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.  

13 September 2024:- Total 50,617 including living. Mostly sources for existing people today and some source refurbishment from olde Ancestry sources which had little support information.

12 September 2024:- Total 50,613 including living. All sources today for existing people in Birmingham.  I think I have connected them to Galway but I have noticed that earlier they are consistently called Dolan on births but Dowling in Censuses.  Oh well, they are in the system!

11 September 2024:- Total 50,613 including living.  Birmingham line from Ireland sources today.  Managed to find Patrick Dowling's with as Ann Dunn, so hopefully one more generation back if I'm lucky.

10 September 2024:- Total 50,589 including living.  Mostly sorting out old negatives and their newly digitised files.  Started on new Birmingham family where I purchased a set of WW1 medals in auction, a fair amount of information here and looks as if it leads to Ireland.

9 September 2024:- Total 50,578 including living.  A few updates but mostly scanning olde negatives to convert to digital... this is such a slow process.

8 September 2024:- Total 50,576 including living. Sunday Single Back Up.  Busy today visiting an old railway station and with my son being ill but added a few sources and pictures.

7 September 2024:- Total 50,566 including living. A few more Kilkenny records and a Lisburn marriage relating to a medal for sale.

6 September 2024:- Total 50,549 including living.  Added some more Kilkenny Dowling baptisms, tying-in with censuses as I go.

5 September 2024:- Total 50,518 including living.  Finished the one family but still in Kilkenny looking at another.

4 September 2024:- Total 50,509 including living.  Mostly gardening but added more sources from Kilkenny.  Will probably stop on this line tomorrow, as I think I am at the end of church records on this family for Muckalee with no clues as to where they were before.  Added some peripheral baptisms as I went... that is, for example, when I find a baptism for a family I am tracking I also add to the database any other Dowling baptisms on the same image even if they do not apparently relate to the focus family.  It takes time now but saves it later... and saves several images as all are linked to the one image.

3 September 2024:- Total 50,498 including living.  More sources from Kilkenny.  It would have been so easy to have picked the wrong Thomas Dowling out of those available... it took looking at the whole family to get it right.

2 September 2024:- Total 50,478 including living.  Some Kilkenny work with mixed sources and some England tidy-ups. 

1 September 2024:- Total 50,468 including living.  Sunday Double Back Up.  Added some census records from Ireland and refurbished some UK sources.  The Ireland birth, marriage and deaths website has been down for three days... so its not just us small websites with technical issues!

31 August 2024:- Total 50,460 including living.  Added many Kilkenny St John's baptisms today despite being at a classic car show.  There are over 19 distinct Dowling families in this region in the 1840s alone.

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.

Activity


Activity follows the Guild of One-Name Studies "Seven Pillars of Wisdom":

  1. Data Collection - from correspondents, projects (see below) and serendipity! I include maintenance in here as, with a large study over 30 years, a significant number of flaws creep in that need correcting.

  2. Analysis - researching, investigating, linking, etc. Also constant review for corrections;

  3. Synthesis - drawing conclusions about the Dowlings, making sense of it all!

  4. Publicising the Study - This website... I am not particularly technical so this is a challenge, I also promote the study on some DNA sites;

  5. Responding to enquiries - helping where I can, adding their families to the database or trying to make sense of DNA matches. I will reply, maybe not immediately, but I will always respond.;

  6. Publication of results - again this website, as much as possible is available as I believe widespread sharing is the basis of its permanent legacy;

  7. Preserving the study - A more significant challenge than it sounds, some arrangements have been made through the Guild for the study to be available when I am dead and gone!


 
I use Family Tree MakerFind My Past
I use FamilyTree DNA for my DNA testsI use GedMatch for Autosomal DNAI am a member of the Guild of One-Name Studies
NOT on Facebook! as wastes more time than it savesNOT on Twitter! it becomes a distractionNOT with Ancestry!NOT on MyHeritage as they took their subscription without notice!
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Compiler: Brian Thomas Dowling (1955-)
Site updated on 13 September 2024 at 20:01; 44,253 people (this number does not include 'Living' people excluded automatically for data protection purposes)
Page created by John Cardinal's GedSite v5.01  |  Much altered from a design by Contented Designs