It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m enjoying receiving yet more Christmas Cards! Thank you to everyone who sent their good wishes, whether by snail mail. electronic means or by hand – they are all appreciated.
40th Anniversary
2023 will be a special year for this Society – We are celebrating our 40th Anniversary – In 1983 the members of an Adult Education Class organised by the then Extra Mural Department of the Weston College wanted to continue their exploration of their family history which had been ably facilitated by Brian Austin.
 Advertisement from the 1982 Brochure of Adult Education Classes at the then Technical College.
I attended the Family History Workshop which held its inaugural meeting in a room at the Playhouse and the rest is history.
 Brian Austin, now an Honorary Life Member, will be opening this 40th Year, with a talk entitled “Tails of Old Weston” – based on some articles he wrote for the local newspaper with a nod to the donkeys of Weston and he is happy to have this talk recorded for those full members who are not able to attend - the title used is not to be confused with 2 booklets called “Tales of Old Weston” also written by Brian and published by the then Woodspring Museum Service. Other available research by Brian can be found on the Worle History Site http://www.worlehistorysociety.net/brian-austin-research/
I remember going to an early meeting of the Society, when it was just starting, which welcomed members of the Bristol & Avon FHS with some of their publications. To my delight I found, in one of their printed booklets, a transcription of the marriage at St James’s Church in the Horsefair in Bristol of a William HASE and a Rebecca Parfrey MILLARD – an ancestor of my husband! This was something which was new to me at that time - that so many people from Somerset went to Bristol to be married.
The other aspect of research which this recalls was the dependence on locally produced transcriptions – no computers universally available – We were lucky in Weston Library which had the released local censuses available on film and that Brian Austin had transcribed and indexed them so that they were relatively easy to use. By those censuses I mean the 1841, 51, 61 and 71 censuses. Volunteers from various Family History Societies combined to produce an index to the 1881 census which was available in booklets or on fiche readable on fiche readers. It is still free of charge from several sources. The IGI – International Genealogical Index – also available on fiche from the LDS was a useful tool but at that time there was very little on Somerset parishes because of the initial lack of support from the Bishop of Bath and Wales in allowing the filming of the original records. Our society started to produce our own transcriptions of local parishes which we reproduced in booklet form. Consequently, there was more use made of County Record Offices and Archives because as now not everything is available on the Internet or in printed transcriptions and this is worth remembering.
Tasks for the New Year
This is now the time for reviewing our research and resolving the routes to further investigation.
The most common question you get asked if you say you are researching your family is “How far back have you got?” But “getting back” is not the point unless you are sure of your initial findings!
Starting with yourself and assuming you know all four grandparents - Do you know how many children your grandparents had? Do you know how many siblings your grandparents had? How much do you know about your 16 Great grandparents? – this is especially important if you are using DNA to authenticate your research. A second cousin twice removed can be any descendant of your great grandparents and similarly a third cousin twice removed is descended from your great grand parents so filling in these relationships can be extremely helpful in identifying DNA matches.
I can list my husband’s 16 great grandparents – but the accuracy of names, ages, & dates of birth can be a different matter!
Take William HASE, a blacksmith, whose marriage I found at that Society meeting. He lived in Cross in the parish of Compton Bishop from at least 1819 until about 1859 when he died in Weston-super-Mare. Note that the name of the informant on this death certificate was Rebecca HASE but entered as Rebecca HARSE ( his widow!)
 Interestingly, in 1865, although William was buried in an unmarked grave in Milton Road Cemetery – (i.e. no payment was made for a stone to be erected) a 4-month-old, Florence HASE, a granddaughter of William was buried in the same grave, showing compassion and understanding from the cemetery authorities.
