Misc Comments

Post by **marilyn morning** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 3:37 am

Post a new thread for your favorite book!

Post by **marilyn morning** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 3:56 am

Hi Currie & Sheila

Welcome to the temporary bookmark, for our TalkingScot Book Club. We'll be creating a new forum soon, so for now keep your suggestions coming and we'll seperate them into different threads soon.

Sheila, I know just what you're talking about. Last year when I walked down McDowall Street in Johnstone, Scotland, I just stopped an for a moment I froze in time. I could see my gg g parents, Matthew & Margaret Morning walking down the street. The address listed in the 1881 census had disappeared,but their memory lived on. It was a memory I shall carry with me always.

If I can get carried away for a moment

When I first began my Morning family research, I had posted a few messages on different boards. Out of the blue, a very kind women by the name of Nancy Seaton, answered me back and offered to take a picture of McDowall Street for me. This was my first contact with someone offering to help me with my research, without any strings attached. My 4th cousin, Jim Morning beat Nancy, by taking that picture of McDowall Street. But I shall never forget her extending the offer.

Nancy send Elvis my best............

Regards
Marilyn

sheilajim · Post by **sheilajim** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 9:10 pm

Hi Leslie

I knew that the book was available to read online, I should have mentioned it.

However I don't like reading a whole book online, it bothers my eyes, and to print it off is much more expensive than buying the book.

THowever thank you for putting that site of Electric Scotland back on. I had forgotten where it was.

I am going to search it for more books to read. If I find them interesting I will try to buy them.

Thanks Again

LesleyB · Post by **LesleyB** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 9:13 pm

Hi Sheila

However I don't like reading a whole book online, it bothers my eyes, and to print it off is much more expensive than buying the book.

Oh sure, I quite agree - I have a copy of that book too! But for some folk the online version is a good resource just to dip in and out of when there is a need to know a little about a subject and just fill in some background.

Best wishes
Lesley

nancy · Post by **nancy** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 10:41 pm

Hi Sheila
had a wee peek at the book,and i'll be coming back for more.Looks good!

Hi Marilyn
I can just picture you walking along Macdowall St.It must have given you a tremendous feeling

I can remember playing along with my cousins in Macdowall St as 12yr olds in the 1950s.What a change has taken place,even since then

Wee old buildings I remembered were no longer there last yr,instead it was a registry office,where I was looking for a copy of young Elvis Birth Cert!

Who knows? Maybe my Cassidy rellies were friendly with yours,all those yrs ago

Cheers Nancy

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 10:50 pm

Hi Nancy & Marilyn

When I stopped in Mc Dowall Street yesterday I was taken aback when I saw that the second last single storey cottage had been torn down to allow access to a car repair shop behind it. The only old cottage left is an old fashioned dry cleaners now.

Russell

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Thu Sep 13, 2007 10:26 am

Hi Alan

Thanks for some deeply considered insights into the pros & cons of on-line reading.
Plus ideas for converting some of these yellowed images into a more readable format.
Pity that OCR can't be trained to recognise some of the older, blurred fonts that were used in the early 1800's. after all if the computer can recognise a voice surely it doesn't have to have a TrueType font every time.

Your list of books has me pointing like a retriever dog picking up the scent of where they can be found.
You can tell a lot about a person by their reading list

Russell
P.S. Sometimes a lengthy post is the only way to get your ideas over.

Currie · Post by **Currie** » Fri Sep 14, 2007 6:02 am

Thanks Russell,

Glad you liked it. OCR's a funny thing - sometimes you get much better results than you dare expect - other times it can be quicker for even a plodding typist to type out the whole thing rather than to clean up the OCR mess.

Upper case seems to suffer the most and many a time an absolutely clear upper case heading doesn't get picked up by an online search of an OCR'd newspaper or similar.

All the best,
Alan

Post by **Anne H** » Sat Sep 15, 2007 1:56 am

Hi Sheila,

I would like to recommend The Social Life of Scotland in the Eighteentth Century by Henry Grey Graham, first published in 1899.

Excellent choice!

I loved the bit about how much drink everyone consumed over the wake period, and how on the day of the funeral, how they often had an exceptionally long walk to get to the kirk, then the footnote told of how at one such funeral they had imbibed so much that when they arrived at the kirkyard they realized they had left the corpse behind...couldn't stop laughing!

I had actually forgotten I had this online book in my favourites and wouldn't you know it, it was one of the books I had ordered the other week from Archive CD Books...just came in today.

Have to agree with Currie though, there's nothing like relaxing with a real book...online stuff hurts my eyes

Regards,
Anne H

Post by **paddyscar** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 4:37 pm

joette wrote:What about historical fiction does this have a place?
I have often better understood a period of history whilst reading a work of fiction in a historical vein.
For example I have just finished reading "The Birth House" by Ami McKay which is set in WW1 Novia Scotia.

Hi Joette:

I am also a fan of historical fiction that is well written involving the issues and living conditions of the time. It's the 'human perspective' that brings it to life in a way that text books and dry observation can not. Aren't we all looking to put that human factor into all those records and documents we find in our genealogy?

Frances