Family History Week #FHWeek 2018 – What do you know about your surname?

Posted on May 5, 2018 by Julie Goucher

What do you know about your surname?

My-Family-History-Week-logo-300x226Surnames can tell us quite a lot about the history of the surname and the surname’s origin. This element is also covered, to some degree in the Introduction of One-Name Studies course, ran by Pharos.

Anyone who has been reading this site for a while will know I have a real interest in surnames and have two surnames registered with the Guild of One-Name Studies

Those two surnames are rather large studies, one for the surname of Butcher, which is clearly an occupational surname. The other surname is Orlando and is Italian. This is a Patronymic surname, from the first name of Roland.

OrlandoThis map shows the distribution of the Orlando surname across Italy. The map comes from the site Gens.info

There are a number of my Italian surnames that I find rather curious and at some point in the coming weeks I might write about those. I have written about surnames a number of times over the last few months and you can read those posts HERE

 

You can the read the discussion at the Facebook Family Tree Academy group and on Twitter using the #FHWeek

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Family History Week #FHWeek 2018 – True or False, how reliable have you found your family history stories?

Posted on May 4, 2018 by Julie Goucher

True or False, how reliable have you found your family history stories?

My-Family-History-Week-logo-300x226I was very lucky in that I grew up visiting my Great Aunts, the sisters of my maternal Grandfather. I heard them talk about people, family and friends and others in the village in which they grew up. It from those early moments of childhood that I was intrigued to learn about these folk.

Later on, when I embarked upon researching my family history, my Aunts would happily share information and photographs with me. I have some very happy memories of those times. One of my Aunts, the eldest had a mind as sharp as a tact and even when I phased the same question in a different way to check my understanding , she always caught me out!

Over the times we spent together I have notebooks full of note and comments, and those notes were either spot on or there was always a grain a truth in the details she and her sister’s shared and I was able to verify those notes by using the genealogical sources available.

You can the read the discussion at the Facebook Family Tree Academy group and on Twitter using the #FHWeek

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Family History Week #FHWeek 2018

Posted on May 4, 2018 by Julie Goucher

My-Family-History-Week-logo-300x226Family Tree Magazine (UK) which has been bring to genealogists everywhere monthly delights for over thirty years hosted their first ever Family History Week #FHWeek from 16-22nd April 2018.

The Guild of One-Name Studies supported the event by opening up all their webinars to the public for the week.

Family Tree Magazine have a successful Facebook presence: their page and a group called Family Tree Academy group where there was daily discussions in the form of questions and documents.

I didn’t get chance to look at the questions with any real depth, so thought that I would note the questions and over the course of the next week would write my responses to those questions – so stay tuned!

Those discussion questions:

  • True or False, how reliable have you found your family history stories?
  • What do you know about your surname?
  • How do you look after your family’s old documents & photos?
  • Do you put your family history online?
  • Do you have a DNA dilemma?
  • What about you – leaving a trail for your descendants
  • What ideas do you think will get younger people into family history?

Thanks to Family Tree Magazine (UK) for a great #FHWeek and for those questions.

 

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Favourite Book(s) #18 – The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up by Marie Kondo

Posted on May 1, 2018 by Julie Goucher

I first became aware of this book through a flurry of book reviews online. I also watched the following YouTube video from Jen at Pretty Neat Living and I have linked that below.

Whilst I do not follow the exact process outlined in the book it does give food for thought and as I have got older I find it is less important to keep “stuff”. I am increasingly aware that with no immediate descendants someone will have to sort through my lifetime accumulation of things and that which I have held onto from parents and bits from my Grandparents.

Taking stock is important and reviewing the items held onto from past generations.

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Book of Me Prompts – May 2018

Posted on April 30, 2018 by Julie Goucher
Book of Me2018

© 2017 Julie Goucher

Welcome to the fifth set of prompts for the 2018 Series of the Book of Me. You can read when the prompts are published and about the few changes at my earlier post HERE

There are five prompts each month and you can undertake as many or as few as you wish to.

  • What or who are you proud of?
  • What frustrates you?
  • What is your favourite way to communicate?
  • Name a treasured possession and share why?
  • What & who do you value?

If you have any questions or want to share thoughts or a blog link, if you decide to share via a blog (remember to, that you don’t have to share to take part in the series) then please leave a comment. Further discussion is also happening in the closed Facebook Group.

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A-Z Challenge 2018 – Zeal about Surnames

Posted on April 30, 2018 by Julie Goucher

a2z-h-smallI am hopeful that the various posts over the course of the A-Z Challenge, which has been about surnames, surname research and registering a One-Name Study has been enjoyable and given you plenty of scope for ideas and thoughts.

