News & Information

Speakers for workshops are now being arranged at a pace. The following have been arranged:

March 22nd:     Brick walls and how to solve them. This will include brickwalls sent in by members

April 26th:       Family Search website: a talk on the website by Christine Reid from the Church of Latter Day Saints

May 24th:        Family Tree Maker: Mark Olsen from Family Tree Maker will be explaining how this excellent program works

June 28th:        Private Schools of Weston: following on from Pat Hase's talk on education resources in general, she will talking                         about the many private schools in Weston.

July 26th:          Worle: Raye Green from the Worle History Society will give us an insight into Worle and its history

August:            no workshop

Just as a heads up for the new season, we have John Gowar from Wrington Local History Society who will be talking about the older history of the village/parish looking at records from Middle Ages to Victorian times. This will be in October.

Peter de Dulin

vice chair

The Easton in Gordano St George MIs (3 files) are now available for Society members to view online.

If you have any information regarding incomplete inscriptions or you find any errors please contact the author of this news article.

Welcome to Spring!  The trees in our road are in blossom with daffodils and snowdrops blessing our garden  so it must be spring, but the temperature is still quite chilly.  February was a month of celebration in our family. A very special 90^th Birthday managed to get the family together for the first time for ages and the birthday boy was delighted to receive a card and gift from the Society for which he was very grateful.

We spent some time delving into family photographs. My mother-in-law had kept a couple of small albums covering his first two years – all named and dated with the place taken recorded as well.  

This one taken in 1934 shows father and son on the beach in Weston.  I love the knitted swimsuit!  Who remembers wearing those and how heavy they became in water?    

NEWSPAPER PHOTOGRAPHS

Gone are the days when the local newspaper had a number of Birth, Marriage and Death Announcements often accompanied by photographs.  The Weston Gazette published a Pictorial Review for 1933 which contained, amongst many others, this photo of a wedding at Hewish Church.

Is anyone researching WESTCOTT or DUNSTER?  Or even the DAY family from Blagdon?  Other photographs in that edition include this one of a Diamond Wedding Celebration of the DAY family.

William and Harriet DAY née DERRICK were married on the 30^th Dec 1872 at Blagdon. 

QUESTIONNAIRE

During February members answered the Questionnaire about what you wanted from the Society for which the Committee is grateful and will try to ensure that the Society provides as far as possible what the majority wants.   One thing that puzzled me  was the large number of you who asked for help with breaking down brickwalls.  There will be a Zoom Workshop tackling Brickwalls on Wednesday March 22^nd for all paid-up members starting at 7.30 p.m. and if you miss it you should be able to watch a video of the meeting at time to suit yourself.  I am curious about your Brickwalls because there are very few requests for help ever posted on our Research Forum which was set up for this very purpose.  Why is it not used?  

WORKSHOPS

Workshops are planned on the Use of Family Search on April 26^th and on the use of Family Tree Maker on May 24^th.  These are available to paid-up members of the Society who also have access to all other recorded videos.  Perhaps you might consider the £9.00 annual fee worth it to enable you to join these events as well as accessing our transcriptions and other information.

ASKING FOR HELP

We all have experienced times when it seems impossible to track down the next generation.  There will be tips of how to go about this during the Workshop but in the meantime why not talk to your relatives again?  You haven’t got any older ones? – try your children – they may well have been told different stories about the family by their grandparents!  When forming your questions try not to use terms like  “Granddad said” – whose Granddad?  -  yours or theirs?  I spend over a year looking at the wrong generation because my father-in-law used “Granddad said” and I thought he meant his grandfather.

I find writing up a narrative profile of individual family members some help in clarifying my own thoughts.  Something like the Weston Worthies – As you piece their lives together chronologically questions emerge which need answering.  Just recently I’ve had to send for my own mother’s birth certificate.  Of course I knew when she was born and who her parents were, but where was she born?  I think she must have had one of the shortened birth certificates which did not give the birthplace.  She was born in August 1910 and was christened in October 1910 – address 24 Greenbank Road.  On the 1911 Census, when she was 7 months old,  in my grandfather’s distinctive writing, the address is 93 Greenbank Road.

I’m now waiting to see where she was born!

The certificate has arrived and it shows that she was born at 93 Greenbank Road - so the address given in the Baptism Record is incorrect.  

PASSING ON INFORMATION

Narrative profiles such as this one about Dame Mary Berry on FindmyPast is an example of how you might put one together.  I trained at the same College in Bath as Mary Berry (a couple of years after her) and on a different course, but the Tutors were singing her praises even then, when she was employed by SWEB South Western Electricity Board demonstrating how easy it was to cook on an electric stove. Look  at this video it will remind you of her programme in WDYTYA.

