News & Information

As so much of our family history research is centred on Church Records it is fitting that we remember that during April we celebrate Easter.  Perhaps you will be visiting with relations and catching up on family events.  It’s a time for a fresh start and although you may have other commitments such as gardening, eating Chocolate eggs and Simnel cake and other activities taking priority you may be able to start planning a visit to a Record Office or to the area in which your family lived. 

AGM – New Committee

At our AGM, on Tuesday evening, as our constitution limits the time a Chairman can hold office, there was a change to our Committee in that we welcomed Mark Sayers as our new Chairman, Brian Airey became our Secretary  with David Milner continuing as Treasurer.  The remaining committee was returned unopposed. Our thanks must go to Brian who has been an Officer of the Society for many years.  

The AGM was followed by interesting offerings from members –

• Mark Sayers opened the proceedings with an illustrated description of his successful search for the elusive Albert SAYER and in doing so highlighted various helpful web sites, and how visiting the National Archives had enhanced his research.
• Peter Towey spoke about the GOONS, the Guild of One-Name Studies, describing how the Society functioned, the benefits to its members and others who may be researching the names which are covered by it.  More details from the GOONS web site 
• Arlene Pilgrim rounded off the evening with a personal look at her own research techniques.  Besides using some of the more usual web sites she also stressed the importance of looking at original records which may pick up comments which are not included in transcriptions.  Her visits to Record Offices have been particularly worthwhile with archivists suggesting records which she may not have considered.  Arlene showed an infectious enthusiasm for her subject as she took us through her various sources and illustrated her experiences with examples from her own family.

Both Mark Sayers and Arlene Pilgrim are amongst the volunteers who are to be found at the Library every Saturday afternoon (but not Easter Saturday). Even before the visitors arrive the blue shirted volunteers can be found practising their research skills!   If you are in Weston on a Saturday afternoon between 2.00 and 3.30 why not come along and see us – perhaps we can suggest the next step in your research.  We get some really interesting problems put before us and in tackling them the Volunteers learn a lot too!  Although we are based in the North Somerset Studies section of the Library it doesn’t matter where your family come from because the Library has access to Ancestry with its world-wide record access.

You can also get help of course by using our Research Forum.  I seems that many of the requests for help come from relatively new members - does that mean that the rest of you have no problems at all?!  Whilst thinking about our Research Forum please can I suggest that you type the SURNAME which you are researching in uppercase.  It does make the name stand out and may attract the attention of the casual viewer.

A couple of months ago the Society was represented during the opening week of the Big Worle Project and this photo has appeared in the current edition of North Somerset Life - we reproduce it here with permission from the magazine. Our presence in the Library every Saturday (as mentioned above) is an ongoing commitment but if you know of any other events in the neighbourhood where we might have a stand to publicise our society please contact Graham Payne who coordinates our appearances at Open Days etc.

The SWAG Fair at the Winter Gardens here in Weston on the 16th May 2015.  A description of what is available can be found on the SWAG web site.  SWAG stands for the South West Area Group of Family History Societies and this fair is held every other year and has over 40 stands, not only representing Family History Societies but also commercial enterprises which support research into genealogy.  There will also be lectures during the day on research techniques and allied subjects.

Visit to Kew

Last month, those of us who went to the National Archives at Kew had an interesting and profitable day.   I printed off some marvellous photographs of Weston-super-Mare which I hadn’t seen before.  I was able to look at (and photograph) some original records of people who had been recommended for bravery awards during WW2.  But, my attempt to read some 17th century chancery documents was less successful but nevertheless an experience!  Even those who were visiting Kew for the first time profited from their time there.  The archivists on duty were extremely helpful and patient with everyone.

Record Offices etc

• The Somerset Heritage Centre now has a Facebook Page where you can keep up to date on what is happening there.
• If your family have any connections with Bristol I hope you have looked at the Bristol Record Office Site and read some of the articles about what is on offer there – it includes an exhibition entitled Postcards from Bristol which will be on view from 17th March until the 17th July.  This exhibition is linked to the Know Your Bristol project which is such a rich resource combining and overlaying maps of the area and incorporating the Bristol Postcards. 
• There are plans to extend this project to cover “Know Your Place – West of England ” which would extend the maps to cover the old Avon County.  In the same round of Lottery Grants when Weston Museum  was awarded £1,096,000 to completely refurbish and modernise – South Gloucestershire was granted some funding towards their part of the project.

