When I first started looking for my ancestors in 1964, the Georgia State Archives was located in the old A. G. Rhodes home on Peachtree Road. Books were stacked to the ceiling and there were a couple of microfilm readers. Census records were not indexed and few of the published biographies and genealogies were indexed. So it became my task to abstract many of the old documents, particularly wills and estates, simply to keep from reading the same microfilm over and over again. Ultimately, these abstracts were published by me as Abstracts of Georgia Wills, a CD-Rom which is no longer available, rather merged into the vast collection of wills and estates on www.georgiapioneers.com. In those days it was incumbent to visit county court houses because all of those records were not available. Digging into old county records was another story for it was at the court houses that I discovered records which has not been microfilmed, some original documents and old newspapers sitting around ga

There is nothing quite like listening to some of the top guitarists like John Mayer and Jack Johnson perform. Everyone dreams of being as talented as these gifted musicians, but what if you too could learn to play virtually any guitar song you heard. With Jamorama Acoustic, you too can learn the inside secrets to playing the guitar. Jamorama Acoustic is a complete learning system that provides you with easy to follow guitar learning methods. Within this system, you will receive two quality books full of step-by-step lessons in a wide range of musical styles to play along with. Regardless of what level you are at right now, this learning system will take you to the next level and give you quick results. In all, you will receive an astounding 259 pages of information in 153 step-by-step video lessons in two high quality books. There are top of the line lessons, acoustic jam tracks, hundreds of lines of tablature, and extremely popular learning games. It is much more than just lea

In 2006, one of the words to be added to the new edition of the Oxford American Dictionary was the word “tablescape.” The word has been in use since 1991, but it has not come into common usage until recently. Tablescape basically means “everything you put on a table.” Although that is a simple definition, the possibilities of what a tablescape actually looks like are endless. Table-scaping is the art of decorating your table with a variety of different “tools,” in the form of tablecloths, runners, napkins, and placemats. A tablecloth can be described as simply a covering for your table, but it is far from simple. There are many fabric choices, quality, style and shape, to choose from. The tablecloth will offer the most protection for the table, as it will usually cover the entire surface. A table runner is similar to a tablecloth, but does not cover the whole table. Runners can be used to protect certain parts of the table while revealing the surface of the table in areas as w

At its most basic level, sheet silver is cut after a design has been created and fixed onto it. Some craftsmen simply attach the design sheet using scotch tape, others prefer a rubber adhesive; either method ensures that the design is easy to follow, which can be extremely important where intricate designs are concerned. When cutting the silver sheet, it needs to be supported and allow access to the design at the same time. A bench peg can be used to support the sheet whilst cutting. The most popular tool for cutting sheet silver is a jeweller’s saw. It is vital that you use the size of saw-blade that is appropriate to the thickness of your silver. The blade is quantified by the number of teeth it sports per inch; the more teeth a blade has, the finer it is. Finer blades are used for cutting thinner sheets and for more intricate work. The blade must have a good degree of tension on it when it is inserted into the saw frame. A simple method of testing the saw’s tension is to give the

They can be made from gold, silver, copper or brass wire and, whilst they are traditionally round in shape, they can come in other forms such as ovals, squares, triangles and hexagons. The wire itself may also be embellished through twisting or the metal may be square, so opening jump rings is a procedure that, whilst comparatively simple, must be done with care. Ultimately, putting too much stress on these jewellery findings can result in the jump rings breaking, becoming weak or difficult to close, which will, in turn, weaken the structure of the piece as a whole. The most important piece of equipment you will need to open jump rings is a pair of pliers. Chain nose or flat nose pliers are most commonly used in this process. Chain nose pliers are defined by the shape of the outer jaw; this jaw is rounded and tapers towards the tip. Some chain nose pliers also have a cutting blade on the inner part of the jaw, used for cutting soft wire, as well as other jewellery findings. Flat nose

