Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

vivatifosi

Thanks Jazee, no need to delete. I don't live in the same place now but didn't want to be identifiable.

Speaking of which, it has taken until just now to take down. I woke up with the alarm at 6.30am this morning, then again at 7.40am, when I'm due to leave at 7.50:eek::eek::eek::eek:

vivatifosi

Doing some work on my family tree. I have just discovered that my great uncle died at the Battle of the Somme. I had his birth date in my chart but looking at other genealogies discovered his death and then corroborated. His name is on the war memorial in my home town and I didn't even realise:(. Such a waste of young lives. It's a shame that we didn't know in time to commemorate the centenary last year.

zagubov

Pyxis wrote: »

Are avios the same as air miles?

I've never had anything to do with air miley things, and don't have a clue how they work.



It's a shame you can't build up train miles in the same way. That would be good in the UK.

They took over air miles a few years back. Air miles used to be a decent perk of some credit cards. You could just collect them absent-mindedly and check every year or so to see if you could get a flight.

TBH it was better when you could change them for eurostar tickets as getting the train to Paris is very much more civilised than flying.

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

tree

That's a shame. At least he's close enough for you to pay your respects. Perhaps you could write up a short bio for him and lodge it with the local family history society.

So many of them died as single men, or childless, so few people to find them, follow it up etc.

I've used some of the ANC free weekend, but been thwarted by a number of issues - and then got overwhelmed by what I could look up - and then discovered some whole parish registers digitised and I wish I'd known/prepared (have to prepare now for next time) ....

And it's easy to get bogged down with a short free weekend and end up feeling you wasted it.

I didn't find anything of significance, except I have a feeling I'm a little more confident in a couple of areas where I think grey areas are heading ...

I think my report card for this weekend would read: Could try harder.

PasturesNew

My tree's mostly problematical due to the sheer volume of people with the same names ... and they all move around quite a bit within a 10 mile radius because they were on a sea trading route, so would have moved between the main trading villages.

I was trying to find out more about a woman my aunt thinks died (who didn't die at all), so checked out her family because she was in the workhouse and my first thought is always "so where were the rest of her family?" - and I found her brother and his entire family had emigrated to New Zealand he was a sea captain. I also found her sister in the workhouse with an illegitimate child, but I think that MIGHT be mistaken identity still.

I also found a sad bit a woman had an illegitimate child - and then she married and new husband brought up the girl. I found a neighbour taking the step-father to court for beating him .... the story was he'd gone into the garden and had heard the step-father shouting badly at the step-daughter and then he'd thrown her out of the house and then chased her up the road beating her with the end of a pick. So the neighbour had intervened and taken a beating himself.

The sad bit was that the girl died just two years later, aged 24, so she probably had a bit of a !!!!!! life all round .... no idea what she died of, I presume illness .... but you can't tell unless you pay £10 and she's not even a blood relative. She's the illegitimate daughter of a woman who I think is the sister (but might not be) of the wife my GG-gf abandoned in 1848. NOT £10s worth.

silvercar

GDB2222 wrote: »

More expert advice needed, please.

Which is more valuable £16.86 in cash paid to my bank account, or 1770 Avios? What can you do with 1770 Avios? Is that enough for a flight somewhere, or just enough to get to the end of the runway?

Notionally they are valued at about 1p per Avios, but it is very variable depending on what you use them for. On their own 1770 are not going to get you very far in flying terms, but you can still spend them on other stuff.

zagubov wrote: »

I think you need about 9000 to get anywhere. So if you can get a flight for £80 including taxes, that's better than avios. Otherwise, the avios might be better.

You can use Avios for days out if you don't want to fly, or to reduce the cost of flights, travel insurance, car hire etc

https://www.avios.com/gb/en_gb/spend/what-can-you-spend-your-avios-on?from=SpendNav

zagubov wrote: »

They took over air miles a few years back. Air miles used to be a decent perk of some credit cards. You could just collect them absent-mindedly and check every year or so to see if you could get a flight.

You still can. Lloyds do an Avios card; AMEX do a BAEC (british airways executive club) card.

vivatifosi

That's a lovely idea, thanks Pastures. I don't really know enough to write a bio, but there's the potential to find out more. I know when it was the centenary, my dad sponsored the memorial of a soldier that shared his surname. I may look to see what happened to this relative to ensure that he is remembered somehow.

He would have been my gg-mother's closest brother, just a year younger. Ggmother died in the 1950s and my nan and all of her brothers and sisters have died so there is nobody around who would have remembered him. Though it is possible of course that another relative has and that we're not aware. There are rather a lot of us.

vivatifosi

What would the £10 buy? Newspaper story, birth certificate? Something else?

vivatifosi

Oops, just seen the time. Off to bed so that I don't do the same again tomorrow.

GDB2222

silvercar wrote: »

Notionally they are valued at about 1p per Avios, but it is very variable depending on what you use them for. On their own 1770 are not going to get you very far in flying terms, but you can still spend them on other stuff.




You can use Avios for days out if you don't want to fly, or to reduce the cost of flights, travel insurance, car hire etc

https://www.avios.com/gb/en_gb/spend/what-can-you-spend-your-avios-on?from=SpendNav



You still can. Lloyds do an Avios card; AMEX do a BAEC (british airways executive club) card.

Thanks, Silver. I checked that link, and 1000 Avios gives £5 off airport parking. So 1700 does not even get you to the end of the runway, let alone on a flight!