 Well, it gives me great pleasure to introduce our next speakers, and I say speakers as plural because we have Alison and Ken Tate, who will be talking about their successes with DNA. Alison is a retired, well, semi-retired nurse, and Ken is a retired civil servant, and they're both very, very active in the North Ireland Family History Society, I'm sure many of you know them already, and they've been using DNA from the beginner's point of view for a few years now, but I think from some of the examples you'll hear from Ken and Alison, it's abundantly clear that you don't have to know what the technicalities and the ins and outs of DNA to actually derive maximum benefit, so here to talk to us about family matters, distance, no object, please welcome Ken and Alison Tate. Good morning everybody, I hope you've managed to survive the horrible weather on the way in and the flooding on the roads and so on and so forth, and we did, despite a fairly interesting journey in what we're here now. This is a wee bit different from the previous talk, and the previous talks, some of which I found a bit mind-blowing, I'm not very technically minded and have a great deal of difficulty in understanding a lot of that stuff, but we have done DNA tests, we wondered what to do with the results, and this has led us to where we are now. This also, for anybody that doesn't know, is our first time standing in front of an audience talking and using PowerPoint and all these things, so I will be using my notes, I'm afraid. It sounds a bit scripted, it's going to be a bit stilted, but it's the first time we've done it, it'll be better next year when you come, and any subsequent occasions. Growing up just outside Belfast, I was the first of my generation of children coming up into the family. I was followed a few years later by a succession of cousins, six cousins, couple of second cousins, three second cousins in fact, and then my brother, eventually six years later. On my mum's side of the family, these were all on my mum's side of the family, my dad was an only child, and other cousins on one side have built up a fairly comprehensive tree on the maternal side, so I haven't concentrated on that at all, I've just adopted their works fairly well. However, on dad's side, there wasn't anybody else to do the speed work, so that fell on me. He was the only child of my grandparents, Daniel, and there's Daniel, my grandfather and my grandmother, and my great aunt who lived with us when I was a child, she died when I was about 10. As many families, the story of the history of the family has taken pretty much for granted, until some significant event happens, like a death or an illness of an elderly member of the family, and then you start talking about it, or retirement, at which time you have time to do a bit of research. By that time, some people have gone, you've maybe lost your source material, your best source material, because it's usually word of mouth that starts these things off, isn't it? I certainly had no idea where the story would take me when I started digging, I didn't know I had any overseas family or relatives, I didn't think I had anybody on my dad's side. However, in 1980, dad received a letter out of the blue from a previously unknown cousin Fred Tate. He was based in Ontario in Canada. We knew nothing about him, nothing about his family or anybody else, up until this point. What subsequent phone calls and exchange of letters and series of visits led to the discovery of an old family Bible in Canada, with all the names, recording all the names and dates of birth and deaths and marriages of quite a few members of the family, the who we already knew, your dad had already known. During the course of Fred's investigations, he had come across contact details for dad, somehow still don't know to this day how, but this letter arrived out of the blue, and led to the following sequence of events. Briefly, Daniel was born in 1877, this is Daniel up here, oh no it's not, that's Daniel there, this is Christina and this is my father. Daniel 1877 was the son of Daniel Sturtate born in 1856, I don't have a slide for him I'm afraid, and he was married to Margaret and McCurray, he was also born in 1846 or thereabouts. Daniel was one of 14 siblings, I know you can't see the detail there but this is Daniel and the 14 siblings there, and I'm down here somewhere. Daniel Sturtate is here, and Margaret and McCurray is here, and it goes back on further but we don't know too much about them yet, or I don't anyway, I haven't done that bit of work yet. Another descendant of Daniel Sturtate's brother, Robert, is the ancestor of some of the people in this room, I'm thinking particularly of Alan and Valerie, who have come to join us from the Mithadi, and I'm very pleased to see you. Now in the early 1900s about five of my grandfather Daniel's surviving siblings emigrated to North America. Now I'm going to list them here. Robert, fully known as Robert James Blackburn, I'm going to call him RJB for simplicity because it's a mouthful. Rose, who was also known as Rosina. Margaret, who was also known as Meg. Jane, who was known as Jenny. Mary, who was known as Minnie. Now quite why I had all these additional names, I don't know, but this is Daniel again with one of his sisters Jenny, and that's the back of the photograph there which just avatates this, just confirms who they are for me because I didn't know. In 2017, we were invited by some of our Canadian cousins who by this stage we had learned the existence of to a family reunion every 10 years or so the Canadians have