My Latest Published Articles

I have two new articles published concerning Mother Nature's Tests and family history.

One is in the December-January issue of Internet Genealogy and titled Memphis Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878.

Over 20,000 people died between August and October of 1878 in dozens of areas along the Mississippi River. Memphis was one of the urban centres impacted, where over 17,000 cases were reported and over 5,000 people died. Thousands more left the city to escape the epidemic. In short order, the city was virtually emptied. The paper summarizes the history and the fate of some of the residents. 

A subscription to Internet Genealogy magazine can be obtained at https://internet-genealogy.com/

The second paper is in the Christmas issue of Family Tree (UK magazine). It is about The Great Frost & Famine of 1739-41.

Most genealogists will have read about the almost countless famines that occurred during the late Middle Ages. Stories of the experiences of ancestors and how they coped may have been incorporated into a few family histories, at least in terms of the times and places in which they happened. But is there a clear understanding of how such events came to occur? Or why they appear to have been more common during that time-period? Or how such events were so impactful? A close look at the event of 1739-40 gives us some answers.

A subscription for Family Tree, or a copy of the issue can be obtained at https://www.family-tree.co.uk/store/latest-issue/family-tree-magazine/

Online Parish Clerks and GENUKI

I had occasion to post some comments to the Devon-L Rootsweb list this past week. And had some very good and a few very strange responses back. One of the posts was about the Online Parish Clerk OPC) program and how it seems to have died down in terms of people contacting OPCs for information. Here is part of my post:

In many recent email messages to Devon-L I have noticed that researchers are not as acquainted with the OPC program as they used to be. What is also apparent is that experienced genealogists and members of DFHS do not offer newbies and others any information about what data OPCs might have.

The rise of Internet sources has, of course, led to people finding their own way more often. That should allow them to find the OPCs as well, but it does not seem to be the case.

In my own parishes, the ones I look after as an OPC, I am very cognizant of the people and families that lived there for many generations. I am also aware that there have been many changes in the spelling of names over the centuries, as well as the births, deaths, marriages and migration of people. Only through transcribing all the parish registers and other documents, with the help of many volunteers I would add, have we been able to put together a significant database on families.

Yes, many of the registers are now online and you can pull up images of the various pages. That is, of course, if you search for the right name and spelling. I know, from my own experience that there are problems with indexing on most of the major databases. I also know that even though sites like FindMyPast or Ancestry say they have all the records, there are still some missing from their library.

For Devon, not all parish registers can be found on FMP or Ancestry, or any other site. Many can be found on the DFHS [Devon Family History Society] site, though, in the Members Only area. More importantly, the information may be available from OPCs who look after the parishes. Not all parishes are covered but there is still a good-sized group that are.

In the discussion and commentary from other list members, many people made the point that many family researchers do not take advantage of another quality source of information and advice – GENUKI (which stands for UK and Ireland Genealogy). https://www.genuki.org.uk/

We all agreed that this site, along with OPC information probably need more promotion in the genealogy world.

Many counties in England have OPC programs. You can find out which ones here. https://www.genuki.org.uk/search/site/online%20parish%20clerk I am most familiar with the Devon program https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/DEV/OPCproject as I look after four parishes in that county. https://www.cornwood-opc.com/ (Which reminds me that I really need to update my website pages.)

As I indicated in my Devon-L post, we get fewer queries these days than we used to. Not zero yet, but other Internet sites seem to pull researchers in different directions. Those people that do come to ask about my parishes all are pleased they did as I am usually able to provide information about their ancestors who lived in the areas, but also to give them some advice about other sources. I have even met a few cousins through my role as an OPC.

OPCs generally have a great deal of knowledge about, and expertise in the areas they administer and the people that lived there. They are a great resource for beginners and advanced genealogists alike.

I have written about the OPC program in a few journal and magazine articles. One of my first blog posts, back on 14 August 2013 was about The Online Parish Clerk (OPC) Program. Other people have also published pieces about OPCs. See the list below.

·         Shepheard, Wayne. (2012). The Future is Still in the Past: An introduction to Online Parish Clerks. Crossroads. 7(2). pp. 6-13.

·         Shepheard, Wayne. (2013). Experiences of an Online Parish Clerk: Examples of information gleaned from parish registers. Relatively Speaking, February issue, 41(1), pp. 14-19.

·         Shepheard, Wayne. (2013). Experiences of an Online Parish Clerk: A case study involving the use of information from parish registers and other sources. The Devon Family Historian, May issue, No. 146., pp. 24-29.

·         Shepheard, Wayne. (2017). The Role on Online Parish Clerks in the Search for Surnames. Journal of One-Name Studies, October-December issue, 12(12), pp. 9-10.

·         Stockdill, Roy. (2012). Online Parish Clerks. Family Tree, April issue, 28(7), pp. 38-41.

