An interactive map lets you explore The Blitz: the intensive Bombing of London by the Germans in 1940-1941.
View from St. Paul’s cathedral after the Blitz. Wikimedia Commons image; click to view.
We see the images often in WWII-era movies. Londoners hunched in tube station tunnels during air raids. Children evacuating the city by the thousand. The Blitz was a period of intensive bombing of London by the Germans that began in September 1940 and continued through the following June. Now we can explore exactly where and when all those bombs fell at a new interactive website, Bomb Sight.
“With Bomb Sight you can discover what it was like in London, during WW2 Luftwaffe Blitz bombing raids, exploring maps, images and memories,” explains the site. “The Bomb Sight web map and mobile app reveal WW2 bomb census maps between 7/10/1940 and 06/06/1941, previously available only by viewing them in the Reading Room of The National Archives.”
As you can see from this screenshot, the site is map-based. All those red dots you see are bombings. (Can you imagine bombs falling that thickly in your own neighborhood?) Different icons reveal the type of bomb. Click on them to learn more about that event. You can even view historical images of that neighborhood and read stories and memories relating to that area. You can ask to map to show you only the first night of the blitz, a weekly look or an aggregate (all-inclusive) view, like the one shown here.
Though you can search visually, you can also enter a street or postcode to look at a specific area. Zoom in or out; explore different map layers for different types of information.
These maps were created from 559 map sheet originals that were declassified in 1971 but are very fragile today. So this site represents a fantastic new free resource that hasn’t been widely accessible to the public. It’s stunning to look closely at a neighborhood and see how densely the bombs fell. It’s also stunning to pan out to the widest view and see SO many dots. So many bombs. So much destruction.
Immerse Yourself in The Blitz: Everyone Brave is Forgiven
Everyone Brave is Forgiven by British novelist Chris Cleave is a story about love and war during some of the longest sustained bombing campaigns of World War II. It immerses readers in the harrowing experiences of The Blitz, as civilians frantically piled their children onto trains headed for rural parts unknown, then spent the next several months running for underground shelters whenever the bombs came. You’ll read about children who gradually snuck back into the city, only to find themselves homeless and orphaned. You’ll careen along with female ambulance drivers who dodged explosions and ruins during air raids as they raced toward smoking ruins. But amidst all this devastation are stories of love, romantic and otherwise, and stories of bravery, amidst moments of fear and panic. This Genealogy Gems Book Club pick was an instant New York Times best-seller, and for good reason! Click here to pick up your e-book or print copy.
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Here’s how to remove damage from photos, such as those commonly found on Polaroid Land pictures. It’s a simple digital photo restoration technique you can use to improve your old family photos. See how Lisa Louise Cooke cleaned up a precious family photo as a surprise for an guest she interviewed—and his touching response.
Last month, I asked esteemed film historian Sam Gill to send me some photos of himself that I could include on the “show notes” page for Genealogy Gems Podcast episode #215.The episode features our conversation on silent films, and the glimpse of early 20th century life that they provide.
One of the images he shared captures him (when he was in high school) and his mom. Sam told me that it was taken at the time when he started helping her with their family’s genealogy.
“I seem to have only one photograph of my mother and me at that time, which was what they called a Polaroid Land Pictures photo,” he continued. “In the days before selfies and digital cameras, this was a way to have a photo miraculously developed in sixty seconds. That was considered a miracle of photography at the time.
“Although these photos tended to leave streak marks and other blemishes, it’s all I got! I am hoping you might get a kick out of seeing this young kid and his intelligent, forever-curious and talented mother, Florence Louise Jones Gill (aka Mom).”
After learning how much the memories behind that photo meant to Sam, I took the liberty of doing some quick touch up work on it. It’s not perfect, but it’s certainly cleaner:
A treasured old photo of Sam and his mom.
You can try the same techniques I used to remove damaged areas from photos you’ve digitized. It’s easy and free! So, follow along with me, and then keep reading for Sam’s response to receiving the cleaned-up photo.