a family reunion and dozens if not more of them get together from all over Canada and find a point of gathering. And this year it was to be Montreal. So in 2007, Alison and I arrived in Montreal and we met up with upwards of 100 of these people. Many of them had descended from Daniel Sturtate and Margaret Ann McCurry through Robert James Blackburn. And that is Robert James Blackburn and Helena, who was a second wife. We don't know much about her yet. Two of my second cousins in Canada, Tracy and Barb, have been doing a great deal of work on the Canadian tree. They had got to know of us through the visits with Fred and so on a few years previously, so they included us in their stuff. Most of their research had been done the traditional way through Prone General Registrar's office, church records here, immigration, immigration records and web based resources. And the results of their research led to whenever we arrived at the reunion, they had produced a number of posters and things like that and Alison and Ayn and Moros, if you could help by showing us what was produced. This is a family tree they produced so it makes it real, it makes it tangible. It goes on for quite a while as you can see. As you can imagine, that's quite impressed us when we arrived. We didn't do anything about it and it was presented to us as we arrived into the room. That's not the complete tree, but it's an idea of what you get. Oh goodness knows where we are. Somewhere in there somewhere. Yes, yes, absolutely. You can, yes. Having been spurred by all that in 2017 again, they had used Ancestry DNA resources because they hadn't heard of family tree DNA quite frankly at that stage, which is the company that we have based most of our more recent research on through the North of Ireland family history project. The Ancestry DNA test is an autosomal test, that's a simple test which basically looks at 50% of your male and your female, your mother and your father's DNA and it's accurate, safe to say, up to about five generations back. There are other tests and you may be heard, anybody that was here in the previous talks would have heard, there's a mitochondrial test and there's the Y DNA test. One essentially covers the maternal line, one covers the paternal line. And if you look on the family tree DNA website, you'll see a rough explanation of what they are and what they do and where they're valuable and why they would be valuable. Resulting from their autosomal test and until then unknown cousin also living in Toronto, Brian G made contact with Brian MacG rather made contact. He is the grandson of Rose Tate, who is one of Daniel's siblings we heard about earlier on. Brian knows we're mentioning him in the top today, unfortunately because he's in Toronto he can't be here, he would have liked to have been here. He has suspended his ancestral research for the time being, he's looking after an ill family member and we're thinking of them all here at the moment. So we wouldn't have known about Brian if it hadn't been for the DNA resources and searches. He's related to Rosina, but Rosina had changed her name when she was married. So we wouldn't have had a clue looking at traditional records to look for a Brian MacG or anybody else. The name didn't exist in the family up until this point. So DNA in other words helped us to find somebody that we didn't know. And that's been continuous. That's why I'm standing here now because the traditional records have been good, but the DNA has helped and it's introduced other people and because we're out there and the published DNA data, other people are seeing us and finding us and that's basically how we came together with the people in the Mavadi. The Toronto information when we went over, we took over a lot of photographs that we had gathered up and found and being left in boxes and things in the roof space and so on and so forth from my father and his predecessors. We didn't know who most of the people were. There were no notations on any of quite a few of the photographs. Some had names on them, but they didn't mean anything to us, but a lot of the Canadian folk identified people for us. So that was very helpful and very useful. It also led to publishing some of the photographs to other DNA matches like Brian confirmed people again, anonymous people to us who he was able to identify the benefit of a DNA match. As a result of all that, I was able to go to the place in Toronto where Rose had lived in 1910. He had found me through my, Brian had found me through my connection to our cousin Barb. He was one of the organisers of the reunion. Through their DNA match, Brian actually shares 182 centimorgans with me, which is relatively close. That makes him, the prediction is I think third to fourth, or third, second to fourth cousin. Brian Barb, our Barb shares 247 centimorgans with me, which puts her in roughly the same category. Without DNA testing, we wouldn't have met Brian. We wouldn't have found out anything about that branch of the tree until quite a lot later on, probably. He found us and we found him through the published information on the, on the, on the internet and our family tree DNA tree. Now, also who found us there was a girl called Fran Francis B living in Washington state. She's the great niece of Margaret Ann McCurray, who you've previously met on the earlier slide. This is Margaret Ann McCurray, another son, Joseph, who moved to Glasgow. He was one of the, one of the cousins who stayed behind and he instead of going to Canada moved over to Glasgow. And obviously there was a bit of military service involved