Social History

A personal bee in my bonnet -  The BBC is currently showing a programme – Back in time for Dinner  – looking at the changes in family food over the last 60 plus years.  I know that many who actually lived through the 1950s found the opening episode rather disappointing as it didn’t portray life as we remember it!  I realise that it is primarily an entertainment programme where a modern family was trying to recreate the 1950s and the result could not represent what everybody experienced at that time, but it did bring home to me the problem of getting to grips with the social history of our ancestors. 

I found fault with the programme because it

• Served cold liver - did anyone ever actually do that?
• Didn’t have a table cloth on the table,
• Had a mother who seemed not to have any basic cooking skills,
• Showed children who turned their noses up at bread and dripping!
• Took no account of the amazing resilience of the population to the hardships and shortages which had been experienced since 1939.

How much more difficult is it to portray what life was like in the Victorian, Georgian or even Elizabethan times when nobody can actually claim to know firsthand what life was really like?  The subject of Social History can be seen debated in this edition of History Today,  however this article is actually dated 1985 so perhaps attitudes and thinking have changed a bit since then? 

New Resources Online

• The scanned images of parish records which are appearing on Ancestry are filling in a number of gaps in my own research.  My mother’s family came from Gloucestershire and I have found some events concerning my great grandfather’s siblings which have made some interesting links.  The latest additions to Ancestry can be seen here.
• Among the latest additions to Findmypast are the Registers of the Bedlam Hospital in London.  You can read more about the Bedlam Hospital without a subscription (scroll down past the advertisement to join Findmypast) and it gives a fascinating background to life at that time for some people.
• The March Newsletter from Findmypast  is of particular interest because it talks about the plans to publish details from the 1939 Register which contains information about who was living in Great Britain during one weekend in September 1939.  This was later used to issue identity cards and was also used to create National Health Service Numbers in 1948. 
• If you have Irish ancestry - try this summary of Irish Ancestors which lists some of the Irish records which you can find online

Next Meeting

Our Speaker for the April meeting is Jonathan Pinnock who was intrigued to find a reggae singer who shared his surname.  We will hear his account of how he traced not only the reggae singer but also his own family history.  I will be particularly interested in this because my maternal grandmother's surname was PINNOCK but although both his relations and mine were living in Bedminster, Bristol at the same time I don't think that they are related.

March 1st and St David’s Day – Let’s look forward to the daffodils which herald the spring and celebrate this day with our Welsh cousins.  Many of those who consider themselves to be Welsh today may find that they came originally from Somerset and other counties.  This site  shows the extent of migration into Wales during the 19th Century.  If you search the 1901 census you will find that 36,000+ people living in Wales said they were born in Somerset out of a total of just over 2,000,000.

I’m also looking forward to our visit to Kew on March 5th.  Through our Research Forum and coupled with a query from someone who came into the Library one Saturday we have been able to assist in some research being undertaken by TNA.  It involves this Research Query and I am hopeful that the people involved in some of this work will be on hand to talk to us about it. If anyone who is going to Kew would like to meet them please let me know beforehand.  This group of Railway Memorabilia is an important collection and it is interesting to realise that it had previously been housed in a garage about 100 yards from where I live and I knew absolutely nothing about it!  No one responded to the WINDEATT query but it is not too late if you know anything about this family or the family of Wilfrid Edwin HAYWARD they would be delighted to hear from you so that they can let family members know what is happening to the collection.

North Somerset Archivist's Visits to Weston

Unfortunately the date of our visit to Kew clashes with the visit of the Somerset Archivist to Weston Library.  The dates for 2015 are as follows :

• 5 March 2015
• 4 June 2015
• 3 September 2015
• 3 December 2015

If you are researching a Somerset family or location - Please contact Jane de Gruchy, North Somerset Archivist:  Tel: 01823 278805  or E-mail: Archives@somerset.gov.uk by Tuesday March 3rd to ask for documents to be brought to Weston for you.

You never know where an interest in family history may lead you. 

