Armchair Genealogy - Family Tree & History

Mell 0:00
Hi and welcome to the Armchair Genealogy podcast, where we aim to demystify technology and make it useful in family tree research, whilst making it fun and easy to do. featuring interviews and alternative tips. Please remember to subscribe and share the podcast. So on with the episode, I'm speaking with Richard Miller from GoldieMay.com. What is Goldie May you ask? Well, Goldie May, for me to sum it up is probably some kind of genealogy research software tool to accelerate research. But it sounds very technical. And I know it's a fantastic piece of kit. So instead of me rabbiting on, let's let's let's chat with Richard. And that's First off, we should, how did you get into genealogy?

Richard Miller 0:48
Hey, Mel, thank you so much. I appreciate it. I worked as a software developer at three different genealogy companies, the last of which was Find My Past. And I didn't do much genealogy of my own during that time, believe it or not. And so as I started doing more genealogy of my own, I thought, okay, there's something more I'd like to contribute in the area of organisation and understanding one's research, and being able to navigate around more quickly between the sites. So you said it really well genealogy research software, is what Goldie May is, and it's named after my great grandmother, Goldie, and my, and May comes from my wife's side of the family. So that's where we got the name.

Mell 1:26
So everyone knows that the headache of saving your sources, and your notes and your general thoughts that are going around in your head, and you go off down rabbit holes, and you think I'll remember this for tomorrow, and you forget to write things down. So can you talk us through on what it actually does for you? And how it will?

Richard Miller 1:45
Yeah, yeah, you bet. So, as I got into genealogy, I thought I really liked the tree programs that are already out there. So I don't want to replace that. But I noticed that I had a lot of papers on my desk. There were no pads and sticky notes on my monitor and I was diagramming what was I finding out? And does this person connect to that person in this particular record. And so I wanted to replace all of that. So I kind of say that Goldie, May doesn't replace the family soft, family tree software you're already using, but it might replace your spreadsheet, your Word doc, your that your papers on your desk and your stickies on your, your monitor. So it's intended to keep you organised by keeping your projects organised. And that might be your different lines of your family or client work if you're doing professional genealogy. And so you have a place to keep each objective and the research subjects and the tasks and kind of a research plan for every project you're working on. And that's sort of the organisational side of that.

Mell 2:42
So how does the software actually work? What does it plug into? Or what is it assist with?

Richard Miller 2:48
Yeah, so Alright, so you, you go to GoldieMay.com, and there's an install button, it takes you over to the Chrome Web Store, where you'll install this as a Chrome extension in your browser. So it does need to be on a desktop or laptop computer, not a phone or iPad. And it needs to be Chrome or Firefox. Not yet Safari. And so it's going to be running in your browser. So you'll you'll click the Goldie May button in your browser, and it opens up a side panel. And so you can imagine that as you're searching the internet across Family Search, Ancestry, Find My Past, My Heritage wherever you go, it's going to offer additional tools in your browser to keep you organised and kind of be there with you as you as you're researching. One of the features is a research log. So instead of having to copy and paste the URL of the site, you're you found over to a spreadsheet or something, you can click a button and it will just pull over the URL and title into your Goldie May research log. And that research log is part of the project you're working on. And you might have these multiple research logs that you're keeping. And if you want to take it a step further, you can toggle on the automatic research log. And so now everywhere you go, as you're browsing the internet, that is all being attributed to that particular log, it just picks up the URL and title automatically adds it to your log. And then you can add comments a citation abstract, you could add screenshots, and you can export your log to so if you want to take it out of Goldie May and take it over to your spreadsheet of choice, you can export your log and use it there as well.

Mell 4:19
It's amazing because we've all done it we go on that that rabbit hole where you just spot an odd name. And an hour later you're looking at somebody that you didn't even know existed and you're going I'll never remember or at least how did I get to this particular site but this this system actually helps you just log every single site you visit.

