An interactive map of “Lost London” that gives a ‘unique and rare’ insight to the capital has been created online by the London Metropolitan Archives.

Over 100,000 images and 130 shorts films have been digitised for the project, including footage of Victorians shelling peas in Covent Garden Market and images of the construction of Tower Bridge.

Using Google Maps, the photos and videos from ‘Victorian life in the raw’ are mapped out across approximately 11,000 streets of ‘lost London’.

Free to access, the site allows visitors to search  by a particular street to see how it looked hundreds of years ago, and to print their own versions of the images.

Laurence Ward, from the London Metropolitan Archives, told London Live: “It basically takes you back in terms of place – it could be the place you live, work in, places that you go to – you can see what they looked like 100 or 200 years ago.

“These wonderful, historical images give you a chance to step back and look at how things have changed around you.

“It gives you a map of lost London, if you like, because a lot of things are images [of] things that don’t exist anymore.

Laurence Ward, from the London Metropolitan Archives, told London Live:

“They just take you back to a totally different world – it’s Victorian life in the raw.

“We’re publishing those for the first time on the site – we’re also publishing lots of film clips in London.

“The photographs, in particular, are really important because at the end of the 19^th century, they show you all these things like massive engineering projects – like the construction of Tower Bridge.

“These photographs are quite unique and [give] a rare view of how these things were built – you can see photographs of people with big sledge hammers and it’s quite a surprising view of the London we know very well coming into being.”

You can start your search here. To maximize your search, read the brief information about Using the London Picture Map under the main map.

If you don’t find what you are looking for on the map, try the Advanced Search. The Search Tips are also useful.

Source:  Gail Dever, Genealogy a la carte

This is a very neat idea for those of us who are mathematically challenged from Genealogy a la carte

“I don’t know about your desk, but mine is usually covered with lots of paper.

Some of the paper is just scrap bits I use to write notes and calculate dates for my family history research. I often calculate how many years an ancestor lived, how long they were married, and how old they were when they became a widow(er).

Sometimes, if I feel lazy — or need to calculate how much money I spent after returning from shopping — I Google calculator and do the math on the online calculator.

But there’s an easier way.

I learned from ResearchBuzz that Google answers math questions in the search bar. Apparentl, it’s been around for a while, but it’s new to me. Perhaps it is new to you too.

Here’s how it works.

Type a math problem in the Google search box, leaving a space before and after the plus, minus, multiplication, or division sign — along with a space at the end. The answer magically appears.

In the example below, I wanted to find out how old an ancestor was when he died in 1923.

More complex math problems are also possible, but I’ll leave those to you.”

Canada 150 is asking you the the celebration of our 150th birthday in 2017 by contributing your life story.

You enjoy reading the diaries and letters of your great great grandparents. Their day-to-day stories of life, love, hardship and accomplishments would give you a real sense of who they were and from where you came.

The same is true of your descendants. They would love to hear your stories of life in the 19th and 20th centuries – the dawn of space travel, computers, the Internet and telephone conversations where you can see the person across the ocean to whom you are talking. All of these ‘new’ things will seem so ‘old’ for your descendants and they will enjoy reading about them, but more importantly about you.

Story telling is cyclical. We grow up listening to stories and learning from them (whether we like what we learn or not!). As adults we move into the role of teller, teacher and guardian of our history.

Strong families are bound together by the glue of their stories. Family stories create and encourage a particular type of family relationship as defined by the storytellers. Even if we challenge the stories, we cannot ignore them or resist their influence over us since we heard them when we were young and impressionable.

You will find more information on the Canada 150 Story Project on their website.

On Lisa Louise Cook’s “Genealogy Gems” she writes:

“Reuters recently reported that Ancestry “is exploring a sale that could value it at between $2.5 billion and $3 billion, including debt.” According to unnamed sources, Permira (a buyout firm that owns most of Ancestry) “has hired investment banks to run an auction for the company.”

It’s far too soon to say what this might mean for paying customers, users of Ancestry Library Edition and corporate and community partners.

It’s far too soon to say what this might mean for paying customers, users of Ancestry Library Edition and corporate and community partners …

Our best advice to those whose master family trees are on Ancestry? Download and backup your data! We’re not being alarmist. This announcement is just a good opportunity to do something we routinely recommend anyway.”

To read the complete article, please click here.

This is a bit of a “wake-up” call. Even if nothing happens, the article is worthwhile taking note of, especially if Ancestry is where you maintain your family tree. – just in case! You might like to seriously think about getting your own Family Tree software – ensure it is one that both imports and exports gedcoms, which is the special programme for transferring your family tree from one package to another. There are many available. Just Google Compare+Family+tree+software and state your operating system (for Mac or for Windows).  There is also a very comprehensive comparison chart at PC Magazine well worth a read.