TV Show: The Tudors - Family History in an unexpected place

This text is taken from a sharing moment given at the Kelowna & District Genealogy Society on October 4th, 2010.

Who here watches the TV show “The Tudors”?...

Ok, so I know it’s not historically accurate, but I *love* that show. There’s something about seeing history unfold before your eyes and how the intricacies of the plot are played out in a way that you don’t pick up on when you read a book.

So there I was, watching The Tudors. And for those of you that don’t watch it, they are up to the rise and fall of Henry VIIIs 5^th wife, Catherine Howard. Maybe you learned this rhyme in school (I know my dad did): Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived. So this is the one who eventually was beheaded as a traitor for adultery and for representing herself as a “maid” prior to her marriage to the King. So imagine my interest when it was mentioned on the show that a young gallant, named Francis Derham, used to visit her in her chambers at night.

Hmmm, well I had to go look in my files. I knew my ancestor Sir Hugh Hamersley (Hamersley is my maiden name) married a Mary Derham, daughter of Baldwin Derham, in 1597, only 50 years later than the period being portrayed on TV. I also knew that she came from “good stock”, her brother was also a Knight. I have done quite a bit of research on her ancestry as she comes from the Audley/Courtenay line that is well documented as descending from King Edward Plantagenet. But I hadn’t done much on the Derham’s although did recently find a book on Google Books published by the Norfolk Genealogy Society based on the Visitation of Norfolk records from 1563. I had printed some pages on the Derham’s including a tree going back several generations that showed Mary and Sir Hugh. So I hunted it down and took a look.

Sure enough Mary did have a great-uncle (her grandfather’s brother) called Francis. And there, right beside his name it said “a traitor, who was executed”. It also said that Francis’ brother, Mary’s grandfather, had bought West Dereham Abbey off King Henry VIII. Aha! This lead was getting hot!

A quick search on Google books for Dereham Abbey revealed:
Thomas Dereham, in 33 Henry VIII, bought it off the king. Shortly after he was fetched out of it to the Tower, about the treason of his brother Francis Dereham, who was executed. Thomas at length was delivered out of prison: he had issue Thomas, Robert, John, and Baldwin, and a daughter.

Source: The History and Fate of Sacrilege - Discovered by Examples of Scripture by Henry Spelman (Google Books).

So now I had made the connection. Francis, the traitor, had a brother Thomas and a nephew named Baldwin. Mary’s father was Baldwin and her grandfather was Thomas.

And now this saga didn’t just affect Francis in isolation, his brother Thomas, my ancestor was also arrested and kept at the Tower of London, eventually being released.

So what was Francis guilty of? Well, it doesn’t appear that he was guilty of anything (and I’m not just saying that because he’s my family).

Quote:
"The interrogations proceeded intensively through the third week in November, and it is probable that both Culpeper and Dereham were racked. By the 22nd the council was satisfied of the guilt of all three, and it was proclaimed at Hampton Court that Catherine had forfeited the honour and title of Queen, and was to be known only as the Lady Catherine Howard. On 1st December the two men were arraigned, and both pleaded guilty, realizing the futility of any other course. Dereham's treason was actually much more problematic than Culpeper's because he never seems to have had any intention of resuming his relationship with Catherine. However, the fact that the relationship had existed, and that he had gratuitously been given the opportunity to resume it, were deemed to be sufficient. Moreover, it was Dereham rather than Culpeper for whom the King reserved his bitterest hatred, probably because it was he who had spoiled what Henry believed to have been his innocent bride. On 10^th December they were taken to Tyburn, where Culpeper was beheaded by the King's mercy, while Dereham suffered the full penalty of hanging, drawing and quartering. Both made 'a good end', confessing their faults, and their heads were displayed on Tower Bridge."

Source: The Six Wives of Henry VIII by David Loades, page 125

So there you have it. An interesting saga about my family, discovered through TV and Google Books.

