A recording of this talk was aired on 19th January 2021.
Malcolm Austen is no stranger to those who use the Society's Discussion Mail List (formerly the Global Branch) as he has administered and supported the group for many years and continues to do so now it has moved to groups.io. This talk is about another family history project that Malcolm has been involved with, also for many years, maintaining the pages for both Kent and Oxfordshire, plus Genuki's events diary.
GENUKI.org.uk is now 25 years old and Malcolm started with a potted history of how it began. In the early days of online genealogy there was really only one mail list ROOTS-L, and Malcolm outlined how, in 1995, GENUKI came into being from an idea that Phil Stringer and Brian Randell had. At that time Malcolm, was involved, with colleagues, putting PRO handout leaflets online and that got them involved with GENUKI. When the website started, they ‘piggy-backed’ off a larger website and s other than domain rental there were few running costs. But, as the years rolled by and despite being hosted by Mythic-Beasts at a generous charity rate GENUKI requires more funds to pay for running costs. Therefore, in order to attract sponsorship GENUKI, has now become a charitable trust, with a board of trustees.
What is it? In a nutshell GENUKI is an online reference library of genealogical information for the UK and Ireland in particular. It was never planned to hold documents but to be a primary finding tool to where sources are held.
What can you get from it? Malcolm led us through the pages of the website demonstrating several ways you can arrive at the information you need. Getting to know the home page, or front door as Malcolm referred to it will help you discover a churches database, with a map that shows the neighbouring parishes. Most useful when you need to widen the search for ancestors who don’t turn up in the parish you thought they should be. A gazetteer for place names and a clickable map to find them. But, he advised, you may need to think out of the box depending on the time period and various administrative reorganisations, because places may not be where you would expect to find them. Malcolm suggested searching areas bordering the obvious one.
At the bottom of each webpage is a link to report problems or to contribute information. Malcolm said to please report on the page in question and be clear which page it is in order that your message gets to the right person.
Malcolm finished by talking about GENEVA which is GENUKI’s events diary. It advertises genealogical events taking place throughout UK and Ireland if they are open to the general public. In the past they have not featured the meetings of Family History Societies as not all allow non-members to attend but they are hoping to review this in the future.
A website worth spending an afternoon getting to know as it may hold some answer that you could not find elsewhere.
Report by Tricia Baxter