December 2019
Brick Wall/Help with your Research Session
Mike Murray and Lesley Silvester presented a Brick Wall session and helped several of our members in their quest to break down those elusive barriers we sometimes face. Using expert knowledge and the right resources several good leads were established for the queries put forward. With help also from the floor, we were able to solve some queries and put others on the right track.
We finished a little early to enjoy our Christmas lunch. Thanks to everyone who contributed.
September 2019
A Brave Royalist Widow in the English Civil War
At the first meeting with our new committee, Peter Hamersley gave a presentation based on his 9x great aunt from the 17thCentury, entitled “Elizabeth Colchester (Hamersley), a brave Royalist Widow in the English Civil War”. Using timelines the presentation looked at how our ancestors families were affected by the upheaval of the civil war and other events of the 17th Century. Elizabeth was widowed by the war and had to fight to save her estate from sequestration at the same time as being pregnant and looking after her remaining children. She went to London and fought the parliament - and won! She was a remarkable woman of her times.
June 2019
A Country Vicar
Lesley gave a presentation called 'Nathaniel's Register' about a long-serving 17th cenrtury Vicar of Ludham in Norfolk. Nathaniel Hindle was appointed Vicar in 1675 and served until his death in 1714. Born in Yorkshire and educated in Vambridge, Nathaniel added helpful comments to the entries he made in the Register, giving a rich insight into the social history of the time. Some of Lesley's ancestors' events were recorded by him.
As well we held our AGM and the founding co-convenors of the SIG, Lesley Silvester and Mike Murray, stood down after nearly 14 years at the helm. A new committee was elected consisting of Peter Hamersley and Geoff Barber (Co-convenors), Rachel Roe and Robyn O'Brien (committee members).
Come along to the next meeting and give the new committee your support!
March 2019
Akehurst Wills
Our main presentation was “The Akehurst Wills of East Sussex” given by Geoff Barber. This was the culmination of over two years of Geoff’s research into records held by various resources such as the East Sussex Record Office, The National Archives, Ancestry, Family Search and the Sussex Family History Group’s Wills Depository Project amongst others. Geoff demonstrated how he has self-published this work online using the Internet Archive. Geoff also explained about his research overlapping the subject of One Name Studies.
December 2018
World War 1 Centenary and Christmas in the Trenches
Cambrai – two families, one battle, no graves
Peter Hamersley presented a moving account about two of his uncles (from both sides of his family) who fought and died in the same battle at Cambrai in 1917. Despite not knowing each other they are memorialised just one panel apart at the Cambrai Memorial
June 2018
Immigration records and passenger lists
Mike went through the different types of passenger lists that you may come across and explained their functions and where you might find them. Mike Keily also gave a first-hand account of passenger-carrying cargo ships in the post-war years; passengers were limited to 12 and there are some lists available.
March 2018
Tithe Maps and Records
After a short AGM where the usual suspects were elected, (and the possibility of a name change for the group was mooted and discarded), Liana gave us a brief run-down of the recent Sydney Congress attended by a couple of dozen folks from WA.
Geoff Barber then led us through an exploration of Tithe Records in the UK. You can access extensive Tithe records and detailed maps from 1836 using the Genealogist website (available free at the Family History Research Centre - aka the WAGS library).
December 2017
Finding the right man
Peter confessed to an error in one of his research projects and led us through the process of rectifying it...first, what made him think it was wrong (he had nagging doubts), what convinced him to start again, how did he go about finding the right person. Moral – keep checking the evidence; sometimes coincidences are just that!
And Liana gave a talk on her recent visit to Wales where she literally followed in the footsteps of her convict ancestor, including standing in the dock and being locked up in his cell.
September 2017
Wills and Probate
Lesley enlightened us all on this extremely large and sometimes complex topic. In addition to the presentation there was a handout with some explanations and many useful links. We spent some time using the Principal Probate Registry search index and records at https://www.gov.uk/search-will-probate looking for Wills from 1858 to date. We also canvassed for some future presentation ideas and plan the follow ing: Passenger Lists & Migration, Sussex Tithe Maps, Non-Conformist Records, and “Identifying the Right Man”.
June 2017
Brick Walls Tumble
In a packed session we managed to tackle about eight brick walls brought along by members. Collectively we solved half of them and gave excellent leads to the others.
As well as using the standard websites and various search techniques, we found that a particularly useful feature in this session was being able to access some mother's maiden names in pre-1912 births at the recently improved GRO site.
March 2017
Welsh Naming Patterns
After a short AGM where the usual suspects were re-elected, Mike gave some information about some of the difficulties of doing genealogy in Wales, specifically, the habit of calling Morris Thomas's son Thomas, Thomas Morris. So boys' surnames were based on their father's first names, eg Thomas [son of] Morris. Then Peter Hamersly told us about his successes in reconstructing his Grandfather's fractured family.
December 2016
Innkeepers
Member Marian Crew enlightened us on her research into her Innkeeping ancestors and the various stories she had uncovered. Marian’s interesting presentation included photographs she had taken herself on recent visits to the London area.
September 2016
Cornwall - it's easy
Ian Simons gave an interesting talk about the resources that are available for those lucky enough to have Cornish ancestors. We also formally agreed to absorb Wales into our sphere of interest, which made half a dozen members of the group very happy, and the rest mildly interested.
June 2016
Off the Beaten Track
Mike and Lesley had a look at the treasure trove of family history records you can find in old books and other documents through websites like archives.com and familysearch.org
Peter Hamersley explored 'Tracing Living Relatives' -- he used a case study of an unusually named person and led us through freebmd and electoral rolls to build up quite a story on that individual.
And we had our AGM at this meeting. Co-Convenors Mike and Lesley (last time, folks, we won't be nominating next year) and a small committee of Peter Hamersley and Frank Hutchison
March 2016
Our main presentation was given by Frank Hutchison. It was the story of John Hobden, Janet Hutchison’s direct ancestor, who was transported to Van Diemen’s Land for stealing ten pounds – making him literally a “Ten Pound Pom”!. Frank presented a lively story that was very well researched and illustrated. Presentations such as Frank’s are greatly appreciated and always welcome. Peter then updated members on various records that have been released since the December meeting. This was followed by a demonstration entitled “The Power of your State Library Card” where Peter showed members what resources were available for free once a card has been obtained from the State Library at http://slwa.wa.gov.au/ . In particular we focused on the free resources available from The National Archives (UK) site using the Discovery Catalogue http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ .
To finish, we had a look at how to effectively use the Lost Cousins web site and obtain it’s very informative newsletter on http://www.lostcousins.com .
London research online - some useful websites61 KB 