I encourage you to check out Google Books if you haven’t already. To get to it, go to the main Google page and click on the link Books in the top left corner.

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Posted in: family history,featured,genealogy,google books,Internet Genealogy

My Journey to Self-Publishing (and what a long journey it was)

By early 2005, I had been researching my family history for about 15 years and had amassed tons of data that resided in a family history software program, Legacy 5.  At that time (and even now), I printed off my family group sheets and pedigree charts and stored them in a ring binder where they were easily accessible, but the ring binder wasn’t an interesting read for anyone else.  Even though I was also an avid scrapbooker, I had difficulty in scrapbooking genealogical information where, for the most part, there were no photos only census records, birth/marriage/death certificates and photocopies of parish registers.  I was disappointed that the information I had ever so carefully collected was now simply “going to waste” as nobody looked at it, especially as my parents and sister lived in Britain where I am originally from.

On recommendation from Claire Smith-Burns, a fellow KDGS member, I purchased and read Sharon DeBartolo Carmack’s “How to Write your Family History”.  This book is a great read and reasonably priced at (RSP $29.99 CDN) and I highly recommend it to anyone thinking about publishing a family history.  The first thing I learned from this book was that I didn’t have to do it all.  Sharon’s book suggested that I first determined the scope of the book.   Why this was a surprise to me I don’t know, but somehow I had set an expectation for myself that I should publish my entire family history or at least my entire paternal or maternal lines.  This was a relief as I knew that the very fact of trying to get ready to publish was causing me to delay the project.  As all genealogists know, for every ancestor you find there are two more waiting to be discovered.  You are never “done” with your genealogy and now this book was telling me that this was OK that I didn’t have to be finished, I simply had to define what I was going to include in the book.

The next thing I learned was that my book should be interesting.  This probably sounds funny to anyone reading this article but seriously, try reading an article in the National Genealogy Society Quarterly and you’ll soon discover that most written genealogies read more like lists of names, dates and facts.  The standard genealogy report formats are designed to provide genealogical data in an easy to comprehend written form but there is no requirement to make it interesting for the reader.  Now Sharon’s book was telling me I needed a plot and to develop themes in my family history, and it even explained how to create these using genealogical examples.  It further went on to introduce the concept of social history which Sharon explained “fills out the facts, breathes life into your ancestors, and turns the reader into an eyewitness of your family’s life.”

With these two ideas under my belt, I defined the scope of my project.  The story would be about my ancestors Carlo Aggio and Harriet Rayner, and would include information about their parents, children and grandchildren, most of which had ended up in workhouses or orphanages in Victorian London.

Now I had to develop a plan as to how I create my family history book.  While Sharon’s book stressed the need for proper citations, illustration, indices and appendices, she seemed to approach the project from the point of view that the book would be written by gathering all the documentation together and starting the text from scratch.  This didn’t sit well with me.  Why duplicate this effort, when I knew that my genealogy software could create a report (albeit uninteresting) that I could use as a base for my book complete with citations and an index?  So I decided that my approach would be to create a genealogical report of this family, export it into Microsoft Word and simply add more content to it to create my book.

I spent many hours doing background research to put my ancestors into historical context for the relevant time period and locations but by September 2005 I was finally ready to create my narrative report in Legacy 5 and begin combining the background research with the genealogy report.  This was where things suddenly didn’t go to plan.   I discovered that while Legacy could create a report that Microsoft Word would open, it didn’t export my 100 or so citations to Microsoft Word properly.  It created the citations in the body text and did not use Word’s footnotes or endnotes feature.  This was a huge problem because I knew I wouldn’t be able to add additional citations and have them renumber automatically.  In practice this would mean that every time I added a citation I would need to renumber every citation that followed it.

