One good point is that I will be Fickling soon. Robert will be paying my annual salary (a coffee) and I will be spending much time gossiping with old genealogy friends. You should consider attending the Expo weekend – see the Auckland Public Libraries section below. If you do attend don’t forget to tell me how good the newsletter is – my ego needs that sort of massaging.

Anyway, back to reality. Once again, we have an interesting newsletter. The articles are varied and stimulating. The jokes are funny although they are not the main reason for reading the newsletter.

I hope this month’s issue occupies some of your time and you find something valuable.

Peter Nash

Do you want to receive this newsletter every month?

This newsletter is free. There are not many free newsletters of this length in New Zealand. I am biased but it should be an interesting read.

To subscribe is easy too. Go on - don't misspell it as I have, twice already. https://www.famnet.org.nz/

The front page is lovely, but click on [Newsletters]. A page opens showing you a list of all the past newsletters, you can click the link to read one that you’re interested in.

Like the front page, the newsletters page has a place where you can log on or register. It’s in the top right-hand corner. Put your email here and click [Continue]. If you aren’t already on our mailing list, there will be a message “Email not in database” and a button [New User] appears. Click this and follow the dialog to register. It’s free and easy. You should receive a copy every month until you unsubscribe.

Robert has assured me that he will not send begging letters to your email - apparently, he has enough money at the moment. You will not have to put in your credit card number. You will not be charged a subscription.

Tell other genealogists so they can enjoy the newsletters too.

Regards

Peter Nash

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Contributors

The Nash Rambler

More About Notting

Well, July has been a good month for me. I have managed to convene the Old Fogeys Group to meet every week and I have enjoyed the coffees that they had to supply because of my success at writing about nothing last month. I had to plan another winnable bet so that I could enjoy more free coffees.

It came time to write this column and once again I had nothing to write about. So, after a bit of careful manipulation by me, they suggested that I write about nothing again and try to get four generations of the Nothing family I found on the 1891 census in London. The same rules applied i.e. 900 words, genealogical and published but it had to be about Nothing and I had to provide proof. I accepted the challenge and rubbed my hands in glee – more free coffees coming up. (Note that I’m using numbers this month – I was that confident).

At home I started by going onto Ancestry.com to find the family in the 1891 census. I found them in Tottenham, Middlesex – a family of Henry J NOTHING, his wife Alice and children, Ellen, Ada, and Alice and one other I think. This was going to be easy!!!! BUT I couldn’t find them in any other census on Ancestry.com. BOTHER they have absconded to somewhere unknown!!!! So I searched the English Births & Death indexes for the children’s birth years and their mother’s maiden name. BOTHER!!!! They weren’t there. Winning more free coffees was getting harder and the possibilities of me paying for their coffees was growing. I broke out in a cold sweat and closed the computer down.

Next day I resumed my search. I tried the census records on FindmyPast. I couldn’t find them on the 1891 or any other census at all. BOY AM I IN TROUBLE!!!!

I had to find them. So I searched for one of their children, Ada, no surname, born 1887 in Tottenham (in the 1891 census) and, as expected, I had a huge number of hits. I then patiently worked my way through the list until I came to an Ada NOTTING born the correct year. I checked the census page and, hey presto, it’s them!!!! Obviously a bad transcription by FindmyPast – Ancestry is never wrong.

I then researched the English Births website and found the children’s birth years and mother’s maiden name under the surname NOTTING. I found Henry J and Alice (nee FLUDDER) had 9 children which included three boys who were born and died between censuses (I know spelling is wrong). I then found the family in all census records under the surname NOTTING. Henry James Notting married Alice FLUDDER in 1880 in London. I found Henry James being baptised in Bristol in 1844 and was the son of James NOTTING and Caroline HARMON (married 1841 in Bristol) and found his 8 siblings .And, to seal the deal, I found the parents of James NOTTING to be Alex NOTTING and Mary UPHAM (married 1799).

So Ancestry.com had made a transcription error or a couple of errors for that household. It shows that a researcher must check all version of census records because each website used different transcribers. If ancestry.com was right a number of other sources had made the same transcription error????

So off I go to the next meeting of the Old Fogeys with my family tree. I was going to gloat and make them squirm. They asked whether this was the basis of my next article and I was very pleased to agree. Well, all hell broke loose and we were asked to quieten it down a few times as they claimed this was a NOTTING family tree not a NOTHING family tree. I insisted that I couldn’t do the Nothing tree because a transcription error on Ancestry.com had proved that they weren’t NOTHINGs. I said it was impossible to do what the bet had required. How could I do a family tree on people that didn’t exist? They countered that many people achieved that very thing in many public trees on Ancestry.com. I broke out in a cold sweat again as I realised I was losing the argument.

They then called for a vote on whether I had succeeded or failed and I lost. Blooming democracy!!!! I did an exact Trump-like performance but couldn’t find any nutters to storm the Old Fogeys homes. I loudly muttered about rigged elections and considered putting my case in front of the Supreme Court in the USA.

So I’m paying for their coffees in August (thank god there are only 4 Wednesdays). I am not happy!!!!!! Maybe I can manipulate the meetings back to monthly ones.

I’m finding a subject for my next article – any suggestions.

Peter Nash

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DNA Testing for Family History

From the editor: Gail has written quite a series on DNA Testing. You will see them all on the FAMNET website and they are a must-read, particularly if you are considering or have had a test done. They are easy to read and not too technical. Click Index so far to see these articles

Multi-copy Markers found from Y-DNA STR tests.

A picture containing text, clipart

Description automatically generated Hopefully, you are all aware that after joining a Y DNA project (whether Surname or Haplogroup or Geographical types of projects) there are column headers denoting the DYS positions on the Y chromosome.

D=DNA; Y=Y Chromosome (carried by males); S=Segment and position.

And hopefully, you are all aware that if you click on that column header, you can alter the order in which you see those results? (Try it).

And even more hopefully, you understand that the differing colours of those column headers indicate whether or not the genetic community classify the markers as slow or fast-moving. By this I mean that slow-moving markers seldom change their value but the fast-moving markers can increase or decrease in value at random intervals. This movement and associated randomness can be most helpful (or most annoying) when considering the connection of matches.

Below is a small example of the start of such column headers.

A blue and white text

Description automatically generated with medium confidence

From DYS393 to DYS458, these are the only markers looked at for the Y12 test.

They are indicated by a darkish blue colour but include three reddish colours.

These are followed by DYS459 to DYS464 and these are the additional markers looked at in the Y25 test.

The Y37 test looks at an additional 12 markers but you will have to go to your project to see these. More colours are promulgated for the bigger STR tests including more reddish colours. You will see results through to Y111 if you look at your project provided that project contains testers who have taken those higher tests.

There are no reddish colours in the Y68 to the Y111 test, but from experience they do exist. And, no, do not ask me why these colours are not promulgated – go to FTDNA and ask if you are interested.