at some stage. I'm Margaret Ann McCurray's great-grandchild as our Brian and as our Barb. Margaret Ann McCurray features quite heavily throughout the story. And there she is. No, she's not on that. Yes, she is. Daniel Stuart Tate, married to Margaret, Margaret Ann McCurray, my grandfather Daniel Tate, my grandmother, Christine, Christina. That photograph's post post post first world war. And that is where I'm going to rest my tail just for now. And Alison's going to step on board and give a little bit of her experiences. She's busy looking at my notes to try and keep me right and between the two of us we'll get it there. I missed my cue. So, right, can I have my slides up now? Yes, I have. So the first part of my talk, distant cousins and not so distant cousins. And come over to the microphone. Well done. Thank you. So, okay. I was lucky to inherit a very comprehensive family tree, which my father, Jack, had worked on with his cousin Fred Arnold in the 1980s. They researched that the public record office in Balmoral Avenue, graveyards all over Belfast and County Dime, knocked on doors, met with church ministers, examined church records and recorded stories from word of mouth. I'm reading the script, by the way. Jack had meticulously noted every detail and simply left no stone unturned at that time. By the time that I looked properly at his work, he was gone. But wisely and thankfully, he had known that someday I would, in my own time, be interested and would carry on the work that he had started. He had been able to trace his mother, Kathleen McGuyan, her family back to the mid-1600s, actually, in Donica D. County Dime. And his father, John Scott's family, John, back to 1745 in Fife, Scotland. He had highlighted mysteries and anomalies and details that he simply couldn't find. And when I took up the baton in 2016, I was able to use online records, in particular the Irish Census of 1901 and 1911. And I solved a few mysteries very easily. However, in turn, a few new mysteries came to light for me to investigate. And this photograph is some of what I inherited in terms of boxes and newspapers, family trees, photographs, documents, a monstrous amount of material. So, in short, all this led me to take a DNA test. In fact, two separate autosomal tests with two different companies. I was hoping that by putting my DNA out there, I could contact, I could connect with half cousins of mine who were also descendants of my great grandfather, Alexander Smith McGuyan, born in Donica D. County Dime 1944, and his wife, Marianne Arnold. Hold on. I will explain. When my father did his research in the 1980s, he had discovered that his grandfather had been married twice. The first time aged 18, he married in 1862. I further discovered with the help of my friends in the North of Ireland Family History Society that in fact my great grandfather had been married three times. Sadly, he had lost two young wives in quick succession due to complications following child birth. The children survived. From his first marriage, a daughter born in 1863, Maggie McGuyan, her proper name was Margaret Agnes, she was known as Maggie. And from his second marriage, a son, John Charles McGuyan, born in 1868. Alexander went on to marry a third time. I wonder did his third wife know the full story. I am his great-granddaughter from his marriage to his third wife, Marianne Arnold. I know from reading family papers, including Certificates and Wills, that together they brought up children from the first two marriages together. In 1882, his daughter, Maggie was married from the family home to Oblano Street in Belfast, where she lived with her father, his third wife, Marianne. Her half-siblings, John Charles Alexander, and Kathleen, the children to the third marriage. I was hoping to connect with the possible half-cousins of mine from the previous marriages who would be descendants of Maggie and John Charles. Unfortunately, to date, I have not found any. I think it is just the case that as of yet, no matches have come forward to test, and I remain hopeful. I believe his son from his second marriage went to the USA, and my great-grandfather had several siblings. So going back a few more generations, there is great potential for matches still to come forward, and I'll have to make the connections. So what have we got now in the Scott Arnold Tree photograph? This is a family tree that, well, you can't make head or tail of it from this distance, of course, but that's just an example. So as I said, I had inherited the comprehensive family tree on my father's side. The old photographs, the documents, the additional fabulous records, and notes for signposting. It seemed that for now it was a waiting game, and reluctantly I decided to change tack. On my mother's side, I had no records. Fabulous records, extensive photo collections, documents or written signposts, but I did have stories from my mum about her early life, her brothers and sisters, her parents, her aunts and uncles. The Cairns family lived in Belfast, and they had relations in Stfield County Down. My mother's parents, James Cairns and Debra Martin, had moved to Belfast in 1915. In order to find out more, I started with the 1901 and 1911 census. And again, friends in the North of Ireland History Society pointed me in the right direction with other online resources. I was off, and in no time back to rural Stfield in the decade before the outbreak of World War I, I discovered that my grandfather had eight siblings. That's the 1901 census, I think, or the 1911 census. Robert, Alexander, George, James, John, Samuel, Grace, Isabella