over the past five years at least, I have been on the financial plus side, thankfully, although never enough on its own to “pay the rent”. That was not the case for the previous decade when hobby expenses greatly exceeded revenue.

I recognize that not everyone who spends their leisure time researching their ancestors will be able to afford or easily access the data that I do. Joining family history societies, particularly where ancestors may have lived, or using libraries may greatly assist people in connecting with online sources as well as experts who can help. There are many free websites where basic data can be found. And watching for those occasional days where free access might be available from the major commercial sites can prove valuable.

Ultimately there are not many ways around paying for information, though. 

Turning 80, a milestone or just a number?

 Last night I went to bed still a septuagenarian. Today I am 80!

I am now processing that fact.

Even after pondering the approaching event for a few years, I’m still not sure how to fully accept that I have crossed this next line (milestone?) in life. Or if there is an actual line. I don’t feel older than I did yesterday, but I am sure I will be perceived as being so. I suspect most of my friends and relatives who have surpassed this age would agree. In that respect it’s more than just a number.

I certainly have more memories accumulated than I did decades ago, or even last year at this time. I am pretty sure my memory is still as intact as it was last year, or last decade. It does stumble a bit on occasion, though, maybe because there is so much more to remember now. (That’s my explanation and I am sticking to it.)

It’s not strange to think about things that happened, in my personal life or the world in general, in the 1950s or 1960s, that most of my immediate family cannot relate to. Our grandchildren, just beginning their adult lives, were not even born until the 21^st century when I was well into middle age (so they tell me).

I made it through a complicated professional career, not without some turmoil as it turned out. I met many new friends along the way but moved away from most of those I knew growing up. Many people probably experience these things. Notwithstanding a few adverse events, the paths I took and decisions I made seemed like good ideas at the time (my life motto in many respects). They did not all turn out as such, though.

I am busier now that I thought I would be at this age, mostly with genealogy stuff (researching ancestors, writing articles, giving talks) that has become more than a hobby. When you get older, and away from the demands of a normal work schedule, you have more time, and inclination, to think about the past (not just your own): who were the people in your family who came before you and what did they achieve. Are we subconsciously comparing notes?

In my “retirement” I am reading much more concerning a wider variety of subjects and events. I have more time to do so, of course. I have learned a lot more about people and the world, about the history of civilizations, and perhaps why societies have reached the junctures they have, than I ever did in school. Our progress as humans has been quite astonishing, even or especially in my lifetime, but I worry sometimes about how our grandchildren will accept or manage what we are leaving them. (As we age, we tend to get more philosophical!)

My day-to-day world has changed substantively!

·         My personal files now are almost entirely stored electronically, including correspondence, household data, financial and health records, articles I have written, photographs, etc. This was information I kept in print form and saved in filing cabinets and binders years ago.

·         I have more aches and pains than I used to. Bodies don’t always react well to aging.

·         I find movies and TV programs about and starring older people more interesting.

·         I am reasonably content with a 20-year-old SUV (a term not even coined until well after I acquired my first “station wagon”). But occasionally I would like to have back the sporty Alfa Romeo I owned as a young man.

In my office I am surrounded by things from my childhood as well as records and mementoes I have collected about my ancestors. All my family photo albums are now digitized (a word I did not know growing up) and on my computer (a device I also knew nothing about as a child) and available on internet sites for others to see (an idea that had no meaning until well after I had graduated from university). I even keep a (smart) phone in my pocket, which most of my family find quite amusing given my history of not using such devices until well after they were invented and became widely available.

There are a lot of interesting things to say about turning 80 (as there was, of course, for 70…and 60…and 50…):

·         It marks a significant life event (surviving that long is certainly noteworthy).

·         It implies a lifetime of accomplishments (presumably) besides the number of years tallied.

·         It symbolizes a wealth of experience and wisdom achieved (or just as likely mistakes made).

·         You don’t get older, you get better (at what pundits don’t say).

·         Old people tend to get grumpier. (Well, some people might say I have always tended that way.)

·         Still bright as a new penny (those are no longer made here).

·         Some people even declare “80 is awesome” (if you can ignore those new aches and pains).

