Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

vivatifosi

Re Family History...

Not sure if Pastures has posted this before, but I've had an evening playing with the free online access to the historical directories of England, which can be found here:
http://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16445coll4
(click browse by location and you can search by county)
Have found a ton of info to fill in periods between censuses.

It's a bit of a PITA because you have to find the specific page to read rather than being able to browse a book, and the indexing is a bit funky due to the amount of unnumbered pages at the beginning, but well worth perservering with.

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

.... PITA ....

Because we've been spoilt by Google

It's always nice to find these things .... then you realise you can't type in random words into a search and instantly be presented with all instances for your delight and entertainment.



I've not bothered looking at that site for 2+ years since I couldn't find anything there that was more than I had on archive.org .... but it's easy to forget that every day there's the potential that something new/relevant has been loaded.

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

Because we've been spoilt by Google

It's always nice to find these things .... then you realise you can't type in random words into a search and instantly be presented with all instances for your delight and entertainment.



I've not bothered looking at that site for 2+ years since I couldn't find anything there that was more than I had on archive.org .... but it's easy to forget that every day there's the potential that something new/relevant has been loaded.

This morning, having a quick look at it, I found a relation I didn't know I had, in one of the earlier directories!
The info was very scant, but I knew he was a relation because the family had an extremely unusual surname. There isn't anyone with that surname in England that I'm not related to!

The first name was one I hadn't come across in the family, before, as was his profession. A second person with the same surname was in the same profession, so ?? father and son, perhaps?

bugslet

Pyxis wrote: »

The first name was one I hadn't come across in the family, before, as was his profession. A second person with the same surname was in the same profession, so ?? father and son, perhaps?

Most likely - it amazes me how often children do follow into their parents footsteps as far as a career goes.

vivatifosi

Not sure about your part of the country apastures, but for where i was looking (not Herts or I'd have used the library), however the bit i was looking for wasn't on archive. org, which is way better organised.

vivatifosi

I found a victorian woman in my tree who had followed in her father's footsteps as a plumber. I was very happy.

Pyxis

vivatifosi wrote: »

I found a victorian woman in my tree who had followed in her father's footsteps as a plumber. I was very happy.

Wow! How unusual for the time!
Did she actually plumb, or just run the firm, I wonder? Either way, still unusual.

Pyxis

Do you remember that sheet music site I had trouble ordering from before?

Well, it gets worse.

My order was in two parts.......some music was the one I tried to get e-printed, the one where they eventually credited me with the cost. (Except that I still don't know if they have credited my card, or just given me a store credit).

The other was for some other music which was on back order. Yesterday, they emailed me to say it had come in, but when they went to process my order, my card was declined.
(Probably because of the time lapse between my order and their request for payment).
They asked me to contact them with my card details.

Well I wasn't going to phone the States, due to the cost, so I asked if I could do it online.
They emailed back to say would I send my c/card details in three separate emails.
Well, needless to say, I declined that option, and it was left to me then, to suggest I cancel the order and re-order the stuff online, which is what I'm going to do.

If I didn't really, really want this music, I'd give it up.


I doubt I'll be ordering from them again.

vivatifosi

Can you use a Performing Arts library Pyxis and borrow the music? It may be cheaper going forward.

vivatifosi

Pyxis wrote: »

Wow! How unusual for the time!
Did she actually plumb, or just run the firm, I wonder? Either way, still unusual.

That much I don't know. It would be great to find out though. I may have to see if I can get a local paper article. The problem that I have with them is that although their name is unusual as a surname, it is quite common as a word, even when capitalised. So it's great going through FMP or Ancestry, as they stand out. But doing a newspaper search, less so.