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.
23 June 2026:- Total 55,972 including living. Some more Minnesota censuses and Find a Grave entries.
21 June 2026:- Total 55,965 including living. Sunday Triple Back Up.
20 June 2026:- Total 55,965 including living. More from Minnesota with sources for existing people, and some framework entries for connected but non-Dowling families (lest I end up documenting everyone on the planet in full).
19 June 2026:- Total 55,949 including living. More from Minnesota. Busy day and so, so hot.
18 June 2026:- Total 55,939 including living. A couple of censuses and some baptisms... This Minnesota family was an elimination line, which often turn out as 'rabbit holes' that have a lot of work to crawl out of to get back to the original line being studied!
17 June 2026:- Total 55,929 including living. Some Dowlings from Washington, Minnesota and some Find a Grave entries.
16 June 2026:- Total 55,907 including living. Just one Minnesota census today... I don't know where the day went!
15 June 2026:- Total 55,903 including living. Some Canada and US censuses to support Find a Grave entries... had a lucky break with a Minnesota record coming up trumps to complete the census cycle for a family.
14 June 2026:- Total 55,892 including living. Sunday Triple Back Up. No genealogy today as I opened my rather average garden to the public for charity... the visitors we had appeared to love it. Lot of work though and now need a rest!
13 June 2026:- Total 55,892 including living. A few sources for existing people, including Nebraska.
12 June 2026:- Total 55,882 including living. Some US Find a Grave entries for Nevada... oh and even more gardening; it's nice to open the garden to visitors but I am under pressure cramming jobs into this weekend I would spread out over the next month.
11 June 2026:- Total 55,862 including living. More gardening pending opening my garden to the public on Sunday for charity... A military record with lots of images for Lancashire Dowling.
10 June 2026:- Total 55,860 including living. More gardening pending opening my garden to the public on Sunday for charity... A few Liverpool censuses.
9 June 2026:- Total 55,853 including living. A little browsing amidst the gardening today. Some mixed sources added to mostly existing people.
8 June 2026:- Total 55,849 including living. Mostly sources for existing people.
7 June 2026:- Total 55,846 including living. Sunday Triple Back Up. Looked for a McGrath-Dowling connection in Lancashire, UK re correspondence.
6 June 2026:- Total 55,830 including living. Some Kildare parish records as I crawl out of the rabbit hole I have been in for a week back to correspondence.
5 June 2026:- Total 55,821 including living. A few Missouri relatives, a little time looking and not finding and finally sorted out program update challenge around the size reduction of images. Also a nice day so in the garden mostly.
4 June 2026:- Total 55,813 including living. A large merge of people as I found sufficient grounds to say several people were duplicates. This reduces the numbers but is a very good thing as it improves accuracy but can be tricky. A few sources for existing people.
3 June 2026:- Total 55,821 including living. More Liverpool entries... must return to correspondence.
2 June 2026:- Total 55,805 including living. A few more added in Liverpool and, while doing so, found an American actor already in the study staying temporarily in Liverpool at the time. Also a technical update creating some kind of website map for search engines? maybe... I always distrust updates as they always seem to mess things up and I am not sure what functionality this gives as a benefit for all the fiddling around I am having to do!
1 June 2026:- Total 55,798 including living. A few elimination records added taken in passing on the this Liverpool family. Garden again today.
31 May 2026:- Total 55,784 including living. Sunday Triple Back Up. Painting the garden gate.
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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