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serenaj1642.bsky.social
Serena Jones
@serenaj1642.bsky.social
1.9K followers 330 following 1.6K posts
🇬🇧 Author, publisher, independent historian | British Civil Wars: biographer of Col Sir George Lisle | transcribing & publishing the 1640s English newsbooks | 🦋 Est. Sep 2023 As of 24 Apr 2025 account is inactive until/unless Bsky allows follower removal
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serenaj1642.bsky.social
Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Nov 27
📢 More about me:

I work on the English/British Civil Wars (Wars of the Three Kingdoms), & my special corner is the printed newsbooks from the 1640s.

Mostly I post about those & what I discover; also digitisation, archiving, & related tech.

DMs open to mutuals. Everyone else please @ me first 🌞
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Apr 21
It's a sunrise. It means the account is brand new, probably not more than a couple of days old.

Click on it, and a pop-up will tell you when the account was created.
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Apr 14
My grandfather fought in Italy in 1944 and spoke much about mules. IIRC he even had to take an army course on muleteering so he knew how to handle them.
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Apr 13
The title "Earl of Essex" seems to have cursed him and his son equally.
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Apr 13
Ah, Bezos doesn't own the WSJ, he owns the Washington Post.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp owns the WSJ. Which IMO makes this headline even more interesting.
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Apr 10
Oops. Time for a deep breath and a fresh coffee!
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Apr 10
Eeesh, I feel your pain, Paul.

Before now I've had half the book typeset before someone remembered to tell me it was hardback size and not the standard softback 🥴
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smh-historians.bsky.social
SMH Historians @smh-historians.bsky.social · Apr 8
The Society for Military History is now archiving historical materials related to military history that are disappearing from federal or state websites. We are open to submissions, anonymously or otherwise. Please see www.smh-hq.org/archivedreso... and note there the submission links.
Archived Resources | The Society for Military History
www.smh-hq.org
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Apr 9
Warmest congrats to you.

My gr-grandfather was a coal miner: he told my grandfather the mine was "no place for a man", and if he ever caught him near the pit, he'd throw him down it.

WW2 intervened & led Grf to other work opportunities, around the world - a huge relief to Gr-Grf, I'm sure.
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societyofauthors.bsky.social
The Society of Authors @societyofauthors.bsky.social · Apr 7
Read our letter to Meta, sent last week, condemning their unlicensed use of authors' work to train AI. #DoTheWriteThing #MetaBookThieves - societyofauthors.org/2025/04/04/t...
The SoA's message to Meta: don't steal our books - The Society of Authors
On Thursday 3 April, the Society of Authors (SoA) organised a day of action to deliver a message to Meta. Read all about it here.
societyofauthors.org
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Apr 7
I genuinely hope that confused person appreciates the reintroduction, and now understands what you do.

Keep being you! You don't need to change what you do, or change who you are ❤️
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Apr 5
Great news: the full rights to the Lisle bio have just been signed back over to me. So I can now think about revisions, which it sorely needs: it's 10 years old now.

Cheriton first, though; getting the THB website running again, and getting the newsbooks online.

Anyone know how I can clone myself?
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fionaskillen.bsky.social
Prof Fiona Skillen @fionaskillen.bsky.social · Apr 4
In an infringement of copyright & total disregard for my livelihood, many of my academic publications have been taken without my consent to train AI. I stand with the @Soc_of_Authors Action.
Pls sign & share this petition to protect authors' rights: www.change.org/p/protect-au...
Sign the Petition
Protect authors’ livelihoods from the unlicensed use of their work in AI training
www.change.org
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Reposted by Serena Jones
writersguildgb.bsky.social
Writers' Guild of Great Britain @writersguildgb.bsky.social · Apr 3
Following the news about Meta's mass theft of writers' work to train AI, we're joining the #DoTheWriteThing day of action today

