Being of the surname Billington, my family, though in Yorkshire for over 100 years, is often asked about its Lancashire origins and in particular I am often asked by historians if I have any connections to the Hangmen of Bolton. In the south of England the question is quite different and I am asked of my connections to John Billington who travelled with the Pilgrim father’s…
ContinueAdded by Dan Billington, Ancestry Central on April 12, 2011 at 5:08am — No Comments
Added by Dan Billington, Ancestry Central on April 12, 2011 at 3:43am — 2 Comments
This week, I will be spending some time researching the Cemeteries of Kingston upon Hull, in East Yorkshire. Between 1880 and 1910, the Cemeteries grew at a rate only equalled by the continued growth of the City. From a tiny medieval town surrounded by green fields, Henry VIII’s favourite stop over expanded to more than 10 times its original size.
Recent records exist of…
Added by Dan Billington, Ancestry Central on April 11, 2011 at 3:00am — No Comments
I was at a Bat Mitzvah this past Saturday and the presiding rabbi gave a sermon on the gift of time. He had seen an ad for a famous jewelry company that depicted a graduate in cap and gown, with a new watch on her arm. The caption was, “There Is No Present Like The Time”, which of course, is a twist on the old idiom, “There Is No Time Like The Present” to show that the watch was the gift of time. But the watch is also a metaphor for the larger definition of time. I wish I had the sermon to…
ContinueAdded by Stefani Twyford on April 6, 2011 at 6:31pm — No Comments
In the news yesterday is a story about a couple who are engaged and planning to wed soon. What makes this story really unusual is that they have the same name, Kelly Hildebrandt, and they met on Facebook.
One night (female) Kelly was bored and typed her name into Facebook to see what came up. Up popped Kelly Hildebrandt but it was a guy and he was in Lubbock Texas. She sent him a note that said “Hi, We had…
ContinueAdded by Stefani Twyford on March 30, 2011 at 8:31pm — No Comments
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything here and while I have been very busy with work and new clients, I have felt a missing of my creativity and inspiration. It occurred to me over the weekend that the source of my ennui was the recent deaths of 4 people I knew within the time-span of two weeks. These were not old people, peers of my parents, who were battling long illnesses and the gentle creep of old age, but my own peers, (give or take a decade) that left suddenly, with little…
ContinueAdded by Stefani Twyford on March 21, 2011 at 3:48pm — No Comments
These days, many of us take photos with our phones and send them to each other via email or post them online to various photo sharing websites such as Flickr and Twitpic. I’ve also got photos on my Facebook profile and there’s some video clips of me speaking on my website. I don’t have photos of my…
ContinueAdded by Stefani Twyford on February 25, 2011 at 1:22pm — No Comments
We received an email from a reader suggesting we write an article comparing the cost and time it takes to create your own keepsake video as opposed to hiring us to create a Legacy video for you. We thought this was a great idea.
When you walk into your local computer store, you are met with aisles of the newest technological toys. They are enticing…
ContinueAdded by Stefani Twyford on January 9, 2011 at 1:11pm — No Comments
I have been watching “In Treatment“, an HBO drama about a psychotherapist, Paul Weston (with award winning performance by Gabriel Byrne). Each episode is a session with one of his patients, including one session with his own therapist, Gina, at the end of the week. The session with Gina covers some of the things that are going on with his patients…
ContinueAdded by Stefani Twyford on December 30, 2010 at 11:28am — No Comments
Growing up and living in the United States, I had never heard of Ted Grant or been exposed to his photojournalism, so I was not really sure who this keynote speaker was at the Association of Personal Historians 2010 Conference in Victoria BC earlier this month. For some reason, his name kept conjuring up the news anchor on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. ( Then I found out I had been confusing the editor, Lou Grant and the anchor Ted Knight and created my own…
ContinueAdded by Stefani Twyford on November 24, 2010 at 11:46am — No Comments
I recently returned from the 2010 Association of Personal Historians Conference held in Victoria, British Columbia. The theme of this conference was “Voices of the Elders” and was named as such to “honor the First Nations, the first peoples of Canada, on whose traditional territory we met, as well as the elders of all nations, whose stories we help preserve.”…
ContinueAdded by Stefani Twyford on November 17, 2010 at 9:00am — No Comments
Since 1995, Ira Glass, one of the greatest storytellers of our time, has been the host of the radio show “This American Life,” a weekly hour-long show that is primarily journalistic non-fiction but also features essays, short fiction and occasionally memoirs.
I had the pleasure of seeing Ira live this past weekend at Jones Hall here in Houston. My experience was less like sitting in a…
ContinueAdded by Stefani Twyford on October 15, 2010 at 1:12pm — No Comments
This website link from Boston.com was recommended on a listserve that I subscribe to and I wanted to share it with my readers. I can’t believe how haunted I am by these photos.
They were taken between 1909 and 1912 by a photographer, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, who was commissioned by Czar Nicholas II to…
ContinueAdded by Stefani Twyford on September 30, 2010 at 9:46pm — 1 Comment
When my own children were young, my father suggested taking a photograph of them every month, in the same location and pose. These photographs, he explained, could later be assembled into a type of time-line of their growth and development. While I did take many photos of both of my sons, I never did manage to do that specific project, although it still think it’s a terrific idea and would have been a wonderful thing to have now.…
ContinueAdded by Stefani Twyford on August 24, 2010 at 10:05am — No Comments
I was recently in China for 10 days, visiting the main cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. What I found most interesting is how different the context of their beliefs and practices are to my own. Because I am a video biographer, some of the things that I noticed have cause me to look at my field and how much I take for granted about what I do in the context of our American culture.…
Added by Stefani Twyford on July 27, 2010 at 12:00pm — No Comments
I recently got back from a 10 day trip to China where I visited the main cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. I had a really great time although I haven’t finished organizing and tagging all my photos and hope to get that done soon before I forget all the finer details of where each photo was taken. As I go through notes and photos I’ll be adding some thoughts to this “China Diary” over the next couple of months. …
Added by Stefani Twyford on July 14, 2010 at 12:34pm — No Comments
A heavy fog infiltrated my creative mindset ten days ago. I became discouraged and frustrated. But I was not alone, others felt it too. On Saturday, I followed a hash tag (#writers) on Twitter and found a steady stream of negativity:
Added by Jennifer Swan on June 28, 2010 at 11:43am — No Comments
For a good part of my life, I had a tin cracker box filled with old letters. Most of these were letters sent to me by old boyfriends, away at college or otherwise separated from me and declaring their affections. There were also some letters from friends off on a big adventure somewhere and I found them so well written, the details of their experiences so juicy that I chose to save them. There were a few letters from one of my parents who…
ContinueAdded by Stefani Twyford on June 21, 2010 at 6:00pm — No Comments
Added by Ayesart on June 16, 2010 at 10:37am — No Comments
A few weeks ago one of my clients, Dan Duncan, a well known businessman and philanthropist, passed away. His passing was unexpected and we were just days away from shooting new footage for a another tribute video on the Duncans. Both Dan and his wife Jan were chosen as the 2010 Tapestry Award recipients by Interfaith Ministries, a local non-profit whose mission is for all faiths to work together to create a more compassionate society.…
ContinueAdded by Stefani Twyford on May 5, 2010 at 10:00am — No Comments
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