You can see all the posts I have written about surname research HERE and there is a small list of other writings about One-Name Studies and surnames that featured under Writing about your One-Name Study

So what to do next if you are enthused about One-Name Studies and surnames:

  • Visit the One-Name Studies website and perhaps
  • Join the Guild of One-Name Studies and see what the organisation offers
  • Sign up for the Pharos Course – Introduction to One-Name Studies the course runs over five weeks and you will broadly learn:
    • About One-Name Studies
      • History of One-Name Studies
      • Why have a One-Name Study
      • How suitable is my surname
      • Introduction to the Guild of One-Name Study
      • Getting started
    • Surnames and their history
      • How did surnames start?
      • An introduction to common meanings & deviations of British Surnames
        • Non-British surnames
      • Changes, spellings, deviations, Other pitfalls for the unwary
        • Deviants and Variants
      • Surname Distribution & Migration
      • Importance of individual surname studies
    • Core records you will need and information gathering
      • What are core records?
      • Civil Registration records and indexes in the British & Ireland
      • Indexes to the Census
      • Family Search, will indexes and other readily available indexes
      • Data Capture
      • Measuring your progress
      • Organising your One-Name Study (and I have a presentation that I am in the midst of writing, so stay tuned!)
    • Analysing and making sense of your data
      • Introduction to analysis
      • Designing spreadsheets
      • Family reconstruction
        • Software for a One-Name Study
      • Migration & linking people to places
      • Finding missing data
      • Drawing conclusions
    • Practical aspects of running your own One-Name Study
      • Registering a study with the Guild
      • Ethics
      • Data Protection
      • Publishing your study
        • Facebook Groups & pages
      • Preserving your study
      • Organising your time
  • Purchase a copy of Seven Pillars of Wisdom: The art of a One-Name Study.

I teach the Pharos course and have two studies, one is a Surname whose origins are typically British and the other is for an Italian surname.

The chances are you have been undertaking a study and not necessarily realising that it is a One-Name Study, you can read more HERE. Whether you are new to the concept or have been undertaking a surname research project for a while why not consider your aims for your study.

The next Pharos course begins 15th May 2018 and you can sign up HERE

I hope you have enjoyed the A-Z series as much as I have enjoyed writing them. Over the course of the last month I have promised I would come back to several topics and plan to do that over the coming weeks.

Posted in A-Z Challenge, A-Z Challenge 2018 - Surname Research Series, Genealogy, Introduction to One-Name Studies (Pharos course 901), One-Name Studies | 3 Comments

Favourite Book(s) #17 – Naples ’44 by Norman Lewis

Posted on April 29, 2018 by Julie Goucher

Naples '44This book has sat on my bookshelf for at least 20 years without being read. Then last year I read in a newspaper that it was to be broadcast on BBC 4 and narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch. Sadly the recording is not available on iPlayer, but the write up from the BBC website says this and I quote direct from the BBC 4 site:

“In late 1943 Norman Lewis was posted by the British Intelligence Corps to newly liberated Naples. He arrived to witness a city devastated by fascism, bombings, Nazi occupation and the Allied invasion. Written 30 years later, his remarkable memoir evocatively captures the resilience and resourcefulness of the city in the desperate months following the Nazis’ withdrawal.

Director Francesco Patierno combines extracts from this account, read by Benedict Cumberbatch, with powerful archival footage and clips from films set in Naples in the 50s and 60s, to portray a war-torn and once-dynamic city returning to life”

I was lucky enough to hear the broadcast and following the broadcast immediately started the book. I have always felt somewhat torn by emotions relating to the Second World War because being half Sicilian I had Grandparents who fought on both sides. I wondered for a long time if they fought in the same area and potentially were firing at each other. I don’t know the answer to that and perhaps that is for the best.

I have my maternal Grandfather’s military service and know that between 1940 when he joined the Army until late November 1943 he was in Sierra Leone. Meanwhile, my paternal Sicilian Grandfather never talked about his time in the military and always said that it was better to be captured by the British, which he was, than shot by the Germans after Germany and Italy split their alliance. He served his time as a Prisoner of War in England. I dare say he saw ruthless atrocities, just as any service man did during the Second World War, he like many others never spoke of them.

The book itself is a diary that was kept by Lewis reflects his time spent in Naples during September 1943 and October 1944. For me, this book gave me an insight into the life of the Italians in Naples and suspect that it was similar across Italy.

War is a shocking thing. I will never truly understand what both my Grandfathers experienced during this time. I can only attempt to read and research to gain an understanding.

We must never forget those that perished during the War years, regardless of where and how they perished. Equally we must never forget the experiences of those that survived the war. Everyone has a story to tell, and sometimes that story dies with them.

I am sorry to write such a deep post for this book, but to lighten the mood just very slightly.

Cumberbatch is a Surname registered by the Guild of One-Name Studies and Bob, who has registered the Cumberbatch surname will be one of the speakers on the Guild webinar next Tuesday where he, along with Paul Howes will be talking about Sharing the Joy of their respective studies. You can register for the Webinar HERE. The webinar will be available to everyone live and for a week after, when it will become a members benefit.

The webinar takes place at 7pm British Summer Time (BST) on Tuesday 15 May 2018.

 

Posted in Books, Favourite Book(s), One-Name Studies | 2 Comments

#Museum Week – Thoughts about the week

Posted on April 29, 2018 by Julie Goucher

logoMWI spotted the #MuseumWeek the day after the week commenced. I thought it was a great idea and had I known about it in advance I would perhaps have made difference choices.