Richard Miller 4:38
Yeah, that's right. It's so true. It's so easy to go down a rabbit hole and really enjoy the search. It's so fun to be searching for ancestors and and we all love that search and finding something. And so if you look up after 30 minutes and realize you have 30 tabs open in your browser, and you don't remember how you got there. Goldie May can be logging all have that as you've gone through it, or, alternatively, there's even a feature to bookmark all of your tabs. So you can say, alright, I don't know what these 30 tabs are, I can't sort it out right now. It's closing time at the library or I'm done for the day or my, I'm worried my computer might restart, you can take a snapshot of all those tabs and keep that with the project. And then you know, you won't lose it, and you can come back to it later. So I call that rabbit hole insurance.

Mell 5:27
So I'll tell you what, I know he's not going to show it show anything for the people listening to the podcast, but I will load it up later on, and do the video version. But could you launch the software and share yours? Yeah, and just just show me some of the the tricks and we can maybe talk about some of the things that it actually is doing?

Richard Miller 5:46
Yeah, you bet I'll click Share on Zoom will open up the side window, and then you'll see the option to sign in with Family Search. It does require a free Family Search account at the moment, though, you don't need to use any other family search features if you don't like to, but it works well with Family Search if you want to. Now here you're seeing Goldie may off to the side, there's a little bit of a metaphor of an assistant off to the side helping you. But you'll you'll see various tools, the projects that I mentioned, keeping your research organised into projects, there's a research log, and I mentioned windows and tabs, this is the place to bookmark all the tabs you've you have opened. So let me just go into that here to show you what that might look like. So suppose I'm looking for, let's see, looking for the parents of Sarah Anne Wilson, I can have this objective at the top, this is going to help me stay focused, as I'm researching. There's a place for notes. And then there's a place for the research subjects. So I can either type in a name and put it here in the research subjects area. Or I can paste in a Family Search ID. And this will pull in all the information for that person. And then below that there's a place for tasks. So you can of course, it works like a task list you've used before where you, you can type your tasks and mark them done and delete them and reorder them. But it integrates with the browser because it's running in your browser. So suppose I come in here to Sarah Anne, I'm going to look at the places she lived. And suppose I am looking at she lived in Putnam County, Illinois. And I can open up the FamilySearch catalog for Putnam County, Illinois with a click and suppose looking for her parents, let's see if there's some kind of probate record for her, I might come in here and see okay, there is an Illinois Putnam County probate record for the time period. And so I would like to add this to my research plan. I'll right click on the link, and go to Goldie May and choose add tasks to project. And then you'll see that title and URL of that link come into my task list. And so instead of going down the rabbit hole, first of going into this record, and browsing all the images, etc, I can build up a task list of all the relevant things that might help me answer my objective looking for parents of Sara Anne Wilson. And then after I've built up that research plan, I can start going through systematically, and I might click open that particular collection, and I'm going to start browsing these images. And when I've determined that she is or isn't in that collection, then I can mark this as done. And I've gone systematically through my research plan. And so now it doesn't matter if I've, I'm done for the day. And I need to come back to this tomorrow or in a week or a month, I can pick up the task list where I left off, and know that I'm working toward my goal of of this objective, and I'm showing FamilySearch here, but it really it could be any website. So if I'm on Ancestry, or I'm on any of the other websites Cindy's List or wherever it might be, Find My Past any of those any website on the internet will work here to right click and add a link to the task list and then mark it done. So Goldie May really benefits from being integrated with your browser to work with the websites you're already using and help you stay organised. I'll just point out to, go ahead.

Mell 9:04
When you put in the name like you got Sarah Anne so is all the information that's there, what it's pulled in, or what you've put in as what you've got so far.

Richard Miller 9:14
That's. it's pulled in that information. So if I were just to add the person as text, so if I were just to type Sarah Anne it would look like this just simple text, but because I've pasted in the Family Search ID for Sarah anne then it's going to add in all that relative information and various collections in which she might appear. And all of the places from the family search tree that we know about for her. And those gives you the options to hover over those places and find resources at each jurisdiction level.

Mell 9:47
But you can look at the drop down there that you've got. You can also then link it into things like Ancestry or My Heritage or Find My Past.

