General view of the Exhibition Hall (during the late afternoon talk)

As the exhibition hall wasn’t going to open until 9.45 I had worked out that either I needed to go at sparrow’s crack, get a lift to the station, brave the rush hour and be able to get to a 9 a.m. session or leave later and have to pay for a taxi. Early start won. Since my clock radio had packed up the week before, I was relying on the TV to wake me at 5 a.m. which it duly did, so once I had done my chores on FTF, had breakfast and been driven to Barnham for the 6.17 train I started what proved to be a very long, very tiring but very worthwhile day.

The unfamiliar journey I was worried about was straightforward, nobody was protesting at Canning Town this week and there were plenty of people to direct anyone heading for the Excel. I’d never been to the Excel but other RootsTech visitors were easily spotted from their backpacks, and the strangely dressed were heading for another event, so I could follow them in.

Once I’d collected my badge I headed for a cup of coffee which was not as easy as I had expected as most of the food outlets had been closed off and were only available for Comic Con visitors – I was pleased later on that I had taken a sandwich with me for lunch – even if I did have to eat it sitting on the floor! I happened to spot one of the few people I knew from Family Tree Forum who were attending, Paulc, at the same coffee stop. I didn’t recognise him from his forum avatar of Yoda but from his Twitter profile. During the day I was accosting people and looking at their badges and others were doing the same to me. I wonder who the person from Northampton who looks just like me actually is – two different people thought I was her!!

Family Tree Forum members

My first session was A sense of place: Land records and maps with Myko Clelland of Findmypast. In a very short time he gave an overview for beginners of what exists in the way of Land Records, maps and where to find them. I was reminded of a couple of sites I had forgotten all about which will come in handy for writing up the stories about my ancestors..

Then I hit the exhibition hall and worked my way round the stands. I hadn’t realised at first how many demos were going on in the hall itself. I shall know another time to look there first and plan my day round them as I missed some interesting talks. I stopped at the stand for Calico Pie‘s Family Historian which is the software I use and was told that a demo for the new version was about to begin. It was delayed in the end by the previous one over running and I made a decision to stay with it and to miss the Keynote Speeches. After Simon’s talk I went back to the stand and was able to join in the demo again but with a smaller group so was able to ask questions. I thought of many more questions afterwards of course.

As I mentioned, I was glad I had taken a sandwich. There was a coffee stall with a few sandwiches and snacks but nowhere to sit as all the tables nearby were taken up by people meeting. So, lunch was spent chatting with other people also sitting on the floor. In fact, the catering and lack of seats was generally pretty bad although I gather that this was much improved the next day.

Selfie with a Belgian cyber friend © HistoiresdeFamilles

I was able to ask about recent Freemason records, talked to people on the Indian Diaspora and fIBIS stand about Indian records, stopped by the Hampshire FHS and Family History Federation, met a Belgian cyber acquaintance, investigated the online learning courses and generally looked around. I also stopped to chat about DNA by the Jelly Tots machine, a brilliant practical way of showing how your DNA gets mixed up, and then found later that the person, Angie Bush, I was talking to was actually the speaker for my 2 o’clock session.

I was disappointed by how few Family History Societies were there in the hall, but it was probably too expensive for them to warrant it. The larger groups and subscription sites were well represented and DNA featured heavily of course. There were areas to get help with your family history and these were being well used as far as I could tell. I realised afterwards that I had forgotten to go back to the Society of Genealogists’ stand – I am actually a member although I’ve never been to the Library yet.

After lunch, I headed for Debbie Kennett‘s talk about The joy of surnames. I came away with lots of pointers and ideas for my own surname study into the Lewcocks, even though I’m not with the Guild of One Name Studies, but the Surname Society at the moment.

Angie Bush‘s talk about Using DNA and Historical Research to Extend Your Family Tree, was very interesting and showed how DNA can help to confirm your research (or the opposite!) and help in breaking down long standing brick walls based on her own research. She gave a clear explanation of how DNA is inherited and how the testing companies present this and then going about using the information as part of a research plan.

My head spinning with ideas, I went to find the meetup organised by Paulc @chiddickstree. I was surrounded by people who I had followed on Twitter #AncestryHour, where I “lurk” more than contribute, as they get together on an Tuesday evening. Paul must have been very pleased with how many people went along and pictures were taken of course.

I finished my day trying to get my head round Examining your DNA matches with DNA Painter with Jonny Perl. While I listening it all made sense, but I need to dip my toe in the water of chromosome painting now and see if I really understood!

For each session I was spoiled for choice and would happily have gone to two or three in each slot. My final choice had I stayed until the end would have been either DNA Testing Panel Discussion or Save and share online information : 5 tools for the connected genealogist. I can access the handouts for the latter to see what I missed.