I enquired with Millennia Corp, the publishers of Legacy 5, about whether this would be corrected in the then due out Legacy 6.  They not only confirmed that it would not be a feature of Legacy 6 on launch, and they did not have an estimated date as to when the feature would be added.  After searching around online, I discovered that The Master Genealogist 6 was able to produce the report I needed complete with citations that Microsoft Word would read properly.  After trying to import my Legacy data file several times into TMG6 I discovered that TMG was losing part of the citation data!  Finally by January 2006 and several technical support calls and emails later, I had the report I needed in my hand (or rather in Microsoft Word) and could begin the merging of my genealogy with my background research*.

By the end of 2006 my book was finally complete. The text had been created, documents scanned, illustrations added, citations checked and the whole thing proofread. The next challenge was to determine how I was going to publish it.  Traditionally genealogists have been faced with enormous costs in publishing a family history book.  Publishers charge a certain amount to set up the book for printing and then want to make a minimum print run of a certain size.  This makes obtaining a single book an expensive prospect and, unless you can sell all the extra books, isn’t very practical.

In the Spring of 2007 I discovered online publishing.  Companies specializing in printing digital storybooks.  These full color books are printed with a hard cover, on archival quality materials and are hand-stitched so pages won’t fall out over time.  Books can include any combination of text, photos or even scrapbooking elements that you want.  They have several book sizes available including the horizontal 11 x 8.5 inches I selected for my book.  The online software is easy to use and after a couple of days uploading the contents of my book and finalizing my book project I was ready to order my book. I ordered two copies of my book which arrived 3 weeks later.

The amount of actual effort required to create my book was not huge even though the book took just over two years from inception to print.  Now I have been through the process it is much easier (and quicker) to repeat it. I have since published a few more books: a 4 generation pedigree book, a biography of my father based on letters he has written to my children, a history of the Hamilton family from Hamiota, Manitoba.

Genealogy is hard work.  We should take the time to share and enjoy our work with our family while we can.

* I have since switched to using Rootsmagic 4 www.rootsmagic.com which also exports citations to endnotes/footnotes in Microsoft Word. It is much easier than TMG to use and is substantially cheaper too.

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Posted in: family history,genealogy,headline,legacy,rootsmagic,sharing and publishing,the master genealogist

How to scan a photo

If you own a scanner or multifunction device, you have the ability to make copies of your family photos. Why would you want to do this? Well the original photo may require restoration, perhaps the color has faded or changed, or the photo is cracked or scratched. You might also wish to use the photo in a scrapbook or produce copies for relatives. There are lots of good reasons why you might want to make a copy of a photo.

Even if you don't want to do any of these things, scanning a photo is a way to preserve that photo as it exists, today, knowing that it won't deteriorate any further inside your computer and that if you burn a copy on a disk or back it up to an online service (like Google Docs) it will be preserved forever.

The are hundreds of different scanners and multifunction devices out there, so I can't give you instructions on how to use your particular model, but there are a couple of things you should look for.

Always scan at 300 dpi or greater

To print at true photographic quality, you will need to print at between 240 to 300 dots per inch (dpi). This means that in order to print the photo at the same size it currently exists, you need to scan it at between 240 to 300 dpi. Anything less means that the photo will be printed smaller or, if you force the photo to the same size, the dots will be printed further apart and image detail will be lost. For photo paper prints, 300 dpi is recommended.

Following this logic, if you have a 3x3 image that you want to print at 6x6, you would in fact need to scan at twice resolution for full size (i.e. 600 dpi).

Having said this, many color photos simply aren't very sharp and there may not be a noticeable difference by scanning higher than 300 dpi.

It should also be noted that video displays (monitors) only require 72 dpi to maintain the original size. However, I do not recommend scanning at 72 dpi unless you are absolutely sure you won't ever need to print the photo. You can always reduce the dpi of an image but you cannot increase the dpi after you scan the photo.

Scan in the mode than matches your source document

Scanners offer several optimized settings for each type of source document: color photo, black and white photo, line art/document. Make sure that you select the right setting for your document type.

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Posted in: photo,scanning,technology