Portsmouth ..... Anyone Going There?

What it is; I'm having a blast here! I'll do my best to 'Cut to the Chase'. But, it's a bit involvedish ~ or just a straight head fuck, if ye don't grasp the concept. Only, I bought a whole 750MB CD of photo's of Portsmouth, off some guy on the Bay.

Yeppers. So He's obviously well fucked in the head for possessing such a mind bendingly fucking humongous collection of photo's of a city. True, actually. The guy explained, in his profile, that he was ex of Portsmouth ~ and suffered clinical depression. Poor, sick bastard. Most people I ever knew, who were clinically depressed, were so because they were still in fucking Portsmouth!

Anyway, I'm neither in that shit hole, nor am I depressed. See above; I'm having a whale of a time. And it's all to do with thousands of photo's of Portsmouth. The place I hate. I don't 'Love To Hate' it. I just fucking despise the place. I spent most of my life there. I learned good.

However ~ and here ye need to pay a bit of attention; I'm into this Genealogy (Family History shit) and I recognise the value of seeing images of where ye people lived. Many of mine lived around Portsmouth from about 1800. Generations of them lived in a street which was demolished just before I was old enough to think for myself. I've never seen that street. Probably never will. It'd be my dying wish to see an image of it.

So, being the sort of guy I am, and having found no such image amongst the thousands I have here, I've been on a mission to make other peoples dreams come true. I offer my images, free as fuck, to anyone else on the Genealogical fora I go to.

Tell ye; I've had a couple of people ask me, recently, for shots of places. One was a church that was demolished back in the 20's or 30's. Her mother had been married there, or something. Another guy wanted HMP Portsmouth. I only managed to dig out both the shots! These people were so fucking grateful, there were tear stains on their e mails. I'd made their days. That shit makes my day. I like making people happy.

Please bear this in mind, if ye ever visit Portsmouth. I have shots from the fuck knows when's, right up to the 90's. But, that place changes like a kaleidoscope and I haven't got a fraction of it covered yet. If I still lived there ~ and so, by definition, hadn't killed myself yet ~ I'd be out every day, with my camera. I'd follow every damn road on a street map and would snap shots of Everything.

A side street. A chip shop. A patch of waste ground (As if That could exist there these days!) I'd grab the lot. Any and everything. Walk along a road between A and B? Camera out and just grab a shot of that mundane, boring, motor filled fucking road. Label it. Pubs. Corners. Anything.

Because this is the shit that people look back on. Look for. And no viewable record will exist, most of the time. Not of the less colourful or glamorous shit. Does the street where You lived feature on any 'Guide' to your home town? I doubt it.

So, that's the craic. I'm hungry for shots of any and everything Portsmouth and there abouts. Nothing can be too mundane. Jesus christ; I'd take shots of public loo's! Those things have been getting closed down most of my living memory. Once they're gone? And yet, some poor fucker probably spent years of their life cleaning the places. See how the weirdest shit can matter to someone, thirty years from now?

And that's my project. I have thousands of shots. I'm up all night trying to identify and catalogue them. When I'm done, I'll hand the lot over to the local archives. Meanwhile, my shots end in the 80's, 90's. I'd love to expand my collection to show what shit looks like now, in the 10's. I'd also like just more shots of how streets and roads look. Anywhere ye happen to be walking or step out of ye motor ~ I mean; No cunt walks these days, do they ....?

No more than anyone passes through Portsmouth, if they can help it. But, if ye do? Grab me a card full of any and everything, will ye? I don't need 'Art'. I want 'Japanese'. Click like a muvva fukka. Just make damn sure to record where the hell it is! I almost certainly wouldn't recognise it now!

Thankyou.

Genealogy; It Can Fuck With Your Head ....!

For Fuck Sake! I just came across This, on a Genealogists forum. Try this fukka on for size;

" My sisters are also my 8th cousins once removed according to my Family History Software programme. This is because my 8x great-grandfather is also my 7x great-grandfather. He was married three times and the daughter of the son of his second marriage married the grandson of a daughter from his first marriage. Took me ages to work that one out! "

Just doesn't bear thinking about, does it? Computers ~ Who'd have one?