How to remove damage from photos
(Update) In the past I have downloaded and used the free Adobe PhotoShop Fix app. However, the Adobe Photoshop Express app has now taken its place. You can download it onto your phone or other mobile device for free from the App Store or Google Play. You will find the Retouch feature as a Premium feature.
Then follow these steps:
1. Add a Copy of the Digital Image
Open the app and tap the Plus sign to add your image. Don’t work with the original photo file. I save mine in Dropbox, but you can also pull your image copies from your phone, Adobe’s Creative Cloud, Facebook or Google Photos.
Tap the plus sign and select the location of your photo.
2. Tap Healing in the Menu
This will get you to the tools you will need to do the restoration.
3. Start with Minor Repairs
Start with the easy stuff (don’t go for the face right away,thought it’s tempting). Work on clothing and the backdrop first so you can get a feel for the repair work and refine your retouching movements.
4. Apply the Spot Heal Tool
Use Spot Heal first and see if it takes care of the problem area. Don’w worry about making mistakes. You can always tap the Undo at the top of the screen if you’re not happy with the results.
5. Apply Clone Stamp
Use the Clone Stamp tool to select an area on the existing photo that you want to duplicate to cover up a damaged area. For example you can select an unblemished area of the backdrop, duplicate it, and then “paste” it over a blemished area of the backdrop. Keep in mind that even in a single color backdrop, there can be shading, so move the clone stamp around to replicate it accurately.
Tap Clone Stamp in the menu, and use the tools on the left to adjust.
You can adjust the size of the clone stamp selection tool by tapping “Size” in the pop out menu on the left. Selecting “hardness” will give you the ability to cone with a sharp edge or a more feathered edge which is a bit more forgiving when covering another area.
6. Zoom for Greater Detail
Zoom in for better accuracy. To do this, put two fingers together and then them spread apart to enlarge the area.
While zooming in can give you greater control, if you get too close you may start seeing individual pixels (depending on the size and resolution of the original photo) and those can be much trickier to change accurately. Zoom back out often to “stand back” and inspect your work!
7. Adjust as Needed
If you’re going to zoom in, take the time to adjust the size of the tool you are using, whether it’s Spot Heal or Clone Stamp. You can adjust the size of the circle and the “hardness” by tapping the tab on the left side of the screen.
When you’ve completed your initial re
8. Saving
Be sure to save to your work along the way. That way you can always go back to a previous version if you get a little too overzealous. I like to save the image to my device’s Photos, but the app offers a variety of saving locations.
9. Apply Smoothing
In the main menu, use the Smooth tool to refine your work. Start by tapping Face. Chances are you’ll like the effect as it smooths the skin tone. And again, you can always undo if you don’t.
Then tap to spot-smooth areas, particularly backdrops. Beware of over-smoothing – it won’t look natural.
10. Make Final Adjustments
After you complete the repair work, play with other options to improve the image quality. In the main menu tap Adjust. Play with Contrast first, then move on to testing Warmth, Saturation, Shadows and Highlights.
When you’re done, save the finished image one last time to your device’s Photos.
Take Mobile Photo Restoration a Step Further
When I work on improving and restoring my old photos, I often do so in more than one app. It’s rare to find an app that does everything you want, and each has it’s special strengths. Adobe has several other excellent apps, and PhotoShop Mix is one I use quite often after I complete my initial restoration in Adobe PhotoShop Fix.
Import the restored image into the freeAdobe Photoshop Mix app. Here you’ll find even more tools for refining the image. Tap Adjust in the main menu. Experiment with these tools because you can always Undo!:
Auto Fix – I avoid this one!
Temperature
Exposure
Contrast
Highlights
Shadows
Clarity – definitely give this a whirl
Saturation
I was delighted how quickly I was able to significantly improve the photo. Sam and his mom’s faces just radiate happiness.
I sent it off and heard back from him almost immediately:
“I can’t tell you how much it means to me to see this extraordinary repair and restoration work you accomplished on that tiny Polaroid Land Picture of my mother and myself! This picture was taken at the exact same time I began to help my mother with her genealogical work.”
He then shared the story about that first research project with her. The two of them wanted to identify the relative who had rendered some beautiful old paintings hanging in his grandparents’ house. The trail led mother and teenage son to London, Ontario, Canada. As a budding genealogist, Sam was certainly thinking ahead!