• The fascinating talk we had in February from one of our own members, Alan Bateman, about the PANTON Brothers and their tribute to their brother who died in WW2 was a mixture of research and history which was very well received by the Society.  You can read more about the subject of the talk - the Lancaster Bomber “Just Jane” on this site
• During February, I was excited to find a photograph on an Ancestry Family Tree of the tomb stone of my 7 x great grandparents Joseph & Ann TURNER in Winterbourne Churchyard near Bristol.  Joseph died in January 1726/7.  In a book entitled “The Goods and Chattels or our Forefathers” published by Phillimore in 1976 I found a transcription of an Inventory (the original document is in Bristol Record Office) of his belongings - to the value of £176.2s.4d. This was published as a result of an Extra-Mural Course run by Bristol University for the Frampton Cotterell  Local History Group  which surveyed the wills and inventories for the parishes in that area and now clearly demonstrates the links between family and local history.
• Later this year I have agreed to give a talk to the Local History Group of the Weston U3A about Weston High Street.  If any of you have ancestors who lived at any time in the High Street and/or have photographs of the High Street I would be delighted to hear from you.  A review of the High Street in 1923 shows some very familiar shop names – Mac Fisheries, Lance & Lance, Walker & Ling, Coulsting’s Bazaar, Brown’s Cafe, Podger & Davis, Leaver, Woolworth, Butter, Salisbury the Tailors, Over, Lipton, W H Smith, Boots, Stead & Simpson, Maypole, Marks & Spencer, Rossiter & Sons, Dossor, Cecil Walker, etc. etc.  – some of course are still there.  

New(ish) Web Sites

• The British Newspaper Archive  which you can access free of charge in Weston Library continues to add to its total online.  I’ve found it particularly useful for finding information about Inquests and Divorce Cases.  Obituaries are also very often extremely enlightening in the way in which they list the past history of the person who has died as well as the names and relationships of people attending the funeral.  Of course if you have a relation who fell fowl of the law you can also trace their progress through the courts!
• Some months ago I drew your attention to the Genealogist which had added the Tithe Map Apportionment Lists to its site and was promising to add the maps themselves.  Take a look at this background article What Land did my ancestor own?  The maps for Middlesex, Surrey, Buckinghamshire and Leicestershire have now been added and more are to come – watch this space!
• The Royal Navy Registers of Seamen's Services, 1900-1928  are now available on Ancestry.  Just to try it out, I searched for “SMITH” as a surname and found that the first two entries were using SMITH as an alias!
• A number of Parish Records for Gloucestershire have also been added to Ancestry during February these also include Wills and Inventories but here is a problem in that they are only the records of parishes under the Bishop of Gloucester and several parishes in South Gloucestershire are actually under the Bishop of Bristol and will not be included.  The Bristol & Avon FHS  has transcribed these and they are available for purchase on CD – However, you can also consult also these CDs in Weston Library or on the free site Familysearch the link I have given limits the search to English records.

We have received the following from the FFHS  - I am repeating it in full because of the useful advice it contains which applies to most counties not only Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire records arrive online

The first batch of images from Northamptonshire parish registers and bishops transcripts has arrived on the Ancestry website.

They relate to the period 1813 to 1912 and include these records, many of the earlier ones being duplicates:

• 781,205 Baptisms
• 478,523 Burials
• There are also details of 463 confirmations of people from four parishes.

The collections have all been indexed, so they can be searched and individual images downloaded in the ways already familiar to Ancestry users. A browse facility allows you to select a specific parish, choose between parish registers and bishops transcripts (if both are available) and proceed page by page as though you were looking through the original records.

Some key uses of the collections are:

• Locating vital events before the advent of civil registration in July 1837 – and later ones that you cannot find in civil registration indexes.
• Identifying children who did not live long enough to appear in a census (the alternative being to buy expensive civil registration certificates).
• The opportunity to check alternative sources, even where a record has been found.
• However, parish registers and bishops transcripts do not supply a complete roll call of births and deaths that took place in the county during the century starting 1813. Points to bear In mind are:
  • The practice of submitting bishops transcripts tended to die out in the latter part of the 19th century – about half of the parishes in Northamptonshire ceased to send in returns at some stage between 1865 and 1880.
  • Therefore, many events are recorded twice in the earlier decades, but considerably fewer as time goes by. For some places and years, parish registers are not available either.
  • Northamptonshire was a hot-bed of nonconformity, where many children were not christened in the Church of England.
  • Cemeteries were established in Northampton and elsewhere in the county from 1847 onwards. Their burials do not appear in parish registers.
  • As with most family history sources, it is great to have this data so readily available – but think about how you interpret it. 

