The great RSS cull of 2013

Google recently announced that its Google Reader service will cease at the end of June. This is sad as it's a useful service for delivering RSS feeds, but also potentially good as we might see some innovation from other companies in RSS feed management and delivery.

I use Flipboard on my iPad to read all the blogs I follow, however it doesn't have any kind of feed management tools at the moment so I'm hedging my bets and also trialling Feedly. The upshot of all this is that I'm using it as an opportunity to review the blogs I'm subscribed to and cull those that are no longer active or no longer relevant to me - and if you use RSS feeds I bet you'll end up doing the same thing over the next few months too.

As you may have noticed I don't blog a lot - this is not my primary web presence for either genealogy (see http://wing-ops.org.uk/ and http://one-place-studies.org/) or me generally, and I don't blog just for the sake of it. I'll still be posting to alert you to updates on the Wing-OPS website, or other random genealogical bits and bobs as the mood takes me, but there's no regular schedule. So if I don't make it through your culling process I won't be offended - in fact I won't even know! But rest assured I'll be happy that you are maximising your genealogy time by using great tools like RSS to get the information you want or need.

If you spot a great new tool that you're planning to use to manage your genealogical RSS feeds going forward, do let me know in the comments.

Once, Twice, Three Times A Lovely Blog

Kisses to Sharon, Ros and Fi, who think I'm a Lovely Blog. Right back at ya, darlings!

After four-and-a-half years of blogging (which is 27 web-years according to footnoteMaven), I must confess I'm a bit old and jaded when it comes to these blog awards. However it hasn't escaped my notice that there seems to be quite a few UK geneablogs popping up lately, so I'll wave my walking stick towards these bright-eyed young whippersnappers and wish them the best of luck on their blogging journeys.....

Elizabeth at Your Local History

Beth at Walking With Ancestors

Claire at MahoganyBox

A challenge for you

Got a blog? Got an ancestor? Tell us about their ancestral place.

One of the blogging themes at Geneabloggers.com is Those Places Thursday. Every genealogist should have a basic profile of each of their ancestral places, so this week why don't you pick one of those places, do a bit of research, and report back this Thursday on what you find?

There's a nice example here where Jen's looked at Herencia in Spain, learned a bit about its geography and history, thought about how that may have influenced her ancestor Nicanor's life, and identified what aspects of Herencia she'd need to know more about to round out Nicanor's ancestral story.

And lo, the archetypal ancestor smiles beatifically upon me

Or maybe not.

Nevertheless, I have been blessed by the current round of Ancestor Approved awards. Thanks to Geniaus and Mike - mwah! Go check their blogs out!

As long-time readers will know, I'm not one for playing by the official rules on these things, and I don't have any cider today. Boooo! I do have a sugar-rush though, so here's a surprising thing I learned about one of my ancestors this week (mostly to name-drop, you understand).

James POULTER (1809-1873) from Farnham, Surrey, somehow managed to progress from ag lab to farmer sometime between 1843 and 1847. Odd, no? Firstly, how did he get the money? Didn't inherit any, his daddy hadn't popped off yet and he was only an ag lab too. Secondly, what's someone as posh as a farmer doing hanging out in my family tree? You're making my hundreds of ag labs feel bad. Thirdly - dude, you were a farmer. How can you have no will? For several brief, shining days, I lived in hope that when the time came to check the probate index, there you'd be, but no. For shame, James.

And now to pass it on....if your genealogy blog is feeling sad and neglected without the Beatific Ancestor glaring at you, then go ahead, plug your blog in the comments, and she can come and live with you.

Happy Blogiversary to me!

Today I am four years old! And this year I remembered my blogiversary!

This blog isn't my main online presence (that would be here. And here. And from next week, here. What can I say, these things happen!) so I don't have time for it to be as fabulous as some other genealogy blogs (you know who you are - yes, you!), but I hope you enjoy popping by all the same (plus there are bribes goodie bags at my blogiversary party, filled with warm fuzzies, RAOGKs, and climbing gear for those brick walls). Enjoy, and thanks for coming!^*

* Yes, I have abused the exclamation mark just a leeetle bit in this post. But I'm four! I'm allowed!