Richard Miller 9:55
That's right. Yeah. So if you're looking at the places she lived, and suppose she was an immigrant from well, here's an example she was born in Canada. And so I could click on what does Find My Past have for Canada, and it's going to pre fill that search for Canada. And I can just start to browse records they might have for Canada. So for any country, and then for the various states and counties of the US or the counties of the United Kingdom, it's going to offer those that opportunity to look for resources at that level,

Mell 10:24
This is just one name. So and you can now have multiple projects. So you can have multiple people or multiple families, you can have different family names.

Richard Miller 10:32
That's right. So I have my list of projects. And I don't do professional research. So I don't have client work in here. But I have lots of different family projects from my family, my wife's family, some friends. And so you might have like this one. Here's a project where I've listed five different research subjects that parents and three triplets. And so as I research on them, I can use those five subjects, and they have a research log of their own. And so different images that I've found related to that particular objective are all there in my notes. And, you know, if you're not seeing this right now, there's inside the research log, there's a place to like and dislike your your entries in your research log, just as if you're looking at Facebook or Instagram liking something, there's a place to write an abstract or a citation. And then there is a place for comments. And then the listeners aren't seen. But there's also a place for screenshots. So if you have gone into an image like this, alright, I've pulled up the image on Ancestry. And I can right click on the image, any really any page, any other website to choose, take a screenshot. And now you'll notice my cursor is crosshairs. And I can draw a box around some portion of the page that I want to save to my research log. And you'll see that pop over to the research log on the right. So now that piece of image is there. And if I've been at the library accessing certain images that are available only at the library, and I'm using Goldie May, then when I go home, I can still see my screenshots at home, because I've pulled out those pieces for myself into my research log. So that is really nice when I want to go back to my research and just remind myself, you know, what exactly am I looking at here. And it helps me stay organised in my objective,

Mell 12:17
Very easily done when people are out and about doing research or their friends and they spot something. And then you're thinking, oh, I need to, I need to, to email this to myself, and you have to log on to your email, at least this way, you've just you're doing it all in one one hit. So it doesn't matter where you are.

Richard Miller 12:35
That's right, yeah, you can just keep it with you. You've already hinted at this, but the data is kept in the cloud. So even though you've installed Goldie Mays browser extension in your browser, the data is not in your browser, it's in the cloud so that as you sign in with your account elsewhere, you'll see all of that data, no matter where you go.

Mell 12:51
Now, we'll also see on the list, you've got a list of all the different things that it does, you've got sub subway map?

Richard Miller 12:57
So this is referring to a diagram of the place someone lived. And so let me show you what that looks like. I'm going to toggle off the three triplets here. And so on the y axis, you're seeing the places someone lives on the x axis, you're seeing the years of their life, and then it's pulling in data from the FamilySearch tree, or it would work with the Ancestry tree of their lifetime. So as I hover over these points, you can see the different points of their life that come from the tree. And this sort of diagram where you're seeing places mapped against time, gives you a sense of where they lived over time and what their migrations were, and whether there might be any anomalies in the in the patterns. So you can see this husband and wife, the husband or wife lines side by side, and you can see that the one was born in Utah County, the other in Salt Lake County, they come together, and you can kind of see that they move to Union County, Oregon, and you see the birth of their children. And then you see they moved back to Utah. Sometimes when you look at a subway map like this, you'll see really distinct zigzag patterns where someone's living in one county of England, and then another county of England and then back. And suppose it's not the 1900s, but the 1800s, then you start to really wonder, hey, wait a second, is the data correct that we've got this, John Wilson living in opposite sides of England in the 1800s. It may be that instead of it someone moving across the country, it might be that we have the wrong data, we're looking at the wrong John Wilson, across the country. And so it really, really visualises really quickly what might be a problem. And so then in addition to that, you can some of these other options here, bringing hints, for example. So you can it will show you census hints that might be applicable to your user or your senior newspaper hints, these are newspapers that ran at the time someone live in a given place. And so it lets you see collections in context or or other or other other data that benefits from that kind of visual look at it.