It is a good idea to consider the best way to pass on your research, remembering that the younger generation is less likely to want to read or handle information in book form.  They will probably be happier accessing it on their phones or tablets  so how can you provide a stimulating and interesting account that they will want to see and possibly continue with?  Some of us have interviewed older relatives but have you considered letting your children or grandchildren interview you?  This could be videoed on their phones and easily transmitted.   These ideas were offered at a Zoom Meeting of the Bristol & Avon FHS, of which I am also a member, and I thank Steve Ralph for these suggestions.

RESEARCH FORUM

When asking for help from the Research Forum or the Facebook Group do not assume that the only people who will help are those researching the same family.  It is well documented that doing Family History Research is like completing a jigsaw puzzle or solving a detective story.  It can give quite a buzz to solve someone else’s problems – Give it a try! – and it may give you a clue about your own research.  This is assuming that there are problems to solve!

Give sufficient information so that who ever wants to help can see exactly what you already know and also what you want to know.

FREE HELP SESSION

The next free help session at Weston Library will take place on Saturday March 4^th from 2.00 until 3.30p.m. Our knowledgeable volunteers will be there to help you find that elusive ancestor and/or make full use of what is available on the shelves in the Library.  Street Directories, Electoral Rolls, Background History of North Somerset and files of Local People and Places.

MAPS

Maps are a really helpful way of identifying where your ancestor lived.  I was horrified recently when one of the contestants on The Apprentice said that he could not read a map and that they were a bit before his time! I suppose it depends on why you want to use a map.

Know Your Place has been discussed here before and we have a link to it on our web site but still someone said that they had not heard of it and was grateful when it was pointed out to them how useful it could be.  There is a such a lot of information which can be gleaned from it – just try the various maps and community and monument layers.  It is free to use.

However, I was about to put a link to show Our Lady of Lourdes Church Hall when I found that a photo of Milton Methodist has been entered at that site so be aware that errors can occur on this site. (I have notified them).  

Another source of useful maps is Map Explorer on The Genealogist.  Here the maps are linked to census entries and other resources as well as having a vast variety of maps available.  I find the Tithe Maps with their Apportionment Lists extremely useful.  You do need a subscription to use this.  However, take a look at the video which shows what it contains 

This is the Tithe Map for Stinchcombe in 1839 showing Plot  357 with a House and Garden occupied by Leonard HILL,  my 3 x great grandfather and  Richard HILL, my 2x great uncle.  The cottage is no longer there.

On the 1841 census only Leonard and his wife are living there.  Richard was living elsewhere.

1939 REGISTER and EVACUATION

During February this has been updated to include those who were born up to 1922 so you might be able to see someone who was originally redacted. 

You can also use the 1939 register to discover some children who were evacuated during September 1939.  If you search using “Evacuee” as occupation.  There are over 13,000 entered with 63 in Weston.

Ancestry has just released some Evacuation Records from Berkshire. About 45 percent of the evacuees were school children travelling alone. The plan also called for pregnant women, mothers of infants, the elderly, and disabled people to be evacuated. About 25,000 children were evacuated from London to Reading between September 1939 and October 1941. These records detail Berkshire’s work as a reception area. Besides the attendance registers of evacuated schools, there are files about emergency accommodation, maternity homes, nurseries and hostels.

TOPICS FOR SPEAKERS AT MEETINGS AND SPEAKER FINDER

One of the issues to arise from your questionnaire was the topics you would like covered from Speakers at Meetings.  Why not post a comment with some ideas of possible topics which would be helpful?

The committee is looking for a volunteer to take on the role of Speaker Finder – The programme for 2023 is complete so you would have plenty of time to arrange the speakers starting from Jan 2024.  

There are lists of speakers available to consult and neighbouring societies and groups may also be able to help.

NEXT SOCIETY MEETING

The next meeting will be on Wednesday 8^th March at Our Lady of Lourdes Church Hall at 2.30 p.m.   Visitors are welcome and the talk will be on "The Walker & Ling Story"  by Sam Walker.  This well-known store in Weston-super-Mare, which started in 1892, has had the Walker family at the heart of its development.  We welcome Sam Walker to tell us about the ups & downs of the store's history.

This is a photo of Walker & Ling’s entry in the Summer Carnival in 1931 entitled “The Cries of London” showing how the firm has always entered into the life of Weston.

The next issue of Buckets and Spades will be available at that meeting for collection.  If there are any copies which you could deliver for us that would be helpful. 

