Beefy's Corner.......For all off Topic threads

Any one going to watch the Khan fight?

 

My great great grandfather played for Arsenal. I inherited none of his ability.

 

My Granddad was born in Latvia back in the 1930s, and he moved to Ireland when he was very young. It wasn't until a few years ago that he went back to Latvia and found that he had been celebrating his birthday on the wrong day, and that he had inherited some land in Israel that was worth about half a million pounds. Pretty eventful holiday.

I think there are some websites that can track this sort of stuff way back if you pay for it.

 

On the other hand, you could probably play for them today.

 

True. As you inherit mitochondrial DNA only from your mother, they know that everyone in Europe is descended from only 3-4 women.

 

Just seen the Football League tweet about this...

Former Coventry City striker Peter Ndlovu in critical condition after brother Adam was killed in a horrific car crash on Sunday.

Both represented Zimbabwe at international level during their careers.

 

England have a decent lead going into final day. Heading for a draw and a series win for England.

 

Why take any chance? First series win in India for 27 years...don't want to blow it now.

 

The very first thing you must do if you want to find out about your family history is to make contact with elderly relatives and visit them. They are a wealth of information and will save you hours of time.

Visit them with a camera and a notebook. You might even want to take along a voice recorder although some people aren't always comfortable with this.

With their permission photograph family documents they may have and also family photographs making sure that you know and record who is in them. Get them to help you with the beginnings of your family tree. Write down important things they say and if you write it up after your visit send them a copy and ask them to check it.

If you want to be confident about what you are told make sure you can verify the information against official records such as Parish Register entries and birth, death or marriage certificates. Don't believe what other people have written on websites unless there is supporting evidence.

If you know the places they lived then a visit to a County Record Office will give you access to all sorts of information. If your family are from Southampton then visit the Archives in the Guildhall as they have excellent records and very helpful staff. My family are from Berkshire so I used to spend quite a bit of time at the Berkshire Record Office in Reading.

A general rule is to start with what you know and work backwards from there which is what they do on Who Do You think You Are?

If you really want to get involved in researching your family history see if anyone else in your family is doing the same as you will be able to work together and save costs.

A copy of a birth death or marriage certificate is over £9 and membership of a good family history website is about £100 a year. If you are going to do this as a serious piece of historical research which is factually correct then it can become very expensive.

Some people publish their family history and tree on line. Be wary of this as it contains information which may be abused by identy thieves. Also you will often find a lot of information is is not accurate or even true.

Even in official documents such as birth, death and marriage certificates people sometimes lied or entry errors were made.

For example a great Aunt of mine was base born and when she married she put an invented name for her father on her marriage certificate.

Another great Aunt who had a base born daughter and lived in lodgings maintained she was a widow as her daughter visited her from time to time and the daughter maintained the fiction after her death by putting the non existent husband's name on her mother's death certificate.

Be aware that surnames can have various spellings and in families that could not read or write this may not have been be corrected.

The LDS Church are a free resource but be careul with data provided as it may not always be accurate. https://www.familysearch.org/learn

On their website you can get a free database to record your family tree which is as good as anything you can buy:

It is called Personal Ancestral File and you will find it here:

https://familysearch.org/products

Visit a family history fair, you can find them on the web and there will be one near you for sure.

Finally this is my own personal opinion but be very careful who you share your information with and also be very careful when entering data onto family history websites as you may lose control of it.

Finally never share any information about anyone living without their full permission.

Family history can be great fun and will tell you a great deal about your family's circumstances. Try to find out more about their lives and don't just collect names or build a family tree. Try to make it into a story of your family's life.

You can do this using school log books, local history books, wills and newspapers etc.

 

The thing to remember is that it is only the female line you can be certain of....it's a wise child who knows it's father.

One amusing story is that when a subject on Who Do You Think You Are? told her daughter that she was going on the programme, she replied, 'Oh, is that where they take you into a library and make you cry.'

 

Corinthians lead against Chelsea.

 

"Chelsea are playing dreadful football and deserve to be behind. Corinthians are playing direct, fluid football."

Oh dear Benitez will be even ore unpopular now!

 

and Cahill gets a red card. The natives will be very restless. Benitez badly needs to thrash Villa next Sunsday now!

 

A wiser word was never said.

I recently participarted in a Y chromosome DNA project for my male surname line which turned out to be a real can of worms.

It would appear that historically several of the women in my family line have been a bit naughty and a few of the men have been duped.

 

Thanks Godders. Unfortunately 3 out of my 4 grandparents have been dead for some considerable time. I know one of my uncles has mapped out the family tree so I may get in touch with him.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20747164#

Sad news. A great player!

 

StG's advice is very good. However, don't leave it as late as I did. I sat down with my Mum, a few years after my Dad died, asking her about a few bits and pieces that I didn't quite have pinned down. The universal answer that came back was... I don't know.

 

I see the vile Westboro church are at it again. They're going to picket the funerals of the kids in the US shooting tragedy, as they claim this is from God, punishing people for condoning/legalising "*** Marriage".

Here they are:

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