In this episode, the Genealogy Guy has chats with the jolly Helen Tovey - Editor of Family Tree Magazine UK which is Britain's longest-running family history magazine providing expert advice it has been helping thousands of family historians discover and explore their family history since 1984.
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And welcome along to another edition of Armchair Genealogy with me, the Genealogy Guy UK, and with technical support from Broadcast Media UK. If this is the first time that you're listening to Armchair Genealogy, then welcome along, and I do hope you enjoy this episode. Do remember to check back for earlier episodes, in which you can hear interesting conversations and tips to help you with your genealogical research. And as I always ask, if it's at all possible, whatever platform you're on, do remember to click on the subscribe button, because it helps and informs me where everyone is and why they're listening. What I do find interesting is that a majority of my listeners, I've noticed are listening on mobile devices, which is either going to be on mobile phones, or on tablets. So for those people that don't like to always sit next to their phone, do remember you can also access Armchair Genealogy by speaking to your smart speaker, and just saying the words play Armchair Genealogy podcast. And after all that, let's get on with this month's episode. In this episode, I'm chatting with Helen Tovey, editor of Family Tree Magazine, UK, now family tree magazine is Britain's longest running family history magazine, providing expert advice, and has been helping 1000s of family historians discover and explore family history since 1984. So first off Helen, how did you get into genealogy yourself?
Helen Tovey 1:50
Well, I got I got into it very loosely as a child because I just loved stories about the olden days. So I was always pestering all the kind of the very oldest people in our family, even people who are pretty distant, so you know, like, distant, distant relation. So I couldn't have put on a family tree at the time. And it's only subsequently that decades later, I was like, Ah, I know where you fit in now. So I guess I was always curious about the past. And I was really lucky. Even when I was at primary school, just my primary school teacher was called Mr. Rose. And he was passionate about history. And so you know, when you get a, you get a primary school teacher who just has a passion for something, and he just sparked the love of history, and also my dad as well. My dad is passionate about history and archaeology. We spend kind of many weekend trips, which is marching round fields with loads of metals in them, and he would be describing what has happened where so the past always felt like a really fun place to explore to me.
So historically, how did the magazine itself come about?
That's a really cool little story. So scroll back to the 1980s We haven't got the internet or anything to help us and go to a little Cambridgeshire town called Ramsey. And there is a guy who's done many jobs through his life, he has been a paramedic, he's owned a fish and chip shop. In the early 1980s, I think it was 1980 1981. He was busy putting transfers on mugs in preparation for Prince Charles and Lady Di's wedding. But he was also really passionate about genealogy in particular, and the Armstrong family because his name is Michael Armstrong. So he had been researching away and what he really felt was lacking. And it was a really vibrant time to be doing family history, like it still is now. But it had its own different vibrancy. There were many family history societies getting set up, there are lots of people wanting to make connections throughout British Isles worldwide. And he's like, what this community needs is a magazine. So on his kitchen tables, I just absolutely love with a friend of his he started doing a magazine, again, it's actually a world away in kind of production value. So it was black and white. And they could choose one color. So they could choose right, this month, we're going to have orange. So if there was any color anywhere, it would be like bright orange or another month, it might be green or whatever, they're only allowed to choose one color. That's how it started. And it had huge support, because it's such a great way for people to publicise names and places that they were interested in, and to make those connections with people because half the fun with family history is like we love tracing the past. But we have fantastic conversations with living people today. That's what you know, that's what gives us the buzz is meeting other people who love talking about it too. And you know, who we may be related to or have just common interests, whatever. So it started, and it's just kept going 40 years old this year.
Mell 4:34
So you've worked on the magazine since 2003. Did you start as a contributor and end up as an editor and and did you always see yourself as a as a writer or editor?
Helen Tovey 4:45
Well, that's an interesting question. No one never normally asked about it, the kind of journalism side. So I started on practical family history, which is a sister publication to family tree. And I started on that in 2002 and just worked on that for one year and then the next few years I worked across both practical family history and family tree magazine, mainly just being an assistant editor. So working, copy editing, doing very little writing in those early days you know, very much an administrative role. And then in 2007, I became editor of that magazine. And so that's much more like being a project manager. So it's still kind of a very administrative role. I do do some writing, absolutely love writing. But it partly is a question of time. That's that's kind of the main obstacle to writing more, I guess. So do I see myself as editor or writer. So definitely, I feel as though first of all was I'm an editor. That's what my profession is. So I love genealogy I studied at Strathclyde University in just under the first level. So the postgraduate certificate, I completed that about a year ago, I'm passionate about publishing as well. So but I feel I do love writing. But first and foremost, I'm an editor. So my job is to try and find people who are passionate and knowledgeable about their sub subjects and help kind of shine a light on them and help them share what they know. So my, my job is to help kind of coordinate people and share information, I try and visualize it, the everyday issue of the magazine is like a box of chocolates. And so it's going to be a treat and every single chocolate that you pick out, I want it to be absolutely delicious. So that's, I guess my goal is to make a beautiful box of chocolates every month in genealogy.
