Blog@familywareham

Another disaster

Due to our aging I.T. equipment, we lost a 6TB Hard Drive due to mechanical failure of the drive. This was the main backup drive and had all our main data on. It appears to be a disk head failure and may not be repairable.

Fortunately our Family Tree Project has two other drives as backup so all project data is safe. The failed drive also contained all other family information such as photographs, with a brief write up on each photograph explaining who is in the photo, where it was taken, what year etc. plus other data.

A lesson we first learned back in 2000, when we suffered our first setback, and lost c.2500 records which we had to rebuild. Luckily in those days, we used to store the paper archives after the data entry, so we could rebuild the lost records.

The issue now is to review a data recovery option which will be expensive, as far as the research shows, and may not be viable. Also we need to urgently assess our I.T. equipment and plan to replace it all as a matter of urgency, and include better archive options to prevent future loss of data.

It’s time I.T. companies reviewed what they are creating and start looking at more reliable methods to prevent data loss. Although there’s no guarantee as is common sense, but it is still a major issue that needs addressing with a better solution.

11th December 2024

Family Trees Created

We have 824 current live Family Trees for Wareham’s. However due to the research we have merged many trees into one tree as and when there is a definite link; so this figure may pulse (shrink or grow) either way as we progress.

We are currently in the process of doing a quality check on each record to ensure accuracy and are still finding trees that are being merged. An example is we had 40 family trees which were merged to my family tree.

This part of the research project is revealing the truth about how families are related and dispelling the myths around where some believe there are no links between some families, especially in the evidence of the difference in spelling of the name Wareham and its variations, which is now proving in most cases to be local scripture spellings.

As the trees are expanding our knowledge of the people named Wareham, it is also providing evidence to, unfortunately, prove that where some think they are related to the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Warham, they are not. Although in these few cases so far found, it is disheartening for some, it just shows how assumptions and family myths have signposted researchers down the wrong line of expectation.

5th May 2023

Soldiers update

Having spent some years researching the 104 Soldiers with the name Wareham, we have finally got to the conclusion that there are 15 of them related to my family. It is sad to realise that the wider family have lost so many for a pointless war! It is our intention to conduct a one off tour of all 104 graves and memorials to take photographs and videos to provide a basis for a memorial book to honour them.

8th February 2023

Windows 11 Update

Towards the end of 2021 i received a message from Microsoft that my PC was illegible for the free Windows 11 upgrade; so when the upgrade link appeared i duly followed the instructions. However, my MS Access Database stopped displaying the thumbnail images. On investigating it appears that there is no support for MS Paint in Windows 11 and because of this the OLE image link between MS Access and MS Paint failed.

I sought assistance from my I.T. Guru who was able to apply a ‘fix’ and now we are up and running again.

Microsoft need to be more aware of the ‘damage’ they have caused and in not making users more aware of potential issues and also providing a fix for said issues automatically within the upgrade.

So, a word of warning if you have not yet upgraded to Windows 11, be aware of potential issues and especially ensure you back-up all your data etc.

——————————————————————————————————————-

Brickwall – smashed – June 2021

On tracing my paternal line i came to a complete stop with my 8 x Great-Grandfather Joseph Wareham of which the only record found was a Parish Record that showed Joseph married a Betty; I found their three children, however there was no other records about Joseph.

This situation remained unchanged from 2001 until 2017 when, on a visit to the ‘Who do you think you are’ live event at Birmingham, which luckily was not too busy with visitors, i found i could book a free 15 Minute slot with an expert to ask advice. I did this and within the hour i was sat with the expert; i explained the situation and she gave me some options.

One of which, she was sure, that if i could find a Wareham WILL, it should help give me a clue or an answer. The WILL could be from anyone around Joseph’s immediate family, however as i did not know any of his siblings or parents, and could not find any for his children, i began a logical search of the Wareham WILLS of which i knew i had saved copies of, in my incoming archives and so far unread.

Within two hours of starting the search at home that same evening i found Joseph! Unbelievable; i had him in my archive of documents, that i was slowly working through, all that time.

I found a John Wareham in a local village that when John wrote or had his WILL written, he directly mentioned his Brother Joseph in the village his bother lived in. Perfect! It all matched.

As i then found John’s parents and therefore Joseph’s, quite easily, this opened the door to a whole new family group, which if it had not been for the WILL, i probably would never have the evidence to link the family groups.

Key message: never give up; plan a logical search and search with a fine tooth comb; think of different angles to approach the problem with and think about getting advice to help you solve the brick wall.

——————————————————————————————————————-

Backup – near disaster – May 2021

So the transfer of all data from the old Lotus Approach 97 Database has achieved its first step. The data has now been transferred to Access Database and i am now able to update the records again. I had to stop updating in October 2019 as my amazing I.T. guru needed a snapshot of all data as it was on the day.

I can say that there is still work to do to provide further functionality, however it looks and feels great.

This is a stepping stone phase as Microsoft have discontinued support for MS Access; so a future phase will be to find an Access Replacement and to upgrade to new software; what this is or turns out to be will become clear when the time comes, but at least now the data is in a Format that will make the upgrade much simpler.

So, onwards Sir Honkers, we have work to do! 🙂

——————————————————————————————————————-

Genealogy Research – January 2021

What have we achieved? – Backing up electronic copies of research files can be a simple process if you get it right. But when you get it wrong, it is soul destroying! A few days ago I undertook my monthly back of all my research files. Usually this goes without any issues, however on this occasion I made a serious error. I had both Windows open but i managed to copy some backup files to my working files instead of the other way around.

About 10 minutes into the update I noticed that the backup was going back to front; It was just in time to stop the backup and checking on the damage done, i saw it had overwritten my 101 Soldiers files. I then began the process of rebuilding the files 1 by 1 and that overall, only 6 files were damaged.

The cause was probably tiredness and I have put in place some process steps to ensure it will not happen again. I have also found out that in Windows 10 the Previous Versions backup option was not switched on. I didn’t even know i had to turn it on manually!
Hey ho! – a lesson learned.