OUR 40^th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS

Plans are now well advanced for our Family and Local History Fair on Saturday 20^th May at Our Lady of Lourdes Church Hall from 10.00 a.m until 4.00 p.m. Admission will be free and Refreshments will be available.  Apart from our own stand and Help Desk there will be other local societies and Groups attending:

Bristol & Avon FHS                                

Somerset & Dorset Family FHS              

Kewstoke Local History Group               

Worle History Society                             

Wick St Lawrence Local History            

Anglo-German FHS                                 

DNA  Advice 

Know Your Place 

Church of Latter Day Saints 

Friends of Birnbeck Pier 

W C & P Railway Group   

U3A Family History Group  

Guild of One Name Studies                                 

Second Hand Books

We would welcome any contributions for the 2^nd Hand Book Stall  and if you could publicise the event in any way we would be very grateful.   

Society members will also be enjoying a celebratory meal at the Grand Atlantic Hotel on September 18^th which is being organised by our Vice-Chairman, Peter de Dulin.

This newsletter is available for all to read, member or not, and if you find it useful perhaps you could point others in its direction.  We would value comments and suggestions either on the Web Page or on the Facebook Group to assist others with their research or adding further information. 

Hello everyone!  It’s time for another monthly Newsletter – February is often dull and miserable weather wise but I hope that during the winter months you are able to catch up with some checking of your research.  We all can make mistakes which might just be typos, but others may be more serious. How do you check your findings? You need to look again at the censuses, birth, marriage and death information, baptism and burial records, articles in newspapers, inquests, school records, maps, photographs, criminal records, and military records, etc.  As far as possible have you looked at the original documents? Do they tell the whole story?  How do you want to pass on this account of your family history. Writing it up as a narrative and questioning your findings seems to throw up additional queries.  

You may find some unanswered questions and need help to discover more information.  Someone else may well be able to offer an alternative route for your research.

Getting Help or Comparing Research

Library Free Help Session Sat Feb 4th

• Our Society offers help in the form of a monthly free help session at Weston Library which is in the Weston-super-Mare Town Hall
• The next one is this coming Saturday on February 4^th from 2.00 p.m. until 3.30 p.m.  
• You do not have to book – just bring along the question you want to solve and even if your family is not local the use of the Internet may well be able to break down your brick wall. 

Research Forum

• We also have the Research Forum on the Web Site and the use of the Facebook Group to post your queries. 
• We have many knowledgeable members who may be able to help you. 
• Perhaps you could help others? I have found that taking a look at someone else’s problems can sometimes prompt my own research.
• Take a look at the query posted on our web site about the preservation of original documents. Our Chair, Jenny Towey has replied given some excellent advice.

Facebook Groups

If you are thinking of joining our Facebook Group, please make sure that you answer the Membership Questions or you will not be admitted.  We are a private Group and want to make sure that the Group contains people with a real interest in researching their family. 

Apart from asking for assistance from our own Facebook Group, I also look for Facebook Groups connected to the Local History of the area in which my family lived which can also be helpful. 

Just recently I posted this newspaper item to the Gloucester Local History Facebook Group with a query about the school at which my great aunt, Sarah JONES, was caretaker and received some very useful answers.

Rootschat

When a particular problem is outside our own area I often use the free forum on Rootschat where you can chose the county in which your family were living and ask a particular question. Go to this site  which lists all the areas in which you can post a query.   Replies are usually very rapid and useful.

Writing up your Research

• During January I decided to write up the story of my paternal grandmother’s family in a narrative form.
• With a surname of JONES, I had put off delving into her history because I thought it might be difficult. 
• However, I have found the exercise fascinating and by carefully cross matching all the various information from available resources I find I have a richer and fuller appreciation not only of her but of her family and ancestors as well.  
• Names, Dates and Places on a tree are not the only information you need. 
• I collected information about the JONES family in chronological order from various sources.

I was surprised to find these two notices in the Gloucester Citizen in October 1886 which indicated that all was not well with my great grandparents’ marriage and that David JONES, my great grandfather, had left his wife, Sarah, in 1885.  With several children still at home and their youngest daughter, my grandmother only about 5 and baby Herbert just a year-old, life cannot have been easy for Sarah, my great grandmother.

And the following day this entry.

By the 1891 census, Sarah was taking in lodgers, described as “Living on her own means” . At the same time, Sarah’s husband, David JONES, still a lath render, can be found lodging nearby at 9 Clifton Road, Gloucester. It is tempting to assume reasons for this, but without first hand knowledge this can be very misleading.  Sarah died from TB, from which she had been suffering for a year, in 1892 at 5 Berkeley Villas.  

Checking information on death certificates

I’ve often neglected to send to death certificates if I already have the date of death, but it does seem that in some cases it might be advisable to get a certificate to see the whole picture.