In October, National Libraries week will commence (8-14th) and I have made a tweak or two. Firstly I am going to run over the whole of October and it will be in a similar vein to the A-Z challenge which took place in April. All posts will be linked in to the topic of surnames and One-Name studies and be relevant to libraries or a specific library, so stay tuned!

Museum Week was a great opportunity to spotlight museums that might have material relevant to those researching a surname. We tend to think of museums as purely visiting opportunities and whilst that is the case and I personally love visiting museums, they generally speaking have websites and in many cases catalogues and indexes you can search, thereby adding value to your One-Name Study or surname project.

By taking part in weeks such as these we add to the publicity of the various organisations and add other and extended dimensions to our own research projects.

I look forward to taking part in future years and will do a bit more preparation.

Posted in #MuseumWeek, Genealogy, Introduction to One-Name Studies (Pharos course 901), One-Name Studies, One-Place Studies | Leave a comment

#Museum Week – Migration Museum

Posted on April 28, 2018 by Julie Goucher

logoMWEarlier in the week I shared a very similar post about migration and you can read that post HERE

Today’s post looks to a very topical one for the UK this week, migration into the UK and does also reflect the link to the Partition Museum which you can read HERE.

Migration Museum UK

Screen capture from Migration Museum

London is a very culturally diverse city and the Migration Museum captures some of the groups that reinforces that diversity. Visit the website and let the top banner scroll between the slides, the full slide this quote comes from is one of those slides

I am the daughter of migrant and what I find fascinating is that no matter who the latest group of migrants are there are significant similarities between all of those groups. What does change is the country the folk came from, the religion and culture and perhaps the underlying reasons for migrating.

This post, from the website says that we tend to believe that when HMT Windrush arrived in London in 1948, migration began in earnest, but the truth with migration to England, Great Britain and of the course the United Kingdom began much earlier that that. The Windrush issue is something that is very important, concerning and something must be done – this is not a political post and I don’t wish it to be. From a genealogist point of view just how many important documents have been destroyed and that is an open question for any nation.

Of course, migration hasn’t just happened in London, it has happened over time in many, many places in UK and many major cities have Little Italy’s & Chinatown’s as folk move into areas where others have already settled.

This museum attempts to bring those strands together wants to record and honour those folk who came here from other lands, regardless of when. Any country forms on the back of the people who came before us, whether they were migrants or not.

Whilst as someone with a One-Name Study and One-Place Study there does not appear to be anything index or collection that might assist, I came away from an hour exploring the site with six things written on an index card, of ideas and suggestions of where to look for material on the bases of what material was on this site.

The Pharos course, Introduction to One-Name Studies does not specifically look at “foreign surnames”, and by foreign I mean names where their origin is outside of Britain, so Italian or German for example, but there is a small section about  them in the course. I am researching an Italian surname in particular. The Guild of One-Name Studies requirement is that the aim of a study is to be global, with no time limits. Therefore it is relevant to understand the foundations of surname research and to look at the scope for researching surnames whose origins outside of the UK inside the UK, especially since the UK is a country with a long history of migration, which is a talk that I am giving to Legacy Family Tree webinars later this year.

Posted in #MuseumWeek, Genealogy, Introduction to One-Name Studies (Pharos course 901), One-Name Studies, One-Place Studies, Research Resources | Leave a comment

A-Z Challenge 2018 – YOUR Study

Posted on April 28, 2018 by Julie Goucher

a2z-h-smallOnce a genealogist has registered the surname with the Guild they agree to do essentially several things:

  • Aim to make the study global
  • Respond to all enquiries.

In fact the five broad principles can be seen here.

There is guidance for a study, the Guild has mentors and volunteers that will help guide you, answer questions and so forth. There is the book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom which was published by the Guild in 2012. There is the Introduction to One-Name Studies course which is run by Pharos, and I  teach that. There is an Advance course which is taught by Helen Osborn and that builds on the material learnt in the introduction course and is probably best taken when you have some time under your belt with a study.

The introduction course gives a foundation for undertaking a study – learning about the numbers that reflect the people in your study, the history of surnames, and then drawing conclusions as to the history of your surname of interest.

The details of your study are left up to you to decide – the core data, the storage of the data, when you go global etc. There is no prescriptive way and where you start may well depend on the origins of the surname.

I have stated several times that I research in three places at one

  • Where I am (England)
  • Where my family originated (the surname is clearly Italian, and my own family are from Sicily)
  • Where they went (Italian migrated globally, but the key places are Argentina, United States and Australia. My own family line went to New York, Alabama and Louisiana, so those three states are my US focus).

The One-Name Study that YOU register is YOURS, you decide how it is kept and maintained and consider the aims of your study. You work at your pace and enjoy the experience and research.

 

Posted in A-Z Challenge, A-Z Challenge 2018 - Surname Research Series, Genealogy, Introduction to One-Name Studies (Pharos course 901), One-Name Studies | 2 Comments