and Minnie. I had heard of all but one, Alexander. I didn't know that name. I had never heard of him. Alexander would have been an uncle of my mother's. I had heard her talk with great affection about her aunts and uncles. She named them Uncle Sammy, Uncle Robert and so on, stories and tales. But never an Uncle Alexander or an Uncle Alec. I wondered why. In my generation, there were ten cousins and I knew them well. We spent a lot of time together. The name Alexander was repeated in our generation. Why, I wondered, had Alexander died? I came across a World War I casualty record for Alexander Kearns. Had Alexander died as a result of injuries? I then found a marriage for Alexander Kearns and Morgan McRatney and Belfast with children born after World War I. So perhaps the casualty theory didn't fit. What had happened to Alexander and his young family? A few months ago, I received an email from Alice Kearns and Alice knows I'm giving this talk today. Saying that she had taken a family DNA a family finder DNA test and she and I had a close DNA match. She had looked at my family tree and we were related on my maternal grandfather James Kearns's side of the family. I didn't know at first which of my grandfather's brothers she was descended from. But I imagine you have guessed Alice is in fact Alexander's granddaughter. Alice is my second cousin and we share 283 centimorgans. This was a fantastic breakthrough and for the last few months we have been exchanging regular emails exchanging photographs and hearing about each other's families. Alice explained that her grandfather Alexander Kearns, his wife Margaret and their four children had left Ireland in 1925 emigrating to Canada and they later settled in western Canada in Alberta. Alice had met and married an Australian man and is now living in Queensland, Australia. Clearly without DNA testing we would never have connected. Over the last 10 years Alice has extensively researched the Kearns family in County Down. However had not had direct contact with anyone in County Down until she emailed me. As a result of this match Alice has been able to share a photograph of our great-grandparents George Campbell Kearns and Margaret Ann Skelly. Slide 19. Alice has said recently Alice has said in an email that she is so pleased to have connected at last with relatives living in County Down and there's more. It's a long shot. This is the story so far, the next part. A few weeks ago, a few weeks ago Mark you, the first part was a few months ago, this is the next part is a few weeks ago and before I finish I'll bring you up to date with a few days ago but a few weeks ago. This is a story so far. A few weeks ago my husband Ken and I were out with my cousin Alistair Kearns and his wife Olga and Alistair and Olga both know that I'm giving this talk this morning. Having a chat over a cup of coffee in a local café. We were actually chatting about the breakthrough story that I have just recounted. Some acquaintances of Alistair and Olga came into the coffee shop, BT. And as you would expect all the usual things happened. Introductions and lighthearted chat as the friendly folk joined us briefly. Alistair explained to them that we were all interested in our family history. We're presently talking about a cousin we had recently connected with in Queensland and thankfully also added that Ken was secretary of the local branch of the family history society. My fault again. And here he is. Later exhibit A. Later. Here's one I prepared earlier. Later in the day Ken received an email from Alistair's friend saying that his mother was a Kearns and he was researching her family. He added it's a long shot but I thought I'd let you know in case it ties up with anything you know. Well, you've guessed it did. Ken replied explaining that I had recently been researching my mother's Kearns family in County Down and this is how we worked it out. My new possible cousin BT had already done a family tree DNA autosomal test and when he checked he had a match with my cousin Alistair. They matched each other third to fifth cousins. Next my new cousin BT emailed his second cousin JC in Toronto who had also tested and he discovered that we were all matched. JC's response was great news Alison and I are matched fifth to eighth cousins. So more or less within the range of the autosomal DNA test. Slide 20. John's links to Alison. No, I don't realise that. So our list is as follows. Well, I can't really move off and you'll not hear me. So it's John Alison, John's dad John, of course everybody, every generation the names are the same. John's dad John, Alison's mum Maureen, John's grandfather John, Alison's grandfather James, John's great granddad George, Alison's great grandfather George, not the same George, John's great great grandfather John, Alison's great great grandfather Robert, John's great great great grandfather Archibald, Alison's great great grandfather another James. I must try to keep up. Sorry. We reckon Archibald and James are brothers and that their father James Cairns is the common ancestor. And they're looking in the traditional records, of course, the names change. So we've got C-A-I-R-N-S we've got K-E-A-R-N-E-S and then we have a new one, K-E-R-N-O-N-S cernons, Cairns, it's just the way it's pronounced, whoever's writing it down, as you all know. The DNA matches have connected Cousins and County Down and far beyond and this is an encouraging addition to my maternal family history research. The information has also enabled us to verify an inscription recorded on a headstone in St. Phil