You may have realised by now that all the reddish colours across all the columns show the faster moving markers. But this is not all; notice the multi-copy markers.

In this graphic, you can only see:-

385a and 385b. 459a and 459b. 464a, b, c, d and further; YCAII a and YCAII b are showing.

There are more – such as CDYa and CDYb and 413a and 413b.

You do not see the lower case letters – they indicate there are two copies at that position and are used to clarify only.

The question from readers may now be “why are you telling us about these matters?

It is to tell you about the complications of comparing markers with your matches and reaching incorrect conclusions by basing your conclusions purely on the exactness of those matches. (And I am not yet finished in setting the scene).

Some testers rely on the Tip Tree to try and avoid such problems. Please do not do this.

Why? Because the Tip Tree uses statistics in its calculations.

And we all know that problems exist when relying on statistics.

(I have said this before and I am saying it again – men have drowned after learning the depth of a river they wish to cross has an average depth of 3 feet.)

Firstly, The Tip Tree does not take the speed of value changes of the individual marker into account.

Secondly, The Tip Tree does not take recLOH events into account.

So, what is a recLOH event? A recLOH event is "Recombinational Loss of Heterozygosity". In plain English, this is when one piece of DNA overwrites another piece.

This event cannot be predicted because it seems to happen when the marker concerned is in what is considered a “hairpin” region of the helix and something “goes wrong” at conception. This region is also called a ‘palindrome’ because the two results can be read front to back and back to front. For in-depth information, See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7999016/#:~:text=A%20palindrome%20in%20DNA%20is,is%20referred%20to%20as%20perfect.

The Tiny URL for that link is https://tinyurl.com/5bxyv2kn

Now the questions become “how can I recognise a recLOH event?” And “why is it important to consider whether it exists”?

It is important because if it exists, then it can (when matched with the same result in another person’s haplotype) immediately signify the two persons descend from the same patrilineal ancestor. Assuming there are other similarities!

The most common is a person with DYS 459 displaying 9-9 and also has DYS YCAII displaying 19-19. The graphic below shows you an example of 2 such events.

A screenshot of a computer

Description automatically generated

If you have both of those, look further and you may find you and your matches also have DYS 531=9 and DYS 578=9 (although these are not recLOH events). I bring this up because finding such results can all contribute to show definite family connections, irrespective of the actual GD (genetic distance) connection between them.

The above result is copied from two R-L21 men.

The aim of this article is to tell you to NOT give up just because at first glance it seems as though you have very few matches or matches that have you wondering if an error has been made somewhere.

And just to finish off, I recently heard that certain admins may tell you not to bother getting the Big Y 700 if you have no matches at Y12, Y25, & Y37, Y67 or Y111.

Ouch! Too many times I have seen zero matches at those lower level STR tests. But when the Big Y 700 results are in, a different story emerges.

Gail Riddell

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Chinese Corner

A Brief History of the Chinese Language in New Zealand By Nigel Murphy
In the 118 years between the arrival of the first Chinese immigrants to New Zealand to the first tentative easing in 1961 of the heavy restrictions against Chinese migrants imposed after WWII, 99 percent of the Chinese migrants to New Zealand came from the Pearl River Delta district of the south-eastern province of Guangdong. Throughout Chinese history emigration has occurred in only two provinces, Guangdong, and its immediate neighbour to the north, Fujian. The Fujian people restricted themselves to migrating to the Southeast Asian countries, in particular Malaya, Thailand, Indonesia, and Thailand. The Cantonese also migrated to these countries but in fewer numbers. People from the north-eastern part of Guangdong, in particular from Chaozhou (Teochew) focussed on specific countries as destinations, and they were followed by family members and fellow villagers. Therefore, almost all the Chinese in Cambodia came from Teochew, while most Chinese in Indonesia and Malaysia came from Fujian and northern Guangdong. These people speak a number of versions of the Min language broadly known as Hokkien.

When the Pearl River Delta residents heard of the discovery of gold in America, Canada, and later in Australia and New Zealand, large numbers of Cantonese men migrated to what was known as “Gold Mountain.” These immigrants were the foundations of the Chinese communities in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. All of these immigrants were Cantonese, the Fujian people preferring to stick with their traditional Southeast Asian destinations.

In terms of numbers, the Cantonese immigrants to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the US, were tiny in comparison to the numbers of Chinese emigrants in Southeast Asia, making up just 1.5 percent of the around eight million overseas Chinese population prior to WWII. Of the Chinese who emigrated to the Americas, Australasia, and the Pacific Islands between 1848 and the 1940s, at least 95 percent came from a group of 14 counties nestling around the provincial capital, Guangzhou. Of these 14 counties around nine sent migrants to New Zealand.

The people from each of these counties spoke distinct local variations on standard Cantonese, each with its own inflections, names, and local slang. These dialects of Cantonese were known as village languages which, while certainly sounding rustic to the city dwellers, were full of vibrancy, expression, and a unique type of poetry. In the capital Guangzhou, which provided the model and standard for the Cantonese language throughout Guangdong, local dialects also existed. The varieties of Cantonese spoken in Guangzhou were distinct enough for a Cantonese speaker to tell where in Guangzhou the person was from.

Contrary to popular belief, however, Cantonese was far from being the only language spoken in Guangdong Province. Guangdong is one of the most linguistically diverse provinces in China, and it is generally acknowledged that the people known as Cantonese refers only to those who come from the Pearl River Delta, a number of districts north of the capital, and a significant part of the eastern part of neighbouring Guangxi Province. The people from the other parts of Guangdong Province are known by the languages they speak, all of which are unrelated to the Cantonese language. The largest groups are Hokkien, Teochew, and Hakka. Even within the Pearl River Delta there are a mix of dialectical variations. In the middle of Zhongshan county – the home of the “father of modern China” Sun Yat-sen – the people of Longdu district speak a form of the Min-Hokkien language of north-eastern Guangdong as well as standard Cantonese.

To the west of Guangzhou, across a spider’s web of rivers and craggy hill ranges lie the Four Counties, known in Cantonese as the Seyip district. It was from these four counties that the majority of Cantonese immigrants to the United States, Canada, and Australia came, with the majority of these coming from just one county – Taishan.

In the United States and Canada over 80 percent of the Chinese migrants spoke the Taishan dialect. The Seyip version of Cantonese has absorbed a number of influences from the original indigenous languages of the region resulting in a unique variety of Cantonese largely unintelligible to the other Cantonese speakers of the region. The geographic isolation from the districts surrounding Guangzhou has added to the creation of the unique dialect spoken in the Seyip region.

Unlike the other three Anglo-Pacific nations the majority of the early Chinese migrants to New Zealand came not from the Seyip region, but from the upper thingy Yu district immediately north of the provincial capital Guangzhou.

