Category Archives: Soapbox

Not Highly Rated

Posted on November 21, 2024 by Lifelines Research

The aim of this blog is to provide some background material relating to the issues raised in Episode 26 of my video series, Setting The Record Straight. The video and this accompanying blog take a look at an online database … Continue reading →

Posted in Archives, digitisation, Document Sources, Local History, research, Soapbox | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Outrageous … and must be utterly rejected

Posted on February 22, 2024 by Lifelines Research

RESPONSE TO OPEN CONSULTATION:STORAGE AND RETENTION OF ORIGINAL WILL DOCUMENTSPublished 15 December 2023 Introduction I have a number of significant concerns about the proposals outlined in the consultation paper. These concerns and my opinions regarding the proposals are based on … Continue reading →

Posted in Archives, digitisation, Soapbox | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

But which parish was it in…?

Posted on July 24, 2022 by Lifelines Research

About a year ago I was looking at my Edinburgh-Irish Flynn ancestors and trying to fill in some gaps in the story by looking at all the birth and death records relating to the family. One of the certificates that … Continue reading →

Posted in Document Sources, Local History, research, Soapbox | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Transcripts and indexes

Posted on May 22, 2022 by Lifelines Research

The release of the 1921 census returns for England and Wales earlier this year led to some (fairly heated) discussion on social media regarding the quality of the transcription provided by Findmypast, the National Archives’ commercial partners in the online … Continue reading →

Posted in digitisation, Document Sources, research, Soapbox | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

When Digitisation Goes Bad Part II: Death’s Apprentice

Posted on January 27, 2022 by Lifelines Research

or…Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back Onto The Internet This is the second part of a blog post looking at some particularly bad examples of digitisation in the world of family history research. In the first … Continue reading →

Posted in digitisation, Document Sources, research, Soapbox | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

When Digitisation Goes Bad Part I: The Night Of The Living Death Duties

Posted on January 23, 2022 by Lifelines Research

This is the first part of the latest in a series of blog posts looking at the some of the problems behind the way that we access family history sources via the major commercial websites. In previous posts I’ve looked … Continue reading →

Posted in digitisation, Document Sources, research, Soapbox | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Please Release Me…

Posted on January 7, 2022 by Lifelines Research

…being a very brief history of the releases of the English & Welsh census returns. We need to understand right from the start that the primary purpose of the census has never been to produce a resource for the benefit … Continue reading →

Posted in Local History, research, Soapbox | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

You Don’t Know What You’ve Got…

Posted on November 26, 2021 by Lifelines Research

I realise that I’m running the risk of sounding like a broken record here but it seems like there’s always something else to say when it comes to assessing the work of the major commercial genealogical websites. Because it’s undeniable … Continue reading →

Posted in Document Sources, research, Soapbox | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments

You Had One Job…

Posted on October 10, 2021 by Lifelines Research

I’ll try to keep this brief. I’ve blogged a lot in the past few years about the problems with many of the databases on the major commercial genealogical websites and in particular the various county-wide English and Welsh parish register … Continue reading →

Posted in Document Sources, research, Soapbox, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

We Need To Talk About Ancestry

Posted on September 13, 2021 by Lifelines Research

Or … How The Major Commercial Genealogical Websites Are Killing Family History Research As a full-time professional researcher, I depend heavily on the resources that I’m able to access online, particularly those databases provided by the major commercial websites. Without … Continue reading →

Posted in Document Sources, research, Soapbox | Tagged , , , , , , | 25 Comments