A press release has reached me from my friends over at TheGenealogist and S&N. They are proud to be sponsoring the “Echoes of the Past” show that will be helping promote family history in Lincolnshire.
‘Echoes of the Past’ promises to be the first major family history show for the county. S&N will be providing specialist help, talks and advice on the day, both companies will have products and special offers available to visitors.
Echoes of the Past is a brand new event that will be at the Epic Centre, Lincolnshire Showground, Lincoln on Sunday 27th October 2013 from 10am to 4pm.
The event is aimed at helping people learn more about family history research in Lincolnshire, what resources are available and hints and tips to help researchers along the way. It will be a great way to experience memories of Lincolnshire, with particular focus on aviation, agriculture and engineering- three main industries that featured in many people’s lives.
‘Echoes of the Past’ will also feature the Lincolnshire Family History Society, Lincolnshire Archives, professional Genealogists and the Lincolnshire Aviation Centre.
Nigel Bayley, Managing Director of TheGenealogist and S&N Genealogy comments: “We are delighted to join forces with ‘Echoes of the Past’ in their new venture in Lincolnshire. It promises to be a great event for anyone interested in family history in the Lincolnshire area and we look forward to helping the organisers establish this as the premier genealogy event for the Lincolnshire areaâ€.
As I walked around the exhibition hall at Olympia, taking in all the different stands for family history societies and suppliers, I came across four different companies at Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE offering to record your loved ones as they recall their oral family history, or recount different tales passed down to them from relatives that no longer are with us.
The first one I came across was that of SpeakingLives. This company records people’s life stories and memories and offers to beautifully present these personalised recordings of loved ones so that the client and their friends and family can enjoy them for generations to come. The recording is made available on audio CD and MP3.
I was attracted to the variety of memorabilia on their table, items that I assume could have been used to spark off memories in the subjects.
SpeakingLives
SpeakingLives prices start from £195, but they sometimes have special offers to take advantage of.
Gift vouchers are also available.
Next I found My Viography who specialised in professionally filmed “viographies” (video biographies) and family history documentaries. From what I gathered by talking to them on the stand they use the latest high-definition video and professional film-making techniques with a professional presenter.
They can use your family photographs, video clips, mementos and favourite music in your viography or family history documentary to really bring your story and personality to life. Also on offer is to scan in your old photographs and convert older film and video footage in a range of formats (Mini DV, Video 8, VHS, Betamax, Super 8 or 16mm film) to help you tell your story.
My Viography.
My Viography’s price for a video starts at £594, but this can be made in three payments of £198. They also have other packages that offer extras to the basic at higher price points in the thousands and an audio only one at £495.
Then there was Splendid Reflections whose owner offered a life interview consultancy. Which she explains is your opportunity, from the comfort of your own home, to reminisce, reflect and record your life story and memoirs for the enjoyment of your children and grandchildren for years to come. The result would be made available to you on DVD in a mini-documentary style combining any of your own videos or photographs.
Splendid Reflections
I was very taken by the empty chair and recording equipment on the next stand together with large professional microphone on the next stand that I found in this market.
Life Stories say that they can help you create a unique recording of your story; a carefully constructed audio autobiography to leave for family, friends, or simply for posterity.
They can also help you store it securely for future generations to access, enjoy and even expand; a digital family vault of recorded memories saved for ever.
Life Stories package was £600 that would include preparatory conversations with you and/or your family about what you want to cover. Planning the conversation and discussing how best to retrieve and organise memories before recording. Lengthy recording over the course of one day and several days editing and production to produce the finished product. Longer recordings could be done at a slightly higher cost.
Life Stories
These companies are providing an interesting service that adds a professional polish to the job of recording the family’s oral history and as all good family historians know, our family’s oral history stories are of very great importance to us. Though we should always remember to check the facts with primary sources before we add them to our family trees!
That said, how great will it be for your children’s children to be able to look back, in years to come, and hear or see their relatives talking?
Start Your Family Tree Week is back from 26 Dec 2012 – 1 Jan 2013 with special offers on accessing some search sites!
Hope you had a lovely Christmas day yesterday. At this time of year, when we are visiting or calling family, that we can often make a break through in our family tree research by simply talking to our relatives.