Language formed the basis of identity for the Chinese in New Zealand. Each group kept very much to themselves, regarding the others with a certain degree of suspicion. Each group worked, socialised, and when able, married within their county groupings. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Chinese New Zealand community was largely divided along district of origin and linguistic lines. This caused a number of problems in the community in terms of a unified Chinese New Zealand identity and the ability to work together on issues that affected the community as a whole.

When the first Chinese Consul arrived in New Zealand in 1909, he, like many Chinese officials, was a northern Chinese, and spoke only his native provincial language and the official language, Mandarin. Like almost all northern Chinese he found the local Cantonese people deeply clannish, traditional, fractious, and rustic, and their regional languages crude and completely indecipherable. When he had meetings with the local Chinese he would address them in English, which was then translated into Cantonese by a local Chinese person. Of all the Consuls who served in New Zealand between 1909 and 1972 only one was a native Cantonese speaker. This added to the difficulty of relations between the local Chinese and the Consulate. The Consuls generally favoured the well-to-do urban merchant class, many of whom spoke English. Until the second World War most of the Chinese in New Zealand spoke their local Cantonese dialects and enough functional English to make a living in New Zealand. Despite the linguistic divisions in the social and occupational life of the Chinese New Zealand community at the time, at the many community events, musical concerts of Cantonese music put on by local musicians, and the plays written and acted in by the local Chinese, all county groups mixed together, enjoying the occasions and the bonding over their slowly growing overarching Pearl River Delta identity.

There is a question whether all the Chinese in New Zealand were Cantonese speakers. The poll tax records record that a small but significant number of Chinese migrants came from places such as Shanghai, Fuzhou, Beijing, Ningbo, and even Korea. However, the Cantonese were renowned not only for emigrating overseas they were also well-known for migrating to places within China, as well as Japan and Korea. In fact, there were so many Cantonese in Shanghai that on many occasions the Mayor of Shanghai was a Cantonese, and many of the council members were also Cantonese. Therefore, the men who were listed as originating from Shanghai, Ningbo, Beijing, and Korea were not bringing new Chinese languages into New Zealand, they were Cantonese people from the same districts as the majority of the other Chinese migrants in New Zealand who had migrated to locations within China and Korea, and then transmigrated to New Zealand.

The only other non-Cantonese Chinese spoken in New Zealand in the pre-WWII period was Hakka, the language spoken by the ethnic minority Hakka people. Most of the Hakka who came to New Zealand came from the eastern counties of Zengcheng, Dongguan, and Xin’an.

The overwhelming predominance of the Cantonese language in New Zealand remained until the immediate post-war period. The situation only began to change with the arrival of a small number of professional Chinese migrants who had been recruited by the New Zealand government to fill serious gaps in professions such as medicine and engineering. As most of these people came from countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong, the Chinese language landscape in New Zealand was enriched by the addition of Hokkien, Teochew, and Hakka. The same applied to the small number of Chinese from Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia who came to New Zealand under the Colombo plan, which operated from 1951 to the 1990s. Refugees from Cambodia and Vietnam who came in the 1970s and 1980s added further Teochew and Cantonese speakers.

In 1987 a dramatic change in New Zealand’s immigration policy was introduced, a change that would transform the Chinese New Zealand community forever. The new immigration policy did away with the last vestiges of the White New Zealand immigration policy and introduced a system based on the qualifications and personal qualities of each applicant instead of their race or country of origin. This new policy resulted in a spectacular rise in the size of the Chinese New Zealand population, increasing from 19,506 in 1986 to 247,767 in 2022.

The initial migrants came primarily from Hong Kong and Taiwan, the Hong Kong people bringing the Hong Kong variation of Cantonese, and the Taiwanese bringing Taiwanese Mandarin. The Taiwanese migrants were the first significant group of Mandarin-speaking Chinese in New Zealand.

This soon changed. By the early 2000s large numbers of new Chinese migrants came from the Peoples’ Republic of China, most of them from the wealthy coastal Tier One cities. Most of these people spoke the PRC’s official Mandarin Putonghua. By the 2020s the PRC immigrants made up around half of the Chinese in New Zealand. As of 2022 the Chinese New Zealand community is divided into seven main linguistic groups: Mandarin speakers, Cantonese speakers, Malaysian Hokkien, Min, Hakka, Teochew, and those who don’t speak any Chinese language.

The 2018 census records that 36 percent of Chinese New Zealanders speak Northern Chinese Mandarin, 20 percent speak Cantonese, 6.9 percent speak other varieties of Chinese, and just under a quarter of all Chinese New Zealanders do not speak any form of Chinese.

Despite the very large increase of the Mandarin-speaking population in New Zealand, it was only in 2018 that Mandarin overtook Cantonese as the most spoken Chinese language in the country. The Chinese government’s current policy of mandating that Mandarin be the only language to be spoken in schools and major social and official environments poses a serious threat to the many regional languages in China. The first 168 years of Chinese New Zealand history was a Cantonese-speaking history. It appears the future of Chinese in New Zealand history will be a mix of the many languages that are used in China and overseas, continuing the diversity of languages and communities that have marked the Chinese community since its beginnings in New Zealand.

https://www.nzclw.com/general-6

Helen Wong

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More Famous New Zealanders You have Probably Never Heard Of

McGRUER John Duncan (1857 - 1923)

John Duncan MacGRUER was born on the 21 May 1856 at Harripool, Strath on the Isle of Skye, Scotland to Duncan MacGruer, a police constable and Margaret MacGruer nee CHAPMAN. Though his birth was registered as MacGruer he appears to have used the spelling as McGruer.

John served a drapery apprenticeship from the age of 13 in Glasgow. At the age of 21, he went to Canada and spent three years gaining business experience in Toronto and later in Chicago, Sacramento and San Francisco. He came on to New Zealand in 1880 and joined the staff of Bing, Harris and Co in Dunedin, and later the fancy goods department of Brown, Ewing and Co.

Elizabeth PATERSON to whom he had been engaged before leaving Scotland arrived at Port Chalmers on board the Nelson on the 23 December 1881. On the 03 January 1882 the couple were married at the First (Presbyterian) Church.

In September 1889 the McGruer’s moved to Invercargill where John was to be temporary manager of a drapery business. Seeing the prospects of the district, he took over the business which was on the corner of Dee and Esk Street in 1891 and opened as J D McGruer & Co. In 1914 the original two storied wooden store was replaced with a three-storied steel and concrete building.

In 1898 John went into partnership with John Taylor and they opened stores in Bluff, Gore, Orepuki, Kaitangata and later Timaru.

After 32 years in Invercargill, where he had been a town councillor and church elder, the family moved to Christchurch purchasing a property at Park Terrace, opposite Hagley Park for £6000. Here John spent his time expanding his business all over New Zealand.