- Make a noise on social media
- Write to Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy
- Tell Meta they don't have the right to use your books

writersguild.org.uk/do-the-write...
#DoTheWriteThing - join the day of action - The Writers' Guild of Great Britain
Following the The Atlantic’s article, which revealed that many UK authors have had their work taken without consent as part of the Library Genesis ‘LibGen’ dataset and used by Meta …
writersguild.org.uk
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societyofauthors.bsky.social
The Society of Authors @societyofauthors.bsky.social · Apr 3
Thank you to everyone who has signed the petition which now stands at 10,000+! If you haven't added your name, #DoTheWriteThing -
Sign the Petition
Protect authors’ livelihoods from the unlicensed use of their work in AI training
www.change.org
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Apr 2
I certainly found it a huge challenge to stay sane & healthy, and maintain healthy work/life boundaries. In my case I also lived alone so had noone to tell me to take a break, and no other income but what I could pull in, which intensified the "must work myself to death to survive" mentality.
serenaj1642.bsky.social
Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Apr 2
I hear you Rebecca, and see myself until I stopped freelancing a couple of years ago. You're right in every respect.

You mention no disturbance while working at w/ends, I pulled a lot of all-nighters at my desk, because nobody would pester me with emails at 2:30am!
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eccleshistsoc.bsky.social
Ecclesiastical History Society @eccleshistsoc.bsky.social · Apr 1
The Ecclesiastical History Society is delighted to join BlueSky and the #academic community here. Our Society is dedicated to the study of all things #churchhistory. We will be moving from posting on our X account soon, so please give us a follow!
Committee members of the EHS at the 2024 Summer Conference
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Mar 30
Whether genealogy, history, or any other discipline.

Always. view. the. original. document.

Never trust the third party, even if they are the UK GRO and the copy they give you is "certified" as correct.

Their incorrect transcription in 1997 threw us off track for nearly 30 years.
rfj1611.bsky.social RFJ1611 @rfj1611.bsky.social · Mar 30
A stunning reminder of why you should ALWAYS view the original cert, even if you have purchased an official copy.

In the 1990s we ordered a physical copy of my ggm's 1891 birth cert, which back then had to be transcribed by hand at GRO & posted to us.

From this copy (on right), we read that
Two screenshots from an 1891 birth certificate. On the left, the original it states the mother is 'Elizabeth Davies, a cotton rover'. On the incorrectly copied version made in the 1990s, it now says 'Elizabeth Davies formerly Rover'.
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Mar 30
Visually impaired people can't see the image, so you add a text description to it that their screen reader equipment can read aloud to them.

It means they can still make sense of the conversation thread, join in with jokes etc.
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Mar 29
<< Neither commander was fit to be on the field: Forth was very ill & had just told the King as much, & Hopton seems to have been having a crisis of confidence. Likely he was also in very bad shape physically after being severely blown up the previous July. After Cheriton he was effectively demoted.
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Mar 29
If by lack of cohesion you mean there was no command & control linking Hopton's & Forth's forces then yes: Forth's gout mostly kept him off the field, & Hopton didn't have permission to command the Oxford contingent.

Thus noone oversaw the R wing, leading to the catastrophic incident with Bard. >>
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Mar 29
<< These 3 ppl are probably autofollowing everything in sight. I can't get mad, they have no idea, but I will be unfollowing them 😔

Yes, some genuine newbs don't do much at first. If you're unsure, wait to see if your new follower becomes a human. If it doesn't, it's probably a sockpuppet. BLOCK.
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Mar 29
<< Blindly following these accts equates to bad follow hygiene. It's like an infection. By following them, you're passing them on to your followers.

Of the dozens of empty acct follows that have swamped me, most came from just THREE people I follow (see the "followed by" info on the spam acct). >>
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Mar 29
<< It seems that when you follow the empty acct, its handler/bot follows all YOUR followers, & if they follow it, it follows all THEIR followers. It's follow farming. Watch one over time. The acct will accumulate follows & followers but never do anything. >>
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Serena Jones @serenaj1642.bsky.social · Mar 29
PLEASE, please, stop following the empty accts. You know the ones: no pfp, bio, posts, replies.

You know they're sockpuppets, right? Bad faith managed accts that quietly accumulate followers, before eventually going live to those followers as a spam or disinfo channel.

How does it work? >>
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