Only a small percentage of people reach 80 years of age. Currently in Canada about 6% of the population is over 80. The average life span for Canadians is 81.65 years: just under 80 for males (Yea! I made it.) and nearly 84 for females. In 1945, the year that I was born, one could expect to live for 64.7 years. A hundred years earlier it was only 40.5 years. If you made it to age 65 in 2010 (as I did) you had quite a good chance of seeing 84. But statistics are just numbers. Right?

Several of my direct maternal ancestors reached this age; very few of my direct paternal ancestors – back to nine generations – have done so, though. One sister has made it past 80; one sister did not; and one sister is closing in. A brother died as a toddler. Most of my mother’s siblings made it well past 80, two into their 90s. She did not reach 60, however. My father did not get to be 70, but his brother reached 80 and his sister has passed 90. Overall, my genes appear to be working in my favour.

Genetic history (another term I have learned about in recent years) plays an important role getting this far, assuming you survive the risks of normal daily activities. (Driving a two-decade old car on public thoroughfares can still be an adventure.)

At this time of life, friends and relatives are disappearing. Not all of them were older than me and that is always distressing.

One benefit of getting older, though, has been that I have many family members who help me do things that make my tasks easier. I love and am very fortunate that I have them in my life.

As I said, I am still processing this move into my 81^st year. I probably will until I move into my 91^st.

But, for now, I am pleased to say, “I am eighty!”

Natural Disasters and Family Misfortunes: Jamestown Drought

Sometimes moving to new places in search of opportunity or a better life does not work out as well as people thought it might. As an example, a long-lasting drought probably had a major impact on the outcome of the early American colonies.

In 1585 new settlers came to Roanoke Island, in what is now North Carolina, to begin a new life. In 1607 Jamestown Colony, in what was to be Virginia, was established. 

According to a 1998 study, The Lost Colony and Jamestown Drought, the authors state that between 1587 and 1589, “. . . the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island disappeared during the most extreme drought in 800 years. . .” They also comment that between 1606 and 1612, “. . . the alarming mortality and the near abandonment of Jamestown Colony occurred during the driest 7-year episode in 770 years.” 

A map from the North American Drought Atlas for 1610 illustrates the area of the southeast part of the continent impacted by the drought. Maps are constructed using measurements of tree rings which are direct indications of periods of drought (red end of spectrum) or wet (blue end) conditions. http://drought.memphis.edu/NADA/MapDisplay.aspx 

Data collected from tree-ring measurements, as well as population and immigration estimates, in the region strongly suggest that mortality rates rose with increasing aridity (drought index).

The new settlers in America had the greatest bad luck to arrive at a time when drought in this region was widespread and possibly the worst it had been in centuries. Even considering threats from other sources, such as the potential conflict with the native population, it is no wonder the colonies failed.

Reference:

Stahle, David W., Malcolm K. Cleaveland, Dennis B. Blanton, Matthew D. Therrell & David A. Gay. (1998). The Lost Colony and Jamestown Droughts. Science, 280(5363), pp 564-567.

FamilySearch’s Full-Text Search Exploration Revisited

I wrote about FamilySearch’s Full-Text Search module on 15 July 2025 (FamilySearch Full-Text Search ... and other AI processes for reading old handwritten documents). In that post I described how FamilySearch is making major inroads to viewing old documents, providing valuable transcriptions of them, and expanding the abilities of family historians to find elusive ancestors. At that point the technique was still in the testing stage, part of a group of experimental programs.

Well, Full-Text Search has now gone mainstream. Searching scanned documents in their library for names and keywords for almost any subject is now a main category under the Search menu on the FamilySearch home webpage. To use the almost limitless capabilities of the FamilySearch resources you only need to register a free account.  

Hundreds of thousands of records from over 4,300 collections have been added to the inventory of searchable documents with more coming online regularly. Most importantly, non-indexed names and words can now be found, a major advancement in the hunt for family information.

Since I wrote my last blog post, I have wanted to do a bit more detailed looking at possible records of interest. This time I went looking for all mentions of our surname “shepheard” from the main home page search menu.

In all categories and in all places worldwide, the total hits for the name were 36,999. Most (19,158) were in records from the United Kingdom and Ireland with a close second for USA records (16,129). The other 1,712 references were from Africa (30), Asia & Middle East (3), Australia & New Zealand (1,192), Canada (446), Caribbean & Central America (15), Continental Europe (12), South America (2 and Other (24).

