Armchair Genealogy - Family Tree & History

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Genealogy Guy 0:17
Welcome along to another episode of armchair genealogy with me, Mell, the genealogy guy who like you, is on the journey of family tree research. This episode, I'm joined by professional genealogist Kelly Cornwall, from Who am I research.com Kelly's work covers everything from teaching social media skills and online research to unlocking treasures on National Archives website, she's presented to the society of genealogists, the family history Federation and many local history groups with a special passion for stories of transported convicts. Sounds very intriguing. Kelly brings history to life in a way that both is practical and deeply human. Let's jump in and hear her story. So welcome on to the studio.

Kelly Cornwell 1:01
Hello, Mell. Thanks ever so much for having me.

Genealogy Guy 1:03
That's a pleasure. And the first question I'd like to kick off with, as I usually do with everybody, what sparked your interest in family history research? Where did it all start?

Kelly Cornwell 1:12
Like many, many others that get drawn into this world, it was listening to family stories when I was growing up, my paternal side of the family more so. So both my grandparents, on my dad's side were the eldest of their siblings. My dad was the eldest and I was the eldest. So as a child, I was lucky enough to have lots of great aunts and uncles still living around me quite regularly. We would meet up, and I just grew up listening to this other place in time, but it almost felt like an actual place that they were speaking of. I could picture it in my mind. Just became obsessed with it, really. I think it was probably around about the time I was planning to get married. Don't know whether it was the thought of I was maybe losing my identity, and so I don't know, subconsciously, this is me just kind of looking back on it. I don't know whether that prompted me to actually start documenting this now.

Genealogy Guy 2:31
It sounds as though you've done exactly what I tell everybody to do, which is talk to all the people that are still alive, that are older and got memories. So you had a great start to it all. What led you into becoming a professional genealogist? From, from starting there, how did you suddenly go, oh, actually, I could do this as a job?

Speaker 1 2:48
It was a bit strange. So I've, I've obviously, you know, as we all get asked by friends, Oh, you do your family history. Can you help me? So I done that, and I was a chef in a previous life. That was my job, and and then I'd gone into recruitment, and then I gave it all up to have children. And then they were both at school, my two boys, and I thought, I think I might go back to work now, but my husband worked away quite a lot, so I needed something that would fit around the children. And I was having a cup of tea with a friend one day, and we were coming up with all of these mad business ideas. And then the conversation moved on, and we were chatting about me researching family history for another one of our friends, and then this friend said, Well, why don't you do that research people's family history and charge them? And I thought, I can't do that. That's never going to work. And it's just me, you know, the whole imposter syndrome slapped me round the face and said, No, you can't do this. But kind of as a bit of fun, we came up with a a logo and a company name, and then I created a Facebook page, but I didn't launch it, it wasn't live. I was just kind of playing around with things, and it started feeling a bit more real, so I signed up to WordPress and created my own website, because I thought I really don't want to lay out any money, because I don't know if this is going to work, and I don't want to be out of pocket. So I did everything as cheaply as I possibly could, and then I on the 5th of October, 2016 I made my facebook page go live, and by the end of that day, I had four clients.

Genealogy Guy 2:49
Fantastic story,

Kelly Cornwell 2:49
Bonkers.

Genealogy Guy 3:10
It just goes to show you come from a little acorns, and all that sort of stuff. And then projects can happen. So I know you, one of your specialist areas is transported convicts. How did you get in? Did you find somebody in your family? Or was it just something that intrigued you?

Kelly Cornwell 3:32
My paternal grandmother, my Nan, she was one of the people who really inspired me to kind of follow this passion for family history. And so for many, many years, I concentrated on her branch of my family tree, because she was always so interested to listen to what I'd found out one of her lines, and it was my four times great grandfather, George Monksfield, so her two times great grandfather, and she actually gave me a lot of these names. She knew she remembered from her grandparents. She remembered these names, and obviously I did the due diligence, I did the proper research and backed up everything she told me, so I knew I was definitely on the right line, and I was actually looking for information about George's parents, Joseph and Rebecca Monksfield. When I came across a newspaper article about Rebecca Monksfield, but it wasn't George's mum, it was George's sister, and it transpired that she had been convicted for stealing numerous pairs of shoes, and she had been convicted and found guilty and sent to Tasmania, and then researching that, I just became obsessed with transported convicts.

Genealogy Guy 6:47
So what sort of records exist for people researching convicted ancestors?