Parish Church. The headstone was erected by an Eliza Cairns in 1864 in memory of her son Thomas who died aged 28. Now Eliza Ellen McElven married James Curnons, K-E-R-N-O-N-S in March in 1820 in Dramara Presbyterian Church. So that's another link that, as a result of the DNA test, I can confirm the story 100% back to 1800. Now, a few days ago a new match, a completely new match, popped up another probable second cousin. I haven't had a lot of time to do very much with this match yet, but what I have done is I have looked at the tree published now, this is on Ancestry, and it shows a possible line back to a John Cairns, Lowland, Scotland, 1638, there are several generations. Alice has also alluded to a similar, none of us have checked it yet, it needs checked, it could be right, but so as I said, to date I can confirm everything back to James Cairns born 1800, and I hope very soon to be able to substantiate this and verify the information back to the early 1600s. I think that's me concluded. Which leads back to me... Have I missed anything? Which leads back to me with my follow-up story now. When we came back from Toronto in 2017 we had attended an event that was being held by the North of Ireland Family History Society. At that stage we were very new members, very recent members into the society, didn't know very many of the individuals involved in it, didn't really know much about DNA or anything else, but we were obviously very much more curious and more interested in finding out a little bit more. As we come into that we have been swallowed up by the Family History Society and as you can see by the t-shirts and all the rest of it we do a lot now to help and support the volunteer for the society, because they have done so much for us and put us on the right track and so on and so forth. So it's payback time, we are getting them back now. We... When we were in Canada we had decided to do an ancestry DNA autosomal test because all the rest of the family had done it, we didn't know about Family Tree DNA. When we came back to the Family Tree or the North of Ireland Family History Society's event here they were doing a DNA information day I think. So we decided to do a test with them as well with the idea that the more exposure that we had out there, the better the chances were of attracting matches and so on. I also encouraged my Canadian cousins to transfer their data into the Family Tree DNA North of Ireland project. Very simple process in order to again increase the chances of people finding us and being found. This single act has opened up an extensive network of contacts and information that I have been able to previously found to thought was meaningless has suddenly become relevant and we've been able to link and exchange pictures link up with relatives that we didn't even know existed. Now in 2017 from my list of matches on Family Tree DNA I, or on Ancestry, I sent an email to a lady called Patricia who had a 258 cent of Morgan matched with me put her in the second to fourth bracket second to fourth cousins bracket and having looked at the tree that she had published on Ancestry I could see familiar names and familiar personalities and the tree was identical but some of the dates and some of the information were slightly different from what I had so that was why I emailed her just to see which one of us had made the mistake or what the mistake was or if we could identify the mistake. Often people adopt other people's trees because they look very similar but they're not necessarily 100% right so this is what I wanted to do I wanted to adopt her tree because she had done more work than I had but I just wanted to be sure that I wasn't pruning in mistakes or adding to her tree mistakes that I had made so that was good better than mine so we still continue the exchange of information today and photographs and so on and so forth she was able to identify herself at some of the old photographs that I had which had been annotated with the name Pat but we didn't know who Pat was there were obviously American photographs or photographs from America that had been passed down to my grandparents presumably old sepia tone pictures with this little person called Pat we now know that Pat is the same person Patricia that she was delighted to see them because she hadn't seen the photographs and I was delighted to be able to exchange them with her or let her have them then in 2018 I received an inquiry from you heard me talk earlier on about Francis Brach who had linked with Brian Francis emailed me she's based in Washington State she's a retired teacher had been born in Manitoba in Canada and had been researching her ancestry for quite some time culminating in a great book which she just published in 2019 there never to be heard from again searching for the McCurry family of my role that's been a great piece of research for all of us I have benefited greatly from it I have contributed some to it as well some information that we have given Francis so that was quite pleasing she had also made the connection with Brian and Toronto and had exchanged information with her, with him and then again in 2018 I'm hopping backwards and forwards across a couple of years here I know but it's just the way things came up in my notes I had an email from another girl called Hannah who lives in Staffordshire, Hannah Edwards she had found me in her DNA matches and ancestry DNA again quite distant this time only 50 cent of organs estimated to be between 4th and 6th cousins are thereabouts and she had found that her great-grandmother was Ellen Tate another