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  1. #11
    Knowledgeable and helpful
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    I was taught that when writing about someone it's important to think about context - everything that happens around them - the people they mix with, the current events happening around them and the changing 'world' they live in, all things that help to mould their lives on earth. How they reacted to changes or perhaps how they were unique or became part of a new attitude...like women involved in the Suffragette movement or perhaps carried on a tradition that has disappeared now. Whether they would have been affected by strikes or extreme conditions. If they were members of clubs that still exist today, and so on. Reading how people coped or reacted can make a reader wonder if they would have done the same given those circumstances and highlights the character’s determination or resourcefulness. Perhaps something they did, however small, meant that moment had a specific impact on their own or someone else’s life.

    Also wanted to say “well done you” for all your effort. One day in the future someone will pick it up, thoroughly enjoy it and appreciate what you have done.

    Browneyes x

  2. #12
    sindylin
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    Quote Originally Posted by Browneyes View Post
    Also wanted to say “well done you” for all your effort. One day in the future someone will pick it up, thoroughly enjoy it and appreciate what you have done.

    Browneyes x
    thank you! Lets hope they do! (presuming this was aimed at me??)


    As for newspapers, I found one thing that related to this family but thats it....they didn't really do anything amazing, they were just ordinary folk. I was hoping to get a couple of obituaries but don't know where to start. Does one wade through newspapers around the time in the vain hope that something springs out at you? Or are there any online newspaper archives for the UK?

    My mother has a few tales of my g grandparents as she visited them many a time and we have been back to the house and the present owner showed us around, she'd seen us outside and wondered what we were staring at she was most intrigued to hear the story!

    My grandmother is still alive (aged 93) but she is a bit senile now and doesn't remember much about her husbands family. And she threw all of the really old photos away many years ago...grrrrrrrr

    I have ordered a copy of the book "Enquire about everything.......etc...etc...." whichw as printed in 1891 and has all sorts of things that Victorians did, or beleived in and was an eseential book of its time. Anyone else heard of it or read it?

    The wars, beleive it or not, didn't really affect the family, no-one died or was bombed, only one chap who got shot and was deaf as a result and I have included that.

    Not being a Victorian history expert (despite reading a good few books on the subject) I would hate to misquote or get things wrong, so have stayed away from political history and heavy subjects.

    Many thanks indeed for all of your ideas, anymore?? let me know.

    Cheers
    sindylin

  3. #13
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    Jan 2008
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    Cambridgeshire
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    (presuming this was aimed at me??)
    yes it was

  4. #14
    Jan1954
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    Quote Originally Posted by sindylin View Post
    I have ordered a copy of the book "Enquire about everything.......etc...etc...." whichw as printed in 1891 and has all sorts of things that Victorians did, or beleived in and was an eseential book of its time. Anyone else heard of it or read it?
    I have a copy and find it fascinating. I dip into it from time to time, when I am mulling something over about a particular ancestor.

  5. #15
    Astoria
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    Newspapers are fantastic for building a picture around your family especially the adverts, auctions and homes for sale. I found an obituary for my G. Grandad in 1927, next to it an advert for a garage still operating today, a Morris Oxford Coupe £245, Austin Seven £145.

    When my G. Grandma died in 1931, Jack Audley and his "Varieties" were packing them in at the West End Pier, and for 1/6d I could solve the problem of my facial hair

    It does take time to search through the local papers week by week, but well worth it.

  6. #16
    Astoria
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    I get so side tracked, I go with the aim to seek a birth announcement or wedding and before I know it, I am scribbling about the size of mussel nets or the Methodist circuit, because a name pops out.

    What impresses me most is the interest in the wider world, news of India and the Colonies. Of the conflicts in South Africa etc.

    A section for the ladies and for children, and even a jokes section (racist in the extreme, on many occasion.)

    When I win the lottery I shall make an offer for that filing cabinet which they can't refuse. Or I might just buy them a half decent reader/ printer.

  7. #17
    Charles Rignall
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    Quote Originally Posted by Geoffers View Post
    I'm not surprised your great-great-grandmother was surprised.
    Oh for pity's sake. That is why I better never actually write anything. I'll have the whole thing backwards, like Benjamin Button.



    Charlie Rignall

  8. #18
    Zelley
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    Every life is a series of stories!

    As an example, in one piece that I did when I was comparing London, England with Nanaimo, BC, Canada through the eyes of a child, I took images from London and a real event in Nanaimo.

    I called it "The Flower Lady and The Iceman"

    In talking about one of the great grandmother with the birth name of LEWIS,
    I went back to her days as a child in London and called it
    "Echoes Of Angel Alley".

    Concerning the death of a great uncle as a child, I wrote a poem
    and it was published. The death took place in 1897, in about the same
    location about 1956, I fell from a docked sail boat and couldn't swim,
    but didn't drown or hit my head when I bobbed-up.

    On a site from the place where the 1897 and 1956 events took place, I posted Stories with the first being called
    "Echoes From The Storm".
    Last edited by Zelley; 09-04-2009 at 3:15 AM. Reason: correction

  9. #19
    sindylin
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    many thanks for your replies.

    I shall see what I can do!

    It was fortunate recently that my great aunt celebrated her 100th birthday and she and her sisters (all in their 90's) were in a nostalgic mood at the party and the chat was all about their parents and grandparents, cousins and so on, snippets of gossip and such like so I scribbled down what they were saying, when I got home I typed it up before I forgot it! Real eyeopener some of it!!!

    sindylin

  10. #20
    Nicolina
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    something else you could add - photographs, then and now. Try Googling the place name and see what is available,
    I've been very fortunate with photographs from several cousins and keep trying to get another cousin to write the story of our mutual ancestors because she does it professionally. It would read like something from Mills and Boon though, very spicy.

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