The family were well travelled, and visited India, China, Japan, Egypt and Palestine and spent three years in Britain before returning to New Zealand in August 1914, just before war broke out. While there, he had opened a London office at 33 Barbican with buyers sourcing goods to stock the New Zealand stores. John returned to Britain in 1917 and was known for welcoming New Zealand soldiers returning from France.

By 1917 he was known to have 17 stores throughout New Zealand at Napier, Gisborne, Masterton, Wanganui, Marton, Feilding, Palmerston North, Hawera, Stratford, New Plymouth as well as Westport, Greymouth and Hokitika, and four of the original stores. The Marton store opened on the 03 April 1917, after J D McGruer purchased an existing business there. This business is still operating under the McGruer name though is owned privately.

John Duncan McGruer, described as importer, died on the 12 April 1923 at his residence Strowanlea, 17 Park Terrace, Christchurch. He was buried at the Southern Cemetery in Dunedin and his funeral was attended by Sir Joseph WARD. His estate was valued at £150,000 (around $18.5 million in 2024) and numerous bequests were made to institutions. This included the Victoria Home for Friendless Girls in Invercargill, the Canton Village Missions in China, Dr Barnardo’s in London, and in Scotland, the Kingussie Public School that he had attended, and the Kingussie Municipal Council for a clock. The trustees of the J D McGruer and Company estate were still making donations in 1970.

A building with a corner balcony

Description automatically generated

McGruer’s, corner Victoria Avenue and Guyton Street, Wanganui
National Library of New Zealand Pan-1132-F

A clock tower with a person standing on a hill

Description automatically generated

The Kingussie Clock,
Kingussie, Invernesshire, Scotland

The Wanganui branch of McGruer’s had a system where staff put the customers money and the sales docket into a cylindrical tin which was then placed in a tube which would shoot off upstairs for the change. By 1955 the Wanganui store had 13 departments and a permanent staff of 55. It was the only one of six branches still operating. In 1970 it was taken over by John Court and in 1972 by Arthur Cornish. It finally closed in 1986.

Christine Clement

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Ken Morris

AI & Genealogy – A Trawl Through GOOGLE June 2024

Following on from my review of “Faking It - AI in the Human World” by Toby Walsh, I have gone through some clips of a Google search of the application of AI to genealogy research. What I have selected is not exhaustive but tries to cover a range from the big providers of family history data to learned articles, on Google there is a bias to American data. Italicised sections have been pasted from the data I collected from Google

Ancestry AI Assistant

“The AI Assistant is a new beta tool provided by Ancestry that uses artificial intelligence to assist you with Family History and DNA-related questions and research. It can answer general Family History and DNA-related questions, offer suggestions, and guide you through your research based on information from our help content”

There is a list of typical questions that AI Assistant can be asked and “The AI Assistant learns from various help resources on Ancestry, such as support centre articles, learning hub pages, blog posts, and more. It scans these sources to find information most relevant to your question and summarizes it in an answer using generative AI. The AI assistant does not have access to any of your personal information (such as family trees and DNA matches). This means it will not give you the answers to your brick walls or identify how you're related to a DNA match, but it can help direct you as you work through those problems.”

So, in the stage of development of AI Assistant in this article there would seem to be limited meaningful use

MyHeritage – AI Record Finder™

This is from a MyHeritage website and is very “promotional”. “AI Record Finder™ revolutionizes genealogy the way ChatGPT revolutionized searching the internet: it is an interactive, intelligent, free-text chat to help you locate historical records about a specific ancestor or relative, using My Heritage’s vast database of nearly 20 billion records. If you’ve ever been overwhelmed by the large number of historical record search results, or conversely disappointed by not finding any records about the person you were looking for, AI Record Finder™ might just be the answer you’ve been waiting for!” It as a beta version and the promotion gives a lot more data on its application & use with the ability to set the tone of the chat to “Casual” – friendly with some humour or Formal – more serious. Records that may be found through AI Record Finder™ are the same records that are available on the MyHeritage search engine for historical records. Records that are not searchable due to privacy (e.g., those relating to living individuals), are likewise not searchable through AI Record Finder™

Subscribers to MyHeritage can access AI Record Finder™ for free. Other users can try AI Record Finder™ for free, with limited use. Beyond the free quota, a Data or Complete subscription are needed to continue using the feature, and to view and save records that it finds.

AI Genealogy Insights - Steve Little, at AIGenealogyInsights@gmail.com.

My focus has locked onto the fascinating world of artificial intelligence and its applications in the field of genealogy. Here, you’ll find discussions on what AI is, what genealogists need to know about the current state of AI-assisted genealogy, what currently are good applications of AI genealogy and what are not, how to leverage AI to be more productive, what AI genealogy developments may be coming soon, where useful AI tools and services can be found, and explorations as the limits and boundaries of what is possible with AI genealogy are expanded.

Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) For Genealogy a 3 part series - By FamilyHistHound

In post One, I explored how you can expand the profile for your ancestors at MyHeritage, so now, let’s look at what can be done at Ancestry. In fact, I will use the same ancestor, my great-grandmother, Elizabeth Alice Clark, as I used in Part One. (not clear how the parts all fitted together) The author used AI to flesh out & learn more about what is was like to live in the location & era of his chosen ancestor in addition to actually finding specific new information about the ancestor

How to use AI for Genealogy for Free – Alister McGowan Feb 2023

The author sets out some practical examples in using ChatGPT and some limitations

In response to the question - How can you use ChatGPT for genealogy? The response

ChatGPT can assist with genealogy research by:

Answering questions about historical events, places and dates that may relate to ancestors.

Providing information on genealogy resources and tools.

Offering suggestions for further research.

Generating names that were common during a specific time period.

Interpreting genealogy-related terms and concepts. Note: ChatGPT’s training data only goes up until 2021, so it might not have the most up-to-date information on genealogy research.

Author - I’ve been using ChatGPT for a couple of weeks now and I can see the benefits, not just as an AI for genealogy tool, but for most things. This, or something like it, will probably replace traditional search engines like Google and Bing before very long. The beauty with using this is that you can have a conversation and keep asking questions as you learn more about a particular topic.

Other “Chats”

ChatGPT for Google

Bing Chat

Google Bard

Andi

Perplexity

Alister McGowan is a full time genealogist and blogger and holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Genealogical, Palaeographic and Heraldic Studies from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland as well as an MBA from the Open University in England.

Legacy Family Tree Webinars

A series of webinars covering AI & Genealogy subjects such as

Research Assistant

Information Summariser

Data Extractor

Writing Assistant

Texts Transformer

Tech Support Specialist

Visual Illustrator

Find My Past - Unleashing the power of ChatGPT in family history research – Liam Boyle Dec 2023

Discusses the use of ChatGPT with positive outcomes as well as setting out some of the limitations.

While ChatGPT is impressive, it is essential to be aware of its limitations. One of the key challenges is that it doesn't possess real-world knowledge beyond its training data.