Our next meeting will be on the 31st March which will include our AGM.  Do look at the latest edition of Buckets & Spades for the Agenda and for an amendment to the Constitution which is being proposed.  Following the AGM is a session on Research Techniques and Problem Solving – Please come with you own ideas on these topics to share with other members.

It’s always interesting to see the research queries posted on our site – Thank you to those who have contributed queries, please keep them coming and if you have any ideas about how to solve some of the questions please add a comment.   Do take a look at the Surname Interests  as well – sometimes people have put additional information under their entry.  For example,  look at the TILLEY entry with its link to another site. 

National Libraries Day – Saturday February 7th.  Why not visit Weston-super-Mare Library on this Saturday from 2.00 until 3.30 pm as we will be taking part in National Libraries Day with our Help Session.  The full range of activities available in the Libraries of North Somerset during February can be seen here.  Come along if you want to see what is available for researching local families – parish records for North Somerset Parishes, censuses, local newspapers, maps, books, directories, electoral rolls, family trees etc. can all be views in the Local Studies Room.  Access by computer to the Library Edition of Ancestry and to all the other online sites made available by the Library can be found here. It doesn’t matter from where your family originates we should be able to find something to help you. 

History of Worle Exhibition - If you missed the excellent Exhibition of Worle History put on by the Worle History Society during the Summer there is a chance to catch up with it again during the 10th – 14th Feb at Weston Museum from 10.00am until 4.00pm each day.  Free entry to the exhibition.   Even if you did attend before – go again - there is so much to see.  For more information about the Exhibition see here.

Visit to The National Archives on Thursday, March 5th. Travel details as before i.e. pick up 7am Locking Road Car Park, Lidl, Worle at 7.10am and Kenn Rd., Clevedon 7.30am.  We will leave Kew at 5.45pm and hope to be back in WsM about 9-9.15pm.  The cost will be £20 for members and £25 for non members.   Please let Brian Airey  know as soon as possible if you are going.  We need to fill the coach to make it viable.  We only go to Kew once a year and it is a good opportunity to see original records and to download documents for the cost of printing.  Someone said to me “Oh everything’s on the net now there is no need to go!”  Yes, a lot of it is – but not everything

• To see what is available use the Discovery Catalogue,   There are many documents which are available to download free of charge while at the National Archives.
• Try searching for the parish of your ancestors, limiting the search to the National Archives and just seeing what is available there.  I have found some interesting reports on schools.
• Try also searching for your surname coupled with the place they lived – I’ve found and will be looking at the attestation papers of one of my family which are not included in any of those available online.   
• Ancestry and Findmypast are also available for use at Kew - free of charge. 

New Records available

With so many additional records becoming available it’s always a good idea to search regularly to see if there is anything new.

• Do you have relations who worked in a Coal Mine?  Take a look at the Coalmining History Resource Centre   This is a free searchable site for mining disasters and casualties.  Well worth spending some time seeing what it has to offer. 
• If you have someone who died during WW1 - Ancestry has an index of the UK Army Registers of Soldiers' Effects, 1901-1929.  This lists any money owing to deceased soldiers but next of kin and sometimes occupations are listed so can fill in gaps or enable you to identify men with similar names.  
• A  web site has been launched called “Prisoners of the First World War” comprising records from the International Committee of the Red Cross.  The belligerent countries involved provided lists of prisoners to the ICRC, which created an index card for each prisoner and detainee. You can search through all 5 million of them.
• I was recently in Thornbury and was told about this site called Thornbury Roots    If any of your ancestors come from around Thornbury in Gloucestershire you will find this to be a rich source of information.
• Also outside our area but possibly of interest to our members - There was a great deal of publicity in January  about a grave yard attached to the Bristol Workhouse at 100 Fishponds Road.  The records of these burials have always been available in Bristol Record Office but a group has now put an index to them online.  It was unusual for a Workhouse to have its own burial ground - most Union Workhouses sent the bodies back to their home parishes where they would have been buried in local churchyards .  The Bristol Radical History Group has made a valuable searchable database available and it is interesting to note that, contrary to the media’s interpretation, each burial is in a numbered (but unmarked) grave – not a mass grave.  Unmarked graves were not uncommon - Many of us will know that probably most of our ancestors’ graves do not have memorials on them either.  The site of this Burial Ground should be recognised but I think that making the list of burials available online is the best way of remembering those who were buried there.  It should be noted that the list is not a complete register of deaths in the Workhouse but it is a list of those buried in this site.
• Ancestry has just published an England and Wales, Death Index, 2007-2013 but this is not a complete index – it contains approximately 55% of the total number of deaths and has been compiled from a database of information obtained from newspaper obits and Undertakers’ records.    A similar partial index for a Scotland and Northern Ireland, Death Index, 1989-2013 has been published from the same source containing about 45% of the deaths in that area. This index also includes a small number of records for people in Jersey and the Isle of Man.  These indexes do not contain a GRO Reference but nevertheless they can be useful if your relation is included.
• More changes on Findmypast  to assist with the ease of searching.  Like all changes they will take a little getting used to – but they do allow you to gradually narrow your search.   Watch out that the default search is “World” you may need to change that “Britain” before you start.