I'm Ancestor Approved!

Thanks to the lovely Sheri over at The Educated Genealogist for the nomination. [UPDATED - also to the lovely Greta at Greta's Genealogy Blog *blush*]

Disclaimer: official rules state disclosure of 10 things you have learned about your ancestors that has surprised, humbled, or enlightened you, plus ten other blogger nominations. Ten seems an AWFUL lot, and it's Friday evening and I've already opened a cider, so here's three things I've experienced from this week's research in the (virtual) London Metropolitan Archives, and a virtual cider for everyone who reads this blog - thanks for being part of my online genealogical journey.

AAAAAA! - I discovered new (shortlived) baby siblings for my grandmother and great-grandmother. Don't you love those genealogical discovery moments when you go "aaaaa!" just a bit too loud and scare the cat? Hilda Alice WHITE (1903) and Edwin Leslie HALL (1904), welcome to the family!

OOOOOOH - "Blown Up" or "Kill'd by Explosion of Powder" is not something you want to read on a burial record. I'm glad to live in a time when the chance of being blown up by the local gunpowder mill is fairly minimal.

HMMMMMM - I found a probable baptism for my Charles AUGER which claims his parents were George and Lucy Auger - except Lucy was unmarried according to subsequent census records. Frankly I'm more inclined to believe Lucy managed to get away with telling fibs when baptising Charles.

Happy 101 Award

A big thank you to Linda on the Flipside and Thomas of Destination: Austin Family for nominating me as one of their 10 blogs for the Happy 101 Award.

This meme has you naming 10 things that make you happy, along with 10 blogs that make you happy! At that rate the geneablogging sphere must already be well and truly covered off, so I'll just do the first bit.

1. I'm very happy that my William WILLSON was a shoemaker. Also that none of the other dozens of William WIL(L)SONS in the 1841 English census that were in Lincolnshire and born in Lincolnshire, or in Middlesex and not born in Middlesex, of the right age bracket, were not shoemakers. So very happy. Finding only one matching candidate was long odds indeed!

2. Ancestry scanning and making available the parish registers held by the London Metropolitan Archives have made me very happy too, given that the only other way to access them is via personal visit which isn't very practical from New Zealand.

3. The entertaining podcasts available via iTunes (and elsewhere of course) - current favourites are Carpool (Robert Llewellyn chatting to interesting people while he gives them a lift in an eco-friendly car) and Rhod Gilbert's Best Bits (Welsh comedian and his flatmate talking about everything and nothing)

4. My amazing partner makes me happy every day (6,134 days and counting)

5. Turning on my computer this morning and having my Vista gadgets tell me it's zero degrees in my grandad's spot in the UK and two degrees in my brother's spot in the UK - an improvement over the -9 (celsius) of a few days ago, and I love that technology brings me closer to them.

6. My netbook - it's been almost a year and we're still in love.

7. The joy of jam making - the strawberry crop in my garden this summer is large enough I can make jam, and it's great fun!

8. I still have one week of summer holiday left. One whole week! (less the day I have to work, granted, but that's because I have to process some payrolls for some of our clients and getting paid will make those people happy).

9. The Ingenious Edgar Jones by Elizabeth Garner - the best of the stash of library books I took out for the holidays. If Victorian Oxford and beautifully descriptive writing sounds like your thing, check it out.

10. A good spot of blog surfing - starting on one blog, checking out something interesting on their blogroll (or blogs the author follows), and meandering your way from blog to blog until you find something awesome, like (warning, adult language) http://sleeptalkinman.blogspot.com/ (which is today's Blogger Blog of Note so I guess everyone knows about it now)

I hope that you all have plenty of things making you happy at the moment - 2010 is going to be a great year.

Trek Yourself - Thought For The Day

Makeover

I've taken the blog back to its retro look now Christmas is over. I've also given my profile shot a wee makeover, courtesy of MadMenYourself.com (thanks to Sheri Fenley, The Educated Genealogist, for alerting me to this) - and they even had a martini glass as one of the options!