During my JONES investigation I found this newspaper announcement which suggested that David had been living at 23 Swan Road, which was the home of his daughter, Sarah Maria JONES (the school caretaker)

Although his daughter, Sarah, who did live at 23 Swan Road, gave information about him it appears that he was living at 121 Seymour Road when he collapsed and although taken to the Infirmary, he never regained consciousness.  The cause of death – Syncope, 2 days and Senility – Syncope is not really a cause of death, it is a form of fainting caused by something else, (possibly heart failure) and is not used today.

Using the address search facility of Findmypast I discovered that on the 1911 census, living at 121 Seymour Road, was another Lath Render, a Philip T. SKELTON, from Devon, so it looks as if David may have been lodging with a work mate when he died.

Between 1864 and 1884, David and Sarah JONES  had 10 children, not all surviving to adulthood, but it is important to trace the lives of all blood relations, especially if you have taken a DNA test because this is where matches may occur.

DNA – Next Society Meeting

The next face-to-face Society Meeting will be on Wednesday, February 8^th at 2.30 p.m. at Our Lady of Lourdes Church Hall.  Non members are welcome and the speaker will be Mandy Webb, a member of our Society, who recently appeared in an article in the “Who do you think you are?” magazine about her connections with the land in which Richard III was buried.

The title of her talk is  " Robert Herrick, Richard III and My DNA".

Zoom Workshops

Workshop on WILLS & PROBATE Feb 23^rd

• The next Zoom Workshop on Wednesday, February 23^rd starting at 7.30 p.m. will be an Introduction to Wills and Probate offered by Peter Towey. 
• Wills and where to find them vary over the years but some can be very informative.  You do need to understand the system in order to access them.
• I was delighted to find the Will of my  3 x great grandfather, Samuel LONG who died in 1833 (before the National Probate Calendar came into existence in 1858) and a transcription can be seen here showing how it helped sort out his children and their spouses. 
• I’m looking forward to any tips Peter can give for finding and understanding other wills.

Education Workshop - 

During the recent Zoom Workshop on Educational Records, in January, which is now available for full members to watch from our web site, I omitted to mention that a section of the Admission Register for St John’s School in Weston is available on Ancestry.  St John’s Girls’ School for 1878-1892 contains two with the surname HASE.  Here is Ada HASE born 29 Oct 1882, living in Meadow Street, where her father was a greengrocer.

This record is included in a range of Admission Books for Somerset Schools said to cover 1860-1914.  It includes St John’s Boys’ School as well for 1905-1914. 

Here are the VENN twins whose photograph I used in the Workshop. Their birthdate is given on the next page as 26^th Feb 1901

It is possible that on the school photograph containing Stanley and Cecil VENN the other children might be those who entered the school at the same time and can be seen above.

Birth Places

Addresses on documents can help identify where a family was living.  By using maps such as Know Your Place and even Google Maps it may be possible to discover exactly where they lived and who their neighbours were.  The first of the JONES family to be born in Gloucester was christened at St Luke's Church with a home address of Elming Row. 

Elming Row, seen here on a map from Know Your Place, just south of the railway line had an interesting history.  According to the National Archives it was a row of cottages, formerly known as Anti Dry Rot Lane!  This area was previously owned by the Anti Dry Rot Company.  The Anti Dry Rot Co set up a works to manufacture corrosive sublimate (mercuric chloride) used in a treatment for preserving timber -  probably not the most salubrious place to live!  

Elming Row is now very near the Gloucester Quays Designer Outlet which covers the site of St Luke's Church.   

Future Society Events

• Plans are well in hand for our Open Day to Celebrate our 40th Anniversary on May 20th when we have invited other local societies to join us at Our Lady of Lourdes Church Hall from 10.00 a.m. until 4.00 p.m.  
• There will be a Dinner later in the year for members.
• If you know of any village or school fetes during this year where we might have a stand to publicise our Society, please let us know.
• We hope to be at Hutton again this year where we met many interesting and interested people last summer
• We understand that Kewstoke may be having an event which includes a local history exhibition during the Coronation weekend.  Their exhibitions are always very well organised and interesting.

I hope that you will find something of interest in this newsletter in spite of the constant reference to Gloucester this month!  I have been trying to show that it is important to question your own research and look just that little bit further that the name, date and place.  Be curious about why your family was where they were, what they did and how they got there.  Ask for help to break down any brickwalls.

We have tried to record and or stream our monthly meetings at Our Lady of Lourdes Church Hall and have found difficulties. Paul Tracey and I have been doing our best but struggle. Is there any member that could shadow Paul now that we hope we have sorted out the major creases in software? If that person could also take on looking after the screen, projector and amplifier that would certainly be useful.

Please consider helping your committee help members.

Brian

Please remember that our subscription year runs from 1st January. Here is a gentle reminder to renew your membership if not already done so. Thank you

Brian Airey