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Tuesday 31 May 2016

genealogy fun and games

Searching is an art-form, it's also scientific by nature when performed to gain the closest results.

Take for example the Battle of Jutland and someone wanting to find out about one of the casualties. Granted with the power of w.w.w. the world might be your 'oyster'. Note the 'might be'. Unfortunately the largest set of on-line databases has hogged much of the materials or so they'd like you to think. 

You'd think that with such an unusual surname searching would have few problems. Yet, there were a number of casualties with the surname VARNELL.

This is where the US databases lose out to one of the larger English ones.

There you can search the 1939 register, which is a treasure trove of information. 

60 New Road , Portsmouth - home to Arthur and his wife Emily,

Unfortunately, the thread I was reading elsewhere showed folk going on a proverbial 'wild goose chase'.

Some of their findings were comical. Guess they didn't look carefully enough or put much reasoning into their searches.

Thursday 26 May 2016

Before

there was too much legislation or thou shalt not...








Monday 23 May 2016

bacon eaters


In the N.W. of England lies an old village known as Low Moor which grew up along the banks of a river.


The banner proudly presents the “ANCIENT ORDER OF BACON EATERS”, depicting a scene with a farmer and a local, conversing outside a cottage with two fine pigs in the foreground.

Many of the villagers were mill workers. Their cottages often had a pig sty in the yard. 

This led to them being nicknamed 'Low Moor bacon eaters'.

For many years the nearby town of Clitheroe held a torchlight procession in the Autumn. Low Moor always sent 'Percy the pig', the Gas Works processed their Gas Works Dragon.


Borrowed from an on-line friend

With gratitude to
Peter Green Ssc

Some anathemas ...
1. Those who ignore or overlook the strain that migration can put on social infrastructure, let them be anathema.
2. Those who will base their decision mainly or solely on their dislike or mistrust of non-English people, let them be anathema.
3. Those who ignore or overlook the defects and shortcomings of the EU, let them be anathema.
4. Those who ignore or overlook the benefits and virtues of the EU, let them be anathema.
5. Those who are aware of the fatuity of the comparison and yet nevertheless liken the EU to Napoleonic Europe or to Nazi controlled Europe, let them be anathema.



Tuesday 10 May 2016

Wrecks, gravel banks and reporting

Today's news reported from the Irish Sea off Fleetwood. Apparently, drone footage had come across a 'new island'. News, as I keep on finding is nothing like real 'news' when there's nothing actually new about it. Gone are the days when it was expected that someone look up in the records to decide if a report concerned something new.

Those were the days of written documented records noted on cards which then led to the actual documents.  

Today, with the ability to search world-wide, finding information is far easier - a few key-strokes followed by the click of the mouse.

Recent report carried by local news on TV and in the press.

"A bank of shingle and stone has emerged from the sea and appears to be a permanent addition to the geography of the area."

However, a few key-strokes and clicks on the mouse later revealed...

Video footage from 2009
shows a lifeboat crew visiting the gravel bank.

A more truthful account states...

“Admiralty charts from 1700 show there has always been a bank which is called Kingscar Bank, but nothing has been visible like it is now.''


Image from 
The evolution of a coast-line, Barrow to Aberystwyth and the Isle of Man, with notes on lost towns, submarine discoveries (1920)