RootsChat.Com
England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Lancashire => Topic started by: ThrelfallYorky on Monday 25 September 17 15:53 BST (UK)
-
Despite having used the above site for years, I can't seem to find it at all - it's a small but very good and helpful site, and I pop in to their forum every so often, as it has a lot of my ancestors in the area - and I can't seem to find it? There seems to be some sort of Facebook link, but I don't "do" Facebook, and can't seem to find anything else. Any ideas, please?
-
The link on their website appears to be broken or not working.
The Liverpool & SW Lancashire FHS has a Southport Group and people from that group are active on their forum if that's any help or post your queries here.
-
http://www.nmfhssouthport.co.uk
Is it this one
Mike
Edit, I am sure there used to be another one with a large forum.
-
Yes, that's the one - but the link doesn't work from that, now. I logged on only a few weeks back, to check up on something, and it was fine then. I can't "get" to it any way I try .... really quite upset to have lost it so completely. The "team" there were so good and helpful, too.
Thanks for trying, mazi and Gibel.
-
Checked the Facebook page and the last post is dated 2015, so you're not missing much there :'(
I can see 'captures' of the forum on the Wayback Machine, but can't seem to get forward to a current version. Hopefully they are just having an update and will be back soon
-
On their own forum, posts have been made only a few weeks back, but not on Facebook, so have never seen them there. A pity, some good knowledge there.
Thanks for trying, Barbara.H.
-
No. Still can't seem to get to it anyway. Trying to contact their webmaster even just sends me round in "timed out" circles. Really sad about this loss.....
-
This message appeared on their Facebook page last night (message cut and pasted from the original post):
"Hi everyone, i am very sorry but our forum is offline at the moment, the server that provides the service have made some technical changes and it has been neccessary for our forum to in their words "migrate" ...it is therefore temporarily down :( please bear with us whilst we get it back up and running on the new server in the next few days :)
Thankyou
Erica
Site Admin"
So keep visiting, one day it will (hopefully) appear!
-
Oh, thank you, Barbara H - not the first time, over the years, that you've helped me!
I'll just have to keep checking in from time to time, and hope that it re-appears.
(Is the answer to everything to be found somewhere on this forum??)
-
Still keep trying to get this forum up - I even e-mailed the webmaster there, a few weeks ago, no reply, of course, but simply it times out every time I try to bring it up. Has anyone else managed to get it? what can I be doing wrong? (This time)
-
Try this.
http://www.nmfhssouthport.co.uk.
It says welcome to our new site
-
Sadly no, the forum link on the new website is still not working.
First time I tried it I just got a 'We can't find this site' message. The second time (a minute later) I got a 'taking too long to respond' message.
For good measure I tried the link on Firefox and Google Chrome (sometimes things will work on one but not the other) but both browsers came back with 'it's taking too long.'
It certainly is!
-
Clicked on "Click here to visit our forum" got: "This page can't be displayed".
Blue
-
Thanks, Barbara H, it really sounds as if you've had almost exactly the same experience with that as I have. It's a pity, because I'd found it really helpful for a lot of my Southport lot. It's a bit annoying, to say the least. I can't think of any other way to contact them. It seems a very long time for it not to be working, and for it not to be fixed.
-
I can't believe it, but I still can't get on to the site, after all these months, and - unbelievably, getting a similar non-access from another site in North of England where I've had some help before, the "Wiganworld" site. Over the last few months I've repeatedly tried to contact both, to try and sort out what I need to do to resume my "membership" of each, and got no response to my e-mails from either.How on earth can one communicate with 'em if like me you won't "do" facebook? Sit in a circle, hold hands and hold a seance??
(Might do better trying that)
... is it a co-incidence both seem to have undergone some sort of facelift?
-Oooh, I feel better for that mini-rant!
TY
-
Did anyone ever manage to resolve this issue? I’ve been trying for over a year to contact NMFHS to ask about the Forum. As you say it’s very frustrating as they were very knowledgeable about the original Southport. Not many people even know that North Meols exists.
-
I actually managed - eventually - to get through to a (new?) Webmaster, via e-mail, after many instances of no response, so I suspect it was a different person, who said there had been problems, something to do with the provider, but that..... it would return!!!
-I'm still waiting, Jane. Like you I really did find it a very useful forum, and if they're not going to revive it, I wish they'd at least archive it, so that we could look over the stuff posted. Let me know if ever you get closer to it than I have, please. I've so much family background in that area....
-
Thanks for that. I did see the post on FB about problems with the server, but that was a couple of years ago.
I will let you know. I have family living in Southport that I stay with occasionally so next time I go up I will try and get to the Atkinson, where they have a help desk once a week I think. Though I do wonder if that is correct .. it came from the NMFHS website.
I've looked through the Liverpool and south west lancs forum as someone else suggested. They cover Southport, but there aren't many posts for that. There is another Family History group I found this morning, for Southport, but they don't seem to have any online presence. Hhmm.. It's tricky when you live a long way from the Parish you're researching. But at least I do live in England!
I have a few Threlfalls from NM!
-
I don't wish to criticise anyone running NMFHS.. they're all volunteers and probably leading busy lives. They've been immensely helpful in the past and I appreciate all they do and have done. It's the same I think with all such voluntary organisations. A few people do all the work, and the rest of us appear to complain!
It's just frustrating about the Forum. There were loads of very local people using that who know North Meols/Southport really well; many of them still living there.
Through that Forum I managed to identify someone that I met age 10 (50+ years ago!!) that my grandmother said was an 'aunt'.. she lived near my grandmother. I never knew her surname. But I knew roughly where she lived. Someone on the Forum knew who I was talking about because she was in his Tree! Stupidly, I lost the message thread.
So, as you say, it would be great if they would just archive it.
-
I’m a member of the Southport Group of the Liverpool & SW Lancashire FHS. The society has a forum on the website and if Southport questions come up on the forum and no one with Southport knowledge is around the questions are usually pointed out to the Southport group. The Southport Group can also be contacted by email via the site.
The group holds a help desk at the Atkinson library on a Saturday morning, and also has help desk at Formby and Crosby libraries.
Alternatively why not post your questions here, their may well be people reading them who have the required local knowledge.
-
Hi. Thanks for that. So that explains the Southport group I saw mentioned somewhere.
I don’t have a particular question at the moment but will certainly come back here if I do.
Thanks again.
-
A "Thank you" from me, as well, Gibel. I know of the Liverpool & SW Lancashire FHS, but must admit I have never actually tried to really use it. ( I think we were both rather sad that the Southport forum seemed to have vanished in a practical sense.) I don't have any relevant query at present, but I really had valued, as Jane says, that really local touch and knowledge.