one of the 14 siblings sometimes referred to as Helen born in 1881 in Limavadi she was a sister actually of Robert John Blackburn or Robert James Blackburn Tate yes, one of the 14 we wouldn't have known to look for Hannah because we didn't know the name Edwards at that stage Hannah and I together and that's as far as my DNA matching story goes at the moment our experiences have been very very satisfying and exciting we've made connections with many people that we previously would never have come into contact with and it's encouraged us to look further and continue to create the history of the family for those of us who follow looking around this room well I know of two definite connections already but looking around this room I'd be fairly confident that somebody else sitting here will have a DNA match with me that's close enough for us to explore and if that is the case until we meet hi cousin you're there somewhere, find me and we'll talk now we have a few observations actually and Alison's going to join me just to add to them as we go through the next 15 or 20 pages of notes here it's not that much you might have started out on your family history research using DNA motivated by curiosity to know where you've come from and who went before you your success depends a great deal on the amount of work you do and the amount of effort they put into putting information into your DNA profile on the tree whenever you look at the tree it's very frustrating to look at matches to see that they haven't put in their ancestral surnames or they haven't put in their locations where they originate from or where they think they originate from and information like that but even if they've just used a nickname or their initials you don't know whether it's a significant person somebody worth following up to and that has happened in my case a couple of times where there's been just initials on a fairly high fairly close match but is it worth following that person up you don't know who they are you don't know anything about them they haven't put a tree on you can't see anything to compare with if you've imported your DNA data from another place like into the family tree DNA database from Ancestry or any of the other companies always make sure that you also put down the profile details and the same information your names and your ancestral surnames and so on and so forth because again when it's transferred across all you get is your name you don't get that background information really and that's frustrating Ladies maiden names remember to put your maiden name on we made the mistake early on putting our married name on and we had to change it well that's why I sort of I'm Alison Scott at the head of the top because when I'm trying to make a connection it's Scott that I need to connect with initially I didn't know that did you not know that no it's also important if somebody emails you some unknown person who's found you in their matches and emails you take the time to reply to them even if it's only to say I know I can't help you I don't have any more information rather than just ignore the emails it's very disheartening whenever you're doing that bit of research and you're keen, you think you've found somebody that you might connect to and you don't get a response for a while and persevere if it doesn't happen at first maybe they're not looking at their stuff maybe they're doing other bits of having another part of their life at that time they'll come back to it in six or nine months time they'll be out in their inbox and they won't see it so send an odd reminder just don't be a nuisance but send an odd reminder and be courteous alright we're coming to skeletons so we better put that one up skeletons we all have skeletons in our cupboards or we might have self skeletons in our cupboards remember at this level, at this generation we're not responsible for what our ancestors did got up to goodness no thought to rascalishness went on if there is a surprise it's just something that happened in the past before you were about so you're not responsible you don't need to do that she's running her finger along the lines I don't want you to go off script she's frightened of me going off script she means this is why I brought you with me I know that, keep going you can't be blamed for what went on ahead of you it adds to the fascination of your family history your generation will have moved on and that part of the story is in the past and that's what it's all about it's ancestry, it's the past it's our genealogy it's there, it's part of us whether we like it or not it's there so you might as well just accept it and live with it now big brother, some people are a bit anxious about getting involved with the DNA because of the big brother thing somebody's looking over your shoulder is it the tax man if you've got a bank card, a loyalty card a mobile phone any of those things they know more about you than the DNA testing company does and nobody's interested in your DNA for genealogy for anything else, the healthcare people they have a different way of doing things and it's for the benefit of other people in the long term, so don't worry about it it's pretty well anonymized anyway it's of no use to anybody else it's of no use to anybody that's trying to clone your credit card or anything like that so that's what happens so like I said DNA has greatly enriched and ignited your family history journeys our family history journeys away beyond our wildest dreams and it's continuing to do so and the more we're exposed to all these highfalutin technical talks