“I convinced my mother to let me take along a tape recorder, as I was very interested in sound recordings, and so we recorded my mother’s interviews with family members still in London and related to the same…family.”
Sam and his mother identified the artistic ancestor who did those paintings: John Ashton. Their research culminated in a “delightful little family history, called The Descendants of John Ashton, of London, Ontario, Canada, and his Son-in-Law, John Ames Arnold, of Greencastle, Indiana (Lyons, Ks.: Lyons Publishing Co., 1964) compiled by my mother, Florence Jones Gill.”
Sam proudly mentions that her book was favorably reviewed. A quick check ofGoogle Booksreveals that there was indeed quite a bit of “buzz” when she published her book! It was referenced in several genealogical publications. Here are the search results in Google Books:
Sam wrapped up his reply with a little life lesson that he learned from his mom, that we can all take to heart.
“You might get a kick out of this,” Sam wrote, “but the only mistake that my mother ever found after the book was published, was the date of her marriage to my father! It should have been 1935, not 1934. One never to take herself TOO seriously, she had quite a laugh over that one.
It was fun helping my mother. Also, as I look back over my life, I must say that I have never known a more “can-do” person than my mother. If something came up that needed attention–no matter what it was–my mother’s usual response was , “WELL, WE’VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT !!!”
So my dear Gems, next time we see our family’s history hidden behind damage in an old photo, let us hear Mrs. Gill’s words in our ears “WE’VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT!!!”
My book Mobile Genealogy is chock full of more innovative ideas for using your smartphone and tablet for family history. It’s available here in the Genealogy Gems store.
Scrivener software may be just what you need to write up your family history writing. Genealogist Lisa Alzo shares 4 steps for getting started.
What is the Scrivener Software Program?
Scrivener is a software program that offers templates for screenplays, fiction, and non-fiction manuscripts. After composing a text, you can export it for final formatting to a standard word processor or desktop publishing software.
Scrivener is much more than a word processor. Thanks to the wide range of interfaces and features it offers, it is valued as a project management tool for writers.
It’s little wonder that Scrivener has grown in popularity with family historians who want to tell their ancestors’ stories. Genealogical information can become unwieldy at times. Scrivener makes it much easier to organize your material and write.
At RootsTech 2016, Lisa Alzo introduced Scrivener to fascinated audiences in the Genealogy Gems demo theater in the Exhibit Hall. I invited her to follow up by sharing Scrivener for genealogy with you, too. Here’s what she has to say.
“It is no secret that I am an avid user of Scrivener, a multifaceted word processor and project management tool. I have been using this program for all of my personal and professional writing projects since 2011.
Here are four steps to get up and running with Scrivener so you can use it to organize and write your family history:
1. Download Scrivener
Scrivener is produced by Literature and Latte and is available for purchase for use on Mac ($45) and Windows ($40). (Pricing as of the writing of this article.) There is also a 30-day free trial available.
Double click the Scrivener “S” icon on your desktop to open the program.
Before you start your first project, take a few minutes to review the Scrivener manual for your and watch the helpful interactive tutorials.
2. Start your first project
Go to File and New Project.
The New Window allows you to choose from different project templates.
I highly recommend starting with the “Blank,” which is the most basic and creates a simple project layout you can build upon and customize later.
The “Save As” box appears for you to give your project a name (e.g. Alzo Family History) and tell Scrivener where you would like to save your project (e.g. a desktop folder, or you if you are a Dropbox user you can easily save your projects there so that you can easily access them from another computer or laptop). You will not be able to continue until you save your project.
TIP:Start small!
Begin with a smaller project like an ancestor profile or blog post rather than attempting to write a 200-page family history book your first time in.
3. Plot, plan, and outline away!
Whether you are a visual writer who likes to storyboard, or if you prefer text outlines, you can use Scrivener your way. When you start a new blank project, you will be see the “Binder” (located on the left-hand side), which is the source list showing all documents in the project.
By default you’ll see three folders:
The “Draft” board (called “Manuscript” in other Scrivener templates) is the main space where you type your text (you can compile everything in that folder for printing or export as one long document later on).
