Living DNA and Find My Past are going to partnership to produce matching for the people who have tested at Living DNA. What great news!
https://www.findmypast.co.uk/ancestry-dna-testing/
Showing posts with label Find My Past. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Find My Past. Show all posts
Thursday, July 19, 2018
Monday, April 16, 2018
Geneorama 2018
My husband and I helped in the Research Room at Geneorama which is the generally yearly genealogical conference held by the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society. We had a number of people use the databases which had been provided to the event by Ancestry, FindMyPast and My Heritage. Since I am a subscriber to all three I thought I might write up some of the thoughts that came to me when people asked which one was the best. I would say right off the top that none of these services are better than the other they simply offer material sometimes similar but often quite different and from different areas of the world.
Because my ancestry is 100% England itself thus far (i.e. all of my forebearers were born in the counties of England except for my mother, her father and his mother who were born in Canada but their parentage was English). Three of my grandparents were born and lived in England to adulthood and in the case of my father who was also born in England his parents were close to 40 years of age when they came to Canada with him as a child of nine years.
I will talk about the three databases in alphabetical order as that is the easiest way to present them.
Ancestry offers a lot of American records which is one of the reasons I do not use it as often as Find My Past. I do not have any American ancestors but do have a number of American cousins (2nd cousins) and their descendants. Ancestry also offers a lot of British Isles records and on occasion I do use the database when I can not find a particular record on Find My Past. There are some databases on Ancestry that are not on Find My Past. Ancestry has a DNA service with over 8 million subscribers. For me this is the greatest benefit that I derive from Ancestry as I have four of us (siblings) on Ancestry and I have had a few interesting matches that have been quite helpful. Ancestry does not have a chromosome browser limiting the value of this service to my research project for phasing my grandparent's autosomal DNA. The ability to create as many trees as you wish in Ancestry is also interesting. They do offer hints which can be quite helpful.
Find My Past is the service of which I make the greatest use. Their databases are extremely helpful in my family research but also for my one name studies. They offer the 1939 Register which I have found extremely handy in my DNA research as well as writing up my family history. The military records are quite extensive and I found my great grandfather wounded after the first Boer War which exactly matched the stories which my grandmother had mentioned. I had a number of questions about Find My Past yesterday. Find My Past does not offer DNA testing and one wonders if in the near future this service will offer DNA as their two major competitors do do so.
My Heritage has a lot of European records which makes it very handy for my husband's research. I do searches on My Heritage but I make the greatest use of their new DNA database. They offer a chromosome browser which offer triangulation of results a nice extra. This database got a lot of use at the Conference and there were a number of queries about My Heritage.
Because my ancestry is 100% England itself thus far (i.e. all of my forebearers were born in the counties of England except for my mother, her father and his mother who were born in Canada but their parentage was English). Three of my grandparents were born and lived in England to adulthood and in the case of my father who was also born in England his parents were close to 40 years of age when they came to Canada with him as a child of nine years.
I will talk about the three databases in alphabetical order as that is the easiest way to present them.
Ancestry offers a lot of American records which is one of the reasons I do not use it as often as Find My Past. I do not have any American ancestors but do have a number of American cousins (2nd cousins) and their descendants. Ancestry also offers a lot of British Isles records and on occasion I do use the database when I can not find a particular record on Find My Past. There are some databases on Ancestry that are not on Find My Past. Ancestry has a DNA service with over 8 million subscribers. For me this is the greatest benefit that I derive from Ancestry as I have four of us (siblings) on Ancestry and I have had a few interesting matches that have been quite helpful. Ancestry does not have a chromosome browser limiting the value of this service to my research project for phasing my grandparent's autosomal DNA. The ability to create as many trees as you wish in Ancestry is also interesting. They do offer hints which can be quite helpful.
Find My Past is the service of which I make the greatest use. Their databases are extremely helpful in my family research but also for my one name studies. They offer the 1939 Register which I have found extremely handy in my DNA research as well as writing up my family history. The military records are quite extensive and I found my great grandfather wounded after the first Boer War which exactly matched the stories which my grandmother had mentioned. I had a number of questions about Find My Past yesterday. Find My Past does not offer DNA testing and one wonders if in the near future this service will offer DNA as their two major competitors do do so.