and all the rest of it the more knowledge we're absorbing slowly and thank goodness for people like Morris here for pointing us in the right direction keeping us in the right direction because as we all know you can only go so far with the paper records that we have and the DNA has opened up all sorts of possibilities and introduced us to all sorts of people we would never have known about so thanks for your perseverance and thanks for listening to us just before we finish I have a few wee thoughts that have occurred to me this is off script this is off script you know the way when you were at school and you were doing your maths homework and you checked your long division or you checked it by the long and complicated root well to me whenever you have got your traditional research then you've got your DNA coming in as a sort of a framework to double check your maths homework it just confirms everything and very often for instance if nobody had any research done if they were to take a DNA test it gets the ball rolling sometimes there are family members out there who are looking for you so although you may not actually have started and done any traditional research it's a point at which you can come in and get a DNA test done there's no right time just take the test test the water even if you know you have no family history already prepared the test will be an excellent starting off point and it provides a window on the past of our ancestors lives and very often their actual relationships because sometimes what has been on paper is not exactly the way things worked out doesn't tell the food story always expect the unexpected and that is the end that's actually tomorrow's shopping list so I don't know that's why thank you very much everybody well done Kevin Alston we've got time for a couple of questions actually but I thought your presentation was a beautiful demonstration of how connecting with cousins can actually help you put names on photographs exactly yes come out with stories of what actually happens to people that are missing from the family tree and whose absence or lack of additional information is just kind of nagging at you all the time some of the other there will know what happens to them and what helps solve the mystery the key word I think is collaboration if we all collaborate all the people in your matches list if we collaborate you get a lot further both of you get a lot further you both benefit absolutely I think the first relevant question from anybody here is why am I here why are you here that's the question that we all ask ourselves why are we here and I think certainly doing your family tree helps you find your roots and gives you a much greater sense of rootedness as well and to see what your ancestors have lived through and to put yourself in their shoes I think is also very fascinating because you kind of wonder if I had to live through that same experience how would I cope with it that's a very interesting point I don't want to say too much the first going back to the story about my great-grandfather who was married three times the first time he was married his wife died when she was 18 and he was 18 so how do you cope with that when you're 18 so he married again and his second wife died when he was 25 and he married a second time but he married again third time expectation life was different in those days but I think to lose a wife at age 18 to be married at age 18 and to have to deal with the sadness around that would have been very difficult in those times and that was a common occurrence that wasn't just something that would have happened occasionally sadly it would have happened a lot death was a very prominent part of life at that time absolutely you raise a very good point because of course child mortality was also very good so our ancestors had to live through the bereavement of losing children some people lose half their children some people lose a quarter of their children so to actually have 14 siblings is actually quite remarkable they didn't all survive they were just killed in a football accident when they were about 21 I think it was the first football fatality in London Derry that's another story that's part of next year's presentation any questions at all for Ken and Alison any comments? well we have one here from Brian oh yeah it's kind of troublesome no I just want to go with this chart here that you have at the front did this come from Canada? I'm interested because I see that it's all printed out on the one long sheet and I was just wondering how that was done because any printer that I have just prints out an A4 and you have to slice it all together my cousin Tracy and Toronto took it to a professional printing company some of their product range some of the genealogy companies suppliers who supply like blank family tree formats and so on and so forth offer a printing service similar to this there's one called My History I think in the UK and I think they offer a similar product or they offer a tree printing service anyway whether they can do that particular type of product I don't know but I imagine something similar the other thing I want to just say is as a member of the family history society I have seen the work that you have put in and the way you promote it for society and would just like to thank yourself for that so thank you very much and that's a perfect note to end the presentation and we'll be back in about five minutes or so with Debbie Kennett talking about the promise and limitations of what is normal DNA but for now Alison and Ken thank you very very much