Mell 14:58
I do like when, when all this sort of software gives you a variations on how it's presented visually, because you just end up with a list of names and dates, and you're just going this, this means nothing. But as soon as you get a map, or some kind of graph that's showing you names on it, and dates, you start going out this, this is making far more sense.

Richard Miller 15:17
It's so true in this is the sort of thing that I used to diagram on paper and had my ruler out, and I was using graph paper. And now it's for me, it's so nice to keep the subway map open off to the side as a research and just use that as my second brain to see that does the research makes sense? And I get a sense of context for where the person lives.

Mell 15:39
I love the phrase "Second brain". I quite like that. And I'm going to steal that one. So you've also got mentioned on their newspaper coverage tool.

Richard Miller 15:47
All right, yeah, the newspaper coverage tool. So here, I pulled up an ancestor James Jones, who is from England. In as you follow trace this line, you'll notice he was born in Hertfordshire, England, we do have a data point for him being baptized in Wales. So there you go automatically. Wait a second, was he really baptized in Wales? Or is this a different is that data point from a different person, but continuing on, he has lots of data points and in that town of St. Martin's, and then we do see a marriage in Middlesex County, England. And so there, you're seeing that gold bar, which is the newspaper hence, and this is going to pull in any newspapers that Goldie May knows of that ran at that time in place, it's going to offer that to you as the link. So here, the icon, that red icon refers to Storied, they were formerly called newspapers, Newspaper Archive, but now called Storied looks like all of these results happen to be from Storied, but it's gonna say the London standard ran at that time in place, this is what kind of 1815 in London, so the London standard might have data that would be helpful to you, Storied has 172,000 pages of that newspaper. So if you click the link, that's going to take you over to their website. And then depending on whether you have a subscription to that website or not, you could decide that you want to search that particular newspaper for for your ancestor. And and you know, maybe in London, it's going to still be hard to find names. But in especially in the smaller towns, the newspapers are going to have really good coverage for our ancestors, because the newspapers kind of covered even the minutiae of so and so went to visit so and so. And especially in the small towns, this is really common. So having a tool where you can see which newspapers ran at the time and place your ancestor lived in a particular place is really helpful to know, you know, which subscription should I buy to? Should I get genealogy bank or newspapers.com? Or, or Storied, if your ancestors have a lot of coverage in a given subscription? You can buy that one for a month, and then use your do it for your research and, and see how that goes. So that's yeah, that's showing you in this case, all the newspapers that ran in London, that might contain information about this James Jones, and in this case, his marriage.

Mell 18:09
What's fascinating is it listing you all the newspapers that were in print for that area, which usually you'd have to go and log into one, and then go looking to see if there's something there, but at least it's giving you all the ones that are worth looking at.

Richard Miller 18:24
Yeah, and it's sorting it by which newspaper has the most pages in that particular provider. So that might be your fastest chance for a match is to look in the largest newspaper on that provider at that time. And hopefully, you you're narrowing down the haystack in which you're looking for that needle. So you're, you know, it's a very common name James Jones. We don't want to be looking for all the James Jones as across the world. But if I'm looking in the London newspapers in 1815 for James Jones, well then maybe I have a chance of finding a better match from a person

Mell 18:57
incidentally it's Hereford, Herefordshire.

Richard Miller 19:00
Thank you, Herefordshire.

Mell 19:01
Yeah, I only know that because that's where I have traced my family tree back so far.

Richard Miller 19:05
Oh, interesting.

Mell 19:06
All right, here we are in Hereford is on the borderline to Wales. So okay, quite close.

Richard Miller 19:12
So maybe Is there a chance that they would have been baptised in Herefordshire and it's rapture Wales. Okay. Yeah. We're I don't know the locations Well, of the different counties of the UK. I could click on map the places and this will open up a Google map of Herefordshire. And, and then in Wales, and then I can just, zoom in like this and see oh, look, it looks like they're 25 miles apart. So that that may or may not indicate to me that this is the same person or it's not but I get a sense of the places when I when I click that link.

