Becoming a British Family History Detective (and maybe using an Apple Mac?)

Learning about your own family history is fascinating, like solving a mystery or putting together jigsaw puzzle and seeing a picture of YOU that you've never seen before!

If your roots are in England and Wales I can help you get started, either join one of my classes in South Devon or let me work with you online to carry out your research.

I teach family history classes for adults at Brixham Community College in Devon, England, while my own family history (my part in it starting in Birmingham), takes me across England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.... so far!

I do this with the help of an Apple Mac computer, which is my 'sitting down' hobby (and which I also teach to adults at South Devon College), when not playing 5 a side football or walking.

Email me at carrspace@me.com


Contributors
Archive
2011 (1)
2010 (1)
2009 (16)
2008 (6)
Obox Signature Series

British War Graves in Family History

Click here to download:
British War Graves2.pdf (273 KB)
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My Historic Road to the Antiques Roadshow-with music!

It's a glorious 18th June and the BBC Antiques Roadshow is at Dartmouth Naval College.

I decided to cross using the Lower Ferry, itself something of an antique as its pretty ancient tugboats drag the un-powered floating bridges backwards and forwards from Kingswear to Dartmouth.

This involved a good walk following the Dart Valley Trail along the embankment and it was a pleasant surprise to see the Dartmouth to Paignton Steam Train come roaring past, pulled by 'Goliath' built in August 1924 in Swindon and used used by the Great Western Railway on heavy coal trains in the Welsh valleys. Today the load was holiday makers going to Paignton and I got a friendly wave from the driver.

The ferry itself was as pleasant as always, pulled skillfully by Hauley VI, and delivering me to the cobbled quay at Bayards Cove, which has changed little since 1539. It was used in the TV series 'The Onedin Line.'

As if that wasn't enough historic things for one day, I then walked up the hill to the Dartmouth Naval College, where I spent about 3 hours watching the experts being filmed as they gave their views on chinese vases, miniature paintings and lots ..... and lots of antiques and some not so antiques. 

A fascinating day.

Dave

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Students work

Another fine example of a document produced on Apple Pages programme, this one from Karen.

Click here to download:
karen's brochure1.pdf (533 KB)
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Examples of Pages

some nice examples of my students work on the Introduction to Apple Mac course for Brixham Adult Education at South Devon College. These documents were produced in Pages as we explored techniques such as text wrapping, media placeholders, masks and image borders. Thanks to Mary, Tony and Gill.

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iPhoto 08 Improving the appearance of photos

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iPhoto 08 Cropping a Photo

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iPhoto 08 Reviewing and comparing photos

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iPhoto 08 videos, Creating and Album and Adding titles, ratings, descriptions and key words.

 

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iPhoto 08 Importing photos and organising them using events.

These are the first 2 videos, courtesy of Apple.

Bear in mind they are for iPhoto 08 rather than 09 but the appearance and principles are very similar.

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Victorian Handwriting

Handwriting

Courtesy of Ancestry you might find this example of Victorian handwriting styles useful when trying to read census returns and birth, marriage and death certificates. Watch out for double 'S' where the first one looks like a backward facing lower case ' f "

 

Also take a look at this website for more examples  http://www.census1891.com/hand-a.htm

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