I selected the UK & Ireland regions, moved down to England (16,790 hits) and then down to Devon (3,203). That is the area where most of my Shepheard family originated. I could have further narrowed down the review in various specific Collections (15 of them), Centuries (1500 to 1900) and Record Types (59). These are summarized below.

Vital records, that is birth/baptism, marriage and death/burial entries, represent the largest proportion, as might be expected (2,212 hits, 69%). These are records that are most likely to be indexed.

Shepheard appears in records from 79 Devon parishes, most in the southern part of the county. Again, this would have been predicted as that is the region where the Shepheard families were most prevalent.

The images presented are of very good quality, many much better than the copies I obtained over the past few years from other sources. There are a few inconsistencies in the transcriptions as one might expect using old document. Some of the hits are different pages of the same collection but that does not dimmish their importance.

Restricting my search to a specific spelling, of course, meant that I missed seeing many individuals, but that can easily be remedied by doing more broadly defined searches. For different spellings one can substitute a ? for a letter.

So, a search for “sheph?rd” resulted in 2,216,970 hits (UK & Ireland = 285,409; USA = 1,806,249; England = 256,779; Devon = 12,927). And another search for “shep??rd” got 3,261,473 hits (UK & Ireland = 389,635; USA = 2,643,351; England = 344,944; Devon = 15,980). Both identified a much greater number of individuals in the primary regions of Devon.

The results of just this basic search for potential family members could lead to months if not years of work to review all the documents and look for possible relationships. Full-Test Search is truly a game changer.

And after my Shepheard ancestors I can look for other lines. For example, a search for Mayfield had 544,125 hits (UK & Ireland = 15,579; USA = 519,062; Maryland = 2,231; Baltimore = 729; 1800s = 301). This was the name of one of my 3^rd great-grandfather, who was born in England in 1778 and migrated to the USA around 1810.

Obviously, there is an infinite number of searches that could be done which could add interesting and valuable information to my whole family tree.

Following is a summary of the 3,203 Shepheard search results for Devon in terms of numbers by area, collections, centuries and record types:

Full-Text Filtered Search Results (3,203)

Place: Devon, England, United Kingdom and Ireland

Collections (15)

England, Devon, Employment, from 1741 to 1838 (29)

England, Devon, Legal, from 1300 to 1600 (23)

England, Devon, Properties, 1745 (25)

United Kingdom, Biographies, from 1963 to 2009 (1)

United Kingdom, England, Biographies, from 1860 to 1884 (15)

United Kingdom, England, Deaths, from 29 September 1589 to 9 April 1877 (753)

United Kingdom, England, Education, from 1828 to 1839 (110)

United Kingdom, England, Employment, from 1753 to 1795 (73)

United Kingdom, England, Legal, from 28 March 1842 to 25 March 1845 (1,545)

United Kingdom, England, Marriages, from 1813 to 1868 (534)

United Kingdom, England, Others, from 1780 to 1933 (22)

United Kingdom, England, Poor Relief, from 1 March 1874 to 31 March 1874 (118)

United Kingdom, England, Properties, from 1628 to 1677 (200)

United Kingdom, England, Religious, from 12 April 1762 to 5 April 1863 (1,021)

United Kingdom, England, Residences, 1905 (9)

Totals by Century

1500s (2)

1600s (110)

1700s (535) 16.7%

1800s (1,592) 49.7%

1900s (221) 6.9%

Record Types (59)

Vital Records, Death Records, Burial Records (706)

Religious Records, Baptism Records (629)

Vital Records, Marriage Records (528)

Voting Records, Voting Registers (492)

Legal Records, Property Records, Land Estate Records, Land Estate Tax Records (438)

Religious Records, Parish Records (292)

Government Records, Tax Records, Tax Assessment Records (175)

Legal Records, Court Records (128)

Legal Records, Court Records, Probate Records (125)

School Records, School Enrollment Records, School Admission Registers (110)

Legal Records, Property Records, Rent Records (104)

Religious Records, Churchwarden Records (97)

Legal Records, Property Records, Land Records (86)

Religious Records, Poor Rate Records (86)

Government Records, Tax Records, Rate Books (56)

Business Records, Sale Records (44)

Government Records, Overseer Records (44)

Government Records, Overseer Records, Overseer Accounts (40)

Business Records, Employment Records, Personnel Files (39)

Legal Records, Court Records, Court Orders (33)

Vital Records, Death Records, Cemetery Records, Burial Registers (31)

