April was full of anniversaries - Shakespeare's birth & death, St George's Day and the Queen's 90th birthday just to mention a few. Now we welcome May with its two Bank Holidays - do look out for Family History Offers over Holiday weekends there is often a change to sample some of the commercial sites free of charge.
Every year, May is designated as Local and Community History Month - The aim of this is to increase awareness of local history, promote history in general and encourage all members of the local community to participate. We believe that you cannot study family history properly without considering the local history of the community in which your family lived and as libraries should be a first port of call for this sort of information, this month we are starting extra Help Sessions at Portishead Library, Worle Library and The Healthy Living Centre – dates and times and web pages are as follows:
- Portishead Library - on the 2nd Wed afternoon of each month starting May 11th between 2.00pm and 4.00pm.
- The Healthy Living Centre – on the 3rd Tuesday morning of each month from 11.30am - 1.00pm starting May 17th.
- Worle Library - on the 4th Thursday afternoon of each month starting May 26th between 2.00pm and 4.00pm
The Help Sessions at Weston Library every Saturday afternoon 2.00 – 3.30pm.will continue as usual.
While on the subject of libraries, a campaign has just been started to support the Worle Library which may be under threat of closure – if you would like to add your name to a petition go to this site .
There is no need to book at any of the libraries for our sessions and there is no charge – just come along. At each library we have computer access to the Library Edition of Ancestry, the British Newspaper Archive, the Digital Times Archive and other sites to assist your research. We will also be able to access our own site with its magnificent number of local parish records. If you have any queries about your research or are still deciding when to start why not come along and see if we can help you?
Of course at Weston there is also the North Somerset Study Library containing local newspapers on film, parish records on fiche, many local maps, street directories, electoral rolls, family trees, files of information as well as many reference books on family and local history.
It’s not all hard work as a volunteer at the libraries – we recently celebrated the birthday of one of our members – and we all enjoyed her cake! Thank you Joan.
Another way in which you can familiarise yourselves with the area in which your family dwelt is to use the Vision of Britain site which has links to various map sites and some interesting background statistics derived from censuses etc. Just looking at the census returns for the area in which your family lived can inspire you to look deeper into the occupations in that area – don’t just look at your family members – consider what was happening in the neighbourhood at that time – did it change over the years?
Our connection with ALHA brings you their newsletters which will keep you up to date with the local history of this area. Their latest update of 30th April has an article which ties in very well with Dr Janet Few’s excellent talk at our last meeting. Her talk was entitled “ ’Til death do us part” and suggested causes of death for our ancestors. If you missed her talk there are notes available on her website, “The History Interpreter” One suggestion she made was that we produced family trees which highlighted the cause of death to see if there was any pattern which would shed light on the living conditions of our predecessors. Without purchasing death certificates it is not always easy to know what actually caused the death of our ancestors unless their end was violent or unexpected when you can usually discover information from newspaper accounts!
The article from ALHA on Page 5 of their latest Update concerns epidemiology (I had to look that up for an exact definition!) the branch of medicine which deals with the incidence, distribution, and possible control of diseases and other factors relating to health. Knowing a little more about the work which has been done in preventative medicine as well as the ways in which some diseases have been understood and possibly eradicated over the years may well change the way we look at the lives of our ancestors. Do you know if your forefathers allowed their children to be vaccinated against smallpox or were they fined?. The Records of Vaccination were kept by the local poor law board and can often be found with the Workhouse Records. For this area these haven’t been transcribed but can be seen at Taunton or brought up to the Weston Library when the North Somerset Archivist visits – details of the next visit on June 2nd can be seen here
For Parishes within the Axbridge Poor Law Union the Vaccination Book can be found with the Reference D/G/ax/154
- D\G\ax/154/1 Vaccination Register (Return of Births) Banwell District. 1881-1886
- D\G\ax/154/2 Vaccination Register (Return of Births) Weston super Mare District. 1891-1893
They only cover a short period of time but are really interesting to consider as do those for the rest of North Somerset which comes under the Bedminster Poor Law Union
- D\G\bd/154/1 Vaccination Register St Georges District. 1860-1863
- D\G\bd/154/2 Vaccination Register St Georges District. 1870-1872
- D\G\bd/154/3 Vaccination Register St Georges District. 1871-1874
- D\G\bd/154/4 Vaccination Register St Georges District. 1885-1891
- D\G\bd/154/5 Vaccination Register St Georges District. 1891-1898
- D\G\bd/154/6 Register of Deaths, infants under 12 months Long Ashton Sub-District. 1871-1888
So if any of your people were born during those years in North Somerset it might be useful to take a look at these records. Records for elsewhere in Somerset can be discovered by using the online catalogue for the Somerset Heritage Centre – just enter “Vaccination” in the search box. Other County Record Offices will have similar records available.
Red Cross Volunteers in WW1
Continuing with the medical theme - I’ve found this very interesting – the Red Cross has put their archive of more than 244,000 personnel index cards from World War One on their website. Now you can search (no charge) for your family’s records, and discover what Red Cross volunteers were doing in your local area 100 years ago - it includes images of their card index. If you enter the town in which your people lived you may find other surnames you recognise.
This photograph is from an article published in Buckets & Spades in 2014 - Perhaps some of the nurses can be identified from the Red Cross archive?
Research Videos
I have mentioned these before but I think that you may find some of them helpful. You don’t need to have a subscription to Findmypast to watch their research videos. Go to their website and you will find the latest batch.
Sharing experiences
Several people have mentioned to me recently that they have been taking a free online course in genealogy and have found it worthwhile. It may have been from this site. If any of our members would like to comment on their experiences perhaps this could be included in the next edition of Buckets & Spades. Paul is always looking for articles however short and the deadline for articles is the 31st May. Please send them electronically if possible which cuts out the need for Paul to have to re-type from hard copy! The route you have taken in discovering your family’s history would be of help to others as it may suggest a new resource or method. Although we are the Weston-super-Mare & District FHS we are aware that many of our local members are not researching Somerset families so anything you write doesn’t have to be about this locality. In the last edition Peter de Dulin suggested books which he would find helpful if on a desert island. Perhaps you could add to his list?
Next Meeting
Our next meeting is on Tuesday, May 31st at St Paul’s Church Hall in Walliscote Road, Weston-super-Mare when Mark Bayley who represents S&N British Data Archive Ltd will talk on how to resolve stumbling blocks in your family history research using new and unique search strategies to find those missing relatives. He has called his talk “Breaking down brick walls in your family history research”. You can find out more about S&N and Mark Bayley here. As with all our meetings visitors will be welcome and the doors open at 7.00pm with the meeting starting at 7.30pm.
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