Kelly Cornwell 6:54
Where do I begin? There are so, so, so many you have, obviously the newspapers which will report on on on the alleged crime, and then, of course, the proven or conviction, the prison registers, ships, surgeons journals, so there aren't too many records for the convicts when they're on board ship. But should they have needed any assistance from the ship's surgeon? Then they might be mentioned in there, then, but then, once they get to Australia, oh my goodness, there's just so many things there. There are muster rolls, there are newspapers over there, and the brilliant website, Trove is it is a trove. It's a treasure trove, because what it contains is unbelievable, and one of the things that it does have is newspapers. So there are lots of newspaper articles about convicts absconding and then being apprehended and brought back. There are conduct records, which are my absolute favorite, because my ancestor, Rebecca, was a bit naughty, and her conduct record is just brilliant. It just gives us all the details of her mischief. Yeah, just all sorts certificates of freedom, and so much of it's available online for free,

Genealogy Guy 8:20
If you were talking to somebody that that's discovered something, and think there's a convict in there just to get them started. What advice would you give to someone just starting to explore a convicts ancestor story?

Kelly Cornwell 8:33
What I would say is try and find the name of the ship that they were on board, because in convict records, over in Australia and Tasmania, mainland and in Tasmania, the convict records whether they be muster rolls or conduct records, they'll have the person's name, and they always have the name of the ship that they were transported on. So once you've found that it's unlikely that there are two people with the same name on board the same ship. It's possible, you know, quite often, we'll think that a name's unusual, and then when we start digging around, we think, Oh, actually, there were quite a few of those people with the same name. How do I distinguish between them? Knowing the name of the ship that they were transported on will help you a great deal, because their their number that they'll be issued with. So for example, with Rebecca, her number was 114, and she was transported on board the ship Eliza. And there were several ships called Eliza, but if I'm looking at convict records, if I look for Rebecca Monks field number 114, on the ship, Eliza, it's pretty certain that I've got the right person. And then you can just follow the whole journey.

Genealogy Guy 9:53
It sounds as though you need certain clues just to get you underway and running. I'll just. Imagine like it must be a nightmare. If it's just something like John Smith,

Kelly Cornwell 10:05
It can be done. I have done it. Actually. It wasn't a Smith. It was a Brown but yes, it can be done. If your convict ancestor was from London and they were tried at the Old Bailey, there's a brilliant website called Old Bailey online, and they have trials. They have transcriptions of the trials that were heard at the Old Bailey. And so you can look on there, and you can find out information about what happened during the trial. And they're full of detail. They're absolutely fantastic. If your ancestor was outside of London, then you'd need to go to your local record office and look at the the court records for your particular area. Or if they were at the asssizes, then you need to go to the National Archives. But websites such as digital panopticon,

Genealogy Guy 10:59
Digital what?

Kelly Cornwell 11:01
Digital panopticon (https://www.digitalpanopticon.org/), its a, I think, if I remember rightly, I think panopticon was a term that was given to a certain style of prison that kind of looked like a starfish. I suppose I think it means kind of like all viewing. So there was a prison style that had, like a core central section, and then it had arms coming off of it. Yes, so digital panopticon, again, it's predominantly based on convicts whose trials were at the Old Bailey. But I've actually been looking at somebody from Suffolk this morning and who was at the Quarter Sessions in Beckles, who's then, you know, he was listed there and so on. So you can find people from other areas of the country if their trial went there. But yes, just look online and use a fan. Find my past. Have got some excellent collections on there. And you can just kind of go fishing first of all, and type what you do know and see what comes up. And then you can start verifying everything afterwards.

Genealogy Guy 12:13
And I know you also run like sessions, like training sessions with individuals and with groups of people. How do you balance the emotional side of uncovering a story with just the dry, technical side of research?

Kelly Cornwell 12:28
It's hard, isn't it? It's really hard, and particularly if you're a professional genealogist, you have to be a little bit more disciplined, because you do get attached to the people that you're researching, the family that you're researching, and it's only natural you're going to want to dig a little bit more. You're going to want to find out it's really hard to draw that line and say, no, okay, this is what the clients asked me to do. This is what the client's paying me for. If I continue down this rabbit hole, I'm doing it on my own time. I'm not getting paid for it. And if you've got a number of clients that you're balancing or other work and you're trying to fit it all in, you do have to be quite disciplined. It's hard not to get involved. You do feel for them. And the thing is, if you tell that in your client report, you have to be professional, and you have to be quite dry in certain aspects. But if you tell that story to your client, they're going to want to know more, and then hopefully they might commission you to do further research. So yeah, you always need to get involved emotionally.