Legal Records, Property Records (30)

Business Records (17)

Reference Materials, History Records (16)

Government Records, Public Records (16)

Government Records, Poor Law Records, Almshouse Records (9)

Religious Records, Poor House Records (9)

Reference Materials, Historical Geographies (8)

Vital Records, Death Records (7)

Vital Records, Death Records, Cemetery Records, Gravestone Transcription Records (7)

Genealogies (7)

Religious Records, Poor Relief Records (7)

Miscellaneous Records, Society Records (7)

Periodicals, Directories (6)

Legal Records, Property Records, Land Records, Land Assessment Records (6)

Business Records, Occupation Records (6)

Government Records, Poor Law Records, Poor Law Settlement Records (6)

Religious Records, Religious Marriage Records (6)

Religious Records, Baptism Records, Christening Records (4)

Government Records, Oath Rolls (4)

Government Records, Tax Records, Valuation Records (4)

Religious Records, Bishop Transcript Records (3)

Periodicals, Directories, City Directories (3)

Legal Records, Property Records, Land Records, Freeholder Records (3)

Genealogies, Heraldry Records (2)

Miscellaneous Records (2)

Legal Records, Court Records, Property Settlement Records (2)

Legal Records, Court Records, Bastardy Records, Bastardy Declarations (2)

Government Records, Nobility Records (2)

Voting Records, Voter Lists (2)

Vital Records, Death Records, Cemetery Records (1)

Vital Records, Death Records, Cemetery Records, Grave Registers (1)

Genealogies, Family Histories, Family History Record Indexes (1)

Legal Records, Court Records, Probate Records, Probate Indexes (1)

Government Records, Poor Law Records, Parish Poor Law Records (1)

Government Records, Town Records (1)

Government Records, Poor Law Records (1)

Reference Materials (1)

Natural Disasters: Present, Past and Future

I write and talk a lot about the effects Mother Nature has and has had on people and communities. You can read my list of published articles and books on this site here. My presentations are summarized here. I also try to maintain a bibliography of books and articles about the relationships of natural phenomena and family history. You can see the reading list here.

We are constantly bombarded (or so it seems lately) with news headlines and opinion pieces about natural disasters around the world, in many cases because of their purported connection with climate change. Differing opinions exist that events that we are observing now, around the world, are unique in terms of intensity, history and their impact on human settlements.

Many are related to short and long-term weather patterns: droughts, heat waves (the polar vortex in the winter), floods, storms, wildfires, etc. Other disasters that are part of the Earth’s normal geological processes include earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. All, of course, can cause distress and mayhem to people. As they have done for eons!

A short list of recent major events includes:

·         Drought in Western Canada, Western USA and around the world

·         Earthquakes in Japan, Russia, USA

·         Floods in New York and New Jersey (and Algeria, Australia, Bolivia, China, the Congo, Jordan, Nigeria, USA

·         Glacier collapse in Switzerland

·         Storms (including hurricanes and tornadoes) in Australia, Canada, Egypt, Kuwait, the Philippines, Tunisia, UK, USA

·         Wildfires in the Southeast Europe, Canada, Korea, USA

·         Volcanic eruptions in Iceland, Indonesia, Russia

News reports and some studies state that events are getting worse – in frequency, intensity and regional scope. But these comments only relate to a few past decades, not to the overall historical record.

The costs associated with damage from natural disasters have reached record levels. But they are mainly in areas where there are large populations and highly developed infrastructure. Would anyone doubt that the relative cost of the drought and fires in Europe in 1540 or 1842 would be much different on a per capita basis?

Our records of natural events, including written historical documents, only go back a few hundred years, in most regions much less time. For example, you can read about major storms in millions of newspaper articles going back to the early 18^th century.

Geological and geographical records show major catastrophic events have occurred regularly in past centuries and over hundreds of millions of years.

Regarding family history studies, it is informative to look at what is going on in the modern world to appreciate how such events may have affected our ancestors, who were not likely to have been as well prepared or warned about impending natural disasters.

To take one example of the present and relate to outcomes in the past, we can look at the drought conditions plaguing western North America. The current ongoing megadrought began in 2000. Such dry periods have not been rare occurrences in this region.

The medieval era in western North America was also characterized by widespread and regionally severe, sustained droughts. Proxy data, primarily in the form of tree rings, indicate decades-long periods of increased aridity illustrated as peaks on the graph and shown as red on the map from AD 1150 across the central and western U.S.

