Recent content by alandpol

Envy you being able to take your camera to Farm St. but this is the next best thing, excellent pix, thanks a bunch. best regards alandpol

Thanks folks for your interest, all suggestionsgratefully received.

I have a ggfather who became an engine fitter around 1870. Any ideas or theories of what this might mean, I've guessed he was on the railway but this is just a wild shot in the dark. regards Alan.

Thank you one and all for your help, very much appreciated. Regards Alan

Hi folks, not sure if this is the right place to be asking this and if not then many apologies. Could someone look in a Kellys for Dudley Park Rd in Acocks Green any time in the late 1950's. The house I want will be occupied by a John Wild, solicitor, and his wife Minnie. Also Francis Cook or...

What never heard of Neil Dougall? I say sir, what's your schoolmaster been about? I began humming to myself the tune of Lily of the Lamplight and singing the words we sang long ago: Dougall passed to Bodle, Bodle he was fine Passed it on to Edwards who ran along the line, Back in the centre...

My father drove a No 8 bus for years and years. He retired and died so I rang people who would have known him and finally his old garage at Liverpool St. I said: "One of your old drivers has died ... George Smith .. everyone knew him ... popular bloke ... wrote the garage notes in the...

Thanks for reminding me about those Lancasters, Eric. I wonder if you were a navigator in one of those that used to almost scrape our roof as they set off on bombing raids. Some years later I trained for a time as a RAF navigator during my National Service and I was always totally baffled as to...

Wendy, that's brilliant, I reckon it is just the sort of info this website was meant for. Regards Alan

Hello again. I've scoured this thread, read every one I'm sure and most interesting it is. But I'd be grateful if someone would describe the floor plan of the interior of a house/ any house/ in Farm St. How many rooms downstairs and upstairs? Kitchen? Scullery? I've been in a back-to-back...

Thanks for that Mike. BTW when I click on that map image all the screen goes black. Any idea why?

The 1871 census shows Thomas Burgess and family at 9 Insurance Buildings, Union Passage. He is an "ostler hotel". I know where Union Passage is, but anyone with a map or Kellys who can identify those insurance buildings or make a guestimate as to the hotel where he worked with horses.

Well that's sorted that one then folks, much obliged.

Silly little query really but it matters to me. An ancestor gives his address in the 1911 census as Wiliam Edward St. That's what he wrote so I feel he was right. The cover of a book I am reading "Living Back to Back" by Chris Upson is a photograph of William St. No "search and find" facility...

My William Lees was born circa 1849 and died March 1924. His daughter Emily was born 1879, one of nine children. William was a clockmaker and worked for many years for a William Gilbert and son (another William), mainly in Farm St. I have found a William Gilbert and son around 1841 who were...