Later a payment was made by a different family and a stone to commemorate a widow, Elizabeth Louisa STONE was erected in 1906. It is always a good idea to see who is in the same grave. Our transcriptions are brilliant for this. http://www.wsmfhs.org.uk/milton_road.php
Surname Variants
William HASE
- Born in Enmore Somerset (place from 1851 census
- Bapt 23 Feb 1787 Enmore Parish Church entered as “William HASTE"
- Marr 3 Feb 1819 Bristol – as William HASE to Rebecca Parfrey MILLARD at St James ‘s Church, Bristol
- Census 6 Jun 1841 Cross entered as “William HARSE”, aged 56, Blacksmith, born Somerset
- Census 7 Apr 1851 Cross entered as “William HASE” aged 74, Blacksmith born Enmore, Blind
- Death 7 Mar 1859 Weston-super-Mare, “William HASE” aged 87, Journeyman Blacksmith
From this you can see that his age varies considerably between the censuses and his death as does the spelling of his surname which is entered phonetically. His 7 siblings have surnames entered at their christenings in Enmore as HASTE, ACE and HAIS all children of a William and Alice. Consequently, most of William and Alice’s descendants, except for those of our William have the surname HASTE.
Check Original
Remember always check back to the original entries although it should be remembered that they can have errors as well. This is the baptism of one of William & Rebecca’s children in Compton Bishop where the name has been incorrectly entered as CASE.
The second christening on the same day was of William s/o James & Mary MILLARD – James was a brother of Rebecca, so the cousins William HASE and William MILLARD were christened together.
Interesting Ancestors
On our Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/groups/225868047988340/ members were asked which of their ancestors they would they like to invite to Christmas lunch and why - the answers were very interesting demonstrating many of the problems which people have to overcome in tracing ancestors.
Why not use the Research Forum?
The Research Forum on our Web site is seldom used, – why is this? Surely we all have brickwalls to break down?
How to break down brickwalls
I recently came across this blog which last year (in 2021) was looking at the same problem and gives some very useful tips
https://lifelinesresearch.co.uk/2021/06/25/walls-come-tumbling-down/.
Also, please avoid using family trees which have been put online – especially those on Ancestry - unless you have checked them out and can see that they have been properly researched and not just copied from other trees. Even where images of censuses or parish records are included – take a look at them – do they refer to the same person? – I’ve found several that do not.
Review research
We all make mistakes – I’ve found a few in the last week when I’ve been reviewing my research. Some were just typos with numbers in dates misplaced but one was the result of forgetting to check the death records and constructing a family tree on a person who died as a baby and could not possibly be the father of a number of children! Luckily the parents had given the next child the same name, so the error was easily corrected.
Help Sessions at the Library
Our next free Help Sessions at the Library will be on Saturday 7th January 2023 from 2.00 p.m. until 3.30 p.m. when our experienced volunteers will be on hand to answer your queries and suggest further research. All are welcome, you do not have to be members of the society or the Facebook Group. There will be internet available to assist your research. Don’t forget what is available in the library – newspapers on film, unindexed but if you know a date and have plenty of time these can be invaluable but are not yet on the internet. On the open Shelves you will find transcriptions of Overseers’ Books from Weston, extracts from some Newspapers, Cemetery Records etc all produced by Brian Austin, Street Directories for Weston which also include some fascinating details of public life, Electoral Rolls from about 1938, maps and many fascinating files of people and places extracted by the librarians etc. Not to mention the enormous number of local history books concerning North Somerset.
The North Somerset Archivist visits Weston Library at intervals during the year and will bring documents from Taunton for you to see https://swheritage.org.uk/somerset-archives/visit/north-somerset-archives/ The next visit is due on Thursday March 9th.
Next Society Workshop
The next Society Workshop will take place on Wednesday Jan 18th at 7.30pm. by Zoom. Members will be notified about the signing in procedure. It will be the postponed Workshop on "Education in Weston" which I will be leading and I am happy to have it recorded – it will include a mention of the Brynmelyn School which featured in our November edition of Buckets and Spades and also some methods of finding information about schools and teachers in Weston and other places over the years.
Here’s to 2023!
Let’s raise our glasses to a Happy, Healthy and Successful New Year and looking forward to our first members’ meeting of our 40th Anniversary Year on January 11th with Brian Austin and our Celebratory Open Day on Saturday 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.
Happy New Year with a suitable Ruby background for our 40 Glorious Years!
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