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WANTED
published by Brian & Pam Airey on Sun, 03/11/2024 - 10:00

The AGM of YOUR Society is to be held next week. The constitution states that we MUST have Chair, Secretary & Treasurer as well as 3 other members for the committee. Current post holders and members of the committee have been in situ for some considerable time. At the moment we DON'T have a nomination for CHAIR or TREASURER. Without these posts we will fold.   Committee meetings are held via zoom so you don't have to live in Weston. Also if anyone can take over recording talks and IT work we would like to know.

Do you still want a FH Society?

 

Please come forward to help.

Brian Airey

Secretary

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DNA Update August 2024
published by Peter de Dulin on Wed, 18/09/2024 - 19:47

DNA Update August 2024

MyHeritage

They have started to roll-out their ethnicity updates: look out for new categories eg Breton.

Some women provide their maiden names on this site and many people give their age – useful pointers to aid identification.

23&Me

If you have upgraded to their Premium+ subscription you will get 5k matches, instead of 1,500, and be offered further health reports.  Under their Ancestry heading you will find a sub group Historical and, when you click on that, it shows you which matches you have with bodies discovered in archaeological excavations. The aDNA (ancient DNA) of the bodies have been tested and recorded. A screenshot of a website

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FTDNA

They have just updated their Big Y Match Time Tree (see next page) – this is only for those who have taken a Big Y test.  The orange dot is my 2C1R Leslie Rocker – who I have had tested – and it compares his DNA to other men who have tested and these are his matches.  The haplogroup (a genetic population of people who share a common ancestor on the patriline or matriline) changes over time – having mutated towards the present day.  There are 5 other men who share with my cousin: one from Norway, one from Switzerland and 2 from USA.  This chart is updated/refined on a weekly basis.

Debbie Kennett has a one-name study, Cruwys (and variants), and has tested her father at Big Y level.  On her father’s Big Y Match Time Tree there is a Mr Isaac.  He was asked to test for the Isaac name project – but he doesn’t show up in the Isaac chart, he shows up on the Cruwys chart!!

A screenshot of a computer

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Similarly, FTDNA are working on producing a Mito Tree soon for female lines with revised reports and time frames.  Both these reports are produced utilising aDNA from archaeological sites around the world.

Those of you with a sub to FTDNA will have had emails informing you about the tree changes that are going to occur next month.  9th September is the deadline for you to transfer/link your FTDNA family tree to MH.  After this date you will no longer be able to update your FTDNA tree.  To make yourself the home person on your tree, when you’re making the transfer, you will have to type your name into the list of tree names and click on it.

If you don’t have a subscription to MH and you have more than 250 names on your tree you will be given 3 months free and then asked to either subscribe or prune your tree …as they have an upper limit of 250 free names.

Ancestry

If you were an early bird and subscribed to Pro Tools when it was £4.99/m then I’m pleased to tell you that, if you haven’t cancelled, you are only being charged £4.99 – Peter checked!  More features will be added in due course – especially DNA ones.  As they are still rolling out the enhanced shared matches feature the coloured squares roll-out has taken a back seat.

Relationships are being added to – many of the ‘further back’ relationships eg 5C1R had gone missing but are being replaced.  The roll out of 64 coloured squares will happen and the colours will be improved.

The enhanced shared matches feature is good as it includes ALL matches down to the 8cM limit – they don’t cut off at 20cM – and some of those might have good trees.

I am particularly pleased with the Tree Checker feature: it indicates where you have duplicates in your tree, if you’ve added an event that happened before or after they were born/died and where you haven’t actually entered any events (such as bmd dates) from their list of hints.  Beware, though, I reckon this has been generated by AI and it does make some really stupid suggestions.

The Tree Mapper facility is very handy: you can look at places and see how many ‘events’ happened there (from your tree) and you can look at how many of a particular surname is worldwide, or in any country or town.

Their next ethnicity update should happen next month.