In the Colorado and Sacramento River basins, reconstructions show long periods of persistently below average river flows during several intervals including much of the 9^th, 12^th, and 13^th centuries.

Other proxy records include the position of tree lines, melting of glaciers and the types of chironomids present. Chironomids are a distinct group of lake flies whose populations and types can be correlated with specific climatic conditions.

All these proxies are consistent in supporting periods of elevated warmth in the medieval period that coincide with periods of severe and widespread drought. The driest episode was in the mid-12^th century and was more extensive and persistent than any modern drought experienced.

One of the casualties of the long drought was the collapse of the Anasazi or Ancestral Pueblo society that had thrived for hundreds of years in the southwest part of North America. A series of megadroughts of the 10th to 13th centuries finally took their toll on the residents and forced them to move.

More recent droughts that may have impacted our ancestors, possibly droving them to migrate, that we can learn about in published records and family stories include: the 1930s Dust Bowl; the Great Plains droughts in the 1890s, 1870s and 1860s; central Europe in the 1840s; 1790s in Australia; 1760s in the British Isles; early 1600s in the American colonies; and the mid-16^th century in Europe.

Drought is a normal, recurrent feature of climate that occurs in virtually all climate zones. Further to that thought, droughts have occurred virtually every year someplace and megadroughts have been experienced at least once per century, not uncommonly more frequently. The Earth will certainly continue to experience them in the future.

One wonders if residents living in the dry southwest region now could move, would they?

 

References and Data Sources

Ancestral Puebloans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestral_Puebloans

Southwestern North American megadrought https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwestern_North_American_megadrought

The U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) is a map released every Thursday, showing where drought is and how bad it is across the U.S. and its territories.  https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap.aspx

The National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) is a multi-agency partnership that coordinates current drought monitoring, forecasting, planning, and information internationally and also historically. https://www.drought.gov/international

The North American Drought Monitor (NADM) is a cooperative effort between drought experts in Canada, Mexico and the United States to monitor drought across the continent on an ongoing basis. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/nadm/maps

The Global Drought Information System (GDIS) is a tool for visualizing drought related data across the globe. https://gdis-noaa.hub.arcgis.com/

The Canadian Drought Monitor (CDM) is Canada's official source for the monitoring and reporting of drought nationally. https://agriculture.canada.ca/en/agricultural-production/weather/canadian-drought-monitor

Copernicus is an EU program aimed at developing European drought information services based on satellite Earth Observation and in situ (non-space) data. https://drought.emergency.copernicus.eu/

FamilySearch Full-Text Search ... and other AI processes for reading old handwritten documents

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming a more prevalent technique for transcribing old documents, in particular, that for handwritten text. Programs are growing in number for very old records and for use in many languages.

The process revolves around Optical Character Recognition for written or printed documents that were created using old handwriting or printing styles. The idea was to create a digital library or memory of letter and word shapes that could then be compared to new, scanned images to produce an interpretation of what the document contained. The results would be applicable to reading single pages or entries (of interest to genealogists) to mass conversion of documents containing a multitude of pages stored in archives. The objectives are to do so quickly, easily and accurately.

FamilySearch Full-Text Search

One feature that has caught the eye of genealogists lately is the Full-Text Search function developed by FamilySearch that has expanded options for searching handwritten documents in the thousands of collections and millions of images it has in its digital library.

Full-Text Search, introduced in 2024, is a part of a group of experimental programs which are part of FamilySearch Labs “where you can explore emerging FamilySearch features that are not yet ready for public release”.  Researchers are invited to participate in refinement of the programs, through testing and feedback.

Full-Text Search uses AI processes developed by FamilySearch to scan and locate information on digitized documents that have not been fully indexed. Their technique makes it possible to find specific words or phrases, including names of people that may not have been the main parties. All one needs to participate is an account on the site, which is free to obtain.

I wanted to try out the Full-Text Search to see how it would work. Beginning on the FamilySearch Labs page, I selected the experiment titled Expand your search with Full Text and clicked on “Go To Experiment.”

A search form came up asking for information on keywords, names, places, dates and collections to locate data about people and events.

On the form I entered just Nicholas Shepheard, which is the name of several of my ancestors, including four in my direct line, who lived in Devon, England for several centuries. As recommended, I put his name in quotation marks so that it would look for instances where both names were present and with the exact spelling.

