At our last meeting the Chairman of the North Somerset Council, John Crockford–Hawley gave us an account of all his family links with Weston-super-Mare. They ranged from his parents narrowly missing being caught up in the WW2 blitz of the town through his own connections with Weston and then discovering that many of his relations had also lived in the town at various times sometimes unbeknown to each other. Looking at their lives through the houses in which they lived proved an interesting way of recording their histories and might be a way of others approaching family history.
We are looking for new articles for the next editions of Buckets & Spades perhaps this talk may have inspired some of you to write up your own experiences in researching your family. Remember that many of our members are not necessarily interested in families from North Somerset so it doesn’t matter where your stories are based.
 My Family Tree Competition
The Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS) is running a competition open to all UK residents as well as residents of the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and Republic of Ireland aged between 5-16 years on Thursday 13th July 2017 (the closing date for entries). .
To enter the Competition competitors must:
- Submit a photocopy or scanned copy of a completed double page spread of their ‘My Family Tree’ booklet and/or the completed family tree chart as printed in the booklet
- Write a short paragraph (no more than 450 words) describing what they enjoyed most about working on the booklet.
For full details including how to obtain the My Family Tree Booklet (free of Charge) see the FFHS web page
If you have contacts with any school age children please consider letting them know of this competition – there is a prize!
Bath Burial Index
If any of you have family members who died in Bath you may be interested to hear that the Bath Archives have introduced an index to Bath Burials which you can search to find the location of their burials. There is also a facility to search for other information about Bath Ancestors
However, please note that Bath Record Office will be closed from Friday 14 April - Monday 5 June 2017 inclusive for redecoration. They will be answering email and telephone enquiries, but there will be no access to original records
Overseers’ Accounts
Your Committee has been considering whether it would be advantageous to have copies on fiche in Weston Library of some of the Overseers’ accounts for our area which are held at the Somerset Heritage Centre. There is a transcription done by Brian Austin of the Weston St John’s Overseers Accounts on the shelves in the Library already but in order to think about this here are some extracts of others which are available online
Blue Plaque - Paulo Radmilovic
 The Society was represented this week at the unveiling of The Blue Plaque celebrating the life and achievements of the record breaking Olympian, Paulo Radmilovic. It can be seen on the front of the Imperial Hotel in Weston. His grandson and other members of his family attended.
You can read more about his life in the November 2016 edition of Buckets & Spades.
The Weston Mercury will be asking during the next weeks which other prominent Weston should be commemorated in the same way so be prepared to give your suggestions.
Family Trees on Members’ Interests
We have introduced a new facility for putting your family trees on our web site on your Members Surname Interests pages. You need to be a full member and have put on a Surname Interest before adding a tree. If you have already entered an interest go to that page and click on “edit” to add your tree. It has to be in a PDF format but can be in any style you wish as long as it is in PDF – a Pedigree, a narrative descendant or ancestor report. Remember that you should not add information about anyone who is still living but it is very interesting to look at other members’ trees because although they start by being about one surname they very quickly include other surnames which may match your research. Take a look at these examples – can you guess whose they are? They show clearly that although they may have a Weston-super-Mare link they soon wander off to other parts of the country.
There are others already available for LONG, STOKES, PINNOCK, HILL, etc.
The exercise in producing a pedigree chart promotes questions about the information on it and can be a valuable spur to research.
Whilst preparing the Pedigree Chart for Arthur HASE, I noticed that I didn’t have the date of death for his great grandmother, Hannah NICHOLS in Wedmore - I’ve since discovered it was the 28thOct 1854 – but in looking for it I also discovered the cause of her death which was the result of an injury incurred when a son-in-law, Sandy CREASE, threw his gaiters at her and that he was accused of her manslaughter. The British Newspaper Archive produced the result of the Assize in 1855 when the Judge said that there was not a case to be answered but not before the newspapers in October 1854 had described in lurid details the circumstances surrounding her death!
April 25th 2017 - A Computer Evening
At our next meeting Paul Tracey will be leading us through ways of getting the most from our own web site. Bring along your devises such as laptops, tablets, phones etc so that you can get relevant information.
We will also be looking at commercial Family Tree programmes and highlighting free sites for family history research.
Library Help Sessions
As always we would be delighted to see any of you at one of our Library Help Sessions - do come along and see what happens at them! However, over Easter there will be a gap when we will not be at Weston Library. There will be no Help Sessions on Saturdays April 15th and April 22nd but we will be back again on April 29th.
So it just leaves me to wish you all a Very Happy Easter and hope that the weather allows you to enjoy your time searching churchyards for memorials of the dead!
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