Therefore, it can provide inaccurate or outdated information in some situations. ChatGPT may also sometimes generate responses that sound plausible but lack factual accuracy and so you should always approach its outputs critically and cross-verify information through reliable sources.

Using AI Effectively for Genealogy Research - Legacy Tree Genealogists

The AI tools used most often by genealogists rely on NLP – Natural Language Processing. NLP enables machines to interpret, understand, apply, and generate human language. Researchers can use NLP effectively to extract data from historical documents for analysis. Documents most readily analysed include birth and death certificates, census records, marriage licenses, and even newspapers. The NLP algorithms can extract names, dates, and locations from these records, saving a researcher valuable time.

AI tools also have machine learning algorithms that help to predict relationships. Large datasets of family history information can train the algorithm to make predictions about family relationships or to find missing information. The algorithm may then be able to fill in gaps in a family tree or predict how likely two people are related to one another based on their DNA test results.

One of the challenges of using ChatGPT for genealogy research is the need for more accuracy and the requirement to fact-check. A few tests run by Legacy Tree Genealogists found that while ChatGPT can produce information, it occasionally adds a bit of fiction.

MyHeritage has also developed a suite of AI-powered genealogy research tools, such as identifying ancestors in historical photographs

Ancestry successfully used AI handwriting recognition software to transcribe documents like the 1950 Census records

FamilySearch is currently training the algorithm to index handwritten documents.

AI & Genealogy: Harnessing the Power of AI for Family History Research

The most discussed features of artificial intelligence are “deep learning” and “generative AI.” Deep learning mimics the human brain in that it looks for patterns using vast amounts of information to interpret photos, audio, and text. Generative AI actually “generates” new photos, audio, and text, based on information provided by the user, and again, uses its own database of “training data” to understand patterns and generate output that matches the user’s query.

The article lists a number of AI platforms & their attributes (Bard, ChatGPT, Perplexity) & current uses (family photos, transcription, suggesting records, DNA matches (MyHeritage), timelines (For those genealogists who want to fill in the “dash” between an ancestor’s birth date and death date, artificial intelligence can help build complex timelines as well as “map” event dates to locations for a better understanding of how our ancestors lived)).

For the most part, you won’t find records when making queries on an AI platform. But you may find information that serves as a clue for further research or, more likely, as social history about how an ancestor lived. In these situations, a method of citing AI-generated content is needed.

Some BAD issues – Lack of transparency. Bias, copyright, false information, high costs.

Empowering Genealogists with AI A series of courses by Steve Little of NGS (USA)

Level One: Empowering Genealogists with Artificial Intelligence

Level Two: Prompt Engineering and Specialized Tools

SHOCKING RESULTS! Should you use AI Chatbots for Genealogy? Lisa Cooke Jun 2013 from Genealogy Gems Some video presentations on AI the available systems and what can be attempted & achieved.

There are refences as to privacy when using ChatGPT and presumably similar packages, the answer is no. I was already logged into my Microsoft account on my Windows computer. I’m sure Edge “talks” to my computer, I’m sure Edge “talks” to Chat. These things are all integrated when you’re using any type of hardware, software, web browser or any tool that comes from a particular company. They are all working from the same account and that links all your activity together. That means they’re tracking you. So, it’s free, because you’re helping them build the tools. And you’re also developing datasets which have value. You need to read “The Terms of Service” but as usual if you don’t agree, you wont get access!

It gives answers to questions such as - “Should you Trust the Information Provided?”

There is an extensive answer but does emphasise the information comes from the large corporations in the genealogy space and primarily from FamilySearch because its free and not password protected.

Let’s say that, again, it’s not a researcher.

Genealogy researchers have different skill sets. We have the ability to not only analyse and compare data, but also to go find other documents in more obscure locations, perhaps offline. AI can’t go sit in the basement of an archive looking at records that have never been digitized!

The article has many responses from users who have viewed the videos

Relationships with Data-Driven Insights – Abhilash Pillai Mar 2023 - Innovation Strategist @ Jasper Colin

A very comprehensive article with worked examples, is more complete than some of the other article mentioned and has an extensive comment section

At the same time, however, the use of AI in genealogy research raises a number of important ethical considerations. Companies must take steps to protect individual privacy, mitigate bias, and promote transparency and critical thinking in their use of AI. By doing so, they can build trust with their customers and stakeholders, while also promoting a more nuanced and accurate understanding of family history and relationships.

In Conclusion – information on AI both hype & realistic is growing on all forms of media and with respect to genealogy applications and anything written about its capability will be rapidly superseded. I will be giving ChatGPT et al a looksee, but I know I will be disappointed that it won’t come up with “the goods” I have envisaged it would with my questions/chat. Why, probably because I just dived in without some training/planning, then became frustrated & despondent, but then I’ll still come back & give it another go like I’ve done with other software (still have a love/hate relation with Word, but I persevere).

I’m sure Peter, the Editor would be pleased to receive & publish any of the newsletters readers successes and tips in applying AI to their genealogy endeavours.

(and all that I learned about the other AI was still in my memory banks but never recalled until I did the Faking It review)

Ken Morris

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Robina Trenbath

Colonial Boarding Houses & ….”Fire!”

Our maternal grandmother never had a birth certificate. That aunt who knew everything said: “It was burnt in a Registry Office fire”. Fine! But, not good enough in my books.

Plan of action required:

1. Gran (the 5th child of her family) celebrated her birthday towards the end of June.

2. Plot a timeline of any events, over the timeframe between 4^th and 6^th siblings (1886-1890) using her sibling birth certificates and delving into paperspastnz

3. Result:

1887 Wednesday June 8: At two o’clock yesterday morning the fire bells rang out an alarm, the cause being a fire in a boarding house. It appears that when the occupant retired to bed with her children shortly after eight o’clock last evening she had a candle burning on a box alongside the bed. There was a hole in the box and the candle appears to have fallen through into the box, which was filled with clothing. Her next thought was to break the window and throw out the three children…etc.” ^1.

4. 1888 Friday May 4: …one of her children who lives in the South Island²… = four children.

5. 1888 Wednesday September 5……in receipt of 6s per week for a family of five children.^3.

Summary:

1888: in May our great grandmother had four children (but one was absent).

1888: in June our great grandmother had three of her four children, in her care.

1888: in September she had a total of five children (presumably pregnant over the prior months.)

In the absence of a birth certificate for Gran the best anyone could assume was that our Gran had been born between May 4 – September 5^th 1888.

N.B. After extensive research (assisted by the great team at Tauranga Libraries) no record of any Registry Office Fire anywhere in N.Z. could be found. Years later, when applying for an aged pension Gran, having no birth certificate, had to supply a statutory declaration with attendant school records. I was able to verify this through searching records in Archives N.Z.

More boarding houses & more fires:

1900: our paternal great grandmother (Agnes Russell) was a widow. The widow’s pension did not come in until 1911. So, she ran boarding houses⁴ and put each one of her 7 daughters into managing them.