My Heritage has a lot of European records which makes it very handy for my husband's research. I do searches on My Heritage but I make the greatest use of their new DNA database. They offer a chromosome browser which offer triangulation of results a nice extra. This database got a lot of use at the Conference and there were a number of queries about My Heritage.
Sunday, January 7, 2018
Find My Past
I have been a user/subscriber of Find My Past since 2009 and continue to really like this site. I subscribe because it is just easier to always have it at my fingertips whenever I am doing a standard search for anything (in my case all my ancestry is from England thus far on paper). Now that all the big search companies have taken on DNA projects I wonder if Find My Past will make that leap as well. It would be interesting to see Living DNA work with Find My Past I must admit and just wanted to throw that thought into the wind.
I have two sets of results at Living DNA - one for myself and one for one of my brothers (he kindly volunteered to do that as he has with all the other testing that I have done - AncestryDNA, FT DNA, My Heritage, 23 and Me, Britains DNA (no longer operating and they bought Ethnoancestry which I had also tested my brother at years ago; I also did a complete workup at BritainsDNA for him), National Genographic Project and Sorenson. He and I have done a lot of testing through the years since we first got into DNA testing in 2005. I await one set of results I have waited for for a long time - Big Y. I always meant to just buy it but then something else would come up for testing and I just didn't do it but now I await those results. We already know from all of these testing companies that our yDNA is quite ancient to the British Isles. This will simply give me more detail in that regard than I have from National Genographic Project and Britains DNA.
The results at Ancestry from autosomal DNA testing have been really useful (especially in my husband's case but gradually as more and more English people test I am getting close matches). I have subscribed to Ancestry since 2004 and find it to be a very valuable service as well although generally more so in my husband's research but they do have some databases not on Find My Past.
My Heritage is also a very interesting service and the addition of DNA testing there may prove to be very handy as well. I think the option of just having it along with matching is a great service. I have been a subscriber to My Heritage since 2013 when we went to Who Do You Think You Are 2013 Live in London, UK. My husband has found a number of useful searches there with his European ancestry - namely Germany, France, The Netherlands and Denmark.
I used to buy fiche from the various Record Offices in England and then read them in a microfiche reader but I must admit it is a lot nicer to have these services create their large databases of all this material with a link to the original page. At 72 it saves me a lot of time and saves my eyes for other close detail work.
I have two sets of results at Living DNA - one for myself and one for one of my brothers (he kindly volunteered to do that as he has with all the other testing that I have done - AncestryDNA, FT DNA, My Heritage, 23 and Me, Britains DNA (no longer operating and they bought Ethnoancestry which I had also tested my brother at years ago; I also did a complete workup at BritainsDNA for him), National Genographic Project and Sorenson. He and I have done a lot of testing through the years since we first got into DNA testing in 2005. I await one set of results I have waited for for a long time - Big Y. I always meant to just buy it but then something else would come up for testing and I just didn't do it but now I await those results. We already know from all of these testing companies that our yDNA is quite ancient to the British Isles. This will simply give me more detail in that regard than I have from National Genographic Project and Britains DNA.
The results at Ancestry from autosomal DNA testing have been really useful (especially in my husband's case but gradually as more and more English people test I am getting close matches). I have subscribed to Ancestry since 2004 and find it to be a very valuable service as well although generally more so in my husband's research but they do have some databases not on Find My Past.
My Heritage is also a very interesting service and the addition of DNA testing there may prove to be very handy as well. I think the option of just having it along with matching is a great service. I have been a subscriber to My Heritage since 2013 when we went to Who Do You Think You Are 2013 Live in London, UK. My husband has found a number of useful searches there with his European ancestry - namely Germany, France, The Netherlands and Denmark.
I used to buy fiche from the various Record Offices in England and then read them in a microfiche reader but I must admit it is a lot nicer to have these services create their large databases of all this material with a link to the original page. At 72 it saves me a lot of time and saves my eyes for other close detail work.
Monday, March 24, 2014
New Search on Find My Past
Find My Past has instituted a new search style on their website. I received my email telling me that I could now use the new search. I have been thinking about my great grandfather Edwin Denner Buller a bit lately so decided to do a search for him. For a little background knowledge, by family lore I understand that Edwin Denner Buller was in South Africa, that he served in the British Army, that he was injured in the leg and discharged. I did not have any dates for this information, it was just a childhood story that I remember my grandmother repeating to me several times actually in different ways as it turned up in childhood stories that she told me. I have never been able to find any documents to add to this information. A few years back I quite excitedly found that an Edwin Buller born in Aston near Birmingham in 1850 had military records on Find My Past and I trolled through the many pages quite diligently until I came across information that proved this was not my Edwin Buller; indeed his name is Edwin Baller.
