Time is passing by so quickly. I have been a genealogist in lockdown for the past 7 months in Melbourne, and I’ve never been busier. A week in lockdown feels like two days in the pre-pandemic world. It’s been a month since my last blog…how did that happen? So what have I been up to? Where is all this time going?
Client work
Naturally, this is my top priority. It is my business after all! This involves genealogy research, writing it up, and meetings with my clients (either on the phone or virtual of course!). A pandemic is not the best time to get new clients – most of them use a genealogist when they are time poor and have a little disposable income available. The opposite is more true for many people during the lockdown. They have more time to try to break down their brick walls themselves, and maybe on a reduced income so they need to budget! Still, the past few weeks have been flat out, so I’m pretty happy.
Education
I have been going berserk with all the educational opportunities available. I’ve developed a 2-3 webinar a day habit on the most fascinating and obscure topics, both genealogical and purely historical. Currently, I’ve been working my way through my memberships and catching up with their webinar libraries. Societies and associations such as GOONS, the Society of Genealogists, and the Association of Professional Genealogists have great collections of interesting topics. I finally took out a membership at Legacy Family Tree Webinars so I can still watch presentations when the 7 free days are up!
Often the subject of these webinars will be something I am quite familiar with. However, I invariably take away something new, and it’s always great to hear another perspective. Yesterday, for example, I watched “Wringing Every Drop out of Y DNA” by Roberta Estes. Meg Bate gave a presentation on National and State Archives at the Genealogical Society Of Victoria, and I stayed up late to catch “A Tomb With A View: Medieval Death” by Prof Paul Binski, an art historian via The Churches Conservation Trust.
I’ve also been reading more, catching up on both my non-fiction backlog and occasionally well-written historical fiction (which provides context for a time and place). This is the only couch time for the genealogist in lockdown! No time to Netflix and chill…
Because being a genealogist in lockdown comes with a free side serving of insomnia, I have been using podcasts to help me relax. The trouble is, if I fall asleep halfway through I want to listen to it again the next day! A particular favourite right now is Dan Snow’s History Hit.
Volunteering
I am privileged to be a moderator at The Genealogy Squad on Facebook, which now comprises over 38 000 members from all over the world. Go check it out if you are a Facebook user and you have not seen it yet. The group is administered by super-respected genealogists, Cyndi Ingle (Cyndi’s List), The Genealogy Guys (Drew Smith and George Morgan) and Cari ‘Genealogypants’ Taplin, with myself and Mia Bennett as moderators. We love discussing genealogical documentary research of deceased ancestors. If this floats your boat, drop in!
Projects
Yes, I’m still plugging away at transcribing the Grand Levy Book, to be followed by the outdoor relief list. I’m also still untangling all the Kings Norton Fields as best I can, as well as the Palmers involved in the wool trade in the Cotswolds. I am determined to get my old Rotton one-name study resurrected and onto a website soon. I retired it when DNA revealed my total lack of a biological connection to them after 25 years of research, but it seems a shame to waste it. My kneejerk reaction to new databases being released is still to check for Rottons first, so I think that’s a sign!
Personal research
After a little neglect earlier in the year, I am focusing on DNA again, fresh matches across all my testing sites are showing lots of new possibilities. I’ve also been trying out the tools at Borland Genetics following a seminar in August that reminded me I hadn’t really done much here. I have high hopes of reconstructing long-deceased grandparents. Well, their genomes anyway. Ain’t no Frankenstein stuff going on in my house! On AncestryDNA I’ve been building a lot of ‘quick and dirty’ trees for groups of shared matches to find the common ancestors. I’ve also been building my Ancestry tree downwards from proven ancestors to capture as many descendants as possible. It blows my tree up enormously, but helps to generate Thrulines and make cousin connections.
Most of my traditional research right now is on the Girling line, since the excitement of a few weeks ago it regenerated my interest there. I’m also still working on the Vaughans‘ county Cork origins after finally getting back to Ireland with them.
As a genealogist in lockdown, I’m loving the discovery that many images at FamilySearch which have the dreaded ‘key over the camera’ are actually accessible from home right now. It’s the luck of the draw, I don’t know how or why it is happening, but I’m clicking away on the off-chance now when I see the key, and striking it lucky quite often. Nom, nom, nom…wills…
I’m still taking advantage of the free access to digitised documents at The National Archives in Kew. These normally cost £3.50 each. Sometimes, I fall headfirst into Poor Law correspondence that has nothing to do with my family…there’s a good chance you will hear about Widow Palmer’s troubles in a future blog!
Writing
Hmmm, this was a big part of my pre-‘genealogist in lockdown’ life. This blog was weekly, and I was writing two books. Has anyone else found their creativity cut off at the knees? I’m hoping this returns to normal as life eventually extends itself to beyond the front door. My books are stalled. The blog is increasingly random. Hang in there with me, I have so many ideas but just don’t quite get there right now!
Just reading back over this has me realising how the time is passing so fast. 2020 is almost over. I hope lockdown ends soon. I need a rest!