I did not fill in any other data as I wanted the widest search possible. A list came up with 79 results with some documents having the name repeated several times within them. The documents were spread across many areas in the United Kingdom and Ireland (72) and the United States of America (7). In the UK and Ireland group, 66 were from England sources, four were from Ireland, and two were from Wales. The English sources included 11 counties or regions.

Then I narrowed down the list by choosing only those in Devon and got 37 results. Images of each original document found could be opened so I could see who the individual was and whether they were part of my family. A full transcription accompanied the images, both of which could be downloaded.

Some of the records I had seen before from searches of other collections and websites. Some were new to me. For convenience, Full-Text Search highlighted Nicholas’s name on the images and in the transcription.

One of the documents was a 1786 settlement examination from Ermington parish (reference FamilySearch: England, Devon, Plymouth, Parish Chest Records, 1556-1950). It shows that a man named Hercules Ferris worked for Mr. Nicholas Shepheard around 1761-62 at his farm called “Quay” in Cornwood parish.

AI transcriptions are not perfect. The settlement transcription had 14 errors plus six missing words out of a total 189 words in the actual transcription, a 10.6%-character error rate (CER). I determined that Quay was a misinterpretation for Gnats. This location later became Notts and was the Shepheard family seat for over 170 years – between 1630 and (probably) 1806.

This was the first time I had seen this document. I had not encountered it on any search of Cornwood or Ermington parish indexes or lists that included Nicholas Shepheard’s name. Important to me was the document appeared to confirm the family was living at Gnats/Notts in the mid-18^th century.

So, my experiment was a success!

Future projects will be to investigate those other examples with Nicholas Shepheard in UK and USA documents and to investigate other family members and locations.

Or I may look at natural events, one of my favorite subjects. For example, I did a quick search for "hailstorm” and got 6,536 results: 595 in the United Kingdom and Ireland and 5,711 in the United States of America. A search for “floods” got 149,004 hits: 10,107 in the UK and Ireland and 132,618 in the USA; “earthquakes” got 3,531 and 231,628, respectively; “famine” got 18,861 and 194,020, respectively. The results included mentions in newspapers which FamilySearch has in its library. Each search can be narrowed down to locales, years and names which will be handy for looking at specific families and past homes.

I highly recommend family historians take advantage of this new program and do some searches for their ancestors. I think you will be very pleasantly surprised.

Other AI Transcription Options

In reviewing AI transcription options, I also wanted to test and compare other techniques, so I uploaded the 1786 Ermington settlement example to other platforms. The results were eye-opening.

Transkribus

Transkribus has become one of the internationally recognized go-to programs for transcribing historical documents.

The development of software to transcribe old records began back in the late 1990s. Libraries were already using Optical Character Recognition to digitize printed books, but primarily for those written in English.  Another program was needed for material published in other languages.

Researchers came up with Analysed Layout and Text Object format which stored text and images of handwritten letters and words. The images were transcribed and stored for comparison to other documents over time building up a library of words and phrases. Such documentation became what is called Ground Truth, a growing repository of images that could serve machine learning, or artificial intelligence processing.

The Transkribus project was established and backed by several institutions, coming together as the READ-Coop, formed to test and further develop the programming. The group became the official guardians of the Transkribus platform. There are now more than 100 European members of the coop.

The process is simple to use. Just set up a free account, open the program, drag an image into the left-hand side of the window and the program will immediately begin. After a few minutes waiting in the queue, a transcription will be available. A line-by-line comparison with the original image can be produced.

I followed this formula with the 1786 Ermington settlement document.

Ancestry

Ancestry is developing a new process – still in Beta testing at present – called Document Transcription Tool. The function can read and transcribe a variety of old handwritten documents. This feature can be used globally across all Ancestry platforms, including the app, mobile, and desktop websites and in multiple languages.

To use the program, a user must have an Ancestry account and a family tree posted on their site. A target document is first loaded on to the Gallery section of an ancestor’s tree profile. Once opened, a button marked “Transcribe” is selected and the process will begin. The transcription takes only a few minutes.

For my test, I added the 1786 Ermington settlement document to the profile of my 5^th great-grandfather, Nicholas Shepheard. I then let Ancestry do its thing and come up with a transcription.