·         Shepheard, Wayne (2013). Discover Genealogy Blog Post, The Online Parish Clerk Program https://discovergenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-online-parish-clerk-opc-program.html

If you would like copies of any of these papers, you can email me at cornwood.opc at shaw dot ca.

GENUKI is an especially wonderful resource for finding what information is available, and where it can be found for areas throughout the UK and Ireland. Most of us who have looked through their pages agree it should be the first stop for genealogists who are beginning their research adventure or looking at a new area. It is constantly being updated with new data and sources so is a place where you can revisit frequently and find new information that may be relevant to your studies. As participants on the Devon-L list, we get monthly memos of what has been added from Brian Randell, the Devon GENUKI manager.

I highly recommend genealogists consult both GENUKI and an OPC, if there is one in the area of your study. Both are resources where I am confident you will find relevant information that will further your family history research. Let others know about your perusal of these sites, too.

By the way, both GENUKI and the OPC program are always looking for more volunteers to assist them in making those programs and websites even better.

My Amazing Picture-Taking Machines

 I have a large collection of pictures taken by my family, including by my parents, children, cousins, aunts and uncles. As a family we have always been active in recording people and events as my many photo albums and home movies illustrate. I will have more to say about home movies in a future blog post.

What I also have are most of the picture-taking equipment used in our collective quest to preserve memories. Those have now become part of family memorabilia, as if I needed more things to store.

I have written here about our old photo albums and my re-making them once they started to fall apart. What will we do with future photos? I have also written about digitizing all our family albums and making the photos all available online for family to access anytime in the future. Digitizing Memories

We went digital in our picture-taking in 2002 with a Sony DX300 model although I continued to print photos for our albums. Everyone always still seemed to like to flip the pages to see our old family activities and how people changed over time.

I only stopped putting together print albums in 2014. Basically, I ran out of shelf room to put them on after downsizing to a condo. I do kind of miss how they looked all stacked together, though.

One of the problems I have run into is in finding a photo-finisher. The drugstores and electronic outlets where we used to take our films no longer do this. Even trying to get old negatives printed is a chore and very expensive. Establishments that deal in photographic reproduction want to scan the negatives first which is costly and where quality is lost. With digital we can at least print pictures from our computers but that is not always the best approach if you want large-scale prints.

Digital is so much easier as you can look at pictures immediately after they are snapped. And then you can transfer them to your computer for future reference and storage. The downside is that you end up with hundreds more photos that you really need or can use. And who among us actually deletes the ones that are not quite up to quality or expectation. Today we use our iPhone 6 and 7 models for almost all photo-taking. Our kids and grandkids use even more up-to-date devices.

It is interesting to look back on the cameras that I used and see how they changed. Each of them was the latest model and did the job I needed them to do. Some were simple point and shoot cameras which did not take any technical expertise. Other were more complex, with interchangeable lenses, adjustable speed and aperture dials and manual focussing. Most of them now rest in a special cabinet where visitors can be impressed. Over the years I have given away a few cameras, some of which are still in use (I think).

Along with the cameras are flash attachments, flash bulbs and cubes of all sizes, light bars, light meters, battery chargers, slide viewer and sorter, user manuals and photography books, and of course a movie projector.

Top shelf – left to right (with approximate manufacture dates): KIKU 16 Model II subminiature spy camera; Kodak Brownie Starmite (1960); iPhone 4; Fujifilm Discover 160 Tele 35/55 (1988); Zeiss Ikon Ikomatic CF (1968); Ricoh FF-70 (1985); Sony Cybershot DSC-T70 (2007); Sony DX3600 Zoom Digital (2001); Argus A ILEX Precise (1936-41); Kodak Brownie Twin 20 (1959-64)

Middle shelf – left to right: Nizo Heliomatic Trifo 8mm movie camera (1959); Sony Handycam DCR-HC85 miniDV camcorder (2004); Fujica Single 8 PI movie camera (1965); Bloex Paillard B8L 8mm move camera (1958); Bolex Paillard C8 move camera (1954)

Bottom Shelf – left to right: Sony flash unit; Kidak No. 3A Autographic Model C (1916-1926); Kodak N. 2A Brownie box camera (1930-36); Fujica ST 701 single lens reflex camera (1971)’ Rollei flash unit

I inherited a few cameras from my father, both still and movie types. The still cameras go back many decades and were used by family members during the 1920s and 1930s. I do not have all the cameras Dad owned as he traded in many for newer models over the years, or sold them. But the ones I do still own are now collectibles. I wrote about some of them in a 2015 post The Classic Family Photo.

Like family pictures, the amazing picture-taking machines that were used to record events are also valuable memorabilia. I will continue to display them and hope that they get passed along to my descendants.