The group meets every Friday from 10am to 12 noon.
The group assist each other by discussing how to trace family histories and how to use the sources available, including websites, public records and family papers and photographs. Examination of Census Returns since 1841 uncovers a wealth of information on our ancestors.
Members of the group range from absolute beginners to experienced researchers.
This increasingly popular pastime, as evidenced by current television and radio programmes, can be rewarding and frustrating in equal measure, but our collective knowledge and experiences are imparted for the benefit of everyone. The fact that you may be very new to this activity should not deter you from joining the existing group.
One member, researching his own family history, has uncovered a macabre
fact, yet to be fully verified. A Birmingham/Coventry ancestor in Victorian
times murdered his wife by cutting her throat and then committed suicide in
a similar manner. Documented by narrative death certificates, the enquiry
will lead to tracing press and Coroner's reports of the day. The
investigation continues.....
Another member writes "Six months ago I took the decision to trace my
family history and joined the Genealogy Group. After a somewhat traumatic
and disrupted upbringing I now felt strong
enough to unlock my own 'Pandora's Box' and to try to find out what was so
awful that so many lives had been devastated by the possible secrets held
within.
Supported by other members and their shared knowledge I was able, through
various records and archives, to uncover information relating to my family.
The saying 'fact is stranger than fiction' proved to be correct.
My story begins with my maternal grandparents Elsie and Thomas. They
married in 1921 and had three daughters. The middle child Melinda May was
my mother. By the year 1945 Elsie had divorced my grandfather and was found
to have been living elsewhere with her new husband Charles, some twenty
years her junior. This now made Charles my step grandfather.
In 1944 my mother Melinda May married my biological father Raymond Fredrick
and they had four children between 1944 and 1951. In November 1953 my mother
left my father and four children, me included. The reason is up for
speculation.
Recent conversations with my eldest brother revealed that my biological
father and Charles were best friends and workmates. This leads me to
presume through links with my grandmother Elsie that my step grandfather
Charles must have come to know my mother Melinda May quite well.
To my astonishment, delving a little deeper, I found another marriage
certificate dated 1957 naming my mother. The man she had married after
divorcing my biological father was none other than Charles, my grandmother's
ex-husband. They were by now living in Doncaster and had two children, born
to them before their marriage.
I was further shocked to find that my step grandfather had now become my
stepfather and that my mother's stepfather had now become her husband!
This information helped me to understand much of what went on in my early
life and it provided further pieces of the jigsaw of my family.
With regard to my biological father, he remarried in 1960 to Alice who, by
strange chance, had the same maiden name as my mother! To top it all, my
new stepmother Alice turned out to be my grandfather Thomas's cousin.
You may be a little confused. I am quite befogged, but the mist is slowly
clearing. Unravelling the family saga continues."