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Left: 1899: Mrs. Agnes Russell, boarding house -keeper Scotland Street, Dunedin.

Agnes Russell had boarding houses in Leith Street, Dunedin (1900), Great King Street, Dunedin (1903) ^8.Scotland Street, Dunedin (1905), London Street, Dunedin (1907).

1910: Agnes’ eldest married daughter (Isabella Thompson, nee Russell) ran The British Temperance Hotel. It was situated at 341 Cumberland Street between St. Andrew and Stuart Streets, Dunedin.

In the 1930’s – 1950’s Agnes’ granddaughters can also be found running boarding houses in Dunedin, Christchurch and Auckland.

…and “No” I do not run a boarding house!

References:

^1.Wednesday June 8, 1887: The Bay of Plenty Times. paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

^2.Friday May 4, 1888: The Bay of Plenty Times. paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

^3. Wednesday September 5, 1888: The Bay of Plenty Times. paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

^4.Stone’s Otago and Southland Directory (1907). New Zealand, City & Area Directories, 1866-1954.

^5. British Temperance Hotel. paperspast.nat.lib/ Magazines and journals/ New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review. 24 March,1910. Page 18. Column 2.

^6. Fire in Cumberland Boarding House Destroyed. Page 5 Otago Daily Times 1 July 1910. paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

^7. Fire in High Street Large Boarding House Gutted. Page 2 Otago Daily Times 2 February 1921.

^8. Wise’s N.Z. Post Office Directory. Ancestry.com.au

Robina Trenbath

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Jeanette Grant

Charles Edward Gordon CRAWFORD (1849 – 1894)

A child actually asked me once what shape a ‘family tree’ was? Was it like a poplar or a pine tree? My instinctive reaction was to say that they come in all shapes and sizes, and thinking it over later, I realized I had been more accurate than I realized.

You have the ‘One Name’ research which must resemble a poplar. Many of us strike dead ends so our trees are misshapen as though pruned by a madman with a machete. Others spread out broadly like an oak tree then end abruptly as information ceases.

In my own case, I think my tree would most closely resemble a banyan – one of those with wide spreading branches and aerial roots that end up as new supporting columns. I find it fascinating to follow a twiglet of information and see it grow into a new branch of its own.

In the course of such pursuit, I sometimes find we have the most varied distant relatives and so I have been inspired to record some life stories that I have encountered recently. They range from victims of the Massacre of Cawnpore in 1857 to a Governor-general of NZ in the 1920s and include the founder of the first nudist club in the British Empire, a child violin prodigy, the discoverer of the source of the Nile and the archaeologist who pioneered the use of aerial photos in that field. For instance…

Charles Edward Gordon CRAWFORD was born on 14 August 1849, in Woodmansterne, Surrey, England, to the Rev Charles John Crawford (1809-1871) and Eleanor Foote (1809-1856). He was educated at Marlborough College and Wadham College, Oxford and became a civil servant living in Surrey and Gloucestershire before moving to India, where he became a High Court judge at Thana. He married his 1^st wife - Alice Luscombe Mackenzie (1858-1886) – in Ahmednager, India on 20 January 1880 and they had one son - Osbert Guy Stanhope Crawford 1(886-1957), She died within days of the baby’s birth and he was sent to England and brought up by aunts.

Charles was my 4^th cousin twice removed. William DIXON (1689-1746) of Stoke Damerall, Devon, was his 3xgt grandfather and my 5xgt grandfather. What was his unusual life-story?

Well it turns out that the earliest known naturist club in the "western" sense of the word was established not in America, Europe or Britain, but in British India in 1891. It was the ‘Fellowship of the Naked Trust’ (F.N.T.) founded by Charles Edward Gordon Crawford, who was a District and Sessions Judge for the Bombay Civil Service at Thana. Evidence for its existence is known from a few letters he sent to Edward Carpenter, a well-known writer on social subjects, who had ‘rejected Victorian conventions’. The club reportedly closed on his death.

The club required members to go stark naked wherever suitable and to encourage others to do the same. It also required them to be plainspoken when desirable on sexual and other subjects usually tabooed, and to discourage unnecessary reticence about such subjects in others. The motto of the club was Vincat Natura (Let Nature Win) and the club badge consisted of these words and the initials of the club. There were no officers, though there could be a Secretary and a Chairman for the day. Anyone could be admitted who was vouched for by two members and was willing to obey the rules. At meetings all must be stark naked except for rings, eyeglasses and false teeth! Women must wear their hair loose without ribbons, combs or hairpins and they must not wear rouge or powder. Sectarian and political discussion was forbidden. Anyone guilty of indecency was subject to suspension or expulsion. Acts of indecency were defined as wearing clothes at a meeting, gestures or acts of personal contact giving offence to the opposite sex, indecent assault at or following a meeting, even with the consent of the other party, and consenting to indecent assault. The mode of handshake on greeting was even prescribed. Women who did not feel able to attend meetings could be Outside Members, conforming to all the rules and wearing the badge. No man could be an Outside Member. Crawford asked for his name to be treated confidentially since "for personal reasons it would be inconvenient for it to be associated with these views - so easily misrepresented - by those who are opposed to them."

It is surprising, however, that this carefully organised club turns out to have consisted of only three persons, Crawford, a widower since November 1886, a District and Sessions Judge, and Andrew Calderwood and his brother, Kellogg Calderwood, sons of a missionary.

Apparently Carpenter expressed sympathy with their ideals, for two months later Crawford wrote again, with a statement of motives, now added to the rules. The motives are in fact reasons for nakedness. Physically, given a suitable temperature, it is good for the body to be exposed to the air and no costume has been invented equal in comfort to perfect nakedness; morally, because false shame of our own bodies and morbid curiosity as to those of the opposite sex, which result from always wearing clothes, are the chief sources of impurity; and aesthetically, because the human body is God's noblest work, and it is good for everyone to gaze on such beauty freely.

Crawford had always had a passion for nakedness, but had found no one of similar mind until he met the Calderwood brothers in November 1890. His ideal was a state of society in which clothes would be worn or not as convenient "without reference to the conventionalities which at present rule the roost". They knew one young lady who was in sympathy, but was not prepared to be even an outside member on account of what people would think. He was writing an essay, which unfortunately does not survive, dealing pretty fully with F.N.T. ideals.

In a later letter he welcomed the suggestion that women should form branches of their own, a thing he had always wanted, though Calderwood did not want to encourage timidity too much. The last letter, in June 1892, reveals that Crawford was planning to marry again. He had not yet spoken of the F.N.T. to the lady, though she fully shared his "democratic impulses". Andrew Calderwood was planning to make his future in British Columbia. Carpenter had written to him about people in Vienna and Munich who in some way shared Crawford's ideas, and he enquires whether "they go as far as we do in our particular direction". (Nothing has so far been discovered about these people.)