Genealogy Guy 13:41
So I know you also have run sessions on working with social media, which I spoke to other people, and it's becoming a vibrant thing. So how important do you feel that social media is for genealogists in today's world?

Kelly Cornwell 13:55
I think it's huge. So I teach the course with Pharos and our Big Boss, Karen Cummings, was a guest on your podcast recently, or one of the courses that I run for them is using social media in family history, and we explore different platforms, but we also explore the different ways that the platforms can help us. So social media as a whole has so many different benefits that certain platforms are better for certain certain things. It depends what you want out of it. So for example, Facebook, in my opinion, is the only platform to have successfully implemented a Groups tool. So on Facebook, if you're researching your ancestors or a client's ancestors, and they come from a particular area that you're not hugely familiar with, could be another part of the country. If you go onto Facebook and search for, I don't know, Wolverhampton history. Then there will be a Facebook page. If not, then create your own. But certainly, there are so many Facebook groups dedicated to the history of places, and if you go on and join the group, you can chat with people who really know the area and can give you local knowledge, but you'll also see photos of the place 100 years ago, and it just brings it together. You might see photos of a farm or a factory that your ancestor worked in or on, and those little aspects just give so much not detail. How can I explain it? Just give it so much more life to your research, because you start being able to view the world that your ancestors lived in. Some of the other brilliant things that social media is great for. I mean, Paul Chiddicks, for example, run a project about the old palace school bombing that his ancestor was involved tragically killed, and he ran a project on social media and said, can people help me? I want volunteers to help me research the the 34 I think people who were killed in this tragic event. And people stepped up and helped him. And if it wasn't for social media, he would never have been able to do that.

Genealogy Guy 16:25
I always think it's great when I see online that they've got their own Facebook group that's actually helping people

Jingle 16:32
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Genealogy Guy 16:38
Let's take a short break listening to Kelly Cornwall from Who am I research.com and get an update from Ruth Wilmore with what's coming up on society of genealogists this October, and maybe even a sneak preview of future plans. So Ruth, what, what's going on at the SOG or the Society of genealogists, what, what's coming up in October and and maybe even in the foreseeable future, what sort of things are on the on the skyline?

Ruth Willmore 17:05
Well, October, as I am sure you and all our wonderful listeners know, Mell is Black History Month. So we have a talk by an archivist, Alice, who found in a baptism register from 1794 a father just described as a black man, long, convoluted story later, which is what the talk is all about. She discovered that this black man had been painted by Joshua Reynolds, the famous portrait painter. So join us for that one. But also in October, we are making the month all about maps and boundaries, people crossing boundaries, and how boundaries and maps can be used in genealogy. We have a brand new course, which of course features the National Library of Scotland (https://www.nls.uk/) and The Genealogist (https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/), both websites with fantastic collections of maps. And the course also includes sessions with genealogists, Sophie Kay and Kathy Salton, all about how they use maps for their family history research. So that's a brand new course. Then we've also got talks about the website, ship index (https://www.shipindex.org/), and how to get the most of that for ancestors who emigrated, we've got talks about subsidised emigration to Canada, and all about administrative boundaries and how they changed, and how county boundaries aren't necessarily the same as registration county boundaries. And so that's coming up and unpicking all of that is Mia Bennett. We're also taking the mapping theme in a completely different direction with a look at mind mapping, and how to use mind mapping in genealogy as well. Can't just look at maps, so we're also looking at mitochondrial DNA. We have a workshop on how to get the most out of our collections, where people can come in, use their own computer or one of our computers, and get hands on with Elsa Churchill about how to actually search our catalogs and collections. And finally, we're taking a trip to Devon. We have the Devon Family History Society and the archives in Devon coming along to present all about all the various resources available for family history in Devon, as well as a tour around the archives there. Wow, that's October at SOG,

Genealogy Guy 19:36
Thta a packed period. You've got a lot going on there. And can you give us a taste of anything that's coming up in the foreseeable future?

Ruth Willmore 19:44
Well, coming up in the new year, we've got our stage one family history skills course. So if 2026, is going to be the year you get to grips with your family history, if you want to refresh up, make sure you're doing it all right, then our. Stage One family history skills course is perfect for you, and that will be on Tuesday evenings in January. And I also have up my sleeve, I am planning a in depth long course about advancing your DNA skills, and that's with some of the best genetic genealogists in this country. And they're going to be presenting a long course all about all aspects of genetic genealogy.