DONM :  16th September

 

Jenny Towey

jenny@towey.me.uk

 

 

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DNA Update September 2024
published by Peter de Dulin on Mon, 16/09/2024 - 19:50

All About That Place

This is a series of online talks, organised by the SoG, BALH and Genealogy Stories, from 27th September to 6th October.  They will be streamed, internationally, on Facebook and YouTube.  To subscribe register at subscribepage.com/allaboutthatplace

Talks are on subjects such as Cradle to Grave, part of the story by Jackie Depelle, Georgian Philanthropic Hospitals and their Records by Else Churchill, The mystery of manor farm house by Nick Barratt and Tools & Techniques to Break Down Brick Walls by Mark Bayley.  There are 14 talks per day and each day has a theme such as Military & War on 29th Sept, Tools on 4th Oct and Collections & Archives on 5th Oct.

Gwent Workhouse Records

For those of you with Gwent ancestry Ancestry has added 1million+ workhouse records from Gwent 1833-1957.  These can be searched by name and you can see digitised copies of the originals.  The records cover Poor Law Unions for Abergavenny, Bedwellty, Bryn Institution, Chepstow, Monmouth, Newport and Pontypool – including bmd for paupers in the workhouses, removal orders, vaccination registers etc.

DNA

John Portmann, an American, has proved he is entitled to Irish citizenship using DNA testing alone!  Tinyurl.com/irish-times-portmann

MyHeritage

MH has discontinued its AI Record Finder!  “We understand from the feedback received that most genealogists preferred the more traditional search format”.

23&Me

Their share value has dropped from $17.56 in Feb 2021 to $0.37 in Aug 2024!  We still can’t access the match lists or see the chromosome browser with the location of shared segments.  However, they are “actively looking at ways to restore the functionality offered by the tools that enable the display and comparison of matching segment data, that were put on pause last year – with additional privacy and security protection.”

Ancestry (& maybe other sites)

I have recently been told, by several of my DNA matches, that they don’t have annual subscriptions to Ancestry.  They either pick and choose which months they’ll subscribe for – when they’re not too busy – or they just sign up for the winter months…this might be why we don’t get answers…!!

Jenny Towey

jenny@towey.me.uk

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Birnbeck Pier- Back from the Brink
published by Peter de Dulin on Wed, 13/03/2024 - 19:53
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Workshop 27th March
published by Peter de Dulin on Fri, 01/03/2024 - 16:58

Further to Pat's newsletter, I have had to change the workshop for the 27th March.

We welcome Mark Bayley from The Genealogist who will give us a presentation called Breaking down brick walls in your family history research.

How to resolve stumbling blocks in your family history research using new and unique search strategies to find those missing relatives. This includes searching for a family using just the individuals' forenames, using keyword search tools, using criteria other than a name to search on, and using other advanced search techniques. The talk also covers unique data sets such as Non-Conformist records, Non-Parochial records, Fleet marriages, Will images, Parish Records, Directories, Newspapers and more.

Login details will follow in due course

 

Peter de Dulin

vice chair

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Destruction of Wills
published by Brian & Pam Airey on Mon, 29/01/2024 - 16:01

Thanks to member David Hollins and Federation of FH notifying us that the Ministry of Justice were planning on digitising wills, then destroying the originals after 25 years. 

We responded to the Federation email that we were totally opposed to this act of vandalism as only an original article is the true thing. There are so many mis-transcriptions  of all documents that the original source document is the only one to consult. 

According to an article on the 'Who Do You Think You Are' website, the period for consultation is only open until 23 February 2024, but no genealogical organisation has been included in the consultation. A petition has been started to preserve wills in perpetuity in line with current legislation. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/654081.

Feel free to sign.

Brian

 

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Forthcoming Events

Physical Members' Meeting
Wednesday, 13th November, 2024 14:30 - 17:00
Workshop by Zoom: How our Ancestors died
Wednesday, 27th November, 2024 19:30 - 21:00
Library Help Session
Saturday, 7th December, 2024 14:00 - 15:30
Physical Members' Meeting
Wednesday, 11th December, 2024 14:30 - 17:00
Library Help Session
Saturday, 4th January, 2025 14:00 - 15:30
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