As a Trekker I also had to check out Star Trek Yourself - my current Louise Brooks haircut only needs minor modifications to become the classic Vulcan bowlcut as it turns out.

A Walk Home - postscript

My blog entry "A walk home along High Street" was chosen as the featured article in A Festival of Postcards' 2nd edition "Main Street". Thanks Evelyn! Thanks also to the other entrants, plenty of interesting postcards were contributed so do check it out.

As an postscript to that entry I'd like to post a back view of one of the postcards I used as it's quite interesting on its own.


"The Cross" postcard was published by Ernest Cleaver, the postmaster of Wing. My own copy of this postcard is unposted, but another posted copy has previously been up for auction on Ebay and I saved their scan of the back. That copy was postmarked Leighton Buzzard J[ul]Y 16 [19]12 11.15 am with a King George V halfpenny stamp (apparently His Majesty was a keen philatelist so I bet seeing himself on a stamp was a personal thrill), and is addressed to:

Mr Heather
Gas Works
Carshalton
Surrey

The text reads:
"Dear Dad
We are coming by that 6.42 train from Leighton arrive Euston 7.40. Frank is going to meet us at Euston so you might see him. We are going up Wing Tower at 11.15am, and then going to see the Hounds at 12. Yesterday went to Ascot [sic]. All the men rushed out to see us. Ethel had her camera in her hand. They all wanted there [sic] photos taken. Love Dorothy."

I'm not entirely sure what Dorothy means by Wing Tower - presumably the bell tower at All Saints Church. By "Ascot" she is of course referring to Ascott House, the home of Leopold and Marie de Rothschild on the outskirts of Wing. Foxhunting was a frequent pasttime here.

My favourite bit is the description of the impact Ethel's camera had on the workers of the Ascott estate - evidence that cameras were quite a rare sight around Wing back then!

Are there any descendents out there of these visitors to Wing? Looking at the 1901 census I can find two sisters Dorothy and Ethel HEATHER (both born Lambeth), with a gas fitter father, living in Brighton, which sounds like a likely match.

Labels

All blog posts have now been labelled with topics, names, or whatever else seemed relevant. You'll see a new labels bar listing all these over on the right hand side of your screen, or you can click on a label on the bottom of any post to search for other posts with the same label. This should prove to be a very useful feature.

Categories

Had a d'oh moment this morning.....I've just realised that Blogger has tags/categories for its posts, except it calls them Labels! So over the next few days I'll be going back through my posts and adding surname and topic labels to them, plus figuring out how to tweak the blog layout to get a Label Bar so you can access things quickly.

Naturally I'll be checking the 1891 census transcription at the same time. I've printed it out, and checked the first page - only 34 more pages to go. You may note that this presents somewhat of a deadline problem looking forward to 1 August.

New look for the blog

I couldn't take the brown of the old layout anymore! I don't know how long this one will stick though....

1841 census updates

I have been able to transcribe the previously missing pages from the 1841 census, now to check them and convert the file to html....so looking good for the December update! Anyone out there with COLLYER, CUTLER, HOUNSLOW, PEASE or RANDALL ancestors should be pleased, there's more than one household of each of those surnames in there.

By the way, please feel free to post comments to the blog. I don't bite!

Meandering from my head to yours

While continuing to slog through the 1891 census transcription for Wing, I started to worry that you, dear reader, might be sitting out there wondering why it wasn't finished yet when I've been claiming it's "coming soon" for months now........so I thought a more informal forum might be called for. I'll keep you updated on exactly what I'm doing behind the scenes and other little research bits and bobs that might prove interesting.

So - 1891, now up to page 23 of 62. I got a couple more pages done yesterday.

I've also been working on a page about the straw plaiting industry in Wing for some time now. Unfortunately I decided I would need some stats about the proportion of Wing people employed by that industry, and to do that I needed each census year's data in a handy electronic form. And the most comprehensive way to do that was to transcribe each year - hence the 1891 census transcript. However in the interest of getting that straw plaiting info up some time this decade I think I'll take a few short-cuts for 1881 and 1901 and just flick through each page adding up the relevant numbers.....