War Time Love Letters .....

On a forum I frequent, someone gave us the heads up about one of these Threads which become 'runaway' to the point of minor, inter net legends. I'm so fascinated with the eventual out come of this one myself, I thought I'd show ye. It starts Here.

So ye'll land there, on ye feet and running; A lady happened to find a classic, ribbon tied stack of hand written letters, buried away in some junk shop.

Acting on what ever compulsion, she bought them and took them home. Then, as she started to nose through them, she became so moved by their style and content that she figured these could be treasured by the authors living descendants.

But, how does one trace the living kin of the, presumably, long enough dead? Well. probably like most other insurmountables, these days; One asks on a forum.

The rest, as I've said, is looking like 'history' in the making!

Over 700 posts on there, as I type this. Please do start at the beginning. Ok; Ye can scan over some of the obviously just 'well wishing' ones. But, the gripping bit is how it evolves. How much people can find out about someone, these days, based on the skimpiest scrap of information.

I do this, of course, as a virtual way of life. I'm the family Genealogist. It's 'my job'. But, ye don't have to be interested in 'Family Trees' to be drawn into this, evolving, little adventure.

Take a look.

" I Know You're No One ..... "

Someone said that to me, tonight, in e mail. The person saying it was Rosie Smith. She's a daughter of Levi Smith ~ as in ' The Levi Smith '. I don't expect that name means jack to most of you? Probably not. But I've known of the man most of my life. And, earlier tonight, I exchanged a few words with his girl.

Rosie and I both inhabit a Gypsy forum, see? And she got wind of this place and badgered me into telling her where it is. Then, having come here and seen how I go on, she got to thinking I might be one or another other characters she's 'met' on line.

That's how come she threw a couple of suggestions at me, as to my, suspected, 'other' identities. I, of course, disavowed her. Hence the come back titling this post;

" I know you're no one ..... " ('I know, and thought ye might have been, but .....').

But, that got me thinking. Especially as I'd received a fresh batch of Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates in the post today. I was actually sat here, transcribing all the new data onto my Family Tree site when Rosie popped up. Thus I couldn't help but wryly think to myself; " I'm someone, alright. And I'm getting a pretty good idea who too! "

Now, Rosie will 'know who she is'. She can probably reel off both sides of her own family line, by rote. Aunts and Uncles. Who married whom. All their first names. The lot. That's the way with Romanies (Oh. Sorry. Had I not pointed out that Rosie is a full blooded Romany? Well, she very much is) and the Romany people, very much like the Irish, are very much into family lineage.

I am. Only there's barely any bugger left alive who I can ask any more now. So I've had to largely dig back myself. Using various 'pay per view' sites, to access historical records. Then I've spent thousands of pounds ~ quite literally ~ on buying up BMD Certificates, to help me get one parent further back on my own 'Dead Rellies'. It's become, rather ironically, a complete 'Way of Life' with me.

And how about you? Do ye even know ye own Grand Parents first names? Do ye care what Gran'Dad did for a living? What about Gran'Ma's people? What were they like? What did they do? Where did they live? Do these questions make ye shrug and think of going and reading something more interesting and relevant to you?

Funny; Some people are more concerned with the 'Pedigree' of their latest Dog than what they have in their own blood. Where they got it from. How it maybe makes them even do the things they do today.

Oh well. I'm not here to lecture or proselytise about anything. Only, I Do always ~ within reason ~ encourage others to start finding out and getting it down. Even just the generation before you holds So Much.

It's a bastard, when ye turn around to ask them and they're gone.

What Were Your Relatives Up To .....

A couple of hundred years ago ....?

This is a complete blast! It seems like the British Library has 'digitised' and put on line a load of news papers, from 1800 - 1900. And they're all fully searchable ~ for a small fee. Here.

So, being up to my eyes in Genealogy ~ the study of my 'Family Tree' ~ I heard about this and thought I'd take a look. So, what's the first thing anyone would do, in such a situation? Obviously, I fed it my own surname. Perhaps equally obviously; I got hundreds of results back! Everything from adverts for " Shitters WC's, 1851 " to ..... well, just far too much stuff and likely the vast majority nothing to do with me.

