Note: http:// is omitted in all web site references
gives in this article.
Schools on the internet
Some months ago I found my name listed as an old
boy of my school on its web-site. This suggested that
other sites might provide information for family
historians. Mine is an old school, founded originally
in 1702, and the Old Scholars Association has a
project to complete listings for each academic year.
Their earliest reference so far is to pupils in the
1920s.
Recently I carried out further research and
although there are many schools with some kind of
presence on the Internet there are relatively few
with references to old boys. So far I have found no
listings of former students prior to the 1920S. The
aims of ,school sites' are varied - some just supply
information about the school to an ill-defined
audience whilst others present an ethos of the
school, its curriculum and prospectus to potential
parents. Some web-sites are written by the pupils of
the school as part of their experience. Unfortunately
the majority of school sites are of no practical use
to family historians although a few do have something
about the history of the school. Perhaps we should
encourage schools with a long history to create pages
or accessible databases with details of their old
boys?
To find potential sites I typed '+old +scholars'
into AltaVista. This gives a substantial number of
relevant links. Yahoo UK and Ireland gives 11
Berkshire schools listed under:
Home > Regional > Countries > United Kingdom
> England > Counties and Regions > Berkshire
> Education.
The longer countrywide list at:
Home > Regional > Countries > United Kingdom
> Education > Primary and Secondary >
Schools > Secondary
is longer and more interesting. Unfortunately the
links and the accompanying information make it
difficult to identify the location of many of the
schools. Among other links for schools in the south
are:
schoolbox.sys.uea.ac.uk/schools/southeast.html
for southeast England
www.ukdirectory.com/edu/sch_sth.htm
- for the south
www.mersinet.co.uk/~pbarnes/education/english-county/berkshire.htm
- for Berkshire.
Eton College at www.etoncollege.com/
provides little information but has a page on the
College's history from 1860 to the present day and
some excerpts from 'A History of Eton College' by Sir
Henry Maxwell-Lyte. Harrow School at www.harrowschool.org.uk/
has an'Old Harrovian Contacts Page'. Most of these
are post war. They do however have a page giving a
few 'Famous Harrovians' including Lord Byron, Sir
Winston Churchill and Pundit Nehru. Among the more
exotic is the site at www.bhsosa.org.lb
for Brummana High School Old Scholars Assocation in
the Lebanon. Some sites include pages to help old
boys establish Email communication. In Berkshire, the
Old Bradfieldian Society is at web.ukonline.co.uk/ob.society/
- it includes a page, but so far with few entries, on
'Where are they now?' Similarly, Didcot Grammar
School has a DGS Alumnae at www.dgs.sch.uk/alumnae.htm.
Perhaps others will have more success in searching
the Web for schools with information that can be used
for family history research?
The 1881 Census
The Email group has been relatively quiet recently
but it's not clear whether members are out in the
garden or feverishly searching their newly acquired
LDS CDROMs. However, there have been a number of
postings about the 1881 census. The main problem one
that must also be a feature of the fiche version - is
"I cannot find 'so-and-so'". It is not
clear if this is because the surname has been spelt
in an unusual fashion or whether there are some
missing entries. The main benefit of the CDROMs is
the ability to search nationwide for individuals.
Most of us have already done this using the fiche but
the CDROMs make it much easier and most of us will
have found some new entries for our family trees from
this resource. It will be a first 'port of call' for
most newcomers to family history research in the
future.
There is a substantial review of the LDS 1881 CD
census set by Barney Tyrwhitt-Drake in the July 1999
issue of Family Tree Magazine and an article by Susan
Lumas on reported mistakes in the June 1999 issue.
Which ISP? (Internet
Service Provider)
It is becoming more and more difficult to decide
which ISP to join up with (or to change to). There
are many 'subscription free' providers but, because
their help lines are charged at around 50p per
minute, they will be of less use to newcomers to
computing and the Internet who need 'help' than the
'subscription' providers such as AOL, Compuserve,
GlobalNet etc.
Some guidance can be obtained from the Internet
magazines. Internet Magazine provides monthly ratings
of the performance of around 100 ISPs. It is clear
that there is a dramatic change in performance from
month to month for many of them. In the August issue
there is a useful article on the merits of the big
six which also provide content - Compuserve, MSN,
Virgin, AOL, Lineone and Freeserve.
It is expected that an announcement will shortly
be made by AOL about free telephone access using an
00800 number. Some subscription ISPs (e.g. BTinternet)
already give free telephone access at the weekend and
Screaming.net is an example of a subscription-free
ISP which gives free access both in the evening and
at the weekend but only if you switch your telephone
service to Localtel.
We await with some interest the introduction of
the new ADSL system by BT. It is reported that about
a quarter of British households and small businesses
will be able to subscribe to high speed Internet
access for a flat monthly fee starting at £40 -
possibly next Spring - and will be able to use
existing 'copper' phone lines.
Future contributions
If you have contributions to include in future
editions of this column please send them to me at 
or
to my address given elsewhere in this magazine.
It would also be useful to include Questions and
Answers on any Family History Computer issues you may
have.
with any queries