Mell 19:45
It's excellent. I just love the way that you just click on it. It just takes you across to another piece of software without having to go looking and put the same data in all over again.

Richard Miller 19:56
Yeah, I'm really trying to save you clicks for sure to make this a little more efficient as you're researching.

Mell 20:03
And so what's what's the canvas part?

Richard Miller 20:06
Alright, yeah, so the canvas is a visual tool to draw on your screenshots. So suppose we go into that previous triplets project into the canvas. Now, I showed you before that I took screenshots in the research log, those same screenshots are laid out on this canvas as if you had printed them out and put them on your kitchen table. So I can move them around. And now I might use a pen tool to try to make connections between the records. So I might say, All right, yeah, I see a Parley Downs right here. And this connects to this Parley Downs. And it connects to this Parley Downs. And so the sort of thing that you might do with paper and pen on your kitchen table, you could do in your computer to make connections between the records. So one thing might be that you're going to draw lines between parts of the records to connect them. Another thing might be that I've got I've got, it appears more than one Parley Downs. And it looks like I'm really dealing with different families, I might want to use a technique that I call swim lanes, where you're going to pretend that the swimming pool runs like this. And this is the passage of time. And I'm going to say that this is my lane one, this is my lane two. And I'm going to just move the images into the lanes that match that family. So if I decide, yeah, I see a Parley and a Lillian. And there, it looks like they're the same family. And this is the same name. So I'm going to put them together in the same lane. But if I discover that there's a different Parley Downs married to some other lady at the same time, then I'm going to put him into a different lane because it looks like he's a different family. So you can sort out visually the images you're looking at of records and sort out, you know, which family belongs to whom that's this is sort of the the antidote or the solution for that previous problem in the subway map where you're seeing the zigzags, and you're seeing, you know, the, the James Jones that's in, in Herefordshire, and then he's in Wales. Well, if we were to take screenshots of all the, all the data is shown associated with that person, all the sources on that part of the tree, then I could start to visually move those sources around and decide, okay, yeah, there's a different James Jones living in Wales. And so I'm going to put him in lane two of my swim lane to sort out what family he's part of. And then later, I can go back to the tree and correct the mistake. But I've used this as my thinking tool to just sort out what's going on here.

Mell 22:32
How big is this canvas? Is it unlimited?

Richard Miller 22:36
As far as I know, it's unlimited. Yeah, I think if you just kind of keep scrolling, it's gonna keep going. So it's just gonna, it's gonna keep going, it's got kind of a zoom level. And so you could choose to zoom to fit. And this is going to sort of try to fit everything into one screen. But yeah, you can, you can use your I'm using a trackpad or the, you know, your different keys of your mouse if you're using one or two fingers to pinch, and kind of pinch and zoom and move this around to sort it out to be what you want it to be. And then there's, I'm showing the Pen Tool, there's other tools like creating a sticky note. Or if you there's these kind of sticky arrows, if you draw this arrow, you can stick this to a piece of the image and then stick it to the other part of the image. And it kind of it stays sticky with the image. So as you move images around that line connects to that part of the image. So you had a few different options for pen tools and things to sort things out there. You could find other they call this whiteboarding tools or collab visual collaboration tools. There are others like this, some free and some paid on the internet. I'm wanting to keep this all in the context of your genealogy by having a built into Goldie May so that you don't have to separately take your screenshots and then go import them over to a new program. They're already there by virtue of you having taken screenshots and your research thoughts. So I'm hoping that by kind of integrating that all together in one place that keeps the research nice and easy.

Mell 24:04
Absolutely I mean, that's, that's, that's what I was thinking, because I've got a piece of software that does screen grabs, but again, you have to open that one and then save it somewhere and set up a folder and this way is so much more superior. And can you see like you've drawn notes and like drawn lines all over it? Can you screenshot that? So and then go back to just being an unlined one. So you've got an original and a mess about one.