Mell 6:27
So that's one of the nicest things about being the editor. So, so what's one of the hardest things about being the editor,
Speaker 1 6:33
Ah, absolute worst thing is rejecting articles. Because we do get an awful lot of articles. And it hasn't changed over the years. I mean, maybe it's got even a little bit worse in recent years, because I have to reject about nine out of 10 articles, not because they're bad. But literally because we don't have enough space, we can't make the magazine any bigger because we haven't got the time or the budget to make it bigger. So we've got this kind of finite amount of space to work with, which is very different from publishing a blog or a website where you can just add things ad infinitum. Whereas you know, we've got these 82 pages, and we have to think how are we going to use them each issue. So rejecting things is awful, because you very occasionally you get something which is terrible. It's either looks badly researched, or is boring. But it's such a minority for that to happen. Most people who who've taken the trouble to write an article it is interesting, it's definitely got interesting and value, and I hate rejecting it. Yeah,
Mell 6:33
I would have imagined that would be really bad, particularly when he's got good content.
Helen Tovey 7:37
But otherwise, if I was gonna just accept it and say we'll publish it sometime I'd just be keeping somebody hanging on indefinitely. So it feels better just to be honest, and say, within a reasonable timeframe of six months or a year, I can't fit this in. So my best thing to do is return it to you and hope you can get it published somewhere else.
Mell 7:53
What makes Family Tree Magazine UK edition different to all the other magazines?
Speaker 1 8:00
Well. So there is a US magazine called Family Tree. And I do really enjoy that. It is completely different. It's much more it's bi monthly. We have an international focus, but they because of the nature, it's a US publication. So because of the nature of the many European countries which emigrated to the US, then it will touch on those German, Italian Heritage's and cultures and research methods that you need. Whereas what family tree magazine is about, we are here to help you trace your British Isles ancestors, wherever you now live in the world. So we're looking at all those kind of basically the English speaking world. And we are we are covering people who migrated into Britain, as long as your family tree has had a connection with the British Isles at some point, either immigrating or emigrating or still living here, then we're here to help you. Family Tree magazine UK - https://www.family-tree.co.uk/
Mell 8:52
Yeah, it's amazing how much of the history ends up back in Europe, particularly in the UK. So are there any particular submitted articles that you've that are really stood out for you over the years that have struck you personally like hit a chord, and you've gone? Wow,
Speaker 1 9:09
Diane, Lindsey, she writes the smallest article in family tree every single month. It's just one little page at the back. And her articles. So she's done it ever since I've been editor, and she's done it for decades before. I didn't know how she does it. But every month, she provides an absolute gem. And they're quite emotional. And they can be funny. They can make you cry. But they really goes right to the heart of what family history is about so that you rarely learn anything practical, but you totally feel as though you're reading. You could be sitting in there in a pub or in a cafe just listening to someone who's really into family history telling you what they've done and what they think about it. And yeah, that's some real treasure and whenever we do read a surveys Diane does always come up really high. But I want I have had weird coincidences over the years. So I mean, even just recently in I think it's the April issue, we published an article by Mike Everly. And he was mentioning about the Catalinas, which were built in Gourock in the Second World War, and suddenly connected with me because my grandfather flew Catalinas in the Second World War. And when they retired, the retired to near Gourock, and I've always wondered thats a but random. Why on earth do you go to Gourock like we had no prior family connection with Scottish connections, but no one ever that way? Thinking back on it. I'm like, I think he had fond memories of his second world war years over there. And he, you have prior knowledge of that place and kind of made sense, we learn little snippets as you go along. Where's Gourock, Gourock?
Helen Tovey 10:41
Up near near Glasgow,
Mell 10:42
what's some of the best tips that you've ever heard or come across when somebody said something, and I never knew that.
