What did I get you for Christmas this year, the internet? I got you a YouTube Advent Calendar:

In retrospect, committing to a song a day was a bit dumb when I didn’t have any already written (ah, preparation) but finally it’s complete. 24 songs written and recorded. Pick a door and watch a video. Many of them are funny. Most of them are intended to be.

In my opinion, the best ditties are on days 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 18, 20 and 22. And if you’d like the chose by title, rather than by an arbitrarily-assigned number, there’s a playlist on YouTube.

Despite the surprisingly exhausting level of effort required, I’m glad I did it. But I’m even more glad it’s over…

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I have precious few minutes before 2010s National Poetry Day ends. This years theme is apparently home, so without further ado here, as every year, is a new poem.

The frosty wind is blowing
The bus is only slowing
The traffic isnt flowing
The Tube train isnt going
The RMT are crowing
Im not to-ing and not fro-ing
My blood pressure is growing

I want to be at home

I’ve had my excited genealogist head on the last few days (it looks a lot like my normal head, but a bit beardier). The reason is that Ancestry, one of the big online record publishers, has released scans and a search index for the National Probate Calendar, covering 1861-1941.

This is the index to wills and administrations from the Principal Probate Registry. When someone dies, their estate has to be disposed of. If they left a will, one or more executors are appointed to carry out its instructions. If they died intestate, an “administration” is granted and, again, executors divvy up the estate. This legal process is recorded in the Registry.

The index can be used to request a specific will from the records, but even without this the information held is of great interest to family historians. An index entry generally gives a date of death, last residence, executor and their profession (often the next of kin), and the value of the effects of the deceased.

Not only does the new index place this information online (I used to visit First Avenue House in Holborn to search the records which wasn’t exactly convenient when I lived in Scotland), but it also provides a digital index, massively speeding up the search process.

There are plenty of reasons why a search might not turn up a result: many people simply didn’t have the assets to warrant it; early on, wives’ property was considered to belong to their husbands; and the indexation is by no means perfect.

That said, I’ve already found lots of relatives in the new data. The extra information compared with death record indexes means you can be surer you’ve found the right person and I’ve been able to (excuse the morbidity) “kill off” a number of people.

There were a couple of records that took me by surprise, however. In both cases, it was the identity of the executors that was unexpected.

My first cousin, four times removed:

GIBBS Emmanuel of Thanksgiving-lane Binfield Heath Oxfordshire died 2 May 1938 Probate Oxford 6 July to Martha Ann Gibbs widow the right honourable Godfrey Walter baron Phillimore and the honourable Anthony Phillimore lieutenant H.M. army. Effects £624 6s. 5d.

Quite why three executors were required to handle the assets of a deceased bricklayer, and why two of the executors should be the 2nd Lord Phillimore and his son, are beyond me at the moment.

My first cousin, thrice removed:

ROBINSON William Thomas of Foxhil Wanborough Wiltshire died 1 July 1918 Probate London 9 October to Frank Curzon theatre proprietor. Effects £15556 18s.

Frank Curzon was a successful Edward theatre manager and William Thomas Robinson was a race horse trainer, with no obvious connection to the theatre. But Frank Curzon’s Wikipedia page notes he bred race horses, including an Epsom Derby winner, so that seems the likely explanation. And yes, £16k was a lot of money in those days…

You can search the probate indexes here, but I suspect you’ll need an Ancestry subscription to look at the scanned pages.

Today could be the best day of my life.

I’ve just been to my local Sainsbury’s which – until today – seemed behind the times when it came to point of sale technology. The Tesco by my office has them. The giant Sainsbury’s down the road has them. But today, for the first time, I was able to use self-service checkout machines at my local supermarket.

They’re brilliant. I mean, they’re awful if there’s an unexpected item in the bagging area, if you can’t find your un-barcoded item in the menus, if you’re trying to buy alcohol and there’s no-one around to authorise it, or if they’re just set REALLY LOUD – but they’re brilliant. Scan. Pack. Scan. Pack. Scan. Pack. Pay.

No-one asking how many of my own bags I’ve brought along. (One.) No-one asking if I have a Nectar card. (No. So bringing my own bag was entirely motivated by envirosmuggery.) No-one criticising my choice of toilet roll. (Yes, that happened.)

Even shopping online involves some human interaction as you have to get the stuff delivered. Self-service checkouts save my having to communicate with another human being entirely, and I still get the shopping immediately.

This is the day that I longed for.

I have a nagging feeling that this technological advance might result in fewer jobs at the store… But let’s assume the checkout staff have just been reassigned to other duties.

And anyway, this is about me.