ChatGPT and Copilot

As part of my assessment, I also looked at having two other AI sites attempt a transcription: ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI; and Microsoft Copilot. These are two main-line platforms, developed by well-known groups, now commonly used in AI processing.

After uploading the 1786 Ermington settlement document to each of them, I asked, “Can you transcribe this image?”

Again, almost immediately I had transcriptions of the document.

Results

I compared Transkribus, Copilot, ChatGPT and Ancestry results with my own (actual) transcription. On the illustration here, my transcription, which I believe is accurate, is on the right. All the words in the four processes which matched the actual transcription are highlighted in yellow.

All AI techniques worked well. Character Error Rates (CER) were calculated for each from the number of words transcribed wrongly plus any word count difference in the result.

•      The best CER was in the ChatGPT transcription at just 7.9%, including missing seven words.

•      Copilot was right behind with a CER of 8.5%. This transcription was very close to the actual with only seven words mis-transcribed. It did miss nine words, though.

•      The Ancestry transcription ended up with fewer words than the actual transcription. It missed a whole phrase, along with the last word. Its 12.7% CER is acceptable but such large rates need close, line-by-line checking.

•      Most of the 16 errors in the Transkribus transcription were words where different letters were interpreted, such as often mistaking ‘e’ for ‘o’. Curiously it looked at a blemish on the document and transcribed it as a number. The CER of 11.1% is a bit misleading as it was very close to the original both in word count, format and spelling.

•      The FamilySearch Full-Text Search transcription had, as noted above, a CER of 10.6%, comparable to the other platform results (14 errors plus six fewer words).

Many errors can be a result of penmanship as much as historical writing styles.

Transcription of any of the processes can be improved by making corrections to the results offered and resubmitting them. Over time, as the archive of “ground truth” (more examples processed and corrections submitted) is built for similar documents, the transcriptions will get better.

Overall, the results of all the techniques were very encouraging. I certainly will be using each, or all of them going forward.

Online References

AI know how for family history: Have you tried the FamilySearch AI Full-Text Search. https://www.family-tree.co.uk/how-to-guides/ai-know-how-for-family-history-have-you-tried-the-familysearch-ai-full/

Ancestry News: Ancestry launches Document Transcription Feature https://www.ancestry.com/c/ancestry-blog/ancestry-news/document-transcription-feature

ChatGPT https://chatgpt.com/

Copilot https://copilot.microsoft.com/

FamilySearch Full-Text Search https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/full-text

FamilySearch Labs https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/familysearch-labs

Mühlberger, Günter. (2023). A Short History of Transkribus. https://blog.transkribus.org/en/a-short-history-of-transkribus-with-gunter-Muhlberger

Transkribus https://blog.transkribus.org/en

BYU Library helpful recent videos

Using the FamilySearch Full Text Search Feature-A Genealogical Goldmine – James Tanner (2 June 2024) https://youtu.be/YRYn7wyo7OA?si=J7P10grh7p_pxhPA

AI, Handwriting Recognition, and Full Text Searches – James Tanner (2 February 2025) https://youtu.be/5PVUHrJLT4w?si=I5LLqSafJ3iJ6BPm

FamilySearch Full-Text Search: A New Key to Tearing Apart Brick Walls – Amy Peacock (4 February 2025) https://youtu.be/udU2xT0ssXA?si=Mnf06b4K793Nem-m

Getting to Know FamilySearch's New Full-Text Search – Kathryn Grant (19 February 2025) https://youtu.be/LhNE8znSPgM?si=_Fz1lT-UTfbPXQlj

The Needle in the Haystack: Researching Women and Minorities using FamilySearch’s Full-Text Search – Julia A. Anderson (26 February 2025) https://youtu.be/jPg0qTcsBVM?si=6Qxrxzypi2-UdBS4

The FamilySearch Full Text Function – Jerroleen Sorensen (10 May 2025) https://youtu.be/4M3h-bSiQGM?si=5p5z20qZ2u9dz87b

Legacy Family Tree Webinars

Full-Text Search: Genealogy Game Changer – Geoff Rasmussen (11 March 2024).  https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/full-text-search-genealogy-game-changer/

Secrets for Success: How to Harness the Power of FamilySearch’s Full-Text Search – Julia A. Anderson (21 May 2025) https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/secrets-for-success-how-to-harness-the-power-of-familysearchs-full-text-search/