9 Feb. I realised this evening that I've never lived in a house with central heating. Growing up we had an open fire and a 2-bar electric heater. Then I lived in an art deco 1930s unrenovated house, a stone cottage with corrugated iron roof, a 200 yr old stone cottage with no running water inside, and now a mobile home as I plan the renovation of the old house. I don't think my life is too different from my ancestors! Except for electricity 😊

#MyYearOfGenealogy #Genealogy #Geneadons​

8 Feb. A late toot tonight! I was engrossed in the final book in the Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths. Great read as always. Not genealogy, but some interesting history and myths from Norfolk, where my surname seems to have its origins. I must visit one day.

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7 Feb. Loving the way I can search by address in the England censuses on Find My Past. Great for a quick view of surnames and birthplaces on a street. Currently exploring the poorer parts of Marylebone, London and cross-checking against Booth's poverty map (and notebooks). Plus I found a draft book on architecture (UCL, Bartlett School) that includes the old street names and what they were replaced by e.g. Paradise St -> Moxon St. Fascinating!

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6 Feb. No genealogy today. It's a holiday here in Ireland this year so I put my feet up and started re-reading the 14th Elly Griffiths / Ruth Galloway novel in preparation for reading the 15th and final one in the series. No doubt I'll binge read all 15 again this year. Anyone else re-read books?

#MyYearOfGenealogy #EllyGriffiths

5 Feb. Did some more research for my course assignment, while the laptop battery lasted! There was a poor census image on Ancestry which had led to a mistranscribed first name. I searched for the same record on FMP and found same first name mistranscription but also a totally amazing mistranscription of the surname. Only found the family by using first name of sibling, date and place and ignoring surname totally. Creative searching!

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4 Feb. Plans to complete my assignments today somewhat scuppered by leaving the laptop power cord in Dublin. I am now in Leitrim. Oh well. Resorting to old tech and continuing to read Helen Osborn's book on essential genealogy research methods. I do have about 4 hours battery life on the laptop so will do a bit tomorrow, will need to be organised and not waste time / battery power, which fits well with the objectives of the course I'm doing.

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3 Feb. Working on an assignment for my Pharos course this evening. Loving having both Ancestry and FindMyPast subscriptions! I'm also paying more attention to selecting the dataset that I want to search, rather than running a full database search. It's easier then to make my own search criteria changes, either broader or a narrower, and be able to comprehend the results. Full database searches can return too much noise. Looking for burials....

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2 Feb. I reported a transcription error of my grandmother's surname on the 1921 census to Find My Past. I sent in the suggested corrections using the "Report an error" button on the transcript page on 21 Jan. They replied to say it would be implemented within 72 hours on the 26 Jan. It was updated within 48 hours of that date! Well done #FindMyPast!

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1 Feb. Celebrating St Brigid’s Day today, the beginning of Spring here in Ireland. Had some lovely colcannon for dinner this evening. I'm impressed that I'm keeping up with my plan to toot daily on whatever is on my mind genealogically speaking. It will make a nice log of thoughts for the end of the year 🙂

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31 Jan. Received a marriage certificate from GRO in the post today. Great excitement! Nothing shocking, just confirms that both parties had not been married before and other information I already had. Good that it's all confirmed though. Other than that it's been a quiet evening, I'm tired after the day job tonight, think I'll turn in early.

#MyYearOfGenealogy #Genealogy #Geneadons

30 Jan. This has to be my favourite map resource. I could spend hours exploring places - especially the 25" to the mile scale maps. So much detail. It's always interesting to see that where you might have a modern placename, like Hildyards Crescent in Shanklin, Isle of Wight, that the name's origin was in the farm whose land the road was eventually built across. I like the continuity of the names, echoes of the past.

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https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore

29 Jan. Had some more interactions with ChatGPT today. Mixed results. I asked it to create a mini biography of an ancestor based on some facts I gave it and asked it to include some general historical context. A key "fact" it presented for historical context was factually incorrect. I then read this article, which I like. ChatGPT and the Enshittening of Knowledge.

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https://castlebridge.ie/insights/llms-and-the-enshittening-of-knowledge/?fbclid=IwAR1BwK2FYgAc5OBI2RnOth41RMxgz82l34ta0yX_ZQ8R0ig4hBSv0K0XG-M

28 Jan. Down a rabbit hole researching teacher training in the post-WWI years to see how much training my great grandfather would've received. Found a thesis from 1964 by Mrs. Akhtar Shakoor of the University of Leicester. Fascinating reading, and a great way of avoiding doing the hoovering! Amazing what a simple Google search turns up.

#MyYearOfGenealogy #Genealogy #Geneadons

27 Jan. This grave marks the resting place of 2 of my great great aunts, siblings of my great grandfather. They were born and grew up in Folkestone, Kent. After they married, I lost them. Couldn't find any records. Until I came across a reference to Ireland. I found they both lived most of their adult lives in Dublin and are buried in Deansgrange Cemetery. I actually cried when I first found the grave. I spent years looking for the Irish connection.

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26 Jan. Anyone else having issues with the Family Search 1851 Jurisdictions Map? Won't load the info in the pop up box for me at all this week. Very annoying. Same issue in all browsers.

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https://www.familysearch.org/mapp/

25 Jan. Finished my lesson 3 exercises for my Pharos course this evening. It always takes me time to sort out my sources and cite them properly. I really need to start looking at the various clever tools there are that could create these for me automatically. One of the software developers working for me once said that every coder is innately lazy - we do something tedious manually once, but if it needs doing again we automate. I resemble that remark!

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24 Jan. One of my older photos in which I can at least identify some people. A picnic on the Isle of Wight, ~1927. Three generations of the Warder family. My grandad wearing his school cap and eating a sandwich, his sister the young child with the bobbly hat, his parents on the left unsmiling and his grandad, my great great grandad, in front of him. Not sure about the other two ladies. I wonder who took the photo?

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23 Jan. Inter-acted with ChatGPT for the first time today. "Who are the best speakers to invite to speak at a genetic genealogy conference?". I like the mini bios given. First answers:

1. CeCe Moore: A genetic genealogist and author who has worked on high-profile cases, including the Golden State Killer case.
2. Blaine Bettinger: A leading expert in genetic genealogy and author of the popular blog "The Genetic Genealogist."

There were several more.

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22 Jan. Updated the spreadsheet tracker for my various subscriptions today. I forgot and was too late to cancel auto-renew on 2 subs before I did this of course! Genealogy costing €550 this year, and that is with discounted subs on Ancestry and FindMyPast and excluding the short subs I might need for RootsIreland and others. I knew there was a reason I needed to keep the day job. 😮

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21 Jan. Trying to get a little ahead on my Pharos course assignments this weekend so planning to read lesson 3, write up my answers to the exercises and complete as much as possible of the end of course Assignment 1. If time allows, I may look at Assignment 2 part A also and make some notes. Nothing worse than leaving it all until the end.

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