General Chat

Just wondering, what was the first site you 'discovered' when you first had a computer, and what were you hoping the internet would do for you so to speak?

Has it lived up to your expectations, or do you rather wish you had never ventured into the strange new world lol ? Do you stick with the 'devil you know' or are you constantly on the look out for new sites ( or new games etc)?

:-D

NB, just a trivial thread, no deep or dark motives for asking ;-)

Friends Reunited

only made contact with a couple of old school friends that I had lost contact with ................ and realised just why I had lost contact with them!

I did make a lot of internet friends on there, as I soon found their threads. I even met some at a meet in York in 2008


I found Genes Reunited the same day that I found FR .............

put up a small tree, found the Boards the same day, and realised that not only could I find help, but that I could also give help.


The FR I joined no longer exists as it was. The new version is not fit for man or beast!

Most people I knew on there have gravitated to FB, and I hate FB!


I found ancestry also on the same day of finding FR and GR, and also the 1901 Census .................. both helped me find my grandparents' siblings and parents within a day!



so it really was a 4-in1 ........... FR, GR,ancestry, 1901 Censusonline

Probably Friends reunited 12/13 years ago

Then I tried to connect to online banking for our joint account and a security question they asked was " how much money did you transfer yesterday"

That's when I found out the husband had taken half the money that was in there and put it into his own account...and we were not talking peanuts :-D

edit- Snap Sylvia

Same as you really Sylvia. My brother gave us his old PC and I had dial-up for a short while and went straight to FR to look for several school and work friends, and came here from there, but only to the FA board. Was directed to Freebmd and that was useful to get started.

Then was off the internet for about 6 months ( mostly spent playing Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets PC game lol) before coming back and finding the General board as it was then.

I don't use FB much, only for some genealogy pages and to keep up with what family overseas are doing mostly, it's very useful for that :-D

Ouch Jax, that would not be a nice thing to find out!

Its ok I took the other half and left shortly after :-D


But it was another 5 years before I had online banking, as I just hung up when I found out and stormed down to the Bank

Very wise :-)

well,,,,the www was not like it is today I had windows 1995, 16inch screen (which I still have),,,dial up connection :-------£1 per hour.it used to take 10mins to get a connection. :-0.

and to be able to do a letter and print off was a godend,,,,,out went the WP......and email was just great once you had got the address right with all the dots........

first sites hardley any really .......I cant remember,,,,, but there was no social net sites.it was poor,,,,,,,,I dont regret it though as there is a wealth of information now covering all manner of subjects.....

there was no census online a bit part 1891 being transcribed which neared it end by the 1901,,the whole including Scotland 1881 was on released by the LDS for £30..think there were 8+ discs......

I remember FR coming online Steve and his wife thought it up,,,,it cost £5 to join that was 1999,,,,gr followed in 2002 that also cost £5,,,,,,,,for a full year,,,,,no records were searchable back then and the layout was totally different.


:-D :-D

Dial up was awful wasn't it Kay? and that little envelope flying across the screen supposedly into a file, which went on for ages and never seemed to work ( not for me anyway lol).

the noise made me laugh Rose while try to connect,,,der der der plop plop....then after half hour,,,,,connection failed,

cost a fortune back then,,,,,

and no body could get you on the phone,,,,,,,,, :-D :-D :-D :-D....

Yes, firt hd fil p. we had computers around which I used mainly as a word processor in early 80s, we had a Commodore 64, son used to write games. The first PC with internet access was dial up and windows 95 and the first site accessed was Friends Reunited, swiftly followed by Genes reunited both started by Steve and Julie Pankhurst.

Edit and nothing has infuriated me so much as 'writing' on the I pad which insists on prescriptive tex. goodness knows what I meant to write in my first line. Anybody?

I think I said from the early 80s we had computers.

I had forgotten all of that. Quite amazing that you have all got such memories :-D

I didn't get my own internet access until 2003 .............. and it was cable, so I never knew about dial-up and its joys. :-D

My membership says I joined GR in April 2004, but it was actually a year earlier ........... and I paid £5

I think it went to £7.50 the following year.

I also paid £5 to join FR


and the official 1901 Census site had just come online. It was then, I think, pay-per-view, but later it went to another site (?FMP??).

grandsons old computer played games until I got used to the mouse etc feeling brave I had dial up

it was gr first followed friends reunited

about 2 years later I found the boards

one of the first people to help me was Sylvia and then came many others inclueding your self rr

sally w <3

We had dial up which was very difficult as we were running a business so could only use it when we were shut, because of the phone.

When I later lived with my parents in 2004 for a short while, they also had dial up...they ended up getting a large phone bill which my dad complained about. He told them it wasn't him using the internet it was his daughter...they told him to put parental control on it ...He then had to tell them his daughter was 46 :-D

:-D :-D :-D

I can remember the 1901 coming online,,,,,yes payperview £5,,,,,it crashed on its first day and was down for about a year because then QuintiQ didnt expect the rush of millions of people, :-D

:-D :-D

Thanks for interesting ( and amusing!) replies ladies, I'm crawling off to bed because I can't stop coughing and sneezing :-(

The first site i saw the poor ladies never had any clothes on :-0 :-0 ;-) ;-)

I also started with dial up and used to download music, which became illegal and was closed down. It took forever to get one track but I persevered and tied up the phone line. One evening my daughter drove the fifteen minutes from her house to mine to ask if I could baby sit the following morning as the child minder was ill.

I stupidly said "Why didn't you just phone me?"