Monthly Archives: November 2025

What’s all the Black Friday Lark? contains family history related offers

by thehistoryinterpreter

Today may or may not be Black Friday. I can confirm it is a Friday for all you retired types who aren’t quite sure. Black Friday now seems to last several weeks so if it is THE Black Friday is debatable. It is something that has spread from America and in the interests of imparting some history, it seems that the term originated in September 1869, when James Fisk, a railway magnate and Jay Gould, a financier and railway speculator, together with Abel Corbin, brother in law of US President Ulysses S Grant, forced up the price of gold by cornering the market. This was followed by a slump and panic in the gold market, with many people losing money. The US economy was already under pressure following the cost of the Civil War and the gold crash led to financial chaos.

There is another, largely discredited, theory that Black Friday referred to days when enslaved people were sold for a reduced price. This clearly has nothing to do with every retailer offering us deals in the run up to Christmas, so when did that start? In the 1960s, the police in Philadelphia used the phrase ‘Black Friday’ to refer to the increase in crime and social disorder during the pre-Thanksgiving holiday shopping rush. It seems to have been the 1980s when US retailers began using ‘Black Friday’ to refer to slashing prices and the UK followed suit. Now Black Friday seems last for weeks and to morph into January sales, which of course start on Boxing Day.

I am rubbish at marketing but I thought I’d point out a few Black Friday family history related offers that I am involved in. Pharos Teaching and Tutoring are offering 15% off all their online courses this weekend. Two of mine which are very popular start in the new year, Discovering more about your Agricultural Labouring Ancestors and Putting your Female Ancestors into Context. There are others later in 2026 that you can book now and claim the discount. These include Are you Sitting Comfortably: writing and telling your family history in April; First Steps to a One-place Study in September and In Sickness and in Death; researching the ill health and death of your ancestors in October. There are a load of great offerings from my colleagues too.

Pen and Sword have 30% off their prices, again this weekend only. Here you can buy my Women’s Work book or Marginalised Ancestors. I am offering Coffers, Clysters, Comfrey and Coifs: the lives of our seventeenth century ancestors for £5 plus postage to a UK address. From now until 8 December, you can have Remember Then Women’s Memories of 1946-1969 and how to write your own for £8 plus postage. Both of these have a cover price of £12.95. If you prefer fiction, then Sins as Red as Scarlet is on offer for £8 plus postage (cover price £9.99) for the next week too. There is more about the books on my website. Contact me using the box on the home page for details if you want any of these. If you don’t fancy any of this for yourself, they are also gift giving opportunities. Advert over.

Technological Challenges and Other Frustrations

by thehistoryinterpreter

So the day began with attempting to download my long awaited copy of Nathan Dylan Goodwin’s latest Morton book to my Kindle (other ereaders are available). Not totally straightforward as I deliberately purchased it in a new way, thus avoiding too many profits going to large online retailers and also meaning that got it earlier. This seemed to involve teaching my Kindle a new email address. Took a bit of Googling to work out how to do that but we got there.

Then it was on with the big girls pants and the ‘joy’ of installing a new router. This has all come about because my broadband contract was up for renewal. I stuck with the same company when I moved thinking that it had been fine in the middle of nowhere in a house with two foot think walls, so surely it would work well in a modern bungalow, in a much larger settlement. Not so. It dips alarmingly and with no warning, meaning that I have had to do some presentations from my bed. Open Reach, in their wisdom, installed the router connection thingy on the corner nearest the road, which means that the router is in my bedroom. Firstly, this means, I have a permanent bright green light in my bedroom, which for me isn’t the problem it might be for some, as I inevitably fall asleep when reading, so the light is on anyway. It is however as far away as possible from where I’d normally be using wifi. I should note that ‘as far away as possible’ isn’t actually very far, as it is a tiny bungalow and certainly I could get wifi in any room in my old house and in the garden without issue.

I debated changing companies but that would probably be a frying-pan – fire scenario and as renewal coincided with Black Friday (which weirdly seems to last several weeks), my existing company offered me a 900mbps package for the price of my old 57mbps. I don’t really understand all this mbps stuff but that certainly seemed like an improvement but it meant a new router. Said router arrived. The email said ‘install an app’. I am reasonably adept on a laptop, a phone, not so much – too small, too fiddly etc. etc.. Said app however duly installed. ‘Scan the QR code on the box to get the installation instructions’. Nope that just wasn’t going to happen. All I got was offers of expensive QR code reading apps. I’d been assured that it was going to be a case of unplug the old router, plug in the new one, so I ventured forth instructionless. I opened the box to find printed instructions. I didn’t need the app anyway.

