December Meeting Our Family History theme this month was “Christmas Past” wechatted about memorable Christmases we remember, there were laughs alongthe way, we also had two quizzes, Linda’s had various questions which she placed in a bag, some Family History related, we all had to guess theanswer, the winner(s) got a sweet as a prize, then Sue's quiz was “Sue through theyears” she brought in 12 photos of herself which she numbered, we had to guesshow old she was in each, I only got one right, (was only a year out on many), itgave us a laugh, we all brought in some nibbles, sausage rolls, mince pies andcream, nuts, crisps, pieces of Christmas Cake, strawberries and pineapple on sticks, and Schlor, and of course Christmas Crackers, all in all we all enjoyed ourselves.
 And a Happy New Year to you all
November Meeting We have a few members who have "Ancestry World Wide" which gives access to records outside the UK, we had success looking for ancestors for Sue and Christine, they had some information already which we were able to follow up on, no success for Derek sadly, he will find out more information from family members, at a later date we can search again for him. At the same time other members were looking for nearer folk on "Find my Past 1939 Register" this was started at the beginning of WII and listed everyone in Britain, so hopefully you can find where your parents, grandparents, aunt's and uncles etc. were living in September of that year, it also gives their date of birth, information which you may or may not have, the time sped by, just as well we now meet for an extra half hour. October Meeting Last month we did ourown research, some found their researching techniques were a little rustyafter the long summer break, so this month we went back to basics, looking at some of the free sites which can be ofhelp, we looked at FreeBMD and how tonarrow down who a person married if you don’t know the spouses name, then howto try and confirm your findings by looking on the census returns if themarriage took place between March 1840 and March 1911, after that date it becomes a bit more difficult to find without buying the marriage certificate, another place to look is on the electoral rolls, someareas have been digitised and are on line but sadly not all, therefore the onlyother opinion is to purchase the marriage certificate. We then looked at Family Search this site does have quite alot of digitised early images of marriage certificates, some areas are better coveredthan others, so it’s worth searching this site to see what it has to offer. Next month we will be looking at Ancestry worldwide, some ofus have ancestors who went abroad, so this may be an opportunity to see if theycan be found, we will also be looking at the 1939 Register on Find my Past, to see if we can find our parents, grandparents and other members of ourfamilies, where they lived in 1939 September Meeting After the summer break we hadour September meeting at our new venue in Bodmin, to get us all back into theswing we did our own research,2 members have recently joined Ancestry, they arefinding their way around the multitude of records that site has to offer. Sue brought in papers relating to a child that was adopted from birth, the Registrar had written 'Adopted' on the right hand side of the certificate, I have never seen this written before, but it gives light to his future she also had the adoption certificate, what she wanted to know was could she find the name of the father, as no name was entered on the birth certificate, which usually means the child was illegitimate, but unless there are Bastardry or Petty Session Records relating, I' afraid there is no way of finding out who the father was. July Meeting After our discussion about our future venue, members spoke about some interesting things they have found while doing their research. Linda brought in 2 photos of her 4 aunts, the first when they were children all dressed the same, we all wondered why this was and where they may have been when the photo was taken, the second one when they were all mature women, she told us of the memories that the photos brought to mind. Malcolm during his research found a photo on Google Street of the bungalow he was born in, he went on to tell us how he came by this information. Christine told how she found some old maps on line which helped her locate the parishes her ancestors lived in, as the parishes were on the boundary of two Counties, it helped her enormously to find the records she was searching for. There were No Meetings in May or June April Meeting Chris Batters gave a very interesting talk and slide show on“The murder of Nevell Norway” on his way home to Wadebridge from Bodmin in 1840, the Lightfoot Brothers were hanged for thecrime at Bodmin Jail, Chris’s research came up with a theory that infact the Brothers may not have been the guilty persons at all, as the detectivesent from London had a reputation for not being completely honest in his duty,and was under instructions from London to find the murderer and get him hungfor the crime. According to Chris’s research, the brothers maintained thatalthough they admitted that they did in fact attack Nevell Norway with thepurpose to rob him, he was still alive and shouted at them as they scurriedaway. The detective later planted some evidence at the scene of the crime, then spoketo each of the Brothers individually to get them to admit to the crime with hissay so that they would not hang but would be deported or sent to jail for life.There was another man with a Terrier dog, following Nevell Norway all day, andwas carefully watching what Nevell Norway did in the pub the evening of thecrime, this man may have in fact been the murderer, he was never seen again buthis Terrier dog was seen at the scene of the crime every day for a week afterthe fateful day. The true facts will never be known. To make this talk all the more interesting for our group isthe fact that the Lightfoot Brothers were the 3x Great Uncles of Christine oneof our members. Chris’s wife Jill has written a book about it, along withother books she has written, which were on sale, along with a video of the storywhich Chris has made. This was a very interesting afternoon. March Meeting This month’s meeting started off with a bit of fun, we allbrought in a photograph of ourselves as a baby or child, all photos were putinto a bag so no one knew who had brought in which photo, they were then putonto a table with a number beside each one, we then had to guess which photobelonged to which person in the group, Christine was the winner guessing 8 out16 very good effort.
We then continued our search techniques from last month, to find difficultentries in the records, getting to know the various techniques on how to findwho you are looking for, the example was to find the birth entry for myMother In Law, who’s birth entry was noteasy to find, as the name she was registered with at birth wasn’t the name shethought it was, it was in the early 1960’s she found out what her true name waswhen she was in her 50’s, therefore her first name on her marriage certificate in the 1930’s wasn’t her birth registered name.Even trying to find her on the 1911 census didn’t help, as her father enteredher name which was nothing like either of the names she was given or known by,so without some personal knowledge her birth entry would have been almostimpossible to find.
Who said Family History was easy!!!! The TV shows give the impressionit is, but in fact it can be difficult, frustrating, but also extremely rewardingespecially after months and sometimes years you eventually find the person orevent you are looking for. Our next Meeting is on April 14th when we are having a speaker to entertain us. General Open Meeting Saturday 13th February The Open Morning on Saturday was a great success, the ChurchRooms was buzzing with activity, lots of people attending and much interest was shown at all of the grouptables, we had a lot of interest in our table, many people were interested inwhat we had on show, I explained the various information we had especially with the research Christine haddone on her notorious ancestors the Lightfoot Brothers William and James, whowere hanged at Bodmin Jail for the murderof Mr Neville Norway in 1840. Malcolm and Linda made us a family tree, Linda hung lots of labels on it showing some of the online sites where we can obtain our research. Below is a photo of our Family History table  February Meeting Firstly we had a dress rehearsal on putting our table together for the Open Morning on Saturday, we brought in boxes to give height for our exhibits, then draped a tablecloth over, we arranged our articles on it to give us an idea of what we wanted to achieve so we could display everything. Then we did researching as a group, I gave the group details of a marriage certificate and asked them to find the marriage entry in the GRO index, then look for the birth entry of the bride and groom, we ran out of time so we will continue with this at our March meeting, it's the skills of researching which is the key to success in finding your ancestors, mind you sometimes you cannot find them easily, that's when the hunt really begins January Meeting Happy Birthday to us, this was our 3rd Birthday Meet, I baked a cake for us to have with our cuppa. To get us back into the swing of things we did our own research, also we planned how we are going to present our Group at the forthcoming Open Meeting in the Church Rooms in February, a lot of useful ideas were discussed.  |
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