Charles married again to Florence Ethel Willis (1871-1905) on 31 August 1892, in Colāba, Maharashtra, India but they had no familY. He died on 4 May 1894, in India, at the age of 44, and was buried in Bombay. His widow remarried on the 1^st Sept 1896 to Frank Shackle, son of Edward Hinds Shackle and Emily Nield.

His son, Osbert Guy Stanhope CRAWFORD, by his first marriage to Alice Luscombe MACKENZIE, was born in India but grew up in England. He became a prominent archaeologist and author, but probably knew nothing of his father's club in India as he was only eight when his father died.

Jeanette Grant

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Rowan Gibbs

Herodian, Aelius Lampridius, Fan Ye, and Lake Taupo

Almost nothing is known about HERODIAN (Herodianus in Latin, Herōdianos in Greek) who wrote a lively history in Greek of the Roman empire from 180 to 238 AD. He may have been from Syria, possibly Antioch, and may have lived in Italy as a young man. Or he may not. He does say that the events described in his history occurred during his own lifetime so we have a rough idea of his lifespan.

His history covers the reigns of seventeen emperors, only one of whom died a natural death. It opens with the death of the “philosopher emperor” Marcus Aurelius and the reign of his son Commodus from 180, age 18, to his assassination in 192. Commodus made himself a strong contender for the title of the worst of all the Roman emperors, more immoral and perverted than Caligula even, and more ruthless than Nero. He executed numerous enemies, friends, and family, disregarded all his official duties, fought as a gladiator (claiming to be a reincarnation of Hercules), and spent most of his time with his two large “harems”, female and male. Herodian knew how to tell a good story and all this, and more, is told in colourful detail, along with accounts of important events in the reign – battles, disasters, prodigies, and portents. Among these he records: In that time of crisis a number of divine portents occurred. Stars remained visible during the day; other stars became enormously elongated and seemed to hang in the middle of the sky.

Of “AELIUS LAMPRIDIUS” we know even less, as the name is almost certainly a pseudonym. He is listed as one of the alleged six authors of the very odd but entertaining Latin work usually called ‘The Augustan History’ (Historia Augusta), a collection of lives of the later Roman emperors from Hadrian onwards, but embroidered with fiction and satire, ostensibly compiled around 400, with Herodian one of several sources quoted (and misquoted). It has long been thought that the work was in fact composed by one single unknown author, and the eminent New Zealand born ancient historian Sir Ronald SYME devoted his later years to elaborating this theory, publishing three substantial books on the subject. Syme began his career in the 1930s with the classic and timely The Roman Revolution, wielding prosopography (which has been called “Big Data genealogy”) to trace the links of kinship (by birth and adoption), marriage, and mutual interest among the leading Roman families, links exploited by Augustus to create a dictatorship under the guise of a revival of the old Roman republic.

Four of the biographies in the Historia Augusta are credited to Lampridius, the emperors Commodus, Diadumenianus, Elagabalus, and Severus Alexander. His view of Commodus was no different: “Even from his early years he was vile, disgraceful, cruel, lewd and immoral”. There is a brief passage on “the prodigies that occurred in his reign”: “A comet appeared. Footprints of the gods were seen in the Forum departing from it. Before the War of the Deserters [186 AD] the heavens were on fire. On January 1st a sudden mist and darkness arose in the Circus; and before dawn there had also been fire-birds [a sign of ill omen] and dire portents”.

And in China similar phenomena were recorded in the Hou Hanshu (History of the Later Han) which covered the Han dynasty from 6 to 189 AD. The work (recently termed a “historiographical masterpiece”) was compiled by FAN Ye over two hundred years later, during the Liu Song dynasty, drawing on contemporary sources, mainly the now largely lost Dongguan Hanji (Han Records of the Eastern Lodge, named for the palace hall the historians worked in), which had been compiled in stages between 72 AD and 225 AD in 143 volumes. [1]

Fan Ye has a biography in Songshu (The Book of Song) written in 492-493 by Shen Yue which tells us he was born in Shaoxing in 398, fourth son of Fan Tai (by a concubine). In January 446 both Fan Ye and his son Fan Ai were accused of sedition against emperor Wen and executed. An autobiographical “Letter from Prison to my Nephews” also survives.

He records in the Hou Hanshu that during the reign of Emperor Ling (168-189 AD, the last Han emperor) “several times the sun rose in the east red as blood and without light, brightness visible only when it rose seven metres. When it set in the west, at seven metres above the horizon it was similarly red... Also during this period several times when the moon rose and set and was seven to ten metres above the horizon all was red as blood”.

In 1980 four academics citing these sources published an article in Nature, ‘A new date for the Taupo eruption’, arguing that the date of 186 AD fitted with the then accepted likely date (based on ice core samples in Greenland and the Antarctic) of the most recent major Taupo eruption (Hatepe eruption). This was one of the most powerful eruptions in the world in the last 5,000 years, with the tephra emission estimated at up to 105 cubic km. There is evidence that it occurred on an autumn afternoon and its energy release was about 150 megatons of TNT equivalent (more than 9,000 Hiroshima bombs).. This dwarfs the massive 1883 Krakatoa eruption, which emitted only 18 cubic km of tephra but still caused a “volcanic winter”, red sunsets, lavender suns, and a purple twilight in the northern hemisphere. But all this is only a fraction of the earlier Taupo events, the Oruanui Taupo eruption of around 26,500 years ago, estimated at 1170 cubic km (rated the world’s most powerful eruption in the last 70,000 years), and the Whakamaru Ignimbrite/Mount Curl eruption of 340,000 years ago, estimated at up to 2,000 cubic km. We await the next with interest.

These three accounts would be of great interest as the earliest historical record of any event in New Zealand, but their relevance to New Zealand is now doubtful as recent radiocarbon dating has indicated the Hatepe eruption probably occurred closer to 232 AD.

[1] This was later lost as a separate work though parts were incorporated in the Ming era Yongle Encyclopaedia begun in 1403, whose 11,095 volumes made it the world’s largest general encyclopaedia until finally surpassed by Wikipedia.

Rowan Gibbs

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An Invitation to Contribute:

I have a number of people that contribute occasional articles. These appear irregularly if and when the authors send them to me. I use them to bulk up each month's newsletter. The more we have the more "rests "I can give my much-appreciated regular columnists.

This is a way that a person can get some of their writing published. Of course, we are all writing up our research results, aren't we? I have always said that every genealogist is an expert in some small piece of history, resources or research methods.

We circulate this newsletter to about 7,000 subscribers worldwide but is read by many more as it is passed on to other readers and LDS research centres. Every month I get feedback on my poor attempts at writing and I have now made many "new friends", albeit digital ones, I have even had some very helpful assistance in my research.

Why don't you contribute an article?

