My Genealogy Toolbox: No. 1 – The pencil

I suspect pencil and paper has not been entirely replaced by more recent technology in archives and record offices around the world, certainly not for me anyway. I usually have my netbook at my side, but it is used for reference rather than note-taking.

For note-taking I still use pencil and paper, I am not one of those people who have to have a copy of every record I find at an archive, I only bother with a copy if it is something that would take longer to transcribe than it would to get a copy of the original.

I favour the propelling pencil, purely for ease of use in not having to find a pencil sharpener, although I still need to make sure I have some spare leads. I normally use a blue Parker Jotter mechanical pencil that I have had since I was at school about twenty years ago. It has served me well all these years at a variety of record offices around the south-east of England.

In contrast the pencils below are rarely used, for no reason other than the fact that I usually have a propelling pencil closer to hand. Before you start worrying I haven’t been deliberately collecting genealogy pencils (although I might start now!), these have been gathered at past family history events.

Please don’t take away my buses

According to the West Sussex County Council (WSCC) website “Bus travel offers a real alternative to the car”, but from September 2011 this might not be the case.

The WSCC have announced a public consultation into their proposals to reduce the subsidies given to local bus companies by £2 million over the next three years. Essentially this means that the bus companies will not be paid to run services which are not profitable enough for them to run in the first place. These are usually (but not alway) evening and weekend services, and usually to small rural villages.

As someone who doesn’t drive a car, buses (and trains) are not an alternative, they are my only method of transport, whether it is to get to work, to go shopping, heading for an archive or heading off somewhere to go walking. Living in a small rural village has its advantages, but access to public transport is not usually one of them.

Looking down the list of proposed cuts the other day was like looking at a list of old friends. Of course the service that I use to get to and from work is on the list (proposed cuts to the evening and Saturday services) but so are many of the buses that I have used in the past when I am out exploring the Sussex countryside or visiting places of interest.

Of course this blog is not the place to lodge my objections, that can be done in a variety of ways described on the WSCC website. The deadline for consultation is the 10th June 2011, so if you are a user of any West Sussex bus services then make sure you check out the website and see if you might be affected and make your opinions known.

If these cuts go ahead the public transport network in West Sussex is going to be radically different this time next year (and I might need to get myself bike).

Wordless Wednesday: A Sussex Sunset

Copyright © 2011 John Gasson.
	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

1911 census images on Ancestry.co.uk

When it comes to the Ancestry.co.uk website you never know quite what you are going to wake up to. This morning I took a look at the website and discovered that they have uploaded images from the 1911 census for England, Wales, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

The images are not indexed yet, or at least the index is not online yet. I am sure we will hear more about this when the news is officially released by Ancestry but for now you will need to have an idea where you should be looking, possibly using their previously released Census Summary Books.

According to their source information page: “They can be browsed by county, civil parish, sub-registration district, and enumeration district.”

I am certain a lot of people have been eagerly awaiting this release and even if you haven’t it will be good to have another alternative index available when it does go live. Unfortunately we still have to wait until next year to view the contents of the infirmity column.

Copyright © 2011 John Gasson.
	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Time to think about Sussex Day 2011

Sussex Day 2011 is fast approaching and like the last two years I want to celebrate the 16th June in some special way. The previous years this has involved spending the day walking and visiting ancestral locations.

Unfortunately this year I will not be able to get the day off work (the 16th June is a Thursday this year), so my options are going to be rather limited in terms of walking. I still hope to be able to spend at least part of the day walking. I should be able to get three or four hours walking in after work so I will be looking for a walking route home that is a little different to my usually walking route.

With limited options for walking I will have to divert my energies to researching and writing about Sussex and my Sussex ancestors. I know I normally write quite a bit about Sussex already but I am thinking of a having a week-long celebration of all things Sussex.

If I am going to do that then I need to start planning, researching and writing now. I won’t have much opportunity to get out and do much new research between now and Sussex Day, but I have plenty of material already at hand that needs writing up, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

For the first time in a few weeks I am starting to get excited at the prospect of have something special to write about. Even if I can’t get out for a decent walk on Sussex Day I will find other ways to celebrate the day.

Copyright © 2011 John Gasson.
	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.