The Research folder is where you can store notes, PDF files, images, etc. (not included in your final compiled document). The Trash folder holds any deleted documents until you empty. You will have one Untitled Document showing.
Simply add a title and then start typing. You can move sections around by dragging and dropping.
Click the green plus sign (+) icon to add files or folders.
Scrivener also lets you import files that you already have prepared in Microsoft Word or text based formats.
As you work, Scrivener allow to easily “toggle” between its key modes:
Corkboard (where you can summarize on “virtual index cards” the key points you want to cover—the virtual cards can easily be arranged in any order you like);
Outline (use it if you prefer to control the structure of your work; and
Scrivenings (this mode temporarily combines individual documents into a single text, allowing you to view some or all documents in a folder as though they were all part of one long text).
There is another pane called the “Inspector” that offers additional features to help you manage your project.
4. Finalize your project
The true power of Scrivener resides in its “Compile” feature. (Compile is just a fancy term for exporting your project into any number of final formats—print, eBook, Kindle, PDF, etc.). With Compile you specify what Scrivener does/does not include, and how it should look. Mastering Compile takes some practice, so you should refer to the Scrivener tutorials and forums for guidance.
When I got up this morning, my mind was on getting up and out the door to my grandson Davy’s baseball game. But I couldn’t help but entertain this nagging feeling that there was something else special about this day.
In the car after the game, wind-swept and with a bit of powdered sugar on my blouse from the funnel cake Davy’s younger brother Joey and I shared, it dawned on me: today is Grandma’s birthday.
Grandma Burkett passed away over 31 years ago, and yet she’s always close with me. I feel her cheering me on in my genealogical searches, and reminding me that there is no contest between sleeping in and attending a grandchild’s baseball game. She was my role model for what a Grandma should be. Even though my grandchildren call me Sha Sha, I hope my grandkids feel my efforts and know that they are loved, as I was loved by her.
As Bill drove us back out to our home in the country, I pulled my phone out of my purse, and decided to create a video birthday card to Grandma.
(Full disclosure: I’m going to share with you my go-to tool of choice. Animoto is a sponsor of The Genealogy Gems Podcast, however, I personally use it because I think it’s fantastic.)
Animoto is my go-to tool of choice. With a tap of the app, I selected a theme and music that I thought would suit it nicely, (that’s the part that takes me the longest because I love their varied selection of tunes!).
Next I tapped to select about 14 photos sitting in my Dropbox account.
Then I added a title card at the beginning and the end, and tapped Preview. In about 30 seconds I had a finished video, complete with transitions perfectly timed to the music. One more tap of Save & Produce Video and my HD quality video was rendered so I could upload it to Facebook to share with my family and the world.
Then I quickly downloaded an HD copy for myself. The ability to download your HD quality video is one of the really unique features of Animoto, and one you should wholeheartedly take advantage of. Unless you have that copy saved to your own computer, (and OF COURSE your computer is backed up, right? If not, click here) you can never be sure that it won’t be lost over time.
There’s always enough to pay tribute to those who inspire us, particularly when creating videos like these is so fast and easy. Who inspires you? I would love to hear! Please leave your comment below.
Thank you Grandma!
Lisa
P.S. Mother’s Day is coming up. And that brings to mind another woman who inspires me, my daughter and mother-to-be, Vienna. I feel another video coming on! 😉
“With Bomb Sight you can discover what it was like in London, during WW2 Luftwaffe Blitz bombing raids, exploring maps, images and memories,” explains the site. “The Bomb Sight web map and mobile app reveal WW2 bomb census maps between 7/10/1940 and 06/06/1941, previously available only by viewing them in the Reading Room of The National Archives.”
About Genealogy Gems Premium Website Membership
Thanks for sharing this post with others who will want to learn more about the bombing of London during World War II. Just email the URL or post this article on your favorite social media channel.
By default you’ll see three folders: 
When I got up this morning, my mind was on getting up and out the door to my grandson Davy’s baseball game. But I couldn’t help but entertain this nagging feeling that there was something else special about this day.