I entered into the new search Edwin D Buller as that tends to separate him from any other Buller in any system. Up came six items, five of which I already knew and then there was this record from the military records known as the "Chelsea Pensioners' Discharge documents 1760-1887." This record showed that Edwin D Buller was discharged 12 Dec 1882 and that he had been in the Army Hospital Corps. I had his service number and I know that there is at least one sheet of paper in Box 238 of WO 121 that mentions him.
Obviously I think this new search is simply fabulous. But also I do rather like the results display for the search. I haven't done any others yet but will do so.
For a little background on this time period, the First Boer War occurred from the 16 Dec 1880 until 23 Mar 1881. I do not know how severe the injury was to Edwin's leg but he walked with a limp and used a cane so probably somewhat severe since he was not discharged until 1882 over a year after the war ended. I know that Edwin was living with his grandmother Sarah Welch, his mother and some of his siblings in 1871. His uncle was a jeweller and a younger brother of Edwin's (Clemence Charles Buller) was sent to Africa as a jeweller for this uncle in the latter part of the 1880s so have always wondered if Edwin had been sent there after 1871 and ended up in the British Army when the war started in December 1880.
When he returned to Aston where his mother and siblings were still living, I suspect he would have reported to the hospital in the Aston Union. There he quite likely met his future wife Ellen Taylor as she was there at that time. Ellen had grown up just a couple of blocks away from where Edwin lived as a child so they did likely know each other from attending school perhaps or Church or just because of the proximity where they lived and Ellen's father was possibly a shoe maker so another reason to meet. However, this is all conjecture. My grandmother never talked about her parents in that regard. Just snippets of information passed down to me about her parents.
Both died of pneumonia; her mother was only 37 years of age. Her father was 49 (almost 50) when he succumbed to pneumonia. He worked hard in spite of his infirmity; holding down two jobs. I suspect that when one was not overly busy then he had chosen wisely as the other one probably was. I do not think he received a pension although could be mistaken on that; my grandmother never mentioned that he had.
The desire to learn more about this great grandfather has always been quite strong since I first started researching ten years ago but until I found this record yesterday; I really did not know anymore about him than I had known as a child.
I entered into the new search Edwin D Buller as that tends to separate him from any other Buller in any system. Up came six items, five of which I already knew and then there was this record from the military records known as the "Chelsea Pensioners' Discharge documents 1760-1887." This record showed that Edwin D Buller was discharged 12 Dec 1882 and that he had been in the Army Hospital Corps. I had his service number and I know that there is at least one sheet of paper in Box 238 of WO 121 that mentions him.
Obviously I think this new search is simply fabulous. But also I do rather like the results display for the search. I haven't done any others yet but will do so.
For a little background on this time period, the First Boer War occurred from the 16 Dec 1880 until 23 Mar 1881. I do not know how severe the injury was to Edwin's leg but he walked with a limp and used a cane so probably somewhat severe since he was not discharged until 1882 over a year after the war ended. I know that Edwin was living with his grandmother Sarah Welch, his mother and some of his siblings in 1871. His uncle was a jeweller and a younger brother of Edwin's (Clemence Charles Buller) was sent to Africa as a jeweller for this uncle in the latter part of the 1880s so have always wondered if Edwin had been sent there after 1871 and ended up in the British Army when the war started in December 1880.
When he returned to Aston where his mother and siblings were still living, I suspect he would have reported to the hospital in the Aston Union. There he quite likely met his future wife Ellen Taylor as she was there at that time. Ellen had grown up just a couple of blocks away from where Edwin lived as a child so they did likely know each other from attending school perhaps or Church or just because of the proximity where they lived and Ellen's father was possibly a shoe maker so another reason to meet. However, this is all conjecture. My grandmother never talked about her parents in that regard. Just snippets of information passed down to me about her parents.
Both died of pneumonia; her mother was only 37 years of age. Her father was 49 (almost 50) when he succumbed to pneumonia. He worked hard in spite of his infirmity; holding down two jobs. I suspect that when one was not overly busy then he had chosen wisely as the other one probably was. I do not think he received a pension although could be mistaken on that; my grandmother never mentioned that he had.