Helen Tovey 10:50
So what I love about our authors is they really are detailed and expert. And I can't remember how many years ago it was probably about 10 years ago, and Richard Morgan had written an article about trees, tracing British India ancestors. And I'm gonna say the number of drawers in the cupboard wrong. But his, when you go to the British Library, he actually described you go to the fourth cupboard on the left, and you go to the third drawer down to get the index cards you need. And I was like, this is just beautiful. Because partly, you just take your hat off to somebody who's just so precise and detailed. And it's just charming. And yeah, haven't forgotten that I love that. Tips? People who don't just do kind of a glib overview, but really drill down in it and show people not to say not just go give people a kind of Tada, end result, go, here's my fantastic result, people who actually share and show how they do that with other people, because I'm like, genealogy education is what is what we all need. There's so much we could potentially discover but there's, we all have to admit, there are lots of ammonius lots of those errors are in our own trees. So the best way to get around that is to become better informed. So people like Sophie Kay, is fantastic, because she will share the kind of minutiae of how she goes about research to reflect on things really thoroughly. So you don't just kind of have some details. You think, what are these details mean? What is this telling me about my ancestors life experiences, so she's very keen on for instance, making sure you've gathered all of the children and spotting gaps through the birth years? No, because that potentially indicates times of sorrow. If there's been a baby, who's died and you haven't found the records, potentially indicates the father's worked away. So there's, she'll drill down and kind of help you not just rush headlong through and find the details that you found. But actually think about those details that you found and think what are they telling you about your ancestors, life experiences, another person so as well as the magzine, we do lots of online learning, so lots of webinars and club meetings, courses, to help people learn about the family history. So it's kind of like the magazine but in digital form, so it's online on via zoom. And Michelle Leonard, for instance, she is fantastic at just showing people what to actually do with their DNA results and in how not to kind of add to it to make five. Because with DNA, we're all learning a lot the whole time. And it is easy to once, you know a little bit to not know all the false assumptions you can make as well. So she's really great at helping kind of hold all of our hands as you go along and help us not make those mistakes. You try and make our knowledge as thorough and up to date as possible. Because you have to keep evolving as genealogists it's not just there's, there's beautiful things in the archives, but how we interpret them. And what we're picking all together is it's very current, isn't it? Family history, you have to be super techy.
Mell 13:55
It's very much a long term learning curve. You never stop on the curve you just always going up is.
Helen Tovey 14:01
Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, that's just it. Yeah.
Mell 14:04
And we'll just grab a quick break there from Helen Tovey at Family Tree magazine. And just to remind people that if you've got any tips or things that you want to share with the listeners, then do remember to drop me an email, or even send me a voice message. And maybe it will appear in a future edition.
Jingle 14:23
Email the podcast by contacting us info@armchairgenealogy.com.
Mell 14:29
In the meantime, if you've got some interesting stories or people that you think I should be talking to, then do also let me know. And now back to Helen Tovey, editor at Family Tree magazine. So you correct me if I'm wrong. You recently went out to Roots Tech. Yes. So I've never been and I keep going. I'd love to get his is it really worth going is the is the buzz so exciting?
Helen Tovey 14:55
Definitely, it is absolutely worth going and like it If anyone has a pot of money or wins the lottery or whatever, don't just go for for roots tech, make sure you've given yourself time before and afterwards, partly because it is an area steeped in history, but also all family history resources there. And so And while roots tech is on, you'd barely be able to get to the the FamilySearch library because it'd be so much to do at roots tech, you would be wasting the actual lifetime with the conference, you'd want to kind of make the most of that. While that's happening, I would say it's definitely worth it. And again, it's a kind of a bit back to the start of the conversation. Partly, it's for the fantastic lectures that they put on everything really, really comprehensive program of lectures, partly for all the many different stands. So there's kind of key major genealogy companies and organizations there like Ancestry, and My Heritage Storied, things like that. But there's also and of course, FamilySearch. There's also kind of startup organisations, lots of techie organizations, people who are using AI to do kind of new different projects, whether it's kind of transcribing tool, which can help you create journals and things like that. There's just so many different products and inspiration, but the main thing is chatting to other people is because when we go, we have to be on our booth pretty much the whole time. So we're there all the time talking to people, by the end of the third day, you've got a creaky voice, because you've just been talking all the time. But it's, it's just great to, for me as the editor, it's really useful to talk to other people because I can you hear what questions they're asking. And this is all useful ideas for things to cover. Partly, it's just fun to talk to them and hear about their family history, just to talk to fellow enthusiastic people is always, always enjoyable, isn't it?
Mell 16:48
It's one of the main reasons I do the podcast is I like talking to people and finding out what they know that that will help me become better. I really have a passion to encourage everybody I meet and tell them, interview your family members, like you know, just put the phone on the table and hit record and make a cup of tea and just get them to relive some memories. I said, because once they've gone, they've have gone, they are never coming back again. So you need to capture those magical moments. And they're all nuggets as they get referred, just small nuggets of information that you get, as opposed to, it was an Uncle I think, lived somewhere, but I can't remember and you you think how can you have lost this information?
