Working Across Two Windows

I have difficulty retaining information when I swap from one open web browser tab to another one.

I find it much easier to have two web browser windows open and make them approximately half the screen size each. The example above shows two web browser windows both open to different pages on Ancestry.com.au. I find this much easier to copy information from one window and manually enter it into the other. For example adding children to a family.

Photo Colourisation From My Heritage

Lots of my friends have been playing with this colourisation tool. If you haven’t tried it yet go to the link and click Upload Photo. As your photo is uploading you’ll be prompted to login or sign up. The login link is right at the very bottom of the popup window. It is free to sign up to My Heritage and the photo colourisation is free too.

https://www.myheritage.com/incolor

My great grandparents Jessie Boyd and Charles Wigley

You can download each photo as you colourise it or you can go to ‘My Photos’ and look at all of them and choose which ones you want to download from there. I don’t receive anything from My Heritage for publishing this post, it is simply that I like the tool they’ve created.

The Free 24-Hour Genealogy Webinar Marathon: March 12-13, 2020

Don’t worry this blog isn’t going to be all event notifications.

I love webinars because you can participate from the comfort of your own home and you can be involved as much or as little as you would like and the Legacy Family Tree ones are free. I did several of the Legacy Family Tree webinars last year and enjoyed them and found them useful.

This 24 hour webinar marathon is being held in the United States but it will be available at times suitable for Australian participants too. Sydney, London and Eastern US times are listed on the website. In Australia the marathon starts at 8:00am Sydney time on Friday 13 Mar 2020.

It’s a good idea to register early and check that the webinar software works on your computer. I hope you can get some good value learning from this webinar marathon!

What To Do With My Blog

Over the last few years I’ve only written a few blog posts. I don’t want to give up blogging altogether but I need to work out a way to make it fit into my current life and work habits. I’ve noticed that since I’ve been mostly working on other people’s family trees my blogging has dropped off. I used to blog mostly about my own family history and don’t feel free to blog about my client’s history without asking specifically and that can take time. I like to blog when the mood strikes me or something piques my interest which I would like to share so by the time permission has been given I’ve lost the urge.

Technology and the way we use it has changed dramatically since I first started blogging nearly 20 years ago. I wonder how many people read my blog on phones these days instead of on laptops or desktop computers…….. I don’t read as many blogs as I used to. I use Facebook a lot and read a lot of articles linked to from there and watch a lot of videos too. I have considered making genealogy videos about my own family history and about the tips and tricks I continue to learn as I keep researching and attending webinars and seminars.

I love the Youtube vloggers that I follow and watch their content avidly, always happy when a new video comes out but I don’t know that I could fit regular vlogging into my schedule. I don’t have the equipment necessary however I could use the new equipment at Makerspace Adelaide where I am a member and volunteer. I would like to do the occasional video though and they may be genealogy related or one of my other hobbies and interests (which I will still post here).

I now have four grandchildren and two of them with special needs. Ilijah is on the autism spectrum, he’s just started school this year and the youngest Naomi has Osteogenesis Imperfecta also known as Brittle Bone Disease. I help out with babysitting where I can and also transport to medical appointments and sporting events. Josiah the eldest is a talented and keen footballer (Aussie Rules).

I still get some cousin contacts via my blog so I definitely don’t want to take it down or stop blogging altogether I just need to come up with a format and style which works for me. I won’t make any promises about new content because life so often gets in the way but I will say, “watch this space”.

Rossiter’s Boot Factory

I visited my Mum yesterday and we were reminiscing about shops in Gawler St, Mount Barker, South Australia near where I grew up. Mum mentioned something about sewing and I had an instant flashback to walking past an open door in Gawler St as a child and hearing the loud clattering of many sewing machines running. Mum said these were industrial sewing machines at Rossiter’s Boot Factory and I would have only been about four or five years old 1973/74. We looked at lots of other shops and the changes around Mt Barker but the memory of the boot factory stuck with me so I did some research this morning.

1945 ‘Hills Boot Factory Opens Monday’, News (Adelaide, SA : 1923 – 1954), 11 May, p. 4. , viewed 15 May 2019, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article127034428

The factory opened 14 May 1945. On 14 May 2019, seventy four years later Mum and I were standing where the factory used to be talking about it.

Map of old Mt Barker businesses

Mt Barker Blacksmiths And Other Businesses

The Mt Barker factory was a branch of the Unley factory and today is Rossi Boots. Here is some of their history.

A Quaker Wedding In 1841

William Harding Birchall sits on a distant branch of my family tree.  We aren’t blood relatives however when one of his descendants contacted me with a question my interest was piqued.   The Birchalls were Quakers and these are the first Quaker records I have come across in my research.

This marriage record is very hard to read so I downloaded it and opened it in the graphics editor I use called GIMP.

Thanks to Tim Banks, a direct descendant, for the certificate. He owns the original which is a large document he has framed and hung above his computer.

Using the automatic white balance feature and adjusting the brightness and contrast made the image readable when enlarged.

This is the transcription:

William Harding Birchall of Leeds in the county of York, Stuff Merchant, son of Edwin Birchall of the same place and occupation, and Elizabeth his wife, and Lucy Hutchinson of Bishop Auckland in the county Palatine of Durham, daughter of the late John Hutchinson of Helmsley in the county of York aforesaid and Hannah his wife, having declared their intention of taking each other in marriage before the Monthly Meeting of Friends, commonly called Quakers, of Darlington in the county of Palatine of Durham aforesaid, the proceedings of the said William Harding Birchall and Lucy Hutchinson, after due inquiry and deliberate consideration thereof, were allowed by the said Meeting, they appearing clear of all others and having consent of surviving Parents.

Now these are to certify that for the accomplishing of their said marriage, this twentieth day of the tenth month in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty one they, the said William Harding Birchall and Lucy Hutchinson appeared at a public assembly of the aforesaid people in their meeting house at Bishop Auckland; and he, the said William Harding Birchall taking the said Lucy Hutchinson by the hand, declared as followeth: “Friends, I take this my friend Lucy Hutchinson to be my wife, promising, through Divine assistance, to be unto her a loving and faithful husband, until it shall please the Lord by death to separate us.” And the said Lucy Hutchinson did then and there in the said assembly, declare as followeth: “Friends, I take this my friend William Harding Birchall to be my husband, promising, through Divine assistance, to be unto him a loving and faithful wife, until it shall please the Lord by death to separate us.”

And the said William Harding Birchall and Lucy Hutchinson, as a further confirmation thereof, and in testimony thereunto, did then and there to these present set their hands.

We being present at the above said marriage have also inscribed our names as witnesses thereunto the day and year above written.

It appears that everyone present at the wedding signed the certificate, at the bottom on the right hand side there is a separate column where relatives have signed.

I love their simple vows, short and sweet.  Do you have Quakers in your family?  Is this a typical marriage certificate and ceremony?