© Paul Chiddicks

© Paul Chiddicks

I was pleasantly surprised through the day by how much I already knew, had reminders of what I had forgotten, learned about new resources, got ideas for things to try, talked to total strangers and put faces and voices to cyber acquaintances. I probably missed a lot by only going for one day – if and when they return I shall make sure to spend more of the three days there. I’ve now downloaded the handouts from all the sessions that interested me, not just those I went to, and am looking forward to working my way through them all. I now need to catch up with the Keynote speech I missed as it was recorded.

By 5 o’clock I was talked and walked out and wanted to get the direct train back from London Bridge so missed the final sessions and headed off along with some Stormtroopers to the DLR. Again a smooth journey and was only a few minutes late back to Barnham, arriving home at 8 p.m.

Now I am looking forward to April when the Family Tree Live show takes place at Alexandra Palace. The journey from Barnham via East Croydon and Finsbury Park looks a lot less daunting than this one and takes about the same time with a later start … so ….. …

Generally the hobby of genealogy can be rather solitary and you spend much of your time hunting down dead people and the live people you meet up with are cyber acquaintances with strange usernames. Apart from a small local family history fair and a U3A talk in the village, and several Coffee Time workshops in the West Sussex Records Office, much of my genealogy time is spent online. I was lucky to be invited up to the Ancestry headquarters in London for a workshop and I have met one or two of my cyber friends socially, but generally there has been little human contact! I decided that I needed to get away from the computer and talk to “real” human beings, so I have joined the local U3A now as they have recently started a monthly genealogy group which is a start.

I won a pair of tickets for the Family Tree Live Show last spring but was unable to get there in the end. However, over the years, I’ve read about the big Rootstech conferences held in the USA. Since I don’t fly, and wouldn’t be able to justify the expense anyway, I’ve not been tempted to go along and have happily watched many of the workshops online later. Last year, I read that they were coming to London this autumn and immediately booked a one day ticket as getting to the venue should be straight forward from the Sussex coast. They were advertised then as Early Bird prices but the prices are still the same and special offers are coming through now which would be cheaper – still, never mind, I will know next time!! I’ll be going up and back by train in one day as hotel prices in that area are very high as Comic Con is also on at the Excel the same weekend!

This will be my first experience of  being alone among crowds of total strangers but I hope I will be able to meet up with some of the names I have “met” online since I started this absorbing hobby seriously back in December 2002. Judging by my Twitter feed there should be lots of people to meet up with and to be able to put faces to names.

The three day programme features over 150 workshops: Rootstech Programme. The day’s programme for the Friday gives me many options of what I could be doing – surnames, places and DNA seem to feature on my selections on the mobile app alongside the keynote speakers. There will also be exhibitions and displays to explore in between the workshops. I am sure coffee and lunch breaks will be fitted in too. It’s going to be a very, very long day but I am sure that it will be worthwhile.

Since ThruLines appeared, a small group of descendants of James Budden and Mary Littlefield, my great x5 grandparents, has been building up. The Buddens are a West Sussex family and if I have the right marriage, Mary is from Hambledon just over the border into Hampshire. The matches are only small and match either my paternal aunt, or my father and sometimes me or my brother. The cMs total is small enough not to show up on Shared Matches so without ThruLines I would probably have missed them.

I had noticed in passing that one of their granddaughters, Harriet, had married a Larkham which is not the most usual spelling but was the spelling used by elderly friends of my mother many moons ago. Les and Win Larkham, as I knew them, were a big part of The Grayshott Stagers, an amateur dramatic group on the NE Hampshire/SW Surrey border. We lived in Grayshott between 1958 and 1962 and my mother  joined the group and appeared on stage in Grayshott Village Hall with them several times until my parents left the village for Headley and later left the area altogether. Ten years later, when I started teaching locally, I also joined them and appeared in some productions.

Yesterday, another match came up who was also descended from Harriet Budden and John Larkham. When I was adding the latest match to the family tree, I noticed a Leslie Dalton Larkham and while I was checking the various records etc. to make sure I was putting accurate data on to the tree, I also investigated him. I initially dismissed him as being the wrong person as the Les Larkham I knew was married to Winifred and I couldn’t a civil marriage record of this Leslie marrying a Winifred for a first, second or even a later marriage and the only wife I found was Edith N Gibbons. I didn’t look very hard as It wasn’t that important. I had noticed though that he had died in the registration district which covered that part of Surrey so thought I would come back later. I was looking for something else about my new DNA match’s family on a different site and spotted another record for their marriage and Edith’s middle initial was listed as  W – and further searching showed that her middle name was Winifred … they had married in 1930 in Ealing.

So it seems that Leslie is my paternal 4th cousin twice removed. The other Grayshott/Headley connections on my tree are not from that part of the family. Leslie is part of my Budden/Adams/Reed family that moved up to London from West Sussex, the other Grayshott/Headley connections are with the Elkins/Hart/Taphouse/Lewcock family which moved from Hampshire up to London via Farnham in Surrey:

From St Pancras, Chichester to St Pancras, London.

Farnham families