Web Resources: Google Street View

When conducting genealogical research, I find that it's far too easy to fall into the trap of spending a lot of time chasing birth, marriage, and death records to further the line you're working on. Often (depending on the country you're researching), these BMD records, along with other sources, such as obituaries will provide addresses of where our ancestors lived at the time.

So, when I want a break from BMD records, I head straight over to Google and have a look at Street View. Of course, houses may well have changed since your ancestors resided there - or that street you're looking for may not even exist these days, but it's enjoyable to have a virtual wander around these locations.

The Ancestor Effect: Thinking about your ancestors will make you more intelligent

A few years ago, Peter Fischer et al, conducted research into whether intellectual performance could actually be increased by thinking about one's genetic origin.

They noted that a lot of research had been conducted asking people to look the end of their own lives. So, with that in mind, they decided to go the other way and formulated a series of 4 studies asking participants to think about their ancestors.

They posited that thinking about ones ancestors, whether concrete (ancestors that they had met) or abstract (ancestors they hadn't met, for example in the 15th century), would increase the participants expected performance (how well they thought they'd do) and their actual performance on tasks completed as part of the study.