At this level, you will require few tools: wire cutters or a jeweller’s saw, a mandrel (a shaped metal bar used to bend wire in a certain pattern) and, if you’re using wire cutters, safety glasses. Wire cutters allow you to determine the diameter of your jump rings more accurately. You will also require wire. The first step is to wrap your silver wire around the mandrel, taking care that the coil is perpendicular to the axis of the mandrel. Whatever your choice, you want to create even rings and this is best achieved by pulling the wire tight as you wrap it and keeping it under tension. Once you have used your silver wire, you can then slide the resulting coil from the metal bar. Cutting the rings from the coil can be done in two ways and this is a matter of personal taste. Wire cutters can be used to cut excess wire from one side of the coil and then it is simply a case of cutting rings from the wrap. As a matter of embellishment, the rings can be cut either using slanted or perpen

Wire-wrapping is one of the oldest forms of jewellery-making. It is also one of the most popular in modern times, being relatively inexpensive and relatively easy to learn at a basic level. Of course, the more adventurous you become as an artisan, the more expensive and skilled it can become, but wire-wrapping can be one of the most rewarding forms of jewellery-making there is. Gold and silver wire are measured and sold in a wide range thicknesses and shapes e.g. round wire ranges from 0.3mm to 6mm diameter. millimetres The diameter of the wire determines its suitability for certain applications; 0.8mm and 1mm wire is widely-used for creating wire shapes, whereas the thinner gauge wire 0.3mm is more suitable for adding decoration or even threading beads. Gold and silver wire also come in different shapes; square, round, half-round and oval. Square wire is generally used for wire-wrapping designs, such as the creation of a bracelet, half-round wire is most popular as a means of creat

For this basic project, the craftsman will require a sterling silver sheet, a scribe, a jeweller’s saw and blades, a bench peg, a jeweller’s drill and access to a buffing machine. Once the basic piece has been made, it can, be embellished with silver wire or silver findings. The sterling silver sheet, if bought from a reputable jewellery supplier’s will already have been annealed to maximise its softness and malleability. Silver sheet can be bought in a variety of thicknesses and ‘hardness’; this will depend on your personal taste and what you feel comfortable working with. The first stage is to put your design onto the silver sheet. This can be done by simply drawing the design on paper and fixing it to the silver sheet using scotch tape. Should duplicates be made, one of the pieces can be kept as a template and the scribe used to mark the design into the silver sheet. You are now ready to cut out the design. Depending on its intricacy, you may want to create a cutting point with th

Firstly, the silver to be soldered must be annealed. This is the initial softening of the silver to be joined; only the areas to be soldered need to be annealed – it is not necessary to anneal the piece as a whole. In order to carry out a successful annealing, use a blowtorch to heat the silver findings, you will need to maintain a constant temperature of around 1200◦ F. As the silver findings heat up, they will change colour to a dull-pink – this is the temperature you want to maintain for approximately 30 seconds, and you can do this by gently moving the flame back and forth in accordance with the colour of the metal as it changes. Once you have checked the parts to be soldered for gaps, you must apply some flux. Flux is a chemical cleaning agent that prevents the silver findings and the solder metal from oxidation. At room temperature, flux is practically inert but, as the temperature rises, it becomes strongly reducing and prevents the formation of metal oxides. It also all

There are a lot of myths surrounding language learning, many of which people might actually have been taught as genuinely helpful when learning a new language. Here are 9 of those myths that people tend to believe as the truth. 1. Listen to the language enough and you will learn it. Learning a language involves using it in many forms, such as speaking, listening and reading. You can’t get by with just doing one of these and hoping that you will develop an all-round new language, because your ability will become very limited 2. Language is just a lot of vocabulary that can be memorized. Language also heavily involves grammar, syntax and idiom, and understanding the ways in which certain language is used. One of the most difficult aspects of a foreign language to grasp is humour. 3. There is a direct translation between each language. Many people think that every English word has a direct equivalent in a foreign language, which is quite untrue. For example, the words 'a' and 'the' do no