The desire to learn more about this great grandfather has always been quite strong since I first started researching ten years ago but until I found this record yesterday; I really did not know anymore about him than I had known as a child.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
BIFHSGO
The British Isles Family History Group of the Greater Ottawa Area met today at Library and Archives Canada. We do not always make it to the meetings but did do so today. An excellent talk by Lesley Anderson on the family tree portion of Ancestry. As subscribers to Ancestry, we have ten trees online between my husband and myself. We have been using this feature of Ancestry for about five years now and it is extremely handy. All of our trees are private thus far. I am still proving lines and do not wish to put them up until I am positive they are correct. There is too much out there that is incorrect. However, as Lesley mentioned one can access the individual members of the tree and write to you and I receive a number of contacts sometimes daily for one or the other of these trees. There were a few features of the trees that we have not been aware of and Lesley's lecture certainly revealed them to us and we will make use of them. Especially though I like to use the ability of Ancestry's search engines to find hints. Some of them are quite exceptional and we actually found one of Ed's great grandmothers on a passenger list that was sent to us as a hint by ancestry. I really wouldn't want to do genealogy without them to be honest. I also subscribe to Find My Past and feel the same way about their databases. I am always finding some new bit of information there.
The talk was also quite excellent and the speaker managed to bring home to me my sad neglect of Canadian history. On some parts of Canadian History I am extremely knowledgeable but his talk on Sir William Dawson the President of McGill University really brought it home to me how little I know about some of the early members of the natural science community in Canada. I must remedy that. I love to read actually and shall start to do a little more on Canadian history.
I continue proofreading the Upper Clatford Parish Register transcriptions. I am about one quarter of the way through the baptisms. I can not estimate yet how long it will actually take me to complete the proofreading but it is moving along steadily. I shall try to do at least four hours a day to complete the project in a reasonable time interval.
I worked on my webpage today as well. I wanted to add in the one name study for the Blake family and upload the Penton Mewsey parish register transcription. I also feel confident now with my ancestry back to Nicholas. The Andover parish registers recording John Blake (son of William Blake) baptized at Penton but entered in the Andover register (possibly because the priest at Penton was not available - not sure of that) and then later the grandson of John (Thomas b 1709 Andover) is listed as being of the parish of Penton when he marries Ann Carter at Penton Mewsey in 1728. Thomas' mother was widowed in 1714 and family lore tells me that this family lived in a cottage at Foxcott (Mary (Spring) Blake and her only son Thomas). Thomas lives at Andover though as an adult as both of Thomas and Ann's children are baptized at Andover. However, the younger boy Thomas (baptized 1834; buried 1834) is buried at Penton Mewsey two days after his mother was buried.
I also worked on the Blake Profile for the one name study. I wanted to add in the details that I have online. I need to work on my section of the Blake Newsletter as well and get that submitted to Barrie Blake to put up 1st of April. I am going to do a list of Blake books - I have a number of them and I have found a few more online that I have also seen. The idea is to make the Newsletter somewhat general so as to attract as many Blake readers as possible. I think it will take awhile to get the project going but already I have managed to put together the years from 1943 to 1951 for the marriages on Free BMD. The next action will be to extract the children of these marriages and then using the census attempt to put these families back together working backwards. The names of the mother are available from 1911 on and the census is available from 1841 to 1911. It sounds doable when one contemplates it and we shall see how it works in practice. I already have a fair amount of knowledge for my Blake line at Upper Clatford. Joseph Blake was the only Blake there and only Thomas remained at Upper Clatford (his older brother William lived at Andover). As one looks at the census most Blakes in the census at Upper Clatford descend from Thomas Blake and Sarah Coleman.
The talk was also quite excellent and the speaker managed to bring home to me my sad neglect of Canadian history. On some parts of Canadian History I am extremely knowledgeable but his talk on Sir William Dawson the President of McGill University really brought it home to me how little I know about some of the early members of the natural science community in Canada. I must remedy that. I love to read actually and shall start to do a little more on Canadian history.
I continue proofreading the Upper Clatford Parish Register transcriptions. I am about one quarter of the way through the baptisms. I can not estimate yet how long it will actually take me to complete the proofreading but it is moving along steadily. I shall try to do at least four hours a day to complete the project in a reasonable time interval.
