News & Information

The number of new people coming into the Library on a Saturday asking for help with their family history has been increasing and for those of us who form the volunteers it has been an intriguing exercise leading us into areas with which are sometimes new to us! We have been taken to American censuses sparked off by an enquiry concerning a guitar belonging to a member of The Beach Boys; to crew lists of sailing barges based in Bridgwater; to the Isle of Man TT Races looking for a fatality, as well as through the rather more familiar parish records , street directories and electoral rolls which are on the shelves. If anyone is thinking of joining the volunteers please come into Weston-super-Mare Library any Saturday just to see what goes on! It's a two-way process helping to break down brickwalls or to start someone off with their research.

• Getting started with Family History can be one of the most exciting times you will have doing your research. There are so many ways in which technology can speed up the initial hunt for your ancestors. This site from the BBC  gives some very general guidelines for successful family histpory research. The same site also has some interesting items concerning aspects of WW1 which you may not have thought about before.
• The Federation of Family History Societies has launched the 2014 edition of their ‘Really useful information leaflet’ which has an article ‘Tracing your First World War Ancestors’, written by Simon Fowler, as well as useful websites to help further your research. You can download the latest version from the FFHS website - just scroll down the page until you find the advertisement which simply says "Available for Download".
• At the meeting in February I mentioned the advantages in researching the whole family rather than just your direct ancestors. I know that many of you already do this but when you are beginning it is easy to overlook uncles, aunts and cousins who you may well be later mentioned in Wills, share the same occupations or be involved in looking after older relations. It gives you a rounded picture of your family.
• For those of you with Irish Ancestry have you seen the Irish Genealogy Toolkit site? It includes a very informative description of the recent WDYTYA with special reference to the General Register Office of Northern Ireland and an advance notice of their new online facility for viewing Irish Certificates for births, marriages and deaths which will soon be launched.
• During February more Welsh Newspapers were added to their free site.  As many news items were syndicated to multiple newspapers, even if you do not have Welsh ancestors, a search of the Welsh newspapers for articles concerning an individual surname or even just Weston-super-Mare or any other place (not in Wales) can be very enlightening.
• If you have found difficulty in locating Church of England christenings for your ancestors you may find that the England and Wales, Non-Conformist Record Indexes on Familysearch may be of help to you. Some of the baptismal registers are surprisingly detailed.

 It's our AGM in March and it will be followed by an update on resources that are available to assist our research.  Please bring with you details of any interesting sources you have used recently.  If you can bring examples of how they have assisted you that would be a bonus as with the wide range of our experiences we can all learn from each other.