Genealogy Guy 20:26
Wow, that's that's getting really technical, but I know it's very, very popular and growing in interest, because so many people have had theirs tested

Ruth Willmore 20:34
Absolutely, and I'm sure plenty more will be having DNA tests for Christmas.

Genealogy Guy 20:40
Oh, yes. Well, thank you very much, Ruth. And Ruth Wilmore from society of genealogists, or SOG, as they like, to sort of send trendy and fab, well, using the word fab all these years. Odds. Thank you very much, Ruth, thank you.

Ruth Willmore 20:56
Thank you. Mell see you again soon.

Genealogy Guy 20:58
And now back to the second half of the chat with Kelly Cornwall given some more tips and experience about genealogical research. You've got over 20 years experience researching family histories across England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland, USA, Australia, which is the hardest country to try and track down stuff

Kelly Cornwell 21:17
Oh, gosh, ah, it's really hard. I think it depends on, depends on the time period, if I'm perfectly honest with you, Mell, when I started my business and these clients came in, not the first four, but I didn't want to say no to anybody, and people were coming to me and said, Oh, could you research my ancestor who in Ireland in and I was saying, yes, of course I can. And I came away and thought, I've got no idea about Irish records, but I didn't want to say no. So I then spent, you know, days and days and days trying to teach myself about Irish records from some of the fabulous online resources that there are. And then the same for America. Here, somebody came to me about America, and I went, Yeah, of course, I can do that. So oh my goodness, no, I don't know what I'm doing here. So again, I had to have a cram mad cramming session of trying to find out what was available. Now, luckily, I've learned the error of my ways, and if a client approaches me about a subject that I'm not comfortable with, I am much, much more confident now to say, I'm sorry that's not really my area of expertise, but I can definitely point you in the direction of somebody who can help you with that. The hardest one, I would probably say, India. So I was helping a client research her British family, and the husband had been serving in the British Army over in India, and he then married, no, it wasn't him. It was his son married a local girl. So then I needed to start looking at Indian records. And that was when I realized, no, this is beyond me. So the British Army records, yes, I could certainly deal with those. And there are lots of records from the British Army overseas, and I could do that. But then when it when we were looking at the family that settled there and who weren't employed by the British Army, then I thought, No, this is I, I wouldn't be doing justice to the work, because I would, there would be big gaps of knowledge, and that wouldn't be fair to the client. So I said, Okay, I've done this bit now. I think you need to go to somebody that's an expert in Indian history to then take a look at that

Genealogy Guy 24:00
You mentioned the National Archives. So with the experience you've had of working with other people and helping other people, what do you wish more people understood about using the National Archives online?

Kelly Cornwell 24:13
Well, first of all, I think people need to know that what you see on Ancestry or find my past is a drop in the ocean to what is really out there. People look on Ancestry and find my past, and they say, oh, you know, there are no records about my ancestor. Yeah, there probably are, but you're probably just not looking in the right place. And the National Archive website, which is another course that I run for Pharos. So it's it's getting the most out of the website. It can be a bit scary. And if you don't understand how an archive is arranged, the hierarchy of catalogs, for example. It can be a bit scary. If you look on the National Archives website and the discovery catalog, you might think, I don't know where to begin, and you type in a person's name, and you don't get the results that you would get on Ancestry and find my past. And you don't really understand why. Well, the reason for that is because lots of the collections of records that the National Archive hold aren't searchable by a person's name, so you might need to get into the records by place and date, and then narrow it down and look at the record that covers that place and date, and then in person, go and have a look and find the name and the individual that you're looking for. But there are so many ways that the National Archives website can help you find the records that you won't find on Ancestry and find my past. So they have brilliant research guides on there. If there's a subject that pops up in your family history that you know nothing about, National Archives, will have a research guide on it. And when I said before about being being approached by clients who were asking me to research something that I wasn't really au fait with. The National Archives Research Guides were one of the first places I went to. And they do have research guides for records of places overseas. So that's that's good. So research guides, their catalog. It's just a fantastic place for genealogists to go.

Genealogy Guy 26:44
When it comes to breakthroughs, or brick walls, as they get referred to as, is there an example of a breakthrough that you've had thanks to online records and also on social media, something that you've just it's a dead end, and then voila, you've found something that just allows you to do the jump.

