It has been a long time since Gin and Genealogy invited you to enjoy their latest thoughts on…, well…, gin and genealogy.  Back at last with stories, hints and suggestions as you move through life drifting between a good family tree and a tasty gin and tonic.   So here are a few thoughts about returning to research after a break and, of course, a gin recommendation to help you celebrate.

Whilst we can drink a good gin most of the time, we can’t always get through our family history research with such devotion.  Sometimes a reasonable break is exactly what we need and when we return to look at our research we see it with fresh eyes and new ideas.

In our absence valuable new records or archive catalogues may have been added online or we may have learned how more obscure documents can be used to further our research.  When I’ve returned to my genealogy projects after a break I find it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.  The records you were once immersed in and which felt so familiar, now seem a jumble of dates and places and you begin to doubt whether you used them fully and properly. 

This is why the number one rule of genealogy is to always cite  your sources.  Where you found the information and as much detail as possible.  Ancestry etc., makes this easy for us up to a point as we can add the sources at the touch of a button and can see which sources we have not looked at, although you still have to put in the work to check that the entries are valid.  Personally I  believe ‘hints’ in Ancestry should be relabelled ‘suggestions’ or ‘possibilities’ at the very least.   If you hold your tree solely on a site such as Ancestry it is really important to remember to add information when you move away from online records. The value of cutting and pasting the index codes onto your work cannot be underestimated.  A sharp pencil and a list of index codes that you’ve consulted as you move through the paper archives is wise but it is important to add them to your work when you leave the library and return to the land of the living.  Some older records are very difficult to read or hard to understand.  You really don’t want to be looking at them twice.  

Returning to online records, both Ancestry and Findmypast have a section which shows all the latest collections to be added to their records.  This may be worth a glance in case anything stands out as relevant and keeps you up to date.

If I’m going back to a tree I’ve not worked on for some time, I find it worthwhile to familiarise myself with the individuals on the branches, making sure all the information that can be found about them is on their record and not just jumping to the top of the tree and hoping to find more there.  DO NOT look at other people’s trees.  Call me a cynic but they will either have copied yours or got it completely wrong.

You may be prompted to return to your research by the email in your inbox informing you that your subscription to your usual family history website is due for renewal or has expired. Thinking of changing it?  Who Do You Think You Are website has an up to date evaluation of the main sites including pros, cons and costs. https://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/getting-started/choosing-the-best-genealogy-subscription-website/

I know you’ve been eagerly awaiting the gin recommendation, so here it is.  It’s one I tasted at a food festival at Great Missenden earlier in the year and is made by  Hampton Court Gin.  It’s called Six Wives and in keeping with the name, six botanicals have been used including orange, cubab berries (Java), juniper and thyme. It’s smooth and dry with a hint of orange.   I actually bought a thyme bush from the festival as the serving suggestion was for ice, a slice of orange, choice of tonic and a sprig of thyme.  The thyme bush soon died (sorry) so I used oregano instead as this was growing in abundance in my herb collection and it seems to work.   At £39.50 a bottle it is available at https://hamptoncourtgin.com/products/the-6-wives-gin