Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

Pyxis

bugslet wrote: »

That site was a bit of a rabbit warren. I did like when it said that someone got the idea of placing a large rock with some personal details on it on the grave. I'd never thought before how headstones came into being before.

Am I right in saying that in Judaism, there isn't an afterlife, or have I got that wrong?

This gives some interesting info......



http://www.reformjudaism.org/judaism-what-believed-happen-someone-after-they-die

bugslet

Pyxis wrote: »

This gives some interesting info......



http://www.reformjudaism.org/judaism-what-believed-happen-someone-after-they-die

So that's a definite maybe then:D. Thanks Pyxis.

chris_m

silvercar wrote: »

There is a Jewish tradition of placing a small stone on the grave stone of a deceased person when you visit. More info here on the background to it.

Used to great effect at the end of Schindler's List - where all the surviving Schindler Jews, accompanied by the actor/actress who portrayed them in the film, filed past Oskar Schindler's grave in Jerusalem and placed stones on it. The gravestone was almost completely covered before Liam Neeson, who'd portrayed Schindler, laid two roses on it as well.

PasturesNew

I've spent the day doing trees....

Not found any murderers yet.... and nobody's been murdered yet.

oldandhappy

its hard going this tree lark.....we found a murderer if talk is to be believed. My bestest late friends husband Cliff had step brothers and out of the blue many years ago we where talking to a person unnamed and he stated about this unsolved murder in Kingston Surrey...it was Cliffs stepbrother well one of them...was believable and likely true...shocking we thought but had no idea what we could do with this gossip.....was so many years past when we where told and they the stepbrothers had died already.....sorry pasturenew not to do with trees but hey ho...Bw Dianne

PasturesNew

I am currently luckily researching in an area that has a supported OPC. That's "Open Parish Clerks" where volunteers transcribe the old stuff. Overall the county's well covered. But, each volunteer's transcriptions (and some donated lists) is written differently.

So I've organised myself thus:

I have a parish and there's a sheet - I'll decide if I can be bothered to copy the whole sheet into my common spreadsheet and reformat it to match my columns .... (I started doing this, then got bored), or I'll just note that I've only lifted the names of "my surname".

When I put somebody onto the tree I find their evidence/records and that record (or other source) goes into the spreadsheet and is coloured in one colour if it's on the tree - and another colour if it's my "direct blood line".

I'm also now toying with (and playing around with) Unique-IDs for family groups, for use in the spreadsheet, to help me see them in clumps or select them in clumps, if something relevant to the whole family turns up or I want to inspect them again as a group.

I can point to anybody in the tree and know exactly where I got the information from, as every source is cross-referenced - and notes on whether I think it's sound/flakey, what I think about it if my information differs from other online trees.

By doing that I can randomly, at any point, find any individual in the tree and instantly know how good the information is, where I got the records from.

For the trees, I'm using an online freebie called familyecho.com - it's straight forward and simple to use and "looks like a family tree".

There are "other text fields" which are useless, so I use them for other purposes and ignore their field names.

I've also downloaded a gedcom this week and thrown it into Zoompast.org - another free online tree offering. I think it's a bit confusing to use, but it does look like it might have something worthwhile about it.... I probably need to give it more time to play around/see how it works.

PasturesNew

oldandhappy wrote: »

....had no idea what we could do with this gossip........

Well, you clearly know their name - and have a date window - so googling and/or online newspaper archives might throw something up.

Some extraordinary events can even turn up in foreign newspapers (who have a gap to fill) and a lot of foreign papers will come up in google searches. American papers often turn up on google newspapers; then in Aus there's trove.gov.au

I've found out stuff related to my maternal tree just because somebody in a foreign paper had a slot to fill.

PasturesNew

2 scorching days, then a bank holiday: Grey, cool, overcast, looks like rain but it might hold off

Update 11:15: Then it rained a bit.
Update 11:30: Rain stopped and it's back to being grey.
Update 13:30: Still grey, cool, overcast. A "nothing" day with an atmosphere that feels "flat".

PasturesNew

Just looking at the local history centre opening times. Like all these things, it's very limited unless you're close by with all the time in the world.

For a full-time worker, the only time you could go and ask to get an original document would be two Saturdays/month, 9-12.45 and 2-4.

As a full-time worker is likely to also have "major/essential" things booked on Saturday mornings, such as hair-cuts, dentist/doctor appointments, dropping into the local garage as the car's making a noise, having new tyres fitted, getting the car taxed, getting the car MoT'd, collecting a parcel as you received a random 'you were out' notice ... this pretty much leaves you with just 2-4pm twice a month.

It's not cheap either. Most people would probably not wish to write it out, but to get a scan/photocopy or take a photo.

A 1-day photo license costs £7.
Photocopies 20p each.
Print A4 from a microfilm 70p.
Colour prints 50p.
A4 scans done by staff 70p b/w, £2 colour.

If you had a long list of stuff you were interested in it could really add up!

Also, until you get there and see what they hand over, you've no idea how big they are, how many pages ... and how much copying etc you might need.

It's £10 for fuel to get there/back, maybe £2-5 for parking. £7 for a camera license..... it all adds up!

ukmaggie45

PasturesNew wrote: »

Don't quote, will delete.

Don't quote will delete too!