Kelly Cornwell 27:01
Yes, so, so fortunately, I had two great grandmothers still alive when I was a child, and I knew their names, and I heard stories from them. And sadly, they both passed away in the same year when I was about seven, but I knew them, and I knew their husbands, and I knew their dates of birth, and I knew where they'd lived. I knew their addresses, and when I started my family history research, I filled that in on my on my hand drawn tree, and I thought, yep, I know that. That's not I know her father's name, her mother's name, yep, I know all of that information well. When I started then gathering documents, like certificates, predominantly, I could not find my great grandmother's birth certificate. I could not find it. So I spoke to my mum, spoke to my Nan. So it was actually my nan's husband, my granddad's mother, but he'd passed away by then, and my nan said, No, her date of birth was definitely first of April 1908, I said, I just can't find it anywhere. My nan said, Well, why don't you ring Auntie Doris? Now, Auntie Doris wasn't my auntie. She was actually my great grandmother, who was proving my to be my brick wall. It was her cousin, but we all called her auntie Doris, and my nan said, why don't you give her a call? She was about 90 at the time, so I phoned her up and I said, Look, I'm at this point. Can you help me? You know, I know that her mum was Florence Wilkinson. I know that her dad was Harry Vinton. Why can I not find her birth certificate or baptism or anything? And my auntie Doris said, Well, you know, her dad weren't a real dad. What!? So there's a whole story there. I managed to get her birth certificate. She had been registered under her mother's maiden name, and the birth certificate had no father's name. And I thought, Okay, that's it. I'm never, ever going to know the name of her father. I then was just playing around one day, and I googled the address that was the place of birth given on the birth certificate. It was just a regular address, but it wasn't one that I recognized, and I'd heard stories about all of these places that my ancestors had lived. So I googled it, and it transpired that it was actually the place for a Salvation Army, home for unmarried mothers. So I turned to social media, I discovered that the Salvation Army had. Had an archive, and they had team of people that would look things up for you. So I contacted them, and they said, Yeah, we've got some records around about that date that will probably give you a little bit of information about your two times great grandmother and her time here as an unmarried pregnant woman. About a week later, I got an email back from them, and they had found these records, if you were in the position that you were pregnant in 1908 it wasn't really viewed to be a good position to be in, and you'd be shunned from the community by the community, you would try and go to a home for unmarried mothers or something like that, and get out of the way so that people don't see you. I didn't realise the process was my great great grandmother had to write to the home, wait for a reply to say, Yes, you're welcome to come and have an interview with us. So she then had an interview. She had to sit in front of a panel of people, and she had to tell them how and why she was in the situation she was in, and she said that she had been engaged to a boy called Benjamin Hooker, and they were planning to wed, and she was convinced that it would be okay to lay together because they were planning to get married. She then found out she was pregnant, and he legged it. He did her runner and was nowhere to be found, so they took her in. There. You have it. I have the name of the father of my illegitimate great grandmother. And the sad thing is, my great grandmother died, not knowing who her dad was, my grandfather, her son died, not knowing that who he thought was his grandfather, who was actually his namesake. My grandfather was Harry, and his grandfather was Harry, but actually his grandfather was Ben.

Genealogy Guy 32:12
It certainly shows how you have to be a real detective piecing together. And think of think of things, other ways of trying to get to the same information. I enjoy this conversation because I learn something from every single conversation I have. So I never feel of of wasted my time, because there's also always something new. So finally, if people want to find you online or socials, what's your username and your website address?

Kelly Cornwell 32:37
So my website is, who am I, so, W, H, O, A, M, I research.com the full title of my company is actually, who am I, family tree research. So my handle, my name on social media, is at who am I, F, T, R for family tree research (@whoamiftr), because I thought, Who am I? Family Tree research is probably a bit too lengthy for a social media handle, so it's at who am I, f t r, and I'm on most platforms. So I'm on Facebook, blue sky, X, LinkedIn, threads, tick, tock. Instagram can't think if Mewe there's probably others I can't remember,

Genealogy Guy 33:32
and other popular sites though, cover it under that umbrella. It's been a fabulous chat. Thank you very much. Kelly Cornwell and genealogist of multiple levels on various topics, I wish you every success with the continued growth of your company and also with helping people just find out their histories and support them in their own research as well.

Kelly Cornwell 33:55
Thank you so much, and thank you for having me on your podcast, Mell,

Genealogy Guy 34:00
It's been a pleasure. So a huge thank you to Kelly Cornwall with some tips and advice for genealogical research and do check out her website and follow her on her social platforms. She has plenty to choose from. And also a thank you to Ruth Wilmore from society of genealogists with her update on what's coming up at SOG until the next time, happy and productive research

Jingle 34:25
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