Our Monthly Meetings

January finished with our first meeting of 2015 when Christine Thomas talked about the Colonial Cemetery in Hong Kong.  She has done extensive research about this cemetery and she traced the history of three men who had lived and worked in Hong Kong. As with all family history it was the richness of their lives which gradually evolved through her research.  Not just dates and names but aided by some relatives of these men who attended the meeting she was able to paint a full picture of their lives both in the Colony and in this country.  

At our meeting on the 24th February, the next edition of Buckets & Spades will be available for those of you who have opted for a paper version.  Other members will be able to read it online.  Our speaker in February will be member, Alan Bateman, who will be talking about his research into the Panton Brothers of Leicestershire and their purchase of a Lancaster Bomber in tribute to their elder brother who was killed during WW2.

Looking forward to March which is our AGM and Members’ Evening – We are looking for Members to share their tips and experience in researching their families. If you have found a useful source of information please share it with us during that evening – If you have a question which you would like discussed at the meeting please let Brian Airey know beforehand.

Wishing all our members and fellow Family Historians a Joyous and Successful New Year. It's a swiftly moving time for family history with even more resources becoming accessible, shedding light into the dark corners of our research.   

• 2014 has seen the start of the commemoration of WW1 and has raised our awareness of the happenings of that time – exhibitions, books, films and private projects have inspired many to take up Family History and explore their families.  In 2015 we will be looking back 200 years to the Battle of Waterloo.  We are lucky in that our Treasurer, David MILNER, has compiled an index of men who fought at the battle of Waterloo 16th to 18th June 1815.  David is an authority on the Battle of Waterloo and can be contacted here.
• Research generally gets more difficult in the early 19th century so if you are stuck why not use our Research Forum or join us at Weston Library on a Saturday afternoon between 2.00 pm and 3.30 pm.
• We re-start our weekly Help Sessions at Weston Library on Sat Jan10th.  Before Christmas we had an interesting quest which involved looking at the local newspapers which are on film in the library.  They are not indexed so it is not always easy to find information but they are a rich source of local knowledge.  I have received an email of thanks directed to all the volunteers in the Library who helped in this particular search.  In this case it was an inquest which gave interesting details which were new to the researcher.  In many cases Coroner’s Reports have not survived and newspapers can fill a gap here. 
• Using the British Newspaper Archive  (which can also be accessed through Findmypast or free of charge in Weston Library  – in the same way as you can use Ancestry in the Library) I found that a great uncle who had served in WW1, returned home to find that his wife had sold some of their furniture and they subsequently separated.  He served  a prison sentence for embezzlement in the 1920s and later gave his wife an uncontested  divorce as he  “was seen entering a hotel bedroom with an unnamed woman” according to the newspaper.   His wife remarried but he didn’t.  I knew of him but knew nothing about this part of his life – I had always assumed that he was a bachelor when he died.  Never assume anything!!
• On the subject of assumptions; I have been less than complementary about the Family Trees published on Ancestry in the past but in December I spotted one which included my family with what I think was incorrect information.  I contacted the owner and had a reply – he explained that he had done his family history by accepting the hints from Ancestry and from other family trees so was pleased to have information from someone who had used original records. I was delighted to get this reply and have been in contact with him again.   In the past when I have attempted to correct other errors I have received – either no response at all or  “I’m not related to that individual – I took it from my brother-in-law’s research and he must be right!” or “As there are nine trees  all saying the same you must be wrong” .  These published trees can be useful as a tool and if the entries are accompanied with their sources  they can be really helpful - but you really do need to go to the original documents for proof. However, I'm very much aware that I can make mistakes like everyone else and that some of the original documents can be very hard to read.

