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Powditch Newsletter - November/December 2004
No. 19
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You are here: home > News > eNewsletter for December 2004
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Apologies that this eNewsletter is a 'bumper' one, but as I haven't sent one out for a couple of months,
and as there's been a considerable lot of changes during that time, I thought that I'd better bring you
up-to-date with 'developments'.
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First of all however, Ang and I want to say that we hope that you and everyone had a very happy
Christmas 2004, and we also hope that you will have a really successful, healthy and happy New Year.
We also want to say a big thank you for all of the Christmas cards and messages we've received.
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Secondly, I'd like to welcome to the Powditch eNewsletters, the following who have contacted me
since the last issue;-
Chris Worpole (UK). Chris' great great grandfather was Robert Powditch, who married Jane Shawl.
One of their children was Robert John Metcalf Powditch (her Great Grandfather), and in turn, her
Grandfather was Sydney John Powditch. Chris has been able to help with much information, and I've been most grateful.
Helen and Victor Manton (UK). Helen is descended from the Allen family of Wells and King's Lynn, a member of that family (John) having married Sarah Powditch at South Lynn, in 1833, and Helen has kindly forwarded several details to me.
Julie Perry (UK). Julie's Great Great Grandfather was the brother of the Mary Stephens (from
Cornwall) who married Wells Kendle Powditch in 1867. W.K.P. was the lighthouse keeper at Le Hanois, Guernsey, and also at other lighthouses around the UK coastline. Julie has more info on
Mary's side of the family, so I am looking forward to getting in touch with her soon.
Maureen Jones (UK). Maureen is descended from the Great Yarmouth branch of the family, and
indeed, her Great Grandmother, Christiana Powditch was one of my early 'successes' way back in
my early 1980s research! Although I owe Maureen an email, I'm most grateful for her information,
and am looking forward to discovering more about Christiana's descendants.
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For those who live in the UK, did you watch the BBC TV series "Who do you think you are?" and
what did you think of it? - have the various celebrities' personal searchings motivated you for your
own family research?
Personally I had mixed feelings about the series, not least because whilst the programme itself
showed what had already been discovered (nothing wrong with that) in order to find out how to trace
your own history, viewers did need to have access to Sky television (and the famous 'red' button).
I don't know whether FreeView viewers have the same facility, but apparently NTL viewers don't have
that red button, so all the 'how to' features weren't accessible to the majority (unless they otherwise
had internet access!) Having said all that, I there has been an increase in the number of Visitors to
the Powditch website since the series began, so hopefully the programme did whet more than a few
appetites!
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Since my last eNewsletter, there have been a number of changes, one of which saw - on 14 December
2004 - the introduction of a NEW Powditch website (well, new-look anyway).
Although still accessed from www.powditch.plus.com/ individual 'sections' will now have to be
accessed in a slightly different way.
The new 'sections' require their individual 'names' to be entered after the / and at the moment include
the following;-
1. Connections/
2. GROindexes/
3. Chile/
4. Clemerson/
5. Jones/
6. Morston/
7. News/
8. Portraits/
9. SiteMap/
10. Webstats/
11. Wills/
- most of which need the words index.htm inserted after the forward slash ('/') in order to access those
topics, other than, that is, with the exception of;-
a. Portraits/ which has to be followed by images.htm
b. Wills/ which is either followed by pre1858.htm or by post1858.htm
To give you a couple of examples for the above, No.7 (Morston) will now be accessed from
www.powditch.plus.com/Morston/index.htm whilst the indexes for Wills (i.e. No.12) will either be
accessed from www.powditch.plus.com/Wills/pre1858.htm (if the Wills were for before the year 1858), or www.powditch.plus.com/Wills/post1858.htm (if the Wills were for after the year 1858) -
1858 being the year that Wills passed from being proven in Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions, and instead
were proven in Civil Courts.
Hopefully these changes will enable you to access the various sections more easily than before.
Certainly by my creating separate 'sections' for each topic, I am able to create, amend and
update/upload the pages far quicker.