My basic requirements:

1) The column must be in English

2) The column should be no longer than about 1,200 words

3) The article should be emailed to me in a Word document format

4) The subject should be genealogical or historical in nature

Do not be afraid about your "perceived" bad English. The article will be edited, in a friendly manner, by me and then Robert. Then all columnists and a few valuable proof-readers get to read the newsletter before it is emailed out. You’ll be paid $0 for your article, which is on the same scale that Robert and I pay ourselves for editing and publishing the newsletter.

From our Libraries and Museums

We are offering a forum to our libraries and museums to publicise their events, and to contribute articles to this newsletter that may be of interest to our readers. Auckland Libraries makes good use of this free service, let’s see if other libraries and museums take up this offer.

For readers of this newsletter: please bring this to the attention of your local libraries etc, and encourage them to participate.

Auckland Council Libraries

Auckland Family History Expo

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Come Celebrate our 10^th Anniversary!

Auckland Council Libraries and the Genealogical Computing Group (an interest group of the NZ Society of Genealogists) proudly present a weekend-long event covering a wide range of topics on researching genealogy and family history.

2024 is the tenth anniversary of our first Expo and we plan to make it an extra special one in celebration.

Join us on Friday 9 August to Sunday 11 August 2024 at the Fickling Convention Centre, 546 Mt Albert Rd, Three Kings, Auckland – under Mt Roskill Library.

Friday 9 August 2024: Opening event $30 per person to cover catering expenses.
See programme and book tickets at Eventfinda
https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2024/2024-auckland-family-history-expo-tamaki-huinga-tatai-korero/auckland/three-kings

Saturday 10 August 2024: FREE entrance. All welcome. Programme to come by 1 May.

Sunday 11 August 2024: FREE entrance. All welcome. Programme to come by 1 May.

Take advantage of our FREE seminars, from beginner to advanced, computer-based tutorials, ask-an-expert sessions and research assistance on Saturday 10 August and Sunday 11 August. No booking required. Bring your laptops to take full advantage of the workshops and tutorials.

Speakers and sessions

Awesome international speakers appearing in-person at the Expo. Plus many speakers from our favourite family history Vendors.

Come along and learn about Ancestry’s “Know your Pet DNA” kit and watch the big DNA reveal of some cute pups!

Bring your children and grandchildren for some fun activities!

Please keep an eye on this page for additions and updates.

www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/AFHExpo

Venue information

Fickling Convention Centre is adjacent to Three Kings Reserve and has some on-street parking on Mt Albert Rd and in side streets. If you are able-bodied we suggest public transport or street parking in surrounding streets. This multi-functional venue is wheelchair-friendly and has accessible toilets.

Over the weekend there will be a coffee van with snacks onsite. There are a couple of cafes and a supermarket nearby, but you may wish to bring a packed lunch with you.

Collect an Ancestry lanyard when you arrive from the Information Desk and go into the draw for a free Ancestry subscription and DNA kit!

Raffles: Three tickets for $5 – prizes include subscriptions to your favourite genealogy websites, DNA kits, magazine subscriptions, membership fees, and research tools and services.

Nga mihi | Kind regards

SEONAID

Seonaid (Shona) Harvey RLIANZA | Family History Librarian

Central Auckland Research Centre, Central City Library

Heritage and Research

Auckland Libraries - Nga Whare Matauranga o Tamaki Makarau

Ph 09 890 2411| Extn (46) 2411 | Fax 09 307 7741

Auckland Libraries, Level 2, Central City Library, 44 - 46 Lorne Street, Auckland

Visit our website: www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz

@Kintalk on Twitter / Auckland Research Centre on Facebook

Hokianga Museum and Archives Centre.

Hokianga Museum is home to objects and records from Hokianga, including written and photographic histories from many of the families who have lived here, history of the local communities, schools and the natural geography of the area.

There are also displays featuring Mangungu Treaty signing, 1893 Suffrage featuring Hokianga women who voted that year, The Dog Tax Rebellion, the 1918 Influenza pandemic, the timber and dairying industries, the 28^th Maori Battalion A Company and accounts of shipwrecks, including the SS Ventnor. The Museum also houses Russell Clark’s original statue of Opo the Dolphin.

14 Waianga Place, Omapere, Hokianga

Open Monday, Wednesday & Saturday 10.00 -2.00pm.

09 4058498

From the Editor

This is a museum and Research Centre I am closely associated with. I have donated photographs, books, articles and historical items to this organisation. They do a brilliant job and, if you are in the area, well worth a visit. It is staffed by many volunteers and if you are brimming with spare cash they are a worthy organisation for a donation.

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Group News

News and Views

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From the Editor: Because of space restrictions and copyright issues I cannot put the complete articles in this newsletter so here are some URLs that are worth looking at . Just click the heading.

How to find name change records in the UK

How does genetic genealogy work?

Our ancestors and the Black Death

What is shell shock?

‘He was horrific!’: Nearly two thirds of family historians are distressed by what they find – should DNA kits come with warnings?

In conclusion

Book Reviews

Help wanted

Letters to the Editor

Letter of Praise

I have one admirer so I have to include the letter of praise

Hi Peter,

Just had to write & say I loved your talk about ‘Nothing’ I giggled & laughed to myself from the first sentence.

It is so great to see some ‘Oldies’ humour in a world enthralled with the young. Great stuff.

Kind regards,

Diane

ACT across the pond.

Advertising with FamNet

Every now and then we get requests to put an advertisement in the newsletter. I have therefore created a new section which will appear from time to time. Advertisements will be included only at the Editor's discretion and will be of a genealogical nature.

If your organisation is not a group subscriber then there may be a charge for advertising events and services, which must be paid for before publication. Charges start at $NZ25 for a basic flier, and increase for more elaborate presentations.

A Bit of Light Relief

It’s election season in the USA – I cannot resist a comment or two.

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To Unsubscribe, Change your Email Address, or Manage your Personal Information

If you have problems with this page you can email us directly, but the page should be self-explanatory.

Copyright (Waiver)

Feel free to redistribute this newsletter. If you publish a newsletter yourself you may include material from this newsletter in yours provided that you please contact the particular author of the article for permission, and acknowledge its source and include the FamNet URL. https://www.famnet.org.nz/

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Contents

Editorial

Do you want to receive this newsletter every month?

Contributors

The Nash Rambler

More About Notting

DNA Testing for Family History

Chinese Corner

More Famous New Zealanders You have Probably Never Heard Of

McGRUER John Duncan (1857 - 1923)

Ken Morris

Robina Trenbath

Colonial Boarding Houses & ….”Fire!”

Rowan Gibbs

Herodian, Aelius Lampridius, Fan Ye, and Lake Taupo

An Invitation to Contribute:

From our Libraries and Museums

Auckland Council Libraries

Hokianga Museum and Archives Centre.

Group News

News and Views

In conclusion

Book Reviews

Letters to the Editor

Advertising with FamNet

A Bit of Light Relief

Copyright (Waiver)