Forum Activity for @iamtimbo

Who Do You Think You Are returns on 24th November

The Bar


The BBC's Family History programme Who Do You Think You Are? returns next Thursday, with a new roll call of celebrities digging into their past. This year's featured personalities will be:
Amanda Holden
Sir Ian McKellen
Liz Bonnin
Sunetra Sarker
Danny Dyer
Greg Davies
Warwick Davis
Sophie Raworth
Ricky Tomlinson
Cheryl (Tweedy/Cole/Fernandez-Versini)
As you might have seen, Danny Dyer's episode sees him discover some surprising family links...

The series starts on BBC1 on Thursday 24th November at 9pm.


updated by @iamtimbo: 17 Nov 2016 14:43:05

Looking for watch and clockmakers local to Wimborne

Industry & Business


We have been contacted by a chap who is looking for information on a watch he has with a Wimborne signature, that being John Spurrier. If you have any info, such as an address, he'd love to know.
He's also looking for info on a Thomas Phippard clock from Poole, a William Randall clock from Wareham, a Selby watch from Wareham and a Pegler watch from Blandford if anyone has addresses for any of them. That group are all around last quarter of the 18th century and first quarter on the 18th. He's also interested in Thomas Baker of Blandford, that one 1690-1720 period.
All info gratefully received!

In Beta: Events

Updates


You can now add local history/genealogy events to Our Town Story. Events are added from the your profile page (click your user name in the top right hand corner of the screen) by clicking the Events tab and then the '+' icon. 
Add the title, date and time, organiser, picture/logo, address, website and description. You also need to choose the principal topic location (for example if it's about life in Elizabethan York, then York is the principal location, even if the talk is somewhere else). 
As long as you have chosen a principal location, the event will now show up on the events pages of the town's and villages in a defined radius around it. At the moment, it's around 10 miles, but we will play with that if it's over/under specific, and welcome your feedback!
If you see an event you'd like to attend, you can click 'Attending', and you will be listed on the event as an attendee - as well as the event showing up in the calendar in your profile. If you're a social butterfly,  you can see at a glance where you're supposed to be and when!
As ever your thoughts, comments and suggestions are welcome; reply below, or start a new topic in the forum...

updated by @iamtimbo: 27 Mar 2016 13:03:29

In Beta: Flickr Support

Updates

Update: The more we play with this feature, the more sense it makes to incorporate Flickr images added to Our Town Story to the general 'Images' tab. We'll add this functionality over the next few days.

In Beta: Flickr Support

Updates


You'll see a new tab in the profiles (yours and the place ones), where you can now see and add images from image-sharing website Flickr. This should be especially useful if you have already uploaded images to Flickr. 
We're still refining the layout, but if you want to have a play - it's a great way to get used to our location-tagging system - just choose the Flickr tab from your profile page, click the '+' button, and copy and paste the full Flickr URL of the image you would like to add. 
You can then choose its location on the Google map - just start typing and the map will make suggestions. Once you've found it, click 'save'. Done! The image will now appear both in your Flickr tab, and in the tab for the town's closest to the location you gave it!

updated by @iamtimbo: 23 Jan 2016 17:49:01

Converting Northings and Eastings to Latitude and Longitude

Geographic Issues

Excellent stuff - if I come across any other useful tools, I'll post them up - thank you!

Converting Northings and Eastings to Latitude and Longitude

Geographic Issues

Big thanks to @peb205, who had wanted to convert Northings and Eastings data into latitude and longitude so that he could add locations to some of his pictures. It might be that one day we can support both sets of co-ordinates, but in the meantime, he's pointed us to this online converter at the OS, which you might find useful if you're in a similar position. 
updated by @iamtimbo: 05 Jan 2016 11:26:31

What are place timelines, and why don't they have anything in them?

Updates

We can see from the analytics that lots of people visit the timelines for places, but we know that they currently find them blank. So what are they for?
The feature we're working on goes something like this - whilst writing a post in the forum for, say, Richmond-upon-Thames, you might make a mention of somewhere else - for example Rochester in Kent. So that people that visit Rochester's profile can see that it was mentioned, you will be able to add a quick link to the post by using Rochester's @ tag in brackets - eg @rochester-kent-england-me2-2. You can see it here in the first paragraph of @david-atkinson's Broadoak riots post. Don't panic, you won't have to remember them all - you'll be able to start typing the place name, and then choose it from a pop-up menu.
We're still developing the functionality, so this isn't working just yet, but keep your eyes peeled, and we'll let you know when it is!
updated by @iamtimbo: 10 Dec 2015 09:24:20

A History of Wimborne in Miniature

Buildings & Places

As you may have seen, there's a fab little Pathe film of the Model Town, shot in the 1960s - you can see it here:

updated by @iamtimbo: 23 Jul 2015 08:18:51

Our Town Story Wimborne Minster poster to download...

Off-topic

Hi All,
As we're finding it hard to get local press coverage ('we conflict with their business model'), we've had a couple of volunteers to put up an Our Town Story poster offering free lifetime membership to Wimborne residents that can help us test the system.
We'd be more than happy to send you one if you need one, alternatively please feel free to download the PDF attched to this post, print, and display prominently!
Thanking you in advance,
Tim

updated by @iamtimbo: 18 Jun 2015 18:06:34