So, then I thought again and decided to go for shitter or bust. I fed it " Shitter Hawker ". (Most of my people were Hawkers) And I hit fucking pay dirt, straight away!

Back in 1800 and something, there's one of my Gt, Gt etc Grand Dad's! In the Police section of the Hampshire Chronicle. Being arrested as pissed as a hand cart, in Portsmouth! LMFAO! Un fucking believable! Some things just never change!

Then, another result was Bill Shitter, a (Gt. so on and so forth) Uncle of mine. Seems that poor bastard was just going about his normal business and happened to be the first on the scene at the railway line. Thus it was him who discovered what was left of a suicide by steam train! Some cunt had slung themselves beneath the late night train into Pompey and 'Uncle' Bill found the result. They were chuffed to bits. Poor Uncle Bill was sick as a fucking parrot!

Not bad for a random and relatively limited snap shot of what the papers said about my people, eh? And my chosen search terms only scratched the surface, of course. I aim to dig far deeper yet. But, there's already more!

I tried the other side of my family. And fuck my old boots! Did I come up with the goods this time?!?

Seems a Gt (etc) Uncle of mine, (Hawker, obviously) on that side had a wife who was working as a Farm Servent. So, one evening, he trundles down there to meet her from work. 'Big deal!', ye say. 'Your fucking people get in the papers for meeting their wives from work?!'

Yes! I reply; They Do when the cunt then pulls out a fucking knife, stabs her multiple times, then slashes her fucking throat!!! :o I shit ye not! Stabbed her to bits and cut her fucking throat. Then tried to do away with himself! That got Him in the fucking papers alright!

Honestly; That side of the family? Ye could't take them fuckin' Anywhere!

Highly reccomended bit of craic, peeps. Go take a look for ye own lot. God alone knows what they were up to back then. Of course, it Does help to have a first clue who, where and what yours were, back then. But, that's all part of why this Genealogy shit so fascinates me anyway. Just look what I can dig up!

One Shouldn't Laugh ..... But ....!

Anyone who thinks Genealogy ('Tracing Ye Family Tree') is for dried up old fossils who want to sit in musty Records Offices all day looking for links to aristocracy is completely off planet. Believe me. I know about this. Because, I've been up to my eyeballs in this stuff for years now. It's completely compelling and ye just never know where it'll take ye, or what it'll teach ye next.

And I've just been on a quick tour of the Workhouse's. Grimmest fucking places one could imagine, outside of the Nazi Camps, believe me. And, before ye shrug, sniff and consider such places nothing to do with you? I wouldn't be so smarmy till ye've dug into ye own family history! Only a couple of generations back, things could be a hell of a lot different than today.

Anyway, I've not come here to berate ye. I'm not in that mood. No. My little trip round the hell holes of yesteryear did leave me in tears, in fact. But, suffice to say; It also left my rubber key board running with spat out Stout! I spat the Stout out just before I collapsed into a helpless mess of uncontrollable laughter!

I was looking for some people whose surname began with " Bu... ", see? So, there I am, cruising down these long, alphabetical lists of Inmates names. Concentrating on the later B's, but constantly aware of the categorisations these places put people into. The ones making me start to snigger were; " Idiot ", " Imbecile " and " Lunatic "!

I mean, for fuck sake; It's not bad enough that ye've ended up in there. Now some cunt is arbitrarily labelling ye a fucking " Idiot "! (Ahh, christ! Here I go again! Laughing so hard I can barely see the key board My stomach hurts with it!)

So, there I am, laughing myself into a frenzy about all that ~ yeah; I started tipping the glass a trifle early today. So hot, and it's a sunday ~ when my eye slips off the bottom of the B's and I somehow find myself looking at " Jacob Curtis. Born in Poole. Job; Blacksmith. Condition; Blind!

Sorry. That just did it! Thought of a Blind Blacksmith? How come he wasn't listed as " Lunatic ", or at least " A Complete Fucking Idiot! " as well?!

Oh dear! Now I Must pee!