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In praise of spreadsheets!



event 1st name Surname date place mother father spouse abode notes
bur Thomas Holyland 28 Jan 1564 Desford




marr Jane or Jone Hollyland 20 jan 1570 Desford

Henry Dammaske
maybe 1571?
bur Elizabeth Hollyland 26 aug 1571 Desford




marr Thomas Hollyland 8 Aug 1573 Desford

Agnis Shepston

bap Henry Hollyland 9 March 1574/5 Desford






No, come back --I'll try not to make this too boring!

In late 2019,before I joined the Guild of One Name Studies (GOONS), I did an introductory online course about setting up such a study. The course tutor urged us to use spreadsheets for the collection and correlation of information and I have to say that I felt dubious.

I'm not particularly techie-minded. I can use the basic functions of a microsoft office spreadsheet but was hardly in thrall to them.

But over the long January evenings, when I was starting my ONS, I decided to give it a try. And I have been totally won over! Building my family groups and trees, and correlating dates and facts is so much easier via spreadsheets!

I started by downloading separate lists of birth, marriage and death registrations from FreeBMD, which turned out to be surprisingly easy. Other spreadsheets followed, for similar events before 1837, court appearances, Holyland wills - it was necessary to input these manually, which was tedious, but ultimately very useful. I've designed the headings of each spreadsheet to reflect the information that I find most useful.

With these spreadsheets I can spot patterns at a glance. I can organise the columns into any order I choose, then back again to the original (eg, alphabetical order has been invaluable for grouping children by mother's maiden names). A quick hit of the search button solves many a query. Cross correlation between, for example, the marriage spreadsheet and the wills spreadsheet backs up findings quickly and easily.

I could wax lyrical for much longer about my spreadsheets but I did promise not to bore you all, so I will simply say - if you haven't already tried it, then give it a go! You might, like me, find that you quite like it!



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