Valentine's Day
Posted by laura@YFH
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Valentine's Day February 14, 2011 03:18PM |
Admin Registered: 2 years ago Posts: 62 |
From MyHeritage.com:
MyHeritage.com is to host an online gallery of British love letters from the 15th Century to today, and launch the search for the most romantic British love letter ever written.
To celebrate Valentine’s Day and the opportunity it presents for the British to drop traditional reserve and openly express affection, MyHeritage.com has today launched a search for the most romantic British love letter ever written – with the UK’s best-selling chick-lit author, Wendy Holden, acting as judge.
From Valentine’s Day, MyHeritage.com is calling upon the British public to delve into their attics and shoe boxes to find ancestral love letters, and submit them via www.myheritage.com/loveletters. Participants are also welcome to submit more recently-written love letters and messages for consideration. The best submissions will be featured on the special competition webpage within MyHeritage.com, with the most romantic British love letter of all time – as chosen by Wendy Holden (author of The School For Husbands, Beautiful People and Gallery Girl) – being announced on Friday 25 February 2011. Full competition terms and conditions are online.
To provide inspiration, MyHeritage.com has teamed-up with a number of leading UK museums and archives – including the British Library, The Royal Naval Museum, and The Imperial War Museum – to obtain scans (and transcripts) of significant British love letters from the past 500 years. These include the first love letter written in English (from 1477), and poignant missives penned by an unknown World War Two airman based in Yorkshire. The historical British love letters can be found in an online gallery at www.myheritage.com/loveletters.
The initiative is part of a drive by MyHeritage.com to encourage people to collect and preserve their family memories online – past and present. Romances between older living relatives and ancestors, often illustrated in love letters, are a critical point in every family’s history. With over 54 million users around the world, MyHeritage.com has become the leading place online for creating and sharing a family tree.
The Historical British Love Letters Online at MyHeritage.com include Sir Walter Raleigh’s last correspondence to his wife, written during his imprisonment in The Tower of London, on – what he thought was to be – the eve of his execution (1603). Raleigh had been tried and convicted of treason, after his alleged involvement in the Main Plot (a conspiracy by English Catholics to remove King James I from the throne).
There is also an example featured on MyHeritage.com of the oldest love letter in Britain, dating back to 1447. It is the first-recorded reference to a person being described as a Valentine. The letter was written by Margery Brews to her fiancé John Paston, and it alludes – in some agitation – to dowry arrangements for their impending marriage. It is written in an informal style, with several personal flourishes in the way she forms her letters and no special concern for consistency in spelling. The lettering is not always easy to decipher, and transcripts of the manuscript vary somewhat as a result.
And yf ye cōmande me to kepe me true whereuer Igo, Iwyse Iwill do all my myght yowe to love and neuer no mo [more] And yf my freends say þt Ido amys [amiss] þei schal not me let [hinder] so for to do [.] myne herte me bydds ever more to love yowe truly ouer all erthely thing
An excerpt from Margery Brews letter to her fiancé, John Paston
MyHeritage.com is to host an online gallery of British love letters from the 15th Century to today, and launch the search for the most romantic British love letter ever written.
To celebrate Valentine’s Day and the opportunity it presents for the British to drop traditional reserve and openly express affection, MyHeritage.com has today launched a search for the most romantic British love letter ever written – with the UK’s best-selling chick-lit author, Wendy Holden, acting as judge.
From Valentine’s Day, MyHeritage.com is calling upon the British public to delve into their attics and shoe boxes to find ancestral love letters, and submit them via www.myheritage.com/loveletters. Participants are also welcome to submit more recently-written love letters and messages for consideration. The best submissions will be featured on the special competition webpage within MyHeritage.com, with the most romantic British love letter of all time – as chosen by Wendy Holden (author of The School For Husbands, Beautiful People and Gallery Girl) – being announced on Friday 25 February 2011. Full competition terms and conditions are online.
To provide inspiration, MyHeritage.com has teamed-up with a number of leading UK museums and archives – including the British Library, The Royal Naval Museum, and The Imperial War Museum – to obtain scans (and transcripts) of significant British love letters from the past 500 years. These include the first love letter written in English (from 1477), and poignant missives penned by an unknown World War Two airman based in Yorkshire. The historical British love letters can be found in an online gallery at www.myheritage.com/loveletters.
The initiative is part of a drive by MyHeritage.com to encourage people to collect and preserve their family memories online – past and present. Romances between older living relatives and ancestors, often illustrated in love letters, are a critical point in every family’s history. With over 54 million users around the world, MyHeritage.com has become the leading place online for creating and sharing a family tree.
The Historical British Love Letters Online at MyHeritage.com include Sir Walter Raleigh’s last correspondence to his wife, written during his imprisonment in The Tower of London, on – what he thought was to be – the eve of his execution (1603). Raleigh had been tried and convicted of treason, after his alleged involvement in the Main Plot (a conspiracy by English Catholics to remove King James I from the throne).
There is also an example featured on MyHeritage.com of the oldest love letter in Britain, dating back to 1447. It is the first-recorded reference to a person being described as a Valentine. The letter was written by Margery Brews to her fiancé John Paston, and it alludes – in some agitation – to dowry arrangements for their impending marriage. It is written in an informal style, with several personal flourishes in the way she forms her letters and no special concern for consistency in spelling. The lettering is not always easy to decipher, and transcripts of the manuscript vary somewhat as a result.
And yf ye cōmande me to kepe me true whereuer Igo, Iwyse Iwill do all my myght yowe to love and neuer no mo [more] And yf my freends say þt Ido amys [amiss] þei schal not me let [hinder] so for to do [.] myne herte me bydds ever more to love yowe truly ouer all erthely thing
An excerpt from Margery Brews letter to her fiancé, John Paston
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