Helen Tovey 17:29
Do you know your article, actually, it really struck a chord I had with a conversation I had with my dad and my brother this weekend. And I'm like dad was talking how one of my other brothers was saying that my grandpa had an Irish accent. And then we all had this big debate about what his accent was. Because one of my brothers remembers it as being Irish. I remember it is definitely having like a burr and Irish kind of burr. But I would say it was a bit more transatlantic as well. It didn't was didn't sound completely Irish to be there's something else there as well. And but but we haven't got a recording of his voice. So it was all up for discussion. And we all had very different memories about it. And in your article, you're saying you're capturing people's audio, you're not just getting the memory you're getting all those other clues about their identity and their character and where they put the pauses in their voice and any emotion that comes in like how somebody says the sentence the emotion behind that is very telling you this family history is we want to know what other people's lives felt like. Don't we? We kind of sometimes were quite surprised, like lots of our second world war ancestors actually seem to have a fond memories, as well as, as well as tragic memories. There's a whole raft of experiences there. And we don't want to make a generalization. We want to know what our ancestors individually ultimately let me
Mell 18:47
Absolutely. As you say it's the way they say if they are happy or sad, but reading it in a book. You go, so were they happy about this moment? Or were they sad? Was it a nice thought? How about future, the future for the magazine? Can you is there any bits that you can tell us what's coming up?
Speaker 1 19:06
So we're going to carry on doing fantastic articles in the magazine. And we're going to carry on very much we are building our online learning as well. So we have a membership called Family Tree plus and every month that has online club meetings, so and we try and provide people really useful, partly contemporary and partly just to generate information new so for instance, the April club meetings at our genealogy gadgets club we have the topic is AI for family history. And then at our study club for instance, we've got a talk a presentation by Karen De Bruyne on on researching British India ancestors. We try to cover kind of all the core traditional skills that you always need plus keep contemporary as well. So as to any sneak peeks well, Mell there is your sneak peek because you've got your artcile in the edition I'm working on at the moment, which goes to print on Thursdays the May issue, the next issue, so June issue, and that's out early, mid May, and your article interviewing ancestors is in that one isn't it?
Mell 20:11
Oh wow, that's the first I've heard because I didn't know, submitted like everybody else and think, Well,wait your turn, so that's fantastic. So, if people want to find out more about the magazine, like, obviously, there's a website and social media, what's the best way to find out more about the magazine.?
Helen Tovey 20:30
So people are very welcome to follow us on social media and obviously, on all the main channels on Facebook, x, or Twitter, Instagram, and then probably the best way to keep in touch to find out what we're doing. And kind of really easy, comprehensive ways if you sign up for our free e newsletter. And that's just www.family-tree.co.uk/account/register, not a very nice short email address. But anyway, and we send out an email every Monday, and that has tips and information that people can use there. And then in their family history, covers Family History News, and we also let people know, you know, any talks and things that you've got upcoming so people have all kind of one stop shop place to find out what they're doing.
Mell 21:21
The big tip I will give to everybody is to make sure that the web address needs to have a hyphen in the address.
Helen Tovey 21:27
Yeah, good idea.
Mell 21:30
Okay, so, so that I could spend hours really just chatting to you about like the magazine and how it, how it works and operates. But we're, we're all busy people and I just wanted people to be aware of its UK angle, bigger view of the world as opposed to just specialising in America. And America is such a big continent in its own right. So it doesn't need its own magazine, but your magazine, sort of it's it's the icing on the cake. That's how I would describe it.
Helen Tovey 22:00
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we try. We try and be the icing on the cake. Yeah.
Mell 22:06
Helen. Tovey, thank you so much for your time. And I just I'm really looking forward to the next edition now, because I was going to be in it. So that's even even better news for me. So I'm very happy.
Helen Tovey 22:18
Excellent. Excellent. Thanks very much there Mell.
Mell 22:20
Okay, have yourself a great time and happy researching, as I say to everyone, and thanks there to Helen Tovey editor at Family Tree magazine, which is Britain's longest running family history magazine.Family Tree magazine UK - https://www.family-tree.co.uk/ And if you grab a copy, do look out for my article in the next edition. It's all about giving tips on capturing history from your living relatives. Until the next time. You know you're a genealogist if you've repurposed your dining room table and panic at anyone going near it until the next edition, happy and productive research.
Jingle 22:55
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