But now some of the family tree research websites are also making it easier for some of us to participate with special Christmas holiday offers. For example Find My Past has 50 free credits available to use for a short time.
Due to the past success of the Start Your Family Tree Week it is back for its third year. From today, the 26th December to the 1st January, Genes Reunited and findmypast.co.uk will be helping members start their family trees with special offers, free getting started guides, discounts and competitions for the chance to win fantastic prizes!
Genes Reunited has some great prizes on offer during the week, competitions will be posted on the message boards and Facebook page. To see the Genes Reunited getting started guides, visit www.genesreunited.co.uk/static.page/syftw
Findmypast.co.uk will be offering 50 free credits to get involved with the fun and to start searching records, coupled with quiz questions, guides and templates that make getting started as simple as can be! Experts are by no means left out in the cold either, with more advanced questions alongside beginners’ tasks and a “brick wall challenge day†will be held on Facebook and Twitter on the 31st December! The entire week’s calendar of activities can be found at http://www.findmypast.co.uk/content/start-your-family-tree-week/index
And here is another little present for you!
For a limited time there is an offer of an exclusive 10% off the 12 Month Package to the British Newspaper Archive!
You will need to use this link to the British Newspaper Archive.
And then use the voucher code: fHmTenYtR(to be entered at the point of checkout, stage 1)
You then get:
o A 12 Month package
o Validity: 26 Dec 2012 – 31 Jan 2013
o Available in the UK Only
What do customers get with a 12 Month Package to the British Newspaper Archive?
o Unlimited credits / page views
o Access to all digitised newspaper pages dating back 300+ years
o Access to ‘My Research’ – a personal area to keep track of searches, add notes and bookmark viewed items into folders
So happy holidays and good luck with your research!
Disclosure: The Links in the above are Compensated Affiliate links. If you click on them then I may be rewarded by the companies should you sign up for their subscriptions.
OK so this may be a bit off topic, but if you have a blog or website like me then you will realise how important it is to get people to read it.
In the past I thought that by creating the best looking, most useful content site was going to get me where I wanted to go. I put in a lot of effort, as well, and took some pride in my various websites. I soon realised, however, that a fantastic website simply didn’t pull in any money into my account. So what do you think the problem was? It was that no one was ever coming to my sites. The wretched things were all but invisible. I really needed to rank higher in Google and the other search engines – some of them I didn’t rank in at all – and I desperately needed to pull in more traffic. Luckily, I’ve found a solution called: Viral Link Network (VLN) to solve the problem. Disclosure: Compensated Affiliate.
Whilst much of the other software out there is bloated and seems to need someone with a degree in computer science to install it, Viral Link Network is as easy as it gets. I’m sure you would agree with me when I say that it really doesn’t matter how good a piece of software is if a normal person like me can’t figure out how to install it, or if the process to do so is overly-complicated. Once you have Viral Link Network up and running, you’ll wish every other piece of software was that simple.
So what do you need to do? Just go to the site and sign up for free, (yes, VLN is free!) then you are taken to a page that has a special offer on it. Don’t worry, it’s optional. I’d recommend you taking a look at getting it if you are serious about building links and getting your site seen, but its up to you. From here you will enter the member area. How easy is it? Just click the download link that says “Download Now”. Save it, then use the installation key that’s provided to you. Every thing is laid out step-by-step in the guide that comes with your free download.
The makers of VLN are interested in helping people get links to their sites, too. You will notice on the welcome page that there is a Fast Mover Bonus. The only catch is that you have to install Viral Link Network within the first seven days of signing up. Of course, you will want to be up and running right away, but it’s a nice touch that they want to encourage people to get the most out of the software. But is the software itself any good?
Some earlier attempts at automated link building were adequate for their time. However, they left too many virtual fingerprints by using the same IP address for each back link. The problem is that it’s very easy to catch on to that, and link building that’s done that way is often counterproductive, because you can be penalized for it. That’s why I appreciate that Viral Link Network uses many different IPs when building links.
To put it simply, there is plenty to like about Viral Link Network. The fact that it’s a smart and powerful piece of software that’s free and easy to install makes it what I consider a true no-brainer. Don’t forget to grab the special offer, too. When you download VLN, you will start getting traffic to your websites like never before. Take advantage of it now, you’ll be glad you did.
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