What’s been happening?
As you will see, many years have passed since I last wrote about the updates to my family history website. Nonetheless, my research has continued, off and on, during this time, although it is becoming progressively more difficult to find more family links.
Fortunately I still have interest in the website, particularly from the Brighton area and this has lead to some interesting new information about the Cowley bakery in Pool Valley – aka ‘Ye Olde Bunn Shoppe’ – and how this passed down through the family. Amazingly, the business was still listed as ‘Cowley’s Bakery’ in the 1968 Kelly’s Directory. I am particularly indebted to Chris Horlock who has sent me some superb images which I have now included on the web page about the bakery. Thanks to Chris I now have a photo of my great, great grandfather, Francis Cowley! Thanks also to Carol Homewood for allowing me to use one of her excellent photos which shows a sign, ‘Cowley – Bath Buns’, in Pool Passage, to the side of the bakery. You can see all the latest additions on the website page –‘Ye Olde Bunn Shoppe’.
There is a new family tree link which runs from Stephen Cowley (b 1848) and, in the context of the bakery, ends with Edith Bessie Cowley who is the last traceable owner of the business.
Contact form & Guestbook
I have had to withdraw the contact form from my website because of the number of spam and advertising e-mails that I have been receiving in recent times. Screening these out was becoming annoying and time consuming.
Those of you who saw my website in its earlier days may remember that I had a ‘Guestbook’ for people to leave their comments. Sadly, this was abandoned by its author and was never updated to be compatible with changes in the web publishing technology and therefore stopped working. As this was done without any prior warning I have lost all the original posts.
The good news is that I have now found another ‘Guestbook’ which, for the tecnhically minded amongst you, is embedded in the section of my site that runs within WordPress.
The new ‘Guestbook’ can be used for leaving comments (all good, of course) and can also be used if people want to make contact with me to send information or exchange ideas. So get posting!
And finally ……
This website would not exist without the wonderful contributions from so many people all over the world. Thank you to all of you and please keep those memories coming.