Visit to Kew

• Our annual visit to the National Archives at Kew always proves exciting and with unexpected benefits.  As you will see elsewhere from Brian Airey,  this year we are going on March 5th so you have plenty of time to check on their web site which documents you may find useful. Do familiarise yourself with that is available.  If it is your first visit take a look at this site before you go. Brian has suggested some other sites as well.  My tip is to draw up a list of what you are hoping to find – nothing is worse than remembering you wanted something on the way back!!
• To find out which documents are available to download go to the National Archives  and tick the box  “Available to download from the National Archives”  If you enter “Weston-super-Mare” you get 475 results which if you download at home would cost you £3.30 each but if you download while at Kew you only pay the cost of printing.  Try entering the place where you ancestor lived or your family surname and see what is available. Records on Findmypast or Ancestry you can also be downloaded free of charge at Kew. 

Suggestions for Research

• In looking at censuses recently I came across a family who was living in rooms in the same house in London in 1881, 1891 and 1901.  By putting the address with the number of the house into a search engine (using inverted commas) I discovered that the same address was included in a report on the sanitation of that area in 1891, and it was included in Booth’s Survey of Poverty in 1892 and  mention was made of it in an account of a family who lived there in 1909.  Don’t just stop at the censuses!
• I’ve just discovered that the Trade Union Records which have recently been added to FindmyPast include the Railway Workers and the Carpenters & Joiners Branches of Weston-super-Mare.  Some well known local names show up – including a HASE!
• Watch the presentation on Findmypast on "Breaking Down Brick Walls"
• If you have Scottish ancestry, ScotlandsPeople allow you (for a fee - about  £1.15 each) to obtain the image of the early birth, marriage and death certificates.  Statutory registration started in Scotland in 1853.  Now available to view are images for Scottish statutory births until 1914, marriages until 1939 and deaths until 1964. These digital images of the official records are released under the legislation that allows the publication of birth, marriage and death records that were registered in Scotland more than 100, 75 and 50 years ago.  Certificates for events which took place after these dates are available for £12.00 each.
• If you don’t already subscribe to this newsletter do take a look at the Dec 25th edition of the Lost Cousins Newsletter  Although the offers may be over,  the advice contained in other parts is very helpful especially “Finding missing Children” and “Extending your tree beyond 1911”. 
• About this time of each year you will find that many County Record Offices close for a while for stocktaking so if you are thinking of making a visit to one do check its opening times.  For Example Bristol Record Office is closed between the 20th and 30th January.  Somerset Heritage Centre is closed for a similar period.

New Year Resolutions

• One of the best pieces of advice I was given when I started family history – was   “Slow down, savour each item as you find it – the information has survived for a hundred years - it isn’t going to disappear – it will wait for you!”  I still find it difficult not to get caught up in the excitement of each new lead. 
• Other Resolutions:-You can make your own list but mine would start with:
• Record all the sources of information I find.
• Read the background information available on Genealogical Web sites – there is so much more on many of these sites other than a search box!
• Write up my findings in an accessible way which might inspire others to follow on
• Make 2015 the year when I finally find the birth and parents of the Robert LONG who was married at St Mary's Church in Bitton in 1767 to Hester PRIGG. This marriage was one of the first things I discovered when I started to research in 1975 and I’m still stuck there!!

January Meeting

Our Meeting on January 27th will feature a return visit of  Christine Thomas who will be talking about the Hong Kong Colonial Cemetery.  She will be exploring the stories behind the gravestones of Colonial ancestors.  Christine is a member of our Society and a professional researcher covering Hong Kong and China. 

One of the most common sayings of family historians is  "I wish I'd asked them about it while they were alive - it's too late now".  It might not be - one of my sons told me something which my mother had told him but which was news to me.  Perhaps this Christmas when talking to your friends and relations you might discover some little clue which explains a mystery in your research.  There's often a grain of truth in those handed down tales which seem so far fetched - don't discount them out of hand.

Haven’t you finished yet? – A question posed by my husband recently when I gaily informed him that I had discovered another of his relations.  The answer to that is that everything new you find poses at least two new questions!  This time it concerned the Vicar of Hornblotton - Elias DYMOCK, (brother of Mike’s 5 x great grandfather) who in 1753 was convicted of cursing 20 profane curses!  I wonder what caused him to do this?

