All About That Place, October 2026
It’s the second week of the summer break and my time, as usual is split between trying to work and looking after our son, Dan. He’s 16, with a learning disability, a very rare genetic condition, and various other disabilities. He always has 1-2-1 supervision, which makes school breaks particularly difficult. I have been self-employed for the past 20 years, and school breaks mean me and my husband, Andy, have to tag-team our work. Luckily Andy is also self-employed, so we manage it by working into the early hours and getting up really early – more than six hours of sleep is a luxury! I sat down about an hour ago to write this blog, and have already been interrupted six times! This blog is a short one due to the above!
Anyway, last month I talked about my one-place study of Humberston Fitties. Since then, I have been accepted to present a talk as part of the ‘All About That Place’ event in October 2026. The event is ran by the Society of Genealogists, and is supported by various organisations including the Society for One-Place Studies, where I have registered my study. The online event is free, and there will be over 100 10-minute talks on all things related to one-place studies. The event runs from 7 October, and my slot is on Sunday 16 October (see itinerary below).
So, I have spent the last week creating my presentation. I decided not to look at other one-place study presentations, as I wanted to create my presentation without comparing myself with others. The presentation itself felt daunting – I have used PowerPoint before, and I am not creative at all, so I really struggle with trying to make things look interesting.
A quick online search for ‘how to create a presentation’ opened up a whole new world to me, and, as I am prone to doing, I spent a couple of days going down various rabbit holes while I learned that PowerPoint wasn’t the only option – there are many options out there. I liked the look of Canva, and what it had to offer.
I watched ‘how to’ videos on YouTube, and took the plunge – I decided to use Canva to create my presentation. Now, for many of you, I expect that sounds really dull, and you’re probably thinking ‘so what?’ but when you’re a non-creative like me, it was a revelation! I discovered that I could use pre-set styles, I could insert images, photos and moving text, I could use frames and move images around the page, and I could change fonts, styles and colours across the presentation. Honestly, it was like finding a hen’s tooth!
I figured out what I wanted to appear on each slide, and my presentation came together. I then needed to record my voice over the slides, and decided to do a dummy-run with another set of slides, so that I could figure out how the voice recording worked. That was interesting – I used four dummy slides, and recorded my voice. What I didn’t know what that the microphone picked up every sound, however small, and when I played the recording, I could hear my cat meowing and me touching the table. Lesson learned!
I now need to record my voice for the presentation, and I will get up tomorrow at 5am to do so – only an hour earlier than usual, but early enough not to have any noise distractions around me. I have written out some bullet points for each slide, and I’ve learned that I can pause the recording between each slide, which is helpful.
So, I’m nearly there! As I said earlier, I am not creative in the slightest, so figuring out how to use a new tool (well, new to me) such as Canva has been something of a game changer. The chance to pre-record a talk has been really beneficial, as I could take my time to get it right, without worrying about stumbling over my words, or forgetting to say something.
Other than that, my month has been quiet in terms of genealogical work. I’ve done a fair bit of copy-editing for publishers and individuals, which has kept me going, but the genealogical work has tailed off a bit. Still – I’ve got plenty to keep me busy over the now seven-week summer break (when did it become seven?!?), so I will keep it short for this month.
If you would like to find out more about the All About That Place event, the following link will take you to the itinerary. The website is being updated all the time, so it would be worth checking back nearer the time to see all the talks available:
https://sog.org.uk/welcome-to-all-about-that-place/all-about-that-place-itinerary/
If you would like to find out more about the speakers, please use the following link:
https://sog.org.uk/welcome-to-all-about-that-place/speakers/
My talk will be available on YouTube after the event – more details to follow in October.
Next month – volunteering
Next month I’m going to talk about volunteering in the genealogical world. I am a member of various family history societies. I’m a committee member for one of them, and I transcribe parish registers for another. I will talk about why I got involved, and the benefits I have discovered from volunteering.
