This morning's gathering enjoyed some conversation, shared family history news and organised their pieces of paper!
News/Reviews
Dr. Grace Chapman visited us to explain about the project to collect oral history from local residents, about special events, market days, shops from bygone times, etc. I'm sure our members could share many stories!
A small number of members met to discuss progress on family trees and check on our ability to host a Zoom meeting by a remote speaker. It worked!
This meeting produced some interesting objects and stories to accompany them - we had barometers with a plaque, a poison bottle, cushions made by native Americans in Victorian times, a spokeshave and paintings.
This talk was very interesting to those who attended. Tony took us through a range of special items and explained their significance. The audience were enthralled!
The usual research meeting took place, providing some solutions and more questions for next time!
Janet Patrick explained the history of the church and some of the unusual features it contains. She also told us about the dig taking place across the road at the site of a moated manor house. A truly fascinating morning. Mark was unavoidably detained but did arrive before the end of the talk.
The Annual General Meeting was quite well attended and reports from the Chairman and Treasurer were delivered. A fuller account of the AGM will be emailed out to members in due course.
This morning was a quiet start, possibly due to the poor weather, but the committee met and discussed the way forward in preparation for our AGM next week. A useful morning. We also suggested that, as the AGM may be short, perhaps members could bring an object or a memory that prompted them to begin their journey into family history research.
In the event, Jackie wasn't able to visit us in person and we still hadn't resolved the technical hitches of Zoom in the Town Hall, so Sheila found a Find my Past video about Social history for Genealogists. which the audience found very interesting, I have been told.
This morning saw about a dozen members returning to the Town Hall to tackle those brick walls and discuss the thorny issues of family history research over coffee and tea. Some of us also tried to set up a hybrid zoom meeting where the speaker is remote and the audience is in the Town Hall. Interesting results- a little more practice is needed!!
Thanks to all the people who made the event possible and helped to set up the area with screens, laptops and leaflets. We had a steady stream of visitors, the glass slide prints being a draw. In fact we had one lady who recognised her mother on a previously unseen photograph at a wedding! Other names were supplied by other visitors. Other people expressed an interest in starting the search. A good day, not too busy but worthwhile.