As you will note from the NEW homepage for the Powditch website, several topics previously
available are currently undergoing amendments/restructuring, and so there won't be any links to the
old pages for the time being. (N.B. until the relevant pages have been updated, the 'old' details are
still accessible if you know the URL for them; perhaps you saved them as 'Favourites' ? - otherwise,
please be patient until the replacement pages have been created/amended and uploaded)
Please will you note that if you had previously saved any pages - associated with the above
subjects - you will need to amend your 'favourites' or 'bookmarked' items.
More changes will be occurring as and when I'm able to do so, and will be advised in future
eNewsletters.
After you've tried out the changes, I'd appreciate it if you would let me know what you think of them,
and also tell me whether you've had any 'problems' with links, pages opening - including your
receiving Code 404 [page not found] messages - or not! I'd also appreciate any comments,
suggestions, etc.
Should you also wish to have advance notice of which pages I'm working on next, please email me,
and I'll keep you more fully informed. Also, should you have any suggestions for Additional pages, or
Changes, or Layouts etc, I'd be very happy to hear from you
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Another 'change' relates to these, my eNewsletters.
When I first began writing/sending them, I was fortunate enough to be able to produce one
eNewsletter per month, although for a couple of months before the Powditch Gathering (have you
looked at the photos and write-up re that, yet?) the frequency of their issue suffered somewhat!
Since the September Gathering, I have been very conscious that what I had intended to remain a
Monthly eNewsletter was fast becoming a bi-monthly mailing. I have therefore decided that due to all
the work involved in the website changes (and in-between being an active Gampi to my 23-month old
grandson) the eNewsletters will, from this month onwards, be issued as frequently as I'm able to,
which could mean that you'll receive one message per month, or one per 2 months. I do apologise for
the latter, but hope that this amendment to their being sent out, will be acceptable. As you will note
from the heading above, it is my intention to retain eNewsletters' numbering sequence (and also to
show which month[s] the No. relates to). All issued eNewsletters will also be added to the News/
section of the website.
I am trying something different for this month, inasmuch as this eNewsletter is being mailed in 'Plain
Text' format, rather than in 'HTML'. The reason for this is twofold; namely firstly, a possible increase in
speed in my sending/your receiving the messages, and secondly, some email programs did not
display my previous messages with the colours and other font attributes. Of course, this means that
my Christmas/New Year eNewsletter to you is devoid of the previous years' Christmassy headings -
but perhaps that is a bonus if it previously took ages to download?!
Please can you let me know if you feel there's an improvement in speed, or whether you would prefer
to receive this eNewlstter in its previous format (I'll abide by the majority consensus)
Finally, although the e-Newsletter is a totally free update regarding 'happenings/changes' to the
Powditch web-site, if there should be any particular reason you do not wish to continue receiving a
copy of it, perhaps you could e-mail me and let me know?
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One item I intentionally omitted from the above details re the NEW Powditch website, but one which I
feel really needs to be mentioned separately, concerns the birth and marriage dates etc relating to
living persons.
Although on some of the webpages - such as family trees which include living family members - I had
previously included some birth and marriage details (freely provided to me), I have become
increasingly aware that both on the internet, as well as through other media, 'identity theft' has seen a
worrying increase.
Because of the latter, and also because of the concerns of some members of the Powditch family, I
have decided (until the relevant 'pages' have been completely amended) to remove all family trees
where they include dates of living persons. I do hope that this will not cause too much of a problem to
anyone, but would advise that your 'security' is of utmost importance to me.
Please bear with me re the above, as it does take some time for the various 'trees' and their
associated pages to be removed from the website. More about the above will be advised in the next
eNewsletter.
Should you have any personal concerns regarding any aspect of the above, I would welcome your
constructive comments.
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I'd also be most grateful for any details you may know about re births, marriages, deaths, illnesses,
change of addresses, achievements, discovery of family papers/documents on or about the
Powditch family etc, or anything else. Also, if you know of any family members who are now 'on-line'
and who have an e-mail address, I'd be grateful for their details.
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Hoping that you and your family are all keeping well, and looking forward to hearing from you.
John
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