Monthly Archives: August 2023

People and Places of the Past

by thehistoryinterpreter

Most of the month has been taken up with family visits and being weirdly unwell, with a return of the mystery allergic reaction I had three years ago. Maybe I am just allergic to August, who knows? Anyway that is receding now and I am trying to take my mind off the fact that no one who wants to buy my house can sell theirs. There’s been plenty to keep me busy. As two Pharos courses draw to a close, I am already preparing for the next one: Discovering Your British Family and Local Community in the early 20th Century. I particularly like leading this course, as it combines both family history and one-place studies. It starts in October if you want to come along for the five week online ride. Following my own advice and immersing myself in early twentieth century family history, my granny’s biography has now reached the outbreak of the Second World War. The story so far is available here.

The recent Forgotten Women Friday also led to investigating women who reached adulthood in the early twentieth century. More than fifty volunteers have been looking at the lives of the first cohort of women to train as teachers at Cheshire County Training College in Crewe. The finished stories are starting to be uploaded to our website. It is hard to believe that in less than nine months we have preserved the memories of more than two hundred women.

On the one-place front, the revisions for the second edition of Putting Your Ancestors in Their Place are done and that should be available in the new year. So many URLs have changed and I have added some more suggested sources for one-placers. More one-place news; I am excited to be joining a stellar cast for the All About the Place event. My ten minute slot is recorded and I have also done three short readings about places. This promises to be a great collaboration.

Dinosaur Poo, Milking Pigs and Being Me

by thehistoryinterpreter

I apologise for yet another post with poo in the title. This stems from the great discussions I’ve been having with my current cohort of Pharos students on the Discovering more about your Agricultural Labourering Ancestors course. They are a brilliant bunch and our chats range far and wide, including, yesterday, investigations into the use of coprolite (that’s the dinosaur poo) for fertilizer and whether it is possible to milk a pig. The jury is kind of out on that one. Obviously pigs do produce milk but milking them is not generally advised, although there are some ‘interesting’ YouTube videos. Don’t be distracted by the possibilities of milking Minecraft pigs however, that’s another thing entirely.

So someone has decided they’d like to be me. Well, I know I am pretty cool and all that but seriously, although I enjoy being me, it is a bit of an acquired taste. What appears to be (and hopefully is) a very restricted portion of my friends and colleagues have received emails from a spurious email address that does not include my name but is signed with by me with the title of one of my volunteer roles. After a full investigation it has been confirmed that this is not hacking or a virus but identity theft and there’s not a lot I can do. If you get one of these weird emails, check with me on an email address you know is mine and then, if it isn’t me, forward the offending message to report @ phishing.gov.uk. On the upside, as I am now two people, I will race through the to do list at the speed of light. The other me is a little tardy doing the washing-up though.

Excitingly, the first proofs of Marginalised Ancestors have arrived. Less excitingly, that means the dreading black hole that is indexing is looming. Hey, maybe the other me could do that part.