Richard Miller 24:32
Yeah, so suppose you you know what example this would be. In the US the censuses before 1850 did not mention anyone by name except the head of household. So in those ones, you have the name of the Father Ramson Collins here, and then tally marks representing the ages of the people in the household, but you don't know their names. You just know that they're a certain age. And so this is a canvas where I've drawn lines between The tally marks to a screenshot of the tree. So I can say like, if it's 1840, and this tally mark represents someone aged five to 10. Living in the household, well, then that person must have been born from 1830 to 1835. And so that must line up with the second son in this family. And so I'm using this tool to sort out who is the who if this is the right family and this record. So suppose I decide this is an important part of my evidence that I've sorted out this, you could use your computer's screenshot tool at that point, to draw a box around the canvas, and, and take a screenshot of it, I think you could even come in here and do the Goldie May screenshot as well take a screenshot, draw your box around it like this. And now you've you've kind of taken a screenshot of your screenshots, so that if you go into your research log, now, you're going to see that is an important part of the evidence. And maybe you would even write a comment and say, This is how I sorted out, you know, this particular census record or whatever, why, why this 1840 census record is my family, I use this particular analysis to sort that out.

Mell 26:09
I love the fact that you've added the comments box in there, because as you've said earlier, you can be doing something today and you're having a full on day, and you're really stuck in and then you put it away, and you don't perhaps come back for another couple of weeks. And by the time you come back, you're going who was looking up and found something, where was that and you're back to square one again.

Richard Miller 26:26
You're right, that's completely true. I mean, you really are speaking to your future self, when you write these notes, because your future self won't remember all the context you currently have about where you're at. But if you can read that note from your past self, then you'll jump back quickly into that context, plugs

Mell 26:44
Plugs into and uses Family Search at the moment are the ones to try and get it to integrate with others are you sticking with with just the FamilySearch one?

Richard Miller 26:54
Yeah, the subway map is and is the main tool that really depends on having access to your tree. And that one works with Family Search and Ancestry. So whether you're on ancestry.com, or on ancestry.co.uk, it will work with Ancestry. One thing that's kind of interesting about the Ancestry version is that everybody has their own tree. And some of us share that tree with the public. And so if you go into the ancestry tree, and you look for other James Jones, you can plot the line for all of the James Jones you find against each other. So you might have your version of James Jones plotted against someone else's version of James Jones and the various James Jones out there. And so you can see kind of point by point who has data that you don't have on the tree. So yeah, the subway map is the one that depends on the tree. And it works with those two providers. The other tools really don't depend on any one particular genealogy program. So projects, research law, Canvas, Windows, and tabs. These are all tools that work with any website on the internet. So if you're on Find My Past, or you're you're logging records from there, or you're taking screenshots from there, or you're on the British Newspaper Archive, you, you can do any of those things with those websites, create tasks, log those entries, create screenshots, draw on them save bookmarks. So really, it's the subway map that kind of depends on unique access to the trees. But the rest of it really is more agnostic to working with the various websites that are out there.

Mell 28:28
And all the stuff that you're saving in there all your notes and everything, is there a way of if you wanted to export that all out, so it's just another data file,

Richard Miller 28:36
I don't have an option for kind of a sweeping export at the moment, there is an option to export the research logs. So you could come down here and choose export as a CSV. And you would see the titles and URLs and dates and comments and all the research log data come out except the screenshots, which don't insert, you know, which can't be inserted into a CSV file. I'm open to doing an export on the projects, too. I haven't done that yet or gotten to that. But I would be open to doing that as well.

Mell 29:06
Yeak, I'd be interesting, in that, particularly if you're doing screen grabs of you got documents of birth certificates. And then the last thing you'd want is to then go, oh, I need to go online to find this. And all you want to do is show it to somebody. And you can just,

Richard Miller 29:20
Yeah, when people ask me, How do I use Goldie May with my desktop programs such as RootsMagic, or Family Tree Maker? I say, Well, you know, there's a portion of your research that just has to happen online, probably, you know, you, you can certainly be working in books and archives and things. But a lot of your research is going to be online. So that research portion of online is going to be the place where you use Goldy May. And that's where you're going to keep track of your projects and your research log and the different bookmarks that you've made. And when you come to a conclusion about that, James Jones, you know, what is the date about James Jones? That's going to be when you'll take it over your desktop program and save those, those final conclusions to your program. And so maybe that's the time where you take over your screenshots out of Goldy May and you put them in your, your, their final resting place in your desktop program. So that could be your long term storage, I think of Goldie May is the place for your work in progress where you're sorting out the information and trying to figure out which James Jones is which. But you'll want to have your own place, whether that's an online tree or a desktop program to save your conclusions once you come to them.