I worked on my webpage today as well. I wanted to add in the one name study for the Blake family and upload the Penton Mewsey parish register transcription. I also feel confident now with my ancestry back to Nicholas. The Andover parish registers recording John Blake (son of William Blake) baptized at Penton but entered in the Andover register (possibly because the priest at Penton was not available - not sure of that) and then later the grandson of John (Thomas b 1709 Andover) is listed as being of the parish of Penton when he marries Ann Carter at Penton Mewsey in 1728. Thomas' mother was widowed in 1714 and family lore tells me that this family lived in a cottage at Foxcott (Mary (Spring) Blake and her only son Thomas). Thomas lives at Andover though as an adult as both of Thomas and Ann's children are baptized at Andover. However, the younger boy Thomas (baptized 1834; buried 1834) is buried at Penton Mewsey two days after his mother was buried.
I also worked on the Blake Profile for the one name study. I wanted to add in the details that I have online. I need to work on my section of the Blake Newsletter as well and get that submitted to Barrie Blake to put up 1st of April. I am going to do a list of Blake books - I have a number of them and I have found a few more online that I have also seen. The idea is to make the Newsletter somewhat general so as to attract as many Blake readers as possible. I think it will take awhile to get the project going but already I have managed to put together the years from 1943 to 1951 for the marriages on Free BMD. The next action will be to extract the children of these marriages and then using the census attempt to put these families back together working backwards. The names of the mother are available from 1911 on and the census is available from 1841 to 1911. It sounds doable when one contemplates it and we shall see how it works in practice. I already have a fair amount of knowledge for my Blake line at Upper Clatford. Joseph Blake was the only Blake there and only Thomas remained at Upper Clatford (his older brother William lived at Andover). As one looks at the census most Blakes in the census at Upper Clatford descend from Thomas Blake and Sarah Coleman.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Find My Past - 2
I decided to still not do too much typing today. That meant I didn't touch the Timberscombe Bishops Transcripts. Instead I spent a little time searching on Find My Past - just a few letters and a whole list of data appears. I looked at the Taylor family in Birmingham/Lancashire to see if I could find any clues for Ellen Taylor (my great grandmother and my mtDNA line), Blake, Knight, Butt, Pincombe, and then a long look at the BMDs in Dorset. That is a real bonus to have the records for Dorset as it is the one record office that will not sell Parish Register Fiche/Film to me. I have acquired a number of documents on Ancestry from one of the public trees but this set of records will also help to fatten up the bare bones that I have for many of my Dorset ancestors.
I have been doing my shoulder exercises as I had moved away from them the last couple of months since my shoulder appeared to be so much better. I think it is quite a bit better but suspect that it is a lifelong necessity to continue doing the exercises at least a couple of times a week. I shall do that.
We celebrated Father's Day this evening with a lovely meal at a local restaurant. My husband had his favourite pork side ribs and I had a 1/4 chicken meal which was also very good. Then we went back to our daughter and her fiance's home for a chatting time and to talk about the wedding. It should be quite beautiful and I said that I would do the cake. I will do a preliminary run with the cake for the Engagement Party later in the summer. We will see how well I do with that and if I am pleased (and they are as well :) ) then I will do the wedding cake.
I uploaded the bare bones gedcom to Find My Past and when they open it up to matching that could prove interesting as all my ancestors are English. Perhaps in the near future that will happen. I have been very lucky with Genes Reunited.
Tomorrow I hope to get back to the Timberscombe Bishops Transcripts.
I have been doing my shoulder exercises as I had moved away from them the last couple of months since my shoulder appeared to be so much better. I think it is quite a bit better but suspect that it is a lifelong necessity to continue doing the exercises at least a couple of times a week. I shall do that.
We celebrated Father's Day this evening with a lovely meal at a local restaurant. My husband had his favourite pork side ribs and I had a 1/4 chicken meal which was also very good. Then we went back to our daughter and her fiance's home for a chatting time and to talk about the wedding. It should be quite beautiful and I said that I would do the cake. I will do a preliminary run with the cake for the Engagement Party later in the summer. We will see how well I do with that and if I am pleased (and they are as well :) ) then I will do the wedding cake.
I uploaded the bare bones gedcom to Find My Past and when they open it up to matching that could prove interesting as all my ancestors are English. Perhaps in the near future that will happen. I have been very lucky with Genes Reunited.
Tomorrow I hope to get back to the Timberscombe Bishops Transcripts.
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