Plugging in involved lying on the floor and delving in a rather dusty corner but that was accomplished. Next put in the new password. In days gone by this used to be three words that you stood a chance of remembering – in fact, I can still remember the last two three word passwords I had. This jumble of upper and lower case and digits is a bit of a nightmare but also accomplished. One laptop and one phone connected. The whole process had taken about fifteen minutes. Feeling quite smug, I moved on to reattaching the printer, or in my case, not reattaching the printer. I tried going via settings, I tried via the printer app. It kept telling me the printer wasn’t turned on when clearly it was. Every time I tried, the ‘not on’ printer wasted another tree by spitting out a one time passcode. I then made the big mistake of uninstalling the printer. That, dear readers, was a mistake. I have tried everything, Youtube videos, the printer company’s useless bot, turning everything off and on again, the lot. The printer is out of guarantee so I can pay £9.99  to speak to an ‘expert’, nope not going there. Nest step, maybe I should connect the printer with a wired connection. Cue emptying out a very large drawer of ‘may come in useful’ wires. Not one will fit up the backside of my printer. I thought these things were pretty standard but it seems not. I have, for now, given up. I have to return the old router, ‘print out this label’. Errrrrr. And as I write this I realise that I now have two televisions to reconnect. I think a nice calming image is in order.

Christmas Cooking, a Little about Family History and a Bathroom Blitz

by thehistoryinterpreter

Traditionally in my house stir-up whatever day of the week it is is in October half-term. This year was no exception and I was joined on Zoom by some descendants for synchronised cake making. Said descendants don’t make pudding, so I was on my own for that one. Last year, the first attempt at cakes was a total disaster but puddings were a great success. Newly lacking a Rayburn, I decided to try cooking them in a slow cooker, which worked really well. I should explain that I always make three Christmas puddings. This year there will be five of Christmas lunch, some of whom don’t like Christmas pudding but often there’s only two; yet I’ve ‘always’ made three Christmas puddings, so three it is. The recipe makes three and although I am perfectly capable of scaling the quantities down (my cooking may be dodgy but my maths is ok), I don’t. I’d arranged to borrow another slow cooker, so that I could cook more than one at a time. Imagine my surprise, when looking in the cupboard that is really only opened once a year for my annual foray into cooking, to find not one but two slow cookers already there. Thinking I must have borrowed one from the fisherman of my acquaintance last year and not returned it and not being in the slightest surprised that he had just deposited another one for me to use this year (nothing that ‘might come in useful’ is ever thrown away), my reaction was merely – oh good I can cook all three at once. All three puddings duly spent the day in their slow cookers, although I did notice the water in one evaporated quite quickly and had to be topped up. They turned out looking good and I went to wash up the ‘slow cookers’, only to find that one had been cooked in a rarely used and clearly unrecognised, rice cooker instead! For more random Christmas memories see here.

Bathroom next. I have more bathroom space in this tiny bungalow that I had in my five bedroomed house. I use my lovely en-suite and the, similar sized, bathroom is really only used for guests. It was a not-so-delightful salmon pink, with dark mahogany and gold embellishments. For some reason the previous owner had stuck mirror tiles round the bath, which meant you really didn’t want to look in the wrong direction when sat on the loo. A year ago I decided it had to go. It has been a long wait but last week it was my turn to reach the top of the plumber’s list, either that or he was heartily sick of being phoned up to ask exactly which spring he was going to do this by. Still a way to go but he’s really cracking on now and the salmon pink is no more. Firstly, please can someone explain why, when I am having the bathroom done and said bathroom contains only one piece of furniture, why five other rooms (pretty much the whole house) have been impacted and now contain ‘stuff’? To be fair, I have moved the precious china cupboard in the hall to allow for free passage of the ex-bathroom to the van, so that accounts for some of it. Secondly, why is it that, as soon as the water is turned off (despite being warned), you need to use it. I’ve been feeding the Christmas cakes and in the absence of a working tap, I was forced to lick excess brandy off my fingers afterwards. The plumber may have wondered why the house and I, smelt of brandy at 9.30am.

I did promise you some family history and yes there’s been some. Prompted by the upcoming Forgotten Women Friday collaborative research, I remembered that I had a post office worker in my own family. I’ve therefore been writing about my grandmother’s cousin Kathleen. As she was someone with no descendants, if I don’t tell her story no one will. It seems that she was among the first women to qualify for the civil service and subsequently worked in the savings bank department. I’ve also been preparing my Timelines talk, which will be recorded for Rootstech. I’ve got a live one to do as well but that’s for another day. In order to create illustrations for the talk, I used the free version of Canva to produce a timeline for a small section of my grandmother’s life. Very fiddly and not scope for a huge amount of detail but decorative. In other news, a chapter of the next book is finally done. This is definitely a don’t hold your breath thing, as progress is a lot slower than I’d like. This part involved case studies of asylum patients and there were some fascinating but very sad stories. I am also in full-on Pharos course mode, with the one-place studies course drawing to a close – and what a lot of fascination studies are in the offing from the students. Starting on Monday is ‘Elusive Ancestor’, where we look at ancestors who can’t be found where they should be, almost certainly because they’ve changed location. I’ll be readying my sledge hammer to hopefully make some dents in a few brick walls. Feel feel to join us, there still some spaces.

Cousin Kathleen