And you were saying all this data is stored out on the cloud. So my concern would be what happens if if, if Goldie May was to stop working at the moment? How would I get to his all if you decided, I can't afford to keep all this data stored now? Because it must be I mean the file will just get keep getting bigger and bigger?

Yeah, that's a good question. I think probably exporting your research log and your images. And then as I offer the option, the option to export the projects would be your final safety about that. Yeah, at the moment, I guess, Goldie May is fortunate to have both free and paid features. So the paid customers of Goldie May help fund it so that it can be a going concern, and in more than pays for the storage cost that's associated with this. But yeah, you'll definitely want to follow best practices of having your data in multiple places, and really keeping your whatever is your source of truth about your research, whether that's a desktop program, or your ancestry tree, or wherever it might be, you'll definitely want to keep all of your kind of final conclusions somewhere that you consider safe as well.

Mell 31:39
I'm just one of these people that I'm always thinking of belt and braces. Like, what else? Where else? Can I store something? Yeah, that one? That's true. I'll get paranoid about anything that I ever work on is have I got another copy somewhere else? So that the overall view on this? So you mentioned about the paid version? So so there's a free version and a paid version? And what does it work out to? How does it How does it work? Do the monthly is it yearly?

Richard Miller 32:05
Yeah, you could do a monthly or yearly subscription, there's certainly plenty to do for free. So if you were to go to Goldie May.com, install the browser extension, right away, be able to use several features for free, such as projects and the research log. And there's limited use of some of the other features as well. So that'd be your way to taste test it and see if it's helpful. And then if it's helpful to upgrade and then on Goldie May.com, you'll find information about the pricing, there's a both Plus and Pro subscriptions, you can sign up by month or by year, if you send it by year, then you get two months free for the year. And then if you for your listeners, I'll offer a coupon code of 20% off for a year. So they can use coupon code "Armchair" to get that 20% off. And that's good, whether you use it month to month and cancel it anytime or or use it for the full year. And so, yeah, Goldie May.com would be your place to learn about the different features and the pricing.

Mell 33:04
Well, that's fantastic. And on behalf of the listeners, I thank you for that. Because like it's always good to be able to testbed something and try it out. So the fact that you've got a free version, and you can play it and you're offering a discount, it's just like it's a no brainer, as far as I'm concerned, people should just give it a try and see if it works for them because everyone has their own own way of doing things.

Richard Miller 33:25
That's right. Yeah. One other people ask me sometimes if I have a trial option, and I don't but the the way to trial, this would be to find the Family Search centre nearest you. So if you go to familysearch.org/centers, there's a place where you can type in your town, and it will show you the Family Search center nearest you, it'll show the hours. And then if you go into any one of those centers, all of the Goldie May premium features are available for free there. So that'd be one other way to try it out as well.

Mell 33:53
Excellent, Okay, well, thank you very much for your time, Richard, this is it's it's been a real eye opener seen a piece of software that literally plugs in to all the other ones and makes life just a little bit easier with all this paperwork and, and, and things that you're constantly going around in the head when you're trying to do some research.

Richard Miller 34:10
Well, thank you, Mell. I appreciate the opportunity. Thanks for the great questions, and I'm excited to follow your podcasts as you go.

Mell 34:16
My thanks to Richard Miller from GoldyMay.com And do remember, he currently offered a 20% discount off the annual or monthly subscription which you can cancel at any time. When you purchase. Just make sure you use the discount code Armchair, before the purchase. Until next time, happy and productive research. Email the podcast by contacting us info@armchairgenealogy.com