Upcoming Events

Just a reminder that the North Somerset Archivist  will be in Weston Library on 4 December 2014

• The morning session is from 11.00am-1.00pm and the afternoon session is from 2.00pm-3.30pm. Visitors are welcome at either or both of these sessions.  Please bring your library card, if you have one, as you will be asked to sign in when you enter the local studies room.  If you would like to look at original documents or microfiche held at Somerset Archives and Local Studies, please contact us the week before the visit ('last orders' are taken two days before the visit) and please be aware that spaces are limited.  You can carry on looking at microfiche over lunch, if you wish, but not original documents. Please contact Jane de Gruchy, North Somerset Archivist:  Tel: 01823 278805   
• This is a marvellous opportunity for anyone who wishes to consult documents which are normally held at Taunton.   I could even find out more about Elias DYMOCK!

BigWorle Week  

• Also on Thursday afternoon Dec 4th from 1.00pm until 5.00pm the Society is being represented at the BigWorle Week being held at the BigWorle Hub in Clovelly Road, Worle.  Do come along and see us – we will be offering assistance to anyone who is thinking about their family history or who is stuck and would like to know what to do next – You don’t have to have ancestors in Worle!

Rotary Charity Christmas Fair Saturday Dec 6th at the WinterGardens  

• For several years now we have had a stand at this fair and offered advice for people who are interested in researching their family.  This year is no exception - so come along and say “Hello” as you enjoy the Christmas atmosphere at this annual Charity Fair.   From 10-00am until 4.00pm.

Library Help Sessions – No Sessions Dec 27th or Jan 3rd

• We have been holding these sessions every Saturday since September 2013 and with the continued support of a loyal band of volunteers they are still proving very successful.  It is always very satisfying to hear the comments of people who are delighted (and sometimes surprised!) at what they have been able to find out.   
• It was interesting that during the weekend of the Weston Carnival we were able to help people who had come to Weston for the weekend to watch the carnival and to catch up on their research at the same time. 
• However, in case anyone is planning to visit Weston over Christmas we will not be in the Library on Saturdays Dec 27th and Jan 3rd but of course the Library will be open for individual research with access to Ancestry and other online facilities on all normal opening times. The Local Studies Section has Parish Records on Fiche for all parishes in North Somerset and a wide range of books, directories, Electoral Rolls, maps etc.  all relating to North Somerset.

Research Forum

• If you have a query please use the Research Forum on this site – It’s been a bit quiet of late – but several people have commented that they learn a lot from reading the questions posed and the suggestions offered.  No question is too basic to be asked - we were all beginners once and even those who have been researching for some time need to catch up with changing methods and availability of resources.

Internet Resources

• London Probate Search Rooms Closing December 2014 to be Replaced by New On-Line Index to Wills from 1858.  From the beginning of November it has been possible to access Wills  from 1996 online see this page for more details.  It looks as if from Dec 12th this will be extended to all Wills from 1858 Take a look at his announcement  and the response from the Society of Genealogists.  This will mean that all Wills from 1858 will be available for downloading
• FindmyPast has historically had links with the Federation of Family History Societies and gradually more parish records are appearing on their site.  I have been particularly interested in the records for Devon, Glamorgan and Kent which have resulted in me being able to find links to various members of my family.  FindmyPast has also just announced indexes to some Scottish Records which are well worth investigating if you have connections with Scotland
• Ancestry is also increasing their records  - some of you may find their Lunatic Admission Records useful - I did!.
• The Genealogist has Lists of Wounded and mentioned in Dispatches form WW1 on their site

If you know of any other new records becoming available perhaps you could add them as a comment to this Update

November Members’ Meeting – Thanks to Maureen Harvey for overseeing the light hearted quiz and raffle at the November meeting.  We have no meeting in December so we were pleased to start our Christmas celebrations with this meeting and mincepies.  Thanks also to those who brought in some memorabilia from their families and explained why they were important to them. We wish you all a very Happy Christmas and may all your brick walls come tumbling down in 2015!

[Burrington WW1] Have received information about an Exhibition and Book Launch to be held next weekend Nov 29th and 30th in Burrington. Many Parishes have been or will be holding similar events and some really interesting exhibits are being displayed.