hi, im josh im 28 from somerset, my passion since i can remember has been history, all periods are facinating but specifically around 1800 onwards, if im honest i wish i was born around 1860 haha :)
its great to be on here !

Welcome. I'm fairly new here myself. Somerset, anywhere near Lorna Doone country? I've just finished the book. The village where the hero John Ridd lived was in Somerset but the Doone Valley was over the border in Devon so it seems.

Welcome. As I'm on mobile phone I apologise for any typos I don't notice

Welcome to Higg94 and also to johnpery. Didn't someone, MarkUK maybe, mention that they'd come here recently from another discussion forum because that one was closing down: what forum was that? This site was created in 2011 when the BBC closed down a lot of its online message boards including its history forum, and so many of us come originally from there although others have joined over the years. Anyway welcome all, the more the merrier - although today I really must take advantage of the good weather to cut the grass and get my potatoes planted. A plus tard.

It was a site on Aimoo. a member somehow got himself locked out and couldn't rejoin, plus our active membership had dwindled to a few regulars, others died or simply disappeared. 
Having said that he has since set up a new site on Aimoo which I have joined, the former one still exists but will most likely fade away. 
During the hiatus, when it looked like our site was dying, I suggested they join here, they all looked but none joined citing the flood of advertisements, which I confess are intensely irritating. Now they have got an Aimoo site up and running anew.

That's interesting - and thanks for the frank response - but a flood of adverts you say? I get absolutely no adverts here at all (that's indeed why I like it) and I haven't, at least not knowingly, installed any general adblocker, nor even re-set any of my basic parameters on this site - other than to change the size of the page to reflect my PC's screen dimensions and, sadly, my declining eyesight.

PS:
For Higg94, Josh, I will make some comments about your love of the 1860s (and I think Trike once declared a similar sentiment on a thread here, though if memory serves he preferred the 1870s) but just at the moment I need to press on in the garden. Nevertheless planting tatties does allow much time for thought, reflection and for the mind to wander, and so I'll post something very soon.

Adverts all over the site, both before logging on and after.

The display of ads can depend on which operating system is being used. If I'm viewing on the pad (Apple) then there are no adverts at all. The desktop (Vista) gives one ad at the top of the page and 4 across the bottom and the same applies to the phone (Nokia/Microsoft). It's certainly not a flood though. They're unobtrusive and easily ignored. Indeed, after logging in, the 4 at the bottom of the page disappear leaving just the one at the top.

hi thank you all for the welcome its good to be here :)