What's New
I add names to the Family Tree Maker database almost daily. The database, converted to GEDCOM format, gets updated to this website using GEDsite.
I am slow... because its not just about collecting names, I am after connections and stories. The 'Living' are excluded from this website, the total viewable in website can be seen in footer at the very bottom of the page.
18 April 2026:- Total 55,468 including living. Busy in garden today, just one census.
17 April 2026:- Total 55,468 including living. Busy day with other software failing due to a Windows Update. Computer software is just not 'rock-solid' as it implies it is. Nevertheless, added a few census entries and more people, albeit with little analysis.
16 April 2026:- Total 55,457 including living. Some Philadelphia census work. I am comfortable that the Martin I am after comes from a central Allegheny stem but he has been born just after the 1880 census, there was no 1890 and in 1900 he does not appear at home so it is tricky to place him with a family because he has fallen between the census cracks.
15 April 2026:- Total 55,438 including living. Some Philadelphia census work back as far as I could go, a merge of one branch of that family with more to come... A bit of a rabbit hole trying to identify the line of the great Red Cross worker Mary Lou but it all helps the Study.
14 April 2026:- Total 55,415 including living. Some Philadelphia records with a rather abrupt end to a clear trail of a Martin Dowling in the 1900s.
13 April 2026:- Total 55,395 including living. Only one person added but a significant merge on this Sylvester trail in Kilkenny. Merges (when sufficient evidence is found to say that two separate person entries are in fact the same person) are major achievements for reducing the confusion caused by the volume of people. Found a Mary Louise Dowling on a movie end-credit for The Pride and Profane, a Red Cross worker and manager, she will definitely become a Notable when I have tracked her some more.
12 April 2026:- Total 55,394 including living. Sunday Double Back-Up. Back from a short tour of the Wye Valley in Gloucestershire. Added a few sources in Ohio.
7 April 2026:- Total 55,392 including living. Small addition but mostly busy with the garden today. May be unavailable for a few days.
6 April 2026:- Total 55,392 including living. A Dowling photo on eBay prompted a quick check through some records in Ohio.
5 April 2026:- Total 55,382 including living. Sunday Double Back-Up. Doing some desk tidying today... its not just about computers and websites... I have stacks of paper materials to wade through. I may have to retire from taking emails to sort it all out... maybe when I am 75?
4 April 2026:- Total 55,382 including living. Some Kilkenny records today.
3 April 2026:- Total 55,354 including living. Back on Sylvester's today and a Kerry family to eliminate them from the current enquiry.
2 April 2026:- Total 55,339 including living. Some interesting work trying to find someone in Chicago who appears to want to remain hidden!
1 April 2026:- Total 55,335 including living. A significant finding of a 1910 New York census that was bugging me... Eventually found the Dowlings with their surname spelled "Tolleng". New Corcoran related email to start on. Busy, busy, busy.
31 March 2026:- Total 55,305 including living. Some New York and Laois records looking for a
Legend:
| Sunday Single Back-up: | On Sunday of each week my computer gets backed up to a separate hard drive on my network (NAS). |
| Monthly Double Back-up: | On the 1st of every month my computer gets backed-up to a separate hard drive on my network (NAS). The NAS, which also has other files not on the computer then gets backed-up again to another separate hard drive on the network that is normally off-line for the rest of the month, disconnected from the internet and powered-off. |
| Merge: | A merge is where evidence has emerged to allow two separate people on the database to be merged into one individual. For example, there may be two people called Michael Dowling, one as a son of John Dowling and the second as a census entry. The two initially start off from records as separate entries but a marriage of Michael to Mary Phelan showing a father of John and matching other factors allows me to say with some confidence that they are one and the same person. This can be quite complicated with much playing around with probabilities and numbers of candidates for merging or occasionally very simple. The number of people in the database drops by one and it is a major cause for celebration as it increases accuracy and future confusion. |
| Join: | A join is where evidence emerged to allow one person to be connected to another. For example, a daughter to be added to a father. A cause for celebration as it reduces the number of separate families in the database and increases accuracy and future confusion. |
Projects
There are a huge number of entries in my database form a variety of sources. So, even though there is no project that covers a particular source or region does not mean there are no entries for that source or region. The projects cover where I systematically extract entries from a source to make sure the source has been 'milked' for all it's worth. The What's New page also shows when I have worked on a particular project.
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